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Hello! We are a team of scientists and science enthusiasts who want to show the world that science is for everyone, by building a network of people sharing, listening to, and asking questions about scientific stories. Welcome to The Interactome! For more content, including blog posts and our biographies, visit interactomemedia.org
Episodes
Monday Mar 24, 2025
Monday Mar 24, 2025
When you think of health care, space probably doesn’t come to mind! But the emerging field of space robotics can provide groundbreaking insights to the world of medicine!
This episode, Texas A&M robotics engineer Emily Wilkinson sits down with Natalie and Sarah to discuss her career journey, current research, and her NASA internship (where she met Sarah!).
Links:
Our Website: https://interactomemedia.wixsite.com/website
Twitter: https://twitter.com/theinteractome
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/interactome_media/
Mastodon: @interactome@universeodon.com
Texas A&M RAD Lab: https://rad.engr.tamu.edu/
Credits:
Audio/Video Editing: Sam Pickell
Artwork: Maia Reyes
Intro/Outro Music: Geovane Bruno - Dancing In The Future
Timestamps:
0:00 Intro
1:49 Meet Emily!
2:54 Getting to NASA
11:48 The Internship
15:09 How Emily and Sarah Met
27:20 Emily's Current Job and How She Got There
36:36 Projects That Emily's Lab Does
47:19 A Day in the Life of Emily
1:00:09 Radiation Testing
1:08:53 Outro
Tuesday Feb 18, 2025
Tuesday Feb 18, 2025
Whether it's the city, the suburbs, or somewhere else, have you ever stopped to think about why place where you live is designed the way that it is? That's thanks to urban planners, of which our guest this episode - Angela Lei - is! Join Angela, Sam, and Sarah as they discuss what urban planners and engineers do in terms of zoning, considerations made for pedestrians, and a little bit of history around Boston's Chinatown.
Links:
Our Website: https://interactomemedia.wixsite.com/website
Twitter: https://twitter.com/theinteractome
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/interactome_media/
Mastodon: @interactome@universeodon.com
Credits:
Audio/Video Editing: Sam Pickell
Artwork: Maia Reyes
Intro/Outro Music: Geovane Bruno - Dancing In The Future
Timestamps:
0:00 Intro
1:20 Meet Angela!
3:51 What is Urban Planning/Engineering?
8:53 Exurbs
14:37 Zoning
21:51 Transit Oriented Development (TOD)
30:47 Urban Planning's Impact on the Environment
33:48 Boston's Chinatown
40:46 Defining Borders and Splitting Land
43:37 Pedestrianism and Climate Resiliency
45:38 What Can You do to Impact Urban Planning in Your City
47:00 The Inner Belt and the Highway That Never Was
59:34 Redesigning a City Built for Cars
1:13:20 Outro
Tuesday Jan 21, 2025
Tuesday Jan 21, 2025
What do doctors and astronauts have in common? Turns out, it’s more than you might think! On this episode, Sarah and Maia are joined by Shawna Pandya, MD. Shawna is a physician, astronaut and scientist. Tune in to hear her talk about navigating health care in the most extreme environments, and how she helps patients survive and thrive!
Links:
Our Website: https://interactomemedia.wixsite.com/website
Twitter: https://twitter.com/theinteractome
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/interactome_media/
Mastodon: @interactome@universeodon.com
Credits:
Audio/Video Editing: Sam Pickell
Artwork: Maia Reyes
Intro/Outro Music: Geovane Bruno - Dancing In The Future
Timestamps:
0:00 Intro
0:47 Meet Shawna!
2:39 How Shawna Became an Astronaut
11:11 Space is Trying to Kill You
18:05 Training for Space
27:00 Other Cool Tech Related to Space Medicine
29:54 Working on a Team of Highly Skilled Individuals
34:29 Shawna's Upcoming Mission
42:30 One Piece of Advice for Aspiring Astronauts
45:30 Outro
Monday Dec 02, 2024
Monday Dec 02, 2024
AI doesn’t typically make people think of parenting, but when you listen to this episode you’ll be shocked by the similarities! Cole Smith walks us through how to train AI, how it differs from machine learning, and why building an AI system can feel a lot like raising a child.
Links:
Our Website: https://interactomemedia.wixsite.com/website
Twitter: https://twitter.com/theinteractome
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/interactome_media/
Mastodon: @interactome@universeodon.com
Credits:
Audio/Video Editing: Sam Pickell
Artwork: Maia Reyes
Transcript: Margaret Downs
Intro/Outro Music: Geovane Bruno - Dancing In The Future
Timestamps:
0:00 Intro
1:15 Meet Cole!
2:32 How Did Cole Get Into This Space?
4:17 What Exactly is AI?
8:42 Classifying AI
11:40 The Difference Between AI and ML
16:34 What is AI Good At?
19:45 What is Generative AI?
32:01 What is a Large Language Model?
34:41 What Can't AI do?
42:49 Bias in AI
53:20 Choosing the Right Model
59:54 Where Does Cole Think AI is Heading?
1:05:38 Outro
Tuesday Sep 03, 2024
Tuesday Sep 03, 2024
Effectively communicating scientific concepts and discoveries is one of the hardest, and most important, ways of bridging gaps between scientists and the general public. But as all things in science, this is easier said than done.
On this episode, Joe, Sam and Natalie chat with New York Times science journalist and bestselling author Jim Robbins. He discusses his approach to writing about untold stories of the natural world, new research, and more.
Links:
Our Website: https://interactomemedia.wixsite.com/website
Twitter: https://twitter.com/theinteractome
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/interactome_media/
Mastodon: @interactome@universeodon.com
Credits:
Audio/Video Editing: Sam Pickell
Artwork: Maia Reyes
Transcript: Margaret Downs
Intro/Outro Music: Geovane Bruno - Dancing In The Future
Timestamps:
0:00 Intro
2:02 Meet Jim!
4:45 Science Writing vs Science Research
6:07 What Does Jim Write About?
12:44 Jim's Start: Stories About Grizzly Bears
15:51 California Wildfires
21:22 Making Important Concepts Meaningful
34:02 Navigating the Unknown in Storytelling and in Life
49:56 Challenging the Status Quo
54:13 What Makes a Good Story?
57:04 Maintaining Optimism and Hope
1:03:40 Outro
Tuesday May 28, 2024
Tuesday May 28, 2024
On this episode of the Interactome, special guest Rasa Valiauga joins Natalie and Sarah to discuss the link that our diet has with our brains. Topics include what foods are considered highly glycemic and what that can mean for our bodies, how diabetes links to our diet, and discussing how to trim the fat from sensationalized diet advice and find the facts.
Links:
Our Website: https://interactomemedia.wixsite.com/website
Twitter: https://twitter.com/theinteractome
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/interactome_media/
Mastodon: @interactome@universeodon.com
Credits:
Audio/Video Editing: Sam Pickell
Artwork: Maia Reyes
Transcript: Margaret Downs
Intro/Outro Music: Geovane Bruno - Dancing In The Future
Timestamps:
0:00 Intro
1:44 Meet Rasa!
7:26 Linking Diet to the Brain
12:22 High Glycemic Food
16:01 Type 1 and Type 2 Diabetes
20:44 Rasa's Research
31:12 How to Find the Facts in Sensationalized Headlines
39:08 Rasa's Research Part 2
43:18 What Should be Brought to the Diet Conversation?
45:40 Closing Thoughts
Monday Apr 29, 2024
Monday Apr 29, 2024
You’ve probably heard of the microbiome, but there’s much more to it than just gut health. Tune in to hear from Bridget O’Connor, career microbiologist, for a discussion on the microbiome, how microbiologists study organisms they can’t see, and more!
Links:
Our Website: https://interactomemedia.wixsite.com/website
Twitter: https://twitter.com/theinteractome
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/interactome_media/
Mastodon: @interactome@universeodon.com
Credits:
Audio/Video Editing: Sam Pickell
Artwork: Maia Reyes
Transcript: Margaret Downs
Intro/Outro Music: Geovane Bruno - Dancing In The Future
Timestamps:
0:00 Intro
1:40 Meet Bridget!
10:07 Human Cell Biology vs Microbiology
26:03 Microbiome Misconceptions
35:53 Dysbiosis
37:37 Importance of Strain Variety in Microbiomes
50:36 Some Things That Bridget Wishes More People Knew About Microbiology
54:35 Outro
Monday Mar 18, 2024
Monday Mar 18, 2024
This week, the Interactome team is joined by Dr. Alex Champagne, Associate Professor of Biology at University of Southern Indiana! The team talks all things bird physiology — the age old question of flight evolution, interesting anatomical structures, and Dr. Champagne’s current work (which just got published, by the way)!
After listening to the episode, read about how skin lipids in desert bats suggest wing and tail membranes are important to evaporation cooling! https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1095643324000473
Links:
Our Website: https://interactomemedia.wixsite.com/website
Twitter: https://twitter.com/theinteractome
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/interactome_media/
Mastodon: @interactome@universeodon.com
Credits:
Audio/Video Editing: Sam Pickell
Artwork: Maia Reyes
Transcript: Margaret Downs
Intro/Outro Music: Geovane Bruno - Dancing In The Future
Timestamps:
0:00 Intro
2:26 Meet Alex!
7:47 Discussing Bird Physiology and its Relationship with Evolution
19:54 Adaptation and Evolution
25:10 Alex's Work
42:23 Archaeopteryx and Microraptor
52:44 Rapid Fire Bird Questions
1:04:31 Outro
1:06:10 BONUS Everyone's Favorite Birds
Monday Jan 29, 2024
Monday Jan 29, 2024
You've probably heard of AI powered neural networks, but are you familiar with biological neural networks? Join Sam, Natalie, and returning guest Youngmin as they compare, contrast, and generally discuss both types of networks. Can a single neuron "think"? And how do neural networks "learn"? We cover these questions and more on this episode of the interactome.
Links:
Our Website: https://interactomemedia.wixsite.com/website
Twitter: https://twitter.com/theinteractome
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/interactome_media/
Mastodon: @interactome@universeodon.com
Youngmin's channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/ADHDMathematician
Credits:
Audio/Video Editing: Sam Pickell
Artwork: Maia Reyes
Transcript: Margaret Downs
Intro/Outro Music: Geovane Bruno - Dancing In The Future
Timestamps:
0:00 Intro
1:25 Meet Youngmin (again!)
2:50 What is a Biological Neural Network?
7:15 Can One Neuron Think?
10:01 Suppressed Ommatidium
16:30 Is the Adaptation to White Noise A Result of a Neural Network?
26:23 Modeling Neurons
29:33 How Does a Neural Network "Learn"?
40:27 Comparing Biological and Artificial Neural Networks
1:00:52 Outro
Monday Jan 01, 2024
Monday Jan 01, 2024
We all know that protein is something in our food, but what else do proteins do? For our final episode of our 3-part series on the Central Dogma, we discuss (one of) the final products of DNA and RNA: proteins! We cover everything from where proteins come from to some of their roles as molecular machines. Along the way, we touch on topics such as how eating protein helps you make muscles to "the protein fold that kills." Correction: X-ray crystallography shoots high-energy photons (x-rays), not electrons, at crystals to obtain their structure. Sam was probably too excited thinking about electron microscopy to catch his mistake.
Links:
Our Website: https://interactomemedia.wixsite.com/website
Twitter: https://twitter.com/theinteractome
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/interactome_media/
Mastodon: @interactome@universeodon.com
Credits:
Audio/Video Editing: Sam Pickell
Artwork: Maia Reyes
Transcript: Margaret Downs
Intro/Outro Music: Geovane Bruno - Dancing In The Future
Timestamps:
0:00 Intro
2:44 What are Proteins?
14:41 How are Proteins Made?
22:42 Protein Folding
30:05 Side Topic on Microscopes
38:19 Protein Regulation
41:49 Protein DB
44:36 When Protein Folding Goes Wrong
54:03 Favorite Proteins
1:0024 Outro