00:00SPEAKER- Hey, Kishore.
00:02SPEAKER- What's up, Will?
00:03SPEAKER- I learned a technical term this morning.
00:07SPEAKER- How technical?
00:08SPEAKER- Yeah, it's fairly self-explanatory,
00:10SPEAKERbut I'd never heard it before.
00:12SPEAKERIt's called an electrocution rescue pole.
00:16SPEAKER- Rescue pole?
00:17SPEAKER- Pole.
00:18SPEAKERDo you know what it's, do you, like, what would you,
00:20SPEAKERwhat does this, what does this put in your head
00:21SPEAKERwhen you think about it?
00:23SPEAKER- Weirdly, it puts into my head one of those PSAs
00:26SPEAKERafter the end of "G.I. Joe" where one of them comes up
00:29SPEAKERand is like, don't touch the downed electrical power line.
00:33SPEAKERI have this magic pole that will actually move it
00:36SPEAKERto the side of the road.
00:38SPEAKER- I just think about the stop all the downloading one,
00:40SPEAKERbut yeah, it's, you know, when you go to chemistry lab
00:42SPEAKERin college, you, like, learn about the eyewash station,
00:44SPEAKERyou learn about the emergency shower,
00:46SPEAKERyou learn about the fire bucket, all of the, you know,
00:48SPEAKERthe sand, the place where the broken glass goes,
00:51SPEAKERall of that stuff.
00:52SPEAKERWe didn't have an electrocution rescue pole.
00:55SPEAKERIt's apparently a pole that you use to knock somebody
00:58SPEAKERwho's gotten, like, grabbed themselves
01:00SPEAKERonto a high voltage source so you can knock them off of it
01:03SPEAKERthat's a non-conducting pole.
01:05SPEAKER- It's a baseball bat for helping people
01:07SPEAKERthat are getting electrocuted.
01:09SPEAKER- It's a long baseball bat.
01:10SPEAKERWe always used two by fours for that when I was a kid.
01:13SPEAKER- Yeah, I mean, the wood is right there.
01:16SPEAKERLike, what do you need a specialized pole for?
01:19SPEAKERIs it maybe it's, like, weighted well
01:21SPEAKERso you can really smack them with it?
01:23SPEAKER- Yeah, or maybe it has, like, a long end
01:24SPEAKERso you can, like, wedge them off.
01:26SPEAKERI don't know, like, when I was a kid,
01:29SPEAKERmy dad bought an embroidery machine
01:31SPEAKERthat used two-phase power from Japan.
01:33SPEAKERIt was, like, a 240-volt multi-phase power thing.
01:36SPEAKERAnd, you know, you could've hired an electrician
01:39SPEAKERto wire that up or you could've just done it yourself.
01:42SPEAKERAnd it was an old building that had fuses and stuff like that
01:44SPEAKERand when my dad was putting the fuses in,
01:45SPEAKERhe was like, okay, so here's what we're gonna do.
01:47SPEAKERI'm gonna stand on this two by four
01:49SPEAKERand then you're gonna hold this other long two by four
01:51SPEAKERand if I stop talking, you're gonna knock me hard enough
01:54SPEAKERto knock me off the wall and I was like,
01:56SPEAKERoh, I'm ready for this, let's go.
01:58SPEAKER- Festivus in your house really was a little bit different.
02:01SPEAKER- Look, growing up in the South and with a DIY aesthetic,
02:07SPEAKERsometimes things happen, sure.
02:09SPEAKER(upbeat music)
02:24SPEAKER(upbeat music)
02:37SPEAKER- Welcome to Brad and Will Made a Tech Bot, I'm Will.
02:41SPEAKER- I'm not Brad, I'm Kishore.
02:42SPEAKERThis is, how many times have I been here now, too many?
02:46SPEAKER- So I thought this was your fifth timer club.
02:48SPEAKERI thought we were gonna have to get you a jacket,
02:49SPEAKERbut we got one more, I think.
02:51SPEAKER- Oh my goodness, I am a four-timer.
02:54SPEAKER- Does that make me the Dan Aykroyd of this podcast?
02:57SPEAKERI have no status whatsoever,
03:00SPEAKERbut people have to put up with me.
03:02SPEAKER- So here's the question.
03:03SPEAKERWould you rather be the Dan Aykroyd or the Steve Martin?
03:06SPEAKER- Never the Dan Aykroyd.
03:07SPEAKERYou never wanna be the Dan Aykroyd.
03:09SPEAKERHave you heard Dan Aykroyd actually talk on any video
03:14SPEAKERabout his sincere beliefs?
03:16SPEAKERIt is horrifying.
03:18SPEAKER- Okay, I mean, look, of that first round,
03:20SPEAKERit's like, is he worse or is Chevy Chase worse?
03:24SPEAKER- Okay, let's be clear.
03:27SPEAKERI don't wanna hang out with Chevy Chase,
03:30SPEAKERbut I don't wanna be stuck
03:31SPEAKERin one of those holiday conversation catch-ups
03:34SPEAKERwith Dan Aykroyd.
03:34SPEAKER- Oh yeah, you don't want him to be the uncle.
03:36SPEAKER- One of the original real off the deep end UFO guys.
03:41SPEAKER- Oh, that's right, okay, okay.
03:43SPEAKERSo he's an Art Bell guy, though.
03:45SPEAKERHe's from back when it was funny and charming
03:47SPEAKERand not kinda creepy and scary.
03:49SPEAKER- Well, I think there were so few of them back
03:50SPEAKERat that point where you'd be like, oh, that's nice.
03:53SPEAKERThat's nice that you believe in this.
03:55SPEAKERNow it feels like a little too serious to entertain.
03:58SPEAKER- But okay, so at the same time,
04:00SPEAKERif he didn't have this deep personally held belief
04:02SPEAKERin the paranormal, we probably wouldn't have Ghostbusters.
04:05SPEAKER- This is true.
04:06SPEAKERBy the way, is this a deep dive about Ghostbusters?
04:08SPEAKERIs that what we're doing this week?
04:10SPEAKER- Wow, you're really good at this podcasting thing, Kishore.
04:13SPEAKERNo, this is our now annual year in science review.
04:19SPEAKERSo Brad's out, he's dealing with some personal stuff
04:22SPEAKERthis week and probably next week as well.
04:24SPEAKERSo we have a rotating host of guest hosts
04:29SPEAKERto come in and fill the Brad chair.
04:31SPEAKERSo Kishore, you're our Brad for this week.
04:33SPEAKER- I will do my best.
04:35SPEAKERI certainly do not have the man bun
04:38SPEAKERnor the endearing humility,
04:40SPEAKERbut I will try to deepen my voice.
04:42SPEAKER- I don't know how long the man bun's gonna last.
04:44SPEAKERIt might be short for the world, honestly.
04:46SPEAKERBut yeah, so last year we did this.
04:48SPEAKERPeople seem to really like it.
04:49SPEAKERWe were planning to bring you back anyway.
04:52SPEAKERAnd then Brad, we got to do it a little bit earlier
04:55SPEAKERthan we kind of had thought we were going to.
04:57SPEAKERAnd we're here to talk about science.
05:01SPEAKERKishore, you're one of my favorite science communicators.
05:04SPEAKERFor folks who don't know Kishore,
05:06SPEAKERKishore Hari's one of our favorite science communicators
05:08SPEAKERand has done everything from hosting nerd nights
05:11SPEAKERfor years and years and years in San Francisco
05:13SPEAKERto other stuff that I probably, I don't know.
05:17SPEAKERYou did stuff on, you did things with things
05:20SPEAKERand got in trouble and sometimes it was good trouble
05:23SPEAKERand it was a good time.
05:25SPEAKER- I'm at the stage of my career where I can say
05:27SPEAKERI have scienced and just use it as a verb
05:29SPEAKERand feel pretty comfortable with it.
05:32SPEAKERThis is one of my favorite shows of the year
05:34SPEAKERbecause we get to talk about the year that was
05:36SPEAKERand there was some incredible stuff.
05:38SPEAKERThere was some harrowing stuff
05:39SPEAKERand there was a lot of stuff that made you go,
05:42SPEAKERhmm, in the middle.
05:44SPEAKER- So, okay, so I guess let's start with the one
05:46SPEAKERthat made me go, hmm, in the middle.
05:48SPEAKER'Cause I didn't actually know,
05:52SPEAKERwhen you put this one on the list, I didn't know what it was.
05:54SPEAKERI had to go look it up and then I was like, oh!
05:58SPEAKER- Which one is that?
05:59SPEAKER- I'm just starting at the top.
06:00SPEAKERThis is the GLP-1 receptor agonists, which is a new class.
06:03SPEAKERWell, it's not a new class, it's a new application
06:05SPEAKERfor an old class of drugs, right?
06:06SPEAKER- It's not a new class.
06:08SPEAKERThis is a glucogen peptide receptor agonists
06:12SPEAKERand you will better know them as the new weight loss drugs
06:17SPEAKERthat have hit the market.
06:18SPEAKERYou probably heard of Ozempic and Wegovy at this point,
06:21SPEAKERwhich are the marketing names for a class of drugs
06:26SPEAKERthat are trying to mimic the behavior
06:29SPEAKERof a naturally occurring hormone in our body.
06:32SPEAKERThese class of drugs were first sort of discovered
06:37SPEAKERdeveloped in the late '90s and the first one was approved
06:41SPEAKERin the early 2000s to treat type 2 diabetes.
06:45SPEAKERThey essentially work by mimicking a hormone.
06:49SPEAKERIt's called GLP-1.
06:51SPEAKERIt's an incretin hormone that's produced
06:54SPEAKERby the L cells in your intestinal wall.
06:57SPEAKERGenerally, this hormone is produced after food intake,
07:01SPEAKERwithin minutes after food intake.
07:03SPEAKERAnd the receptors for this hormone are found
07:06SPEAKERthroughout the body, including your brain, intestine,
07:10SPEAKERand pancreas.
07:12SPEAKERThere are three kind of crucial functions
07:14SPEAKERthat this hormone seems to have,
07:17SPEAKERbut we suspect there's a whole lot more
07:19SPEAKERthat we haven't even touched upon.
07:21SPEAKERSo first is in the hypothalamus,
07:24SPEAKERit seems to have an effect on your sense of satiety.
07:28SPEAKERSo how full you feel after eating a meal.
07:32SPEAKERIt also stimulates secretion of insulin in the pancreas.
07:37SPEAKERAnd lastly, and this is not super well understood,
07:41SPEAKERit seems to somehow slow the movement and processing
07:44SPEAKERof food in your stomach and small intestine.
07:47SPEAKERLike literally slows the process
07:49SPEAKERof food moving through there.
07:52SPEAKERSo initially, because of how it stimulated secretion
07:55SPEAKERof insulin in the pancreas,
07:57SPEAKERthis was used as a type 2 diabetes drug.
08:00SPEAKERAnd most often it was developed to be taken daily
08:04SPEAKERand to kind of regulate sugar levels within your body.
08:10SPEAKERAnd then over the past few years, about like 2015,
08:13SPEAKERpeople were like, "We're noticing weight loss
08:16SPEAKER"in these people on this drug
08:19SPEAKER"for an extended period of time."
08:21SPEAKER- That's when the pharmaceutical people's eyes
08:23SPEAKERturned into dollar signs, I assume,
08:25SPEAKERor something around that? - Yeah, and it goes
08:27SPEAKERlike full like Bugs Bunny, like ayuga.
08:30SPEAKERAnd they started to really think like,
08:33SPEAKER"How can we take advantage of this?"
08:37SPEAKERAnd they started to reformulate this GLP-1 drug
08:42SPEAKERto kind of take advantage of some characteristics.
08:47SPEAKERSo the drug, and I'll talk about semaglutude,
08:50SPEAKERwhich is Wegovy, it's not a perfect match
08:56SPEAKERto the peptide hormone.
08:58SPEAKERIt's about a 90% match.
08:59SPEAKERIt has some like structural differences.
09:01SPEAKERSome of which are intentional.
09:03SPEAKERSo I mentioned GLP-1, it breaks down in your body,
09:06SPEAKERand it's secreted in your body very soon after eating.
09:10SPEAKERAnd then it breaks down in your body
09:12SPEAKERbetween one and a half and five minutes
09:14SPEAKERas it's half-life in your body.
09:16SPEAKERSo it's really quick.
09:17SPEAKER- And is that because of the way it binds
09:19SPEAKERonto the receptors, it gets broken in pieces or something?
09:21SPEAKERIs that the mechanism? - Yes, and there's also
09:23SPEAKERsome like enzymes that quickly break it down.
09:26SPEAKERLike it gets sort of more complicated as we get into that,
09:29SPEAKERbut there's a set of processes in your body
09:31SPEAKERthat are designed to break down that hormone pretty quickly.
09:36SPEAKERWhat they did is they designed this drug
09:39SPEAKERto reversibly bind to albumin,
09:43SPEAKERjust a compound that's throughout your body,
09:45SPEAKERand it essentially doubled its half-life in your system.
09:50SPEAKERAnd what they did is with this like reformulation,
09:53SPEAKERthey got to a clinical trial.
09:55SPEAKERThey gave, I think it was about 3,000 people
09:59SPEAKERsome magnitude once a week over a 16-month period,
10:03SPEAKERand they saw 15% weight loss in this.
10:06SPEAKERThe placebo group and the group that was taking the drug
10:10SPEAKERwere both given like coaching on weight loss as well.
10:14SPEAKERAnd so the placebo group lost like 2 1/2% of their weight,
10:18SPEAKERbut a 15% weight loss in 16 months is just massive.
10:22SPEAKERIt is just sort of off the scale.
10:25SPEAKERAnd then they redid the trial,
10:27SPEAKERwhere at halfway through the trial, about like 20 weeks,
10:31SPEAKERthey switched people off some magnitude
10:33SPEAKERand actually saw the effect.
10:35SPEAKERAnd they saw like a weight gain resume
10:38SPEAKERin some of those people.
10:40SPEAKERSo it kind of has indicated to a lot of folks
10:43SPEAKERthat you have to constantly be on this drug
10:46SPEAKERor its weight loss benefits to take effect.
10:51SPEAKER- It's expensive.
10:53SPEAKERIt's about, right, it's about, I think,
10:57SPEAKERbetween 1,500 and $2,000 a month in the U.S. right now
11:02SPEAKERfor WeGoV, but there's more of these drugs
11:06SPEAKERcoming on the market in the coming year,
11:07SPEAKERso we expect that number to hopefully come down
11:12SPEAKERin the years ahead.
11:14SPEAKERBut the scientific benefit here is super clear.
11:18SPEAKERThat much weight loss in that short of a period of time
11:22SPEAKERis incredible.
11:23SPEAKERThe side effects, which do exist, are mostly manageable.
11:27SPEAKERThey're like nausea, diarrhea, that kind of GI upset.
11:33SPEAKER- Yeah.
11:34SPEAKER- And we're seeing some long-term benefits
11:36SPEAKERtowards heart disease and reducing stroke risk
11:40SPEAKERfrom these drugs as well.
11:42SPEAKERAnd so, yes, we need to study this-
11:44SPEAKER- Is this just the obesity reduction,
11:46SPEAKERor is it, you can't tell, right?
11:48SPEAKER- Hard to tell at this point.
11:50SPEAKERSo it's probably a bit of column A and a bit of column B.
11:53SPEAKERThere's probably something going on as well.
11:56SPEAKERAt this point, we obviously wanna study this
11:58SPEAKERover a longer period of time to make sure
12:01SPEAKERthere's no long-term effects, since people are gonna have
12:04SPEAKERto stay on this drug for the benefits to persist.
12:08SPEAKERBut this is just a complete game changer
12:12SPEAKERfor these to hit the market.
12:14SPEAKER- So you said they're prescribing this
12:15SPEAKERto a lot of people in the U.S., it is expensive,
12:18SPEAKERbut I mean, it's the cost of treating all the obesity
12:23SPEAKERrelated stuff over the long term, too.
12:25SPEAKERIs this for people who are seriously obese,
12:27SPEAKERor is this like, this doesn't seem
12:28SPEAKERlike a casual weight loss thing?
12:31SPEAKER- So the clinical trial was done on people
12:33SPEAKERwith BMIs over 30, so these are people
12:36SPEAKERthat are not just by the definition obese,
12:40SPEAKERbut they're on the higher end of the kind of obese spectrum.
12:44SPEAKER- Yeah.
12:45SPEAKER- So they really tested on people that really need
12:48SPEAKERthe weight loss for the other effects.
12:52SPEAKERThere have been some independent studies that looked at,
12:55SPEAKERlike, well, how much is this being prescribed at this point?
12:58SPEAKERAnd looking through electronic health records
13:01SPEAKERfrom the past year, they noted that somewhere around,
13:05SPEAKERa little more than one to 1 1/2% of Americans
13:09SPEAKERgot a prescription for one of these drugs last year.
13:13SPEAKERNow, some of these people are getting prescriptions
13:16SPEAKERfor these drugs for type 2 diabetes,
13:17SPEAKERbut that is just a massive number.
13:21SPEAKERSo there is anticipation that this is gonna have
13:24SPEAKERa significant impact.
13:26SPEAKERIf this does continue on the trajectory from the science
13:29SPEAKERthat we see these long-term benefits
13:33SPEAKERwithout the long-term risk,
13:36SPEAKERthis is gonna be just a massive story for years to come.
13:39SPEAKER- Well, and presumably, like,
13:42SPEAKERokay, so there's two interesting things to me.
13:44SPEAKEROne is that this protein is absorbed
13:47SPEAKERin so many different places that it hits so many,
13:49SPEAKERI mean, this is, to me, kind of one of the stories
13:52SPEAKERof biochemistry in the last 10 years
13:54SPEAKERis the thing that we thought hit one place,
13:56SPEAKERit turns out, hits 45 different places
13:58SPEAKERfrom your head to your feet, right?
14:01SPEAKERAnd it's interesting, like, this is why there's,
14:05SPEAKERthis is why we haven't seen magic bullets
14:06SPEAKERfor a lot of stuff, I think, right?
14:08SPEAKEROne of the reasons is it's always
14:10SPEAKERinfinitely more complicated than you think it is.
14:13SPEAKER- Yeah, as one of my astrophysicists friends says,
14:18SPEAKERhe always goes, "Biology is gross and complicated."
14:22SPEAKERAnd he's not wrong.
14:25SPEAKER- So, okay, I guess let's move on to the next thing
14:29SPEAKERat this point is also in this kind of same category
14:32SPEAKERof things that are really complicated
14:35SPEAKERand we're seeing some incredible breakthroughs
14:39SPEAKERin the last, like, 12 months, 12 to 24 months on.
14:44SPEAKERAnd it's kind of one of those things,
14:45SPEAKERwe talked about CRISPR last year,
14:46SPEAKERmaybe the year before, I can't remember,
14:49SPEAKERbut it kind of, like, this stuff is following on from that.
14:52SPEAKERIt's following on from the CRISPR work,
14:53SPEAKERwhich let us edit and build DNA sequences,
14:57SPEAKERand then the mRNA vaccines that we use to treat COVID,
15:00SPEAKERor to help prevent COVID.
15:03SPEAKER- Yeah, so this year, I think it was sort of a milestone year
15:07SPEAKERwhere we saw the FDA approve the first CRISPR treatment
15:13SPEAKERfor humans, and this is for sickle cell anemia.
15:16SPEAKERSickle cell anemia is a genetic-linked disease
15:20SPEAKERthat causes the development of misshapen blood cells,
15:26SPEAKERincredibly painful, really deleterious to long-term health.
15:33SPEAKERAnd a new drug called Cascavi was the first FDA-approved
15:39SPEAKERtherapy using this CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing technology
15:44SPEAKERto treat sickle cell patients.
15:49SPEAKERIt is now approved, the treatment is expensive,
15:53SPEAKERand expensive doesn't even begin to cover
15:56SPEAKERhow expensive it is.
15:58SPEAKERIt is like the cost of a house, kind of expensive.
16:01SPEAKER- Is it personalized for each person that is,
16:03SPEAKERthe treatment, or is it just that expensive?
16:05SPEAKER- It's not fully personalized in that way,
16:08SPEAKERwhere each person gets a completely different version.
16:13SPEAKERBut it is, I mean, it's gene editing,
16:17SPEAKERso in that way, it is 100% personalized.
16:21SPEAKER- Is this the first time that's happened?
16:23SPEAKERIs this the first time we've had a gene editing?
16:25SPEAKER- Yeah, for humans, there's been some other gene therapies
16:29SPEAKERand treatments that are personalized and have been hit trials.
16:36SPEAKERThis is at approval for a significant population,
16:39SPEAKERso this is outside of that ultra-rare case that we've seen.
16:46SPEAKERAnd at this point, we've seen approval,
16:50SPEAKERlike European markets have indicated approval for this too,
16:54SPEAKERso this is going to be something that goes worldwide.
16:57SPEAKERThe difference between this and a drug, this is a cure.
17:02SPEAKER- Yeah, so you do this and you're done.
17:04SPEAKER- Yeah, it's not, and there's some great articles,
17:07SPEAKERI think Stat had an article with one of the patients
17:12SPEAKERwho really expressed a lot of ambivalence about it,
17:16SPEAKERbecause it is not a simple treatment,
17:18SPEAKERand you have to be in the hospital
17:19SPEAKERfor an extended period of time.
17:21SPEAKERSo it's not an easy pathway to go through,
17:28SPEAKERbut it is a cure, and rarely,
17:31SPEAKERrarely do we ever talk about a cure.
17:34SPEAKER- Yeah, especially for something
17:35SPEAKERthat is a genetic hereditary disease, like sickle cell.
17:40SPEAKERThe other one that came up with this is the melanoma vaccine.
17:45SPEAKERIs vaccine the right, it's like an mRNA vaccine
17:48SPEAKERthat supplements additional current treatments for melanoma
17:53SPEAKERthat is tailored, and I think they sequence the tumor,
17:57SPEAKERthey sequence the person, and then they build,
18:01SPEAKERthey look for key markers and they build the cocktail
18:03SPEAKERoff of, I think, 40 or 50 markers that they found
18:08SPEAKERthat are predominant in malignant melanomas,
18:11SPEAKERwhich I thought was fascinating.
18:13SPEAKER- Yeah, this idea of personalized medicine,
18:15SPEAKERwe've been talking about for,
18:17SPEAKERgoing back to the Clinton administration,
18:19SPEAKERis when we first started hearing about the idea
18:22SPEAKERof personalized medicine at scale in the US.
18:25SPEAKERBut now we're actually starting to see some realities of it.
18:28SPEAKERNow, I think we're gonna mostly see it in rare conditions
18:33SPEAKERfor the most part, because the smaller population,
18:37SPEAKERthere's like one genetic mutation to generally worry about.
18:41SPEAKERSo this isn't gonna hit like mainstream populations
18:45SPEAKERor mainstream chronic diseases anytime soon.
18:48SPEAKERBut the idea of this, that we've actually developed
18:51SPEAKERenough sophistication and data sets
18:53SPEAKERto actually do the kind of personalization
18:56SPEAKERthat we're talking about, is a massive step forward.
18:58SPEAKERI mean, the vaccine that you're talking about,
19:01SPEAKERthey're looking at like 34 different antigens in the tumor
19:06SPEAKERthat they're individually sort of looking at the variants
19:11SPEAKERin those antigens, and then using that
19:14SPEAKERto actually develop the vaccine that treats this.
19:19SPEAKERIt will be interesting to see how effective it is
19:21SPEAKERover a larger pool of population,
19:27SPEAKERbecause this is for melanoma,
19:28SPEAKERthere's a pretty significant population
19:32SPEAKERthat they could trial this with over a long period of time.
19:36SPEAKERBecause I think there's something like
19:38SPEAKERalmost half a million cases of melanoma a year.
19:43SPEAKERSo this could yield some just really interesting results
19:48SPEAKERabout how effective these personalized therapies can be.
19:52SPEAKERI'm not like bringing enough like juice and energy
19:54SPEAKERfor how exciting this stuff is.
19:56SPEAKERLike we don't, like we just don't get treatments
20:00SPEAKERthat are this meaningful and effective.
20:04SPEAKERLike, because we are mostly talking about like cures
20:08SPEAKERor essentially like reducing risk
20:11SPEAKERto the point of remission for the melanoma.
20:17SPEAKER- What?
20:18SPEAKER- Yeah, so this is the first of those.
20:20SPEAKERI know that there are other trials ongoing
20:23SPEAKERfor like pancreatic cancer and some other,
20:25SPEAKERthere's a specific type of cancer
20:29SPEAKERthat seems to respond well to this,
20:31SPEAKERthat you can rewire the immune system
20:33SPEAKERto go after the tumor cells.
20:37SPEAKERBut yeah, I thought this was, this seems like magic
20:40SPEAKERand you know, it's science magic,
20:43SPEAKERwhich is the best kind of magic 'cause it's real.
20:47SPEAKER- I feel like I'm in that bad scene in the Thor movie
20:50SPEAKERwhere they're like magic and science are the same thing.
20:52SPEAKEROh no.
20:53SPEAKER- I mean, look, yeah, Thor wasn't the first one
20:57SPEAKERwho said that 'cause sure.
20:59SPEAKER- What?
21:00SPEAKER- Yeah, yeah, wasn't that an Arthur Clark one originally?
21:04SPEAKER- Yes, I know it was Arthur Clark.
21:06SPEAKERI just wanna be shocked that like Chris Hemsworth
21:09SPEAKERdidn't originate this incredible line
21:12SPEAKERabout science and magic.
21:13SPEAKER- I wish I could do a Chris Hemsworth voice
21:15SPEAKER'cause right now I would be like,
21:16SPEAKERyeah, actually, yeah, 'cause that was an ad lib.
21:19SPEAKER- I wanna be innocent again.
21:21SPEAKERAll right, one more bummer story
21:23SPEAKERbefore we talk about some fun stuff.
21:24SPEAKER- We haven't had any bummer stories so far.
21:26SPEAKERThey've all been good stories so far,
21:27SPEAKERbut we do have a bummer now, sorry.
21:29SPEAKER- Yeah, okay, now we have a bummer story.
21:32SPEAKERIt was the hottest year on record again.
21:34SPEAKER- Woo!
21:35SPEAKER- We did it. - Oh wait, is that good or bad?
21:37SPEAKER- We did it, everybody.
21:38SPEAKERIt was 0.23C warmer than the average summer this year.
21:46SPEAKERAnd when we say average summer,
21:48SPEAKERthey always look at the summer in the Northern hemisphere.
21:52SPEAKERSo generally like June through August.
21:55SPEAKERAnd so it was about 0.23C warmer than the average summer
21:58SPEAKERgoing back to the mid '80s.
22:01SPEAKERIt's about 1.2C warmer if you take the average summer
22:04SPEAKERbasically from the early 20th century forward.
22:09SPEAKERAnd we saw some pretty spectacular ramifications
22:12SPEAKERof this warming this year with the wildfires in Canada
22:15SPEAKERand Hawaii and well, given where we live, I think,
22:18SPEAKERand going through wildfires in previous seasons,
22:21SPEAKERI have a lot of empathy for people in those areas.
22:25SPEAKERHawaii, we saw an entire town obliterated by a wildfire
22:29SPEAKERin one of the most sad sequences of this year.
22:34SPEAKERSo the ramifications are real.
22:36SPEAKER- Well, and it's one of those things,
22:38SPEAKERit's one of those things that there's a temptation
22:41SPEAKERto be like, oh, our fires were worse in California
22:43SPEAKERor our fires are worse in Canada or whatever.
22:45SPEAKERThe thing is it's all the same fires.
22:48SPEAKERLike we're literally all having the same climate disaster.
22:51SPEAKERIt's the fires in Canada, the fires in California
22:53SPEAKERthree years ago, the fires in the Northwest last year,
22:57SPEAKERthe fires in Hawaii this year, they're all the same fires
23:00SPEAKERand it's just gonna keep getting worse.
23:02SPEAKERSo that's fun.
23:04SPEAKER- Yeah, so I saw, I became aware of this kind of emerging
23:10SPEAKERframework for looking at risk to our biosphere.
23:15SPEAKERThat takes climate into account and kind of puts it
23:17SPEAKERin a context, some of the things,
23:19SPEAKERwhere we should prioritize our efforts.
23:22SPEAKERThis is called the nine boundaries framework.
23:25SPEAKERIt was developed by a Swedish scientist
23:28SPEAKERand their team, Johan Rockström.
23:32SPEAKERI think it was in 2009, he developed this
23:35SPEAKERand he was like looking at nine basic threats
23:39SPEAKERto our biosphere, to like life existing on this planet.
23:44SPEAKERAnd evaluating by various modeling where we are
23:50SPEAKERin like sort of a risk pool with this.
23:52SPEAKERAnd so this was looking at stuff like ozone depletion,
23:57SPEAKERaerosols in the atmosphere, ocean acidification,
24:00SPEAKERclimate change as we've been talking about it,
24:02SPEAKERlike greenhouse gases, that kind of stuff.
24:06SPEAKERBiological diversity, how we're changing our land use,
24:10SPEAKERavailability of fresh water, how nitrogen and phosphorus
24:15SPEAKERare flowing through our geochemical landscape
24:19SPEAKERbecause that affects like how we can produce food.
24:22SPEAKERAnd it started to sort of create risk maps,
24:26SPEAKERlike heat maps of how much risk we have in this.
24:29SPEAKERIn some areas we're doing really well.
24:31SPEAKEROzone acidification is still in this kind of manageable zone
24:35SPEAKERwhere it's not massively threatening life at a scale
24:41SPEAKERthat could lead to biosphere collapse.
24:43SPEAKERHey, one for us.
24:44SPEAKER- Right, we're not filled with jellyfish yet.
24:47SPEAKER- Yeah, exactly.
24:49SPEAKERAnd then at the same time, there's stuff happening
24:52SPEAKERlike on the mass extinction that's happening
24:56SPEAKERand we're losing genetic diversity at an alarming rate.
24:59SPEAKERThose sort of off the scale bad
25:01SPEAKERthat we don't often talk about.
25:03SPEAKERAnd so while climate change is bad,
25:05SPEAKERwe're also seeing some problems in like nitrogen
25:08SPEAKERand phosphorus slowly flowing out of our soils.
25:14SPEAKERAnd we're seeing this sort of massive loss of genetic
25:16SPEAKERdiversity that kind of puts into like relief
25:20SPEAKERwhere we should be emphasizing our time and investment.
25:25SPEAKERAnd so there's this exceptional set of graphs
25:27SPEAKERand illustrations that really put out
25:30SPEAKERthis nine boundaries thing.
25:31SPEAKERIt helped me really think about what the priorities are
25:35SPEAKERahead and as there's a new study out every couple of weeks
25:39SPEAKERon climate change and these existential threats,
25:43SPEAKERit also kind of helped me sort of focus
25:45SPEAKERwhere I should put my attention and energy.
25:48SPEAKER- So where are you focusing your attention
25:50SPEAKERand energy, Kishore?
25:52SPEAKER- So I think we don't talk enough
25:54SPEAKERabout the loss of genetic diversity.
25:56SPEAKERAnd so protection of like habitats for species
26:00SPEAKERand not just like the cute ones.
26:02SPEAKERLike we have to talk about all sorts of like bugs
26:05SPEAKERand other insects.
26:06SPEAKERSo that kind of eco sub system level maintenance.
26:10SPEAKERI think that one is under discussed
26:14SPEAKERand needs to be the more focus put on.
26:18SPEAKERClimate change is still like a thing
26:21SPEAKERthat we have to talk about.
26:25SPEAKERI think like there's an increasing need for us to talk
26:30SPEAKERabout pollutants that we're putting into the environment,
26:33SPEAKERlike micro plastics, certain kinds of human made
26:40SPEAKERjust sort of like polluting the environment.
26:42SPEAKERLike it's called novel entities in this framework.
26:46SPEAKERI think we should put even more attention
26:48SPEAKERon how we clean that stuff up.
26:52SPEAKERI think those are the ones where that struck me as like,
26:55SPEAKERoh, we don't like put enough attention on us
26:58SPEAKERbecause we're talking about really warming
27:00SPEAKERof the planet more so than some of these other effects
27:04SPEAKERthat are all interconnected.
27:05SPEAKERBut it kind of gave me a little bit of pause.
27:08SPEAKER- Yeah, so I'll put a link to the graph in the show notes
27:13SPEAKERso people can find it.
27:14SPEAKERBut it's interesting 'cause like,
27:16SPEAKERhey, shout outs to the ozone depletion.
27:18SPEAKERWe solved that one.
27:20SPEAKERNice job everybody.
27:21SPEAKER- We did it.
27:22SPEAKER- But it's an interesting thing to think about
27:25SPEAKERbecause we literally, I guess it was an easier problem
27:28SPEAKER'cause there was a unilateral solution stop shipping CFCs,
27:32SPEAKERwhich we agreed to do as a species in the '80s.
27:35SPEAKERAnd now that problem is essentially solved.
27:37SPEAKERLike I think we're seeing that stuff as less of an issue.
27:42SPEAKERThe ozone holes are, I don't know what the opposite
27:45SPEAKERdepleted is restocked, repleted.
27:50SPEAKERYeah, so the thing to me is that,
27:54SPEAKERso the genetic diversity is clearly,
27:58SPEAKERwe're in a moment, a bad moment with genetic diversity.
28:01SPEAKERBut also if the climate continues to heat up
28:03SPEAKERat the current rate,
28:04SPEAKERthen if the planet continues to heat up at the current rate,
28:06SPEAKERthen the genetic diversity is gonna get even worse
28:09SPEAKERbecause the things that can survive.
28:12SPEAKERLook, this is the year I learned
28:14SPEAKERabout wet bulb temperatures
28:15SPEAKERand it's kind of haunted me since then.
28:17SPEAKERSo yeah, it seems like you have a big long-term problem
28:24SPEAKERthat's coming out, it's like a freight train,
28:26SPEAKERand then a bunch of also big, but slightly smaller
28:28SPEAKERdifferent scale problems that maybe there's more
28:33SPEAKERpressing action we can take, I guess,
28:34SPEAKERwhich is the interesting thing about this chart.
28:36SPEAKER- Hey, it's all interconnected.
28:38SPEAKERSo I'm not suggesting otherwise,
28:40SPEAKERbut I think I'm into this term that you've developed now.
28:45SPEAKEROzone repletion?
28:47SPEAKER- Repletion?
28:48SPEAKER- Yeah, we're just gonna replete the planet
28:51SPEAKERwith genetic diversity.
28:53SPEAKER- That sounds very creepy.
28:54SPEAKERNow I take that back, I take that back.
28:56SPEAKERThat sounds very, very bad.
28:59SPEAKER- Well, dockers are coming back,
29:00SPEAKERso the pleats are back to Kishore.
29:02SPEAKER- Dockers are not coming back.
29:03SPEAKER- No, dockers aren't coming back, we're good.
29:05SPEAKERWe're fine, everything's cool. - That can't be real.
29:08SPEAKER- You know what is coming back though?
29:09SPEAKERYou know what's never been hotter is the moon.
29:12SPEAKER- Oh, so hot.
29:13SPEAKER- Well, just one side it turns out.
29:15SPEAKER- We are back in like a moon race all of a sudden,
29:18SPEAKERand it's not just like, hey, let's all go to the moon.
29:22SPEAKERIt's like moon on a budget is happening.
29:25SPEAKER- I like a cheap moon.
29:26SPEAKER- I wanna give a shout out
29:27SPEAKERto the Indian Space Research Organization, ISRO,
29:32SPEAKERwhich landed a mission on the moon
29:35SPEAKERat the Lunar South Pole, Chindrayan 3.
29:40SPEAKERI did not think this was gonna happen,
29:42SPEAKERpartially because Chindrayan 2
29:44SPEAKERhad one of the most spectacular crashes
29:48SPEAKERon the moon in 2019.
29:49SPEAKER- Oh, that's the one that just hammered in at full speed,
29:52SPEAKERbasically, right?
29:53SPEAKER- Well, it had kind of an explosion.
29:56SPEAKERIt wasn't great, but they put together this mission,
30:00SPEAKERwhich included like an orbit of the moon
30:04SPEAKERand then a lander, the Vikram lander,
30:06SPEAKERwhich actually landed at the Lunar South Pole.
30:09SPEAKERThe total budget was somewhere between 60 and $90 million.
30:12SPEAKERThat is like nothing in like the grand scheme
30:16SPEAKERof sending something to the moon.
30:19SPEAKERAnd there's just this incredible scene.
30:23SPEAKERLike the live stream,
30:24SPEAKERI think there was like 10 million people
30:26SPEAKERthat ended up watching it.
30:28SPEAKERIt's a huge moment of like national pride.
30:31SPEAKERThis is the first time a country outside of China
30:35SPEAKERhas landed something on the moon in like 50 years almost.
30:40SPEAKERAnd Russia has been trying to do this
30:44SPEAKERand hasn't had a successful mission for landing.
30:47SPEAKERObviously we announced the Artemis mission
30:50SPEAKERto go back to the moon.
30:52SPEAKERSo there's stuff happening,
30:54SPEAKERbut just to see this done in a way that was like cheap,
31:00SPEAKERis that the wrong word here?
31:02SPEAKER- Like, look, I'm trying to do the math.
31:04SPEAKERIt's like less than a 10th of an Artemis flight, right?
31:08SPEAKER'Cause they're a billion and a half each or something.
31:10SPEAKERSo yeah, like we sent an Artemis capsule
31:14SPEAKERand it just circled the moon for a little bit
31:15SPEAKERand then came back and that cost way more
31:19SPEAKERthan 60 to $90 million.
31:21SPEAKER- Turns out when you try to send like humans places,
31:25SPEAKERit gets expensive.
31:28SPEAKER- Like Chris Roberts has spent four of these missions
31:30SPEAKERmaking his space game.
31:37SPEAKERRecording these early in the morning is a problem.
31:42SPEAKER- It is Robert's star citizen, sorry.
31:46SPEAKERYeah, he spent hundreds of millions of dollars
31:48SPEAKERmaking star citizen.
31:49SPEAKERHe could have gone to the actual moon for that.
31:52SPEAKER- Yeah.
31:53SPEAKER- He hired the right people.
31:56SPEAKER- And you could have had an awesome live stream
31:59SPEAKERand they were gonna do some like sampling of soil there
32:05SPEAKERwith the Vikram lander and stuff.
32:07SPEAKERI just think it's like such a win and it makes me have,
32:10SPEAKERand like the, I don't know why this makes me happy.
32:13SPEAKERI always loved like the view into like mission control
32:16SPEAKERcenters when space landings are happening.
32:19SPEAKERThe Indian one is so chaotic.
32:21SPEAKERThere's like a million people in there for some reason.
32:23SPEAKERAnd all these like uncles and aunties are just like
32:25SPEAKERhaving the time of their lives.
32:27SPEAKERIt's really like uplifting and wonderful.
32:30SPEAKER- That's so cool.
32:31SPEAKER(upbeat music)
32:35SPEAKEROkay, Kishore, there was also kind of some science woo
32:39SPEAKERthis year for lack of a better term.
32:41SPEAKER- Yeah, Will, what would you say if I just told you
32:45SPEAKERI've invented a room temperature superconductor?
32:48SPEAKERIt just works.
32:49SPEAKER- Look, I would probably just be like,
32:50SPEAKERtake your word for it and write a whole bunch of news
32:53SPEAKERstories and put it on like the nightly news about how it's
32:55SPEAKERgonna revolutionize computing and the power grid
32:58SPEAKERand solve all of our energy problems.
33:01SPEAKERMaybe talk about new motor designs.
33:03SPEAKERProbably I'd ask Elon Musk and see what he thinks.
33:06SPEAKERAnd I definitely wouldn't try to replicate that
33:10SPEAKERor run it through some sort of a vetting process
33:14SPEAKERor anything like that though.
33:16SPEAKER- For those that have forgotten about this,
33:18SPEAKERthe one week where room temperature superconductors
33:21SPEAKERruled the internet, two South Korean scientists
33:25SPEAKERpublished a preprint claiming they had with a new compound
33:31SPEAKERcalled LK99 achieved room temperature superconductivity.
33:35SPEAKERIt was at what they claimed 104 degrees Celsius,
33:39SPEAKERwhich is pretty chill on the grand scheme of thing.
33:44SPEAKERThis LK99 is a lead copper complex.
33:49SPEAKERAnd this complex was essentially they infused copper
33:52SPEAKERinto this lead based mineral.
33:56SPEAKERThe complications here is that the structure of this mineral
34:01SPEAKERis polycrystalline, so it's not like a one crystal structure
34:07SPEAKERthroughout and so it's prone to all sorts of contamination
34:12SPEAKERor misshapen kind of development of this complex.
34:17SPEAKERSo when they claimed they had developed this particular
34:20SPEAKERcomplex, people were like, wait a minute,
34:24SPEAKERis this like actually a consistent thing
34:26SPEAKERor are you getting just weird behavior because you don't
34:28SPEAKERhave this homogenous superconductor.
34:32SPEAKERPeople tried to replicate this in the weeks to come
34:35SPEAKERand basically found that it didn't work.
34:38SPEAKERBut the crazy thing about LK99 is how one thread
34:43SPEAKERon Twitter from this one like amateur physicist
34:47SPEAKERwent completely viral and people are like, we've done it.
34:50SPEAKERPeople have done it, we've achieved it.
34:53SPEAKERWe have made a room temperature superconductor
34:56SPEAKERand then all sorts of weirdness started coming out
34:58SPEAKERfrom the scientists.
34:59SPEAKERIt was one of those like we have solved the world's
35:03SPEAKERenergy problems to no we didn't in a span of 48 hours.
35:08SPEAKERIt was thrilling.
35:09SPEAKER- It was, yeah, it was a real journey.
35:12SPEAKERIt reminded me a lot of the Time or Newsweek story
35:15SPEAKERabout cold fusion in like 1989 when some folks at I think
35:20SPEAKERUtah were like, hey, we got room temperature fusion
35:23SPEAKERhappening over here, just get your flying cars ready.
35:26SPEAKERWe got the energy sources, we're gonna make this happen
35:29SPEAKERand then like nobody could repeat the work
35:31SPEAKERand it turned out to be complete woo.
35:33SPEAKER- My favorite was I saw a scientist of like quote, tweet,
35:39SPEAKERthe initial thread and it was like, sure.
35:41SPEAKER(laughing)
35:45SPEAKERThat was it.
35:46SPEAKER- This is the thing I miss about Twitter.
35:48SPEAKERI miss these conversations and these interactions.
35:52SPEAKERDamn you, Elon Musk.
35:53SPEAKERAnyway, so what's gonna like, nothing's happened.
35:57SPEAKERNothing's happening with this.
35:58SPEAKERIt's all like, yeah, it's not a real thing.
36:01SPEAKER- It's not a real thing.
36:03SPEAKERThere is a lot of contamination probably
36:05SPEAKERin their experiment.
36:06SPEAKERLike we don't think that there is sort of malfeasance here
36:10SPEAKERor anything else like that.
36:11SPEAKERAnd just like an experiment that wasn't controlled
36:15SPEAKERin a way that accounted for like all sorts of contamination
36:18SPEAKERand other effects within this.
36:21SPEAKERSo it was like, it was an interesting idea to try.
36:24SPEAKERAnd so it was fine.
36:25SPEAKERIt's partially, it was like the hype train
36:28SPEAKERaround like a non peer reviewed paper,
36:31SPEAKERgetting out of control is really the story.
36:33SPEAKER- I was gonna say, this is like,
36:35SPEAKERis this the downside of like using archive
36:38SPEAKERinstead of doing the normal peer review process?
36:40SPEAKER'Cause like if they had submitted this to nature,
36:42SPEAKERthey would have not published a pre-print for it, right?
36:46SPEAKER- I think that's too like too far
36:49SPEAKERbecause like they didn't like release this paper
36:52SPEAKERon the pre-print server and then have like a press conference
36:55SPEAKERwhere they're like, we did it.
36:56SPEAKERThey like release it in this pre-print server to like,
36:59SPEAKERshow to other scientists and like publishing the work early
37:02SPEAKERis critical for things, especially like this,
37:05SPEAKERwhere you try to come up with validation,
37:07SPEAKERyou need to see the formulation.
37:09SPEAKERNow they weren't super forthcoming about like
37:12SPEAKERhow they made this and the methods
37:14SPEAKERand all of that kind of stuff.
37:15SPEAKERThat's a separate conversation.
37:18SPEAKERBut it was really like somebody else going on there
37:21SPEAKERand being like, this is it everybody, we've done it.
37:25SPEAKERThat turned it into a crazy moment.
37:27SPEAKERAnd it's this tension between like,
37:30SPEAKERthe old information wanting to be free adage
37:34SPEAKERand like actors acting badly with information.
37:39SPEAKER- This is the science equivalent of those people
37:41SPEAKERthat watch patent filings and look for an Apple patent.
37:44SPEAKERThey're like, okay, I got the next iPhone here.
37:46SPEAKERThree years from now, they're gonna have a folding one.
37:48SPEAKERIt folds twice, it turns into a little square
37:50SPEAKERand you put in your pocket
37:51SPEAKERand then it's the size of a refrigerator.
37:53SPEAKER- Yeah, I think it happens.
37:55SPEAKERI chuckle about it, the whole thing.
37:59SPEAKERI thought it was hilarious, which leads me into like
38:03SPEAKERsome of the stories that brought me
38:04SPEAKERthe most delight this year.
38:06SPEAKER- Yeah.
38:08SPEAKER- And I'll start out by just saying like,
38:10SPEAKERIberian orca whales, just like huge thumbs up for me.
38:14SPEAKERBecause earlier this year, a set of Iberian orcas
38:19SPEAKERin the Strait of Gibraltar were just like a few boats
38:23SPEAKERand started ramming rudders on fishing ships in the area.
38:28SPEAKERAnd they started sinking boats.
38:29SPEAKERAnd at this point, we still don't know why
38:33SPEAKERthis started happening.
38:35SPEAKEROne scientist suggested that one of the orcas
38:39SPEAKERhad a bad experience with another boat
38:43SPEAKERand likely informed other orcas in some way
38:46SPEAKERabout this bad experience
38:48SPEAKERleading to this sort of pack behavior.
38:50SPEAKER- Wow.
38:51SPEAKER- There's a slight downside to this
38:52SPEAKERin the sense that an open letter was published
38:55SPEAKERby a series of marine biologists in the wake of this
38:58SPEAKERsaying like, this is very funny.
39:01SPEAKERLike acknowledging just how this sort of
39:03SPEAKERlit up the internet.
39:04SPEAKERBut at the same time, they're like,
39:06SPEAKERthere will be reprisals against these orcas
39:08SPEAKERif this kind of stuff continues.
39:10SPEAKERThese are people's livelihood, these boats and stuff.
39:14SPEAKERAnd they're really worried that action will be taken
39:17SPEAKERagainst these orcas.
39:18SPEAKERAnd we're also anthropomorphizing these orcas pretty quickly.
39:22SPEAKERWe're like, oh yeah, some fishermen pissed them off
39:25SPEAKERand that's why they're hitting this.
39:26SPEAKERIt's not exactly how their mind works.
39:30SPEAKERSo we have to be cautious about that.
39:32SPEAKERBut also like, F them boats.
39:34SPEAKER- Yeah, I mean look, the billionaires don't pay their taxes.
39:36SPEAKERTheir yachts are gonna take the punishment.
39:38SPEAKERThat's what the orcas say.
39:40SPEAKERAnd I for one, welcome our new orca overlords.
39:44SPEAKER- I'm with you.
39:45SPEAKER- The thing about the orcas sharing knowledge
39:47SPEAKERbetween pods of orcas is the,
39:49SPEAKER'cause the other thing that came out this year
39:51SPEAKERis that they, the way they hunt,
39:54SPEAKERthe way they hunt great white sharks is fascinating.
39:57SPEAKERApparently orcas love the taste of great white shark liver.
39:59SPEAKERAnd if they know that if they bite them in the right spot,
40:02SPEAKERthey can just suck the liver right out of them.
40:04SPEAKERWhich is horrifying and nightmarish,
40:08SPEAKERbut also kind of amazing.
40:09SPEAKERAnd like A, it's affecting the shark migrations,
40:14SPEAKERit seems like, 'cause the knowledge of how to do this
40:18SPEAKERhas spread from orca pod to orca pod
40:20SPEAKERaround the world in the last couple of years.
40:22SPEAKERSo the war between the sharks and the orcas continues,
40:25SPEAKERI guess.
40:26SPEAKERMaybe the boats are just an innocent bystander.
40:29SPEAKER(laughing)
40:30SPEAKER- Oh, those poor boats.
40:31SPEAKERWhat will they ever do?
40:32SPEAKER- Well, why will no one think of the super yachts, Kishore?
40:35SPEAKER(laughing)
40:36SPEAKER- You know what we haven't done yet?
40:38SPEAKER- No.
40:39SPEAKER- We have a math story.
40:41SPEAKER- I love math.
40:42SPEAKER- We usually have a great math story.
40:43SPEAKERDo you have a good one for us?
40:45SPEAKER- Well, so okay, so non-repeating tiles
40:48SPEAKERare like a math nerd thing that math nerds around the world
40:51SPEAKERhave loved to think about for a long time.
40:53SPEAKERAnd for a long time, the idea was to find,
40:57SPEAKERwhat's the smallest number of tiles you can devise
41:00SPEAKERthat will let you create a non-repeating pattern
41:02SPEAKERinfinitely over an infinite plane.
41:05SPEAKERAnd previously, I think for a long time,
41:08SPEAKERyears and years ago,
41:09SPEAKERthis is a problem from the '50s or '60s,
41:11SPEAKERsomebody came up with a set of like 30,000 tiles,
41:14SPEAKER25,000 tiles that you can use
41:17SPEAKERand find a completely non-repeating pattern.
41:19SPEAKERThis shows up as a bit
41:21SPEAKERin Neal Stephenson's "An Anthem" book briefly.
41:24SPEAKERLike it's the kind of thing that like I filed away
41:26SPEAKERin the back of my mind for a long time.
41:29SPEAKERThe current record as of last year
41:31SPEAKERwas a set of two different tile shapes
41:34SPEAKERthat you could tile infinitely
41:35SPEAKERand not have a repeating pattern.
41:37SPEAKER- Yeah, I will say for those that are like,
41:40SPEAKERwhat are they talking about?
41:42SPEAKERIf you like rewind to like high school mathematics,
41:46SPEAKERthere'll be this idea of like Penrose tiling
41:50SPEAKERthat will come up and it's named after Roger Penrose.
41:53SPEAKERHe's a famous mathematician/theoretical physicist
41:57SPEAKERwho modeled a lot of black hole behavior.
41:59SPEAKERHe won the Nobel Prize for his work on black holes in 2020.
42:03SPEAKERAnd he was trying to see if he could have a non-repeating
42:07SPEAKERpattern of tiles to cover a space
42:10SPEAKERto help explain like some of the black hole morphology
42:14SPEAKERor topology, excuse me.
42:16SPEAKERAnd Penrose tiles became like a high school
42:20SPEAKERkind of high school math problem that we'd often see.
42:24SPEAKERAnd these set of tiles, if you like Google Penrose tile,
42:27SPEAKERyou'll probably like bring up a memory for you
42:30SPEAKERof these non-repeating tiles covering a space.
42:33SPEAKER- It turns out.
42:34SPEAKER- Yeah, oh yeah, we might be too old.
42:35SPEAKER- We're too old for sure, yeah.
42:39SPEAKER- But this idea of like an infinite number
42:43SPEAKERof non-repeating tiles is like totally wild to me
42:47SPEAKERthat they're able to like actually figure this out.
42:50SPEAKER- It's an absolutely nightmare.
42:52SPEAKERAnd the amazing thing about this,
42:53SPEAKERI'm actually pulling up the article right now,
42:55SPEAKERbut the amazing thing about it is it wasn't like some
42:58SPEAKERheavy duty mathematician who figured this out.
43:00SPEAKERIt was actually a retiree who likes math.
43:05SPEAKERAnd he, aperiodic tiling is the problem,
43:08SPEAKERis the name of the problem.
43:09SPEAKERThe guy's name is David Smith.
43:11SPEAKERAnd his Wikipedia entry says
43:13SPEAKERDavid Smith parentheses hobbyist.
43:15SPEAKERHe was a retired print technician from England
43:18SPEAKERwho discovered basically a 13 sided polygon
43:24SPEAKERthat can be tiled infinitely with no repeating patterns.
43:30SPEAKERIt's a single shape, not just as a single shape,
43:33SPEAKERit's built out of hexagons,
43:35SPEAKERso the angles are all three different, three specific angles
43:38SPEAKERand the further work that came from his initial shape
43:43SPEAKERshows that he's discovered a whole class of shapes
43:46SPEAKERthat can be aperiodically tiled to infinitely.
43:50SPEAKERSo yeah, it's a whole new period of tile math.
43:53SPEAKERNow the place that I'm disappointed, I'm gonna say,
43:56SPEAKERwhen I was reading about this the other day,
43:58SPEAKERthe first thing I found is that I can go download SVGs
44:02SPEAKERfrom my laser cutter right now
44:03SPEAKERand cut all the aperiodic Einstein tiles.
44:06SPEAKERJust to be clear, Einstein is the German for one stone
44:10SPEAKERor not named after Albert Einstein in this case,
44:14SPEAKER'cause it's one tile that you can tile infinitely.
44:17SPEAKERSo I can cut on the laser cutter
44:20SPEAKERall the Einstein tiles I want.
44:23SPEAKERNobody is yet making Einstein tiles for my bathroom floor.
44:27SPEAKERThat's the yet.
44:30SPEAKER- Yet is the key word there.
44:31SPEAKER- Yeah, that's the final frontier as far as I'm concerned.
44:33SPEAKERI want aperiodic tiling in my house.
44:36SPEAKER- Oh, that's an amazing idea.
44:38SPEAKER- Right.
44:39SPEAKER- Well, this is the end of "Brad and Will Make a Tech Pod"
44:42SPEAKERas Will has embarked on a new career.
44:47SPEAKERAll of a sudden, you're off the coast of Spain
44:50SPEAKERin your billionaire tile-funded yacht
44:53SPEAKERand orcas are attacking you.
44:54SPEAKERThat's what the future holds.
44:55SPEAKER- I don't know if you know how much money
44:58SPEAKERtile makers generally make, sure,
45:00SPEAKERbut I don't think it's yacht money, probably.
45:02SPEAKERIt's definitely not something
45:02SPEAKERthat your orca would care about.
45:05SPEAKER- I want to believe.
45:07SPEAKERI'll put a link to a story about David Smith in the Discord.
45:12SPEAKER- David Smith, hobbyist?
45:13SPEAKER- Yeah, David Smith, hobbyist, looks the part,
45:16SPEAKERI will just say.
45:17SPEAKERI don't wanna stereotype how hobbyists look.
45:19SPEAKERThis guy looks like a full-on hobbyist
45:22SPEAKERand I couldn't be more proud
45:23SPEAKERbecause it really illustrates
45:26SPEAKERthat maybe I have the ability
45:28SPEAKERto become a Kishore Hari hobbyist on Wikipedia.
45:31SPEAKERThat's a life goal.
45:32SPEAKER- I just love that there's still room
45:36SPEAKERfor somebody who's just an enthusiast
45:38SPEAKERto download a piece of software
45:39SPEAKERand solve a hard math problem that's 60 years old.
45:43SPEAKERThat's amazing.
45:45SPEAKER- I love it.
45:46SPEAKERSo we have one last story to kinda end
45:48SPEAKERthat I think is so fun,
45:50SPEAKERlike building off of what we talked about last year.
45:53SPEAKERWe talked a lot about DeepMind's AlphaFold project,
45:57SPEAKERwhich was an AI tool to predict all the structures
46:02SPEAKERof proteins in the human body.
46:04SPEAKERAnd they predicted six to 700 million structures.
46:08SPEAKERAnd AI and science has iterated in enormous ways this year.
46:12SPEAKER- I think it's not woo, it's a good thing.
46:14SPEAKER- It's not woo, but it's also not quite reality,
46:18SPEAKERbut AlphaFold's a great example of it.
46:20SPEAKERSo it's like, now we have all these predictions of proteins.
46:23SPEAKERWhat do you do with that?
46:24SPEAKERAnd so what they did is they released a new tool this year
46:27SPEAKERcalled Alpha Missense.
46:29SPEAKERMissense mutations are these genetic mutations
46:32SPEAKERwhere one amino acid is substituted for another in your body
46:37SPEAKERand it causes big ramifications
46:38SPEAKERfor proteins that are produced.
46:41SPEAKERAnd oftentimes these have tremendous consequences
46:45SPEAKERon human health.
46:45SPEAKERThey lead to like epilepsies, major kinda conditions
46:49SPEAKERbecause you have the wrong protein produced
46:51SPEAKERor no protein produced,
46:52SPEAKERthen like certain functions of the body just don't happen.
46:55SPEAKERSo these mutations are really important.
46:57SPEAKERSo they took all this information about how proteins fold
47:01SPEAKERand basically then turned that into,
47:03SPEAKERlet's look at all the possible missense mutations
47:06SPEAKERthat can happen in the human body
47:08SPEAKERbased off of that information
47:10SPEAKERand then predict based on the information we have
47:12SPEAKERand how the proteins fold,
47:14SPEAKERwhich ones are gonna be pathogenic,
47:16SPEAKERwhich ones are gonna be benign
47:17SPEAKERand which ones we're just like don't really know
47:19SPEAKERbased on what we see.
47:21SPEAKERAnd they released this tool
47:23SPEAKERand then there's all this like clinical data
47:25SPEAKERthey compared it to.
47:26SPEAKERAnd there's these places where this tool basically
47:28SPEAKERhas disagreement with the clinical data that is like exciting
47:32SPEAKER'cause now we can like explore
47:34SPEAKERwhat is this disagreement about?
47:36SPEAKERIs this an area that we weren't thinking about before
47:38SPEAKERand a mutation we have to really pay attention to?
47:41SPEAKERSo we're seeing AI make that leap
47:44SPEAKERfrom using these large data sets
47:47SPEAKERinto like actual digestible information
47:49SPEAKERthat's informing scientific experiments really quickly.
47:53SPEAKERThat's a span of six months that that happened.
47:56SPEAKER- So it's interesting 'cause the application
47:57SPEAKERis the thing that machine learning is for, right?
47:59SPEAKERLike instead of using it to generate legal opinions
48:03SPEAKERthat don't exist or make pictures of people
48:06SPEAKERdoing things that they never did,
48:08SPEAKERyou're actually sorting through a massive amount of data
48:10SPEAKERand finding things that are similar and weird.
48:13SPEAKER- Yes, but when you have powerful tools like that,
48:15SPEAKERyou can also design really weird, funky experiments.
48:20SPEAKER- Okay, I love a fun experiment.
48:21SPEAKER- So a team at UC Berkeley that was studying epilepsy,
48:26SPEAKERthey had 29 patients.
48:27SPEAKERAnd oftentimes when you're studying people
48:30SPEAKERwith a neurodevelopmental or neuro mechanical problems,
48:35SPEAKERyou'll use MRI imaging and have them perform a task
48:39SPEAKERwhile you're inside this MRI.
48:40SPEAKERI've done this for some like cognitive neuroscience stuff.
48:43SPEAKERYou like just sit inside the giant magnet
48:46SPEAKERand there's a screen above you
48:48SPEAKERthat usually give you a series of questions or tasks.
48:51SPEAKERIn this one, which was designed by the night lab
48:54SPEAKERat UC Berkeley, they played a sound clip
48:58SPEAKERto the people that had this condition.
49:00SPEAKERThere was also some controls in there
49:02SPEAKERand then recorded a brain scan.
49:04SPEAKERAnd then they used an AI algorithm
49:09SPEAKERto actually model out and reconstruct
49:11SPEAKERbased off the neuron behavior, what the song was.
49:15SPEAKERSo they basically played them a song,
49:17SPEAKERrecorded how the neurons were operating
49:20SPEAKERand then tried to use an algorithm
49:22SPEAKERto recreate that song from it.
49:25SPEAKER- Okay, I'm just gonna,
49:27SPEAKERthey took a picture of the person's brain
49:29SPEAKERwhile they were listening to the song
49:32SPEAKERand then they made the song back
49:33SPEAKERfrom the picture of the brain.
49:35SPEAKERSo it's like you're making a 3D model
49:37SPEAKERof something by looking at its shadow basically.
49:40SPEAKER- Yeah, except it's even more complicated than that.
49:42SPEAKER- Of course, yeah.
49:44SPEAKER- So this is wild.
49:45SPEAKERAnd then they released the audio
49:47SPEAKERof what they reconstructed based off this algorithm.
49:51SPEAKER- I'm guessing where it says, we'll play this clip.
49:53SPEAKERThis is where I play the clip probably?
49:54SPEAKER- Yeah.
49:55SPEAKER- Okay, I'm gonna play the clip right now.
49:56SPEAKER(soft music)
50:07SPEAKER(soft music)
50:11SPEAKER- Wow, that is a lot of like organs and harmonics
50:14SPEAKERand like I hear voices, but not really.
50:17SPEAKERIt's really weird.
50:18SPEAKER- Yeah, so there's a lot of bias in this algorithm
50:21SPEAKERbecause it's like, it's reconstructed.
50:23SPEAKERThe model they built has a little bit of bias in it
50:26SPEAKERin that they sort of tuned it for this situation.
50:31SPEAKERAnd it kind of sounds like a very low kilohertz
50:34SPEAKERlike rendition of a song.
50:36SPEAKER- This is a song you know, Will.
50:38SPEAKERIt's a fellow old like myself.
50:40SPEAKERYou've heard this song.
50:41SPEAKERDo you have any guesses on what the song?
50:43SPEAKER- I've listened to it like three times now.
50:47SPEAKER(humming)
50:50SPEAKERSomething go on.
50:54SPEAKER'Cause you're smiling.
50:56SPEAKER- You're not far off.
50:59SPEAKERIt's not go on.
51:00SPEAKERI will say it's the word they're saying there is wall,
51:05SPEAKERnot go on.
51:06SPEAKER- Oh, is it Pink Floyd's The Wall?
51:08SPEAKER- It's another brick in the wall part two.
51:10SPEAKERAnd like you can kind of hear once you like actually know
51:15SPEAKERthat that's a song they're recreating,
51:17SPEAKERyou can actually hear it.
51:18SPEAKER- It feels like a slow.
51:21SPEAKEROkay, so what if, you know what it sounds like?
51:23SPEAKERI mean, it'll be, you've heard it by now.
51:25SPEAKERIt sounds like when you used to download MIDI files
51:28SPEAKERin the nineties and you would play them
51:30SPEAKERon whatever bad MIDI stack your PC sound card had
51:33SPEAKERand like you'd flip it to like the organ
51:35SPEAKERand hall set up and then play it like half speed.
51:38SPEAKERAnd that's kind of where you end up.
51:41SPEAKERThat's a trip.
51:42SPEAKER- For all the silly stuff that AI is being used
51:45SPEAKERfor this year, I just wanna say there's equally interesting
51:50SPEAKERand weird applications and science going on
51:53SPEAKERthat make me smile.
51:54SPEAKERNow, do I think this is gonna lead
51:56SPEAKERto some revolutionary breakthrough
51:57SPEAKERor anything else like that?
51:59SPEAKERNo, but it's just kind of fun application of the technology.
52:04SPEAKER- Well, and there are, we didn't get, we had to,
52:07SPEAKERit was a hard cut to get to the list that we got
52:09SPEAKERfor this show.
52:10SPEAKERThere was some stuff that I didn't even put on the list
52:13SPEAKERthat people are doing with the vision research
52:15SPEAKERwhere they're taking like direct feed signals
52:18SPEAKERfrom optic nerves and turning them into pictures
52:20SPEAKERon screens and things like that.
52:22SPEAKERLike we're, there are things that are happening
52:25SPEAKERwith computers and machine learning and the brain
52:28SPEAKERthat don't involve killing thousands of monkeys
52:31SPEAKERthat are actually potentially impactful down the road.
52:34SPEAKERSo I, you know, maybe, we'll see.
52:37SPEAKER- This was a fun year of science again.
52:40SPEAKERThis wasn't as dynamic as some past years
52:44SPEAKERwhere we had some discoveries and developments
52:47SPEAKERthat just sort of blew the roof off.
52:49SPEAKERBut at the same time, like what a year.
52:52SPEAKERLike we were talking about like treatments
52:54SPEAKERfor obesity at scale, curing diseases,
52:59SPEAKERslamming stuff into the moon,
53:02SPEAKERorcas slamming into boats, like not a bad year.
53:05SPEAKER- Yeah, and I might get a new bathroom floor.
53:09SPEAKERKishore, thank you so much for coming by.
53:11SPEAKERWhere can people find you?
53:12SPEAKER- You know what, just find me on the Discord.
53:15SPEAKER- Yeah, you're there.
53:16SPEAKER- That's the place, yeah, that's the place to find me
53:18SPEAKERif you want my take on anything.
53:21SPEAKERJust a warning, you don't need my take on things,
53:23SPEAKERbut if you'd want one, I'm happy to deliver one.
53:27SPEAKER- The place that I love your take is to separate
53:29SPEAKERthe real science from the woo, Kishore.
53:32SPEAKERIt's always, always helpful.
53:34SPEAKER- I'm gonna just be exclusively in there
53:36SPEAKERtalking about tiling bathrooms and bidets from now on.
53:40SPEAKERBut I think that is my sweet spot.
53:41SPEAKER- What kind of grout do you like?
53:43SPEAKERYou like a sandy grout?
53:44SPEAKERYou like something a little more?
53:48SPEAKER- I'm definitely like a gray grout,
53:50SPEAKERlike the white grout, too much upkeep.
53:52SPEAKER- Yeah, look, I have to get the industrial,
53:56SPEAKERI have white grout in my tub.
53:57SPEAKERI have to get the industrial size jar of that goo
53:59SPEAKERthat you spray on and leave there for five hours
54:01SPEAKERto burn the mildew out.
54:03SPEAKERIt's awful.
54:05SPEAKER- All right, 2024, look for Will and Kishore's
54:09SPEAKERtiling company.
54:10SPEAKER- Yeah, and maybe we'll have to get you
54:12SPEAKERthat five-timer jacket.
54:13SPEAKERKishore, thank you so much for coming by.
54:14SPEAKERAnd that will do it for this week's edition of the TechPod.
54:17SPEAKERFor Brad Shoemaker, I'm Will Smith.
54:19SPEAKERThanks everybody for listening.
54:20SPEAKERAs always, Brad and Will Made a TechPod
54:23SPEAKERis a 100% listener-supported show.
54:25SPEAKERWe wouldn't be here without the kindness
54:28SPEAKERof our wonderful audience of people.
54:30SPEAKERIf you would like to find out how to support the show,
54:32SPEAKERyou can go to patreon.com/techpod.
54:35SPEAKERAgain, that's patreon.com/techpod,
54:37SPEAKERwhere for five bucks a month,
54:38SPEAKERyou get access to the fabulous TechPod Discord
54:41SPEAKERfull of a bunch of wonderful nerds
54:43SPEAKERwho are into many of the same things that you probably are.
54:46SPEAKERYou also get access to the monthly Patreon episode,
54:48SPEAKERwhere Brad and I talk about whatever we're working on,
54:51SPEAKERwhat we're thinking about, what we're excited about.
54:53SPEAKERThis may be outside the scope of the normal podcast.
54:55SPEAKERWith that, thank you as always to all of our patrons,
54:57SPEAKERbut a very special thank you
54:59SPEAKERgoes out to our executive producer tier patrons,
55:01SPEAKERincluding Nick Johnston,
55:04SPEAKERPaddle Creek Games Makers of Fractured Veil,
55:05SPEAKERAndrew Slosky, Jordan Lippett,
55:08SPEAKERBunnyfiend, the, or is that Bunnyfiend, the,
55:12SPEAKERThread Club supports Octothorpe Desks and Pets,
55:15SPEAKERJoel Krauska, Twinkle Twinkie, David Allen,
55:18SPEAKERJames Kamik, and Pantheon,
55:20SPEAKERmakers of the HS3 high-speed 3D printer.
55:23SPEAKERThank you all so much for your support,
55:24SPEAKERand we will see you all next week.
55:27SPEAKER(upbeat music)
55:54SPEAKER[BLANK_AUDIO]