Science Decoded

Our second round table discussion features our host Justin, with Gina and Garrett joining in to talk about the limits of the scientific method. Are there things we cannot learn from science? What other ways do people make decisions in their lives?

Science Decoded host Justin is joined by Osama and Gina in our first ever round table science communication discussion. The topic: Is objectivity a myth? Tune in to hear our team discuss what allows science communicators to be unbiased, and how it's best done.

An exciting season 3 premier on plants in space! In this episode Dr. Lucie Poulet joins Science Decoded to discuss her paper on crew time in regard to plant systems in space. Where do we stand on growing our own food in space? How does the food production system fit into the lives of crew members? Dr. Poulet shares about the implications of this research and how we obtain the data relative to crew time and analogue missions.

In this episode Justin is joined by Dr. Armando Azua-Bustos, expert in fields of astrobiology, extreme environments, and more. Dr. Azua-Bustos has recently published a paper with the focus of using living organisms found in one of the most extreme environments on earth as an analogue for the search for life on Mars. The Atacama Desert of Chile is arid, hypersaline, and exposed to intense levels of UV radiation. It is considered one of the most hostile living environments found on Earth yet, Dr. Armando and his team found life living just 30 cm below the soil surface. What implications does this have for our understanding of life at extremes? What will this do for future exploration on Mars?

In this episode, Dr. Svetlana Shkolyar of the Goddard Space Flight Center joins us to discuss her recent paper on specific issues and 'cautionary tales' of biosignature research. Biosignatures, are possible signs of life, or biotic activity, on a planet. We search for them using spectroscopy, a form of light detection that separates out molecules based on the wavelength. Dr. Shkolyar's paper focuses on one particular molecule, cerium 3+. The reason is because this molecule tends to look exactly like the biosignatures we associate with life. In this sense, cerium 'mimics' biosignatures, and could lead scientists to conclude we found life when we actually have not.

In this episode Dr. Jonathan Nassi, Senior Director of Translational Science at Inscopix Inc, joins Science Decoded to discuss his recent paper on brain imaging in non-human primates. The goal of Dr. Nassi's study is to bridge a gap in brain imaging. Brain imaging traditionally has been done at the micro scale, or sub-cellular level, and at the macro scale, which gives a zoomed-out view of the brain. To observe the brain at a scale between these two extremes, known as the meso scale, Dr. Nassi and Inscopix developed an incredibly small microscope that can be placed on primates while still allowing the individual to move freely. The team used this microscope technology to observe non-human primates' brains during motor tasks and during periods of external stimuli.

This episode discusses the use of data processing to categorize stars. Dr. Anamaria Berea joins our host Justin to talk about her recently published paper on the language of stars. Dr. Berea has studied communication and data science for many years, and uses Natural Language Processing (NLP) data to shed light on the different languages that stars use. NLP is a branch of computer science focused on giving Artificial Intelligence the ability to comprehend spoken and written word, and this ability is the focus of Dr. Berea's study. The data comes to us in the form of light, or luminosity, and scientists are able to compare the light signatures of stars to the complex communication systems used by living cells and organisms. The conclusions drawn from this data can classify stars, and help us better understand the world around us.

Magic mushrooms for science! Dr. Natasha Mason, psychopharmacologist at Maastricht University, joins Science Decoded with a new study on psilocybin. After defining the term creativity, researchers measured the brain activity of participants under the influence of psilocybin using fMRI machines. How does brain activity change when on psilocybin? Does the brain create more or better cognitive connections? How does creativity change during and after use?

This month we interview Dr. Kiran Musunuru, professor and genetics researcher from University of Pennsylvania, and find out about his impressive results in mice that show promise for using CRISPR, the gene editing technology, to prevent cardiovascular disease in humans. His website is here: https://www.kiranmusunuru.com/

In this episode, Justin chats with Dr. William Bain, assistant professor of medicine at University of Pittsburgh Medical Center's Pulmonary, Allergy and Critical Care Medicine department. We were all excited to ask him about how you can actually see the coronavirus in living tissue!