Science Fare

In this mini episode, astrobiologist Sean Jordan (Dublin City University) talks about his lab’s work on lipids and the origins of cell membranes. While the earliest cell membranes, aka protocell membranes, were quite different from the cell membranes of today, they also share some important biochemical similarities. Please click below to fill out the survey for this episode:Science Fare Podcast Feedback FormScience Fare Podcast website 

Please click below to fill out the survey for this episode:Science Fare Podcast Feedback FormScience Fare Podcast website Our guests today are engineers Ayyana Chakravartula and Catherine (Cat) Sheane. Ayyana is the Failure Analysis and Strategy Lead for the Devices & Services organization at Google. She leads a team of science-y detectives who work to understand why things break and how badly they are breaking, and how our phones and other devices do when people use them in general. The team looks at phones and watches, and other hardware that Google makes, at all stages of development from prototyping to the field.Cat is the VP of Environmental, Social, Governance, and Sustainability at Parsons Corporation.Among her specialties is guiding interdisciplinary teams through climate risk assessments and third-party sustainability certifications for large, complex civil infrastructure projects.  Cat is a passionate sustainability champion with 24 years of experience leading sustainability strategy development, action planning, and execution at the corporate and project levels.In this full-length interview, Ayyana and Cat talk about what led them to become engineers, describe a day in the life as engineers, and reflect on the things that surprise them about their jobs. Highlights of the episode:*Opening quotes by Ayyana and Cat on the things they were interested in as kids that led them to pursue careers in science [0:01];*Susan introduces Ayyana and Cat, engineers at Google and Parsons Corporation, respectively [1:36];     *Ayyana and Cat tell us about their paths to pursuing engineering [4:53];*How Ayyana and Cat decided to pursue graduate degrees and what that was like [11:20];*What a day in the life as an engineer looks like [19:00];*Ayyana and Cat give an example of a time they faced a scientific challenge and how they handled it [28:50];*Connecting Ayyana’s and Cat’s work to what high school students are learning in science [36:00];*Advice for high school students interested in engineering [45:14]

Please click below to fill out the survey for this episode:Science Fare Podcast Feedback FormScience Fare Podcast website Our guests today are engineers Ayyana Chakravartula and Catherine (Cat) Sheane. Ayyana is the Failure Analysis and Strategy Lead for the Devices & Services organization at Google. She leads a team of science-y detectives who work to understand why things break and how badly they are breaking, and how our phones and other devices do when people use them in general. The team looks at phones and watches, and other hardware that Google makes, at all stages of development from prototyping to the field.Cat is the VP of Environmental, Social, Governance, and Sustainability at Parsons Corporation.Among her specialties is guiding interdisciplinary teams through climate risk assessments and third-party sustainability certifications for large, complex civil infrastructure projects.  Cat is a passionate sustainability champion with 24 years of experience leading sustainability strategy development, action planning, and execution at the corporate and project levels.In this mini episode, Ayyana and Cat share how their work relates to what a student might learn in high school science class. Ayyana talks about the microstructure of materials, and Cat talks about corrosion. 

Please click below to fill out the survey for this episode:Science Fare Podcast Feedback FormScience Fare Podcast website Online resources mentioned in this episode: Stacey’s flower petal image on the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Biointeractive site Stacey’s essay, With Bated Breath Stacey’s lab websiteScientific American article, “DNA Studies Uncover Unexpected Evolutionary Changes in Modern Humans”Paúl Gonzáles social media on plants Our guest today Stacey Smith. Stacey is an associate professor in the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology department at the University of Colorado in Boulder. Her lab studies the evolution and genetics of flowers with a focus on the tomato family.Recent work in her lab has focused on the evolution of flower color, as this trait has a relatively simple genetic basis and is ecologically important. Results of the lab’s studies suggest that flower color changes can involve a range of genetic mechanisms and may often be driven by competition for pollinators.Highlights of the episode:*Susan introduces the Science Fare podcast and opens with a quote from our guest who describes the surprising and unintuitive way flowers make the color red [0:01];*Susan introduces guest Stacey Smith, a botanist at UC Boulder [1:31];         *Stacey tells us about her path to becoming a scientist, including how when she went to college she asked, What major is for people who like wildflowers? [3:38];*Listener question! From Megan, age 16, a senior in high school — How do plant pigments such as chlorophyll, Anthocyanins, and carotenoids work with the visible light spectrum and absorb certain wavelengths of light and then appear as a certain color? [6:27];*Why is flower color simple genetically? [9:31];*Why is flower color important ecologically? [12:00];*What would a landscape of flower colors have looked like way back when flowers first came on the scene? [15:02];*How do you start in the search for plant fossils? [16:53];*Yes, we need more botanists to go outside and make new discoveries in plants — AI cannot do it alone! [19:56];*Stacey’s lab’s work on convergent evolution [21:30];*Interesting examples of convergent evolution in the development of red pigments in flowers and other examples [26:10];*What does Stacey’s research process look like? [30:30];*An especially beautiful image under the microscope of petals — the image looked like a carpet of pink cells with orange globs and it was a picture of the day at Howard Hughes Medical Institute [35:30];*Another listener question! This is from Sam, age 16, in Lafayette, CO and he asks, What evolutionary pressures are responsible for the evolution of plant pigments? [36:40];*What does Stacey like most about her job and what surprises her? [41:33];*The importance of writing in being a successful scientist [42:52];*What is like having so many undergraduate and high school students in Stacey’s lab? [45:47]*Stacey’s essay “With Bated Breath” and the importance of basic science because you don’t know what incredible discoveries it can lead to [48:22];*What path would a high school student interested in plants take? What advice do you have? [56:05];*Stacey’s suggestions for online resources on plants [59:50]

Please click below to fill out the survey for this episode:Science Fare Podcast Feedback FormScience Fare Podcast website Our guest today Stacey Smith. Stacey is an associate professor in the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology department at the University of Colorado in Boulder. Her lab studies the evolution and genetics of flowers with a focus on the tomato family.Recent work in her lab has focused on the evolution of flower color, as this trait has a relatively simple genetic basis and is ecologically important. Results of the lab’s studies suggest that flower color changes can involve a range of genetic mechanisms and may often be driven by competition for pollinators.In this mini episode, Stacey answers the question, “Why is flower color important ecologically?”

Please click below to fill out the survey for this episode:Science Fare Podcast Feedback FormScience Fare Podcast website Our guest today is David Schwartz, who is a genomic scientist and emeritus professor of chemistry and genetics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Dave received his Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1985 and he invented an important method for separating large DNA molecules called pulsed field gel electrophoresis. Dave was a professor at NYU in the chemistry department until 1999 when he moved to UW-Madison, where he founded and directed the Genomic Sciences Training Program.In this full-length interview, Dave talks about his life growing up and interest in science, his early research developing pulsed field gel electrophoresis, then his move into imaging single DNA molecules through the optical mapping system, and where genomics has come and where it’s going. He also gives advice to students interested in science — spoiler alert — run toward those hard problems! Highlights of the episode:*Susan introduces the Science Fare podcast and opens with a quote from our guest who says scientists are the intellectual fire fighters - they run toward the hard problems [0:01]; *Susan introduces guest David Schwartz, a genomic scientist and emeritus professor of chemistry and genetics at the University of Wisconsin - Madison and he was also Susan’s Ph.D. advisor [1:07];         *Dave tells us about his life growing up and how Mr. Wizard and his older brother sparked his interest in science [3:42];*His experience going to Bronx Science in NYC — “the most competitive academic environment” [6:36];*The beginning of the idea of pulsed field gel electrophoresis during his senior year of college — he was at Hampshire College but spent senior year at college [7:40];*Dave went to UCSD to pursue this idea more [11:28];*Dave moved back east, transfers to Columbia University to continue his Ph.D. program and refined pulsed field gel electrophoresis there [13:02];*Dave became very interested in the genetics and biology — what were the new problems that physical science could solve? [14:30];*Susan makes the point that Dave’s new genomic approach was hitting this middle scale — in between the sequence of DNA fragments and cytogenetic approaches [17:28];*Dave talks about why certain parts of the genome were originally called junk, and the importance of running toward hard problems and doing “dangerous science” [18:50];*Dave moved on to a research position at the Carnegie Institution of Washington (now Carnegie Science) and began using microscopy to image DNA molecules [20:20];*The beginnings of optical mapping and Dave’s move to NYU [24:00];*Why working with large DNA molecules was so hard [29:29];*The link between single molecules and what happens in meiosis, something students learn about in high school science [31:37];*When will the “perfect genome” be cheap and easy? [35:40];*Dave’s advice for high school students interested in science [40:40]