Biosphere 2 Podcast

In this episode we are joined by marine biologist and invertebrate zoologist Rick Brusca. Rick is Executive Director, Emeritus, of the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum where he still conducts research. He is also a Research Scientist at the University of Arizona and the Center of Research for Food and Development in Mexico. Rick is the author of over 200 research publications and 20 books, including the largest-selling text on invertebrate zoology (Invertebrates 3rd ed., ) and the popular field guides Common Intertidal Invertebrates of the Gulf of California and A Natural History of the Santa Catalina Mountains. As a scientist, Rick's areas of greatest interest is the Sea of Cortez and the Sonoran Desert. In this episode we dive deep into the Gulf of California also known as the Sea of Cortez. Starting with the famed travels of Ed Ricketts and John Steinbeck on the Western Flyer, our conversation ranges from the the Gulf of California's geologic formation and biodiversity, to its conservation challenges and weirdest creatures. Additionally Rick gazes inwardly as an author and invertebrate zoologist and describes highlights from his own career and how the field is changing. https://www.rickbrusca.com/http___www.rickbrusca.com_index.html/Cool_Inverts.html https://www.westernflyer.org/ https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/tongue-eating-fish-parasites-never-cease-to-amaze

In September of 2016, a NASA spacecraft known as OSIRIS REx began its journey to the near Earth asteroid Bennu, an ancient asteroid believed to be a remnant from the dawn of the solar system. Late last year, OSIRIS REx successfully collected and stored a surface sample from Bennu completing one more of several successful mission objectives on its journey. In this episode we are joined by Heather Enos, the Deputy Principal Investigator for the OSIRIS REx mission. Heather Enos has a long history in project management with University of Arizona space missions. Before OSIRIS REx, she was previously Project Manager for the 2001 Mars Odyssey Gamma Ray Spectrometer team as well as the Project Manager for the 2007 Phoenix Thermal Evolve Gas Analyzer. In this discussion Heather speaks to some of the OSIRIS REx missions greatest challenges and how her team adapted and responded on the fly. Heather talks about why her science team is interested in Bennu and we get first hand insight into what it takes to lead large interdisciplinary teams on NASA Missions. Before listening to this talk, I encourage you to follow some of the links in the description, particularly the video of the OSIRIS REx Tagsam sample collection. And now, here is Heather Enos. https://www.asteroidmission.org/galleries/

In this episode, we are joined by the Executive Director of Biosphere 2, Dr. Joaquin Ruiz. Joaquin is the Vice President of Global Environmental Futures at the University of Arizona where he was previously the Dean of the College of Science for nearly 20 years. Joaquin is a distinguished Thomas R. Brown chair Professor of Geochemistry in the department of Geosciences. He is a member of the Mexican Academy of Sciences and was named a National Researcher by the Mexican government in 2010. In 2018, the Mexican Secretary of State named Dr. Ruiz one of forty distinguished Mexican citizens living abroad who have brought distinction to the country. As a scientist with equal abilities in chemistry and in geology, Dr. Ruiz has addressed many first-order problems in the Earth Sciences, such as the development of new isotope systems for studying ore deposits and the tectonic processes involved in the growth and evolution of Mexico. His research teams address problems ranging from the origins of life to present-day climate change. In this episode, we discuss Joaquin's origins as a scientist, his career in geochemistry, and the legacy and impact of Biosphere 2 as in Icon of Possibilities in Global Climate Change Solutions.

In this episode, we are joined by Dr. Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg. Daisy is an artist examining our fraught relationships with nature and technology. Through artworks, writing, and curatorial projects, Daisy's work explores subjects as diverse as artificial intelligence, exobiology, synthetic biology, conservation, biodiversity, and evolution, as she investigates the human impulse to "better" the world. Daisy has spent over ten years experimentally engaging with the field of synthetic biology, developing new roles for artists and designers. She is lead author of Synthetic Aesthetics: Investigating Synthetic Biology's Designs on Nature (MIT Press, 2014), and in 2017 completed Better, her PhD by practice, at London's Royal College of Art (RCA), interrogating how powerful dreams of "better" futures shape the things that get designed. Daisy studied architecture at the University of Cambridge, was a visiting scholar at Harvard University, and received her MA in Design Interactions from the Royal College of Art. Daisy won the World Technology Award for design in 2011, the London Design Medal for Emerging Talent in 2012, and the Dezeen Changemaker Award 2019. Her work has twice been nominated for Designs of the Year (2011, 2015). Daisy exhibits internationally, including at MoMA New York, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, the National Museum of China, and the Royal Academy. Daisy is a resident at Somerset House Studios in London, and is working on a major new commission for the Eden Project for 2021. I highly encourage you to check out Daisy's website linked in the show notes BEFORE listening to the podcast. We refer to a number of her works by title, and do our best to describe each project in depth for our listeners, but her work is best appreciated through the visual medium. https://www.daisyginsberg.com/work https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEeBeEfGoYU&t=3893s

In this episode we are joined by systems ecologist and original Biospherian Dr. Linda Leigh. Linda was one of the eight crew members living inside the closed system here at Biosphere 2 during the first mission. Before her time inside Biosphere 2, Linda worked as the Biome Design Coordinator during the building phase, where she assisted in collecting plant species from around the world that would be added to the Biosphere 2 biomes like the Tropical Rain Forest, Fog Desert, and Savannah. Following Biosphere 2, Linda went on to study with systems ecologist H.T. Odum, where she deepened her expertise in ecological systems. Linda is now the co-owner of the Vermillion Wormery and the Oracle Community Garden, right here in Oracle, AZ. In this episode, we learn about Linda's early years, how she joined the Biosphere 2 team, and how she and a group of science specialists came together to design and build entire ecosystems. Linda shares her own experiences and challenges from life on the inside of Biosphere 2 and shares with us how Biosphere 2 has had an impact on the rest of her life.

In this episode, we are joined by Dr. Melanie Culver & Susan Malusa. Dr. Melanie Culver is a geneticist and an Assistant Professor of Wildlife and Fisheries Science at the University of Arizona School of Natural Resources. She is an Assistant Leader of the USGS Arizona Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit and her genetic work studies a variety of species including jaguars, pumas, black bears, bighorn sheep, raptors, herps, and freshwater mussels, among others. Susan Malusa is a Research Specialist for the School of Natural Resources and the Environment at the University of Arizona. She is the co-coordinator (along with Melanie) of the UA (Citizen Science) Jaguar and Ocelot Monitoring Program. Her specialty is biogeography and data science. From 2011 to 2015, Melanie and Sue led an extensive Jaguar and Ocelot field monitoring campaign in the borderlands of Arizona. Since then, the monitoring project has transitioned into a citizen science Monitoring Program, which continues to actively collect field data across southern Arizona, recording not only Jaguar and Ocelot data, but other rare species seldom seen across the southwest. In this conversation, Melanie and Sue, share their insights and expertise on the Arizona Jaguars and other big Felids of the Southwest. wildcatresearch.arizona.edu Jaguar Photo Captures: https://www.flickr.com/photos/usfws_southwest/albums/72157632294203147

In this episode we are joined by Anthropologist turned coffee & mezcal Entrepreneur Doug Smith. Doug is the co-owner of the Exo Roast Company and the El Crisol Mezcal Bar in Tucson, AZ. Doug earned a Ph.D. in Cultural and Social Anthropology from Stanford University, conducting major investigations into agricultural history in several states in Mexico. He taught Anthropology for ten years in several universities, finishing as an Associate Professor at Western Oregon University before returning to Arizona in 2008 to begin Exo's coffee roastery. Doug's first experience with mezcal, during a fiesta patronal in a village in Guerrero, initiated a long engagement with cultures of agave. Many research trips to Sonora have put Doug into contact and relationship with Bacanora producers in the Rio Sonora and Rio Moctezuma valleys. His current interest is to explore agave cultures in Arizona-Sonora and reestablish relationships between people and the plant. El Crisol mezcaleria, which opened in 2017, aims not only to introduce guests to mezcal, but to educate people on the spirit, its production, and its cultural history. Additionally, Doug serves on the board of Native Seed Search and the Borderlands Restoration Network, working on conservation and community building initiatives throughout the greater Arizona/Sonora region. https://www.exocoffee.com/ https://www.borderlandsrestoration.org/

In this episode we are joined by Oceanographer and Geoscientist, Dr. Joellen Russell. Joellen is Professor and the Thomas R. Brown Distinguished Chair of Integrative Science at the University of Arizona Department of Geosciences. Joellen is the lead for the modeling team of the Southern Ocean Carbon and Climate Observations and Modeling project (SOCCOM), a multi institutional program based at Princeton focused on unlocking the mysteries of the Southern Ocean. She serves as the Co-chair of the Science Advisory Board's Climate Working Group at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA.

Before joining the University of Arizona, Dr. Russell was a Research Scientist at Princeton University and NOAA's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (NOAA/GFDL). She received her A.B. in Environmental Geoscience from Harvard and her PhD in Oceanography from Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego.

Prof. Russell is one of the 14 scientists behind an amicus curiae brief supporting the plaintiff in the historic 2007 U.S. Supreme Court decision on carbon dioxide emissions and climate change, Commonwealth of Massachusetts, et al. v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Joellen's research uses global climate and earth system models to simulate the climate and carbon cycle of the past, the present and the future, often utilizing satellite data, floating robotic ocean sensors known as Argo floats, and cutting edge supercomputers. Her work on the westerly winds led to the creation of a new paradigm in climate science, namely that warmer climates produce stronger westerly winds. This insight solved one of the long-standing climate paradoxes, the mechanism responsible for transferring one-third of the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere into the ocean and then back out again during our repeated glacial-interglacial cycles.

FV3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrGrbiHBmWg&t=9s

Robot Floats: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AVOr-wPdqs

SOCCOM: https://soccom.princeton.edu/

Joellen Russell Presentation: Climate and the Deep Blue Sea: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7aykuhkj90

In this episode we are joined by Dr. Christina Agapakis. Christina is a synthetic biologist, artist, and writer. She is the Creative Director of Gingko Bioworks, a boston based biotech company, and the Executive Editor of Grow Magazine, a magazine focused on the current endeavors, neglected histories, and collective futures in synthetic biology. As creative director, Christina engages with people, policies, and potential futures involved in synthetic biology, working for more open, equitable, and renewable technologies. In the lab, Christina has worked on enzymes involved in the production of biofuels, ecological design principles for synthetic biology, and the evolution of microbial communities in the soil. As an artist, she's mapped the microbial diversity of California, isolated halophilic bacteria from the Salton Sea, and made cheese from bacteria living on human skin. https://www.agapakis.com/ https://www.growbyginkgo.com/ https://www.ted.com/talks/christina_agapakis_what_happens_when_biology_becomes_technology

In this episode we are joined by Dr. Bryan Black. Bryan is an associate professor at the Laboratory of Tree Ring Research at the University of Arizona. In his research, he applies techniques used in dendrochronology, the science of tree rings, to study the hard parts of marine and freshwater species like fish, clams, and corals. Similar to the study of tree rings, the patterns analyzed within select marine species, can be used for studying species productivity, age, and their relationships to climate throughout history. Bryan combines these data from across different species to describe linkages among marine, freshwater, and terrestrial ecosystems AND to generate multi-millennial climate histories. Originally trained as a forest ecologist, Bryan also maintains interests in developing histories of forest disturbance and natural hazards including large landslides and earthquakes from the past. https://ltrr.arizona.edu/person/bryan-black https://ltrr.arizona.edu/about/treerings