Shot of Science

Economist Hélène Rey has been working on how to predict crises using machine-learning techniques. A reliable tool would be a boon for authorities seeking to regulate markets to prevent or mitigate economic catastrophes.

Dr. Rey is a professor of economics at the London Business School. Her work focuses on international trade, financial imbalances, financial crises, and the International Monetary Fund. She talked to Annual Reviews President and Editor-in-Chief Richard Gallagher about her current projects. This interview was recorded in 2019.

Transcript: https://arevie.ws/2X8JJxu

Air pollution is one of the world's top 10 health threats, and now scientists can enlist satellites, but also citizens and their devices to help fight it. Annual Reviews President and Editor-in-Chief Richard Gallagher chats with Michael Jerrett, from the Fielding School of Public Health at the University of California, Los Angeles. He is an expert in geographic information science for exposure assessment and special epidemiology. They talked about air pollution, its ubiquity, its cost on human health, and the new technologies that we can use today to track it across the world. Transcript: https://arevie.ws/2WNuZUG

What if doctors could collect cancer cells from each patient, grow them in a lab, and test them against different drugs to see which worked best? Hans Clevers, of the Hubrecht Institute, is working to make that happen. Annual Reviews President and Editor-in-Chief Richard Gallagher caught up with him to talk about his research on lab-grown cancer cells, which opens the door to customizing treatment to each individual cancer patient. Transcript: https://arevie.ws/2L8RGfp

Thirteen percent of people in the U.S. are unable to access or use the internet, and this is creating a new underclass, says Nicol Turner-Lee, of the Brookings Institution. Transcript: https://arevie.ws/2YiMyx2

Communicating science effectively is a necessity. It is also a skill, which many scientists do not master. Dietram A. Scheufele, of the University of Wisconsin, says there are many pitfalls to avoid. See the transcript and the resources shared by Dr. Scheufele: https://arevie.ws/3bDs3PC

Creating products that can replace meat requires a "staggering amount of knowledge of molecular biology, physics, chemistry, physiology, psychology, engineering, and social sciences."

Julian McClements, Professor at the Department of Food Science at the University of Massachusetts, Amhurst and Co-Editor of the Annual Review of Food Science and Technology, says that's what it takes to create sustainability while pleasing meat lovers. He is the author of Future Foods: How Modern Science Is Transforming the Way We Eat, published last year, and Annual Reviews Editor-in-Chief Richard Gallagher interviewed him about creating meat replacements.

Transcript: https://www.annualreviews.org/shot-of-science/multimedia/creating-meat-replacements

Dr. McClements' book: https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783030129941

How do people's values evolve? What drives policy? Tim Besley, of the London School of Economics, has explored these questions focusing on the model of environmentalism. Using the tools of economics, he studies the cultural dynamics that drive social change. Annual Reviews Editor-in-Chief Richard Gallaher interviewed Dr. Besley, who is currently the President of the Econometric Society and an Editorial Committee Member of the Annual Review of Economics.

Read the full transcript here: https://www.annualreviews.org/shot-of-science/multimedia/economics-of-social-movements

Find his profile here: http://www.lse.ac.uk/economics/people/faculty/tim-besley

Conny Aerts, of the University of Leuven, says quakes creates waves that let them measure gases inside stars, their density, temperature, chemistry. Oftentimes these data tell a very different story from the information gathered by observing the surface of stars, pushing scientists to refine and improve their models. Annual Reviews Editor-in-Chief Richard Gallagher interviewed Dr. Aerts, who is also an editorial committee member of the Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics.

Read the full transcript here: https://www.annualreviews.org/shot-of-science/multimedia/starquakes

Find her profile here: https://fys.kuleuven.be/ster/staff/conny-aerts

An epidemic of nutrition-related chronic diseases has been growing for decades in the U.S. and elsewhere, especially among disenfranchised populations, fueled by inexpensive high-caloric processed foods. The cost of this epidemic is high. It isn't just about obesity and diabetes, because obesity is also linked to cancer. Shiriki Kumanyika, of the Council on Black Health and Drexel University, says it is crucial that health authorities find and implement better ways to fight it.

Read the full transcript here: https://www.annualreviews.org/shot-of-science/multimedia/diet-related-diseases

Find her profile here: https://drexel.edu/dornsife/academics/faculty/Shiriki%20Kumanyika/