Critically Speaking

In this episode, Therese Markow and Dr. Leon Barron discuss what is in our wastewater is, both before and after it goes through the treatment facilities. Wastewater treatment can vary among countries and even within a country, depending upon local population density and regulations.  Profiling what enters a water treatment facility reveals a lot about the health and pharmaceutical consumption of a given population. For example, cocaine use is higher in Europe than in the USA where methamphetamine is more commonly found at high levels in pretreatment wastewater. Even with treatment, not everything is removed from the water that we generally assume to be safe. For example, Dr. Barron’s recent research reveals that cocaine and other psychotropic drugs have been found in the rivers in “pristine” environments and that these drugs show up in the invertebrates and the fish that eat them.  While low levels are currently assumed to be safe for humans, longer term and more in depth studies on these levels for humans and fetal brain development are critical. International groups of collaborators, including Dr. Barron, are engaged in global monitoring of wastewater.

 Key Takeaways:

• With "Wastewater Based Epidemiology",  samples of the discharge into the sewage network can be screened, in effect drug testing an entire city in one go.
• It's very, very important that we understand where these drugs, especially pharmaceuticals and illicit drugs, are used,  where they end up and what effects they're having in order to take preemptive measures. 
• While the current exposure and effect on humans is currently thought to be minimal, the concentrations of these drugs in the water you consume, and their health effects, require further study.

"The wastewater can really tell us an awful lot about what city is doing." —  Dr. Leon Barron

Connect with Dr. Leon Barron:

Kings College London Profile: Dr Leon Barron

Research: Dr Leon Barron

Connect with Therese:

Website:   www.criticallyspeaking.net

Twitter: @CritiSpeak

Email: [email protected]

Audio production by Turnkey Podcast Productions. 

Humans are in contact with many animals, our pets, zoo animals, and animals being farmed for fur.  I’ve received several questions about the transfer of COVID between our animals and humans. So in this episode, I’ll briefly address some of these questions.

 Key Takeaways:

• In the few cases where pets have tested positive for COVID-19, it was confirmed the cats and dogs got the virus from their owners first. 
• Tigers at the Bronx Zoo and at the Knoxville Zoo tested positive for COVID after showing signs of respiratory disease. 
• On mink farms, the virus was seen to mutate and transfer within the minks themselves and to others in the community. 

"While it's very exciting that several highly effective vaccines will soon be available, we can't let our guard down quite yet, and we should let science provide the guidance to best protect ourselves." —  Therese Markow, Ph.D.

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, Therese Markow and Dr. Boris Konrad discuss the striking impact of memorization on functional changes and connectivity in the brain. Dr. Konrad is a neuroscientist as well as an international Memory Champion. He not only studies brain connectivity, but also trains other memory athletes as well as those who simply wish to improve their memories. They discuss more specific aspects of memorization and its benefits across a range of other activities and problem solving, independent of the particular memorization training utilized. Dr. Konrad summarizes his recent study, published in the journal Neuron, and the techniques used to train the brain to improve memory. 

 Key Takeaways:  

• Memorization and memory is not a part of the brain, it is a function of the brain. It is a capability of our brain and our neural system. 
• Without exception, memory athletes use the method of loci (colloquially called the “memory palace”) as a technique to memorize and remember information. 
• Memory training actually decreases the brain activity needed to complete a range of tasks.   

"Learning and thinking in your brain are not separate. We don’t have a thinking brain and a learning brain; it’s exactly one brain which does both." —  Dr. Boris Konrad

   Connect with Dr. Boris Konrad:  Donders Institute: Dr B.N. Konrad (Boris) Website: BorisKonrad.com Memory Training: Superbrain! Memory Training with Boris Konrad     TedTalks:  How to use memory techniques to improve education The mind and methods of a Memory Champion    

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.  

With the incidents of autoimmune diseases on the rise, it is likely that you may know someone with one or have at least heard of them. These autoimmune diseases are becoming more talked about in society. In this episode, Therese Markow and Dr. Meghan Free discuss what these autoimmune diseases are, how they work, and how they can be treated. They also discuss the risk factors and predispositions for these diseases as well as the Hygiene Hypothesis and immune system education. 

 Key Takeaways:

• There are approximately 100 types of autoimmune disease, though some are exceedingly rare. Others like Lupus, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Multiple Sclerosis, and Type I Diabetes are much more common. 
• Most patients who have lived on immunosuppressants must be cautious and take precautions
• If you look at the rates of autoimmune diseases in developing nations versus developed countries, they're much much lower in those developing countries versus a country like the United States. 

"We know that there are certain genes, especially genes related to the immune system, that can predispose a person to eventually developing an autoimmune disease. However, it's important to note here that merely having a gene that's associated with autoimmune disease does not guarantee that you will ever develop the disease." —  Dr. Meghan Free

Connect with Dr. Meghan Free:

Professional Bio: med.unc.edu/medicine/directory/meghan-free/  

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, Therese Markow and Dr. Anita Shelgikar discuss all things sleep - what sleep medicine is, how sleep needs change throughout our lives, what happens when we can’t sleep, and how to treat those cases of insomnia. Even in the current pandemic, we are still able to continue advancing the research in various areas of sleep medicine due to the technological advances in things such as telemedicine and consumer wearable products. It is an exciting time in sleep medicine, especially as sleep affects all aspects of our lives. 

 Key Takeaways:

• The invention of the lightbulb has caused behavior change that affects how long people sleep. 
• A zeitgeber is an environmental cue that helps us to train to a 24-hour cycle - such as sunlight, alarm clocks, and even social interactions. 
• Sleep is a critical part of growth and development for our children and youth. It can impair scholastic and athletic performance, mood, and other behaviors. 

"The exposure to light at night suppresses the brain's natural production of melatonin, which is a hormone that's released in response to darkness and actually helps to facilitate sleep." —  Dr. Anita Shelgikar

Connect with Dr. Anita Shelgikar:

Professional Bio: medicine.umich.edu/dept/neurology/anita-v-shelgikar-md-mhpe  

Find an Accredited Sleep Center: SleepEducation.org

Find a Certified Behavioral Medicine Provider: BehavioralSleep.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.  

With gaming reaching an all-time high, we wonder if there are any effects of video games on the users’ brains or mental health. In this episode, Therese Markow and Dr. Ofir Turel discuss that question and the answer to it which is,” it depends”. Internet Gaming Disorder, while listed in the DSM-5, is still on the list of mental disorders to potentially consider. While there are symptoms that accompany gaming disorder, the definition of clinically significant impairment still exists. They discuss the types of games, gaming consoles, and other variations that are played by people around the world, as well as the physical and neurological effects of gaming on those players. With the increased pressures to engage in ethical and responsible game design and pressures on governments to control more of what children, in particular, are playing, the effects of these games on consumers require additional investigations.  

 Key Takeaways:

• Internet Gaming Disorder, IGD, is in the DSM-5, but is still on the list of mental disorders to potentially consider. This means that we do not have enough evidence, even though several years have passed since the publication of DSM-5. 
• Negative side effects typically emerge after gaming becomes excessive. Not necessarily if you play one hour a day, or even four or five hours a day, but  past this point, we see more downside effects. 
• During the pandemic, people have played more games than ever before. At the same time, it doesn't mean we need to reduce it. It could be a very good way to deal with the pandemic rather than being around other people, which is not the ideal situation during a pandemic.

"The flexibility of the brain in general declines as we mature. And, not surprisingly, perhaps, children can be more vulnerable to risky excessive behaviors, because their brain systems mature on different schedules...which means that children are more vulnerable to engage in excessive behaviors that are very potent as they respond very quickly to potent cues." —  Dr. Ofir Turel

Connect with Dr. Ofir Turel:

Dr. Turel’s Bio: oturel1.wixsite.com/ofirturel

References:

Playstation Nation: Protect Your Child from Video Game Addiction by Olivia & Kurt Bruner - amazon.com/Playstation-Nation-Protect-Child-Addiction/dp/1931722749

Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other by Sherry Turkle - amazon.com/Alone-Together-Expect-Technology-Other/dp/0465031463

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.  

Are you online? Have you ever been online? Do you have a phone? You have a digital footprint. Many of us have heard of this phrase, but what actually is it, and what does it mean. In this episode, Therese Markow and Kade Crockford discuss just that. From the Cambridge Analytica Scandal, to the changing purpose of fusion centers and government databases, and what companies know about us from just three main sources. The government has tried to use these databases as surveillance to create predictive models, however, many reports have come out and disproven the effectiveness of these models, yet they continue to be in use based on those sources. This creates additional problems with the 1st and 4th Amendment rights. 

 Key Takeaways:

• In the United States, unlike in Europe, we lack any comprehensive consumer privacy law that is sufficiently protective of our rights and our interests in an era in which digital technologies are ubiquitous.
• The idea that the FBI should be wiretapping every single person who has anti-black or anti-Jewish, or anti-gay political views is not possible, because there are so many of those people. And it wouldn't make sense from a public safety perspective, because the vast majority of people who hold even extremist political views will never commit extremist political violence.
• The Department of Homeland Security found that predictive modeling was not a useful tactic when it comes to anti-terrorism or counterterrorism. House Republicans put out a report, finding that fusion centers had produced little to no intelligence of value, had violated civil rights and civil liberties of both people on the left and the right, and had contributed nothing to the nation's fight against terrorism.
• These are political problems. These are all infrastructures and architectures and political and legal systems that human beings created. So we can change them, we absolutely have the power to change them. 

"It shouldn't be that we leave it up to the user, the end-user, the consumer of consumer technologies, to be a privacy expert, to be a lawyer, to be able to read and understand these complex terms of service agreements or privacy policies, particularly in a situation in which people don't have a lot of alternatives to using those products." —  Kade Crockford

Connect with Kade Crockford:

ACLUM.org Bio: Kade Crockford  

Twitter: @onekade

Blog: PrivacySOS.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.  

With the rise in direct to consumer genetic testing, such as 23andMe and Ancestry becoming more popular and more widely used, we are discovering more uses and misuses by humans with these tests. In this episode, Therese Markow and Aaron Panofsky discuss how these direct to consumer genetic tests work, the science behind race, ethnicity, and social perception of both, and the ways in which groups, such as white nationalist groups, have interpreted and discussed their genetic results. These technologies are also being used in a wide variety of political projects. They also discuss the major ways in which science and expertise are under direct assault, often resulting in correlations being attributed to causation or stating something as truth when there is no science to back it up.  

 Key Takeaways:

• Regardless of what their genetic test results were showing, those on the white nationalist website often ignored the science or applied different types of lenses to the identity claims. 
• Many consider the term “race” to be biologically meaningless, not just for humans, but for all the plants and organisms that we study, but genes can correlate with socially defined racial groups and socially defined groups at other scales.
• The distinction between race and ethnicity is being muddied and confused in people's minds, in part because of how these commercial genetic tests are deployed and used. 

"There can be kind of a feedback loop in our minds and in our culture, where the tests can reinforce these racist ideas, but they can also undermine these racist ideas. It's kind of about whether we make a tendentious reading, where we just focus on the race, or a more holistic reading of these data and focus on all the different kinds of things that can correlate to human races being just one of many." —  Dr. Aaron Panofsky

Connect with Dr. Aaron Panofsky:

UCLA Bio: socgen.ucla.edu/people/aaron-panofsky

Book: Misbehaving Science: Controversy and the Development of Behavior Genetics - press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/M/bo16124298.html

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, Therese Markow discusses answers to listener’s questions about climate change! She explains the difference between weather and climate and the relationship between the two, as well as how global climate change is affecting different regions and types of weather. Climate change is affecting the world and we are seeing more ways that it is affecting us every year, but there may be ways to turn back the clock by changing the atmosphere according to recent investigations. 

 Key Takeaways:

• Weather refers to short term changes in the atmosphere and can be predicted. Climate refers to larger-scale conditions of the atmosphere over longer periods of time. 
• The more CO2 and other contaminates that gather the warmer the atmosphere becomes. 
• For every degree Fahrenheit of rise in ocean temperature, this can increase a hurricanes wind speed by 5-20 miles per hour. Since storm categories are classified by wind speed, sea surface temperature rises can shift a storm to the next category of severity.

"Weather doesn’t change the climate, but changes in climate can cause the weather to change over vast regions of the globe." —  Therese Markow

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.  

Some people live more than a hundred years with no health problems and very little cognitive decline.  How come?  While healthy lifestyles certainly play a part in healthy aging, these “centenarians” share a number of special biological attributes.  Furthermore, these attributes, along with attaining an age of 100 or greater, show a strong genetic component.  Dr. Stacy Andersen of the Boston University School of Medicine has been studying these centenarians and the factors that are associated with not only their attaining an advanced age, but doing so with no history of major physical or mental health problems.  In her interview, Dr. Andersen discusses what she and her colleagues have discovered about this unusual group of older people.

 Key Takeaways:

• Centenarians are people who have reached 100 years of age, while “supercentenarians” are 110 and older.
• Recent studies of these groups of adults reveal that during their lives they have “escaped” the diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular problems, dementia, and diabetes that cause earlier mortality among adults born at the same time.
• Dr. Anderson discusses her work on the genetic bases for being an “escaper”, as well as the lifestyle and personality characteristics they have in common.

"The older you get, the healthier you’ve been." —  Dr. Stacy Andersen

Connect with Dr. Stacy Andersen:

BUMC Bio: profiles.bu.edu/Stacy.Andersen  

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.