The Most Important Question

By Important, Not ImportantSociety & Culture Science Technology

The Most Important Question episodes

November 10, 2023Essay: Coffee: Back To The Future
This week:
Will coffee survive climate change?
Here's What You Can Do:
Donate to support African farmers by increasing incomes and improving food security through the Alliance for a Green Africa.
Volunteer to join the Coffee & Climate Network, an organization that connects stakeholders in coffee farming to create a climate-smart future.
Get educated about what is in your supplements using Examine’s independent, evidence-based database.
Be heard about your eco-anxiety by connecting with others having similar feelings at a Climate Cafe near you.
Invest in deforestation-free investment options with Deforestation Free Funds.
Get more:
Get more news, analysis, and Action Steps at importantnotimportant.com
Support our work and become a Member at importantnotimportant.com/upgrade
Got feedback? Email us at [email protected]
Follow us on Twitter at @importantnotimp
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Take a nap you deserve it

Advertise with us: importantnotimportant.com/c/sponsors
23 min
November 06, 2023Can Your Gut Predict Alzheimer's?
Can your gut composition predict Alzheimer's?
That's today's big question and my returning guest is Gautam Dantas.

Gautam heads up the Dantas Lab at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. His lab works at the interface of microbiogenomics, ecology, synthetic biology, and systems biology to understand, harness, and engineer the biochemical processing potential of microbial communities.

Since our last conversation, Gautam was named a fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology for his studies of microbial communities and antibiotic resistance. I wanted to have him back on the show, not just because Gautam is one of my favorite guests of all time, and not just because of this new study we're going to really dig into, but because you have probably been affected by Alzheimer's in some way.

Alzheimer's is growing more prevalent throughout the world every day as the U. S., China, and so many other countries get old.

We've asked so many questions about dementia, Alzheimer's, and other brain diseases and found so few answers that are repeatable and can either prevent or just slow this disease in some way.

And that's what makes me so excited about Gautam's new research, however preliminary it might be. We get to keep doing it.

We get to keep asking these important questions that can help people.

-----------

Have feedback or questions? Tweet us, or send a message to [email protected]

New here? Get started with our fan favorite episodes at podcast.importantnotimportant.com.

-----------

INI Book Club:
The Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu
Find all of our guest recommendations at the INI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-club
Links:
Read Gautum's study on the gut microbiome and Alzheimer's
Keep up with the Dantas Lab
Listen to our first episode with Gautam
Volunteer for research at the Knight Alzheimer Disease Research Center at Washington University
Find more research opportunities and clinical trials near you
Follow us:
Subscribe to our newsletter at importantnotimportant.com
Support our work and become a Member at importantnotimportant.com/upgrade
Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/ImportantNotImp
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Follow Quinn: twitter.com/quinnemmett
Edited by Anthony Luciani
Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com

Advertise with us: importantnotimportant.com/c/sponsors
1 hr 10 min
November 02, 2023Essay: How I think about how to think about what’s next
This week:
How I think about how to think about what’s next
Here's What You Can Do:
Donate to help the BlueGreen Alliance unite labor unions and environmental organizations to create clean jobs, develop clean infrastructure, and pursue fair trade.
Volunteer with 3.14 Action and help get people who care about facts and evidence elected.
Get educated about the direction of our food systems by reading the Paradigms of Agriculture.
Be heard about restoring the expanded Child Tax Credit and urge your representative to support the American Family Act.
Invest in clean energy using research that separates hype from reality from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis.
Get more:
Get more news, analysis, and Action Steps at importantnotimportant.com
Support our work and become a Member at importantnotimportant.com/upgrade
Got feedback? Email us at [email protected]
Follow us on Twitter at @importantnotimp
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Take a nap you deserve it

Advertise with us: importantnotimportant.com/c/sponsors
31 min
October 30, 2023What Causes Depression?
Content Warning
What is depression?

And how do the interactions between our genes, our chemistry, and the environment around us affect our odds of developing and being treated for anxiety and depression?

That's today's big question, and my guest is Srijan Sen.

Srijan is the Francis and Kenneth Eisenberg Professor of Depression and Neurosciences at the University of Michigan and the Director of the Francis and Kenneth Eisenberg and Family Depression Center. His research focuses on the interactions between genes and the environment and their effect on stress, anxiety, and depression.

Even before COVID, kids, teens, and adults were suffering increasing levels of depression, loneliness, anxiety, and stress.

The symptoms are fairly common to folks who have them, but the causes are far less so. From genetics to the gut, to brain chemistry, to inflammation, and innumerable possible environmental factors like say, a pandemic, or school shootings, or a loved one passing, or childhood abuse, whatever it might be. Just a lack of sleep can trigger depressive symptoms. Or not.

I have suffered through it, Srijan has suffered through it, and so many of you have too.

So, with the way science is progressing rapidly in myriad ways, I thought it was time to dive in.

-----------

Have feedback or questions? Tweet us, or send a message to [email protected]

New here? Get started with our fan favorite episodes at podcast.importantnotimportant.com.

-----------

INI Book Club:
Range by David Epstein
Find all of our guest recommendations at the INI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-club
Links:
Follow along with the work of The Sen Lab
Follow Srijan on Twitter
Read Quinn's essay about Apple and mental health
Suicide Crisis Lifeline (Call 988)
The Trevor Project Hotline for LBGTQ+ youth
Follow us:
Subscribe to our newsletter at importantnotimportant.com
Support our work and become a Member at importantnotimportant.com/upgrade
Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/ImportantNotImp
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Follow Quinn: twitter.com/quinnemmett
Edited by Anthony Luciani
Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com

Advertise with us: importantnotimportant.com/c/sponsors
1 hr 12 min
October 24, 2023Essay: The Disconnect
This week:
Exactly why the youths are so pissed off.
Here's What You Can Do:
Donate to the Steve Fund to support the mental health of young people of color.
Volunteer with Everytown so youth can grow up in communities free from gun violence.
Get educated about being a better ally to trans and non-binary young people with this guide from the Trevor Project.
Help youth be heard about their future by supporting Voters of Tomorrow.
Invest in a better world for young people with Carbon Collective.
Get more:
Get more news, analysis, and Action Steps at importantnotimportant.com
Support our work and become a Member at importantnotimportant.com/upgrade
Got feedback? Email us at [email protected]
Follow us on Twitter at @importantnotimp
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Take a nap you deserve it

Advertise with us: importantnotimportant.com/c/sponsors
27 min
October 18, 2023Essay: The Illusion of Choice
This week:
It can be difficult as hell to understand when we don’t actually have a choice — and when we’ve got more options than we think. Deciphering the two is the key to the good stuff getting built way, way faster.
Here's What You Can Do:
Donate to The Greenling Institute to help communities of color build wealth and live in healthier, climate-resilient communities.
Volunteer with People for Bikes to make biking better for everyone by improving infrastructure, advancing policy, and removing barriers to participation.
Get educated about funding opportunities in your state to hire more apprentices in your trade, or receive tuition support to enter a trade.
Be heard about increased access to EV charging infrastructure, and have your city sandbox a pilot with it’s electric.
Invest your money through an eco-friendly bank using Might Deposits bank comparison tool.
Get more:
Get more news, analysis, and Action Steps at https://www.importantnotimportant.com/
Got feedback? Email us at [email protected]
Follow us on Twitter at @importantnotimp
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Take a nap you deserve it

Advertise with us: https://www.importantnotimportant.com/c/sponsors
26 min
October 16, 2023Do You Know Where Your Water Comes From?
Every single one of us needs air, water, food, shelter, and energy. So why are the infrastructure that provides them, the systems we are most reliant on hidden in plain sight?

How can we reconnect with them, appreciate them, rebuild them, reinforce the ones we already have, and build new ones that actually benefit everyone?

Those are today's big questions, and my guest is Deb Chachra.

Deb is a material scientist and professor of engineering at Olin College of Engineering. She has studied bones, and heart valves, and infrastructure. Wired said reading her newsletter, Metafoundry, was like being plugged Oculus-style into her brain while she meditates on science and culture. Deb also writes a recurring column, Reinvention, in the American Society for Engineering Education's PRISM magazine.

Deb's wonderful new book, How Infrastructure Works: Inside the Systems That Shape Our World is out on October 17th in the U.S.

And it couldn't be more timely as the truly incredible infrastructure of the 20th century, and the centuries before that, are coming under threat now from climate change and negligence and the awareness of the inequities behind them.

It's more vital than ever that we develop a personal appreciation and a collective appreciation for how we got here.

-----------

Have feedback or questions? Tweet us, or send a message to [email protected]

New here? Get started with our fan favorite episodes at podcast.importantnotimportant.com.

-----------

INI Book Club:
Games: Agency as Art by C.T. Nguyen
Find all of our guest recommendations at the INI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-club
Links:
Get your copy of How Infrastructure Works
Follow more of Deb's work here
Subscribe to Deb's newsletter
Go deeper and read about how infrastructure will be impacted by climate change
Follow us:
Subscribe to our newsletter at importantnotimportant.com
Support our work and become a Member at importantnotimportant.com/upgrade
Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/ImportantNotImp
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Follow Quinn: twitter.com/quinnemmett
Edited by Anthony Luciani
Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com

Advertise with us: https://www.importantnotimportant.com/c/sponsors
1 hr 10 min
October 11, 2023Essay: The coolest year of the rest of your life
This week:
Why was this year so hot? Will it keep getting hotter, and for how long? It’s not an easy read, but it’s important you know and keep in mind the inputs and externalities.
Here's What You Can Do:
Donate to Climate CREW to help build resilience hubs and prepare your community for extreme heat.
Volunteer to build a resilience hub in your community so your community can better respond to extreme heat.
Get educated about community planning for extreme heat by reading this piece from Vox.
Be heard about the health and safety of workers and urge your representatives to support the Asunción Valdivia Heat Illness, Injury, and Fatality Prevention Act.
Invest in deforestation-free funds so your money isn’t contributing to the planet getting hotter.
Get more:
Get more news, analysis, and Action Steps at https://www.importantnotimportant.com/
Got feedback? Email us at [email protected]
Follow us on Twitter at @importantnotimp
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Take a nap you deserve it

Advertise with us: https://www.importantnotimportant.com/c/sponsors
26 min
September 26, 2023Essay: The Long Defeat
This week:
Tolkien described life (and often, his stories) as a "long defeat", where evil frequently, inevitably wins. But he allowed for "eucatastrophe" - sudden joyous turns, just like breakthroughs in voting rights. We must keep fighting, to hold off the darkness.
Here's What You Can Do:
Donate to protecting voting rights and advocating for democracy with Fair Fight.
Volunteer to bring together conservatives, progressives, and everyone in between to fix America’s political system with RepresentUS.
Get educated about quick, easy, daily actions you can take to save democracy by subscribing to the Chop Wood, Carry Water newsletter.
Be heard about fair elections and add your name to the End Gerrymandering Pledge.
Run for your state or local office with Run for Something (if you’re under 40, if you’re over 40, donate!)
Get more:
Get more news, analysis, and Action Steps at https://www.importantnotimportant.com/
Got feedback? Email us at [email protected]
Follow us on Twitter at @importantnotimp
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Take a nap you deserve it

Advertise with us: https://www.importantnotimportant.com/c/sponsors
34 min
September 25, 2023Turning The Tide On Microplastics
What are microplastics doing to us? And how do we stop putting them into our water, and our bloodstreams, and our food?
That's today's big question, and my guest is Julia Yan. Julia is the co-founder and CEO at Baleena, a closed-loop, consumer-facing laundry startup working to tackle ocean microplastic pollution.

Julia is a recent graduate at UPenn, and with her two co-founders, some funding, including from our friends at 776 and a bunch of big name partners, they're trying to tackle one of the biggest microplastic inputs. Your washing machine.

Microplastics are not great. They're so prevalent that we have found them on the bottom of the ocean and on the top of mountains. We have found them in deserts, in our crops, in our soil. We have found them in adult bloodstreams and in unborn babies and placentas.

It is an enormous, wildly complicated problem and the implications are becoming more clear. The good news, like carbon emissions, we can choose to stop it.

It's just going to take an intentional systemic approach and people like Julia.

-----------

Have feedback or questions? Tweet us, or send a message to [email protected]

New here? Get started with our fan favorite episodes at podcast.importantnotimportant.com.

-----------

INI Book Club:
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
Find all of our guest recommendations at the INI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-club
Links:
Join the waitlist to pre-order your Baleena product now
Follow along with Baleena's journey on Instagram
Read more about the 5 Gyres Microplastics Solutions sailing expedition
Follow us:
Subscribe to our newsletter at importantnotimportant.com
Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/ImportantNotImp
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Follow Quinn: twitter.com/quinnemmett
Edited by Anthony Luciani
Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com

Advertise with us: https://www.importantnotimportant.com/c/sponsors
1 hr 2 min

About The Most Important Question

From the publisher's feed

The most important question in today's world of climate chaos, AI psychosis, and crumbling democracy is: what can I do? Your host, Quinn Emmett is completely unqualified to answer it, so he's calling the people that already are.