Finding Genius Podcast

Mark A. Cruz, D.D.S, innovative dentist and lecturer, delivers an insightful overview of his holistic approach to modern dentistry. Dr. Cruz is an experienced family dentist who believes in approaching all dental issues from a big picture perspective, not simply treating problems as they occur. His successful methods are evidenced by the scores of people who remain his patients for life, as well as the new patients that are coming to visit his practice regularly. Dr. Cruz received his formal education and degree from the esteemed UCLA School of Dentistry in the mid 80s and has been practicing in California ever since. Notably, he served on the National Institute of Health/NIDCR (National Institute of Dental & Craniofacial Research) Grant Review Committee in Washington D.C. and was also a member of the editorial board for the Journal of Evidence Based Dental Practice (Elsevier). Dr. Cruz discusses his background and the mission for his practice. He talks about IFL, Inspiratory Flow Limitation, a term used widely in pulmonology and sleep medicine. He explains how it often refers to upper airway resistance syndrome. Dr. Cruz talks about airway issues such as obstructive sleep apnea, etc. He details how sleep fragmentation in children can cause inflammation in the brain and noticeable increases in inflammatory markers that could relate to a child's failure to thrive, cognitive problems, anxiety, ADD/ADHD, and possibly more. Many dental practices take the approach that problems can simply be treated as they occur; however, Dr. Cruz believes active prevention is critical. Dr. Cruz seeks to help all his patients avoid oral issues, and thus he focuses on education, prevention, and early detection. Dr. Cruz goes in depth on the various airway issues and their impact on health. He discuss his interdisciplinary team's approach to care, and their process for providing a complete method of care for all patients, bringing together multiple specialists to look at the big picture, thus providing a more comprehensive analysis. Dr. Cruz is an active member of his community and has been practicing dentistry in beautiful Orange County since 1986.

In October of 2016, Richard Jacobs created and began hosting Future Tech Podcast, which has since become the source of over 1,800 episodes featuring some of the most highly regarded experts in some of the newest and most exciting fields in technology and science. On today's mini-episode, Richard Jacobs answers the questions everyone seems to ask of him: why do you do this, and what do you get out of it? Tune in to hear about the lessons he's learned, the newfound enlightenment he's gained from the process, and why there's no reason you couldn't do the same. Questions? Recommendations for Future Tech Podcast guests? Don't hesitate to reach out at support@futuretechpodcast.com.

Wi-Fi, smart meters, cell phones, cell phone towers, and cordless phones are just a few of the many items in our environment with electromagnetic fields (EMFs)—invisible forces that interact with our body every day. To date, at least eight different effects of EMFs have been identified, each demonstrated and reviewed by 12-35 articles. These effects impact neurological and neuropsychiatric function in a cumulative fashion—the higher the number of exposures, the more severe the effects; eventually they become irreversible, and can cause anything from the inability to sleep, anxiety, the inability to concentration, depression, poor memory, and headaches. So, what is the mechanism by which this occurs and what's being done about it? Dr. Martin Pall, Ph.D. is a professor at Washington State University who joins the podcast to answer these questions and more. He focuses his work on understanding the relationship between EMFs and the activation of voltage-gated calcium channels, which are present in every cell membrane in the body, but play a particularly important role in electrically active tissues, such as the nervous system and heart, as well as the release of hormones and neurotransmitters. He explains that the electrical forces produced by EMFs impose a force on the voltage sensor that's 7.2 million times stronger than the force imposed by the cells in our body. Throughout the discussion, Dr. Pall touches on a range of topics, including his concerns about imminent 5G technology, the difference between the intensity of radiation and the intensity of effect, exposure windows, and different types of DNA damage shown to be caused by EMFs. Tune in for all the details, including tips for finding the best resources to learn more.

As a participant of the Personal Genome Project (PGP), which was initiated in 2005 at Harvard Medical School, James Turner has donated a significant amount of information to the project, including an extensive personal health survey, 20 years' worth of notes pertaining to doctor visits, lab tests, treatments, etc., and MRI images. Once submitted to the PGP, a participant's information becomes available to any all researchers for the purposes of driving genetic research. The program has two main goals: to perform whole genome sequencing on as many samples as possible, and to correlate the genetic information obtained with phenotypic data. As a descendent of the PGP, the Open Humans Foundation takes a slightly different approach to the same idea; it allows participants to choose whether they want their data to be available to everyone or only select researchers, works to facilitate the transfer of information from personal devices to biological data banks, and makes use of data inspired by the Quantified Self Movement (e.g. Fitbit/Apple Watch, diet data). Turner now serves as the treasurer and chairman of this foundation, and he joins the podcast to provide unique insight on the world of genomic data and biological research driven by the people. Press play to hear the full conversation, and visit https://www.personalgenomes.org/us and http://openhumansfoundation.org/ to learn more.

Jake A. Kushner M.D., Medical Director, McNair Interests, provides a thorough overview of his research and study of diabetes. Currently, Dr. Kushner serves as the Medical Director for McNair Interests. He is a renowned diabetes researcher as well as a pediatric endocrinologist with a particular expertise in biotechnology, biomedical research, type 1 diabetes and other specific endocrine disorders. Dr. Kushner is the former Chief of Pediatric Diabetes and Endocrinology and McNair Medical Institute Scholar at the Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children's Hospital. He has worked with the National Institutes of Health, served on the type 1 diabetes advisory council for Lexicon Corporation, and been a strategic advisor for Sanofi. Dr. Kushner discusses his background as a pediatric endocrinologist and how he came to be interested in the research and study of diabetes. Dr. Kushner is a respected, nationally recognized expert in type 1 diabetes research. His background in medicine is significant and includes endocrinology and diabetes, specifically caring for children with type 1 diabetes, as well as cystic fibrosis-related diabetes, and treating children who have hypoglycemia. He explains type 1 diabetes, and talks about how it affects many people worldwide. Dr. Kushner delves into the complex issue of insulin and how the body reacts and responds to nutrients. He explains in detail, the storage of glucose, carbohydrates, and how the body processes everything that comes into it, as well as how stress affects everything. He talks at length about the kinds of meals that people eat, and explains how specific foods are processed by the body for use, including what the body needs, especially for those who have special dietary requirements due to health conditions or disease. Dr. Kushner is a UC Berkeley graduate and earned a medical degree from Albany Medical College in New York. Dr. Kushner completed his medical residency in pediatrics at Brown University. Additionally, Dr. Kushner engaged in a clinical fellowship at Children's Hospital Boston and a prestigious research fellowship at the Joslin Diabetes Center, the world's largest diabetes research center, at Harvard Medical School in Boston.

In this informative podcast, Joan E. Nichols, Ph.D., professor, and a lead researcher, University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, provides an overview of the lung, and her lab's important work developing bioengineered tissue. The celebrated Ph.D. discusses how she settled into bioengineering for her life's work, and her motivation to study organs. She explains the incredible need for lungs and other organs, and how so many people are waiting for transplants to save their lives. Her lab hopes to be a part of this process, as their work is primarily in the area of developing bioengineered tissues. Nichols explains why she chooses to research certain areas of science and outlines her interest in the variations within the human immune response to specific microbial pathogens. Her lab studies reaction and response of the lung after certain exposures to various pollutants, as well as respiratory pathogens. In addition, their research includes the study of disease pathogenesis, as well as inflammation, stem cell-based treatments, and more. By utilizing adult and embryonic stem cells as well as advanced tissue engineering techniques to create human ex-vivo organoids/tissue constructs, they seek to create intricate human model systems to study disease pathogenesis and the complex human responses to pathogens. The Ph.D. explains the structure of the lung, covering topics such as gas exchange and the mechanisms of the lung.

As an Earth observation application engineer at the European Space Agency, Benjamin Koetz spends his time trying to figure out how Earth functions by tracking patterns from space that can't be seen from the ground, monitoring different environmental processes, collecting data regarding human activities, and making sure that information gathered from satellites is conflated into something that's useful for the management of natural resources. He joins the podcast today to discuss all the details of these activities and more, including the different types of observation techniques they employ, applications for Earth observation data, the advantages of having a global view from space, the environmental trends being observed from space, food security intervention efforts informed by the data they gather, laser observation, and the resolution of satellites. Tune in for all the details, and search the web for real-time satellite images of Earth from space.

What does dentistry have to do with epigenetics? Dr. Ted Belfor was a practicing dentist for decades before he could answer that question. In fact, when he began talking about epigenetics twenty years, no one even knew what he was talking about. Today, epigenetics is arguably the largest science of the 21st century. Dr. Belfor joins the podcast to discuss what he's learned over the years about the overlap between epigenetics, craniofacial development, and sleep disorders. While the environment can't change our genes, it can determine how our genes are expressed. Dr. Belfor explains that, due in large part to our diets now consisting of over 60 percent processed foods, we haven't been chewing and swallowing the way we were designed to, and as a result, we aren't fully expressing our genes for facial development. Expression of these genes can be stimulated by oral appliances and breathing exercises that work to tone the airway and enhance the growth of the jaw. When craniofacial development occurs properly and airways are toned, breathing problems such as apnea and upper airway resistance during sleep simply don't exist. In order to help people combat these problems, Dr. Belfor has created a removable oral appliance called the Homeoblock that imitates nature by putting the force back in our chew and imitating the signaling of the periodontal ligament, which he explains is crucial to proper development. He discusses a variety of other interesting topics, including the differences between sleep apnea and upper airway resistance and why one is actually significantly more detrimental than the other, how proper alignment of the jaw improves homeostatic capacity and the ability for the body to maintain a healthy state, the consequences of mouth breathing, and how to go about getting a Homeoblock for yourself. Tune in and visit http://www.facialdevelopment.com/aboutus.php to learn more.

Giuseppe Loianno, Assistant Professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department as well as the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department, Tandon School of Engineering, New York University, discusses his robotics lab's work. Loianno is a passionate professor with a deep interest in many types of applied engineering. Loianno runs the Agile Robotics and Perception Lab (ARPL), a lab that is heavily involved in fundamental and applied research as it pertains to robotics autonomy. Their work is primarily focused on the creation of agile autonomous machines that can navigate independently using nothing more than onboard sensors in unstructured, and dynamically altering environments, without GPS or motion capture, etc. The researchers seek to refine and develop further, active machines that can collaborate with humans and with each other, and perform at an optimum level in unknown environments. Loianno discusses eye-tracking glasses and the control of drones with the eye. He explains the benefits of eye tracking, and how it can make drone use easier and smoother. He states that this technology is non-invasive and exceptionally easy to use. While this technology is early-stage, Loianno is hopeful that new computer vision algorithms will help further their development. As he explains, gesture and voice interaction can also be utilized to better control the drones and improve robotic development. The applied engineering expert talks about some of their current trials and the new data they are gathering to further technological development. He envisions a complete framework that will incorporate multiple robots for control by a single user, then multiple users. Ultimately, these machines will be able to improve human work, in our environment and even in space, performing advance work that will inform humans about unknown environments, safety issues, and so much more. Loianno discusses how line of sight control can be switched to camera control when drones are out of range. And he answers specific questions regarding the complexities of line of sight issues. Loianno discusses the necessary training that users will need to control the technology in various environments. As he states, one of the greatest attributes of this tech is the interaction with humans… in that, the robotic drones can perform analyses and relay the information in real time to the human partner, for various tasks.

Just a few decades ago, medicine was an entirely different animal than it is now—one in which exploratory surgeries were undergone more or less without hesitation in order to rule out differential diagnoses, palpation was one of the primary ways to diagnose appendicitis, and microbes were seen only as the enemy, as germs that were bad for us. Today, diagnostic imaging is arguably the fulcrum of medical diagnoses, and a growing body of research is indicating that the microbiome has an influential role in almost every function of our bodies, from growth and development to mate selection and behavior. But how are radiology and microbiota related? That question is perhaps best answered by Dr. William B. Miller Jr., radiologist, evolutionary biologist, author of The Microcosm Within: Evolution and Extinction in the Hologenome, and lecturer on the emerging science of the hologenome. For him, the point at which he realized that diseases form reliably identifiable patterns on x-rays, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), ultrasound, and computed tomography (CT) was the point at which he began to realize that individual organisms should be seen through a lens that encompasses all of the microbes that interact with it. Dr. Miller is an endless source of interesting information, discussing a range of topics to include the influential role of the microbiome in our daily lives, how infectious diseases produce the same patterns as metastatic cancer on MRI, CT, ultrasound, and x-ray images, repeating patterns in nature, different forms of intelligence, and how to define and understand cellular self-awareness. Press play for the full conversation, visit www.themicrocosmwithin.com to learn more, and find his book on Amazon or in the stores.