Speaker 1: Welcome to the Psychology Podcast, where we give you insights
Speaker 1: into the mind, brain, behavior, and creativity. I'm doctor Scott
Speaker 1: Barry Kaufman, and in each episode I have a conversation
Speaker 1: with a guest who will stimulate your mind and give
Speaker 1: you a greater understanding of yourself, others, and the world
Speaker 1: to live in. Hopefully we'll also provide a glimpse into
Speaker 1: human possibility. Thanks for listening and enjoy the podcast. So
Speaker 1: today we have Shannon O'Dell on the podcast. Odell is
Speaker 1: a Brooklyn based writer, comedian, and scientist. She co hosts
Speaker 1: and produces Drunk Science, an experimental comedy show deemed quote
Speaker 1: a stroke of genius end quote, bigthamist, and a finalist
Speaker 1: in True TV's Comedy Breakout Initiative. She also co created,
Speaker 1: rights and stars in the Inverse original series Your Brain
Speaker 1: on Blank, where she explains the science behind out everything
Speaker 1: from alcohol at caffeine puppies affects the brain. She can
Speaker 1: also be seen at Wild Cornell Medicine, where she's a
Speaker 1: neuroscience PhD candidate studying the epigenetic underpinnings of hippocampal function.
Speaker 1: Say that ten times real fast? Yeah, Hey, thanks so much.
Speaker 1: For appearing on the Psychology Podcast today, Shannon, thank you
Speaker 1: so much for having me. Happy to be here. I'm
Speaker 1: excited to talk to you you. I've never said this
Speaker 1: to a guest before in the Psychology Podcast, but you
Speaker 1: popped up and probably not randomly, in my Facebook feed
Speaker 1: one day. That's a lot of people's stories with me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I mean that in a non creepy way, right,
Speaker 1: because like you're all over the internet, you know. I
Speaker 1: have so many people who I've been friends with for
Speaker 1: a long time are like my mom Love is always
Speaker 1: sharing your videos. She doesn't know I know you. Well,
Speaker 1: that must feel good. Congratulations on the successes you've had.
Speaker 1: When did you start? When did your videos start to
Speaker 1: really take off? For? What? Was it instantaneous? Yeah, it's interesting.
Speaker 1: So I've been doing science for a while. Obviously. I
Speaker 1: got my undergrad degree in biology, and then I worked
Speaker 1: as a tech in a neuroscience lab in New York
Speaker 1: at Albert Einstein College of Medicine for two years, and
Speaker 1: then I started my graduate school program. But all during
Speaker 1: that time I was doing comedy also, and I kept
Speaker 1: them so separate. I never really thought to combine them,
Speaker 1: like when I was on stage being a stand up
Speaker 1: being comedian. I was not the neuroscientist. I never even
Speaker 1: talked about science in my stand up or in my
Speaker 1: shows or anything like that. And then it was about
Speaker 1: four or five years ago, so I had been doing
Speaker 1: both comedy for like three years and was doing science
Speaker 1: on the side, and my friend came up to me
Speaker 1: and he was like, I really want to produce a
Speaker 1: show that's science based, so obviously, and this was about
Speaker 1: Drunk Science. He's like, so obviously, I'm coming to you.
Speaker 1: And I was like, oh, yeah, that makes sense. I
Speaker 1: never even thought to combine the two. And that's when
Speaker 1: me and my two co creators of Drunk Science came
Speaker 1: up with the idea together. And ever since then, I've
Speaker 1: been starting to combine science with comedy and the idea
Speaker 1: of science communication being entertainment as well. Can be educational,
Speaker 1: but science is so relatable. It's you know, science is
Speaker 1: the study of who we are in the world we
Speaker 1: live in, So there's nothing more ripe for comedy. I think,
Speaker 1: oh wow, that's a really interesting statement. Nothing more ripe
Speaker 1: for comedy than scientific findings. Is that literally what you
Speaker 1: just said? Is that what you just said? I think
Speaker 1: for me, I mean, that's what I'm thinking about all
Speaker 1: the time. So for me absolutely, maybe for the non
Speaker 1: science not so much. But I'm saying that science can
Speaker 1: be funny. It can be Oh, I agree with that
Speaker 1: for sure. I think for a long time, or in general,
Speaker 1: people think of science as as like you know, up
Speaker 1: in the Ivory Tower, very like cold. I mean, obviously
Speaker 1: it comes from the idea that like scientists, we have
Speaker 1: and biased and emotional, very analytical, but you know, we
Speaker 1: are humans doing science. There are things that are relatable
Speaker 1: about science. There are things that are funny about science.
Speaker 1: There's ways you can learn through laughter, through emotion. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what I just feel about it. Yeah, I've always
Speaker 1: been really interested in this link between the personality of
Speaker 1: scientists and the personality of comedians. There seems to be
Speaker 1: an a vent diagram, some large chunks of areas that
Speaker 1: are very not associated, but but there seems to be
Speaker 1: some chunks of area like a real appreciation for the
Speaker 1: truth that it does seem to be shared, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, if you think about it, one of the
Speaker 1: first tenants of both comedy and for science is observation.
Speaker 1: You know, it's observation, so true, Yeah, comedians are observing
Speaker 1: the world and making Why comedy is funny is because
Speaker 1: they're saying something that you already know and you're kind
Speaker 1: of just bringing light to it and you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's so funny and so true. And with science it's
Speaker 1: like it's a little different because you're like discovering the
Speaker 1: reason why we interact the way we interact, and I
Speaker 1: don't know, it's just so relatable and interesting. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of political correctness these days, and wherever side of
Speaker 1: it you're on, that could be a really great thing
Speaker 1: or it could be a really silly thing. And I
Speaker 1: understand there's multiple perspectives on this issue, so but I
Speaker 1: do think that in comedy, some comedians have said that
Speaker 1: they feel like if they say certain things on college campuses,
Speaker 1: et cetera, it's considered like taboo now in a way
Speaker 1: that wasn't ten years ago. This isn't be a cultural
Speaker 1: shift in what truth you're allowed to say, like if
Speaker 1: it offends people. And then as a scientist, it's interesting science.
Speaker 1: Some scientists like if you're scientists and your data offends someone,
Speaker 1: you always get like the past, you know, like you
Speaker 1: always hear scientist saying, well, I'm just the data. It's
Speaker 1: just the data, right, But if comedians don't have that
Speaker 1: out Okay, So I wanted to riff on this because
Speaker 1: my point wasn't fully articulated, but I just wanted to
Speaker 1: on this. No, this is interesting. I never really thought
Speaker 1: about it. Yeah, immediately what comes to mind is, Okay,
Speaker 1: this is the example I like to think of I'm
Speaker 1: thinking about right now is you know, with comedians, we're
Speaker 1: here to give comedy, but like, ultimately, who is in
Speaker 1: charge of the comedy producer, Like whether we want to
Speaker 1: get booked or not is the audience. So if the
Speaker 1: audience is saying that they don't like that kind of humor,
Speaker 1: then like you shouldn't do that kind of humor, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. That's what I always get upset
Speaker 1: when people are like, oh, I can't say this on
Speaker 1: college campuses because they don't like it. It's like, well,
Speaker 1: they're booking, and if you can't come up with a
Speaker 1: joke that doesn't offend people, then like, maybe you're not
Speaker 1: a good comic. Interesting in the same way I thought
Speaker 1: of just the audience of like what type of research
Speaker 1: gets funded is kind of set by a another committee,
Speaker 1: you know, I know exactly the parallel I'm trying to write. No, no,
Speaker 1: I see you saying, so what is the audience? And
Speaker 1: science is what you're saying. And you know there's an
Speaker 1: audience when your paper is published and you're doing public
Speaker 1: science communication, because I you know, I live in that space.
Speaker 1: You know. I read a column for Scientific American. I'm
Speaker 1: constantly trying to summarize findings, and I come across some findings.
Speaker 1: I'm like, Oh, that's really interesting, and then I think
Speaker 1: about it further. I'm like, that's also really controversial, you know, like,
Speaker 1: and you know, I'm constantly having to think through what
Speaker 1: do I want to put my emphasis on in my
Speaker 1: public science communication? What topic do I want, Drew, I
Speaker 1: really want to talk about. I don't believe inhibiting ideas,
Speaker 1: but I have free will in the sense that you
Speaker 1: can't force me to like talk about a topic that
Speaker 1: I don't feel like is worth that much attention. At
Speaker 1: least I have that right. Absolutely. I'm not trying to
Speaker 1: shut down discussion, but at least I can. You know,
Speaker 1: I have like a hundred ideas. You know which one
Speaker 1: do I pick? So to what extent is you're both
Speaker 1: You're like a hybrid model what do you how much
Speaker 1: do you think, yeah, truly, how much do you think
Speaker 1: through maybe shouldn't go there or maybe I should go
Speaker 1: there actually fuels your idea to include it. Well, this
Speaker 1: is what I think with everything, is that an importance
Speaker 1: in science communication that we have as scientists doing it
Speaker 1: is really to get across the idea. It's to strike
Speaker 1: this balance to get the idea across. Like, this is
Speaker 1: what the study found, and this is why it's really interesting.
Speaker 1: But these are also the reason why this study could
Speaker 1: not be true. You know, like we as scientists were
Speaker 1: trained to be skeptical of everything we read, and we
Speaker 1: you know, we've had trained years of training in this
Speaker 1: and that. Like just because one study shows this correlation
Speaker 1: doesn't mean anything, and we know that when we read
Speaker 1: the paper, but it doesn't make the paper not cool.
Speaker 1: It just means we need Our job as science communicators
Speaker 1: is to get the idea of the paper across, but
Speaker 1: still allow the audience to be skeptical and know how
Speaker 1: the scientific process works and how this needs to be
Speaker 1: you know, other labs need to try this again and
Speaker 1: repeat it and see if it comes up again. It's
Speaker 1: I think that's our jobs as science communicators to get
Speaker 1: across to our audience, So not inhibiting what you say,
Speaker 1: but always saying, like one lab found this, and to
Speaker 1: be sure to look at that counter research. I love that.
Speaker 1: Just be sure that it's there, because not everyone has
Speaker 1: the ability to find that counter research because of how
Speaker 1: science is built. And I could go on forever about
Speaker 1: this about like how scientific articles are people can't it's
Speaker 1: there's a paywall so people can't get access to them.
Speaker 1: There's also a language in which scientific articles are written
Speaker 1: that makes it very difficult unless you spend years and
Speaker 1: years and years in science understand how the article is written. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I really love that. And you just basically you're saying
Speaker 1: like we should have nuances full excess to me. And
Speaker 1: then I think that's like you do a really good
Speaker 1: job striking that balance. That's one of the reasons why
Speaker 1: I invited you on the show today. I want to
Speaker 1: work on this a little more. I basically I want
Speaker 1: to learn from you a little bit. You know, how
Speaker 1: can we use humor to enhance that nuance and show
Speaker 1: the absurdity of science too. I mean, I feel like
Speaker 1: scientists take themselves too seriously. I mean, if you ever
Speaker 1: read reviewer comments and journal articles. There's no oh, look,
Speaker 1: science seems to be so humorless science communication amongst scientists themselves,
Speaker 1: and it's really a kind of a upsetting to me,
Speaker 1: quite frankly. I feel like there needs to be more
Speaker 1: humanity and show how absurd you know this is, and
Speaker 1: so you kind of do that. There's kind of a
Speaker 1: meta level to your humor, which I like, like, I
Speaker 1: remember when you were talking about dinosaurs and you're like,
Speaker 1: you know, some scientists think that this species, yeah, really existed,
Speaker 1: some don't. And then you're like, so the conclusion is
Speaker 1: maybe there is, maybe there isn't. You know, like scientists
Speaker 1: don't know what the hell they're talking about, you know
Speaker 1: what the answer but that was really brilliant and really
Speaker 1: good model for like scientists to just calm down, calm down.
Speaker 1: Everyone's fighting, and I mean, I think that's part of
Speaker 1: the beauty of science, is like everyone has these passionate ideas,
Speaker 1: and I know what drives people to do science is
Speaker 1: like I really believe in this theory, and like I
Speaker 1: really believe in this theory, and this is my data
Speaker 1: to show it. But then this camp's like, well we
Speaker 1: got all this data to show this and it really
Speaker 1: creates a great debate. But yeah, I think there is
Speaker 1: kind of a seriousness to science. And I remember when
Speaker 1: I started doing the videos, it was a real fear
Speaker 1: I had because it is scary. You know, it's not
Speaker 1: scary to be a comedian because I'm just representing myself
Speaker 1: and my own feelings and my own experience. But when
Speaker 1: I come out as a scientist talking about science and
Speaker 1: all of a sudden in the videos, I mean, it
Speaker 1: was a surprise to us. In the videos, We're getting
Speaker 1: millions of user It was like whoa, Okay, people are yeah,
Speaker 1: and people are having reactions to it, and I'm getting
Speaker 1: messages in this and that, and it was a little
Speaker 1: scary because it's like, I believe that science should be
Speaker 1: fun and we can talk about it in the light.
Speaker 1: But I definitely got those comments that were one people
Speaker 1: not believing that was actually a scientist, because you know,
Speaker 1: people have biases. People think young women can't be a science,
Speaker 1: can't be scientist. You know, they don't like the way
Speaker 1: I talk about it because I'm talking about it in
Speaker 1: my own voice, and my own voice that being not
Speaker 1: of like an you know, older like cold man talking
Speaker 1: about science I'm just my Jersey young self, which means
Speaker 1: that you need a bow tie. Yeah, and then you'll
Speaker 1: be then you'll be fine, right, I'm not. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: very different from Bill Nye. Yeah. Yeah, I was obviously
Speaker 1: joking obviously, So yeah, it was a little bit scary,
Speaker 1: and I still have this beer. That's why whenever I
Speaker 1: do a video, I'm like, I like seed through every
Speaker 1: piece of research I'm putting in there. I'm making sure
Speaker 1: that like I'm double checking the papers, like I got
Speaker 1: this right, because I know it just takes a couple
Speaker 1: mistakes for salmon to come at me. But at the
Speaker 1: same time, I'm like, I can make mistakes. Science isn't perfect.
Speaker 1: I'm open to suggestions. It's all, you know, a process. Yeah,
Speaker 1: for sure, that's a terrific attitude. Yeah. So I feel
Speaker 1: like your big breakout moment and correct me if I'm wrong.
Speaker 1: Was your brain on Accohole video with you drunk talking
Speaker 1: about the science of what happens when you're drunk, and
Speaker 1: there was such a I want to discuss why you
Speaker 1: think that when viral. It was such a combination of
Speaker 1: things that in each one itself is not rare, like
Speaker 1: being drunk, being you know a scientist, but you start
Speaker 1: to multiply them and you get a rare probability that
Speaker 1: is shine and no doubt, you know. So can you explain?
Speaker 1: Can you describe it all, like why you think that
Speaker 1: did so well? Well? I think part of it from
Speaker 1: my experience when our live show Drunk Science, which essentially
Speaker 1: is a show where we bring on a scientist and
Speaker 1: we have three comedians there and we all drink and
Speaker 1: play drinking games, we have conversations about science and it's
Speaker 1: a great time. The comedians then give a dissertation on
Speaker 1: a scientific topic after they've had a couple of drinks
Speaker 1: and they've done their research, and it's just it's a
Speaker 1: really fun time of taking science which is on this
Speaker 1: pedestal and just we have scientists there, we have comedians there,
Speaker 1: you know, we have Sign's communicators there, and we're all
Speaker 1: just drinking and having a fun time and taking science
Speaker 1: off this pedestal, and it makes it feel like you're
Speaker 1: at a bar just hanging with your friends, and one
Speaker 1: friend happens to be a world renowned scientist that we
Speaker 1: bring on. And I think those shows were so popular
Speaker 1: and I think just because of that, just because people
Speaker 1: felt like didn't have that one on one time with
Speaker 1: a scientist, and they certainly didn't have that one on
Speaker 1: time like with a drink in their hand. And I
Speaker 1: think drinking. You know, I'm not like, go drink, everyone drink,
Speaker 1: but it helps bringing down that barrier, that first barrier,
Speaker 1: and it makes people feel relatable. It's like, oh, the
Speaker 1: scientist is drinking a beer, like, and so am I
Speaker 1: and let's have a conversation. Yeah and so. I think
Speaker 1: that's why the video did so well, because it was
Speaker 1: talking about science and it was all real things. But
Speaker 1: I'm drinking. I'm a scientist that's drinking. I also think
Speaker 1: a lot of my pronunciations love it. Well, yeah, oh
Speaker 1: my god, you're human, because most scientists are scared of
Speaker 1: being human. Yes, yes, well, and I think because the
Speaker 1: reason is is that we're trained to be on the defensive, right,
Speaker 1: We're trained to like have our data and our goal
Speaker 1: is to defend it. It's like I know the answer
Speaker 1: to that, and like if you come at me with
Speaker 1: that thing, this is how I respond. It's it builds
Speaker 1: this like defensive wall, which I don't think you can
Speaker 1: really be when you're like having a conversation or no
Speaker 1: one's going to want to have a conversation with you.
Speaker 1: I think that's absolutely right. Yeah, so really good point.
Speaker 1: So your brain on alcohol was one really popular episode.
Speaker 1: I thought we could have some fun and I'm going
Speaker 1: to go through some of the things and say your
Speaker 1: brain on blank and give you like a three sentence
Speaker 1: Fourton's description of each one, okay, condensed? Yeah, yeah, we'll
Speaker 1: see how many we see. Okay, So your brain on
Speaker 1: the flu. Oh, you're sick. Your body's like, crank up
Speaker 1: the heat, you got shivers, You're got mucky brain. Is
Speaker 1: this a scientific knowledge? You want? Scientist? But I know
Speaker 1: that you have like experts in their fields on this podcast,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, the flu gives your real lucky brain,
Speaker 1: your systems making your brain all wishy washy, no, wish
Speaker 1: it Well is that the technical term wishy washy? Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what we use in the lab. Yeah, okay. So
Speaker 1: your brain on breakups? Mm? Wow, physical pain? Your body
Speaker 1: thinks you having an emotional pain. Well guess what same
Speaker 1: brain area is activated in emotional pain. So you are
Speaker 1: in literal pain. You got an oxytocin deficit. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: well I can help with that, right, some research, not
Speaker 1: with the otocin deficit, but ivo can help, supposedly in
Speaker 1: one study again, one study that it could help. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm popping Idville all day long just in case, you know,
Speaker 1: to preempt it and whatever happens. If your brain on puppies, Wow, okay,
Speaker 1: oxytocin again, major player. Your brain's like, is that a baby?
Speaker 1: I don't want to take care of it. It's got
Speaker 1: those big old eyes. We're loving it. Is again oxytocin right, Yeah?
Speaker 1: Your brain on caffeine, which is my brain right now?
Speaker 1: Mind too? Your brain's like, wow, my sleep areas of
Speaker 1: my brain Nope, too bad. We're on, We're ready to go,
Speaker 1: We're up, We're happy. We're addicted this. I'm addicted to
Speaker 1: this game. I want to. I'm thinking of other things
Speaker 1: that you talked about that I've seen on your your thing.
Speaker 1: Give me one more. Your brain on what brain on
Speaker 1: social media? Yes? I love that one. Okay. That means
Speaker 1: like our social network areas of our brain are like
Speaker 1: thing being activated. Yes, I love this, and I think
Speaker 1: it's actually good if you're an extrovert. If you're an
Speaker 1: extro can I add caveats to this? Yeah, you an
Speaker 1: extrovert introverts. So they seem to post more introverts, you said,
Speaker 1: but they don't get as much reward from the response
Speaker 1: to it. That's an interesting paradox. Actually, yeah, oh cool, Okay,
Speaker 1: so we just covered that was fun. Now let's get sharers.
Speaker 1: Let's get sharers. Your your laboratory studies the epigenetics of
Speaker 1: early life adversity and its effects on the brain. I'm
Speaker 1: wondering if you could talk a little bit about some
Speaker 1: of this research going on your lab and what your
Speaker 1: PhD is contributing to this field. Sure, yeah, well, I
Speaker 1: mean essentially, yeah, what I look at is epigenetics, which
Speaker 1: is essentially, we know your DNA. This is the classic
Speaker 1: thing that's taught in schools, and then epigenetics is basically
Speaker 1: everything on top of your DNA. It literally means epigenetics
Speaker 1: on top of DNA. So this includes DNA affilation marks,
Speaker 1: this includes his stone marks, And essentially, what epigenetics does
Speaker 1: is it alters the way that certain genes are being expressed.
Speaker 1: So what our lab looks at is specific regions in
Speaker 1: the brain, mostly the hippocampus, and the hippo campus is
Speaker 1: responsible for memory, it's responsible for emotional thought. So what
Speaker 1: we look at is how if you undergo early life adversity,
Speaker 1: how these epikinetic marks change, Yeah, essentially, and then how
Speaker 1: does that affect the hippo campus function. Yeah, the hippie
Speaker 1: campus is quite important, isn't it? Yes, incredibly important for
Speaker 1: memory and the early life adversity paradigms. Essentially that we
Speaker 1: look at is we look at different forms of early
Speaker 1: life stress. So one being maternal separation, and so we
Speaker 1: use mouse models for all of this. So maternal separation
Speaker 1: is essentially you separate the mom from the cage a
Speaker 1: couple for a couple hours every day. Then you have
Speaker 1: your or maternal immune stress, which is a stress that
Speaker 1: you might not typically think about, which is essentially we
Speaker 1: expose the mother to a immune stressor during in utero
Speaker 1: oh wow, yeah, when the pups are in utero. And
Speaker 1: then the third being actually another form or life stress
Speaker 1: that you might not think of. It's essentially early life
Speaker 1: immune stress where the mothers are deficient in serotonin one
Speaker 1: a receptor and while the pups are completely genetically normal,
Speaker 1: they still have gone through this early life stress of
Speaker 1: having a mother that is serotonin one a receptor to fiship.
Speaker 1: So do we think we can model this up to humans. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's really always an interesting thing that we do, all
Speaker 1: these early life stress paradigms and mice and then modeling
Speaker 1: up to humans. And yeah, I mean essentially, the maternal
Speaker 1: separation paradigm is something that's often you know, looked at
Speaker 1: because we do know in human studies. You know, if
Speaker 1: you look at horrible instances in history, like with Romanian orphanages,
Speaker 1: those large studies that showed that these children that weren't
Speaker 1: exposed to a lot of touch during their early childhood
Speaker 1: then when they grew up had a higher likelihood of
Speaker 1: a lot of neuropsychiatric diseases. So I mean one way
Speaker 1: to look at what could the molecular reason for that
Speaker 1: be is to look in a mouse model of that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: how much do you control for the similarity of genes
Speaker 1: between the child and the parent, because some behaval genestis
Speaker 1: have argued that some effects that look like environmental effects
Speaker 1: are actually genetic effects, if that makes sense. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean when we work with mice, you're working with incredibly
Speaker 1: inbread mice. They're inbread so essentially the mice have the
Speaker 1: same genetic standing. So then we can really look at
Speaker 1: epigenetics because genetically they're absolutely the same. Well, so EUROPSD
Speaker 1: will really substantially contribute to the literature, I'm hoping. Yeah cool, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it's really interesting. Epigenetics is such an interesting
Speaker 1: It's obviously not that new, but it's new enough in
Speaker 1: the field that it's really exciting because classically, how we
Speaker 1: think about how things are transmitted or diseases especially and
Speaker 1: just diseases that are non neuropsychiatric diseases, is we think
Speaker 1: about it through genetics, like, oh, you have this gene,
Speaker 1: there's a mutation in this gene, it causes this disease.
Speaker 1: But essentially, for a long time, neuropsychiatric diseases were really
Speaker 1: a black box. We thought maybe it was a combination
Speaker 1: of many different genes working together and that's why we
Speaker 1: couldn't figure out because it was one to one or
Speaker 1: really what we're thinking now it's a mix of genetics
Speaker 1: and also environmental factors, which means that the environmental factors
Speaker 1: are probably affecting it through epigene Yeah, you know, it's
Speaker 1: just so interesting to think how this applies to humans,
Speaker 1: and lots of ways we don't really know because it
Speaker 1: gets so complex when you get the humans, and you
Speaker 1: get you have so many genes, so many queens, and
Speaker 1: obviously you're not in bread, so there's a lot of
Speaker 1: things going on. Well, speak for yourself. I don't know
Speaker 1: why I said that. Yeah, do you know how I
Speaker 1: have this tendency on the second about this to keep
Speaker 1: saying speak for yourself, like when I do, stop that.
Speaker 1: But I think one of the most interesting things about
Speaker 1: epigenetics that I like to think about. I'm looking specifically
Speaker 1: at like one generation pretty much, but if there's this
Speaker 1: whole thing with transgenerational epigenetics, And my favorite thing to
Speaker 1: think about is that when a mother is pregnant, she
Speaker 1: essentially is carrying around the grandchildren half the grandchild because
Speaker 1: the eggs that will become the grandchild is developing in
Speaker 1: utero too, so the baby's developing eggs which will then
Speaker 1: become half of the grandchild. So any kind of environmental
Speaker 1: insult that a grand mother is experiencing could affect the grandchild. Yeah,
Speaker 1: has the potential, which is just I mean, I'm bodeling.
Speaker 1: I think I think eving to keep the emotions with
Speaker 1: the emotion. It's kind of beautiful. I think a little
Speaker 1: bit to think about how long you've been around or
Speaker 1: part of you has. Yeah, it is beautiful. And Carl
Speaker 1: Zimmer talked about this on our recent chat for the
Speaker 1: podcast so and he also wrote about this beautifully in
Speaker 1: his book. Yeah. He talks about how this probably doesn't
Speaker 1: last more than two generations though, the effects kind of
Speaker 1: wear away, But it is still beautiful thing that even
Speaker 1: a couple of generations, you know that it could be
Speaker 1: that kind of direction of effects. Right. And with that
Speaker 1: being said too, the idea that with epigenetics can definitely
Speaker 1: affect thing, but the idea that the brain is so
Speaker 1: reseilient too, so plastic. Yeah, but that's the great thing
Speaker 1: with all these we've seen these lengths of early pa stress.
Speaker 1: How does it affect the brain? But at this same
Speaker 1: time we know the brain to be so resilient and
Speaker 1: plastic and can really overcome so many things. So yeah,
Speaker 1: it's kind of I think of it not as so fatalistic,
Speaker 1: but as like I'm just understanding more because it's we
Speaker 1: want to understand about ourselves. We want to know obviously
Speaker 1: for treatments, but also I think there's a natural curiosity
Speaker 1: that people have. We want to know about ourselves. Sure,
Speaker 1: I mean physicists don't feel like they have to constantly
Speaker 1: justify like we want to study black holes for treatment,
Speaker 1: you know, Like it's not like they keep like, you know,
Speaker 1: having to justify that. Psychologists have get constantly get pressure.
Speaker 1: Well for like if they forget, they always said to say, oh,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, we want to know this so
Speaker 1: we can help people, you know, like some things are
Speaker 1: like as interesting as black holes, though I just want
Speaker 1: to know. Yeah, yeah, good to know, but does have
Speaker 1: obvious direct implications. But you know, as I say that,
Speaker 1: I'm thinking, like, regardless of the results, it's not like
Speaker 1: we're ever going to be like, Okay, so the results
Speaker 1: say suggest we should have maltreatment, you know, for I'm
Speaker 1: a dark humor, But I'm just thinking, like I can't
Speaker 1: think of you know, like this can only help, you know,
Speaker 1: to further show the importance of good treatment of a
Speaker 1: developing brain. Right, absolutely good treatment. And also because in
Speaker 1: the field of neuropsychiatric disease, we have treatments that work well,
Speaker 1: somewhat well, but they've been the same treatments we've had
Speaker 1: for so long, and part of that is because we
Speaker 1: don't completely understand, you know, why we don't completely understand
Speaker 1: why an anxious brain is an anxious brain, why a
Speaker 1: depressed brain is a depressed brain. And that's I mean,
Speaker 1: if you think of most genetic diseases, we know the
Speaker 1: reason why, like it's just like that gene is causing
Speaker 1: this and that causes this. But these neuropsychiatric diseases are
Speaker 1: so complex. The more we open up these black holes,
Speaker 1: oh there you go, yeah, these black folks, the more
Speaker 1: treatment options that could be a bit that we couldn't
Speaker 1: even think up before because you don't really understand how
Speaker 1: it's functioning for sure. Okay, so you get a lot
Speaker 1: of questions asked to you, which is further evidence that
Speaker 1: your style of public science communication is resonating with a
Speaker 1: lot of people and stimulating interesting, thoughtful scientific questions. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So again showing that these comedy and science do not
Speaker 1: have to be at odds, you know, or science and thoughtfulness,
Speaker 1: I should say, So, can you think, off the top
Speaker 1: of your head some of the most thought provoking questions
Speaker 1: you've received? M Yeah, I mean the questions that the
Speaker 1: number one questions that I always I love to get
Speaker 1: because they're the easiest for me to answer, and I
Speaker 1: feel like the most impactful are people who message me
Speaker 1: and they say, hey, I really want to be a neuroscientists,
Speaker 1: you know, younger people, and they don't really know what
Speaker 1: the path is to doing that. And so those are
Speaker 1: my favorite questions because a lot of that too. Yeah,
Speaker 1: just to know that I'm presenting myself in such a
Speaker 1: way that people feel comfortable just hold messaging me to
Speaker 1: ask me that kind of thing. And I try to
Speaker 1: get to all of them. I'm sure there are some
Speaker 1: that I've forgotten in that person's podcast, They're like, well,
Speaker 1: she didn't answer me back. But those are the ones
Speaker 1: that I really love. But yeah, people ask really interesting questions.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to think of what I thought of. People
Speaker 1: are always so interested about consciousness, and I wish I
Speaker 1: knew more about it. I get that question always. I'm like,
Speaker 1: what is consciousness? How do I know I'm conscious? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm like, this is a philosophical wison, I feel like it.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I think people are asking such great questions.
Speaker 1: When I do my amas on Instagram, essentially every week
Speaker 1: I try to every week on my Instagram, I host
Speaker 1: a different topic, Like last week we hosted the Science
Speaker 1: behind Weed essentially, so every week we I real, Yeah, essentially, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just an open ended question like what's the science
Speaker 1: high sleeping with the science behind taste? And I open
Speaker 1: up for questions using that wonderful Instagram question tool that
Speaker 1: is real that exists. Wait, I'm going on Instagram right now. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I ask you. I want to ask you a question
Speaker 1: of Instagram, so it has to be on your story
Speaker 1: and essentially, so I do it for twenty four hours.
Speaker 1: I open up questions and then I'll just normally it's
Speaker 1: on topics that I don't even know that much about.
Speaker 1: But then I just research as well as I can
Speaker 1: and to answer all the questions as well as I can.
Speaker 1: And it's actually really fun for me because I get
Speaker 1: to learn about all these different topics and I think
Speaker 1: it's kind of obviously people can look this stuff up
Speaker 1: on their own, but you know, I have tools being
Speaker 1: a scientist, meaning like I have access to all these
Speaker 1: scientific papers and so being able to kind of break
Speaker 1: all those down and give that information to people feels
Speaker 1: really good. People ask like great questions that I never
Speaker 1: thought I was doing. The science behind skin. People are like,
Speaker 1: what are freckles? I'm like, I have no idea what
Speaker 1: girls are? Let me look that up, so you learn
Speaker 1: from people as well. Yeah, this is what it sounds
Speaker 1: like to me. Yeah, I really like to see you
Speaker 1: just have a real curiosity and openness which is mix
Speaker 1: both comedy and science fun. So yeah, I really like that.
Speaker 1: You also are an inspiration to women that want to
Speaker 1: be scientists. And what do you see as some barriers
Speaker 1: for women entering science that you've maybe a personal experience. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I think I don't know how much has
Speaker 1: changed in young scientists, but I remember growing up thinking
Speaker 1: that I wanted to be a scientist, but I didn't
Speaker 1: necessarily see that as a woman's job. Sure, I was
Speaker 1: actually just thinking about it today that I learned quickly.
Speaker 1: I love science, and I think I had my toy
Speaker 1: microscope and I was like going out into the woods
Speaker 1: and just like looking at things under the microscope. I
Speaker 1: was obsessed with dinosaurs for a while, I wanted to
Speaker 1: be a paleontologist. The type of science was always changing.
Speaker 1: You brought us yes, so really loved it. And then
Speaker 1: I remember, like, for example, there was a moment in
Speaker 1: my sophomore year in high school, I was taking honors
Speaker 1: chemistry and a teacher brought me in after the first test,
Speaker 1: and she was like, you know, you got the highest
Speaker 1: score on the test, right, And I was like, oh no,
Speaker 1: I didn't know. Great, and then proceeded to ask me
Speaker 1: questions as if I achieved and I was like yeah, like,
Speaker 1: I mean obviously that happens to a lot of students.
Speaker 1: I guess I don't know, but I felt like I
Speaker 1: was being attacked as a woman, even though she was
Speaker 1: a woman as well, just like, no way she could
Speaker 1: have gotten a score on the test. And I think
Speaker 1: there is a general feeling like, oh, women are bad
Speaker 1: at science, women are bad at math. You know, there
Speaker 1: was always less students in your science courses or whatever.
Speaker 1: But I think that is that dynamic is changing. So
Speaker 1: hopefully that is the first thing that needs to change.
Speaker 1: And second is just the environment at the academic level
Speaker 1: two of welcoming and women. I mean there is like
Speaker 1: a general problem across all fields of making situations comfortable
Speaker 1: for women. I mean I can think of lots of
Speaker 1: separate little stories like I remember, for example, in my
Speaker 1: years as a research technician, I trained people on the
Speaker 1: convocal microscope as part of my job, and I remember
Speaker 1: getting students coming in and like asking me on dates
Speaker 1: and that kind of scenario is humiliating as professional because
Speaker 1: it's making this idea that like, if you're a woman
Speaker 1: in a situation, you're being thought of as you know,
Speaker 1: a sexual object or someone to be asked on a
Speaker 1: date or something like that. I think general, those types
Speaker 1: of things need to change in Obviously it's toxic in
Speaker 1: the science environment, but I think it's across a lot
Speaker 1: of different workplace environments. And I think it's just a
Speaker 1: cultural shift of just like how we treat women in
Speaker 1: the workplace, and also like how there's also the huge
Speaker 1: problem in academia of like having to produce and produce
Speaker 1: and produce, and you always hear it. You're like women
Speaker 1: who have children won't get tenure and not necessarily that
Speaker 1: they're not producing the same amount, but there's just a
Speaker 1: thought that like, oh, if you're having children, you know
Speaker 1: you're not going to be able to produce as much. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I think there's a lot of different things, but
Speaker 1: I do think that the more we create an environment
Speaker 1: that's friendly to women. I think this is happening more
Speaker 1: women in higher positions at colleges and universities, you know,
Speaker 1: in dean positions and things like that, it will I'm
Speaker 1: hoping will open the gates for more women in science
Speaker 1: and more diversity in general in science, because I think
Speaker 1: that's really important. I mean, women are faced with you know,
Speaker 1: there's always that classic trope that you hear women aren't funny.
Speaker 1: It's just like funny to who am I funny to?
Speaker 1: You know, do the it's nothing like me? Probably not,
Speaker 1: But that doesn't make my comedy less relevant because there's
Speaker 1: an audience out there for it. It's just who the
Speaker 1: gatekeepers are. And even the combination of comedy, entertainment and science,
Speaker 1: like women hosts of science shows, there's not that many. No,
Speaker 1: there really aren't there. They aren't and that matters. And
Speaker 1: why is that because people think, oh, women can't host.
Speaker 1: It's not that there isn't female science entertainers out there,
Speaker 1: because there are. There are plenty, and I've met lots
Speaker 1: that are awesome, that have their YouTube channels that are
Speaker 1: doing great things. But I think a gatekeeper problem and yeah,
Speaker 1: just a general toxic culture that needs to change right on.
Speaker 1: So great, I really appreciate the work you're doing in
Speaker 1: lots of different areas to increase science, to increase the
Speaker 1: importance of humor, the importance of making women more comfortable
Speaker 1: in science and just making the world a better place.
Speaker 1: So thanks for being on the Psychology Podcast today. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much for having this is a blast. It
Speaker 1: was a blast for me too. Thanks for listening to
Speaker 1: the Psychology Podcast. I hope you enjoyed this episode. If
Speaker 1: you'd like to react in some way to something you heard,
Speaker 1: I encourage you to join in the discussion at thus
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