Inspiration Dissemination

Our climate in the next thirty years will not look the same as today, and that’s exactly why our energy systems will soon look completely different. Energy systems are the big umbrella of how and where we create electricity, how we transport that electricity, and how we use electricity. We’re discussing the past and the future of our energy environment with Emily Richardson, a Masters of Engineering student in the Energy Systems Program. In the interview we learn about how our current energy infrastructure works, why it's pretty darn old, and what needs to change (quickly) for our upcoming future where renewables contribute significantly more to the grid and more distributed power generation systems (like home solar panels) really complicate the picture. But there are solutions, many of them! But we need to build and retrofit carefully to accomodate these upcoming shifts in our energy future. 

Have you ever considered that a virus that eats bacteria could potentially have an effect on global carbon cycling? No? Me neither. Yet, our guest this week, Dr. Holger Buchholz, a postdoctoral researcher at OSU, taught me just that! Holger, who works with Drs. Kimberly Halsey and Stephen Giovannoni in OSU’s Department of Microbiology, is trying to understand how a bacteriophage (a bacteria-eating virus), called Venkman, impacts the metabolism of marine bacterial strains in a clade called OM43.

 Hosted by Lisa Hildebrand and Miriam F. Lipton

Check out the ID Blog here: https://blogs.oregonstate.edu/inspiration/2022/05/20/the-non-ghostbusting-venkman-a-virus-that-eats-marine-bacteria/

Clinical and experimental trials for new medication can generate complex data, and it's important to identify which pieces of data are actually relevant. But this becomes difficult when the datasets include millions of genes, metabolites, or other biological factors. PhD candidate Nolan Newman is a computational biologist and uses networks to parse through these datasets and identify which interactions and relationships are important. Put simply - Nolan makes meaning out of chaos. In this episode we dive deep into what systems biology is, why networks are like spaghetti, and how a hearing loss incident prompted Nolan to pursue a career in science.

Hosted by: Bryan & Grace

Check out the ID blog here: https://blogs.oregonstate.edu/inspiration/2022/05/15/spaghetti-networks-oodles-of-nodes/

"AI that benefits humans and humanities" is the theme of this week's episode...and the 'lofty life goal' of our guest. Anna Nickelson is a PhD candidate in the Collaborative Robotics and Intelligent Systems Institute here at OSU. Her work focuses on how robots and AI can be used to assist humans, particularly the elderly and those with minor cognitive impairments. 

Hosts: Grace Deitzler & Lisa Hildebrand

Check out the ID Blog here: https://blogs.oregonstate.edu/inspiration/2022/05/07/ai-that-benefits-humans-and-humanity%EF%BF%BC/

In 2021 Jordan Peele remade the 1992 cult horror classic, Candyman. The 2021 remake received critical success and despite being delayed several times due to the covid-19 pandemic, was a box office success as well. In both the 1992 and 2021 versions, the eponymous main character is a black man. But in the remake, the character deviates from the usual narrative trope of being a menacing black man to a man with complex emotions and feelings. For most viewers, these changes make for a good story, but likely are not things that they dwell on, and certainly are forgettable by the time they have left the theater. But for our guest this week, literature MA student Marisa Williams in the School of Writing, Literature, and Film, these differences are what gives them inspiration and are what inform their research. 

Hosted by Miriam F. Lipton and Adrian Gallo. 

Check out the ID Blog here: https://blogs.oregonstate.edu/inspiration/2022/04/29/horror-in-fiction/

Basic biology and computer science is probably not an intuitive pairing to think of, when we think of pairs of scientific disciplines. Not as intuitive as say biology and chemistry (often referred to as biochem). However, for Joseph Valencia, a third year PhD student at OSU, the bridge between these two disciplines is a view of life at the molecular scale as a computational process in which cells store, transmit, and interpret the information necessary for survival. Join us on this week's episode as we explore how machine learning can be used to try and reveal how ribosomes make critical decisions in our bodies. 

Hosted by Lisa Hildebrand and Adrian Gallo.

Check out the ID blog here: https://blogs.oregonstate.edu/inspiration/2022/04/14/the-rigamarole-of-rna-ribosomes-and-machine-learning/

Did you know humans have the ability to “taste” through smelling? Well we do, and it is through a process called retronasal olfaction. This fancy sounding term is just some of the ways that food scientists, such as our guest speaker this week, recent M.S. graduate and soon to be Ph.D. student, Jenna Fryer studies how flavors, or tastes through smell, are understood and what impact external factors have on them. Specifically, Fryer looks at the ways fires affect the flavors of wine, a particularly timely area of research due to the recent wave of devastating wildfires in Oregon. Hosted by Miriam F. Lipton and Lisa Hildebrand.

Check out the ID blog here: https://blogs.oregonstate.edu/inspiration/2022/04/22/red-red-smoky-wine/

The number of anti-LGBTQ bills in the United States has skyrocketed from 41 in 2018 to over 200 in the first four months of 2022 alone. Rue Dickey, a 2019 OSU graduate and transgender person, recently used the indie game platform itch.io to fundraise over $400k for trans advocacy groups in Texas, a state currently affected by severe transphobic legislation. We chat with Rue about their fundraiser, tabletop games, and the importance of making sure trans youth are supported. 

Check out the ID blog here: https://blogs.oregonstate.edu/inspiration/2022/04/24/in-the-face-of-national-anti-trans-legislation-local-game-developer-and-osu-graduate-raises-over-400k-for-trans-advocacy-groups/

What happens when robots face an ethical conundrum? When something that should be true about their world isn't - or vice versa? We talk logic, coding, self-driving cars, and pizza-stealing cats on this week's episode of ID with Colin Shea-Blymyer, a PhD student in OSU's new Artificial Intelligence program. Learn what it takes to be a "roboethicist" and what the future of coding ethics for robots looks like.

Check out the ID Blog here: https://blogs.oregonstate.edu/inspiration/2022/04/15/i-roboethicist/ 

What were you doing 10 years ago? While some of our current hosts were getting ready to go to grad school, baking cakes, and finishing up high school, in 2012, Inspiration Dissemination was just getting started. In this special anniversary episode, we hear from founders Joey, Zhian, and Matt about how the show began, some of their favorite memories, and advice for the future. We also hear reflections from other past hosts on their experience with ID. Here's to another 10 years of telling stories with science communication!

Check out the ID blog here: https://blogs.oregonstate.edu/inspiration/