Finding Genius Podcast

What makes us human? What do we want the human gene pool to look like? How much can we change without changing who we are as people? These are just some of the ethical questions that are being asked in response to a rapidly developing form of gene editing technology known as CRISPR. It's a technology based on a system that bacteria have used for millions of years in fighting off viruses, and it involves editing a gene by adding or inserting portions of the genetic code. Essentially, this means editing the code of life, which can mean altering how organisms work, creating new organisms, or bringing back extinct species. Tarun Wadhwa is the founder and CEO of Day One Insights and instructor at Carnegie Mellon University College of Engineering, and he joins the podcast to discuss CRISPR technology, its current and future implications, and how he's trying to advance the conversation about it in order to increase understanding and awareness of the benefits and unknowns surrounding it. He explains that CRISPR technology is particularly powerful due to its low cost, simplicity, and democratization, and how these features make for countless unknowns in terms of future applications. He also discusses the importance of understanding the role of the cultural context in the development and manifestation of this technology, and what he predicts will happen over the course of the next couple of years, and much further into the future. Tune in for a fascinating conversation and visit tarunwadhwa.com to learn more about this topic.

What do braces or crowding in the mouth have to do with sleep? At first, you may think there's no connection, but according to Sandra Kahn, Paul Ehrlich, and a growing body of research, they're directly related. Kahn and Ehrlich join the podcast today to discuss their new book, Jaws: The Story of a Hidden Epidemic, which details the connection between jaw size, the need for braces and sleep quality. They explain how the transition from the hunter-gatherer lifestyle to agriculture and industrialization is perfectly correlated with the shrinkage of jaws, which has caused detrimental overcrowding in the mouth and alterations to facial anatomy that has prevented us from doing what we were evolutionarily designed to do: breathe through the nose, rather than through the mouth. This has led to an epidemic of sleep problems in people of all ages, including children, and is evidenced by the growing number of children who require braces. "It's not that braces are necessarily bad, but they're not addressing the real problem; they're causing us to think that things are fine when they're not," says Kahn. Despite the fact that most dentists and orthodontists blame genetics for these changes, Kahn and Ehrlich have devoted over five years' worth of research to the issue and have found that everything points to environmental rather than genetic causes, explaining that the changes have occurred at a rate significantly faster than genetic evolution ever could. "We're in a really sad epidemic—one that a lot could be done about, but that not much is being done about," says Ehrlich. They go on to discuss the connections between Alzheimer's and jaw malformation, how conditions such as depression and ADHD could actually be caused by poor sleep quality, how wisdom teeth are an "invention of industrialization" and their removal a huge money-maker, and the importance of shifting our focus from treatment to prevention. Tune in and check out their book at https://amzn.to/2Q6qqzV for detailed explanations and illustrations of all this and more. COMMONWEALTH CLUB TALK at https://youtu.be/8NgVQKZhMR0

The average US citizen consumes 50,000 pharmaceutical pills over the course of their lifetime, at least 50 percent of Americans take a prescription drug regularly, and many people who are over the age of 50 regularly take between five and 10 different prescription medications. With this much consumption, the fact that these drugs impact our lives is unquestionable, but what are those effects, and are we even aware of all of them? According to Thomas Hager, the use of pharmaceuticals impacts us in ways we don't even realize and have been shaping culture for decades now. Hager was working on a Ph.D. in medical microbiology when he came to the realization that, despite how interesting he found the material, he simply didn't want to work in a lab for the rest of his life. As a result, he switched educational tracks, pursued a degree in journalism from the University of Oregon, and merged his love of medicine and science with his love for writing. He has since become a well-known author of narrative nonfiction, turning science into the stories that exist within it. On today's episode, he discusses aspects of his newest book, Ten Drugs: How Plants, Powders, and Pills Have Shaped the History of Medicine, comments on the current state of drug use in America, and clues us into what his next book might be about. Tune in for all the details, check out thomashager.net, and find his books on Amazon, Kindle, or your local bookstore.

Hugo Mercier, CEO of Dreem (dreem.com), discusses their innovative solution that helps people achieve better quality sleep. Mercier discusses the early ideas that intrigued him and led him down the path toward founding Dreem. As students at École Polytechnique, Hugo Mercier and Quentin Soulet de Brugière became fascinated by the scientific studies that indicated sound stimulations actually improve deep sleep. They wanted to dig deeper. Mercier explains their product and how it works. Dreem is a headband and accompanying app that works with you to achieve better sleep. Many of us do not get the quality sleep that we need to feel refreshed and ready to take on the new day, which can lead to problems from fatigue, to stress, and more. The Dreem headband measures brain activity, heart rate, and movement through the night, with the kind of accuracy you would normally only be able to get in a sleep lab. As he explains, all the data collected through the night is accessible through your phone. And inside the Dreem app, users can access personal advice that will further help them improve their sleep. Working with cognitive behavioral therapists, Mercier and his team have developed a tool that helps people not only improve the quality of sleep but decrease the amount of time it takes to fall asleep. Mercier talks about the kind of data that Dreem collects and what it can tell you. He discusses their studies, and how the Dreem data compares with expensive sleep lab equipment. And as he states, their numbers and results are very good, in regard to the accuracy and quality of their data collection! He explains how their product can help many types of sleep problems and disorders, including how it helps insomniacs. Mercier details the problems insomniacs struggle with, and how their sleep problem is further exacerbated by their stress about not being able to fall asleep. Mercier explains that Dreem has developed a program with sleep doctors that offers Dreem users accurate, insightful advice that gets to the root of their sleep problems from an analytical perspective, to help users understand how to correct sleep problems. By understanding one's sleep and sleep habits, we can find a way to combat problems and get better quality sleep, which leads to improvements in a vast number of ways in regard to wellness.

Dr. Jonathan Delafield-Butt, Director of the cross-disciplinary Laboratory for Innovation in Autism and Reader in Child Development at the University of Strathclyde, discusses his interesting research in early cognitive development. Fascinated by psychology, Delafield-Butt's work studies the genesis of conscious experience as well as the deep emotional foundations of general psychological development, with a special focus on the motor disruption seen in autism spectrum disorder. Delafield-Butt earned a Ph.D. in Developmental Neurobiology from the University of Edinburgh Medical School and completed his postdoctoral work while attending the Universities of Edinburgh and Copenhagen. He is a contributing writer to the notable book titled, The Infant Mind: Origins of the Social Brain. Dr. Jonathan Delafield-Butt talks about his background and the reasons why he was so motivated to study the infant mind and infant development. As he states, he was interested in the mind, and he thought it best to start at the beginning, to understand the human mind in its early development. As he explains, his early work was in the field of chemistry, then he moved into neuroscience to get a better understanding of the structure, composition, and origins of the human mind. Delafield-Butt talks about how he wanted to truly pinpoint the emergence of consciousness and the development of the human agency. By studying movement, Delafield-Butt was seeking to ascertain exactly when movement is first organized with an awareness, conscious actions. The Ph.D. provides an overview of the stages of development, and how awareness and conscious actions are developed, and progress. He discusses participatory awareness and the moments that infants begin to demonstrate their conscious awareness. He cites important studies and the historical work of other scientists working with consciousness theories, going back to the early 1950s. And he provides an overview of newer data that discusses cortex and brain stem theories. As he states, all of our experiences are taking place through the brain stem, and that the brain stem does have associative memory. Ultimately, Delafield-Butt states that some areas of the brain are more to the foreground than others, depending upon the given need at the time. He discusses various layers, memories, and associations—incorporating instinct, problem-solving, etc. Delafield-Butt states that while infants do not have the same conceptual organization, an abstraction of ideas, or the mastery of language, they are in fact as conscious as adults. Dr. Jonathan Delafield-Butt is a respected member of the World Association for Infant Mental Health and the International Society for Autism Research. He is also an affiliate member of the Gillberg Neuropsychiatry Centre at the University of Gothenburg.

Arthur S. Reber, cognitive psychologist, professor of psychology, and prolific author discusses implicit learning and consciousness on the cellular level. Reber is a Fulbright Fellow and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) as well as the Association for Psychological Science (APS). Reber earned his BA in psychology from the University of Pennsylvania and an MA and Ph.D. from Brown University. Reber discusses the origin of his fascination with implicit learning. He recounts an interesting story in which he observed a caterpillar in his garden that seemed to be so obviously making conscious choices—which leaf to chew on, should I check for predators, etc. This experience intrigued him and he pushed his research further. As he began to research and write about the topic of conscious cells, he found there seemed to be, initially, no interest in the scientific community for his research. But as time passed, he dug deeper relating his research to all his knowledge in cognitive function, and the scientific community took note. Reber is celebrated for his work in the nexus between biology and psychology and he is widely known in the scientific community for introducing the concept of implicit learning, and for utilizing the elementary principles of biology to demonstrate how implicit or unconscious cognitive functions contrast with those that are conducted consciously. The Ph.D. discusses prokaryotes and their functioning. A prokaryote, simply defined, is a unicellular organism lacking a supporting membrane-bound nucleus and mitochondria, as well as any other membrane-bound organelle. He talks about prokaryotes, the simplest living organisms, and their astonishing skills in learning. He relates some information on various experiments that provided insight into cells and how they function while defending themselves from viruses and toxins. He discusses daughter cells and the metabolic adjustments that are made and how it all impacts a cellular colony. Reber provides further information on bacteria and how they are sensitive. He talks about the effects of anesthetics on bacteria' behaviors, and the remarkable skills they have to minimize their suffering. He relates this information to plants and discusses how plants have experiences that cause them to produce anesthetics. While we tend to not think of plants as being sentient, able to feel or perceive, Reber states that they probably are. As he explains, plant roots are sensitive to nutrient contents and will shift depending upon the circumstance within the soil. And as he states, this brings up an interesting point in regard to ethics, specifically for vegans, for if plants are sentient, they feel and have consciousness.

"Today, whether it's an increase in narcissism, a reduction in time, or an obsession with technology, there are many reasons why people are understanding themselves to be and seeming to feel that there's less empathy out there," says Minter Dial, keynote speaker and author of Heartificial Empathy: Putting Heart into business and Artificial Intelligence. He goes on to explain the effects that this minimal amount or complete lack of empathy has in the world of business, one of which leaves customers feeling as though their needs and desires aren't being heard, understood, or addressed. As a result of this, people, on the whole, are beginning to lose their loyalty for certain companies, and are unable to establish it for new ones. A seemingly obvious answer to this problem might be to program empathy into the machines with which we increasingly interact, to encode our experiences with empathy in order to ensure that it's there—whether in an application online, an AI-driven personal shopper or automated checkout stands at the market. And while integrating empathy in AI might be a good idea, is it possible? Are we capable of encoding machines to show empathy when we are incapable of showing it ourselves? According to Minter Dial, this is an important question to ask, as it will force us to turn the mirrors on ourselves and consider why empathy is so important and whether we are capable of practicing it once again. Tune in to hear Minter Dial discuss a range of issues on this topic, and visit minterdial.com for more of his work.

"The realm of the invisible and the ancestral realm opened up to me, and the fundamental principles of reality were suddenly obvious to me, just about the nature of reality itself and the big picture, and I felt more connected to source—whatever term you want to use, god, goddess, the great mystery—than I ever did in my years as a clergyman," says Bruce Sanguin, who for 30 years practiced as a minister in a progressive church, preaching every Sunday and living life as a true clergyman before realizing that there was still something missing, some sort of personal unrest, something preventing him from expressing deep love. Separated from his life and duties as a clergyman, he didn't hesitate to go when a friend invited him to an ayahuasca ceremony. Soon after, he found himself immersed in the world of psychedelic psychotherapy, undergoing at least a dozen sessions under the influence of MDMA and LSD, each session lasting four to five hours. "I was taken into dimensions and domains that ordinary consciousness doesn't make available," he says, explaining how it was in this space that he not only achieved a more profound gratitude for life than ever before, but also identified, and dismantled the core unconscious beliefs that were for so many years holding him back from being his truest and best self. Sanguin delivers an enlightening and inspiring message about overcoming past trauma, learning to love truly and deeply, finding peace, and practicing empathy.

Adam Brown, the author of Bright Spots & Landmines, shares his thoughts on managing diabetes in a modern world. Adam doesn't just write about diabetes, he has firsthand experience—16 years in fact—from his personal life, living with and managing his diabetes. His popular book, Bright Spots & Landmines, is a must-read for anyone who seeks to properly manage their diabetes, or for those who have loved ones dealing with diabetes and simply want a better understanding. The book provides useful information and diabetes tips. It answers questions that many have when they embark on their diabetes management journey, from what foods one should eat to reduce or minimize blood sugar shifts, how to handle stress, and how to improve sleep quality and exercise performance. Adam discusses his life before and after, as he talks about his diagnosis in 2001 with type 1 diabetes. He shares his experiences dealing with diabetes, and highlights some impactful moments that occurred during his college years upon discovering bodybuilding; he was intrigued by the intense monitoring and tracking that many bodybuilders rely upon to regulate their body's performance and overall health. After taking some nutrition classes he came to realize that eating is one of the most important tools that can help manage diabetes. The diabetes writer discusses continuous glucose monitoring (CGM), which is a method that can be used to track glucose levels all through the day and night. CGM systems can take important glucose measurements at consistent intervals around the clock, and translate those readings into actionable data, as it generates glucose direction as well as the rate of change reports, to help manage diabetes optimally. Adams explains how CGM users can take a more proactive approach, and manage their glucose highs and lows, as well as get a better understanding of how food and exercise are affecting their body chemistry. Adam discusses fasting and time-restricted eating, as well as other issues often discussed in the diabetes community. And he details some of the CGM devices that are on the horizon, smaller and less expensive, making body monitoring even easier for individuals with diabetes. Adam is a senior editor with diaTribe, an online community for those with diabetes, and his column, "Adam's Corner," is a popular feature of the site that offers truly amazing diabetes tips to many people across the globe. In his column, he shares a wealth of knowledge on mindset, foods, exercise, and strategies for getting better sleep—all of which have helped him live a fuller, healthier life as he manages his diabetes effectively.

Fatima AlZahra´a Alatraktchi holds a Ph.D. in nanophysics and is creating a buzz in the science and technology world. In this interesting, informative podcast she discusses her work and how we can learn so much from bacteria. Fatima AlZahra´a Alatraktchi of DTU Nanotech is a celebrated nanophysicist and she was recently awarded the PhD thesis of the year award for the groundbreaking work entitled, Micro- and nano-sensors for early diagnosis of bacterial infections. Fatima's buzzworthy PhD project was completed in collaboration with DTU Bioengineering, DTU Biosustain, as well as DTU Nanotech. Fatima discusses her background and how she found her way into her current area of research. She recounts how she was extremely fascinated by the idea that bacteria actually communicate, talk to each other in a language that they can utilize to coordinate their activities. Over the years, her interest in this topic never waned and eventually, with a wealth of knowledge and education to her credit, she began to strategize on methods to isolate these molecules that enable bacteria communication, as a means to develop prediagnostic tools with the goal of diagnosing infections at an early stage. Fatima explains how the bacteria world parallels to the human world. She details how bacteria communicate and how they exhibit collective behavior, performing tasks to benefit the group or community and allowing it to thrive. The nanophysics Ph.D. and science tech entrepreneur explains the ways that bacteria communicate and the sensors that she and her team have developed to understand the colonization. As she explains, bacteria behavior can even sometimes be seen with the naked eye in an exciting visual manner. The bacteria expert goes on to discuss cooperation between bacteria strains, explaining competition and domination within the bacterial communities. Fatima talks about how they work with their samples, regarding the molecules that bacteria secrete. She discusses her work in relation to the medical practices doctors use to detect infection, and as she states, it's best to detect and treat infections early on. Further, Fatima provides information on the types of bacteria they work with and their potential for furthering medical care. In her groundbreaking thesis, Fatima developed a method for detecting one of the most troubling and problematic types of bacteria. Her method is based upon a nanosensor and is simpler, quicker, and extremely more sensitive than any of the current methods that exist.