 on. Okay, we're live. Did it tell you we're live? We're live. We're live. Why am I fuzzy? Oh, there we go. You are fuzzy. Why are you fuzzy? Too much eggnog. Are you getting yourself clear? Yes. I'm different. The holidays this year. I'm going clear. The holidays this year. I'm going to join Scientology. Yeah. You know, I went by this place in the shopping mall and they had a couple of tin cans hooked up with some stuff and they said that, you know, it'd be best for everybody. It'd be best for everybody. If you get clear, clear it up there, there, there, there, there, there. We're here. It is not drunk cam. Although I do have some wine. I am celebrating the end of the year and trying to reduce the holiday stress levels. Just a little bit. Just a little bit. Why do we do this to ourselves once a year? It's that insanely high expectations. And then don't expectations. And then don't put time aside to actually meet them. So this is the thing is that's it. No, I I have a very optimistic idea of what time looks like in the future. That is the reality. Yeah, I definitely think that there's a whole the shape of time twice as large in every amount of time that I set aside. In the next hour, I'm going to get my oil changed and I'm going to go shopping and I'm going to clean my apartment. Oh, there she goes. Oh, well, she'll be back momentarily in case anyone may have noticed. Justin, we are without a Justin tonight, but that's okay. The show must go on. The holidays got him on the holidays got Justin, they took him down early. Yeah, it's early. They took him down. Do you like my I've got my nice it's very festive my my it should be wearing a Christmas hat or something. You've got your Hanukkah. No, it's not Hanukkah. It's your Hanukkah sweater bought it is because it's Hanukkah. I have an AT-AT on that Star Wars Hanukkah and and I'm working on. Yeah, I'm I'm like the drab holiday. But let's have it. Let's have a drab festive holiday concoction all together. Shall we start a show? Yeah, should should we set some expectations also because people are saying that our show is going to be an hour longer because we're starting early. That's not the plan. This is like an Amu's Bush. This is a little bit of twist to get you through the holidays until the new year. That's what this is. That is what this is. This is a little bit more twist than normal. Well, we're it's still one episode less than you would normally get because we're not going to be broadcasting next week. But this is going out this week. The podcast will come out probably on Thursday. And so it'll tide people over a little bit better. And this is it'll be fun. Looking back is always a good time. Always a good time. Oh my goodness. But it does indeed this year make me feel a little bit aged. Feeling a whole decade is really a lot and oh my God. Yes, there's a lot. We will talk about these lots and who knows how long it will take. It could take an hour longer than normal. No, I'm going to go ahead and say no on that. But Macbosha on it, huh, Blair? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. All right. Justin would be very upset if we did an hour extra of show and he missed it. Serves him right. Oh my goodness, dude. OK. Okay, I move this way, I'm in the middle, I'm going to be in the middle, I'm going to get in the middle somehow. My camera keeps moving because my family comes and plays out here and then I have to move around and then things are uncentered. I'm always uncentered, but let's start a show, huh, shall we? Beginning in three, two, this is twist. This Week in Science, episode number 752, recorded on Monday. That's bright, Monday, December 23rd, 2019. A science decade in review. Hello everyone, I'm Dr. Kiki and tonight on This Week in Science, we will fill your heads with the past. It's time for that, but first, disclaimer, disclaimer, disclaimer. There are moments in time when looking to the past brings perspective and even more importantly, nostalgia. Nostalgia is pretty important. It's been a decade since the 2000s turned to 2010, so let's look back in order to begin again. With the science that you have enjoyed on This Week in Science coming up next in a moment. Next, because I forgot to open the file. This is slow, Kiki. Here comes the music. Coming up, next. I've got the kind of mind I can't get enough. Every day of the week, there's only one place to go to find the... Good science to you, Kiki. And a good science to you too, Blair. And everyone out there. Welcome to another episode of This Week in Science. We are back again to talk about all the science that happened in the last decade. It's going to be a really long show. Everyone, get ready. No, no, we're not going to make it that long, but it's the end of a decade. Blair, can you even begin to believe this? I'm having issues. Especially since I was around for a lot of this particular decade, it's very hard for me to think that it's been that long. But yeah, it doesn't feel that long ago. It sure was. I mean, when you start getting to be as old as I am, you'll start to understand how things just start blending together. Yeah, yeah. You know, time will have all of our goats in the end. Is that the saying? No, that's not right. Time is the goat. Time is the goat. Time is the bitter mistress. No, that's not it. No, time is a goat. Time is the goat. Time is a goat. That's it, the goat. Everyone, we are going to discuss the last decade. So I hope you're ready to hit memory lane a little bit when it comes to science. And as we jump into the show, if you are not yet subscribed to This Week in Science, you can do so on YouTube. You can find us on Facebook. And we are all places that podcasts are found. Look for This Week in Science. And if you want information about the show, you can go to twisttwist.org. At the website, you can also find a link to purchase the 2020 Blair's Animal Corner Calendar. The orders have been coming in for the end of the year. So if you want to get them, get them while the supplies last because when they're gone, they're gone. No more. So make sure you get in there. Also, January 16th, we will be in San Francisco at SF SketchFest at the Cal Academy of Sciences at their nightlife event doing our podcast live. So if you're in the San Francisco Bay area, go to the SF SketchFest website and get a ticket. Get a ticket. Get your ticket today. We hope to see you there. Such a fun event. I'm looking forward to it. So fun. I'm really looking forward to it as well. Yeah. But this is looking forward when, in fact, it is the time to look back. It is the time to ponder the past. And let's take the time machine. I don't know why that was my time machine music, but that's my time machine music back to the year. 2010. 2010. 2010. What was going on in 2010? Right. You weren't even born yet. No, wait, that's not true. Yes, I'm a clone with advanced aging. So I'm actually only eight. Right. Well, my son was not born yet. It was the beginning of a decade, and I had no idea I was going to become a mother. I was delving into the world of talking about science. And what did we learn about that year? Oh, my goodness. So big stories from 2010. The Large Hadron Collider in 2010 was already going. It got itself going and it started off with protons, just spinning protons around and then switched to lead ions, which is when it really started being able to do the work that the LHC has become so famous for. Anti-matter atoms were stored for the very first time in 2010, which makes future experiments that we talked about during the last decade in twist possible. So that was really huge. Oh, my goodness. Space, the Falcon 9 and Dragon capsule, that was the year that they launched. The first year that SpaceX tested that they launched the Dragon capsule up in the air and down. Oh, look, it was successful. They weren't even rendezvousing with the International Space Station yet. 2010, it was pretty exciting. This was also the year in which we, NASA, slammed a spacecraft into the surface of the moon. And that in doing that, it shot up a bunch of regoliths and that regolith contained a bunch of water ice. They had two craft, one that was that crashed into the moon on purpose and the other one that was still orbiting around the moon taking pictures and it was able to take really good spectroscopy and other images that clearly indicated that there's ice on the moon, water ice. Water ice. And so that was when we went, whoa, there's really, there's water on the ice. That was 2010. Wow. We started looking at our sun. The Solar Dynamics Observatory was in place in 2010, allowed us our first glimpse of what the surface of the sun really looks like from up close. We started, our first peak voyager was getting up to the edge of the solar system. Voyager had not even crossed the edge of the solar system yet. We had started finding exoplanets already. The Kepler mission was working. So we knew there were exoplanets, but we found our first Earth-sized Goldilocks planet, a planet that is Earth-like in the sense that it could support biological life, organic life. Some pretty exciting stuff there. What were some other things that we started to do? We started looking at Saturn's moons. Cassini was taking really good pictures then. It was there taking really great pictures. Robots were awesome. So that was a big year for prostheses. Berkeley Bionics came out with its e-legs. Researchers were beginning to try and restore vision in the blind. Retinal implants became a thing. And we started finding, getting robot skin that could feel touch sensory surfaces for robots. And then they found, what was it? There was a big, it was a big year because of the Lancet paper. This was I think our, it was our number 11 on the top countdown from 2010. But they retracted the, the Lancet retracted the 1998 paper by Andrew Wakefield that suggested that vaccines caused autism. It was the year 2010, a decade ago, the year of the retraction. That's interesting for two reasons. One, because it took 12 years from the publication for it to get retracted. That seems too long. I know. Second, that I really feel like the huge swell in Annie Back's movement was after this. Yes. Yeah. What the heck? Yeah. Right? What the heck? Looking back on this, that makes no sense at all. Come on. I think the last, I think the last decade is going to generally be known for what the heck. You know, why? What the heck? What the heck? Yeah. Let's see. Yeah. So that was, that was 2010, a decade ago. Yeah. Isn't that, I mean, I think the, I think the looking back 10 years ago, it's, it's a very interesting view on where we were and thinking about where we are now. Yeah. I think that, yeah, it's an interesting mixture so far of things that feel like they just happened and things that feel like that was only 10 years ago. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Well, yeah. 2011. Let you do 2011 because I didn't exist yet. I know you still weren't born and neither was Kai. Yeah. I now, I have ready for 2020. You're ready for 2020. Kai's ready. Happy new year. So this child who's eating pizza, grabbing a book, shouting behind me. He in 2011, 2011 was the year that Kai came into the world. It is. So, Oh, you existed in my belly in 2010. That's true. It's true. But then you have to ask when life begins and we don't want to have that conversation right now. Look, why not? We could have that conversation. It's not, it's a decade in review show. It's not a conversation about the moment at which life begins. Right. Yeah. Let's talk about our top 11 instead of 2011. That's when I was created. There you go. Tech when it began. Yes. Who knows? Butterflies, quantum butterflies effects. Yes. 2011. It's the year that Kai came into the world and it is a year in which we first had a quantum teleportation, quantum teleporter breakthroughs. That was the year researchers were starting to transfer quantum packets of information from one location to another wave packets. So as a very exciting time in technology and we know that a lot has occurred over the last decade in quantum teleportation and quantum computing. 2011, what else happened? Oh, it was a big fight against diseases and also the fight against aging. There was a lot of research into aging. We deemed it the year of the vampire. Because it was the year in which a lot of the blood of the young children research started. That old chestnut. That lovely chestnut, which I love. It really brings me joy. Kiki, is this why you had a youngling? Yes for his blood. No. No. I'm just saying it's an interesting coincidence. No, I mean, I hope he'll take care of me when I'm a lot older. A winky dink? You decide. But it was a year of research into malaria vaccines into HIV, antiretroviral treatments, looking into universal virus cures. There was a lot going on. Fracking came onto the scene. In a big way in 2011. Fracking itself was our number eight from the top 10 of 2011. Now, do you happen to remember if that was a conversation about what fracking does to the planet or just fracking? No, it wasn't. Revelliments and fracking. No, it was the beginning of fracking, of geological perturbations as a result of fracking. It was a lot of earthquakes started popping up in different places and we started seeing there were also emissions. It was a year of a lot of interesting news. There was dark matter news in 2011. Science was hinting at dark matter. We still don't know what dark matter is. Hayabusa was a big thing in 2011. The Japanese spacecraft that landed on an asteroid came back and crashed. And then, let's see, we also had the Watson, which was the IBM computer that was 2011. We also had carbon nanotubes making synapses. So we were questioning whether or not the robots would replace us or whether they would beat us. We found out a lot about the microbiome in 2011 and its importance for human health. In 2011, we saw a lot about extreme weather increases and Arctic sea ice loss. Things were starting to heat up a lot in 2011 and we were starting to see the effects. The Large Hadron Collider found a particle. There was more antimatter trapped. 2011 was a big one. The LHC found a particle. They hadn't found the Higgs yet. Still looking for the Higgs. Oh, but my favorite story, the potentially faster-than-light neutrinos. Because this was a story that came out in the fall of 2011. And the researchers were still trying to figure out what happened and whether their faster-than-light neutrinos were a real thing. And then they did all the data processing and looked into all the equipment and discovered that there was a cable that wasn't plugged in. And that happened in 2012. So the equipment was the issue and they were getting incorrect measurements. Shoot! Yeah, but it was very... Here's the problem with humans doing science. It was very exciting for a while to think that there were these faster-than-light particles that were... Oh my God. Ow! That is hilarious. Yeah, yep. And then Kepler started delivering big time. Lots of potentially habitable planets. We sent a craft to Messentoon Mercury. The new Dawn mission was launched. There was a lot going on in planet science. And that was 2011. Yeah. Flying out in the chat room was saying, oh, I hope they found the Higgs. Shh, don't spoil it. Shh, don't spoil it for anyone out there. And 2012 is kind of this important year in twist history because that's the year that Blair joined us. It's true. It's true. Yeah, I started in January. I'm not sure exactly what episode I forget, but it was in January 2012 is when I started. Just as an intern in the background. You just sit there and be quiet and take notes, Blair. I'll just find the links Justin's talking about. I'm glad somebody did that once upon a time. I feel like that's kind of... Let me just type in some keywords. Ah, here it is. I got very good at Googling during that period of time. We can make fun of Justin because he's not here, but of course we love him. Okay. So in 2012, let's see. We talked about simulation. There's a simulation complete computer model of a living organism. It had 530 billion neurons and 100 trillion synapses on a supercomputer. I don't really remember that. Ooh, Red Deer Cave people. I remember they were very big in 2012. Lots of that. We found apes with spears and we pushed back the age of life on Earth. See, we also had a story about cloaking and transporters. They were able to cloak an object from view for 40 trillions of a second, successfully cloaking a three-dimensional object in the microwave region of the electromagnetic spectrum. So invisibility cloak, so that was cool. Not exactly. Just for 40 trillions of a second. And we can all see how that has worked out for all of us. Yeah, everyone's invisible all the time now. All the time. And then we also had more news about quantum teleportation, transmitting photons, some more work on that. Ooh, number eight. I like this one. 3D printing goes mainstream. Oh, I love this. An artificial jaw was made using a 3D printer. They were able to 3D print microscopic structures out of individual molecules. They started 3D printing robots. There was the first 3D printer retail outlet, which seems insane to me that that was only. Made in the MakerBot in 2012. Yeah. And now you can get a 3D print so easily. Yep. Yeah. A novel hybrid printer for creating implantable cartilage and a 3D printer capable of manufacturing tools from Lunar Regolith. It's Regolith. It's the surface of the moon. I don't recall that word. But yes, anyway. So that means you could 3D print while you're on the moon. That's great. Yeah. 3D printing became a pretty important thing in the 2010s. And I imagine it's going to be huge very soon considering you can get a 3D printer now for just a few hundred dollars. I mean, granted, it makes small things and takes a long time. But 3D printers are out there enough that I feel like things are going to get pushed kind of quicker through that system. 3D printers on a large commercial scale are already in use and are printing all sorts of things. But yeah, I mean, it's starting to affect more than just the hobbyists, I believe. I think it's starting to reach a point in society where people are building and making and using the printers that they're getting for more than just little trinkets, you know, that there's more coming out of them now, that the resolution of the printers now has gotten a lot better. But yeah, it's interesting to think that 2012, you were like, hey, 3D printers. Well, just imagine all of the things that you have to specialty order in your life. If people start figuring out how to make those for yourself at home, it's going to disrupt certain methods that we have in the world. Right. And if they, and if we're able to use materials that are reusable and you have materials that go in to create something and then you're done using it and you can recycle the materials to make something else that you need, you have a nice system. Gosh, just imagine if something broke and you could just plop it into your 3D printer and make it again. Oh, that'd be so cool. Anyway, but we're talking about what happened in the past. That's the past. We want the future still. So also, robotic arm was controlled by a paralyzed patient in the United Kingdom. Love that. There is a prototype of a bionic eye. There was work decoding thoughts in a human brain. So lots of brain stuff happening in 2012, trying to figure out what's going on in your brain just by looking at the synapses. And then, oh, synthetic DNA compounds. Oh, yes. Synthetic DNA began there. Let's see. They sequenced the genome of an 18 week old human fetus in the womb by taking blood samples from the mother. That's, that's big. Yeah, absolutely. And also there was, let's see, stem cells, lots and lots about stem cells. They had monkeys grown from cells taken from different embryos, eggs from stem cells, the repair of the myelin sheath, damaging and aging mice via stem cells occurred in 2012. Oh, I love that. Oh, young blood into mice. It's also into more vampires. Okay, so yeah, so the 2010s, it was the what's up with that and vampires decade. Yes, absolutely. Of course we talked about global warming. That's, you know, just sea levels rising. It's getting hotter moving on. Number two was all about space again. We found exoplanets, so many exoplanets. There were new stars discovered. Voyager one entered interstellar space. The first human made object to leave the solar system. So it was 2012 that Voyager one, yes, crossed the boundary. The messenger probe discovered water and an ice on mercury and Curiosity successfully landed on Mars. That was a big year. That was a big one for me. Curious. I stayed, I was up to watch the landing, even though I couldn't watch the landing. There's no camera on Mars, but I was so excited. I was in the seven minutes of terror. Do you remember this? They talked about the curiosity landing. That was so huge for me. I was so excited about it. Don't crash. Don't crash. And then, oh, this was huge. See, this also happened in 2012. My goodness. That was a big reaction of part of the invisible dark matter scaffolding of the universe. Yes. Yes. And then number one was the Higgs in the standard model. Data suggests that the elusive hypothesized Higgs boson might have been detected. Right. So it hadn't been yet. No, there is indirect evidence supporting the existence of the Higgs. No. We almost found the Higgs. 2012. We almost found the Higgs. Yeah. But we did find evidence for dark matter scaffolding and curiosity landed on Mars. I think that is pretty darn important. Oh, that's huge. Yeah. And as forever, climate change. Climate change. Listen. Climate change. Every year we found out, hey, guess what? It's bad. Hey, you know how we said it was bad before? Turns out, hey, it's bad. How many years did we have to have that conversation before things started changing? Wait, still. I mean, we can go back, we can go back over a decade, over a decade of twist shows talking about climate stuff. Well, and this actually leads to number 11 from 2013 perfectly if you would like to take a gander at that. What was? If you just tuned in, you're listening to This Week in Science. Tonight we are joined by Dr. Kiki, as always, and myself, Blair Bazderich. And we are looking at the last decade of our best of shows. So this is kind of a weird version of a clip show where we reminisce over the past 10 years of top 11 stories of each year. So we're at 2013. What do you got? What do I have? I want to stay in the past. I'm like looking at all these old stories and reminiscing now. Like, oh, the past. It was such a wonderful time. I mean, in 2013, that was the year that the Supreme Court ruled that naturally occurring genes are not patentable. That was important. But, oh, hey, on top of it, there was a big U.S. sequester, budget sequester that cut and shut down science. Yeah. And that's kind of what I was implying, is that we had some slows and some backpedals over the past 10 years, at least in our fair country. I mean, overall, I still feel like it's forward progress, but I do feel like it's been quite a bit of two steps forward, one step back. It's been a lot of that. And it always will be. I mean, that's the pendulum swings. It's when there's not an easy to ignoring what's happening. And there are long term gains to addressing it. Yes. That's always going to happen. The balance between them is very difficult. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, but, you know, science did carry on, even though there were some political monetary struggles going on in there. Microbes were huge in 2013. Well, they were tiny, but they were important. They were important, just hugely important. This is when we found in subglacial Antarctic Lake Vostok, which had been buried in ice for 15 million years that samples of the lake's water contained DNA from over 3,000 little tiny organisms. From 15 million years ago, this was a big one. We were also able to sequence the genomes of a couple hundred microbes species. Researchers were looking into relationships between microbes and the gut. They were able to make chubby mice skinnier by switching microbes between skinny mice and chubby mice. The gut transplants. So, since you brought it up, I also want to take a brief second to acknowledge genomic sequencing and how different it is from 10 years ago. Oh, my goodness. We have come leaps and bounds over. Yeah. So, scientist sequencing 201 microbe species in 2013 is huge, but now I feel like you can do that in a couple days. Yeah. We're doing that every couple of days. Yeah. It's definitely a different ball game for that. Completely different ball game. Researchers discovered that microbes unfrozen after 750,000 years. They still lived. They died basically because their bodily functions had ceased. Active DNA repair continued to keep things from falling apart. So, they were able to survive. They unfroze them. And the microbes that were almost a million years old lived. And that was the year that we discovered that our bodies are mostly microbes. Yes. Which now seems like just common sense. It does. Like, oh, I've known that forever. Haven't we known that forever? Apparently seven years. This was one of the first years, I think, that animal intelligence became really big on the list. Research. I wonder who had an influence on this. Oh, how interesting just a year after I began. We looked at crocodiles using tools to lure their prey. I loved that story. Oh, my God. They not only use tools, but they cooperated. They cooperated, yes. Cooperating tool using crocodiles. So good. I recently saw a video of a bunch of baby crocodiles making these like. Yes. And they sound like they're making. Yeah. But it's this high pitched really weird frequency sound that it sounds like you would imagine like laser beams being shot in a cave sound like. Yeah. And they were really, really very cute. I can't. They are. It's hard to reconcile the cuteness of baby crocodiles with the cooperating tool using adults that they become. As long as they're not using that to lure us in, as long as those sticks that they're using aren't being made to look like a free Xbox, it's just a stick to look like a stick. They're using their, they're using their, their cute babies to lure us. Yeah. Scientists reported that dolphins have unique names in 2013 that they know their names and respond like humans and dogs. And then also that primates whisper. Non-human primates have whispers with each other. They tell secrets. Climate change again. Very big. So that was the IPCC's fifth assessment report that came out. At that point, it was only a 95% probability that humans are the root cause of global warming. That's because they had debunked the other 5%. Yeah. I guess. I'm seeing all the, I'm reading ahead, Tiki. But this is the year we reached 400 ppm. Yes. It was the year that we reached 400 ppm. That it was measured like one day on top of a very tall mountain in Hawaii. Manukaua. What? Is it Manaloa? Manaloa or Manukaua. One of the two. I don't know which one. There's a weather station and they do the measuring at the top. And I don't recall which one. But yes, I think it's Manukaua. But at the top, at the very top, up in the high atmosphere, they measured 400 ppm for the first time. And it was a blip. And then it went back down again a little bit. But now it's, now we are just over 400 at this point. I would have guessed. 413 or something. I would have guessed that was way more recent. No. If you had asked me when we reached 400. Yeah. I remember the day I read that report. I remember the day I read that story. Well, because that was very sad. That was that point of no return they picked at one point. But I'm convinced just because it's a nice round number. They're like 400. That sounds big. It's a target. Yes. Yeah. It's a target. Yeah. But away from the depressing thing, guess what physicists finally confirmed. I bet it wasn't the Higgs. It was the Higgs. Oh, okay. Okay. Okay. It was totally the Higgs. Yeah. It wasn't just in every year predicting that the standard model would be refuted. Yes. And then like one year, like forever, he kept saying, no, no Higgs, no Higgs, no Higgs. And then he switched and he started and then he predicted, I think there's going to be a Higgs. And so I decided to switch on him and I said, no, no Higgs. And that was the year that it wasn't. They found it. Oh my gosh. No, our predictions. Competition in the predictions, in the prediction show. Yeah. Unless you're like me and I just predict aliens every year. That's right. It's just aliens. In the form of tardigrades. Yeah, some little microbes for sure. Let's see. The National Ignition Facility, NIF, produced more energy from a fusion reaction than the fuel used to ignite it, which was very exciting because the National Ignition Facility had been trying to reach fusion and do all sorts of, they hit fusion and to get more energy out was great. But this wasn't, it's not the kind of, it's not the kind of threshold that was super wonderful, exciting, because they couldn't maintain it. They couldn't keep the ignition going. So there was, it's not, it wasn't the kind of thing that was going to give us all instant fusion power forever, but they're still working on it. Hopefully they'll get there. I have dreams. One of the fusion experiments on this planet is going to give us fusion power. It's going to be amazing. The Ice Cube Neutrino Observatory, which I think is, and yes, it's a pun, but the coolest observatory on the planet. This is the one that's a, like a kilometer square block of the clearest ice on the entire planet. And they dug these pits into it and they put the detector array in this ice. And so they use the ice to keep everything cold and they, it's part of their detector array. And they have been looking for neutrinos. 2013, they found neutrinos from outside the solar system, not just from nuclear reactions and other stuff happening here on our planet. It was very exciting. I was very excited about that one. Thrilled. Epigenetics were a huge thing. We also saw toxoplasmosis that you could get it with or without. A cat that osis, yeah, had been found in otters because they were swimming in the water, which means that toxo might be in the water supply. Woohoo. It was the year of discovering that we don't really have control over a lot of things that we think we do. Your brain makes decisions before you have consciously made it. So scientists, this is a year that scientists really started finding that the unconscious brain activity, measuring that, they could predict what was going to happen before the person was even aware that they were going to make the choice that they were going to make. There's brain activity in there. Yeah. Also, yes, another fight against aging year. It was a big year of extending the lives of worms. That's exciting. And mice, worms and mice, they lived longer in 2013. Woohoo. A big year for space. Meteors, comets, exoplanets, new space was big. We had deep space industries announcing plans to mine for asteroids. Mine asked asteroids for precious metals starting in 2015. My silence is just putting it in place. Yeah, that didn't happen. No, it hasn't happened. No, nobody's mining asteroids yet. Sure it didn't. But it's, you know, that's what they said they were going to do. They were, when you're a startup, you have to go big or go home. Sounds like they went home. Orbital sciences had the maiden flight of its Antares rocket launched and docked to the first Cygnus spacecraft with the International Space Station. China's Changi III rover Jade Rabbit landed successfully on the moon. We also had a lot of Earth-like exoplanets, water in the atmospheres of those, of many of those exoplanets. Voyager 1, really, really, truly interstellar in 2013. We also, of human evolution, was huge for that year. And Blair, it was the year of slugs stabbing each other in the head. Yes, a date that will go down in infamy. I will never be the same in the best possible way. It's really though, it just puts a whole new perspective on invertebrate sex, on insemination, on hermaphrodite behavior. And on slugs. And on slugs. I'm just, I'm so thankful to This Week in Science that it was able to provide me with this lifelong lesson and powerful moment. I really will never be the same. And this sounds very suspicious, but it's true. None of us will be. It's really true. I learned about traumatic insemination because of this show. You're welcome. I'm so thankful. You are all welcome. Fascinating. I'm fascinating. Oh, hey, also a 14-hour sex spree for suicidal marsupials. Oh, yeah, those. Yeah. Yeah. They just had sex until their body fell apart. Yeah. Yeah. As you do. That's an interesting strategy. It is. It is. Okay. Let's move on. 2014. Let's do it. Oh my goodness. 2014. Let's see what we have. We have quantum teleportation again. Again. I know. Yes. It came back again. Let's see. It sent information over leaps and bounds, quote unquote. Gravitational waves. It's the first time they showed up in our countdown, right? In 2014. Gravitational waves became a big part of the show for a while. I feel like we were talking about it almost every week, but they first made the scene here. We also found water in Earth's mantle in 2014. So there's that. Engravings on a 430,000 year old shell suggests that Homo was a lot more complicated than we thought. Yeah. And then there's a whole bunch of gene therapy. There's gene therapy restoring site. There is gene modification in monkey embryos. And there is gene modification in adult mice with liver disorders. That's interesting. It's really interesting because there wasn't a lot of that prior in years prior, even though there were stories. There were the odd stories, but it wasn't. I think, yeah, it's interesting to see that 2014 was a year that the gene therapy really started to take hold. Absolutely. And then we had some animal stuff again this year. This is the year we found out not only that crocodilians use tools and cooperate, but they also climb trees. This is also the emergence of a story that I've actually referenced many times on the show. And I think about all the time. There was a social experiment with rats where they would save the type of rat that they were raised around, not necessarily the type of rat that they were. So if you took a white rat and you raised them with a bunch of black rats, they saw a black rat in trouble and a white rat in trouble, they would save the black rats. So this was a very interesting kind of reflection on how social relationships have such a grand impact on animals of all types. And fish can remember where they fed 12 days ago. So fish have a lot longer memory than we thought. Let's see. We also had space launches or Orion launched. Antares exploded. And there was a spaceship to accident as well. So the successes and losses. And then Ebola exploded onto the scene in 2014, and we got an Ebola vaccine in 2014, which that also feels so far in the rear view for me. I think about Ebola vaccines and how there are these larger conversations about how to make them more widely available, as though it's something that we've had around for a long time and we just haven't had the means to get it to people, but it's still pretty new. It is very new. And I find it really interesting that this... It was 2014. I mean, this last year, 2019, one of our stories, big ones, was, again, Ebola vaccines, that they were actually successfully using these Ebola vaccines that have been under study for the past five years, six years. So it's interesting to see, okay, they did the phase one trial back in 2014, and now these things are starting to really have a real world effect, much wider spread on the disease and allowing us to really fight this disease. Yeah. And I think even though it's pretty new, I think that it came... I'm not going to say at the right time, because there was lots of bad stuff happening. I'm going to say anything about this was right. I think it was one of those moments where the Ebola breakout was top of mind to everyone. And so once the vaccine existed, a lot of resources and focus went to this one thing. And so it was able to move really quickly, which was really great. There was lots of interesting developments in genetics this year. So there was a new family tree for birds that showed a big bang in bird evolution after the dinosaurs went extinct. There was a human protein catalog published that could more easily look at kind of the way cancer develops and look at... The proteome. Yeah, the proteome. And then also lots of cool stem cell stuff. One of my favorites is that they could create stem cells from a single drop of blood, which means a finger prick could result in stem cell banking, which is insane to me. We haven't seen much in the way of that yet. And then... Oh, stem cells were also used to create an operating organ and a fish embryo. Came from fish stem cell, you know, but still. And then, oh, human skin cells reprogrammed directly into brain cells that integrated into the brain successfully. Yeah, I feel like we talk about this a lot, too. We talk about just grab some skin and go for it. I mean, we're in a very interesting age with stem cells because for so long, the entire conversation just turned into a conversation of, yeah, but how do you get them? Like, is it from babies? Like, that's no good. So, yeah, so now... Now you can just take a skin scraping and you're good to go. It's pretty awesome. Yeah. Stem cells are big. There was lots of space exploration in 2014. Cassini turned 10. It detected water on Enceladus. Kepler got a second chance and started finding planets. Yeah, they were going to... It was a short-lived mission and they were going to... What is it? Moonlight it? They ended the mission, but then they decided to keep it going. They gave it more time, gave it more resources, and they kept going, and they found a lot more. That was cool. And back to Curiosity, who we talked about at the end of just the two years ago, Curiosity found organic compounds and methane on Mars. That's cool. Yeah, and I remember that was... It became a big question as to whether or not the methane was coming from a biological source underground, like bacteria, or whether it is from an inorganic source, like whether there's some other geologic process that is contributing to it. Yeah, absolutely. And then number one for 2014 was all synthetic biology. Our artificial cell with organelles was created. The debut of XNA was in 2014. Oh, that's... We made it up. Yes. DNA that we made up. I love it. Yeah. Synthetic chromosomes were created in yeast cells and synthetic DNA was used to create a partially synthetic bacterial organism. So... Yeah. The big question was, are we making life? What are we doing? Yeah, I feel like this hasn't really moved since 2014. There's research happening, and we talk about it on the show, but it hasn't got to this existential crisis of a question yet. Which I find interesting because these early studies, and there are a lot of these researchers and companies and institutions that are very good at the PR and, you know, marketing their stuff and making it sound really, really amazing. And the next step is going to be, we're going to do what we said we were setting out to do in the next year. We're going to do this. And then you sit and you wait, and you wait, and you wait, and you wait because science is actually a lot slower and more methodical than the news cycle would have you believe. Yes. And so it is, yeah. That's an interesting aspect of looking back is going, okay, 2014, they were starting to create partially synthetic bacterial organisms, taking the DNA out of one organism, putting it into another, creating their own genes, their own genome sequences, putting them in. But we, yeah, we still have not gotten to the point where a few years back I was sitting in a synthetic biology conference and George Church was there saying, we are going to be printing, was it George Church or the other guy? No, it was some other guy. It was some other dude. But anyway, another big name I can't remember was saying we are going to be having DNA printers on the moon on the International Space Station and we'll be printing the DNA that we need for the organisms that we want to create to carry out functions for us. And he was saying it's just going to happen in like a year or two. We're not there yet. Maybe getting there eventually, but we're not there yet. We don't have biological printers on Mars. No, we did not. That's not happening. I think sometimes being in the middle of the churn of science it feels like it's happening and things are changing so quickly. And then looking back, you realize, oh, there have been big steps taken, but they took a long time to get to. And the change that we're watching happen is also taking a long time to get to where it's going. Yeah, I wonder how many times we said on the show like, this changes everything. And it didn't change anything. It happens, you know? Yeah. What happens? Oh, synthetic biology. Is it time for us to take a break? It is. It is. We've gone from 2000... We've gone from 2010 to 2014. And we are going to now move on to a short break. And when we come back, we will do the last five years of the 2010s. They're kind of little Portland drink-coosy. Thanks, family. Okay, time to take a break. Yay! Stay tuned. There will be more this week in Science in just a few moments. Stay tuned for more Blast from the Past coming up. Thank you for joining us tonight on This Week in Science for this Blast to the Past of Science. It's been a lot of fun so far, and I know that the last half of the show is going to be a lot of fun as well. The last decade, I'm looking back and I know so many of you have been with us for the last decade. Some of you joined us more recently. Some of you have been with us for the last week. It doesn't matter. Welcome to the family. Thank you for being a part of our science family. We really, really could not do this show without you. I mean, why would we do it? I mean, I do love talking about the science, but that would be talking to nobody if you weren't there. You support this show and you help this show really happen. Your donations through Patreon, through PayPal, the purchases of the calendar, you know, the things that you do, the things, the ways that you help all the little ways you make this show possible. And I love seeing all of you in the chat room being able to say hello when you're in the chat and talking with us. And when you send emails and, you know, all the fun out there. So on this decade in review show, I just really want to say thank you for being a part of my life and for making Twist Possible. Couldn't do it without you. Thank you for your support. And we're back. What are we doing this week in Science? And what are we doing tonight, Kiki? It's Monday. Why are we here? Why are we here on a Monday? Oh, dear. Yes, we are here on a Monday because later this week is the 25th and it's a holiday and I think we're taking some time off. So that everyone out there doesn't really miss Twist for two weeks because the New Year's Day is also on a Wednesday so you're not missing us that much. We wanted to get this show in and we think it's just awesome to be able to look back at the last decade and kind of reminisce and think about where we've been and where we're going. So without any further ado let us continue our countdown of the years. We are, well I guess now we're counting up not counting down. We counted down last week and we're counting up this week. 2015. 2015. Oh, 2015 was the first year where we were selling a Blair's Animal Quarter calendar. Actually. It was. We were selling it for 2016. Oh my goodness. Which if I can just get sappy for a second and say that as a young person who fancied herself an artist and then was told that I couldn't be an artist because I'm colorblind and then later in life said no. I'm going to do it anyway. Then I just started doodling on my own and then I recognized I had 12 of them 12 of these doodles after doodling in 2014 and 2015 and chatted with Kiki and now I actually have a reason to do art. I'm like an artist now and I think I wish I could tell my 25 years ago version of myself that speaking of going back in time that this is going to happen because I feel like it would have made her so happy and it makes me really happy and so I really appreciate everybody that supports this process and this endeavor. Okay, we can talk about science. Kiki, are you with us? Oh, not with us. Okay. I'm going to start 2015. Oh, yep. That's good. They're so cute. Am I back? Yeah. I can't hear you though. Oh, no. Okay, one minute. I'll be right back. Something's not right. Oh, no. We had a crash. Unless I messed something up. Say something. Testing one, two. No. Oh, no. Chat room, you can hear me, right? I'm fine. I didn't touch anything. Interesting. Kiki, oh, now we can't hear you. So it's just the That was fun. Let's look. I'm having the Blair show. Let's look through the calendar. I want to see if there's any Oh, so there's an alligator, which we just talked about crocodilians a bunch on the show. So that's pretty fun that he's in there. I'm just trying to see. Oh, we talked about synthetic fish embryos. See, look at that. We have Let's see. Oh, you're back. Okay, I was vamping. Oh, no. Back. I really need to figure out this hourly problem. So I waxed poetic about the calendar. And then we can talk about 2015. All right. Let's talk about 2015. I am thrilled to go back to 2015. We went to New York City in 2016. We had a Blair's animal corner calendar in 2016 and in 2015 the Paris climate talks resulted in a stricter agreement than previous meetings. Yes, the Paris climate agreement. The Paris climate agreement was we're going to decrease. We're going to only allow an increase in temperature of climate from Australia levels of 1.5 degrees rather than 2 degrees and develop nations would help pay for undeveloped nations to do better. How are we doing on that Blair? Well some groups are doing really well on that, but some nations like the United States have pulled out of the Paris agreement. However the silver lining certain states and certain cities are staying in. Was it last year? I got to go to the We Are Still In convention which was part of the climate week in San Francisco. It was a bunch of mayors and governors and company heads like I think the CEO of McDonald's was there. A bunch of groups have decided to stay in. I would argue this was a really great thing. It set a real goal that wasn't just like hey will you sign this thing that says that we care about this? It actually had specific actions tied to it and it's created a good starting point to have this conversation. And even if as a nation we are not participating at this point there are other groups that are for example my own state of California is currently participating in the Paris agreement. So that's good. Yeah. It's great. Yeah. We can do it different ways. We've talked about that before on the show. It's true. I think this is actually a pivotal moment the climate agreement in Paris. Paris was pivotal. It was a big year 2015 and then it was also the hottest year on record at that time. Not the last time that occurred. No. 2015 though that was the year that everyone went oh it's hot. What? But then beyond beyond the climate issues we had some really exciting scientific news for human health and possible cures for things. Again an AIDS monkey vaccine like this year we started talking about HIV vaccines. It was a vaccine that worked really well for simian immunodeficiency virus in monkeys. There was a possible H5N1 cure single-dose Ebola vaccine we still don't have it but researchers were really starting to work on the universal flu vaccine really starting to try and get into one shot to make help people be able to fight the flu better. Another one that I don't know how well it has made it into current day but at the time it was an idea of prototype to be able to freeze dry vaccines. I loved this story. The possibility of being able to just if you have water on hand be able to rehydrate a vaccine and have it available and if it's dehydrated or freeze dried it would be shelf life would be astronomical for a very long time. Yeah we started making ribosomes. Synthetic biology was big. We created synthetic ribosomes. These are the organelles responsible for assembling RNA into proteins and so it's another part of the puzzle of creating our own organisms. Can we do it? Prosthetics were huge really big. Astronauts on the International Space Station virtually shook hands with a person on Earth as a result of haptics with a virtual handshake a robotic arm on the space station an arm on Earth and the grip was similar it was all from space to Earth. There was a memory prosthetic device that people were looking at to potentially help people with damage to the hippocampus to help them form new memories they had problems forming them. So cool. There was also a DARPA prosthesis with a robotic hand allowing information to be conveyed back to the sensory cortex of the brain so that the user could feel what's in their prosthesis in their prosthetic. So you combine that with the thing from a couple years ago where you can control a prosthetic that's linked to your brain and then you also throw in there the robot skin that can feel touch and you're just all there. You're good. You are. Water in space was huge in 2015 they NASA reported that they found salty water flowing on the surface of Mars they also found water all over the place not just in the cold dark shadows and they think it came from asteroids all over the moon and the Saturnian moon Enceladus was found to have a vast ocean beneath its frozen surface of salty water well I think it was just in the last year or two that we really said we think that it's salty water but that's what the assumption was once they discovered that it was an ocean on this Saturnian moon So this was something I had a lot of trouble grasping or accepting with the water on the moon coming from asteroids because the moon is Earth Yes Well it also was during the great bombardment it has the man on the moon those are craters Right I'm just saying if the Earth has water all over it and the moon is from the Earth it could just be water from the Earth It could be but they do not think so they do think that it is from asteroids and that it has a different time source and that the Earth and the moon Yeah Yeah well maybe it's a little both It could be both I mean there's definitely going to be water in the minerals of the moon incorporated from the time before the moon was formed Water on the Earth before that planetoid ran into us and billiard balled out the moon that was such a hot period of time that a lot of water would have been vaporized would have been lost to space but then at the same time a lot of it because of the heat and pressure that happened at that time there would be a lot of water that would be integrated into the minerals themselves and so there's not just water in the sense of hey it's water ice but there's also water actually there's water incorporated into the minerals So it's both It's both There's both for sure but they think yeah I think what they think is the asteroids have water and the asteroids land on the moon and there's water there now We sent the Rosetta mission to Comet 67P Gerasimov Chermenko and it ended up there Filet got there the little lander woke up sent information back to Earth and I don't think that the lander had actually gotten to the Comet yet had actually landed on it but they were looking at the Comet and they think there was a lot of water on it and there was very interesting because we were looking at a Comet we had a craft for the first time around a Comet checking it out the Rosetta Filet mission was very very exciting the beginning of an exciting time in astronomy and dwarf planets were pretty cool we were starting to look closer and closer at Pluto we were looking I think it was the new horizons mission that year that got to Pluto was that the year 2015 yeah wow that's crazy okay so we were looking at volcanoes on Pluto at potential we were looking at Pluto's moons they're also looking at dwarf planet series and so space astronomy was doing some very cool maneuvering around our solar system and taking a look at things that were going on around and then microbiome was pretty big we found out there were lots of viruses on and in babies that we didn't realize before we always knew the microbiome bacteria but also viruses and they think that possibly a lot of those viruses are phages that attack bacteria so it's bacterial viruses antibacterial substances given to babies that was a year that we started seeing information about negative health effects lasting into adulthood from antibiotics and antibacterials during babyhood and childhood my oh I love this story the personal microbe space that we all have a microbial cloud that surrounds us I just imagine that I still do the idea of pigpen that there's this cloud of microbes surrounding me and I can move my arm and waft them around in different directions if you really want to gross yourself out think about the fact that that's probably the majority of your personal scent good or bad if you're like mmm that's what my significant other smells like for example microbe is there microbes yes it is what did we also figure out oh this was a cool year they swapped the diets of 20 african americans and 20 rural africans found out that cancer risk profiles switched as well and it looked as though this was pretty good evidence for a diet high in fiber and low in fat and protein being better for the gut fiber good fiber it's good and human ancestry it was a big year to find out that uh that Australopithecus 3.8 million years ago may have been using tools that it wasn't just homo sapiens who had the tools and that tool use may have got its start a long long time ago which was very very fascinating and in this was ooh 2015 this is the year of the cave when the cave was discovered in africa were really hard to reach and uh it's just a cave of bones that they had to find very small um archeologists to climb into to go study the bones because it was such a small entry way to get in there were very specific requirements for the individuals who got to work on this particular uh the study but they discovered this amazing cave that suggested there was a new hominid species that we still don't know who it is researchers are still trying to figure that one out oh my cave of bones cave of bones 2015 was a year of crisper number one story of 2015 crisper where chinese scientists were beginning to try and use the crisper cast 9 system to edit pre implantation stage human embryonic cells and we're looking at the possibility of being able to edit the human genome we still were having the conversation about what crisper was going to be used for and how it was going to be used had not really come for full circle yet um researchers were starting to use gene editing to affect mosquito populations to try and figure out how to fight malaria and other mosquito diseases around the world 2015 was the year of researchers trying to bring the mammoth back yeah where's justin when we need him yes that means it was the year of justin and myself arguing about whether or not we should bring back mammoth as well pretty much as it was yeah um I was also a year of editing the editor of trying to get cast 9 to be more efficient because there are all sorts of off target effects of the crisper cast 9 system and so the big question was how can we make it better at doing what we want it to do so that we can actually use it on people yeah the crisper being used to edit mosquitoes happened a few times and it was the year the first year that we talked about crisper pigs crisper they started using crisper technology to remove genes from pigs so and then putting them into mammoths no yeah no no don't put it again no no mammoth pigs we're not doing that yeah and I think a big development though was by the international gene editing community in 2015 to put a moratorium on editing human DNA so as the whole world got together and said whoa crisper can do all this stuff it's a little bit more than we were using the zinc finger nucleases and the talons for and we have these other gene editing techniques but this new one is really making us stop and think for a second and so hey everybody let's all promise not to edit human cells let's fast forward a few years yeah got a little tricky but it you know just before we do move forward this was also a year of some fun Blair's animal corner stories skydiving spiders sailing spiders we also had great invertebrate sex again it was head stabbing it's always with the head stabbing Blair yeah yeah it is and I'm not ashamed spiders and head stabbing alright let's go to 2016 oh let's look at 2016 moving on up I'm getting distracted you have a corgi yeah she's in my lap so 2016 number 11 Zika hit the scene in 2016 there was a Zika brain link so there was a study looking at neural progenitor cells being infected with Zika and the infection leading to reduction in cell growth and division but that was also the year that a Zika vaccine was developed an experimental vaccine got FDA approved it's not the only one that works in the works in the US at the time so there was a lot of trials for different vaccines so it's kind of the conversation we were having earlier where the ability to kind of learn about these outbreaks happening at home or abroad but I think also Zika is probably one that caught people in the western world's eye a little bit too because it was something that could affect people from the United States on vacation I do think that it's something to do with it right is that all of a sudden hey if you're pregnant don't go to many countries yes it was there was a not a travel ban but a travel warning and Zika did show up in our southern most states so we did Florida and Texas wait we started seeing some Zika so with that happening it was also this kind of realization we started being able to have the conversation about climate change affecting the ecosystem enough that these animals were starting their habitats are changing they're spreading that they can live in places they maybe couldn't live before yeah absolutely that's such a good point it's another reminder that climate change is a human health issue as well as everything else but number 10 was all about space let's see Kepler space telescope detected the shock breakout of a supernova so this is the first time that we saw the instant of ignition for a massive stellar explosion speaking of which right now a bunch of astronomers have their eye peeled on Betelgeuse Betelgeuse it's a Betelgeuse two more times ooh one more time it's a big massive star that is as researchers have been watching it for a while and it's been it just recently dimmed significantly and so a lot of astronomers right now are excitedly wondering whether it will go supernova mmm which would be wonderful because then we watch it happen but it's also you know we don't have to worry about all the solar the gamma rays and everything from the solar flare not solar flare supernova if it does Betelgeuse does go supernova our solar wind will protect us that's similar to how our atmosphere protects us on earth the sun's influence will protect us from this interstellar radiation a little bit but it also won't reach us for a really long time so let's see also the Cassini mission explored Saturn's moon Titan and a new paper came out that year looking at its oceans it contained a lot of methane it had a soft bottom and was surrounded by wetlands it was also the year of Juno news so Juno went into orbit around Jupiter yeah that was the year we talked we had James Donahue on as a guest and he he's a researcher who worked on the Juno mission and he talked with us about it which was cool and then Juno started sending back images in 2016 Cassini found evidence that there were liquid hydrocarbons in a canyon system on Saturn's moon Titan let's see and so much there's a lot blue origin news it lands space X successfully returned its booster rocket to the water based landing pad that was so cool to watch yes that was a big god that was 2016 and 2015 was when I moved to Portland I can now 2015 I have these little markers in my life 2011 was when I had Kai 2015 is when I moved to Portland 2015 is when I went back to the zoo you went back to the zoo then SpaceX landed there you go it all comes together 2015 was an important year let's see the Pluvian mountain tops were found to be snow capped right and there were frozen lakes on Pluto as well looking at number nine was intelligence oh slime molds slime mold intelligence was 2016 and so they found that they could make strategic decisions and kind of work in concert in these large congregations they found that also apes can predict that expectations can be different than reality which is very like high concept cuttlefish can count monkeys make tools there was generosity found in magpies and slime molds also crowd sourced memory so this was a pretty important year for non-human intelligence or for us actually going hey look at how much other organisms know how to do what yeah maybe we're not as intelligent as we thought also number eight was AI and robots this was the robot that beat someone at go so alpha go created by Google deep mind was that was in 2016 wow okay yeah and then there was an X prize for five million dollars with IBM's Watson group against another to develop and demonstrate how humans can collaborate with powerful AI technologies to tackle the world's grand challenges I don't remember hearing what happened with that it's still waiting so many I mean that's only a couple years ago now but so many of these I'm like oh oh the potential of this yeah waiting also Google deep mind started learning and reasoning using memory instead of programming which is terrifying and awesome I'm only awesome a human evolution there was updates on our understanding of human migration Australopithecus coming out of Africa and there was an understanding about African humans and the Netherlands being part of the equation so Neanderthals mated with modern humans much earlier than previously thought so this whole out of Africa theory well if this braided stream involved breeding with Neanderthals way earlier than we thought that it's not so much part of the deal okay number six is all about medicine we found a novel antibacterial agent which we've talked about a bunch I think since on the show and they were they were able to use it in new trials for antibiotic drugs but it wasn't actually showed to treat human infection yet the human microbiome we found there were genes in there that were potential for antibiotics that reachers could use which is also questionable but that's fine I'm sure I raised those concerns earlier HIV was clipped out of genes by an enzyme I loved that story so they're using it in mice to great effect at this point and they used it successfully I think on a person this last year yeah you're right you're right you're totally right about that so that's something that has moved quite a bit since scientists coaxed optic nerve cables so they were able to take they were able to regenerate optic nerve cables that were completely severed and oh I love this three parent baby was 2016 wow and everybody went what's a three parent baby yeah so it is like it is the nucleus of a female egg that is transplanted into the egg of a donor that has the nucleus removed the resulting egg is then fertilized with sperm so this is if you have issues with your eggs then you can take your own DNA and put it into a donor's egg case basically and then through IVF it's still totally your egg pretty much except for some things which you know down the line there would be DNA in there from everybody but it would be mostly it has to do with mitochondrial disease in effect there are genetic diseases that stem from the mitochondria and if you are able to use the mitochondria from another egg all of the machinery and everything and then put your nucleus in you'll have the DNA from the egg donor you'll have your nucleus of genetic information and then you'll have your partner's genetic information so technically three people's genetic information but healthy mitochondria so that the disease doesn't set in and so you can have healthy children there you go this was one of the the stories that came through where I had this complete just double take of how I think of the world compared to maybe how other people think of the world because I really never considered it a controversial or questionable thing this sounds amazing and to go out into the wider world in 2016 and find out that people were that some people are against this kind of upset about it I'm like why they don't understand I still don't understand this is my problem to figure out I mean we could get into a whole thing about what is science allowed to do and not allowed to do and Justin would say all of it and I would say most of it and you'd probably say something similar to most of it but there are other people who believe that when it comes to human medicine it's a lot less so it's I mean anyway also in 2016 gravitational waves gravitational waves LEGO detector confirmed detection of the merger of two black holes approximately 1.3 billion years in the past we had our gravity Dave Fridl says 2016 is the year that you went to the celestial seasonings plant in Boulder, Colorado it's true yeah and he had to wear a beard guard so he could go in the mint room let's remember that anyway speaking of why you might want to cover up your beard when you go into a food space number four in 2016 was the microbiome and bacteria so we mapped the bacterial population of the surface of hedgehog teeth for some reason no it wasn't hedgehog teeth it wasn't no it was teeth it was the bacterial populations but it looked like hedgehogs it looked like hedgehogs what does this mean hedgehog teeth because of the way that the species of bacteria and the populations within the broader bacterial population how they organized themselves it looked, yes it was reminiscent of a hedgehog we also had a story about c-section babies and smearing them with vaginal secretion from their mom and then comparing the microbiomes from vaginally delivered babies the c-section microbiomes appeared almost normal once that smear occurred which I have to say I have remembered this story and I have a friend who had an emergency c-section and I was like oh oh oh oh did you smear the baby but she was like what are you talking about I don't think this is common medical practice yet but it makes nothing but sense to me and I love it smear the baby yes there were also conversations about how probiotics could be cancer and how gut bacteria controls glucose metabolism and just basically microbiome is everything we also talked a lot about climate change again of course there was the story I think this was the year where there was the the what is it the funeral for the Great Barrier Reef somebody published that it wasn't really dead it's still not dead guys it's still not dead there's areas where there are percentage mortalities coral reefs can come back from percentage mortalities but you have to reduce stress so that's what this is all about is like hey Great Barrier Reef is dying it's not happy we need to reduce the stress from climate change and other issues so that it can come back anyway oh this was also I think the year that we learned about how frogs are impacted by climate change due to forest fire I'm trying to see I'm not sure if that's exactly why but it was specifically the frogs are the indicator species for climate change which they're already indicator species for water pollution so that's very interesting there's a lot there's Antarctic retreat all that could start Northwest Passage cleared number two was all about we're back to policy and where science and politics collide the US Senate ratified a reform bill that changes the decades old and out of date toxic substances control act aiming to bring more science into the regulation of new chemicals so that's really good the FDA banned 19 specific substances giving manufacturers a year to phase them out so that helps reduce our pollution on natural environments and new rules from the marketing of homeopathic products were released by the FTC yeah that was cool that was great absolutely and then number one once again was CRISPR yes scientists use CRISPR-Cas9 to repair retinal stem cells love that CRISPR have confirmed a form that cleaves single strand RNA which I feel like we talk about all the time now yep that is a big big it's promising because that's one of the potential treatments for people they think that if they can edit RNA it may not influence the way it works it may not influence the immune response as much as the DNA I think that's one of the things because of the way that they would that the treatment would work yeah there was a CRISPR for cancer treatment that was piloted that year yep and Stanford University indicated that it was time to test CRISPR methodology for repairing sickle cell in humans and the first human trial of CRISPR therapy began in China so they injected CRISPR or edited cells into cancer patients to determine whether the treatment is received safely and whether it allows the patients to fight off cancer yeah so that was the year that they they did start editing people or trying to figure out ways that they could use CRISPR in people they weren't editing germline they weren't editing embryos that we knew of at this point in time but yeah yeah the promise of CRISPR was huge yeah and then my quote-unquote write-in vote for this year was all about sperm there was a story I forgot about this suggesting that May hitches a ride on sperm as it travels down the epididymis another one looked at seminal fluid from one male had an effect on offspring even if he wasn't the actual father so it's not just the sperms it's the actual fluid it's hanging out in there were female beetles that would have sex so that they could use seminal fluid because they lived in the desert as a liquid source and sperm of particular genders followed particular chemical trails in a test where you could potentially pick the gender of your next baby by separating out the chemical trails of sperm so through a centrifuge or some sort of osmosis layer or something you could potentially split out male and female sperm but I haven't heard anything about that since but otherwise it was a good year for sperm 2016 has a great year for sperm 2018 2017 I'm going to jump ahead 2017 2017 that was an interesting one 2017 politics in science became difficult it got tense in 2017 things started to not seem things changed in 2017 something changed we'll leave it at that Moving on though, looking back into the past, again, human evolution and the braided stream were absolutely a major part of 2017. Many stories about human origins and various species of humans. I feel like it just has the anthropology-archaeology field for human origins. The study of human evolution, it's just ramping up. They've just got these finds and now they've got technology that allows them to look deeper into the bones that they have, so that the evidence they have takes them further into what they can understand about our ancestors. I just feel like it's like on this train that's just getting faster and faster and faster and we're learning so much more. I think part of it is because we've all kind of gotten over the braided stream thing. I think for a while there were people who didn't want to believe it. There was a lot, there was, it wasn't a lot, but we're different from the other hominids that didn't make it. We were the good ones. Now that this is kind of just, it's understood, it's common knowledge now. There was this braided stream. There was intermingling going on at all levels in all places. It allows for a culture shift where you can go, okay, but first we have to check the DNA and see what percentage of what each of these things that we found is. And then from there we can deduce where did they come from. So I think there was a culture shift that had to happen in order to allow for this kind of revolution that's occurring now, which is very interesting. Absolutely. Yeah. Still a revolution into who we are with stem cells and work into aging we're looking at stem cell science with teeth, hair cells and the hypothalamus and there was a lot of promise for finding youth in old age, rejuvenation, if not complete, complete refreshing or complete oil change. Stem cells had a lot of promise for that in 2017. Cassini ended in 2017. I had cried tears. I cried tears at the end of Cassini. It made me sad. I stayed, I got up early in the morning and I sat and I watched the last minutes of Cassini as long as I as long as I could. And I cried. It was sad to me. It was 13 years plus the years that it took to get to Saturn. Cassini was this amazing mission that gave us these beautiful images of this incredible planet and its moons. And it was something that we had never had before. And to me it was it was pivotal and I loved it. And so it was sad when it went away in 2017, but Juno, still a Jupiter, the Mars rovers that keep roving, they keep on going, the Voyager spacecraft missions that they're like, we're out of here. We're gonna travel, man. You know, they kept going. And so NASA really, it didn't have a lot of new missions in 2017, but the missions it did have were continuing to be very successful and inspiring. And teaching us a lot about the about our solar system. In 2017, we were able to figure out how to make DNA less prone to errors and better at storing information. What do you say? Better at storing information? No, not just genetic information, but stuff we want to fill it with, like that we could use DNA as a code to put the works of Shakespeare away for hundreds of thousands of years. That we could flash drive. Yeah. And could we and if we can get rid of the errors that it potentially has, that would be, which we all know DNA has thanks to mutations that lead to cancer and disease and all that kind of stuff. Can we figure out how to make those errors less for our information storage? Could that also help us medically as well? Synthetic biology was big in 2017 again. I'm always like, it's big. It's big. This is my my adjective, I guess. Researchers advanced yet again. Synthetic organisms built from artificial genetic letters. They used XNA in synthetic organisms to create, and I love this word. It must have been, it's because I'm important now, artisanal proteins designed by humans. Yes, XNA, human designed for us. We're going to keep going. Gene editing, CRISPR, was not the only gene editing technology that was being used in 2017, zinc finger nucleases, which had been used for a long time, actually made a big showing in the research in 2017 from being used in living human beings to help treat disease, to genetic modification of embryos, and additionally, CAR-T therapy to treat cancer. And this is the therapy where red blood cells are taken, white blood cells are taken, T cells are taken out of the body and reprogrammed, and then put back into the body to treat cancer. And it has met with a lot of success so far. There have been some issues, but a lot of, a lot of success with that. Again, microbiome, our health, our guts, our brains, the bacteria are involved in everything, and climatia once again. Yes. It just kept on going, going, going. And a lot of studies in 2017, oh yeah, that was the year. There were a number of studies of old rocks that came out, and it seemed like there were, it was like, no, no, it's 3.5 billion years ago. No, no, it's 3.55 billion years ago. No, no, it's 3.85 billion years ago. Yes, there were many, many old rocks in parts of, in parts of our planet that old bits that have stayed without getting pulled back into the mantle that have stayed out on the surface, and we're able to see them, and the evidence of old life we think is there. And it seems to be pushing back almost to the start of the planet, which is one of the, the most interesting findings is if, if they can confirm it, which we, we haven't gotten that far yet, it's just been, you know, a couple of studies. But if they can really, really confirm that, yes indeed, it's, it's evidence of ancient bacterial life and not just a chemical molecular signature from chemical processes, then it means that life got started on our planet really almost as soon as the planet was a planet. Or, which is cool. Which is cool. It came from elsewhere. Or it came to you. No, I don't know. I'm still with it. I'm still with the, I'm putting my money in Pamspermia. Pamspermia, that's when a woman named Pam came and just sprinkled a bunch of tardigrades all over the place. No, in Pamspermia, I still feel like the earth is forming. I need a cartoon of this. Young Pam just floating around. There's some tardigrades on an asteroid, smacks into the newly formed earth. That's how we got life. There you go. I'm with it. I like the big space goddess, Pam, with her sperm shaker. Pam! Pam! Spray some Pam on it. Oh my gosh. And gravitational waves again were amazing because LIGO met up with Virgo and then they saw neutron star merger and more black holes. And they're, it's still going. It's still going. They're detecting things all over the place. But that was 2017. It was yet another big year for science. 2018. Give it to us. We're getting so close. I almost remembered this. Number 11 was geology. We had new analysis of the crust and upper mantle of the earth, making us think that the earth is full of diamonds. Oh yeah, lots of little teeny tiny molecular diamonds. And the deep carbon observatory looking at carbon insider planet reported that it looks like there's a lot of life down there. Number 10, all about black holes. We talked about Milky Way's black holes. There's one in there. It's right next door. Astronomers reported discovering black hole mergers in multiple galaxies. And that was a whole like, well, what does that even mean? What does that look like? It was fun. And LIGO and Virgo found more black hole stuff all over the place. Number nine was all about Mars. We found water on Mars, massive underground aquifer on Mars to be. That's right. It looks like perhaps it is full of liquid water. And the inside lander landed in Elysium planetia on the surface of Mars, sent back some images. Some people said it looked like there was a squirrel, I think. Wasn't that a thing? Yeah, there's a squirrel on Mars. No, there's no squirrel. And they started drilling into the surface, taking temperature and seismic readings. Number eight was our gene drive. UCSD reported the first demonstration of successful gene drive in mammals and a CRISPR-based gene drive. Now we're really just combining all of the stuff to destroy the productivity in female mosquitoes that's successful in the lab. So this was the very long conversation we had about, do we do that? Are we worried about gene drives getting out of control? It's a really cool thing. It's also kind of scary. So there's a whole kind of existential crisis about gene drives in 2018. Number seven was mini brains. I am kind of starting to remember this now. This is my recent, made little gloms of stem cells that were brain cells. And they called them mini brains, which spontaneously began to communicate through electrical signals that were comparable to the brain of preterm babies. So they weren't fully functioning brains, but they just spontaneously, you put all these neurons together and they are just the gray matter and they're all like... Which is amazing. And yeah, I find brain cells are going to do what brain cells are going to do. They're going to fire and wire together and they want to talk to each other. It's amazing. But I honestly remember this happening this year. Yeah, right? I think it wasn't that long ago. And then the other thing that I feel like is happening in studies left and right now is that in 2018, they took these mini brains and it was human stem cells and they implanted them into mouse brains and they integrated. Yep. Which I feel like that seeded a whole field of research just in the past year, which is really cool. Number six, all about microbiology. No surprises there. We talked about fungus versus bacteria. And we also talked about the sixth sense, which is basically our gut. So the gut, our microbiome is communicating with our brain by way of the vagus nerve and stomach bacteria could turn donor blood into whatever type of blood you need. I love this story. It's once again promising, but we don't know. This was one of those... This is really exciting kind of studies, but we'll see where it goes. Yeah. Potentially amazing. Talks about evolution. This was one that I campaigned pretty heavily for. There's a turtle missing link found, which of course every missing link is in between a couple. There's always... Anyway, but we're getting a better understanding of where turtles belong in the evolutionary tree. Pretty soon it might not be a dotted line on the vertebrate family tree anymore. That would be pretty cool. Yeah. Collesterol molecules allowed identification of earliest animals. And the question of whether viruses are alive or not was brought up again on the show because giant viruses have the ability to make and synthesize proteins. Yeah. Yeah. We had a whole bunch of neuroscience stories in 2018 as well. They... See, lymphatic vessels showed to be... I love the lymphatic vessels. Proper brain aging. Yeah. We need our brain to drain. Yeah. Microglia look and act differently in male and female mouse brains. But still. Cool. Yeah. Men and women. They're different. Sorry, guys. We're biologically different. But oh, here we go. Alzheimer's. Using human cells, researchers confirm the presence of a protein that leads to damage that potentially causes Alzheimer's. So using a structure corrector, they were able to fix the mutant protein and reverse its cellular effects. Yeah. And then in 2019, there were even more studies on art Alzheimer's that followed right along with this, that looking at ApoE4 and looking at various aspects. And I feel, I don't know, there's something about where we are in the Alzheimer's research right now that is tantalizing how close it feels like we are to getting some really good treatments. Yeah. I mean, I know we're not quite done here, but I feel like some of the things that are coming to light for me right now is that HIV, cancer, and Alzheimer's are some things that we might actually see some real fixes for in the next decade. And that is so exciting. Oh, and blindness as well. That's the other one that kept coming up is we might be able to fix optic nerves in people. That's yeah. Or retinal cells with retinal transplants or implants, these stem cell treatments or CRISPR treatments. It's very, very, very exciting. And I honestly say, there's this ongoing thing, oh, five or 10 years, we're going to have that in five or 10 years. I mean, maybe not the actual drugs on the market in five or 10 years because none of the clinical trials have started, but I feel like the research is getting there to the point where clinical trials will probably start in the next five or 10 years and will be on the road to some of these treatments. Yeah. So good. I feel like number three in 2018 was all about pregnancy. We had clone monkeys in China. We had maybe CRISPR babies in China. We had an effort to create embryos from stem cells from two male mice. It was unsuccessful, but there's interesting things there. And there was a live birth from a transplanted uterus from a deceased donor. Right. That all of that, that whole suite of stories, those were all very mind blowing. Those were all, what, do we live in the future now? Kind of stories. Yeah. Forget my flying car. I want my uterus transplant. That's tight. That's so awesome. Number two, this year was all, in 2018 was about climate change. The IPCC came out with the latest report, which was, is never good. But there were also some interesting implications environmentally. There were shrinking birds. There was damage to male fertility in insects. So sperm and insects was actually being damaged by climate change. And maybe this is a good thing, but there was an assessment on the economic impact of climate. And it indicated that we have to get moving. Number one in 2018 was all that anthropology. There was new Neanderthal art. That was amazing. There was a finger bone that we found that raised a whole question again about migration out of Africa. Once again, braided stream, African origins were multicultural. There were Neanderthal Denisovans that were mixing together. And they were hobbit folk. Remember that? Talks all about these hobbits that were mostly Neanderthal DNA. We found Neanderthals that made sculpture. And there was Neanderthal DNA virus resistance found in Africanus humanus. So basically just a real messy braided stream came to life in 2018. And then as a couple of honorable mentions from the animal corner, we found that some sharks are vegetarian. Oh, I did love that story. And that they could be keystone species due to their fertilizing poop. They also, we also found that spiders have quote unquote milk that they give their babies even when they're full grown and should be leaving the house. They can take the air on electric. They can jump with the use of the electrical fields. Yes. Yes. That is the coolest. Yeah. So oh, and there were 3D printed corneas as well. 3D printing. Oh, yeah. And a car in space. And a car. Oh, right. That whole thing. Yeah. That was the year. We kicked. We punted. We dropped kick to car into space. Where is it now? I don't know. Being garbage. It's in space. Oh, and you know what? We just did 2019 last week. So I'm not going to go over it again. Anyone who wants to hear what we thought about 2019, go listen to last week's episode. Watch it on YouTube. Find us in podcast. It's on Facebook also. Any of these places. Go find last week's episode to find out what we thought about 2019. But I just want to say that overall, I mean, overall, climate has been the number one downward spiral over the last decade. But a lot of other technology and scientific discoveries are really promising and are moving us in wonderful directions for human health, for things that we can do in the world, things that we know about the animals that we cohabit on this planet with. I mean, there's just so much that we're learning. But just beyond that, Justin did some ranking of all of the decades countdowns. And he determined that the number one category of stories over the last decade was NASA and cosmology that we spent a lot of time talking about NASA and cosmology. And I'm really glad that that has been our number one category for the past decade, that we've had so many stories, because it really is one of those fields, NASA as an institution, but the things that they do and cosmology as an area of study that leads us to think outward, to look outward, and to hopefully head toward the unknown out of curiosity, and to try and make a better world for ourselves. I think that cosmology and the exploration of space from its philosophical standpoints gives us better understanding of who we are as humans. And if that's our number one from the past decade, I think that that means a lot about who we are as people and our audience, what they enjoy. And it makes, it gives me hope. It really does give me hope with even with all the fake news and all the misinformation that's out there, that we have something big and beautiful and wild and wonderful out there to look forward to. Well, and it ultimately means that people are really interested in the big picture and their place in the world, right? And I think that it's a, to your point about climate change, if you just think about it as this problem that we're facing that has consequences that are important but are not unavoidable, and that we could have a place in this massive special solution. There are things to be learned from all of this stuff that we just talked about that we could put towards a better tomorrow. If it's in fixing climate change, if it's in improving our health care, if it's in understanding ourselves better and understanding other planets better, there's so much still to be learned and there's so much still to be gained by what we've learned already. And I think that I'm excited to see what the next 10 years bring. I am too. I really am. Every once in a while, I get, I'm like, oh my God, what am I doing? It's the same old stories, but it's not the same old stories. There's new stories. There's new discoveries and there are the progress, that arrow of progress we keep moving forward, even though sometimes politically or whatever things change, there is still scientific advancement that is impressive. And yeah, like you said, Blair, let's get a better tomorrow. We can do it. We have to work together. We have to reach across divides we think exist that are manufactured. We have to value all input from all people. And there's so much still to be gained. I did a look back at the interviews from the past decade. And this past year was the largest number of interviews in a year, I think that we ever did. I kept the interview and so if everybody who's watching this show, if you want to let me know how you like that, do you like having all the interviews? Do you want us to do more science? Let us know. I put a push on the interviews because surveys said that you wanted more interviews. So I tried really hard to make that happen and I will work very hard in 2020 and for the next decade. I'm going to do this for another 10 years. I'll work on it. I'll keep working on it to get us the interviews. I'll keep working on it. Thanks, noodles. Noodles says that we crushed it on the interviews. We did. It was good. I'm going to keep it going. All right, Blair. Yes. Yes. Thank you for reviewing the decade with me. This is very fun. Thank you for being born this year. I sprang to life in 2012. That's right. I'm so happy that I did from the forehead of her father. If I can be serious again for a second here, this show has completely changed my life because I was in a space before I joined this show where if you had asked me, I would not have called myself a scientist. I may not have even said that science was one of my main passions. I wouldn't have considered myself someone who could talk about science to others or teach science to others and I had no idea what my career path was. I was shoveling rhino poop and lion poop and I loved it, but I knew there was something else that was next for me, but I didn't know what it was. And just this perfect kind of falling into place of getting on your radar in the right way eventually after getting in the spam filter and then starting out and learning that the reason I love talking about animals and the reason I love talking to people about animals, it really had to do with the science. My formal education growing up, I was very clearly told that science was for boys and the teachers that I had did not very well make the content accessible. I thought I was bad at science and then in college it seemed so much better and I started to understand how interesting it was, but I still had kind of this idea. It wasn't for me. And then it was just kind of this like, oh, it was this understanding that this is what was missing. What was missing was being able to learn together and talk through things together and discuss opinions on sometimes controversial, sometimes not scientific topics without judgment. It has been an amazing journey for me and science education is my number one priority and identifier now in my life and I can't imagine where I'd be without this show. So I want to thank you Kiki first, but then I also want to thank everyone who listens to the show and supported me when I was just an intern in the background and was supportive of me taking on more of the show and I'm so happy to be here. And what a decade it's been. What a decade. Yeah. Yeah, indeed. It's been good. It's been very good. Yeah. Thanks everyone for being a part of this decade. Whatever part you played. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you Blair. Thank you. I'm glad you've joined us. Yeah. Couldn't I can't imagine not doing the show with you. So there we go. I mean, although I'm very sad not to be doing what Justin right now. I know. He's missing so much delicious sap for the holidays. Holiday sappy time. Come on. Yeah. All right, everyone. Blair, have we come to the end of another show? We have. I think it's time to thank some other people by name. Yes, it is. Thank you to Gord McLeod for helping to organize the chat room managing it over there. Fada, thank you for helping with show notes over on YouTube with our social media identity. Thank you for helping to record the show. I do appreciate that so much. And thank you to our Patreon sponsors who I'm going to pull up in just a second here. This is me getting distracted and not doing the things that I need to be doing. Clicking the buttons. There we go. Thank you to Paul Disney, Ed Dyer, Andrew Swanson, Craig Landon, Ed Stoupolic, Phillip Shane, Ken Hayes, Harrison Prather, Charlene Henry, Joshua Fury, Steve DeBell, Alex Wilson, Todi Steele, Richard Porter, Mark Mazarus, Jack Matthew, Litwin, Jason Roberts, Bill K. Bob Calder, Eric Knapp, Richard Brian Condon, Condren, Dave Neighbor, Taylor P.S., Josiah Zaynor, Howard Tan, Donald Mundes, Sarah Forfar, Dan K. Matt Base, Darwin Hannon, Patrick Peccararo, Ben Vignal, Jean Tellier, John Gridley, Corinne Benton, Adam LaJoy, Sarah Chavis, Rodney Lewis, Tiffany Boyd, John Bertram, Mountain Sloth, Seth O'Gradney, Stephen Alde, John Ratnuswamy, Dave Freidel, Darryl Myshack, Paul Ronevich, Sue Doster, Dave Wilkinson, Noodles, Kevin Reardon, Kristoff Zucnerack, Ashish Pants, Ulysses Adkins, Artyom, Rick Ramis, Paul John McKee, Jason Oldes, Brian Carrington, Christopher Dreyer, Lisa Suzuki, Trim DePau, Greg Riley, Sean Lamb, Steve Leesman, Kurt Larson, Grudy Garcia, Marjorie, Gary S, Robert, Greg Briggs, Brenda Minnish, Christopher Wrappin, Flying Out, Aaron Luthin, Matt Sutter, Mark Hessinflow, Karen Parachan, Byron Lee, and EO. Thank you for all of your support on Patreon. And if any of you out there would like to make the list that I read longer, I implore you to take a look at our Patreon account. That's right, you can find a link over at twist.org, or you can go directly to patreon.com slash this week in science. You can also help us out simply by telling your friends about twists. And on next week's show, as a reminder, we will not be here this week in science is taking a week off next week. So for the new year, we will see you on January 8th at our usual broadcast time Wednesdays at 8 p.m. Pacific time on YouTube, but and Facebook, but also at twist.org slash live. Also, on January 16, we will be in San Francisco for SF sketch fest. So if you are in the San Francisco Bay Area, or if you want to come out for some of the amazing sketch fest shows, including ours at the California Academy of Sciences, please buy your tickets now. They are available. We'll send actually we'll send some information out over the interwebs, over our social medias, over a newsletter, perhaps, and definitely it's on the sketch fest website as well. Thank you for joining us tonight for listening, for watching. We hope you've enjoyed our review. It's just kind of a nice happy hour where we reminisced over the past decade. This is also it was a lot. There's a lot of science. It's also a podcast guys. Just search for this week in science wherever you get your podcasts. And if you enjoyed the show, please tell your friends about twists and lever of you on whatever that platform may be. Yes, I can keep on for more information about anything you've heard here today. Show notes will also be available on our website. So we're going to have kind of this mobius strip where we're going to link in the show to the show where there are links to the stories that we talked about in the years past. So it'll all be on our website. That's at www.twist.org. While you're there, make comments. Tell us if you enjoyed this silly decade in review show and start conversations with us and other listeners while you're there. You can also still order our calendar. There are very limited copies remaining, but please order the 2020 twist Blair's animal corner calendar. You can also contact us directly. You can email Kirsten at Kirsten at thisweekinscience.com, Justin at twistminion at gmail.com, or you can email me Blair at BlairBaz at twist.org. Just put twist TWIS somewhere in the subject line or your email will get spam filtered into oblivion like mine did. You can also ping us on Twitter where we are at twist science at Dr. Kiki at Jackson Fly and at Blair's Menagerie. We love your feedback, so please, if there's a topic you would like us to cover or address, you have a suggestion for an interview, you have musings on some of the things we talked about tonight, please let us know. Meanwhile, we will be back here on January 8th in the new year in 2020, and we hope that you will join us again for more great science news. And if you've learned anything at all from the show tonight, remember it's all in your head. I'll reverse below the warming with a wave of my hand, and all it'll cost you is a couple of grand is coming your way. So everybody listen to what I say, I use the scientific method for all that it's worth, and I'll broadcast my opinion all over the earth, because it's this week in science, this week in science, this week in science, science, science, this week in science, this week in science, this week in science, science, science, science. I've got one disclaimer and it shouldn't be news, that what I say may not represent your views, but I've done the calculations and I've got a plan, if you listen to the science you may just yet understand, that we're not trying to threaten your philosophy, we're just trying to save the world from jumping. So everybody listen to everything we say, and if you use our methods that are all, this week in science, this week in science, this week in science, science, science, science, this week in science, this week in science, this week in science, science, science. At our laundry list of items I want to address, from stopping global hunger to dredging Loch Ness, I'm trying to promote more rational thought, and I'll try to answer any question you've got. The hell can I ever see the changes I seek, when I can only set up shop? One hour a week in science is coming your way, you better just listen to what we say, and if you've learned anything, then please just remember, it's all a week in science, this week in science, this week in science, science, science, this week in science, this week in science, this week in science, science, science, science, this week in science, this week in science, this week in science, this week in science, this week in science, this week in science, this week in science. And that does it for another episode. Sure does. It does it for a decade. Does it for a decade. We are in the after show. This is the most hilarious thing you've ever seen. It's a little. It's a little beer. Yep. Beer coat. Cozy. That's what that is. Little little insulated jacket. You've got little arms. Oh my gosh. I'm dying over here. It's hilarious. It's hilarious. It's the end of the show. I'm opening it. I'm going to have some. I'm not going to drink the whole thing. Just part of it. Just some of it. Oh, Identity Four says his computer stopped recording the audio at some point. Oh. Okay. I can get it other places. I will download it from the YouTubes in the morning. Yeah. I will do that or something. It'll be okay. I'll survive. We have the backups for your backup. That's good. Oh, no. That is not. It is not lost forever. We can do this. It's okay. It's okay. That was your plan as well. Okay. That's good. I will probably not be touching this file until Thursday because of the holiday and travel and all that kind of stuff. So, yeah, yeah. That makes sense. I would like to do the editing on Thursday. But if that is not possible, then that's fine. I'll figure it out sometime before January 8th. Yeah, I'll do that. I'm going to put it out in the middle time. In the middle time. It'll be fine. Kiki, would you like me to just shoot a very brief small newsletter out tomorrow that just has like forward? I can just because I can just have it be like a very short thing and then have information about the calendars and sketch fest. And yeah, having that the sketch fest in the newsletter would be amazing. Yeah. I'm probably going to replace Zazzle with sketch fest as the little like tiny things in the bottom. Yeah, I have a link to our specific thing because I went looking for like us on the SF sketch fest website like exploring the schedule and unlike last year's, we really weren't on there. And so I reached out to them and I would like, hey, can you like actually put us in your... Yeah, good call. Like anybody looking for us, they're not going to find us. Yeah. Dudes. Silly billies. And I haven't... Oh, good. There we are. Oh, yeah. I'm there now. Okay. Because we were not there previously and I believe this one. Yeah, there's a link. But okay. So did you find it? Yes. Okay. This week in science and the sketch fest schedule because you can use either use that link or... I was going to link to the nightlife at the Cal Academy. Yeah. You have to tell people exactly what day because they have to select a date when they buy the tickets. Right. But it's, but this is just... I was going to link it. This isn't for nightlife though. I was going to link it to this. Adult. Yeah, I'll put it in the shower. Okay. And then you select nightlife. Yeah, that's frustrating. And then you select the date. Okay. Oh yeah, this is a whole process. It's a whole process. You have to go through and select... Because I first, I landed on the Cal Academy site. At first was like, wait a minute. It looks like I need to buy. It just wants to try and tell me, sell me museum tickets. But I didn't try to click through. It's a process. Process. Huh. Like, it's like not letting me pick it. And let me pick it. That's weird. Hey, did, wait, did you go? Did you, and then it's has subtitles, Subtotal and Descartes? No, I'm clicking the date and it's like, it's like the website doesn't support my computer or something. Oh. Hmm. Try the browser. Yeah. Oof. Okay. Thank you, Identity 4 for that last recoup. Mm-hmm. I need to take my beer can koozie camping. Feel like I should... That'd be good, yeah. Drink it around the camp. Use it to drink something while I'm camping. Mm-hmm. Yes. Okay. This is complicated. Okay. Alrighty. Okay, there's that. And then... Yeah, do you want me to just slap something together and send it out? I would like to, I would like to write a little thing. Okay. So let me see what I can throw together. Okay. Just as like a holiday hello. And then, do you already... Do you already have a mock thing up? No, I haven't started yet. I was writing my thingy. But I'm going to have something by like midday tomorrow. But if you just want to send me words in an email, that's also fine. Okay. Yeah, that sounds great. I can do something like that. We'll probably... I'll see what I can do. I'll see what I can do as I'm going to sleep tonight. But if I don't get it done tonight, we're going to be on the road tomorrow. And I'll see if I can get some time not driving. And I can write it while I'm sitting in the car. Okay. Yeah, I should be able to get it done if I have it by like three tomorrow. Okay. But I'm doing my holiday festivities tomorrow night with all the family. So after about 4.30, I'm toast. Done. Yeah, exactly. Okay. I think I just have to get up early tomorrow morning. I have to work tomorrow. So, yeah. That's right. You have to go to work. You have teenagers. Yeah. To hang out with. Yep. Camp is running. Alrighty. All right. I'll see you on January 8th. Oh my goodness. Her predictions. Yes. And just like one news story. Right? Yeah, one for, yeah, like one for each of us. Yes. That's what we didn't say is January 8th is our prediction show. Yeah. Which is fun. I predict it will be fun. I've been thinking of getting reaching out to this woman Rose. I'm blanking on her last name, but she does the fast forward, fast forward, fast future podcast. Hmm. Yeah. And it's a fun, it's like science based, but like dramatic kind of, what if this happened in the future kind of stuff? Didn't we have her? We had somebody about predictions on the show, I thought. We did, yes. And her name, I can tell you, Amy Webb. Ah. And that was in 2017. Hmm. I remember some things. Yes. Just some stuff. Yeah. We also, one year, how long ago was that? And why do I remember it, but it's not here. I thought we had Tom Merritt on a prediction show one year, but I don't have him down. We definitely did have Tom Merritt on the show, but I don't remember if it was a prediction show or not. No, so episode 631 was Tom Merritt, which means that we need to have him back on again because that was a two and a half years ago. Yeah. What? Am I just bad at writing down what? Maybe I had more interviews and I just didn't keep track of them. Maybe I need to go back and watch every single episode. No. Don't do that. There's much better use of your time than that. You lived it. Oh, man, I did. And it's really, really still. It's very interesting to go back. I feel most of the time like we have some pretty good shows these days. I go back in time and I listened to things from a decade or more ago and I cringe. Oh, God. That's why you don't do that. That was in the past. That was so bad. I forgot about it. It's in the past. What was I thinking? Yes, we should have, let's see, 2020. I guess prediction show. We can talk about what we want to do in 2020. But I always say I want to do things and then I don't. So maybe I just won't say that. I won't make any statements. Noodles wants more Roger. Oh, yeah. Yeah. We should have more DTNS crossover in 2020. Absolutely. That would be fun. Yeah. I was thinking it would be a lot of fun. Like as last night as I was falling asleep because I had looked at all of these interview people and other things like, oh, what if we did a daily science news show? And then I was like, we could call it DSNS. And then I'm like, I don't want to do a daily show. And then I was like, maybe we should do a crossover that we call the weekly science news show. Listen, if we did a daily show, that would mean that would have to be my job. I know. I know. I would do it. If we could. That would be amazing. Yeah, it would be amazing. It would be really amazing. I wish I could make that happen. You hear that podcast? Wizards. Hello. I dream. I have a dream. It would be good. Make the content. Yes. I would be content. With the content. With the content. Yes. Yeah. Okay. Goals. It's good to still put them out there. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Charles Abroad. Somebody. So somebody ordered a twist calendar. And Kai was helping me put calendars in envelopes one day. So one envelope has written on it in Kai writing. Get ready for Twist Kids in 2020. Okay. Yeah. So I think Kai is excited about starting the show. Oh my gosh. Wow. He loves the idea. That sounds like a lot of work for you, Kiki. Doesn't it? Like, oh, Kai wants to do a show. That means it's my show that Kai's doing. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Identity four. Well, it's written down now, so it has to happen. Oh, Dave, you're awesome. Yes. Someone that would be awesome. I was also thinking there's like this empty, there's this, I look around at empty retail spaces. And I think to myself sometimes it would be so amazing. Maybe I want to start a science venue that's part cafe, part bookstore, science doodad bar, but has nightly science infotainment. Yes. So fun. It would be fun. It probably wouldn't do very well, but I would enjoy doing it for a while. How do you start that? How good are the drinks and how well are they priced? I feel like that's really the question. Yes. Yes. Bring them in for the artisanal beer. Hook them with the science. Can we call it the H bar? Is that hydrogen or hydrogen walking into the bar? Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Yeah, we could call it hydrogen. Hydrogen walks into a... Perfect. Was that the only envelope with Kai writing? No. There were a couple of others. Not a lot, but there's like three or four envelopes that Kai decided he needed to write special messages on. There are a couple of envelopes that Kai decided he wanted to put stickers in. Okay. So some people are going to get an extra sticker or a magnet or something. Kai was helping. Oh, my. Oh, you got one noodles? That's awesome. Yay. You should keep it. Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah, there really aren't that many. Kai didn't write on too many envelopes. That's cool. Flying out is like, oh, I got a check. Yes, the science emporium. I don't know. I've always wanted to have a science salon. Salon. Salon. We did a salon. I know. Enlightenment salon. Yes. That was a long time ago. I think I could just have a bar cafe place called the Enlightenment. Yeah. Yes. Yes. Would it, would it be M-I-N-T and then all of the specialty cocktails would be minty. That's funny. Is it? I don't know. I don't think that it is. And I think that it's time for me to go to bed. Yeah. You go to bed so we don't stay up too late on a Monday night and you have to go hang out with teenagers tomorrow. Yeah. Have a wonderful family day. Happy Hanukkah. Yeah, of course. Happy, happy Christmas. Thank you. Happy holiday. Merry all the things. Happy holidays. Everyone. Everyone. Everyone. Everyone. And yeah. Yeah. Whatever or whatever not, you know, whether your solstice has passed, your crampus day is coming, whatever it is. Yeah. Have a wonderful night. Mm-hmm. Oh, Flying Out got one that says twist and has a flower squiggle. Sweet. That's awesome. Thanks for letting me know. I love knowing where those went. Yay. Oh, that's very funny. That's so good. Okay. Yes. Have a wonderful holiday week. Same to you. Bring me some calendars, will you? I will bring you. I'm out. I sold a couple. So I need five more. Like five. Okay. I will bring them to you. Yeah. I think that is it. The podcast for this episode will come out sometime Thursday or later. And January 8th is when we will reconvene. And then a week after that, I'll be back in San Francisco. I have to, I have to buy my tickets. Yeah. You haven't done that yet. Yeah. I need to make some money. And then after that, we have to plan Seattle, but we're not going to worry about that right now. Until, let's talk about it in January. Yeah. Yeah. Can't do it. Yeah. One thing at a time. It's February was to January when we made that decision. I know. It's really close. It'll be great. Maybe we can. Maybe. Okay. Newsletter. I will get you a short blurb for the newsletter and newsletter will go out and we'll have a podcast that goes out and then we have a thing and then Seattle in February. We should maybe we should. Hmm. There's going to be a bunch of other podcasters. I'm going to try and do something, a podcast get together. That's a meetup. We can maybe have people who listen to the podcasts in the area. Yeah. That's very fun. Nice. Alrighty. I like meetups. But anyway, as long as somebody else plans it. Yes. I don't have time for these details. Okay. We're going to check out everyone. Thank you. I'm going to click the buttons. Off to sleep everyone. Ending the ending the broadcast. Clicking the correct button. Say good night Blair. Good night Blair. Say good night Kiki. Good night Kiki. Good night everyone. Good night everyone. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas.