The Recombobulator Lab

It’s the last episode of the Recombobulator Lab and Chris and Jason are taking a walk down season 2 memory lane with a little current affairs (Chinese balloon anyone?) thrown in too, because that’s what we do. 

Jason asks Chris what is going on in the United States, to which Chris replies nothing. He then asks if Chinese balloons ever float over Australian airspace. Jason points out that 90% of Australia is desert and that there’s nothing to see there.

Jason and Chris then discuss how it was a bit more difficult to pull of season 2 post-pandemic. The pandemic gave them the chance to slow down and freed up a lot fo their time when they first started The Recombobulator Lab but now they are back to business as usual. 

Chris says that pre-recording episodes helped them keep on top of it as they were both travelling a lot with work. 

To wrap up the episode, Jason and Chris talk about the highlights of season two. They talk about youth alcohol consumption (Ep. 10 with Dr Amy Pennay), fake meat (Ep. 11 with Dr. Tani Khara), and e-cigarettes (Ep. 16 with Dr Laura Crotty). Chris points out that the e-cigarettes episode was terrifying, and that the health harms just aren’t talked about in general conversation. Jason believes this is similar to a lot of the things they discuss on the show. 

Other highlights included learning about the BeReal app with Mike Hanley (Ep.9) and getting into the reeds about authoritarianism with Dr Doug Keene (Ep. 4) and discussing guns and gambling in episode 5. 

Chris and Jason are eager to understand the vaping or e-cigarette epidemic around the world. In this episode of the Recombobulator Lab they are joined by guest Dr. Laura Crotty Alexander, an Associate Professor in Residence of Medicine at UC San Diego, with undergraduate degrees in science and medicine, residency at Massachusetts General Hospital, and fellowship at Harvard. Laura busts some myths about vaping and shares some interesting stats and facts.  

E-cigarettes were invented in China in 2003 and went international in 2007. They rapidly evolved from looking like cigarettes to becoming more advanced and sleek devices that heat up a fluid containing nicotine and chemicals, turning it into an aerosol that users inhale. 

While e-cigarettes were invented to help people quit smoking, the original devices did not achieve this goal. However, more modern e-cigarettes contain 10 to 15 times more nicotine, making them more helpful for quitting smoking. It has not been proven that they are more effective than nicotine patches, gum, or inhalers.

According to the FDA's 2021 National Youth Tobacco Survey, more than 2 million middle and high school students use e-cigarettes in the US, and 85% of them use flavored products. This trend has led to concerns about the dangers of vaping, particularly in young people who have never smoked tobacco.

Dr. Crotty Alexander and her team conducted a small study on the effects of vaping on teenagers who had never smoked tobacco. The study found that vaping alters inflammation and the immune system all over the body and causes DNA damage to cells, which is recognized as a critical factor in cancer development. The study also found that even e-cigarettes claiming to not contain nicotine actually do contain it. 

Dr. Crotty Alexander believes that to reduce e-cigarette use, the nicotine content should be reduced, and flavors should be limited to only tobacco. The big myth about e-cigarettes is that they contain water vapor and nicotine, but in reality, each puff of an e-cigarette contains 60-120 chemicals.

Dr. Crotty Alexander wants adults to have access to as much information as possible about the dangers of vaping so they can make informed decisions. The messaging around vaping is mixed, but it is more clear with regards to cigarettes, with many countries having warnings on the boxes and using price as a deterrent.

Chris and Jason have long been interested in the long term effects of concussion and head trauma. This week on the Recombobulator Lab they are joined by Dr. Ryan Takagi, nutritionist, chiropractor mechanical engineering PHD candidate. Ryan’s PHD is specifically looking at the prolonged after effects of concussion and how sleep impacts this. 

Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) brain condition thought to be linked to repeated head trauma. Unfortunately, the only way to diagnose CTE is through an autopsy, making it difficult to determine the extent of the problem in living patients. Symptoms of CTE can be similar to those of ADHD or depression, making it even more challenging to diagnose.

Ryan became interested in CTE as a chiropractor, observing patients who had prolonged symptoms after a concussion. He wondered why some people made a full recovery from concussion while others had prolonged symptoms. 

Jason mentions that his son has had a lot of concussions from a variety of sports and activities and Jason wonders whether he should be worried. Ryan says there are a number of studies looking into potential neurodegenerative problems that may arise from repeated concussions or subconcussive events, such as too many headers in soccer.

One of the methods used in these studies is the use of accelerometers in mouth guards or helmets. These devices can track the impact of hits to the head and provide data on where on the field there is more impact and at what age people can handle these impacts. This data can be used to help determine when certain elements of sports should be introduced, such as contact in baseball or headers in soccer. Ryan’s team are also using these in their research.

Ryan's research explores the relationship between concussions and sleep. His research is looking at two things: 

The Recombobulator Lab is discussing an important topic today - sachets. What is a sachet and why is it important? Sachets are small plastic packets used to sell smaller servings of food and other groceries in lower income countries, but they come with a heavy environmental cost. Chris and Jason spoke with Yobel Novian Putra, Climate and Clean Energy Campaign Associate for GAIA Asia Pacific, to learn more about the issue.

According to Yobel, incineration is a problem for a number of reasons

Essentially incineration contributes to both the climate crisis and the debt crisis. Yobel pointed out that the environmental issue is a social issue as well. 

And now, the sachets. Yobel discusses the Unilever project in Indonesia that attempted to recycle sachets using a pilot technology called CreaSolv. The project was rushed through without proper permits and licensing, and the factory has since shut down. Yobel says the claim that it could recycle sachets, has since been debunked as a myth .

He discussed a waste bank in Indonesia that pays people to collect sachets and separates them for recycling, but the sachets are no longer being collected by the recycling facility. The waste bank has continued to collect sachets, however, because people have created the habit of recycling them. 

Instead, Yobel suggests that the solution lies in education and meaningful dialogue with communities.

He emphasized the importance of accountability and preventing factories from shutting down without proper arrangements. Indonesia is a young country with opportunities to avoid the mistakes of the global north, leapfrogging right to sustainable solutions.

January is Zero Waste Month. Yobel says it is a month to celebrate the progress we have made in so many areas. The theme for this year's festival is Zero Waste Month is Zero Waste for Zero Emissions. 

GAIA is hosting a number of events throughout the month. Events will be happening online and in person. The Zero Waste Digital Film Festival is taking place online for the rest of January. There are several conferences, marches and launches taking place throughout the month in India, The Philippines and around Asia. 

Anyone interested can find more information can visit www.no-burn.org and zwmonth.zerowaste.asia or follow GAIA Asia Pacific on social media: Facebook,  Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok. You can listen to more about Zero Waste Month in our podcast with Froilan Grate, Executive Director of GAIA Philippines. 

Yobel says that zero waste is easier together and that the driver should be love, not fear. As we move into 2023, let's focus on hope and love for people, the planet, and the environment.

BIG ANNOUNCEMENT!
Our Zero Waste Film Fest screening has been moved to January 27, Friday, at the Trinoma Activity Center. Don't miss the chance to watch these two highly-acclaimed documentaries - “The Story of Plastics” and “Girls For Future”. Both features tell the story of how the citizens of the world can work together to change the dynamics of waste management. 

All community members are welcome to join - households, students, members of the workforce, public servants, and civil service employees - as all of the conversations deserve to be heard by everyone regardless of their position in society.
#ZeroWasteMonth2023 #IZWM2023 #ZeroWasteZeroEmission#GoForZeroWaste #ZeroWasteOurFuture

In conjucntion with GAIA The Zero Waste Journalist Network was formally launched on January 19, 2023 as part of the observance of the International Zero Waste Month.

Among the journalists are Gerry Lirio (Philippines - Southeast Asia), who after the devastation of Super Typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan) realized the importance of environmental reporting, especially climate reporting from small island nations, and advocated the creation of a “green” desk for media outlets in the Philippines; Ben Bilua (Solomon Islands - Pacific) who sees the importance of climate reporting especially for island nations like his; and Abhishek Kumar (India - South Asia), who stressed on the importance of highlighting Zero Waste (ZW) work in Asia Pacific and showing the global north that we have solutions here.

This historic launch of the Zero Waste Journalists Network will give voice to Zero Waste and climate discussions as seen from the lens of journalists.

It’s been a while since Chris and Jason did an episode with just the two of them on The Recombobulator Lab. So they have a lot to chat about. They are going to talk about some predictions for the year of 2023 and chat a bit about what’s been going on in their respective countries so far this year. 

Chris and Jason note that inflation is super high at the moment in both the US and Australia. Chris notes that in his local shop free range chicken cost $9.99 for about a pound, but the organic one was $19.99. Chris quotes a friend of his: “Why do we have to pay more for someone not to poison us?”

As well as this high inflation is a very high employment rate, but the tables are turning in this. Lay-offs are starting in some companies in the US. Amazon recently let a lot of staff go. 

The prediction: Inflation will continue for a while anyway. 

The guys speak about AI software ChatGPT, an AI bot where you enter a question or prompt and it writes content based on this. 

Jason even challenged it to write in certain referencing and writing styles and it did a great job. And the writing was plagiarism free. 

The prediction: that this won’t actually take people's jobs, but make them a lot easier. 

Jason and Christ discuss Elon Musk's latest negative publicity. He’s saying more outrageous things and his reputation is going down. 

We can’t forget that he’s a genius with tech but Twitter is a different game. It is a sociological exercise, where he is potentially in over his head. 

The prediction: Chat GP said it is hard to tell if Twitter will survive Elons leadership but based on his past history of success he might. 

Will we still do this in 2023? Chris and Jason think that the way we work will never be the same again. People have gotten used to a certain way of living that communing into an office does not allow. People may go to coworking spaces or work in the office sometimes but not full time. 

Chris sees the benefit of the new remote work culture as in his company Tsongas they can now hire from all over the country. They have a much larger pool of potential employees to choose from, and on the flipside knowledge or support workers don’t have to choose between their career and their preferred homebase. 

The prediction: online/computer work will never be the same again. 

Mixed Martial Arts (MMA), and its main organisation UFC, has absolutely exploded in recent years with Irish fighter Conor McGregor becoming the highest paid sports person in the world in 2021, the first time an MMA fighter held this position. 

Chris and Jason are fascinated by this rapid growth and want to know more. They are joined by Irish journalist Ronan O’Flaherty to learn more. 

The UFC is now a billion dollar organisation and is overtaking boxing in popularity. Ronan discusses a number of reasons for this growth. 

To start, people enjoy watching organised fighting with a ref. But why the UFC over boxing? Ronan says that boxing has become progressively damaged as a spectator sport because there are so many different governing bodies. Boxers could avoid fights by being in different competitions. 

In MMA there are also lots of bodies and competitions but the UFC “is the only show in town”, Ronan says. “For a fighter starting out it's the only place to be.”

Because of this unified organisation fighters can’t avoid each other making it much more satisfying for fans. 

Jason asks Ronan about some of the previous UFC fighters, Ronda Rousey, Anderson Silva and Chuck Liddell. 

Ronan says Ronda Rousey was one of the big fighters at the beginning of the current MMA boom. Anderson Silva still holds the record for longest undefeated streak as middleweight champion. And Chuck Liddell is one of the OGs in MMA. 

But where did it all start? The UFC organisation was founded in 1993 in Denver, Colorado. Back then the fights basically had no rules. There were legal headbutts, hair pulling etc. Ronan says the fighting then couldn't even be classified as what we know as MMA today. 

There were no regulations on what people wore either. Some wore tracksuit bottoms and no shirt, while others wore the traditional martial arts gi. 

Winners would fight multiple times in one night in a knockout style tournament until one was crowned champion in the final. There was a “gladiatorial element to it”, Ronan says. MMA wasn’t allowed in every state in America. It had to change hugely and rules were brought in after a few years. 

Chris notes that it didn’t form from martial arts competitions but was rather closer to fight club in its origins. 

As soon as a fighter becomes popular Dana White,president of the UFC, gets them involved in the big performance fights to draw a pay per view audience. These fights are based in the US and fought at the right time for US audiences. US audiences are the most willing to pay for sports TV. Pay per view isn’t a big thing elsewhere in the world. 

Irish fighter Conor McGregor fought Russian Khabib Nurmagomedov in 2018 and it  was the biggest pay per view fight in the UFC with 2.4 million views. 

UFC released a document on this a few years back addressing the dangers and guidelines about concussion. It was a huge document but Ronan believes it was unsatisfactory. They do have medical suspensions after big injuries though.  

The UFC has a long way to go in dealing with concussion and injury, Ronan thinks. 

Above 30 fights is very dangerous. It's generally not one fight that damages you, Ronan says, it's an accumulation of fights over a career. 

In 2018 an Irish MMA organisation organised its first event. Irish fighter Charlie Ward took on Portuguese Joao Carvalho. Charlie won with Joao taking 41 blows to the head. Both fighters were assessed and deemed fine after the fight until Carvalho had headaches and got rushed to hospital. He died 2 days later from head injuries. 

The Recombobulator Lab is media partners with the global alliance for incinerator alternatives or GAIA for Zero Waste Month. GAIA is a network of grassroots groups as well as national and regional alliances representing more than 1000 organisations from 92 countries.

Events will be taking place throughout the month online and in person in India, The Philippines and around Asia.

For more information, visit www.no-burn.org or follow GAIA Asia Pacific on social media: Facebook,  Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok.

For the latest news from GAIA please click here. 

Did you know that Australia's meat consumption is almost 3 times the global average? And 25 times higher than meat consumption per capita in India? This week on the Recombobulator Lab podcast Chris and Jason speak to Dr Tani Khara, research consultant with the Institute for Sustainable Futures. They talk about plant based trends around the world and discuss what role, if any, meat replacements play in this. 

20-30% of people report being vegetarian in India. 

Only some types of Hinduism or certain practices within some types of Hinduism are prohibited from consuming all meat. 

In Islam, Christianity and Judiasm people can usually consume meat, with some restrictions. 

India is one of the biggest beef exporters in the world, despite their low consumption internally. Tani thinks this is a “nationalistic, right wing, religious protocol”. 

Jason asks Tani if the reason Australia exports cattle live to the Middle East is for halal purposes. She says it’s a factor, as well as freshness. 

For any listeners wondering what halal is- it is a certification given to food meaning it has been prepared in a certain way in accordance with the Islamic faith. 

In Japan as beef consumption increased so too did cases of stomach cancer. Tani says there is a lot of data on meat consumption, especially red meat consumption, and its association with diabetes, obesity and cancer. 

The World Health Organisation also released a study about the carcinogens in red meat causing cancer. 

There is a taboo associated with eating meat in India. Tani has a whole paper about the different kinds of secret meat eating in the different segments of Indian society. 

People in the study ate meat in secret during certain festivals or days of the week where they weren’t supposed to be eating meat. Or some weren’t allowed to eat meat in their homes so went to restaurants to consume meat in secret. 

These are meat alternatives made from other protein rich, plant based sources. Tani says these can include soy and legumes. Another option in mycoprotein, which is a fermented fungus product. 

In a recent study Tani did with the Institute of Sustainable Futures (ISF) they found out replacing just 25% of beef consumption with plant based protein would:

Documentary: From Farm to Fridge by Mercy for Animals 

This week on the Recombobulator Lab Chris and Jason have brought in Dr Amy Pennay to help answer the question that is puzzling older generations: why aren't the kids boozing it up any more? 

Amy is a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Alcohol Policy Research at La Trobe University. Within CAPR she is the Strategic Lead of the 'Intersections of drinking cultures, health and policy' program.She has done extensive research on youth drinking patterns including the 2021 paper entitled Trends in adolescent drinking across 39 high-income countries: exploring the timing and magnitude of decline. 

Amy joked that she has always enjoyed a drink and that as a young student the idea of doing studies in a nightclub seemed very appealing. Chris mentions that friend of the show, psychologist Dr Doug Keene said a lot of people in the field of psychology got into that to better understand their own issues. 

Australia is a ‘dry’ country, you might be surprised to hear. But ‘dry’ in this context has nothing to do with abstaining from alcohol but rather when most people drink said alcohol. A ‘dry’ country is somewhere where people don’t drink a lot during the week but binge on the weekends. Places like France and Italy would be considered ‘wet’ countries as they drink throughout the week in more measured doses. 

Comparing alcohol consumption in Australia to other parts of the world, Aussies drink less than Americans, but are on par with the British. 

The current trend in youth alcohol consumption is that young people in all high income countries are drinking less. English speaking countries are noticing the highest decrease while Mediterranean and Eastern European countries are seeing the least change. This trend started around 2003. 

This pattern is particularly noticeable in under age drinking but young adults of drinking age or older are also drinking less. 

Researchers are struggling to identify policy changes as a driving factor to the change in behaviour. In Australia there have been no significant policy changes to affect behaviour. 

However, education around alcohol has definitely increased and there is a lot more research showing the harms alcohol causes. 

Jason heard anecdotally that young people are more cautious with alcohol as everything could be recorded and put on social media. Young people are aware that content on social media lives there forever and could affect future job opportunities or affect relationships with friends and family. 

Amy says this comes up a lot in their qualitative research and that it is a potential driver in young people consuming less alcohol. 

However, in other ways social media can encourage young people to go out socialising more as they see other people out and about and may get FOMO. It also helps people keep in touch and make plans very easily. 

Right now identifying social media’s impact on youth alcohol consumption is complicated. 

Chris calls Jason up on his use of the word ‘furphy’. For our non-Australian audience, a furphy is a lie. 

In Japan the government worried about the declining tax earnings caused by the decline in alcohol consumption amongst youths. Believe it or not the government created a marketing campaign to encourage young people to drink MORE. 

Amy said this news was completely unprecedented and her and her colleagues couldn’t believe it. 

Research now is revealing that alcohol consumption is a lot more harmful than we originally thought. There are 200 diseases that are causally exacerbated by alcohol. 

However in studies this does not come up as a main reason why young people don’t drink. General health and wellness is the main reason that actually comes up, according to Amy. 

Alcohol consumption generally went down during the COVID lockdown. A lot of people drank a lot more during lockdown but young people drank way less, which pulled the average down. 

There has been a huge push in alcohol free drinks. Chris, Jason and Amy all agree that they taste pretty good. Availability of these drinks is always increasing and there’s even an alcohol free bar in Melbourne. 

Research into attitudes to non-drinkers reveals that drinkers in Australia feel threatened by non-drinkers. Drinkers see non-drinkers as a threat to fun, social connection and force them to think about their own drinking. 

Social media is an unwavering conversation in our lives today. But was it this way 10 years ago? You and I as well as Mike Hanley, our guest for today’s episode of The Recombobulator Lab, would agree it wasn’t. But unlike most of us, Mike was part of a digital content agency before social media even became a thing. So, he’s witnessed its explosive growth more closely than a majority of us, and even contributed to some of the biggest marketing trends, like including a quote with a person’s picture on social media, for example!

Mike has also served the World Economic Forum for over eight years before founding The Content Engine, a team that combines new technologies, including machine-learning, with best-in-class editorial and workflow processes to generate tailored, high-quality content at very high volumes for its clients. He comes with a trove of insights about social media, content marketing, and the degree of “realness” of social media platforms, and what can be done towards improving them. In today’s episode, sit with Mike, Chris and Jason, as they dig into it headfirst.

Among the things they get into:

A beautiful constraint, Mike explains, is a time or space constraint put to something essential, like explaining a thesis in 5 minutes for example. Social media relies on this beautiful constraint to capture people’s attention quickly. What one needs to remember, however, is that we don't have to capture everybody with every post/piece. As long as we capture somebody with every piece.

Social media has democratized our society more powerfully than anything else in recent times, giving people authority over their lives, thoughts, and opinion, and strengthening free speech. But it has also become more toxic than flavorful, given how some people are using it to show lies and tinted realities. It’s also being used to create fake lives.

Be Real, a new social media app, is calling out on fake social media behavior by building what they call is the social graph – a network of connections that form by identifying the chain of people you know. There’s no advertising involved in their platform. It works by having everyone capture a photo within 2 minutes every day at a different time. While this sounds like a good place to begin the end of the fake social media game, we’ll have to wait for time to tell if it turns out well.

Listen to this conversation to dive deeper into Mike’s knowledge database, including his experience meeting some of the world’s most renowned personalities like Bill and Melinda Gates, and discussing Microsoft’s neo-Nazi sexbot!

For the longest time, consumer brands have made big billions by cunningly marketing their products as “green”. While FTC regulations against such marketing puffery have strengthened over time, has the average consumer gained any chance in the face of greenwashing? In the second installment of Tom Osdoba’s conversation with Chris and Jason on The Recombobulator Lab, we’re getting into just that. Plus more. If you don’t know yet, Tom Osdoba is the Director of NetZeroCities EU and the Senior Advisor at Climate-KIC.

Technically speaking, greenwashing refers to the act of companies making unsupported environmental claims in a bid to convince consumers to buy their products. While this seemed like a small thing to do in the past, the practice has snowballed over time into an industrial scale, becoming a major issue, simply because of the enormous business gain it has brought for companies!

A few reasons that have contributed to the greenwashing wave in the US:

One, the FTC in the US is apparently very weak unlike in the UK, for example, which seems to have nailed some of the biggest fashion brands like H&M and Zara among others. There need to be better laws against greenwashing to discourage it from the root.

Another thing that makes people fall prey to greenwashing is its ability to hide behind mountains of technical language, dancing on the head of pin distinctions that most people not only wouldn't know how to evaluate, but don't want to evaluate. It is worthwhile to note here that despite the brain having a lot of capacity to process information, it only has so much attention. So, no matter the amount of information readily available about advertising puffery, the brain is drawn into patterns and habits, often leading us to repeat things that don’t serve us well. In fact, as Tom says, 80% of our choices are not even our real choices. Those are just our reactions to systemic behaviors and patterns that we’re part of.

Surprising? We know. Consider the ‘Keep America Beautiful’ campaign, which was started by PepsiCo and Coca-Cola (among others)  – some of the biggest polluters in America in the 50s – to reduce litter. The whole idea translated to asking people to clean up their garbage, for the trash was largely generated by them. Irony much? But that’s not all. More for-environment campaigns like Keep Britain Tidy and Keep Australia Beautiful have followed over the years. The focus of the participating companies being recycling THEIR mess.

Capitalism adds to these greenwashing scandals, making the campaigns even more deceptive. Is there a tidy way to go forward in society without letting greenwashing trick us? What more should we know about dissuading undeserving consumer brands and companies and making way for cleaner and honest ones? We unravel a lot of that stuff in this episode. Make sure to give it a listen!