Straight from a Scientist Medical Research Education and Discussion Podcast

We talked to Alyssa Olenick, also known as Little Lyss Fitness for her online fitness presence and training programs, about her research in metabolic flexibility and nutrition strategies. Listen in to hear about proper health, fitness, and the science behind popular diet plans such as the Ketogenic diet, a high-fat, low-carb diet sometimes used to treat severe epilepsy in children, and Intermittent Fasting, which uses periods of fasting and non-fasting to control caloric intake.

About Alyssa

Alyssa Olenick, M.S. is a graduate student currently pursuing her PhD in Exercise Physiology. Her lifelong passion for fitness, nutrition, and fascination of the human body has brought her to bridge both practice and application of science and the fitness education. She holds a research interest in metabolism and the effects of exercise and nutritional practices on the prevention and development of chronic disease states such as diabetes, obesity, and metabolic disease.

Learn more and find personal fitness plans on Alyssa's website Little Lyss Fitness.

Follow Little Lyss Fitness on Instagram and Facebook for educational and science-backed fitness posts.

More information

Learn more about healthy diet templates on the Renaissance Periodization website.

Read Alyssa's answer to the question "Where does fat go?"

Any other questions? Let us know! We appreciate your feedback.

You can now support the podcast at https://www.patreon.com/sfspodcast. Many thanks to our past and present supporters!

Thanks to Plant Warrior for their support. Use discount code SFS10 at checkout for 10% off your purchase of plant-based protein.

We spoke with Faviola Dadis, the CEO of NeuroReality who is using the company to fund her PhD research. NeuroReality specializes in the development of medical software using VR in order to create an immersive and fun gamified neurorehabilitation program for individuals who experience cognitive deficits following a stroke (and eventually for other clinical populations). Using virtual reality and gamification, Faviola's main objective is to help train cognitive tasks such as memory, attention, and processing speed by playing games.

Learn more on the NeuroReality website (currently under development)

About Faviola

Faviola Dadis comes from a diverse background. Her mother is German and her father was Egyptian. She was born in California, raised in the Netherlands, but has 3 passports and has lived in 9 countries! While science is where Faviola's true passion lies, she also loves entrepreneurship. After a 15 year long successful career as an international model and three years running a PR firm in Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Tokyo (while still going to school and finishing her bachelor's degree in biological psychology), Faviola took a drastic change in paths and returned to university full-time. She is now a clinical neuroscientist and completed her thesis on cognitive deficits in stroke patients at the University of Oxford. She edited and coauthored the book Aging and Dementia: Neuropsychology, Motor Skills and Pain, and has presented her research at conferences around the world.

Faviola is currently a doctoral candidate at the VU University, Amsterdam, specializing in research surrounding traditional and virtual reality neurorehabilitation in patients with stroke, dementia, and traumatic brain injury. She has independently funded her research via the creation of a medtech startup company she founded, NeuroReality. Faviola is passionate about outreach and projects that have the ability to make an impact on people, and make their daily lives better. In her free time, she loves hanging out with her rottweiler Kenji, hiking, playing chess, and playing wide receiver on a full-contact all-female American Football team, the Amsterdam Cats.

Connect with Faviola on LinkedIn.

Email Faviola at [email protected] and follow her personal Instagram and Twitter accounts.

Any other questions? Let us know! We appreciate your feedback.

You can now support the podcast at https://www.patreon.com/sfspodcast. Many thanks to our past and present supporters!

Thanks to Plant Warrior for their support. Use discount code SFS10 at checkout for 10% off your purchase of plant-based protein.

Science isn't perfect and one of it's biggest problems revolves around the publishing process, by which scientists share their findings with the public after peer review. However, this sharing can be quite limited in both what is shared and who gets to see it. Open access science, shared publicly, can enhance the discovery process, but implementing open access can be difficult. We talk about new systems that could accommodate open access publishing, revamped peer review, and even the publishing of null results. Null results in science are often shelved for decades, unseen by those who could use the information to avoid costly experiments already proven fruitless by others.

About Sander

Sander is a 2nd year cognitive neuroscience master student at Maastricht University (Netherlands) working on transcranial alternating current stimulation, neuronal oscillations, entrainment and perception.

Learn about the research institute, Maastricht University, where he works and studies.

Contact Sander at his email [email protected] or on Facebook.

Publisher copyright policies & self-archiving

Visit the Sherpa/Romeo website to search which journals allow pre-prints and the conditions that come along with it.

Post-Publication Peer Review

Read the paper by Nikolaus Kriegeskorte on open evaluation and the benefits of a transparent reviewing process

Hear a lecture by Nikolaus Kriegeskorte on rethinking the structure of peer review

Three-minute rundown of Nikolaus Kriegeskorte's vision of a new peer review model

More websites

ResearchGate to advance your research and read publications

Biorxiv the preprint server for biology

Any other questions? Let us know! We appreciate your feedback.

You can now support the podcast at https://www.patreon.com/sfspodcast. Many thanks to our past and present supporters!

Thanks to Plant Warrior for their support. Use discount code SFS10 at checkout for 10% off your purchase of plant-based protein.

Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that is associated with traumatic brain injury (TBI). CTE is mainly seen in athletes who participate in contact sports such as football, but it also spans to military personnel. In this roundtable episode, we discuss where the latest research stands on this topic as well as explore the clinical and pathological manifestation of the disease.

More Information

Check out these papers to learn more about chronic traumatic encephalopathy

CTE Literature Review

CTE Spectrum

Any other questions? Let us know! We appreciate your feedback.

You can now support the podcast at https://www.patreon.com/sfspodcast. Many thanks to our past and present supporters!

Thanks to Plant Warrior for their support. Use discount code SFS10 at checkout for 10% off your purchase of plant-based protein.

Hey SFS listeners! Julian and Connor met up online to discuss the past, present, and future of SFS. Thanks for sticking with the podcast as we learn more about podcasting and science communication in general. We've got a lot in the works for the summer, and are excited to bring you loads of new content!

We must ask a favor with this new push to polish SFS! Itunes reviews are one of the best ways to help new podcasts find new audiences. Here's a quick rundown of how to post an Itunes review:

1. Open up the iTunes Store.
2. In the search box, type in the name of the podcast, (Straight from a Scientist)
3. Click on Straight from a Scientist in the search results to be taken to its iTunes page.
4. On the item's iTunes page, choose "Ratings and Reviews" from the top navigation.
5. Click the button, "Write a Review."
6. Write your review. You can make up a nickname if you want
7. Hit "Submit."

Every review helps! We really appreciate your time and thoughts!

We're also in the midst of a rebranding effort through the summer. New logos, album art templates, and some website elements are now live. We'll also be remastering our previous podcasts for more easy listening. We are looking for feedback on all of it! Ask us with any questions or concerns, or reach out to us on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook.

Any other questions? Let us know! We appreciate your feedback.

You can now support the podcast at https://www.patreon.com/sfspodcast. Many thanks to our past and present supporters!

Thanks to Plant Warrior for their support. Use discount code SFS10 at checkout for 10% off your purchase of plant-based protein.

Our final ComSciCon interview is with Aaron Devanathan. Aaron studies HIV infection and elimination in the Department of Pharmacy at UNC Chapel Hill in the Angela Kashuba Lab. HIV, or Human Immuno-deficiency Virus, is the virus that causes AIDS, or Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. While modern medicine has done wonders in treating the symptoms of an HIV infection, current drugs fail to eliminate the virus entirely. This is because HIV is dispersed widely throughout the body. Aaron studies how to hunt down HIV and destroy it, ultimately working towards an HIV cure.

More Information

Learn more on the Angela Kashuba lab's website

Follow the Kashuba lab on Twitter

Read about Angela Kashuba and her research on her UNC profile

This episode was recorded at ComSciCon Triangle, the convention for science communicators in Research Triangle Park in North Carolina. ComSciCon-Triangle is a conference organized by graduate students, for graduate students, focused on developing science communication skills. Special thanks to RTI international for hosting us! Follow ComSciCon on Twitter and check out this recently-published journal article on science communication training penned by two (former and current) committee members.

Any other questions? Let us know! We appreciate your feedback.

You can now support the podcast at https://www.patreon.com/sfspodcast. Many thanks to our past and present supporters!

Thanks to Plant Warrior for their support. Use discount code SFS10 at checkout for 10% off your purchase of plant-based protein.

We had the chance to talk with Georgia Atkin-Smith about different types of cell death, autoimmune disorders, and the optimistic future of the field. Georgia is a final year PhD student in Biochemistry and Immunology at the La Trobe Institute for Molecular Science, Melbourne, Australia. Her PhD project focuses on a type of cell death termed apoptosis and the consequence of this process in disease. Specifically, Georgia's research is aimed to understand the role of apoptotic fragments, known as apoptotic bodies, derived from white blood cells during influenza A virus infection.

Connect with Georgia on Instagram

Any other questions? Let us know! We appreciate your feedback.

You can now support the podcast at https://www.patreon.com/sfspodcast. Many thanks to our past and present supporters!

Thanks to Plant Warrior for their support. Use discount code SFS10 at checkout for 10% off your purchase of plant-based protein.

We had the opportunity to speak with Claudia Alarcón López, better known as @the.nanotechgirl. She is a Mexican INCQ (Ingeniero En Nanotecnología Y Ciencias Químicas) student who has the goal of spreading knowledge of science through Instagram, with a special focus on nanotechnology. Nanotechnology is manipulation of matter on an atomic, molecular, and supramolecular scale which can be applied in all aspects of life and interdisciplinary sciences.

About Claudia

Claudia is studying engineering in nanotechnology and chemical sciences at ITESM in Mexico. She has a lot of activities and interests other than science, including fashion design and sign language. Follow Claudia on Instagram to keep up with her adventures and learn more.

Any other questions? Let us know! We appreciate your feedback.

You can now support the podcast at https://www.patreon.com/sfspodcast. Many thanks to our past and present supporters!

Thanks to Plant Warrior for their support. Use discount code SFS10 at checkout for 10% off your purchase of plant-based protein.

The next installment of the ComSciCon podcast blitz stars Ashish Kapoor! We discuss flexible electronics and smart textiles. These game-changing technologies are already showing up in stores and threaten to completely overhaul how we use and think about clothing. Smart textiles can be used in the military, medical emergencies, or just everyday use. We talk about other practical applications of smart textiles and flexible electronics, and chat a bit about the barriers this technology will face before widespread adoption. Ashish is also a radio host, and is currently developing his own science podcast. Stay tuned for the link! About Ashish

Ashish Kapoor received his M.Tech degree in Textile Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, India in 2015 and is currently in the Ph.D. program at College of Textiles, North Carolina State University majoring in Fiber and Polymer Science along with a minor in Electrical Engineering. His research focuses on development of fiber based active sensory textiles and photoresponsive polymer based actuators for soft robotics applications. He received the NC State University's Provost Doctoral Recruitment Fellowship for 2015-16 and DAAD RISE Professional Scholarship in 2018.

Connect with Ashish on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. Read about Ashish's PhD project on Fiber based Fabric Sensors More Information Watch this video to see the Levi's/Google collaborative jacket that Ashish mentioned. Learn about Ashish's three minute thesis presentation in media coverage on the State Textiles News, Technician Online, and State Graduate School News websites.

This episode was recorded at ComSciCon Triangle, the convention for science communicators in Research Triangle Park in North Carolina. ComSciCon-Triangle is a conference organized by graduate students, for graduate students, focused on developing science communication skills. Special thanks to RTI international for hosting us! Follow ComSciCon on Twitter and check out this recently-published journal article on science communication training penned by two (former and current) committee members.

Any other questions? Let us know! We appreciate your feedback.

You can now support the podcast at https://www.patreon.com/sfspodcast. Many thanks to our past and present supporters!

Thanks to Plant Warrior for their support. Use discount code SFS10 at checkout for 10% off your purchase of plant-based protein.

Our second ComSciCon Triangle interview was with Stephanie Teeter from NC State. Stephanie is a technician for two biomedical engineering labs, and she is working towards her PhD in Science Education. We discuss practical applications of biomedical engineering, like prosthetics, and the challenges with Science Education in academia. Follow Stephanie on Twitter. Read more on the lab webpages: Orthopaedic Mechanobiology Lab Translational Orthopaedic Research Lab This episode was recorded at ComSciCon Triangle, the convention for science communicators in Research Triangle Park in North Carolina. ComSciCon-Triangle is a conference organized by graduate students, for graduate students, focused on developing science communication skills. Special thanks to RTI international for hosting us! Follow ComSciCon on Twitter and check out this recently-published journal article on science communication training penned by two (former and current) committee members.

Any other questions? Let us know! We appreciate your feedback.

You can now support the podcast at https://www.patreon.com/sfspodcast. Many thanks to our past and present supporters!

Thanks to Plant Warrior for their support. Use discount code SFS10 at checkout for 10% off your purchase of plant-based protein.