Orders of Magnitude

Lisa Hanna is a Ph.D. student in biology at McGill University who received a prestigious award by the Fonds de Recherche du Québec to study ants and what genetic factors lead to the diverse appearance within the thousands of genetically identical ants of one colony.

If you're interested in further information, check out the following links:

Dr. Ehab Abouheif's lab website

https://www.abouheiflab.org/

Some of Lisa's Publications:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35654666/

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S007021532030137X#:~:text=The%20evolution%20of%20eusociality%2C%20where,winged%20queens%20and%20wingless%20workers.

In this episode, Matheus guides us over a small portion of the peer-reviewed literature on the psychology of habits. We discuss some scientifically proven methods to help you prevent bad habits from firing such as environmental design. We also discuss the impact that motivation has on the process of breaking bad habits, and how overachievers become as productive as they are.

Cited Literature:

"More Than Resisting Temptation: Beneficial Habits Mediate the Relationship Between Self-Control and Positive Life Outcomes" by Brian M. Galla and Angela L. Duckworth. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol 109(3):508-525

"Does Changing Behavioral Intentions Engender Behavior Change? A Meta-Analysis of the Experimental Evidence" by Thomas L. Webb and Paschal Sheeran. Psychological Bulletin, 132(2): 249–268.

"Habit Formation and Change" by Lucas Carden and Wendy Wood. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, Vol 20:117-122.

"Nudge to nobesity 1: Minor changes in accessibility Decrease Food Intake" by Paul Rozin et al., Judgement and Decision making, Vol 6(4):323-332

"Psychology of Habit" by Wendy Wood and Dennis Rünger, Annual Review of Psycholog, Vol 67:289-314

This week, we delve into the most common neurodegenerative disease: Alzheimer's.

References:

Stats on AD and Dementia: Monica Moore, M. S. G., Mirella Díaz-Santos, and Keith Vossel. "Alzheimer’s Association 2021 Facts and Figures Report."

Diagnosis of AD using PET scan: Chételat, Gaël, et al. "Amyloid-PET and 18F-FDG-PET in the diagnostic investigation of Alzheimer's disease and other dementias." The Lancet Neurology 19.11 (2020): 951-962.

Amyloid Beta, the genetics of AD. Tanzi, Rudolph E. "The genetics of Alzheimer disease." Cold Spring Harbor perspectives in medicine 2.10 (2012): a006296.

APOE risk factor. Raber, Jacob, Yadong Huang, and J. Wesson Ashford. "ApoE genotype accounts for the vast majority of AD risk and AD pathology." Neurobiology of aging 25.5 (2004): 641-650.

Tau in Alzheimer's. Maccioni, Ricardo B., et al. "The revitalized tau hypothesis on Alzheimer's disease." Archives of medical research 41.3 (2010): 226-231.

In today's episode, Philippe tells us about how scientists studying a cell-stress management protein got into a lengthy argument over mistakes found in their published work. This is a great example of how science has the ability to correct its own mistakes over time.

References:

Yang, Peiguo, et al. "G3BP1 is a tunable switch that triggers phase separation to assemble stress granules." Cell 181.2 (2020): 325-345.

Panas, Marc D et al. “Phosphorylation of G3BP1-S149 does not influence stress granule assembly.” The Journal of cell biology vol. 218,7 (2019): 2425-2432. doi:10.1083/jcb.201801214

Tourrière, Hélène, and Jamal Tazi. “Reply to "Phosphorylation of G3BP1-S149 does not influence stress granule assembly".” The Journal of cell biology vol. 218,7 (2019): 2433-2434. doi:10.1083/jcb.201905105

Kedersha, Nancy, et al. "Correction: G3BP–Caprin1–USP10 complexes mediate stress granule condensation and associate with 40S subunits." Journal of Cell Biology 219.1 (2020).

Tourrière, Hélène, et al. "The RasGAP-associated endoribonuclease G3BP assembles stress granules." The Journal of cell biology 160.6 (2003): 823-831.

At the beginning of every year, people are always talking about their new year's resolution and about adopting healthy habits. But how exactly do you develop new habits? In this episode, Matheus guides us through some of the peer-reviewed literature about habit formation. What are habits? What do you need to form them? And how are scientists studying habits today?

Peer-reviewed references:

Lally, Phillippa, et al. "How are habits formed: Modelling habit formation in the real world." European journal of social psychology 40.6 (2010): 998-1009.

Wood, Wendy, and Dennis Rünger. "Psychology of habit." Annual review of psychology 67 (2016): 289-314.

Smith, Kyle S., and Ann M. Graybiel. "Habit formation." Dialogues in clinical neuroscience 18.1 (2016): 33.

Pop-culture books mentioned in this episode:

Duhigg, Charles, author. The Power of Habit : Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business. New York :Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2014.

Clear, James. Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones ; Tiny Changes, Remarkable Results. New York: Avery, an imprint of Penguin Random House, 2018.

Description 

Why do we age? This episode explores the molecular processes of aging, and how they are related to the aging we can see. We ask what is aging and how we could slow or reverse it according to the most recent research.

Main References and Further Reading:

David Sinclair – Lifespan

Andrew Steele – Ageless

Lopez-Otin et al – The Hallmarks of Aging

Borghesan et al – A Senescence-Centric View of Aging: Implications for Longevity and Disease

Zhang et al - Senolytic therapy alleviates Aβ-associated oligodendrocyte progenitor cell senescence and cognitive deficits in an Alzheimer’s disease model

Mammucari et al - Signaling pathways in mitochondrial dysfunction and aging

Lu et al - Reprogramming to recover youthful epigenetic information and restore vision

Kane et al - Epigenetic changes during aging and their reprogramming potential

Kaushik et al - Proteostasis and Aging

Description

Why do we age? This episode explores the molecular processes of aging, and how they are related to the aging we can see. We ask what is aging and how we could slow or reverse it according to the most recent research.

Main References and Further Reading:

David Sinclair – Lifespan

Andrew Steele – Ageless

Lopez-Otin et al – The Hallmarks of Aging

Goodrick et al – Effects of intermittent feeding upon growth and life span in rats

Bitto et al – Transient rapamycin treatment can increase lifespan and healthspan in middle-aged mice

Sam Palmer et al – Thymic involution and rising disease incidence with age

Matheus has had several sleep paralysis episodes throughout his life. In this episode, Matheus and Phil discuss the science behind sleep paralysis. What is happening in the brain during a sleep paralysis episode? What are some scientifically proven ways to prevent sleep paralysis? Are there any tricks to snap out of it and to stay calm if it ever happens to you?

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Hosts: Matheus Schultz et Philippe Carle

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Contact

E-mail:[email protected]

Instagram: @oom.pod

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Cara Hawei is a M.Sc candidate at McGill University researching the application of induced pluripotent stem cells in personalized medicine. Her research focuses on characteristics of dilated cardiomyopathy, a disease of the heart.

In this episode we discuss how cells from the blood can be turned back into stem cells so that these new stem cells can be turned into heart muscle cells for Cara's Studies. We also go into further detail on how Cara is developping assays to measure features of dilated cardiomyopathy, and how her research will allow for personalized treatments in different patients.

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Hosts: Matheus Schultz et Philippe Carle

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Contact

E-mail:[email protected]

Instagram: @oom.pod

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Younes Rhazi has a bachelors degree in politics and economics. He's now completing a master's degree in international and public affairs at Université de Montréal.

In this episode we discuss the pros and cons of universal basic income (UBI). Instead of giving a selling pitch, Younes discusses what we should think about before developing new policies and how science, empirical data, and pilot projects can be used to build confidence in the process of policy making.

Ezra Klein's article on the question of supply.

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Hosts: Matheus Schultz et Philippe Carle

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Contact

E-mail:[email protected]

Instagram: @oom.pod

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Original Music: Vincent Nélisse (IG: @vincentnelissemusique, https://soundcloud.com/incentlisse)