Critically Speaking

Audience questions answered 

1.  Why are some people attacked by mosquitoes, while people sitting next to them aren’t bothered?  This question, from Neil in Jupiter, Florida is something people wonder about.  Mosquitoes are attracted to CO2 as well as body odors.  Supposed remedies, like taking B vitamins or eating garlic, lack scientific evidence to back them up.  The differences between people are largely genetic.  Identical twins exhibit highly similar attractiveness or unattractiveness while fraternal twins do not.  Now, to find the genes underlying these differences in hopes of using them to protect people. Pregnant women and people with obesity seem to be more attractive to mosquitoes, as are people who have had a beer. 

1. How come some vertebrates, like salamanders, can regenerate an arm, while other vertebrates, like humans, can’t? From Jocelyn in Edmonton, Canada…..good question and an area of intensive investigation.  Regeneration is a complex process, involving many genes and their regulation.  In some cases, we do have the same genes that allow amphibians to regenerate but they have been turned off or modified such that they don’t allow regeneration.  In other cases, some of the genes involved in regeneration have been lost over evolutionary time.  Keep listening because in the future we will have an entire episode dedicated to regeneration. 

Connect with Therese:

Website:   www.criticallyspeaking.net

Twitter: @CritiSpeak

Email: [email protected]

Audio production by Turnkey Podcast Productions. You're the expert. Your podcast will prove it.  

Most of us take for granted that the seafood we eat is healthy and better for the atmosphere.  But there are hidden costs in our increasing consumption of seafood that we don’t see.  Why?  Because these costs are accrued on the high seas and under the sea, where few journalists endeavor to cover them.  Sea slavery, overfishing, pollution, and loss of revenue for people already struggling to make a living are extensive, but not well known.  Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times investigative reporter Ian Urbina has seen these horrors firsthand and talks with us today about his book “The Outlaw Ocean” and his foundation of the same name.

 Key Takeaways:

•  Approximately 50 of our seafood is farmed, and the other 50 percent arrives to consumers via practices involving human abuse and serious environmental damage. 
• Much of the farmed fish eat fish-meal that is derived from massive overfishing of fish less desirable for eating (but nonetheless ecologically important) and other species, such as whales, sharks, turtles) caught up in the fishing process.  Cooked, ground up, and used to feed the farmed fish.  
• We tend to think about greenhouse gases as being the driver of global change, but these practices are wreaking severe havoc on the planet, underwater.
• Human abuse and slavery are often involved in the fleets that harvest from the sea.  Invisible people, disposable people.
• Because all of the above take place out of sight, the damage usually goes unseen for lack of journalistic coverage.  It’s expensive to document but critical that it’s brought to light.

"There is a dark irony to aquaculture and raising fish on land and in pens. It was meant, and supported for many years by environmentalists, as a way to slow the rate of depletion of the wild fish. Now, because those aquaculture fish are being fed pelletized wild-caught fish, it's actually speeding up the rate of ocean depletion." —  Ian Urbina

Connect with Ian Urbina:

Twitter:  twitter.com/ian_urbina

Facebook: facebook.com/IanUrbinaReporter

Website: theoutlawocean.com

Book: theoutlawocean.com/book

YouTube: youtube.com/channel/UCykiIhv2wP4-BftEiKb241Q

Instagram: instagram.com/ian_urbina

Subscribe to The Outlaw Ocean Project News Letter: http://urbina.io/3th01mf

Connect with Therese:

Website:   www.criticallyspeaking.net

Twitter: @CritiSpeak

Email: [email protected]

Audio production by Turnkey Podcast Productions. You're the expert. Your podcast will prove it.  

In this episode, we welcome back Dr. James Alcock to the show, this time, he is here to discuss the paranormal and parapsychology. Throughout their discussion, Therese Markow and Dr. Alcock explain what is meant by paranormal, different types of supernatural phenomena and paranormal abilities, and the types of experiments that attempt to prove these abilities exist. There is a long history of paranormal beliefs that has evolved throughout the years, culminating in what we now call parapsychology. 

 Key Takeaways:

• Despite the lack of scientific evidence that paranormal phenomena are real, it is difficult to convince those who want to believe because it is impossible to prove a negative.  For example, How can you prove that Santa Claus doesn’t exist?
• No universities in the USA or Canada  have a department in parapsychology.  In some schools courses in parapsychology are offered.. 
• Statistics cannot give causation, they can only say when there is a significant departure from what you would expect by chance.  In the case of parapsychology experiments, statistical evidence falls short. 

"There's no other area of science where the phenomena are based on negative definitions." —  Dr. James Alcock

Connect with Dr. James Alcock:

Wikipedia Page: James Alcock  

Book: Belief: What it Means to Believe and Why Our Convictions are so Compelling 

Magazine: Skeptical Inquirer

Link to relevant article:  https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://skepticalinquirer.org/__;!!Mih3wA!RHu5rIp1RgLXolzIlcKGsg5PlFaPu1afl6y6NJJWumPGtrUUz1HnNCeN6a9S9Jo$

Connect with Therese:

Website:   www.criticallyspeaking.net

Twitter: @CritiSpeak

Email: [email protected]

Audio production by Turnkey Podcast Productions. You're the expert. Your podcast will prove it.  

Dr. Adam Schiavi is an assistant professor of anesthesiology and critical care medicine and neurology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. His areas of clinical expertise include anesthesiology, neurological critical care, disorders of consciousness and brain death diagnosis, clinical ethics, critical care medicine, and traumatic brain injury.

In this episode, Therese Markow and Dr. Adam Schiavi discuss how the definition of death has changed throughout history, what the current definition is, and how that is determined by the medical technology of the time. Brain death is the current definition of death, medically, but what happens to a body after brain death is determined can vary depending on the state you live in. This can be a trying time for families and for the providers involved with the now-deceased patient as the definition of death is not understood by everyone. They also discuss how brain death differs from other states of consciousness and how people often confuse the terminology of those different states, as well as the ability to hope for healing from all but brain death.

 Key Takeaways:

• The total cessation of all functions of the brain is the current definition of brain death in the United States. This definition is based on a clinical exam testing all parts of the brain, typically done by somebody certified in doing brain death determinations.
• You have to have a reason for the neurologic exam to be declining. Without a reason, you can't call somebody brain dead.
• You can replace every organ in the body, but you cannot replace the brain and when the brain dies, the body dies all the time 100% unless those organ systems are artificially supportive. 

"Our culture changes with technology and the way we define death is a part of culture. As that culture has shifted, the way we define death has also shifted with our new technologies of how we can actually determine whether people are dead." —  Dr. Adam Schiavi

Connect with Dr. Adam Schiavi:

Johns Hopkins Bio: Adam Schiavi, MD, PhD, MS

Email: [email protected]  

Connect with Therese:

Website:   www.criticallyspeaking.net

Twitter: @CritiSpeak

Email: [email protected]

Audio production by Turnkey Podcast Productions. You're the expert. Your podcast will prove it. 

Garrett Broad is an Assistant Professor of Communication and Media Studies at Fordham University and the author of More Than Just Food: Food Justice and Community Change (University of California Press, 2016). His research investigates the role of storytelling and communication technology in promoting networked movements for social justice. Much of his work focuses on local and global food systems, as he explores how food can best contribute to improved neighborhood health, environmental sustainability, and the rights and welfare of animals.

In this episode, Therese Markow and Dr. Garrett Broad discuss the emerging culture around cellular meat and the changing space for this product in the marketplace.  Therese and Dr. Broad discuss how the animal cells are acquired, the process of growing the “meat" in a lab, and the types of products currently, and possibly in the future, grown in laboratories.  They also discuss how food activists can make beneficial impacts on food justice and food sovereignty and change "food deserts" or "food swamps” and the communities in which they are embedded. 

 Key Takeaways:

• In food deserts, the problem is the nutritional quality of available foods, as well as the cultural and economic interests of the area.
• Ground “meat” is the most likely type of food that we are going to be seeing from cell-cultured products, most likely mixed with plant-based products.
• Cultured animal products have the potential to reduce animal suffering, but the impacts on the planet are not yet certain.
• Still in development are the specific rules for FDA and USDA oversight of the safety and quality of the cellular products.

"I don’t think there’s any way cell-cultured meat gets to market in any serious way without getting off of FBS (fetal bovine serum)." —  Dr. Garrett Broad

Connect with Dr. Garrett Broad:  

Twitter: @GarrettBroad

Website: GarrettBroad.com

Book: More Than Just Food: Food Justice and Community Change

Articles: Why We Should Make room for Debate about High-Tech Meat

Plant-based and cell-based animal product alternatives: An assessment and agenda for food tech justice

Connect with Therese:

Website:   www.criticallyspeaking.net

Twitter: @CritiSpeak

Email: [email protected]

Audio production by Turnkey Podcast Productions. You're the expert. Your podcast will prove it.  

When we hear someone call on the phone, we often recognize them by their voice. They don't even have to announce their name. So what exactly is a voice? How's it produced? Why is your voice different from other people? We take so much for granted about being able to speak and hear that we don't even stop to think about where voices come from what causes the uniqueness of a person's voice. In today’s episode, Therese Markow and Dr. Julie Barkmeier-Kraemer answer many of these questions and so much more. 

 Key Takeaways:

• As kids, our voices start out gender-neutral. Kids are smaller so they have really short vocal folds. The tissues don't quite have the differentiation they acquire with use, growth, and time. Girls and boys really change, height and size, similarly up until adolescence. 
• Pitch range is linked  to the variable ways in which we grow and our our ultimate sizes. The morphology, so to speak, of our body makeup can predict our pitch and our pitch ranges.
• What gives us the impression of male or female, however, is word choice. If we are visibly observing that individual there may be body posturing and gestures are mannerisms that we accept as being more masculine or feminine, and speaking style, how we use our pitch and our prosody differently as males and females.

"We commonly think of the primary attribute of being male or female is being pitched, but, actually, there's so much more to it." —  Dr. Julie Barkmeier-Kraemer

Connect with Dr. Julie Barkmeier-Kraemer:

Professional Bio: healthcare.utah.edu/fad/mddetail.php?physicianID=u0978011

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/dr-julie-barkmeier-kraemer-25879b17

Connect with Therese:

Website:   www.criticallyspeaking.net

Twitter: @CritiSpeak

Email: [email protected]

Audio production by Turnkey Podcast Productions. You're the expert. Your podcast will prove it.  

Over the last few years, a number of colleges and universities have dropped the requirement for all or part of the SAT or ACT exam as part of their admissions requirements.   This movement appears to be increasing. It's logical to wonder about the large-scale implications of eliminating the requirement of these tests, the benefits, and the downsides. In today’s episode, Therese Markow and Dr. Richard Phelps, discuss this trend of eliminating standardized tests, the origins of this movement, and the potential consequences we may see as a result of these changing requirements. 

 Key Takeaways:

• No college restricts admission decisions to admission test scores alone. They also consider grade point average, your class rank, the historical performance of students from each high school, and the quality and rigor of courses taken. Typically, these factors are given higher priority and admission decisions than test scores.
• Making test scores optional raises a college's ranking. Once rival colleges eliminate the requirement, a college has little choice but to join them.
• The less test scores are used in making admission decisions, the more predictive those test scores become, and the less predictive high school grades become because the variance in the ability of the entering students grows and the variance in high school grades narrows.

"College administrators may be reticent to admit they adopted a test-optional policy in order to raise their rankings and increase ethnic diversity, and, coincidentally, lowered their academic standards.." —  Dr. Richard Phelps

Connect with Dr. Richard Phelps: 

Twitter: @RichardPPhelps

Website: RichardPhelps.net & NonpartisanEducation.org

Research Gate: Richard P Phelps

SSRN Scholarly Papers: Richard P. Phelps

Academia: Richard P Phelps

LinkedIn: Richard P Phelps

LinkedIn Learning: Richard P Phelps

Connect with Therese:

Website:   www.criticallyspeaking.net

Twitter: @CritiSpeak

Email: [email protected]

Audio production by Turnkey Podcast Productions. You're the expert. Your podcast will prove it.  

Postpartum depression is a significant public health concern that affects approximately 10-15% of new mothers. For the most part, societal attitudes toward postpartum depression have changed as the conditions become more recognized. However, not only the mother suffers, but the impact on the infant can also be detrimental and long-lasting. In today’s episode, Therese Markow and Dr. Diane Putnick discuss many of the questions around postpartum depression including: Why do some women suffer postpartum depression and others don't? Will it go away on its own? How long does it last? The answers to these questions are not only surprising but critical to get proper care for the mother and those for the infant as well. 

 Key Takeaways:

• There is not great data about who gets treatment for postpartum depression because it's hard to estimate how many women are suffering in silence and never actually get diagnosed.
• It's really important for people to know that if you're experiencing these long-term symptoms, you're not alone.  
• Research hasn’t shown any evidence that postpartum depression is on the rise. If anything, it actually may be on the decline.

"I think people also confuse the baby blues with postpartum depression. The big difference between the baby blues and postpartum depression is the severity and the persistence of the problem and the symptoms." —  Dr. Diane Putnick

Connect with Dr. Diane Putnick:

Professional Bio: nichd.nih.gov/about/org/diphr/officebranch/eb/putnick  

Publons: publons.com/researcher/2870386/diane-l-putnick

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/diane-putnick-051aa262

References:

Mom’s Mental Health Matters: nichd.nih.gov/ncmhep/initiatives/moms-mental-health-matters/moms

Connect with Therese:

Website:   www.criticallyspeaking.net

Twitter: @CritiSpeak

Email: [email protected]

Audio production by Turnkey Podcast Productions. You're the expert. Your podcast will prove it.  

Infertility issues are on the rise, leading otherwise healthy young couples to seek a form of assisted reproductive technology appropriate for their particular situation. Increasing infertility has been documented for some time. And since it doesn't appear to be slowing down, it's of considerable concern. Is one sex affected more than the other? What are the long-range implications if the trend keeps going? Is it only humans that appear to be affected? And the critical question is why? In today’s episode, Therese Markow and Dr. Shanna Swan, author of the new book Count Down, answer many of these questions, including talking about the types of chemicals and other factors that may be contributing to these infertility issues.

 Key Takeaways:

• The criteria number for good sperm (as indicated by the WHO) has dramatically decreased. There are also other criteria, such as shape, ability to swim correctly, and no chromosomal abnormalities.
• Male and female infertility is about 50/50 for who is responsible and both should be tested just as often as the other.
• Newborn babies are being born “pre polluted” with, up to, 100 chemicals. 
• Figure out, if you can, to the extent you can, where your food has come from, and make it as simple as possible because that is what is going into your body.

"I'm convinced that a large proportion of the decline we're seeing is due to chemical exposures, manmade chemicals." —  Dr. Shanna Swan

Connect with Dr. Shanna Swan:

Professional Bio: mountsinai.org/profiles/shanna-h-swan  

Website: shannaswan.com 

Book: Count Down - shannaswan.com/countdown

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/shanna-swan-phd-339a4258

Instagram: instagram.com/drshannaswan

Twitter: twitter.com/DrShannaSwan

Reference:

Environmental Working Group: ewg.org

Connect with Therese:

Website:   www.criticallyspeaking.net

Twitter: @CritiSpeak

Email: [email protected]

Audio production by Turnkey Podcast Productions. You're the expert. Your podcast will prove it.  

Everyone's felt lonely at some point in their lives, but severe and chronic loneliness are different. In fact, loneliness in the United States has reached epidemic proportions, having doubled in the last 50 years, and with severe loneliness comes a range of other health risks. In today’s conversation with Dr. Dilip Jeste, one of the lead researchers at the University of California - San Diego School of Medicine Therese Markow and Dr. Jeste discuss the reasons for this loneliness epidemic, how it affects other aspects of health, and how loneliness affects adults at all age ranges. 

 Key Takeaways:

• The scale for loneliness does not contain the word “lonely” in any of the items. 
• Before the 1800s, the word loneliness did not exist. Oneliness was used instead and meant that you could be alone, but you did not feel distressed.
• In 2016 and 2017, the lifespan in the United States fell for the first time since the 1950s - it was not because of some new cancer, or heart disease, or even infection. It was because of suicides, opioids, and loneliness

"Loneliness is associated with increased risk of physical, mental, and cognitive disorders...if you reduce loneliness, the prevalence of those diseases will fall." —  Dr. Dilip Jeste

Connect with Dr. Dilip Jeste:

UCSD Bio: profiles.ucsd.edu/dilip.jeste  

Book: amazon.com/Wiser-Scientific-Roots-Wisdom-Compassion/dp/1683644638

Website: wiserthebook.com

TedMed: tedmed.com/speakers/show?id=526374

Compassionate Community Movement: charterforcompassion.org

Connect with Therese:

Website:   www.criticallyspeaking.net

Twitter: @CritiSpeak

Email: [email protected]

Audio production by Turnkey Podcast Productions. You're the expert. Your podcast will prove it.