Mind & Matter

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Short Summary: A deep dive into the enigmatic world of sleep, exploring its biological functions, evolutionary origins, and the diverse manifestations across different species.

Note: Podcast episodes are fully available to paid subscribers on the M&M Substack and on YouTube. Partial versions are available elsewhere.

About the Guest: Vlad Vyazovskiy, PhD is a Professor of Sleep Physiology at the Department of Physiology, Anatomy, and Genetics at Oxford University.

Key Takeaways:

• Sleep as a Mystery: Despite extensive research, the fundamental reason why animals sleep remains elusive, with no comprehensive theory yet agreed upon.
• Local Sleep Phenomenon: Sleep might not be a whole-brain event; even within a sleeping brain, different areas can be in different states of activity or rest.
• Sleep in Animals: Sleep varies widely among species, from micro-sleeps in penguins to unihemispheric sleep in dolphins, suggesting sleep could serve multiple, context-dependent functions.
• Synaptic Homeostasis: The hypothesis suggests that sleep could be crucial for renormalizing synaptic connections formed during wakefulness, although this idea is still under scrutiny.
• Hibernation & Torpor: These states relate to sleep but involve significant metabolic changes, possibly acting as survival mechanisms by conserving energy and reducing detectability by predators.
• Psychedelics & Sleep: Research shows psychedelics like 5-MeO-DMT can induce states where animals show signs of sleep in their brain activity while physically active, hinting at complex interactions between brain states and consciousness.

Related episodes:

• M&M #43: Sleep, Dreaming, Deep Neural Networks, Machine Learning & Artificial Intelligence, Overfitted Brain Hypothesis, Evolution of Fiction & Art | Erik Hoel
• M&M #16: Sleep, Dreams, Memory & the Brain | Bob Stickgold

*Not medical advice.

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• Good Chemistry: Personalized, science-based health consulting. Work with Dr. Nick Jikomes directly.
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Podcast episodes are fully available to paid subscribers on the M&M Substack and on YouTube. Partial versions are available elsewhere.

About the Guest: Alex Wiltschko holds a PhD in neuroscience from Harvard, focusing on olfaction. He transitioned from academic research to AI at Google before founding Osmo, where he applies his expertise in digitizing scents. He aims to innovate in areas like fragrance design and health applications.

Episode Summary: Dr. Wiltschko explores the science of smell, discussing the divide between aroma and olfaction studies and how biological metabolism influences scent. He explains how only a tiny fraction of molecules emitted by strawberries are responsible for their smell, illustrating the precision of olfactory perception. The conversation also covers how Osmo is working to digitize scent, creating technology for safer, custom fragrances and potential future applications like non-invasive disease detection through scent.

Key Takeaways:

• Aroma vs. Olfaction: There's a significant distinction in how the chemistry of scent creation (aroma) and brain processing of scents (olfaction) are studied, with little crossover between these fields.
• Biological Metabolism and Scent: Scent molecules are often byproducts of biological processes, with a complex relationship to nutrition and survival cues.
• Digitizing Scent: Osmo is pioneering the use of AI to digitize and manipulate scents, potentially revolutionizing fragrance design and detection technologies.
• Fragrance Innovation: The company focuses on creating unique, safe, and affordable fragrances for smaller brands, leveraging AI for quick design and production.
• Health Applications: There's potential for scent technology in health, like detecting diseases early through the volatile chemicals humans emit.

Related episodes:

• M&M #114: Marijuana, Plant Chemistry, Terpenes, Volatile Sulfur Compounds, Cannabis Industry, What Pungent Weed Smells Like & Why | Iain Oswald
• M&M #22: Machine Learning, Art

All episodes (audio & video), show notes, transcripts, and more at the M&M Substack

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Send us Fan Mail

Podcast episodes are fully available to paid subscribers on the M&M Substack and on YouTube. Partial versions are available elsewhere.

About the Guest: Alex Wiltschko holds a PhD in neuroscience from Harvard, focusing on olfaction. He transitioned from academic research to AI at Google before founding Osmo, where he applies his expertise in digitizing scents. He aims to innovate in areas like fragrance design and health applications.

Episode Summary: Dr. Wiltschko explores the science of smell, discussing the divide between aroma and olfaction studies and how biological metabolism influences scent. He explains how only a tiny fraction of molecules emitted by strawberries are responsible for their smell, illustrating the precision of olfactory perception. The conversation also covers how Osmo is working to digitize scent, creating technology for safer, custom fragrances and potential future applications like non-invasive disease detection through scent.

Key Takeaways:

• Aroma vs. Olfaction: There's a significant distinction in how the chemistry of scent creation (aroma) and brain processing of scents (olfaction) are studied, with little crossover between these fields.
• Biological Metabolism and Scent: Scent molecules are often byproducts of biological processes, with a complex relationship to nutrition and survival cues.
• Digitizing Scent: Osmo is pioneering the use of AI to digitize and manipulate scents, potentially revolutionizing fragrance design and detection technologies.
• Fragrance Innovation: The company focuses on creating unique, safe, and affordable fragrances for smaller brands, leveraging AI for quick design and production.

Related episodes:

• M&M #114: Marijuana, Plant Chemistry, Terpenes, Volatile Sulfur Compounds, Cannabis Industry, What Pungent Weed Smells Like & Why | Iain Oswald

*Not medical advice.

Support the show

Support my work:

• Good Chemistry: Personalized, science-based health consulting. Work with Dr. Nick Jikomes directly.
• Affiliate Partners: Visit this link to see my affiliate partners and get discounts codes for products & services to support health.

For all the ways you can support my efforts.

Send us Fan Mail

The complex science of dietary lipids (fats) and inflammation, with actionable advice for managing health through dietary choices.

Note: Full episodes are available to paid subscribers on the M&M Substack and are free on YouTube. Partial versions are available elsewhere.

About the guest: Tim Yeatman, MD is a surgical oncologist and professor of surgery at the University of South Florida, also serving as an Associate Center Director for Translational Research and Clinical Innovation at the Tampa General Cancer Institute. Ganesh Halade, PhD is an Associate Professor in the Department of Internal Medicine, focusing on cardiovascular diseases with research centered on inflammation and resolution signaling.

Episode summary: Explores the link between dietary lipids, particularly omega-6 fatty acids from seed oils, chronic inflammation, and cancer. It starts with a historical perspective on cancer as an inflammatory disease, referencing the work of Rudolf Virchow, and delves into how modern diets have shifted to include an imbalance of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids, leading to chronic inflammation. Includes insights from a recent study by Yeatman and Halade on lipid dysregulation in colon cancer, explaining how this imbalance can contribute to the development of cancer and other diseases. The conversation also touches on lifestyle factors like diet, exercise, and sleep, and how they interact with lipid metabolism to affect health outcomes.

Related episodes:

• M&M #136: Seed Oils, Omega-6 PUFAs, Inflammation, Obesity, Diabetes, Chronic Disease & Metabolic Dysfunction | Chris Knobbe 

*This content is never meant to serve as medical advice

Support the show

Support my work:

• Good Chemistry: Personalized, science-based health consulting. Work with Dr. Nick Jikomes directly.
• Affiliate Partners: Visit this link to see my affiliate partners and get discounts codes for products & services to support health.

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Send us Fan Mail

Podcast episodes are fully available to paid subscribers on the M&M Substack and freely on YouTube. Partial versions are available elsewhere.

About the guest: Ben Potter, PhD is an archaeologist & Professor of Anthropology at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks. James Chatters, PhD is a retired archaeologist and paleontologist. They recently published a paper on the diet of the Clovis people of North America at the end of the last Ice Age.

Episode summary: Nick talks to Dr. Potter & Dr. Chatters about: the Clovis culture and initial human colonization of the Americas; human diet since the last Ice Age; ancient human diets; hunting of Mammoths and other large herbivores; Clovis technology & culture, including projectile weapons; and more.

*This content is never meant to serve as medical advice

Support the show

Support my work:

• Good Chemistry: Personalized, science-based health consulting. Work with Dr. Nick Jikomes directly.
• Affiliate Partners: Visit this link to see my affiliate partners and get discounts codes for products & services to support health.

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Podcast episodes are fully available to paid subscribers on the M&M Substack and full video versions are free on YouTube. This episode will not be posted on YouTube due to the controversial nature of the content.

About the guest: Jessica Rose, PhD is a computational biologist who has been studying and analyzing data from the Vaccine Adverse Event Responding System (VAERS) related to COVID. 

Episode summary: Nick and Dr. Rose discuss: Vaccine Adverse Event Responding System (VAERS); analysis of VAERS data for COVID; mRNA technology; spike protein persistence & lipid nanoparticles; common adverse events reported for the Pfizer & Moderna shots; myocarditis & menstrual irregularities; IgG4 antibodies, molecular mimicry & autoimmunity; and more.

Related episodes:

• M&M #196: Vaccine Contamination & Fiat Science | Kevin McKernan
• M&M #100: Infectious Disease, Epidemiology, Pandemics, Health Policy, COVID, Politicization of Science | Jay Bhattacharya

*This content is never meant to serve as medical advice

Support the show

Support my work:

• Good Chemistry: Personalized, science-based health consulting. Work with Dr. Nick Jikomes directly.
• Affiliate Partners: Visit this link to see my affiliate partners and get discounts codes for products & services to support health.

For all the ways you can support my efforts.

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Full episodes are available to paid subscribers on the M&M Substack and free on YouTube. This is a free, partial version.

About the guest: Andrew Cutler, PhD is a machine learning engineer who has studied natural language processing, psychometrics & personality using quantitative methods. He writes about the origins of consciousness on his Substack, "Vectors of Mind"

Episode summary: Nick and Dr. Cutler discuss: language & recursion; human evolution & the origins of "higher" consciousness; symbolic cognition, social intelligence & metacognition; creation myths & ritual cults throughout history; snake cults in human history; the intentional ingestion of snake venom in the present-day; the "Stone Ape Theory" of consciousness; the origins of civilization; and more.

Related episodes:

• M&M #141: Evolution, Language, Domestication, Symbolic Cognition, AI & Large Language Models | Terrence Deacon
• M&M #1: Psychedelics, Civilization, Religion, Death & Plant Medicine | Brian Muraresku

*This content is never meant to serve as medical advice

Support the show

Support my work:

• Good Chemistry: Personalized, science-based health consulting. Work with Dr. Nick Jikomes directly.
• Affiliate Partners: Visit this link to see my affiliate partners and get discounts codes for products & services to support health.

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Send us Fan Mail

Full episodes are available to paid subscribers on the M&M Substack and free on YouTube. This is a free, partial version.

About the guest: Rosemary Bagot, PhD is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at McGill University and the Canada Research Chair in Behavioural Neurogenomics. Her lab studies the neurobiology of stress at the molecular, circuit, and behavioral levels.

Episode summary: Nick and Dr. Bagot discuss the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) Axis, cortisol and hormonal responses to stress; neural circuits related to the perception of threats & stressors; resilience & early life stress; sex differences & individual variability in stress response; epigenetics & transgenerational effects of stress; and more.

Related episodes:

• M&M #183: Calorie Restriction & Fasting: Aging, Immunity, Health Biomarkers, Stress, Genetics | Gary Churchill

*This content is never meant to serve as medical advice

Support the show

Support my work:

• Good Chemistry: Personalized, science-based health consulting. Work with Dr. Nick Jikomes directly.
• Affiliate Partners: Visit this link to see my affiliate partners and get discounts codes for products & services to support health.

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Send us Fan Mail

About the guest: Jibran Khokhar, PhD is Associate Professor of Anatomy & Cell Biology at Western University in Ontario. His lab studies the neurobiology of the co-occurrence of psychiatric illnesses like schizophrenia with substance use disorders.

Episode summary: Nick and Kevin discuss high comorbidity among mental illness, the dopamine reward system, antipsychotics & other psychiatric drugs; the relationship between THC (marijuana) and psychosis; sex differences in the brain; nicotine e-cigarettes (vaping) compared to smoking; and more.

*This content is never meant to serve as medical advice.

Support the show

Support my work:

• Good Chemistry: Personalized, science-based health consulting. Work with Dr. Nick Jikomes directly.
• Affiliate Partners: Visit this link to see my affiliate partners and get discounts codes for products & services to support health.

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Send us Fan Mail

Full episodes are available to paid subscribers on the M&M Substack and free on YouTube. This is a free, partial version.

About the guest: Kevin McKernan is the founder and Chief Science Officer of Medicinal Genomics. He has worked in biotechnology since the early 1990s, when he was involved in the Human Genome Project.

Episode summary: Nick and Kevin discuss: components of the COVID vaccines, including modified mRNA & lipid nanoparticles; DNA contamination in COVID vaccines; vaccine adverse events & IgG4 immune modulation; concerns with COVID PCR testing; origins of the SARS-CoV-2 virus; Fiat Science from the AIDS epidemic to today; how Big Pharma works with government regulators; decentralized medicine; and more.

Related episodes:

• M&M #149: DNA & RNA Biology, mRNA Vaccines, Vax Contamination & Side Effects, Spike Protein, Ivermectin, Hop Latent Viroid | Kevin McKernan

*This content is never meant to serve as medical advice

Support the show

Support my work:

• Good Chemistry: Personalized, science-based health consulting. Work with Dr. Nick Jikomes directly.
• Affiliate Partners: Visit this link to see my affiliate partners and get discounts codes for products & services to support health.

For all the ways you can support my efforts.