Speaker 1: All right, y'all is December thirtieth, and that means that
Speaker 1: there are two days left in.
Speaker 2: Twenty twenty one.
Speaker 3: I can't believe it.
Speaker 1: Twenty twenty one felt like it was a month long
Speaker 1: and then at some point ten years long.
Speaker 3: Oh a lot of the ten years long part.
Speaker 1: So much happened this year, and so we knew that
Speaker 1: we have to bring back our end of the year
Speaker 1: mixtape again. It was only right, Yes, we had to
Speaker 1: bring it back just so that we can cover some
Speaker 1: of the topics that we weren't able to cover this year.
Speaker 2: I mean, we just came back in Nova.
Speaker 3: I just came back in November. We've got ten months
Speaker 3: to get.
Speaker 1: Through, and y'all have been asking where are y'all. So
Speaker 1: we're going to recap everything that we weren't able to
Speaker 1: talk about while we were away. Welcome to Dope Labs,
Speaker 1: a weekly podcast that mixes hardcore science, pop culture, and
Speaker 1: a healthy dosa friendship.
Speaker 3: Twenty twenty one is rapidly coming to a close.
Speaker 2: I can't believe we're at the end of twenty twenty
Speaker 2: one already.
Speaker 3: Yes, you know what time it is. Then it's time
Speaker 3: to look back on all the biggest stories of the
Speaker 3: Year Dope Lab style.
Speaker 1: Yes, it is time for our annual end of the
Speaker 1: year mixtape.
Speaker 3: Here's how it's going to work. We will cover the
Speaker 3: biggest stories in five different categories, and then we're gonna
Speaker 3: do a little mini dissection for each one of those.
Speaker 2: So here are the categories.
Speaker 1: It's tech, health and wellness, Politics, sports.
Speaker 2: And music.
Speaker 3: Let's jump into tech. I thought twenty was the year
Speaker 3: for tech, but twenty twenty one, said hold my coke.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, with people working from home since the pandemic hit,
Speaker 1: and then all of these new technological advances that have
Speaker 1: been pushed to the forefront because of this new virtual
Speaker 1: landscape that we're working in. Tech is on the tip
Speaker 1: of everyone's tongue.
Speaker 3: And specifically the metaverse.
Speaker 1: At the end of October, Facebook announced that they will
Speaker 1: now be referred to as meta.
Speaker 3: Metaverse is just another term, and it feels foreign, just
Speaker 3: like you. Remember when people were calling the Internet the
Speaker 3: information Highway. I didn't know what that was.
Speaker 1: Yes, and then I remember people calling it cyberspace. And
Speaker 1: the first time anyone ever heard of that word was
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty two and a short story by William
Speaker 1: Gibson titled Burning Chrome and then now we have metaverse
Speaker 1: and here it is what twenty twenty one, But that
Speaker 1: was coined by Neil Stevenson in his book snow Crash, and.
Speaker 3: That came out in nineteen ninety two.
Speaker 1: So it seems like the term metaverse has been around
Speaker 1: way longer than we were member. You know, it's not
Speaker 1: a new thing that Mark Zuckerberg just came up with.
Speaker 1: But I still have a lot of questions about what
Speaker 1: is all going into it. But I think the key
Speaker 1: distinguishing feature is that a metaverse is free forming. There's
Speaker 1: no mayor of the town, so you have people controlling games,
Speaker 1: and even though we're all working together in harvesting corn
Speaker 1: or whatever and these farming games, you can only do
Speaker 1: what's been decided by the creators of the game. And
Speaker 1: I think that's the distinguishing feature of the metaverse, is
Speaker 1: that eventually you get on there and you do whatever.
Speaker 1: I think they just had the first metaverse marriage recently.
Speaker 1: It just seems like, like you said, there's a lot
Speaker 1: more autonomy in the metaverse. You know, some of these games,
Speaker 1: you'll be running and then you'll be running into an
Speaker 1: invisible wall because no more game. Then you reached the
Speaker 1: bounds of the game. The metaverse, there's no such thing.
Speaker 1: You can do what you want.
Speaker 3: I think we got to really give our props to
Speaker 3: verse as the predicate because people have been using it
Speaker 3: all around the Marvel Verse, you Verse, and the dccomic verse,
Speaker 3: and so the idea of creating these universes or ecosystems,
Speaker 3: if you will.
Speaker 2: Is not new.
Speaker 3: Like you said, TT and Facebook isn't the first player here.
Speaker 3: They're just a player with the most money, the player
Speaker 3: that really needed a rebrand after being called out for
Speaker 3: terrible practices.
Speaker 1: We all know things that are kind of like meta.
Speaker 1: When we were growing up, it was SIMS, and then
Speaker 1: there's things now like Roadblocks and Fortnite, where you're in
Speaker 1: this world where everybody can create their own experiences but
Speaker 1: then also interact with each other, where it will feel
Speaker 1: like a hybrid of our online social experiences sometimes expanded
Speaker 1: into the physical world. So imagine you're walking around and
Speaker 1: then you can see something from the metaverse in front
Speaker 1: of you and interact with it. So it creates this
Speaker 1: immersive experience with other people even when you can't be together.
Speaker 3: And it feels like we've been leaning this way for
Speaker 3: a long time before Sims. It was the time of
Speaker 3: got something that continued to go on and on, whether
Speaker 3: you were playing with it or not.
Speaker 1: Yes, I remember when my fifth grade teacher took my
Speaker 1: nano baby from me and she held it in her
Speaker 1: desk overnight because I was playing with it during class.
Speaker 1: I got that nano baby back the next day and
Speaker 1: I had to put them in the hospital for days.
Speaker 1: I cried, Oh my gosh, the own version of the
Speaker 1: nick You the nano baby intensive care unit. But you
Speaker 1: were able to rehab so your nano baby got out.
Speaker 2: Yeah. But then my mother was like, enough of this.
Speaker 3: Enough is enough. I know that's right, missus. Shodia get
Speaker 3: t t together, but so tamagaji nano baby, Sims. You
Speaker 3: remember when I was playing that farming game on my
Speaker 3: iPod Touch, Yes, okay, and we were going out and
Speaker 3: my mom and got Mama behind the house and I
Speaker 3: was like, please harvest this corn while we're gone. Okay,
Speaker 3: I need you to harvest these crops.
Speaker 1: We've all been interacting with things that were meta adjacent
Speaker 1: or really just the meta itself. But now Facebook is
Speaker 1: trying to formalize it where everybody's going.
Speaker 2: To the same place. Do you think that people are
Speaker 2: gonna be interacting with the.
Speaker 3: Metaverse absolutely, Listen. I've seen some articles where basically they're
Speaker 3: already fumbling the ball. Okay, they're interacting, but why would
Speaker 3: you create the exact same systems that exist here and
Speaker 3: are terrible in a metaverse? Yeah, people are buying property,
Speaker 3: buying it up. That's fake scarcity. Don't we have enough
Speaker 3: gigabytes to go around? Honestly, isn't there enough space for
Speaker 3: everybody to have a plot of land and live?
Speaker 2: Why recreate capitalism.
Speaker 1: And the drive for them to buy this land and
Speaker 1: buying it so early in this whole metaverse is so
Speaker 1: that they can establish themselves as the socioeconomic elite inside
Speaker 1: of the metaverse. So when it comes time and more
Speaker 1: people start to go to the metaverse, they already own
Speaker 1: a lot of land, they own property, they've already established
Speaker 1: businesses so that they can be wealthy within the metaverse.
Speaker 3: But I feel like, if the metaverse is digital, there
Speaker 3: should be enough space.
Speaker 2: For all of us. Yeah, pan left make more room.
Speaker 1: I have seen my niece and nephew play roadblocks and
Speaker 1: interacting in this roadblocks world where there's a ton of
Speaker 1: other people playing and interacting with each other, people are
Speaker 1: building houses. It really makes me wonder about what our
Speaker 1: futures look like. But I also have heard that some
Speaker 1: people are speculating that Generation Alpha, so I'm not talking
Speaker 1: about millennials like me and you are or gen Zer's.
Speaker 1: Generation Alpha is folks that are born between twenty ten
Speaker 1: and twenty twenty four, so they're all children right now
Speaker 1: that maybe when they get to be adults or nearing adulthood,
Speaker 1: they'll start to push back on all of this technology
Speaker 1: that is seemingly supposed to be connecting us more, but
Speaker 1: not in a human one to one connection. They're going
Speaker 1: to start to say, no, I am opting for more
Speaker 1: human conde rather than virtual connection.
Speaker 2: Ah.
Speaker 1: So it'll be really interesting to see what happens, because
Speaker 1: to me, it feels like we're going warp speed towards
Speaker 1: everybody never leaving their houses and having virtual reality goggles
Speaker 1: on all the time. But maybe Generation Alpha will be
Speaker 1: the ones to help swing the pendulum the other way.
Speaker 2: Okay, let's jump into health.
Speaker 3: There's so much going on in the health and wellness front.
Speaker 3: We spent the early part of twenty twenty one talking
Speaker 3: about vaccines and then variants, and then the omicron variant,
Speaker 3: which we keep learning new things about every day. I
Speaker 3: think it goes without saying nobody deserves to get sick, right,
Speaker 3: I think illness is just part of nature. And everybody
Speaker 3: can't afford to stay home unless you're independently wealthy, and
Speaker 3: if you are, I will send my cash app. But
Speaker 3: you know, people have to live and for some people
Speaker 3: getting together with others that has its own benefits. And
Speaker 3: so when everybody's making their own individuals assessments, it's really
Speaker 3: hard because the transmissibility seems through the roof on omicron.
Speaker 3: And I think we'll just keep learning more every day.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: The last thing that I heard, which I mean by
Speaker 1: the time folks listening to this, it might be different,
Speaker 1: was that omicron is on pace to be the most
Speaker 1: dominant variant in the UK by the top of twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two, more than any delta cases, more than any
Speaker 1: of the other cases that we've seen, which.
Speaker 2: Is mind boggling to me and a little bit scary.
Speaker 3: And right now there's a lot of conversations saying, oh,
Speaker 3: it's milder, but it's like, hey, if transmissibility is high
Speaker 3: and it's harder for it to infect tissues, and the
Speaker 3: lung compared to the broncos.
Speaker 2: Then there's just all these things.
Speaker 3: We haven't had enough time with it, and that's the
Speaker 3: tricky part. We don't get to press the pause button
Speaker 3: until we can get more data. So it's just really
Speaker 3: tough and really changing daily by the hour, New update,
Speaker 3: new update. But there was some good development and that
Speaker 3: was with those COVID pills.
Speaker 2: Yes, I saw that.
Speaker 1: It seems really interesting because I think with a lot
Speaker 1: of these things, everybody's looking for if I get sick,
Speaker 1: what do I do? And so it seems like there
Speaker 1: are two new COVID pills that are going to be
Speaker 1: hit in the market and are expected to work against
Speaker 1: all versions, all the variants of the virus.
Speaker 3: It feels like there are some things that people are
Speaker 3: missing when it comes to COVID in general, even though
Speaker 3: we're in year three of it, especially when it comes
Speaker 3: to omicron and one of those things is that this
Speaker 3: is highly transmissible, and so it's not a matter of
Speaker 3: whether or not you're going to get exposed, but how
Speaker 3: prepared you're going to be when you get exposed. And
Speaker 3: then because it's so highly transmissible, that means that denominator
Speaker 3: number when we talk about oh it's mild, it's often mild.
Speaker 3: And so if we say, okay, let's say only ten
Speaker 3: percent of cases are severe, ten percent of a really
Speaker 3: big number is still a really big number, and that
Speaker 3: has the potential to overwhelm our hospital systems. And so
Speaker 3: that's not just folks who are dealing with COVID, but
Speaker 3: folks who are having other health situations going on as well.
Speaker 3: And so that's why this pill is so important because
Speaker 3: if we think about the moderate to severe cases, which
Speaker 3: we know we will see more of those just by
Speaker 3: the sheer denominator rising because of the transmissibility of omicron,
Speaker 3: this has the potential to clear folks out of the
Speaker 3: hospital much quicker, so we can continue to take care
Speaker 3: of routine health things that need to be managed that
Speaker 3: our health system just isn't equipped to handle alongside COVID
Speaker 3: without intervention. So now we have a second lot of defense.
Speaker 3: We have vaccines and we have COVID pills if you
Speaker 3: do get COVID, and people who are vaccinated can still
Speaker 3: get COVID. Right, And so it's not either or is.
Speaker 3: We need all the tools we can right now and and.
Speaker 1: Right And it's really exciting because even with just some
Speaker 1: of the preliminary results, it's showing that one of these
Speaker 1: drugs has been eighty five percent effective when taken within
Speaker 1: five days of the start of symptoms.
Speaker 2: So that's really exciting.
Speaker 3: But something started to happen in the pandemic in twenty
Speaker 3: two and it really bled over to twenty twenty one.
Speaker 3: A lot of people started to go the way of
Speaker 3: Jessica Rabbit.
Speaker 1: Yes, Brazilian butt lifts, or as it's colloquially called bbls.
Speaker 3: Yes, Buffy the Body really set the trend for y'all.
Speaker 2: Okay, if you.
Speaker 1: Know Buffy the Body, get on Instagram and comment under
Speaker 1: our posts.
Speaker 3: Yes, let me know that you know. Okay, she's the og.
Speaker 2: She is.
Speaker 3: That's who Jessica Rabbit could only hope to be. And
Speaker 3: plastic surgery in general has been going up.
Speaker 2: Yes, So with.
Speaker 1: The BBL procedure, it's a two part procedure. First, the
Speaker 1: doctor performs a liposection, so they're using a machine that
Speaker 1: pulls out the fat from the patient from areas of
Speaker 1: your body where you have fat where you don't really
Speaker 1: want it.
Speaker 2: And then the fat.
Speaker 1: Is put into a centrifuge, which in this case is
Speaker 1: a device that's used to separate out the fat from
Speaker 1: any other fluids like blood, so that they can take
Speaker 1: that fat and then reinject it back into the patient
Speaker 1: in their posterior.
Speaker 3: Plastic surgery in general has been going up because people
Speaker 3: are looking at our faces. You know, we're on Zoom,
Speaker 3: We're looking at ourselves much more. We're not meant to
Speaker 3: look at ourselves as much. And really there was some
Speaker 3: foreshadowing because in Lab two Edge of Snatch, doctor Monty
Speaker 3: Oyd Harris told us exactly.
Speaker 4: That there's been no other time probably in the history
Speaker 4: of human civilization, right, that folks are engaging and looking
Speaker 4: at themselves as much as they are now. So I
Speaker 4: started to see a growing and growing misalignment related to
Speaker 4: this notion of self image and self fact, Right, who
Speaker 4: are you really at your core? And then what's this
Speaker 4: layer of image that's on this and is this misaligned?
Speaker 2: Their aligned?
Speaker 4: And so as the misalignment started to get bigger, particularly
Speaker 4: with patients that were looking for the changing their nose
Speaker 4: and changing their lips, you know, I was like, this
Speaker 4: doesn't really add up anymore for me.
Speaker 1: You know what, Also, crazy Zoom isn't helping because you
Speaker 1: can put a filter on yourself in zoom. Right, I
Speaker 1: was on a zoom call and I added eyelashes and lipstick.
Speaker 1: I looked fabulous. That's not how I looked in real life.
Speaker 1: So once I got off Zoo, I was like, oh.
Speaker 3: And I'm all about people looking the way they want
Speaker 3: to look, looking in ways that make them feel good.
Speaker 3: I think the bone I have to pick with the
Speaker 3: BBL is the risk that's associated. Yeah, so it's really popular,
Speaker 3: but it's also the deadliest. So roughly two in every
Speaker 3: six thousand BBLS results in death. This procedure is dangerous
Speaker 3: not just because you're moving fat around in the body,
Speaker 3: but because it's being put in the butt, which has
Speaker 3: a lot of vasculature. So what can happen is you
Speaker 3: can easily get fat in a blood vessel and boom,
Speaker 3: fats in your heart.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think that a part of the problem
Speaker 1: is that a lot of these things are being done
Speaker 1: in secrecy, and people are traveling outside of the country
Speaker 1: to try and get these procedures done because there are
Speaker 1: a lot of plastic surgeons who refuse to do bbls,
Speaker 1: and so folks are traveling outside of the country to
Speaker 1: find doctors who are willing to risk it so that
Speaker 1: you can get the body that you want. And I
Speaker 1: think a lot of it that makes it really tricky
Speaker 1: is that there's a like you said, people going to
Speaker 1: doctors trying to find something that affordable. B Fewer plastic
Speaker 1: surgeons are doing these procedures because of the risk involved.
Speaker 2: So what you.
Speaker 3: Get is doctors who may not be specialists that are
Speaker 3: doing these procedures. So now you have something that's high
Speaker 3: risk and somebody who's not specifically trained for it. That's
Speaker 3: a nasty combination. And third, because people are traveling, they're
Speaker 3: playing it kind of loosey goosey to me. With the
Speaker 3: post operation care. There's a lot of post operation care
Speaker 3: that has to be done after a BBL, so like
Speaker 3: lymphatic draining and checking to make sure there's no infection.
Speaker 3: So if you've traveled, if you can't stay in that
Speaker 3: same place or there's nowhere for you to stay to
Speaker 3: get post oop care, you've got to travel back, which
Speaker 3: makes you susceptible to infection.
Speaker 1: Yeah, getting on a plane, your body is being battered
Speaker 1: up there, okay, because the air pressure is different, you're
Speaker 1: at a different altitude. Our bodies are really fighting while
Speaker 1: we're up in planes, and so if you've undergone such
Speaker 1: a major surgery, anything can happen. And yeah, because you
Speaker 1: are putting your body in this distressed state. While you're
Speaker 1: in a distressed state.
Speaker 3: And if you're flying commercial, you're sitting on that BBL,
Speaker 3: which you probably shouldn't be doing.
Speaker 2: You're not supposed to You're supposed to be laying flat
Speaker 2: on your stomach.
Speaker 3: I believe in doing what makes you feel good.
Speaker 2: If you like it, I love it.
Speaker 3: But I also want you to know what your risks are.
Speaker 3: And so I think it's really easy to see the
Speaker 3: end product and be like, yes, that's what I want,
Speaker 3: but I just want you to know the in between
Speaker 3: stops as.
Speaker 1: Well, and not to mention these procedures aren't covered by insurance. Yes,
Speaker 1: so a lot of people are spending a lot of money.
Speaker 3: It's so important to find a surgeon that you trust.
Speaker 3: So do your googles, read the testimonials, ask somebody that
Speaker 3: you know they got to BBL multiple forms of information.
Speaker 3: That's the way to go.
Speaker 1: All right, let's take a break, but when we get back,
Speaker 1: we'll dive into our last three categories for our twenty
Speaker 1: twenty one end of the year mixtape starting with politics.
Speaker 3: We're back and before we dive into our twenty twenty
Speaker 3: one mixtape, what are we dissecting on next week's lab tt.
Speaker 1: Next week, we're starting a special series for the new
Speaker 1: year that's focused on health, wellness, and setting yourself up
Speaker 1: for success in twenty twenty two.
Speaker 3: And our first episode is going to be all about sleep.
Speaker 2: I love sleeping.
Speaker 3: We all know that again the good night's sleep has
Speaker 3: major health benefits and most of us wish we could
Speaker 3: get more of it. So we're talking to doctor Jarde
Speaker 3: and Jean Luis all about how to get better sleep,
Speaker 3: plus some really interesting insights on sleep disparities. Some folks
Speaker 3: are more vulnerable to bad sleep than others. I think
Speaker 3: that's me. Don't miss it.
Speaker 2: All.
Speaker 1: Right, back to our twenty twenty one end of the
Speaker 1: year mixtape, and our next category is politics. Twenty twenty
Speaker 1: one has been a political thriller in real life honesty,
Speaker 1: like somebody just dropped us into multiple movies.
Speaker 2: You can't write a better book.
Speaker 3: We started the top of the year with insurrection. How
Speaker 3: can we have a parade and overthrow the government all
Speaker 3: in one A parade, a riot, and the collapse of democracy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it seemingly the president was in on it,
Speaker 2: the orchestrator.
Speaker 3: It just really got wild. So there's that. So in
Speaker 3: March the Derek Chauvin trial began and that went on
Speaker 3: for a while up until June twenty fifth, when the
Speaker 3: judge sentenced Choven to twenty two and a half years
Speaker 3: in prison, and two thirds of that has to be
Speaker 3: served before he's eligible for parole.
Speaker 1: In September we had the twentieth anniversary of nine to eleven,
Speaker 1: which is really crazy. It feels I don't know, if
Speaker 1: it feels like it was twenty years ago.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 1: And just before then, on August thirtieth of twenty twenty one,
Speaker 1: the US Armed Forces withdrew troops from Afghanistan. And also
Speaker 1: in September, in Texas, they passed a law called the
Speaker 1: Texas Heartbeat Act, and this is the most restrictive abortion
Speaker 1: law in the nation for abortion access. This law bans
Speaker 1: abortions at around six weeks, which is before most people
Speaker 1: even know they're pregnant.
Speaker 3: And the wild aspect of that law is that anybody,
Speaker 3: whether they're related to you or not, if they think
Speaker 3: you are performing or facilitating an illegal abortion, they can
Speaker 3: sue you for a minimum of ten thousand dollars in damages.
Speaker 2: What is happening?
Speaker 3: You know, when you really look back on it, it
Speaker 3: kind of feels like the political theme of twenty twenty
Speaker 3: one is around civil rights. Yes, you know, because it
Speaker 3: felt like maybe there was some progress when you think
Speaker 3: back to the Derek Chauvin trial and the response to
Speaker 3: you know, police violence and brutality. But then it felt
Speaker 3: like we took a step back because in November, Kyle
Speaker 3: Rittenhouse was found not guilty, even though it's factually known
Speaker 3: that he shot three people and killed two of them
Speaker 3: at a protest against police violence.
Speaker 1: And he went to this protest with an AR fifteen
Speaker 1: style rifle that he purchased illegally, and he also crossed
Speaker 1: state lines with that illegal rifle. And there's also the
Speaker 1: whole restricting of voting rights and the campaigns for that,
Speaker 1: all the civil rights things that we thought were over.
Speaker 1: It's like we take a step forward, we take a
Speaker 1: step back, we take a step forward. Think about the
Speaker 1: McMichaels who killed a mad Aubrey. They were convicted of murder.
Speaker 1: That was in November, and that felt like a step forward.
Speaker 1: It felt like a step forward, but here we are
Speaker 1: in December back of the Supreme Court with Dobbs versus
Speaker 1: Jackson Women's Health Organization. So this is a case that
Speaker 1: could be the biggest abortion case the Supreme Court here
Speaker 1: since Roe versus eight. Yeah, it's really crazy, but I'm
Speaker 1: trying to keep hope alive. I'm trying to be optimistic
Speaker 1: about a lot of these things. Like you said, it
Speaker 1: feels like, you know, two steps forward, one step back,
Speaker 1: sometimes ten steps back, and it can be very draining.
Speaker 3: I'm tired of people doing a Q shouffuled with my rights.
Speaker 3: But honestly, this really feels like just the tip of
Speaker 3: the iceberg for politics. We couldn't put everything in the show,
Speaker 3: so be sure to check out our show notes at
Speaker 3: dopelauspodcast dot com to see all of the stuff that
Speaker 3: happened this year.
Speaker 1: The Summer Olympics happened this summer, and it was very
Speaker 1: exciting because it had been postponed a full year because
Speaker 1: of the pandemic. Even though there weren't any spectators in
Speaker 1: the stands per se, it was still really exciting to see.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it just feels weird to have the Summer Olympics
Speaker 3: in an odd number year.
Speaker 2: And having the Winter Olympics right around the corner.
Speaker 3: We saw athletes stand up for themselves in a really
Speaker 3: big way this year.
Speaker 1: During the Summer Olympics, we had Simone Biles pushing back
Speaker 1: really significantly when it came to her mental health and
Speaker 1: her ability to perform as a result of her mental
Speaker 1: health and prioritizing herself.
Speaker 3: And that was right on the heels of Naomi Osaka
Speaker 3: was drawing from the French Open due to depression and
Speaker 3: mental health concerns as well. So it felt like we've
Speaker 3: really had some momentum, and a lot of other athletes
Speaker 3: were rallying behind them and co signing, saying, yes, we
Speaker 3: agree with this, and it's so important to be able
Speaker 3: to stand up for yourself and say, my mental health
Speaker 3: is just as important as my physical health when it
Speaker 3: comes to my performance.
Speaker 1: What some mobiles are struggling with during the Olympics is
Speaker 1: what's called the twisties, and that's when the mind and
Speaker 1: body don't connect.
Speaker 2: And so while she.
Speaker 1: Was flying through the sky as she does and doing
Speaker 1: all of these flips and things, she would not be
Speaker 1: able to figure out what's up, what's down where she
Speaker 1: was in the three D space, and so that was
Speaker 1: affecting her ability to be able to land safely, And
Speaker 1: so if she's experiencing that, you would think everyone would say, Okay,
Speaker 1: that's very dangerous. But people were saying, no, you're a
Speaker 1: disappointment and you should be pushing yourself. And it's not
Speaker 1: about her physical strength, it's about her mind not being
Speaker 1: able to do.
Speaker 2: The things that she normally can do.
Speaker 1: And I think what's most important when she's doing those
Speaker 1: flips is that she lands safely.
Speaker 3: Yes, do you know what type of positional self awareness
Speaker 3: you have to have to do those stunts that Simone
Speaker 3: Boles is doing. I don't like to go from the
Speaker 3: couch to the kitchen When I stand up too fast
Speaker 3: and sometimes I feel dizzy, I sit back down.
Speaker 1: If you can't spin round in the sky five times
Speaker 1: and land on your feet, I don't want to hear
Speaker 1: nothing you got to say about someone bolls.
Speaker 3: Simone Bowles isn't the only athlete making a big stance,
Speaker 3: shaking up things, making it drop.
Speaker 2: I love these metaphors.
Speaker 3: Yes, our new favorite athlete, Megan the Stallion, really shook
Speaker 3: the table with that Nike deal, and that takes us
Speaker 3: right from sports into music.
Speaker 1: Yes, a lot has happened with music over the last year.
Speaker 2: Olivia Rodrigo made her big splash and took over the
Speaker 2: radio and every form of media.
Speaker 1: You couldn't go five minute It's without hearing an Olivia
Speaker 1: Rodrigo song. Fionce became the most awarded woman in Grammy
Speaker 1: history and became a Grammy Award winning rapper herself with
Speaker 1: her song with Magdae Stallion. Yes, we had the death
Speaker 1: of DMX, which was really really sad.
Speaker 3: I remember exactly where I was when that happened. Where
Speaker 3: were you at an outdoor bar in DC. Shout out
Speaker 3: to Abro he was bartending that bar played like all
Speaker 3: DMX after that, and everybody was just all in the fields.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: It was sad, but it was also a celebration of
Speaker 3: his life as well. Yes, I mean, what a time
Speaker 3: to be alive, to be able to experience DMX and
Speaker 3: that amazing music.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh hmm.
Speaker 1: If you don't have DMX and the Rough Riders in
Speaker 1: your Spotify playlists, make it happen.
Speaker 2: And also Adele, after what felt like too.
Speaker 1: Long Yes of being Away, came back with her new
Speaker 1: album thirty and really just took over everybody's lives. I mean,
Speaker 1: everybody's just been screamed, crying and sobbing, even though they're
Speaker 1: perfectly happy. Yeah, you know that effect on people was
Speaker 1: singing good deal. Listening to Adele and her new album,
Speaker 1: there were so many moments where you know, when the
Speaker 1: hairs just stand up all over your body because you
Speaker 1: have so much emotion. I learned what that actually is.
Speaker 1: There's something chemical going on. I'm sure you already knew, ze,
Speaker 1: but these things always blow my mind. It's something called
Speaker 1: free song. There's actually something chemical going on in your body.
Speaker 1: And our friend Cole Kushna, he has a show called
Speaker 1: Keynotes where he takes an aspect of music and he
Speaker 1: really gets into the nitty gritty about it, and he
Speaker 1: did an entire episode on free song, which is the
Speaker 1: chills that you get when you experience certain emotions. And
Speaker 1: so what's happening is that our brains are constantly trying.
Speaker 2: To predict the future.
Speaker 1: But with music, as you're going through a song, it
Speaker 1: might have the same you know, melodies, the same core
Speaker 1: progressions that's just repeated over and over again, and this
Speaker 1: anticipation is building, and then once something memorable or different happens,
Speaker 1: there is a dopamine release in our brain, which is
Speaker 1: our reward, and that then leads to the chills. And
Speaker 1: so if you're listening to a song and you do
Speaker 1: get the chills, try and think about what is actually
Speaker 1: happening in the song. Is it a part where the
Speaker 1: singer is going into a really beautiful falsetto was there a.
Speaker 2: Change in the melody?
Speaker 1: And usually, based on what I learned listening to that
Speaker 1: podcast episode, it aligns perfectly with something like that when
Speaker 1: I get the chills and when something is changing in the.
Speaker 3: Song, and once you have that reward, your brain wants
Speaker 3: to do that over and over again. I know for me,
Speaker 3: I feel that in scary movies, like that anticipation in
Speaker 3: the suspense building and when it's something going to happen.
Speaker 3: Love it. You know who else came back though, and
Speaker 3: I was waiting for them. I was waiting for them
Speaker 3: to the front door. Silk Sonic.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Silk Sonic.
Speaker 1: They come out with like one song and just we
Speaker 1: get our whole lives and then we don't hear from
Speaker 1: them and they come back with another banger.
Speaker 2: I love it.
Speaker 3: Silk Sonic got a huge bump. Everybody was talking about
Speaker 3: it and I remember the way I found out that
Speaker 3: the album was released is on Twitter or somewhere. Maybe
Speaker 3: somebody text me and said did you listen to and
Speaker 3: it said a e w SS And I was like,
Speaker 3: what is that? An evening with Silk Sonic.
Speaker 2: Acronyms? Like it's just acronyms already.
Speaker 3: Already, but you know, it was giving me all the
Speaker 3: vibes of the groups. I like, uh huh. I want
Speaker 3: to feel like the Delphonics are back and they're in style.
Speaker 3: You know that's my group.
Speaker 2: Do you have a favorite Delphonic song?
Speaker 3: Mmm, it's hard, but I have a beautiful winter playlist
Speaker 3: and it has Al Green, El DeBarge, Curtis Mayfield, Donnie Hathaway,
Speaker 3: Reatha Franklin, Eddie Kendricks. The Delphonic song that I like
Speaker 3: on here is I Gave to You.
Speaker 2: So that seventies vibe is coming through with Silk Sonic.
Speaker 3: Put on your bell bottoms and platforms.
Speaker 2: What is that? Is it hard? I wish they see
Speaker 2: tt right now. She's just playing every instrument at once.
Speaker 2: It just feels super seventies, right.
Speaker 1: I mean, they definitely amp up the seventies feel of
Speaker 1: it with the way that they dress when they perform,
Speaker 1: and the just the look of their videos always feel
Speaker 1: super seventies. But there's something about the music that just
Speaker 1: makes everyone feel good, like a good seventies jam does.
Speaker 3: And even if you don't know exactly what it is,
Speaker 3: you can feel it.
Speaker 2: You can feel it when it washes over you.
Speaker 3: Yes, I wish we could have some seventies style music
Speaker 3: come in right now, yes, Rob right, Yes.
Speaker 1: It's these wind chimes, like the electric sitar, things like that.
Speaker 1: I feel like our quintessential seventies music.
Speaker 3: Yes.
Speaker 2: Is there something you're looking forward to in twenty twenty two?
Speaker 3: It's hard. I don't feel hopeful. Oh no, I'm looking forward.
Speaker 2: To humans being better.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's always my hope going into every year. I
Speaker 1: think I'm hoping for us to really turn a corner
Speaker 1: with this pandemic and for us to creep closer and
Speaker 1: closer to things getting back to quote unquote normal. I
Speaker 1: know that with the omicron variant that a lot of
Speaker 1: travel has been disrupted, and especially around the holiday season,
Speaker 1: that was tough for a lot of people. But that's
Speaker 1: my hope for twenty twenty two, is that at some
Speaker 1: point folks can start to resume their lives and we
Speaker 1: could put this pandemic in the rear view mirror.
Speaker 2: So for one thing this week, we are going to run.
Speaker 1: Through some of our favorite things from a lot of
Speaker 1: different categories. So first we're gonna start off with movies.
Speaker 2: Is the KEYA? What was your favorite movie of twenty.
Speaker 3: You already know.
Speaker 2: I already know Dune. I wasn't even gonna watch this movie.
Speaker 3: You weren't gonna watch it?
Speaker 2: No, I didn't.
Speaker 1: I was like, I love Zindia, shout outs to my
Speaker 1: girls India, but I was.
Speaker 3: Just like, I don't know what on my recommendation. Legitimately, Oh,
Speaker 3: I feel so honored.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I only watched because you said you have to watch.
Speaker 3: I think Dune and The Harder They Fall I really
Speaker 3: enjoyed that too.
Speaker 1: That was a good one. I really enjoyed The Hearder
Speaker 1: They Fall. My favorite movie from this year was shang Chi.
Speaker 1: Did you watch shang Chi?
Speaker 3: I haven't seen it yet. I started on a late
Speaker 3: night and I said, girl, you know, you got to
Speaker 3: go to bed.
Speaker 1: I'm usually not the first person in line when a
Speaker 1: Marvel movie comes out, and even with shang Chi, I
Speaker 1: was just like, ah, you know, it's another Marvel thing.
Speaker 1: But then you know, I was like, Okay, there's nothing
Speaker 1: for me to watch, let me just see what it's about, because.
Speaker 2: I'd heard really really great things.
Speaker 1: And so the reason why I really like shang Chi
Speaker 1: was because one we had Asian superhero, and two I
Speaker 1: felt like they kind of disrupted the normal superhero plot
Speaker 1: line where I really felt like the villain or the
Speaker 1: bad guy in shang Chi was actually grief. So it
Speaker 1: became like this really powerful story for me about losing
Speaker 1: someone you love, the grief and how it manifests in
Speaker 1: different people, and then how you conquer grief, and just
Speaker 1: like the battles that people can be fighting internally.
Speaker 2: And so I just thought it was phenomenal.
Speaker 3: I'm trying to get all the love out. I don't
Speaker 3: want to have any grief. I mean, I know I'm
Speaker 3: gonna have it, and I try to pour out all
Speaker 3: that love where I can and make it weird, you know, like,
Speaker 3: I love you so much? Are you uncomfortable? I love
Speaker 3: you even more?
Speaker 2: You know? All right?
Speaker 3: TT, you're the queen of TikTok and Instagram and Twitter.
Speaker 3: Really I think.
Speaker 2: You're on all of those, right, I'm on all of those.
Speaker 2: I don't know if I'm the queen of it. Well,
Speaker 2: you feel like the queen of it to me. I
Speaker 2: want to know your favorite meme.
Speaker 1: Okay, TikTok is one of the happiest places on earth
Speaker 1: for me and one of the sounds that I truly
Speaker 1: am always.
Speaker 2: Going to scroll through.
Speaker 1: So on the TikTok you can click on a sound
Speaker 1: and you can see all the videos that were made
Speaker 1: to that sound, and it's the one that goes.
Speaker 5: Oh no, oh no, yes, oh no, no, no, no no,
Speaker 5: and there's so many wild things happening, and I always
Speaker 5: end up crying laughing.
Speaker 1: Oh, it's amazing. That's my favorite. What about you, what's
Speaker 1: your favorite meme?
Speaker 3: I think I'm on the sound bandwagon with you. And
Speaker 3: there's one where somebody is like, no, immediately, no, Like
Speaker 3: it's like working all day and it's like all these
Speaker 3: things like paying your bills this, and and people need
Speaker 3: going through and looking at things and like, no, I'm
Speaker 3: not gonna do that. No immediately, And I'm saying immediately
Speaker 3: no to a lot of things. Don't bring your chaos
Speaker 3: over here immediately.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 3: But really, we all are just memes. Do you remember
Speaker 3: you made that meme of me when I was retelling
Speaker 3: the story and I lay flat on the floor.
Speaker 2: Is the snip is more? Yes? More?
Speaker 1: That is definitely one of my favorite self made memes
Speaker 1: of all time.
Speaker 2: Maybe I'll post it. Yes.
Speaker 3: If you or your friends have ever made memes of
Speaker 3: each other, we want to see them. Tag us. What's
Speaker 3: your favorite podcast aside from this one? I hope you're
Speaker 3: enjoying this one.
Speaker 2: Te T. I love Dope Labs.
Speaker 1: It's my absolute favorite podcast. My favorite podcast is a
Speaker 1: podcast as hosted by.
Speaker 2: A friend of ours.
Speaker 1: Her name is Ivy Lee Lee with one E, and
Speaker 1: she has a podcast called Fear of Going Outside. Ivy
Speaker 1: is a special woman in that I don't know if
Speaker 1: I know someone funnier than Ivy. She has such good
Speaker 1: comedic timing. She is not afraid of embarrassing herself, and
Speaker 1: so the whole premise for Fear of Going Outside is
Speaker 1: that Ivy is not an outdoorsy person, and so over
Speaker 1: the course of a season, she goes camping, and so
Speaker 1: she's getting all of the gears, she's preparing herself and
Speaker 1: it is very funny. You have to listen to Fear
Speaker 1: of Going Outside, hosted by Ivy Lee with one E,
Speaker 1: and you can also follow her on Twitter and Instagram
Speaker 1: at ivy Lea with one e and follow Fogo podcast.
Speaker 3: I think my podcast pick and I've talked about this
Speaker 3: one before. Okay, now listen Yeah from Netflicks, mm hmm.
Speaker 3: I really enjoy their podcast. It's all about what's happening,
Speaker 3: what's going on and their take on it and I
Speaker 3: love it. They also just got a TV show, Yes Yes,
Speaker 3: and we love Yesse.
Speaker 2: You love to see it.
Speaker 1: They are so fun to listen to and now will
Speaker 1: be so fun to watch.
Speaker 3: All Right, So we've gone through all of our other
Speaker 3: favorite things, but I know you have a favorite science thing.
Speaker 3: I want to know your favorite moment in your field.
Speaker 1: The engineering thing that I felt like was fascinating is
Speaker 1: something that should be I know is very interesting to
Speaker 1: my friend because there is a lab group at the
Speaker 1: University of Rochester and they have collaborators at Delft University
Speaker 1: of Technology in the Netherlands, and they are three D
Speaker 1: printing biofilms.
Speaker 2: What, yes, they are three D printing biofilms.
Speaker 3: What I did not know about that? Now you know,
Speaker 3: I'm all about the biofilm. So biofilms are these communities
Speaker 3: of bacteria. Sometimes you can have multiple species of bacteria.
Speaker 3: Sometimes you know, people study just one species. But the
Speaker 3: thing to know is biofilms are particularly resistant to different
Speaker 3: disinfectants and antibiotics because they create this matrix, this extracellular matrix.
Speaker 3: So outside the cell, a matrix of sugars, proteins, external DNA,
Speaker 3: dead cells that are still trapped in there. So imagine
Speaker 3: something that's like a conglomerate, and they have all these
Speaker 3: proteins that are sometimes on the surface of cales. Some
Speaker 3: of them come from what we call life cells or
Speaker 3: cells that have burst, and so they protect the cells
Speaker 3: that are living in there. You can imagine if you
Speaker 3: have baccie you're trying to get rid of your antibiotic
Speaker 3: can't really penetrate down in there, get in there and
Speaker 3: kill the bacterio So you're saying they're three D printing biofilms. Now, yes,
Speaker 3: they're three D printing E. Coli biofilms.
Speaker 1: And so what they're hoping to do with this is
Speaker 1: that it can help with understanding the behavior of bacterial
Speaker 1: biofilms and help with the development of new engineered living
Speaker 1: materials using synthetic biology and material science approaches.
Speaker 3: Yes, that makes sense to me. Bilefilms sometimes take a
Speaker 3: long time to accumulate, and sometimes the conditions we use
Speaker 3: in the lab they're not conducive for creating biofilms. So
Speaker 3: if I can just print them out over and over
Speaker 3: again and then I can study them. You can't really
Speaker 3: figure out how to combat or defeat something unless you
Speaker 3: can reproduce that same thing over and over.
Speaker 2: You know. Yeah, this is a really great advancement.
Speaker 1: And it's really cool because they might be able to
Speaker 1: use these biofilms for other applications as well. I think
Speaker 1: I've read that they said that they can use it
Speaker 1: for protective codings against pathogens on medical devices, for bioremedia, whatever.
Speaker 3: They're using it to study those things.
Speaker 2: That's really cool.
Speaker 1: All right, So what has been your favorite science moment
Speaker 1: in your field?
Speaker 2: Have you heard of crisper?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so that's clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats. These
Speaker 3: are DNA sequences and basically crisper technology is leveraging the
Speaker 3: ability of enzymes to basically hone in on specific sequences
Speaker 3: of DNA and then do gene editing in that specific area.
Speaker 3: Chrisper technology is amazing. We've seen a lot of advances,
Speaker 3: even a Nobel prize recently. But a lot of this
Speaker 3: stuff when it comes to human application, we have been
Speaker 3: seeing you know, in vitro or x vvo so alive
Speaker 3: in living cells but maybe outside of the body. But
Speaker 3: recently in twenty twenty one, we saw in vivo so
Speaker 3: in the body, in the cell, in the organism crisper
Speaker 3: gene editing. Why so, they are using crisper to actually
Speaker 3: modify genes in the human body. And they use it
Speaker 3: to target genes involved in inherited blindness. And so they
Speaker 3: saw improve vision and two people. And they also used
Speaker 3: it to limit the production of this like protein in
Speaker 3: the liver that's toxic.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh.
Speaker 3: I'm like, this is escalating.
Speaker 1: Sounds likely some Star Trek stuff and I love it.
Speaker 1: Go to the sick bay, Okay.
Speaker 2: Go to the sick bay. They will treat you there.
Speaker 2: Treat you there, and they're just gonna over your body
Speaker 2: and you'll be all right. That is so cool.
Speaker 3: And if you check out our show notes at Dope
Speaker 3: lapspodcast dot com, we are going to link to these
Speaker 3: articles so you can read more about this. This is
Speaker 3: the last episode of twenty twenty one, so we'll be different.
Speaker 2: When you hear from us.
Speaker 3: Next time, it'll be twenty twenty two, New year knew
Speaker 3: US probably.
Speaker 1: Will probably be the same old US.
Speaker 6: Dope Labs is a Spotify original production from Mega oh
Speaker 6: Media Group. Producers are Jenny Rattlett Mast and Lydia Smith
Speaker 6: of Way Runner Studios. Editing and sound designed by Rob Smerciak,
Speaker 6: Mixing by Hannis Brown. Original music composed and produced by
Speaker 6: Taka Yasuzawa and Alex Sugira from Spotify. Executive producer Gina
Speaker 6: Delvack and creative producers Baron Farmer and Candice Manriquez Rin
Speaker 6: Special thanks to Shirley Ramos, yasmin A, Fifi Kamola, Till Krake,
Speaker 6: and Brian Marquis. Executive producers from Mega Oh Media Group
Speaker 6: are My Internet Bessies, t T. Shodia and Zakiyah Watli.
Speaker 6: M hmmmmmmmm.
Speaker 2: Broncus.
Speaker 3: I like that word that might not be right, because
Speaker 3: I just right here saying stuff.
Speaker 2: My friend said it, so it's right. Broncosaurus, Broncosaurus Rex