Finding Genius Podcast

Despite the human ability to adapt to new and changing environments, our bodies simply weren't designed to live in the modern world. Take for instance the physiological stress response: you see a bear, your heart starts pumping harder and faster, your system fills with adrenaline, digestion gets put on hold, and all of your body's attention is focused on survival. In this day and age, our bodies are being triggered to show this stress response multiple times a day—whether, during an argument with a significant other, the ping of an email notification that you know is from your boss or an alert for a new exam result on your college account. We're constantly bombarded by signals, messages, requests, expectations, and demands, and we've entered a state of chronic stress as a result. The result? Burnout, a term recently recognized by the World Health Organization as an actual medical syndrome characterized by exhaustion, the inability to focus, a feeling of disengagement from our surroundings, and the inability to fall asleep. CEO and co-founder of Apollo, Kathryn Fantauzzi, joins the podcast to discuss a potential remedy for burnout, which is a software platform, mobile app, and wearable device that sends vibrations to the body which the brain interprets as safety, and when you feel safe, your heart rate and breathing even out, which makes it easier to concentrate, feel calm, and fall asleep. Fantauzzi explains that this technology harnesses and amplifies the benefits of practices such as mindfulness and meditation without requiring the user to do anything other than wear the device on their wrist or ankle. In clinical studies, users have shown a 25% improvement in cognitive performance and accuracy under stress, as well as the ability to fall asleep faster, and improve heart rate variability, an indicator of the body's overall resilience and recovery from stress. And since the software is integrated with Apple Healthkit, it can pull from a user's biometric data to curate the best solution for their experience with burnout. Tune in for the full conversation, and check out https://apolloneuro.com/.

For the first 23 years of her life, Sasha Stephens never thought twice about sleep, and she never really had to because she never had a problem with it. But after a bout of sleepless nights during her college years, the problem that seemed to come out of nowhere only seemed to worsen. And when she sought relief from sleeping pills, things got even worse. This was the beginning of a 15-year case of insomnia for Sasha, and it took over her life. But if it weren't for this experience, Sasha likely wouldn't have the insight she has today, nor be the author of The Effortless Sleep Method: The Incredible New Cure for Insomnia and Chronic Sleep Problems, nor the creator of Sleep for Life, an insomnia cure program that's received overwhelmingly positive feedback. "Having the odd bad night of sleep or even the odd run of bad nights is completely and absolutely normal, and I think this is something we don't allow people to realize. The reason that people suffer for years…and the reason that I suffered for such a long time…is because…we start throwing all sorts of things at the problem…without actually realizing that the more you do about insomnia the worse it becomes," says Sasha. She goes on to explain the unhelpful habits that lead to and reinforce insomnia, misconceptions that many people hold about insomnia, some of her main recommendations for setting the right circumstances for sleep, and what a person can expect by enrolling in her program. "The main crux of my advice is in changing the way that you think about this problem," she says. Interested in hearing the full conversation and learning more about her program? Tune in and visit https://sleepforlife.com/.

"Soft tissue dysfunction is the etiology of malocclusion." Those were the words that ultimately compelled Barry Raphael, Doctor of Medicine in Dentistry (DMD), to take a deeper look into the way the posture and functions of the tongue determine how well the jaw grows, how well the teeth come in, and how well the airway takes shape—all of which impact quality of sleep. For 27 years, Dr. Raphael practiced conventional orthodontics, but the way he practices now is completely different, aided by an approach that encourages healthy breathing, tongue posture, nutrition, and sleep. Dr. Raphael is a wealth of information on these topics and many more, so tune in, and visit https://www.alignmine.com/ to learn more. To locate a dentist who recognizes the critical importance of and connection between airway formation, dental health, and sleep, visit aapmd.org.

In the West, the main facets of Chinese medicine have historically been ridiculed or otherwise dismissed as ineffective, and this includes acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine. But today, perceptions of Chinese medicine are changing, in part because of the rise of notable and respectable physicians who began their careers in conventional Western medicine before realizing the value and effectiveness of Chinese medical practices. Dr. Shiroko Sokitch is one such physician, who abandoned her surgical residency after just two years to pursue an approach to medicine that blends the best of Western and Chinese medical practices and principles. It's now been over three decades since Dr. Sokitch began this approach to the treatment of her patients, and she sees an 85 percent success rate in treating and alleviating her patient's symptoms. She joins the podcast to discuss how effective acupuncture can be in immediately relieving pain, Chinese herbal medicines that can improve quality of sleep by balancing the body's energy, the strengths and weaknesses of Western and Chinese medicine, the way that Chinese medicine categorizes and understands the body's organ systems, and some of the most common conditions she treats in her patients on a daily basis. Press play for the full conversation and visit https://hearttoheartmedicalcenter.com/ to learn more about her work and philosophy.

Stephanie Schnorr, Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, discusses her work studying digestion and the gut microbiome. Schnorr is fascinated with diet, digestion, and what's going on in our guts. She is a biological anthropologist who studies the human diet and gut microbiome as they pertain to human evolution. Of particular interest is how humans have such large brains. Schnorr studies dietary behavior, physiological adaptations, as well as the complete gut microbiome in relation to various environments humans have occupied. She takes a scientific eye to the study of these elements and environments, seeking evidence of the basic components that ultimately enable the existence of large-brained hominins. As a trained biological anthropologist, Schnorr talks about the path she took from early education to her current advanced study and research. As she explains, her interest in sports performance, as well as muscle function and metabolism, made her more curious about what it takes to sustain a human organism. And her graduate dissertation work existed within this area of study. Her fascination with the gut microbiome pushed her to expand her research and look at what may be the greatest contributions it provides. She discusses human development historically and poses the questions: what are we specialized to do, to eat, etc. Answering her question, she states that we actually have no specialization historically, that we are extremely adaptable. These questions pushed her to dig deeper into the power of the gut microbiome, metabolism, etc. Everyone, to some degree, has allergic reactions she states, which indicates there is a reaction to the environment. She discusses antibiotics, sleep, foods we eat, sanitation, stress, and pesticides, etc., and how it all affects us. She explains the connection to a healthier life via a mineral-fueled, more nutritious diet. And ultimately, the higher nutritional value in a diet helps one's body to better adjust or combat allergies and other things that our bodies must contend with. Our immune system, as she states, is there to keep the microbial community in line. Schnorr has worked in a wide variety of locations and laboratories, from deep within the beauty of East Africa, to specialized, ultra clean lab spaces designed for the study of ancient DNA, and many other kinds of labs and environments in between. Her detailed research and analyses have been published in many academic journals and noted in some of the most well known scientific periodicals and papers.

Donny Hanjaya-Putra, assistant professor at the University of Notre Dame, discusses his research and work in the field of stem cell therapy. Hanjaya-Putra is an assistant professor in the Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering at the University of Notre Dame, as well as an assistant professor in the Bioengineering Graduate Program, and a concurrent assistant professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. He holds a Ph.D. in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering from Johns Hopkins University and received his BS in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Notre Dame. Hanjaya-Putra discusses his work. He explains how his team utilizes engineering principles to try to control stem cell differentiation. Ultimately their work is centered on discovering new ways to model and understand diseases. Major areas of focus include stem cell engineering, biomaterials for stem cell morphogenesis, and targeted drug delivery. Hanjaya-Putra's lab is focused on the nexus between engineering and medicine, with the goal of utilizing stem cell and molecular therapies as a successful means to model and treat various diseases. The lab's work integrates stem cell engineering, biomaterials synthesis, as well as micro/nano-technologies, combining the various scientific methods to enhance their study and research. The Ph.D. provides detailed information about stem cells and the expression of proteins. He explains stem cell differentiation and tissue repair, and how the processes work. As he explains, stem cells know exactly where to go within the body, once injected. Hanjaya-Putra explains that through their ex vivo manipulation of the cells in the lab, and then injection of those cells back into the body, the reintroduced cells can use targeted molecules to repair cellular injuries. Hanjaya-Putra expounds further upon the ways they can utilize small molecule drugs to enhance cellular repair. He explains how drugs work within the body and talk about the ways to design drugs to reduce side effects while maintaining the drug's therapeutic effects.

Climate change is happening, and its impact on plant and human life will only increase in severity in the coming years. With this in mind, assistant professor at the Department of Biological Systems Engineering at Virginia Tech, Dr. Clay Wright, is focused on developing a deeper understanding of plant behavior and the way genes play a role in plant defense mechanisms and responses to environmental changes. Once equipped with this knowledge, Dr. Wright believes it will be possible to re-engineer plants in a way that will better equip them for the coming changes in their environment. As one example, he discusses the possibility of preserving and protecting plant growth by creating a novel signal that would repress the formation of buds for a designated period of time, such as the length of time of a hard frost, and implementing an additional signal that would relieve that repression only after the hard frost has passed. Dr. Wright also discusses plant defenses to pests and pathogens, the ability of microbes to manipulate plant defenses and what this tells us about the evolutionary development of plants and microbes, how different types of plants might respond to high temperatures versus high concentrations of CO2, and all the details of two specific chemical hormones he's studying in the lab at Virginia Tech. Press play for all the details and visit https://www.bse.vt.edu/ to learn more.

Sarah Boisvert, author of, The New Collar Workforce: An Insider's Guide to Making Impactful Changes to Manufacturing and Training, discusses her research, her new book, and the skills needed to operate in new industries such as AI, 3D printing, and robotics. Boisvert talks about the motivations and inspirations that led to her latest project, and the writing of her book, The New Collar Workforce. As she explains, upon selling her laser machine tool company, she took up research residence at a lab at MIT where she began to interact with other researchers and expand her interest in the processes and learning necessary to use digital fabrication tools, and others. Boisvert was most interested in methods to expand the skills gap for new disruptive industries. As the manufacturing and tech author states, many skills that modern workers have and were hired for will no longer be needed in the coming future as tech expands. She explains how new technologies such as 3D printing are evolving rapidly. She cites examples of how new technologies will not have the benefit of calling on experienced veterans of the industry for help with machines and tech when problems arise because the technologies are evolving so quickly that everyone is new to them. Thus, in regard to servicing, the new technicians will have to be adaptable and have the ability to troubleshoot at the moment. They'll need to be problem solvers in order to stay afloat in an ever-changing technology space. Boisvert talks about how people of different ages will be able to function in a vastly changing economy. She discusses automation and the kinds of jobs that may be disappearing in the next five to ten years or so. As she explains, there will be a significant shift, and those with transferable skills will thrive the most. The education model has to change from lecture to development and cognitive thinking types of skills. As the blacksmith job gave way to the production line, so will our current economy and the ways we utilize new skills. Wrapping up, the author discusses what's on the horizon for her and her lab. Boisvert's in-depth interviews with over 200 U.S. manufacturers enabled her to see that a paradigm shift is going to be necessary in order to return good paying manufacturing careers to middle-class Americans.

Toward the end of 2016, after three decades' worth of planning and 12 years in space, the European Space Agency's historic mission, Rosetta, ended. The unprecedented mission managed to establish a rendezvous with a comet, which means that it stayed in close proximity to a comet—orbiting at a speed of 30 to 40 kilometers per second—for over two years. It took 10 years just to reach and maintain the proper speed to establish the rendezvous. Dr. Paolo Ferri is Head of the ESA Mission Operations Department, and for today's episode, he brings all of the insight and experience gained from having worked on the Rosetta mission. He explains the challenges presented by the comet's gas and dust emissions, what it was like as Rosetta approached the nucleus of the comet, the characteristics of the surface of the comet and how they changed as the comet approached the sun, and some of the most surprising findings. Tune in and learn more by visiting https://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Rosetta.

As a professor in the mechanical engineering department at the University of Utah, Dr. Yong Lin Kong is focused on developing novel additive manufacturing technologies to create unique interwoven architecture and devices that can't be created using conventional fabrication methods. By using a multi-scale, multi-material 3D-printing approach, Dr. Kong explains that the geometrical, mechanical and material difficulties present in conventional methods can be overcome, allowing for the creation of a broad range of 3D biomedical devices that can address a range of clinical needs. For example, one use case of this technology is ingestible electronics, which will not only allow for surgical integration of electronics in the human body to be bypassed, but also circumvent the inherent immune system response that would identify and attack such systems as foreign to the body. The 3D-printing approach is also superior to conventional manufacturing processes in that it allows for the personalization of biomedical devices, tailored gastric residence time periods, and controlled dosage and release of drug compounds in the body. Dr. Kong makes for an insightful and compelling discussion, explaining the details of all this and more, including important safety measures for this technology, such as on-demand device disintegration in the event that an individual has a negative reaction to a device, how this approach could allow for the integration of electronic functionality into various prosthetics and regeneration implants, and what's next on their itinerary. Tune in for all the details and reach out with questions or requests for collaboration via yong.kong@utah.edu.