Speaker 1: Oh hey, it's your shoe repair guy who just is
Speaker 1: curious when you're going to have children, and you're like,
Speaker 1: can I just have my shoes? Ali Ward back with
Speaker 1: just a teeny tiny tanny Ology with a very big guest.
Speaker 1: It is molecular and it's galactic all at once. Let's
Speaker 1: get right into it. But first, thank you to everyone
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Speaker 1: and submit questions to Theologist, so you can meet me
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Speaker 1: leaving reviews, which maybe takes sixty seconds if you don't proofread,
Speaker 1: which I don't even mind, and I read and appreciate everyone,
Speaker 1: such as this one left this week by Philo Sophia,
Speaker 1: who says I'm writing this review well, curled up with
Speaker 1: my dog under my Ologies blanket. Waiting for my virtual
Speaker 1: physics class to start online school for my senior year
Speaker 1: of high school has been tough, but Ology, says continually
Speaker 1: reminded me of the world's many wonders and curiosities. Thank you,
Speaker 1: Philo Sophia. Thank you also in exchange, please teach me
Speaker 1: how to use TikTok okay. Molecular biology So molecule comes
Speaker 1: from the Latin for mass or moles or extremely minute particle,
Speaker 1: and biology, of course, is the study of life. So
Speaker 1: molecular biology is the study of the little, itty, bitty,
Speaker 1: squiggly intricate structures that keep us alive and breathing and
Speaker 1: finding off illnesses and falling in love and digesting a pisa.
Speaker 1: So molecular biology is how molecules interact with each other
Speaker 1: to form life processes, and how proteins do a lot
Speaker 1: of our dirty work. But this episode is really exciting
Speaker 1: because we're also learning quite a bit about how to
Speaker 1: communicate science from someone who has done a TEDx talk
Speaker 1: and been recognized by Fortunes forty under forty and also
Speaker 1: MEGANI Stallion. More on that in a moment. This ologist, though,
Speaker 1: got her bachelor's and master's degrees in biology from Buffalo
Speaker 1: State University in New York it is very cold there,
Speaker 1: and has been an assistant professor of biology and a
Speaker 1: STEM college coordinator for high school students. Has worked in
Speaker 1: a private lab researching cancer cures and is just a
Speaker 1: few tidy months away from getting her PhD in Communicating science,
Speaker 1: so she is busy now. I have been a fan
Speaker 1: of hers for quite a while since seeing her early
Speaker 1: pandemic video Wipe it down, and we have gotten a
Speaker 1: chance to zoom a few times and hang out talking
Speaker 1: about TV projects she's working to launch. And I have
Speaker 1: retweeted her so many times that people assumed she had
Speaker 1: already been a guest on Ologies, but she hadn't. So
Speaker 1: we hopped on a call to make it official and
Speaker 1: talk about what a molecular biologist does, the grossest parts
Speaker 1: of her lab, work space, camp, how different brains absorb information,
Speaker 1: her PhD plans, protein folding, DNA strands, and more with
Speaker 1: science communicator and molecular biologist almost doctor Raven the science
Speaker 1: even Baxter.
Speaker 2: My name is Raven Baxter and my pronouns are she her.
Speaker 1: You're not the only Raven Baxter that people may have
Speaker 1: heard of. Should you get that a lot?
Speaker 2: I get this a lot for the past. I think
Speaker 2: it's been not seventeen years, it's or maybe has been
Speaker 2: seventeen years.
Speaker 1: Such a good name, you know, I.
Speaker 2: Loved having it until the Disney Channel came in and
Speaker 2: just decided they were going to do do their own thing.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people think of you as
Speaker 1: Raven the Science Mayven. Like a lot of times, I
Speaker 1: don't even think about you having a last name. I
Speaker 1: just think of you as Raven the Science may Be.
Speaker 2: That's good to know because I feel like I sometimes
Speaker 2: google myself as a metric, like I google Raven Baxter
Speaker 2: to see how many that's so Raven pages come up,
Speaker 2: and that's been my metric for how well I've been doing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's got to really screw up here Google alerts probably.
Speaker 2: A little bit, a little bit.
Speaker 1: When did you come up with the Raven the Science
Speaker 1: Maben name?
Speaker 2: So I remember this specifically happened in a car and
Speaker 2: it was there was just this day where I decided
Speaker 2: I was a YouTuber and I was documenting my hair journey.
Speaker 2: A lot of people don't realize that I didn't start
Speaker 2: growing my platform under Science. I was growing under like
Speaker 2: hair and Beauty, and I had a pretty large following
Speaker 2: and people really enjoyed me. But I personally felt like
Speaker 2: I had more to contribute to the space than just
Speaker 2: talking about hair. So that like, well, if I'm not
Speaker 2: gonna you know, I was branded under really Raven at
Speaker 2: the time, and I said, well, I want to do
Speaker 2: something that science related. I just came up with Mayven.
Speaker 2: My aunt calls me Raven Maven, and then I'm like, well,
Speaker 2: what about Raven the science maven? Right, Like, Maven's an
Speaker 2: expert in something. And at that time, I had, you know,
Speaker 2: just gotten a master's in biology. So I'm like, oh,
Speaker 2: I'm an actual Maven of science, you know. So that's
Speaker 2: that's how it happened.
Speaker 1: Done and done. Do you feel like you kind of
Speaker 1: learned a lot of the ropes in terms of how
Speaker 1: you wanted to communicate doing your hair channel and your
Speaker 1: beauty channel.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think it was really good practice for me
Speaker 2: because I guess when I started YouTube, there was a
Speaker 2: really set way for doing a video and there were
Speaker 2: just a set of norms that you kind of had
Speaker 2: to abide by when you're making content. And then for
Speaker 2: the type of community I was making content for the
Speaker 2: hair community, it's it's called sister locks and Sista loss.
Speaker 2: Community can be can be a little disapproving when you
Speaker 2: stray from traditional like hair care methods, etc. Like I
Speaker 2: was doing a lot of things that people didn't do
Speaker 2: that was kind of like forbidden. For example, when that
Speaker 2: hair paint wax. I don't know if you got into
Speaker 2: this trend, but those colored waxes that you could put
Speaker 2: in your hair instead of dyeing your hair, like it
Speaker 2: was a temporary way of adding color. I would put
Speaker 2: that in my locks and people would be like, no,
Speaker 2: you're not supposed to do that. No, it's gonna get
Speaker 2: stuck in your hair, and this and that and which
Speaker 2: is true. But I wanted to try it right, Like
Speaker 2: I wanted to have fun experimenting with my hair, and
Speaker 2: that meant doing a lot of things that people were like,
Speaker 2: oh my god, why is she doing that? Like that's
Speaker 2: not how you're supposed to do it, But I did
Speaker 2: it anyways, and I did it in a way where
Speaker 2: I was just unapologetically like, hey, I just want to
Speaker 2: try new things and learning how to how to create
Speaker 2: content without being afraid of what people think, or kind
Speaker 2: of just being true to yourself without worrying about who
Speaker 2: cares or who doesn't want to see you have fun
Speaker 2: with X, Y and Z has really been a good
Speaker 2: lesson for me. As I've talked about science and it
Speaker 2: was a good primer for me to understand that understand
Speaker 2: how to come into this science communications space without worrying
Speaker 2: about how I'm presenting the material. You know, if everybody's
Speaker 2: gonna like it, or is everybody gonna approve of me
Speaker 2: doing X, Y and Z and just having fun with it.
Speaker 2: It was really good practice for that.
Speaker 1: Okay for a quick discography of music videos that have
Speaker 1: gotten the world's attention, One of Raven's first was titled
Speaker 1: Big Old Geeks, featuring her dancing around a sports car
Speaker 1: in these tall, shimmery boots. Wearing a lab coat. She
Speaker 1: was joined by other female scientists.
Speaker 2: Big Geek in his house and me running through the space.
Speaker 2: I know, regular degula, man, I'm really malecula. I gotta
Speaker 2: see the big picture. I'm a significant figure. Get more degrees,
Speaker 2: I get bigger. J'all ten percent but on.
Speaker 1: And then of course there was the early pandemic disinfectant
Speaker 1: tutorial Wipe It Down, which was a homage to Fox's
Speaker 1: wipe me Down.
Speaker 2: Let's all wipe it down, Blowox, wipe it down. Leicea
Speaker 2: wipe it down, Blowox, wipe it down. What's the body,
Speaker 2: what's the hand, and what's the hand too, the soaps
Speaker 2: from it down and show me how you do it.
Speaker 1: YouTube comments seeing her praises saying this song is catchy
Speaker 1: as hell, no pun intended. And I'm a sixty five
Speaker 1: year old man and you have me bopping to this
Speaker 1: jam when I'm washing my hands at home now. Her
Speaker 1: most recent video offered up info on vaccine technology and
Speaker 1: antibodies the category of biology.
Speaker 2: Listen on immunology, little microbiology. This is the terminology. I
Speaker 2: got the vaccine and now you got me on the
Speaker 2: right night? Be so noted, hay us want to see him?
Speaker 1: So is night was? It retweeted by Megan thee Stallion.
Speaker 1: It was children dreams can come true. And you've been
Speaker 1: doing experiments since you were a kid, right, You've been
Speaker 1: mixing things around the house. And have you always been
Speaker 1: kind of science minded?
Speaker 2: Absolutely? I definitely, I've always loved science. I was an
Speaker 2: only child and raised in a single parent household, and
Speaker 2: my mom worked really hard, and a lot of times
Speaker 2: it was kind of up to me to entertain myself,
Speaker 2: and quite often I would find that I'd just get
Speaker 2: drawn to the natural environment and looking at the clouds
Speaker 2: or digging in the dirt. Things that kids, do you know?
Speaker 2: But I was very I feel like I engaged in
Speaker 2: scientific inquiry from a very young age.
Speaker 1: So meteorology and clouds to grass stains to a lab coat?
Speaker 1: How did this journey happen? So Raven dipped into Space Camp,
Speaker 1: which until adulthood, I thought Space Camp was a fictitious place.
Speaker 1: I thought it was like the Wonka Factory. I had
Speaker 1: no idea it really existed. But since nineteen eighty two,
Speaker 1: nine hundred thousand campers have gone through their program, and
Speaker 1: among them a bunch of real life astronauts and also Raven.
Speaker 1: I didn't even realize Space Camp was real for a
Speaker 1: long time when I was a kid, Like what was that?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 1: How did you pair down what direction and science you
Speaker 1: wanted to go toward?
Speaker 2: That's funny because it largely happened at space Camp. I
Speaker 2: was pretty set on being an astronaut until I went
Speaker 2: to Space Camp and found out I was afraid of
Speaker 2: heights down because at Space Camp they really do give
Speaker 2: you junior astronaut training. So they put us in a
Speaker 2: high altitude flight simulator, and I immediately realized that I
Speaker 2: really don't like flying, and I really don't want to
Speaker 2: be in a spacecraft. So I really had no choice
Speaker 2: but to focus back down to Earth literally and pursue
Speaker 2: like sciences that are earth based. When I went to college,
Speaker 2: I tried different majors out and I started an environmental
Speaker 2: law and policy and then later as our transition and
Speaker 2: in my academic journey, found genetics and was so thrilled
Speaker 2: to learn that our bodies are so cool that they
Speaker 2: speak their own language, which is the genetic code. And
Speaker 2: I'm sitting in this class like, oh my gosh, you know,
Speaker 2: none of my friends are in this class. They have
Speaker 2: to learn about this. This is so cool. Our bodies
Speaker 2: are speaking a language, and like we're the only ones
Speaker 2: that are taking a class on it, right, So like,
Speaker 2: not only did I think it was super cool, but
Speaker 2: I wanted to share that with everyone that I knew.
Speaker 2: But I just went down that rabbit hole genetics and
Speaker 2: molecular biology, and I never came out. So the language
Speaker 2: is our DNA, the genetic code, and it is a
Speaker 2: sequence of nucleotides that contain instructions for proteins. Yes, and
Speaker 2: those proteins are doing the work inside of ourselves to
Speaker 2: generate our life processes. So the way that I like
Speaker 2: to see It is just a scaled bound version of
Speaker 2: how cities work. Where you have the mayor, you know,
Speaker 2: and he's at city hall and that's that's often like
Speaker 2: the central point of a city. And the mayor has
Speaker 2: like his staff that he talks to, and you know,
Speaker 2: he tells so and so to do this, and then
Speaker 2: they go do that. So it tells another person to
Speaker 2: do another thing, and they go do that job. And
Speaker 2: everything that happens out from city hall affects the entire city.
Speaker 2: And that's how I think about moleculary biology. It's a
Speaker 2: super simplified version of it. And where your DNA is
Speaker 2: the mayor and the mayor's staff is are like proteins
Speaker 2: that are carrying out different functions.
Speaker 1: Oh, that's amazing. They look, from what I've seen, kind
Speaker 1: of like gift wrap. Right, Are there a lot of
Speaker 1: spirals happening? What are these proteins shaped like?
Speaker 2: Ah, that's hilarious. So proteins, proteins are really interesting. They
Speaker 2: have different shapes and sizes. They fold into these different
Speaker 2: shapes that determine their functions. But they don't start folded.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's back up a little.
Speaker 2: We can just start from the beginning, right, we have
Speaker 2: our DNA, which is inside of our nucleus, and it's
Speaker 2: very neatly packed and packaged in the nucleus, and it
Speaker 2: gets read by other proteins right inside of your nucleus
Speaker 2: into a different code called RNA, which is almost the
Speaker 2: same as DNA, but it uses a slightly different code.
Speaker 2: And then the RNA is read by proteins called polymerases,
Speaker 2: and the polymerases then translate the information from your RNA
Speaker 2: to create a protein. As the protein's being made, it's
Speaker 2: basically like a spaghetti noodle as it comes out of
Speaker 2: this polimerase, and then as it's coming out, it folds
Speaker 2: into these different shapes. But the two basic shapes are
Speaker 2: beta sheets, which kind of look like a brick of
Speaker 2: ramen noodles, or alpha helises, which are those curly pieces
Speaker 2: that look like I don't know, RIGATONI actually don't know.
Speaker 2: Is RIGATONI even the curly one?
Speaker 1: I think so, I think so, I think RIGATONI is.
Speaker 1: I should know. Don't call the warm Italian in the world.
Speaker 2: Oh no, it's few silly, few silly.
Speaker 1: Okay, you're right, you're totally right.
Speaker 2: No, few silly pasta.
Speaker 1: I think it's better to know more about molecular biology
Speaker 1: than pasta. But that's just because I was raised on
Speaker 1: so much marinera sauce that like, I don't even I
Speaker 1: can't even like look at pasta we eat so much
Speaker 1: as a kid, I can relate, yes, just like, oh okay.
Speaker 1: So then there in those two different beta or alpha
Speaker 1: helix shapes, and then what do they do from there?
Speaker 2: From there, all of these shapes and structures are determined
Speaker 2: by the protein's amino acid composition, and so depending on
Speaker 2: the composition of the protein itself, it'll fold and shape
Speaker 2: into different levels of protein folding. So there's primary structure,
Speaker 2: secondary structure, tertiary structure, and quaternary structure.
Speaker 1: And those different proteins, the complicated ones or the simpler ones,
Speaker 1: are they bouncing around in our bloodstream to send messages
Speaker 1: or are they packaged to form different organelles and different
Speaker 1: organs like what happens to those curly folded, very specific proteins.
Speaker 2: I mean, they do so many different things. Where do
Speaker 2: we even start. They get packaged in the gold gie
Speaker 2: apparatus and shipped out to different parts of the cells.
Speaker 2: One place where they can go is they can get
Speaker 2: packaged out in a vesicle, which is basically just a
Speaker 2: little you can call it, maybe like a little fat bubble.
Speaker 2: You know. The proteins can get packaged into vesicles and
Speaker 2: sent to the cell membrane, where they can release proteins
Speaker 2: out into the extracellular environment or present the proteins onto
Speaker 2: the cell surface. That can be the case for things
Speaker 2: like antibodies or receptors rather for different channel proteins things
Speaker 2: like that.
Speaker 1: Okay, so right now, no matter what you're doing, there
Speaker 1: are tiny proteins cruising around your cytosol, which is the
Speaker 1: ooze that makes up the cytoplasm in your cells, and
Speaker 1: a gold gie apparatus is sorting some of them and
Speaker 1: just popping them into fat envelopes. And you just have
Speaker 1: no idea how hard they're working in trillions of tiny factories,
Speaker 1: just attaching labels to things and passing chemical notes back
Speaker 1: and forth like two teenage lovers in an after school detention.
Speaker 2: So cells use molecules to communicate. For example, there are
Speaker 2: certain cell pathways that cause cancer, or there's certain cell
Speaker 2: pathways that we can study to risk to understand, like
Speaker 2: cellular responses to immunity, things like that.
Speaker 1: And now you have worked in cancer research. You've worked
Speaker 1: around big vats of E. Coli. You have done like
Speaker 1: some really awesome work, and obviously you're you're working on
Speaker 1: a show right now called Nerdy Jobs, which I'm excited about.
Speaker 1: What was it like studying this, getting your masters and
Speaker 1: then studying this on a corporate level? What types of
Speaker 1: things were you looking at? How does the molecular biologists
Speaker 1: do their work. Do you need like the most gargantuan
Speaker 1: microscopes to look at these curly cue proteins out?
Speaker 2: Yeah? You do? Really Okay, So I was really lucky,
Speaker 2: I feel like because the type of work that I
Speaker 2: was doing was very diverse. I was working at what
Speaker 2: you call a contract research organization, and that's an organization
Speaker 2: that big pharmaceutical companies hire out on a contract to
Speaker 2: carry out smaller portions of their research. So, for example,
Speaker 2: like the vaccines that are coming out right now for
Speaker 2: COVID nineteen, those large pharmaceutical companies could have contracted out
Speaker 2: portions of their research like asking a lot pay, can
Speaker 2: we want you to isolate this protein and report back
Speaker 2: to us about X, Y and z, And then we
Speaker 2: do that and then we give them the results and
Speaker 2: that's it. Or they could contract them out for the
Speaker 2: entire project. Things like that. The kind of work that
Speaker 2: I was doing looked a lot different, almost on a
Speaker 2: weekly basis or monthly basis. Was doing cell transfections, which
Speaker 2: is a fancy word for running experiments to insert DNA
Speaker 2: into cells. Or I was doing crisper projects, or I
Speaker 2: was trying to generate a new cell line that expresses
Speaker 2: a particular protein that we're interested in, or isolating DNA
Speaker 2: from bacteria by the gallons, which is why I had
Speaker 2: to make, you know, basically gallons of poop, like you
Speaker 2: just said, because I was using E. Coli as an
Speaker 2: expression post for the DNA and had to get the
Speaker 2: DNA out of them. And it was really interesting, you know.
Speaker 2: I was working with different types of cell lines, breast
Speaker 2: cancer cell lines, skin cancer cell lines, and even neurono
Speaker 2: cell lines, which is really cool. I did some work
Speaker 2: on trying to understand or find the best drugs to
Speaker 2: treat Parkinson's disease or brain diseases like Alzheimer's as well,
Speaker 2: and that involves some really interesting and fun work using
Speaker 2: neuronal cells.
Speaker 1: Neuronal cells side note are types of neurons in the brain.
Speaker 1: And now when we think of a neuron, you might
Speaker 1: picture like a kind of hand at the end of
Speaker 1: a long arm that has a bulbous other end, or
Speaker 1: maybe it looks like a tree, hence the word dendrite
Speaker 1: from its root tree. But some research estimates there may
Speaker 1: be up to a thousand different types of the cells
Speaker 1: in our nervous system, depending on their structure and function
Speaker 1: or location. So okay, My point is our brains don't
Speaker 1: know everything about our brains, and studying our brains with
Speaker 1: our brains requires machines devised by our brains to study themselves,
Speaker 1: which is creepy and also not cheap.
Speaker 2: The equipment that we use can is often very expensive.
Speaker 2: I had the pleasure of working with the super cool
Speaker 2: machine called the Perkin Elmer Opera.
Speaker 3: I think it's called introducing the Opera Phoenix high content
Speaker 3: screening system from Perkin Elmer. For the speed and sensitivity
Speaker 3: you need no compromise.
Speaker 2: It was super cool because it's a high content screening system.
Speaker 2: So we were able to test hundreds and thousands of
Speaker 2: drug compounds on different cell lines to find out, you know,
Speaker 2: what drugs work the best against a certain type of cancer,
Speaker 2: and then we would formulate the drug Okay.
Speaker 1: Side note, I looked up exactly how expensive this machine is,
Speaker 1: and I couldn't find a price tag listed anywhere. I
Speaker 1: was so frustrated. So then I started searching other avenues
Speaker 1: and I found a twenty eighteen grant proposal asking for
Speaker 1: the money to acquire such an item, and they were
Speaker 1: looking for eight hundred and ninety three one hundred and
Speaker 1: sixty nine nice thousand dollars. Now for that exact price,
Speaker 1: you can also get a five bedroom, four bath, three
Speaker 1: hundred square foot home in Pacific Grove, California. Or you
Speaker 1: can get two rolls Royce phantoms. Or you can buy
Speaker 1: an opera house in Phoenix, Arizona, which was purchased in
Speaker 1: disrepair by the city a few decades ago. Or you
Speaker 1: can look at sells up close and crunch some numbers
Speaker 1: and solve some pretty big problems. And so you're just
Speaker 1: like low key care and cancer when you go into work.
Speaker 1: How it gets done right, Yeah.
Speaker 2: That's the very beginning part of it. Like when you
Speaker 2: talk about clinical trials, that's where it starts with the
Speaker 2: molecular biologists trying to find what drugs you should even
Speaker 2: be looking at in the first place.
Speaker 1: And you obviously also are very good at SCOON and
Speaker 1: you're getting your PhD in science communication itself. What does
Speaker 1: that work?
Speaker 2: Like? This work is so different. Yeah, it's so different.
Speaker 2: And I want to say, like, I feel like my
Speaker 2: PhD would have been a little less painful had I
Speaker 2: really understood and been trained with the social sciences background.
Speaker 2: But I also love it at the same time because
Speaker 2: I feel like I've truly mastered how to think like
Speaker 2: a stem scientist, and now I'm mastering how to think
Speaker 2: like a social scientist. And I feel like I have
Speaker 2: a whole complete brain. It's really cool.
Speaker 1: Well, I imagine getting your PhD in science communication when
Speaker 1: you already are responsible for like huge viral hits and
Speaker 1: you have a great following. Are you finding that in
Speaker 1: the course of getting your PhD you're acting more and
Speaker 1: more as a mentor to the people in the program
Speaker 1: around you?
Speaker 2: You know, It's it's really interesting. Not really my PhDs
Speaker 2: in science education and a lot of the people that
Speaker 2: are in my program aren't doing the same work that
Speaker 2: I'm doing at all. I feel like I'm the only
Speaker 2: person who might have ever even focused on science communication itself.
Speaker 2: A lot of the work that other folks are doing,
Speaker 2: are in the K twelve space and truly centered in
Speaker 2: the classroom, which is fine, but when we come together
Speaker 2: and talk about our research, it definitely looks a lot different.
Speaker 1: So not only will she be getting that PhD very soon,
Speaker 1: but she's also working on a few academic papers about
Speaker 1: science communication and how vital it is for scientists to
Speaker 1: share the work they've done with the public. But how
Speaker 1: does one calm sigh? What are they learning to help
Speaker 1: teach others, how to teach others brains on brains on brains.
Speaker 2: I think that I can talk about one of the
Speaker 2: things that really made my light bulb blow off that
Speaker 2: I learned as a graduate student in education, and this
Speaker 2: was an example that was given in I believe the
Speaker 2: books called How People Learn, and there was an example
Speaker 2: given in the book about how people from different like
Speaker 2: environments physical environments interpret information differently. The example that they
Speaker 2: gave was a very literal one where they described a
Speaker 2: study where they showed a set of pictures to people
Speaker 2: who lived in a very rural flat lands environment and
Speaker 2: then that same picture to people who lived in an
Speaker 2: urban environment with skyscrapers and tall buildings, and they found
Speaker 2: that people from rural environments interpret vertical lines differently than
Speaker 2: people who live in urban environments that have tall buildings
Speaker 2: in skyscrapers.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So, I mean, when you think about that simple thing,
Speaker 2: people interpreting lines differently and shapes differently based on how
Speaker 2: where they live and where they come from, you can
Speaker 2: only imagine all of the complexities that exist from person
Speaker 2: to person based on their upbringing, their personal experience. So
Speaker 2: I try to be very mindful when I'm educating someone
Speaker 2: that not only am I trying to teach them something,
Speaker 2: but I, in the same space, should be trying to
Speaker 2: learn as much about that person as possible so that
Speaker 2: I know how to teach them, or so that I
Speaker 2: can understand how they might be interpreting my information.
Speaker 1: And now, whether it's one on one or via a
Speaker 1: huge viral video, as a communicator, it's important to know
Speaker 1: your audience right and cater a little to what will
Speaker 1: affect them most powerfully. But how does she do that
Speaker 1: while staying true to herself and the art that she
Speaker 1: wants to make. You have such a distinct voice, and
Speaker 1: you have such a magnetic vibe when it comes to
Speaker 1: psychom How did you find your voice?
Speaker 2: In it. I love this ques question because it points
Speaker 2: me to a very specific moment in my life where
Speaker 2: I actively made this decision to exist as I am
Speaker 2: in any space that I occupied, but especially as a scientist.
Speaker 2: And this moment happened when I was, I believe, a
Speaker 2: junior in college. I had started my first, very first
Speaker 2: undergraduate research experience. And this is important for a lot
Speaker 2: of junior scientists because it's quite often, you know, in college,
Speaker 2: we have our first formal research project where we have
Speaker 2: a hypothesis and we're actually using things around us to
Speaker 2: collect data, and it's a long term thing that takes
Speaker 2: months and months, and it's a pretty big deal, you know,
Speaker 2: just when you're just starting out. My study was about
Speaker 2: understanding soil microbial respiration, and that's really fancy term for
Speaker 2: how do the germs in the dirt produce gas and
Speaker 2: how much gas. So my experiments, I was taking dirt
Speaker 2: and putting it into a closed chamber, and the chamber
Speaker 2: had a measurement device on it that would tell me
Speaker 2: how much carbon dioxide, what different gas levels were emanating
Speaker 2: from the dirt itself. On a bigger scale, things like
Speaker 2: global warming or flooding impact how microbes in the soil
Speaker 2: produce gas. So that was my research project. And so
Speaker 2: I was doing this independently. I was a junior in college.
Speaker 2: I had an advisor and I'd go in the lab
Speaker 2: every day collect my data, you know, X, Y, and Z.
Speaker 2: So this took me months. At the end of semester two,
Speaker 2: my advisor says, Raven, you've been working so hard on
Speaker 2: all of this. You have great data. I think that
Speaker 2: you would be a great presenter at the undergraduate research symposium. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I know, and so it's a pretty big deal. And
Speaker 2: so for like those of you who don't know what
Speaker 2: that is and you're listening, it's basically you get a
Speaker 2: chance to put your data and your research onto a poster.
Speaker 2: In this case, it was a poster symposium, and all
Speaker 2: of the scientists line up. They form aisles in a
Speaker 2: big room and you can walk around through the aisles
Speaker 2: and ask scientists questions about their research. And so that's
Speaker 2: what I was going to be doing. And so my
Speaker 2: advisor says, you know, this is what needs to be
Speaker 2: on your poster. He explains, you know, how the data
Speaker 2: should look, etc. Right, he didn't really explain too much
Speaker 2: to me. All I really knew was that I had
Speaker 2: to make a poster with my research on it. And
Speaker 2: I'm like, great, I worked so hard for this, Like, yeah,
Speaker 2: let's do this. I can't wait now, mind you. I'm
Speaker 2: a junior in college. The last time I had made
Speaker 2: a poster about anything was probably in middle school when
Speaker 2: I won an inventor's contest. It was called the Invention Convention,
Speaker 2: and I won third place, and my third place it
Speaker 2: was Barbie Barbie's fishing row, and it was a Barbie
Speaker 2: that had a boat that fished for her so she
Speaker 2: could look cute in the boat. I love this, So
Speaker 2: she could look cute in the boat. So I had
Speaker 2: like the Barbie she was like in pumps and sequins
Speaker 2: and stuff in this pink boat and the boat was
Speaker 2: fishing for her, so like she could kick back with
Speaker 2: her little water bottle and like just chill out in
Speaker 2: the ocean, you know whatever. I won third place. My
Speaker 2: poster had sequins on it, glitter stickers like Pokemon cards, like,
Speaker 2: it was a really intense poster. So we're fast forward
Speaker 2: back from from middle school to college. I'm like, hell, yeah,
Speaker 2: I get to make another poster, right, Oh my god.
Speaker 2: So I go to the craft store. And now I
Speaker 2: have big girl money. Okay, I'm in college, right, I've
Speaker 2: got I'm not in middle school. I've got dollar I've
Speaker 2: got twenty dollars bills and stuff. Right. So I'm at
Speaker 2: the craft store. My cart is overflowing with feathers, glitters, stickers, stamps, gosh,
Speaker 2: different types of scrapbook paper, glue, I mean anything, ribbons, everything, everything,
Speaker 2: And I just I was so proud. I lugged all
Speaker 2: of that stuff into my dorm room and I go
Speaker 2: to town making my poster m hm. And my advisor
Speaker 2: gave me a poster tube because he told me, put
Speaker 2: your poster in it, and like, roll your poster up,
Speaker 2: put it in the tube so it stays nice for
Speaker 2: your symposium. So I finished making my poster with all
Speaker 2: of literally all of the things I just described that,
Speaker 2: we're in my cart at the craft store, and he says,
Speaker 2: I want to check your poster before the symposium tomorrow.
Speaker 2: Now we're like the day before the symposium. I'm like sure,
Speaker 2: Now I should probably explain what a poster is supposed
Speaker 2: to look like. Normally, posters for research conferences are generally
Speaker 2: it's generally just paper, Okay, just paper and and one
Speaker 2: color of ink usually and in times New Roman, like
Speaker 2: the most plain font you could ever think of, about
Speaker 2: maybe three hundred to five words total, maybe a couple
Speaker 2: of pictures, a graph, your references. I mean, it's just
Speaker 2: bare minimum period. Okay. So I come to my advisor's
Speaker 2: office and he's like, okay, let's see your poster excited
Speaker 2: for tomorrow. I take my poster out the two and
Speaker 2: you know how like when you glue glitter on this stuff,
Speaker 2: it doesn't really stay on. It kind of like falls up.
Speaker 2: So I'm unrolling the poster and there's like chunks of
Speaker 2: glitter falling out and like feathers collapsing to the floor
Speaker 2: and like it's all crinkly and stuff. And he's like,
Speaker 2: oh my god, oh my god. More absolutely mortified. I've
Speaker 2: never seen anybody so disappointed in my entire life, even
Speaker 2: in my adult life. Okay, this is the most disappointed,
Speaker 2: the most disappointment I've ever caused. So he says, not
Speaker 2: only oh my god, I can't believe, Wow, what am
Speaker 2: I looking at, but also he said two things. You
Speaker 2: can either go home and redo this. And he explained
Speaker 2: to me that you know the reason why he gave
Speaker 2: me the poster tube was because he thought that I
Speaker 2: was going to go to the printing office and have
Speaker 2: my poster printed, and that I was going to pick
Speaker 2: it up from the printing office and put in the tube.
Speaker 2: He was like, that's why I gave you the poster
Speaker 2: the tube. And he's like, you can either go home
Speaker 2: and do this really quick and you might be able
Speaker 2: to get it too the printer's office and do this
Speaker 2: the right way, like the plane way, or you cannot
Speaker 2: go to the conference at all. No, I know, right, no.
Speaker 2: And his reasoning was that he felt like people were
Speaker 2: going to laugh at me. Didn't He didn't want me
Speaker 2: to be embarrassed. He was like, everybody's gonna laugh at you.
Speaker 2: This is like you know, this is this is a no.
Speaker 2: It's a no for me. Dog it's dog. And I
Speaker 2: was like, hmm.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I was like wow, I had to I had to
Speaker 2: take a moment, you know, like this was somebody that
Speaker 2: I respected telling me this, somebody you know, who has
Speaker 2: a PhD in the field and has earned their stripes
Speaker 2: well before I was ever gonna earn my stripes. And
Speaker 2: I'm like, you know, if this is how this is
Speaker 2: supposed to go, that's I get it, you know. But
Speaker 2: I also had to sit with the fact that I
Speaker 2: really enjoyed making that poster. Yeah, I had spent all night.
Speaker 2: I was so excited, you know, and I felt like
Speaker 2: I had really put my entire self into making it
Speaker 2: and that it was really representative of who I was
Speaker 2: as a person. And I also had to sit with
Speaker 2: the fact that the whole point of going to the
Speaker 2: symposium was to present my research, and that my research
Speaker 2: was going to be the same regardless of whether I
Speaker 2: remade my poster or not. So I did not redo
Speaker 2: my poster. I actually went to the symposium with the
Speaker 2: glitter poster. Yes, Yes, it went amazing. So everyone, like
Speaker 2: I said before symposium, everybody's standing in a line. We
Speaker 2: form aisles, and we're all standing next to each other
Speaker 2: with these posters on a stand, waiting for people to
Speaker 2: talk to us about our research. And I had people
Speaker 2: lining up to talk to me. Ya literally, I love
Speaker 2: it lining up. Nobody laughed at me to my face.
Speaker 2: People were very inspired to see my poster, and they
Speaker 2: were excited to ask me questions about my research. And
Speaker 2: not only that I actually won an award. Yeah, I
Speaker 2: won an award for my research. Yeah, Oh my god.
Speaker 2: It was a student excellence award and it was because
Speaker 2: of my research. It had nothing to do with how
Speaker 2: my poster looked. It was just excellence in research and
Speaker 2: student research. And that was a very important moment for me.
Speaker 2: And it's a really simple story, but I was able
Speaker 2: to go back to my advisor and I kind of
Speaker 2: rubbed it in his face a little bit, yeah, because
Speaker 2: he didn't know that I was going to do that.
Speaker 2: And I said, look, I got an award. I got
Speaker 2: an award for this, And you said people were gonna
Speaker 2: laugh at me. And I just learned from that point on,
Speaker 2: don't sometimes you don't listen to people when they tell
Speaker 2: you no. You know, sometimes no, Actually it's like yes
Speaker 2: a lot of times it actually does me no, So like,
Speaker 2: don't take me out of context. But when people are
Speaker 2: denying you an opportunity to be yourself in a space
Speaker 2: where you belong just as you are are, you don't
Speaker 2: have to take that denial. You can say no to
Speaker 2: that and come as you are and nobody gets hurt.
Speaker 2: In fact, people were coming up to me at the
Speaker 2: conference business majors, music majors, etc. Saying this makes me
Speaker 2: want to take a science class. Oh yeah, it's like,
Speaker 2: what major are you that you get to do this stuff? Like,
Speaker 2: this is so cool that you get to do this.
Speaker 2: It was inspiring to people even outside of my own field.
Speaker 2: So I try to carry that energy with me today,
Speaker 2: which is probably very obvious. Now. I don't know that
Speaker 2: you heard this story, but I just can't live in
Speaker 2: a space where somebody's gonna tell me that I can't
Speaker 2: bring my glitter poster to the conference, you know.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, I love this so much. Do you
Speaker 1: have pictures of it?
Speaker 2: I wish I did. I really wish I did. I was.
Speaker 2: It was such a long time ago, and I think
Speaker 2: I was just too scared to take a picture of it.
Speaker 2: But the glitter never left. I literally can't get rid
Speaker 2: of that. Glitterates everywhere.
Speaker 1: Still, it's in your soul and you know, under the
Speaker 1: baseboards and stuff. I love it. Yeah, Oh, that's so
Speaker 1: inspiring that it's okay to be more yourself than you think,
Speaker 1: you know, to show up with your whole self.
Speaker 2: It is. It's a little scary, but it never It's
Speaker 2: never a bad thing to just embrace, embrace who you
Speaker 2: are inside. It's just never a bad thing. And once
Speaker 2: you kind of get past that fear of what do
Speaker 2: other people think? Are people going to laugh at me?
Speaker 2: Which they might, And that's fine. It's just the world
Speaker 2: is yours. Just go go do it, do it scared.
Speaker 1: I love it as a person who has struggled with
Speaker 1: being scared to start making something important to me. I
Speaker 1: had to mine her for self help strategies because I
Speaker 1: am in information leech and that is my deal. Your
Speaker 1: videos are incredible and they have explained so much great stuff.
Speaker 1: How do you know what you're gonna make a video about?
Speaker 1: How do you start writing it? Where does the music
Speaker 1: come from?
Speaker 2: Usually it's a situation where inspiration just strikes me and
Speaker 2: I lock myself in a room for about twenty minutes
Speaker 2: and outcomes a song. I don't think people really realize
Speaker 2: how quick the process is for me, and it's it's
Speaker 2: often so quick that I don't know my own lyrics,
Speaker 2: and you, like, if you look at my videos closely,
Speaker 2: you'll see like, as I'm lip syncing, I actually miss
Speaker 2: a lot of the words. I don't know what I'm
Speaker 2: saying because I wrote the song in like three seconds,
Speaker 2: and then I'm trying to record it on a video
Speaker 2: and I don't remember what I just said. Also, I
Speaker 2: have ADHD, so that's probably a part of it. But yeah,
Speaker 2: it's a really quick process.
Speaker 1: Do you decide when you are writing it kind of
Speaker 1: what the video is going to look like or do
Speaker 1: you just film a bunch of stuff and it comes
Speaker 1: together in the edit.
Speaker 2: Well, because we're in a pandemic, and most of the
Speaker 2: work that I've done at this point has been during
Speaker 2: a pandemic, I have limited resources. You know. I can't
Speaker 2: go out to places like inside of the lab to
Speaker 2: film fun things. It's there's two feet of snow on
Speaker 2: the ground right now, Like I can't really go outside.
Speaker 2: So I just work with what I have and try
Speaker 2: to use my personality and my presence to add certain
Speaker 2: dimensions to what I'm doing. But my partner, you know,
Speaker 2: he he already knows, Like once I make a song,
Speaker 2: he's already committed, whether he likes it or not, to
Speaker 2: like helping with the music video, He's like, all right,
Speaker 2: she's got a song. What angle do I need to
Speaker 2: hold the camera? Like all right? He loves it though,
Speaker 2: he's just he's a he's a huge introvert, but he
Speaker 2: likes to be on the other side of the camera.
Speaker 1: And you two are now married. You met at math camp?
Speaker 2: Correct, we did meet at math camp.
Speaker 1: Yes' story just two hot nerds meeting at math camp
Speaker 1: getting married like a decade later.
Speaker 2: I know. I honestly like didn't give him the time
Speaker 2: of day when we first met because he was so quiet,
Speaker 2: you know, and I have a lot of personality, so
Speaker 2: he didn't really stick out to me then. He was
Speaker 2: just the quiet hot guy. I'm like, we love each
Speaker 2: other very much. He has a Twitter account now where
Speaker 2: he teases me relentlessly, so yeah, he's shy but behind
Speaker 2: a little fake account. Yeah, he says a lot.
Speaker 1: That's mister science maven.
Speaker 2: Right. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And you touched on a little bit that you
Speaker 1: have ADHD, and I wanted to ask about how you
Speaker 1: have learned maybe workarounds or things that work for how
Speaker 1: your brain works. So anything that you've learned that you
Speaker 1: wish that you knew earlier.
Speaker 2: I think that you really do have to give yourself
Speaker 2: grace and just understand that your brain simply does not
Speaker 2: operate how most people's brains work, and it's not your fault.
Speaker 2: You know that you do things maybe a little bit
Speaker 2: slower than other people because you need just a little
Speaker 2: bit of extra time to process, or maybe you might
Speaker 2: get distracted unfortunately or off task. Just have grace with
Speaker 2: yourself and understand it's not really a deficit. It's just
Speaker 2: a different type of life that you're meant to live,
Speaker 2: and it couldn't be your superpower. I love trying to
Speaker 2: figure out new ways to accommodate myself and give myself grace. Like,
Speaker 2: for example, if I had a meeting or something where
Speaker 2: I've had to concentrate for a long time, I like
Speaker 2: to just give myself grace and say, you know what,
Speaker 2: you worked really hard to focus and stay still for
Speaker 2: this meeting. If you want to pig out, you know,
Speaker 2: or just be a goofball for the rest of the day,
Speaker 2: do that like you earned that, that's okay. If you
Speaker 2: can't handle anymore, that's also okay. And also asking for
Speaker 2: help when I need it has been a really big thing,
Speaker 2: especially this past year, and there's no one size fits
Speaker 2: all answer for everybody. But I do think that that
Speaker 2: knowledge is power and sharing information is the best thing
Speaker 2: that we can do.
Speaker 1: I have so many questions from patrons. Can I just
Speaker 1: lobs at you oo?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 1: Okay, but before we Pepper her with curiosities. We will,
Speaker 1: of course donate to a cause of the ologists choosing,
Speaker 1: and Raven said she didn't have a preference, She just
Speaker 1: liked the money to go to whomever needs it. And
Speaker 1: as it happened, our mutual buddy Hank Green's Project for
Speaker 1: Awesome was this past weekend, so we made a donation
Speaker 1: in Raven's name, which happened to be at the final
Speaker 1: couple of seconds as they reached the two million dollar mark,
Speaker 1: I logged on and they were a few hundred dollars short,
Speaker 1: so we made it happen. Project for Awesome is a
Speaker 1: project of the Foundation to decrease world suck, and you
Speaker 1: can learn more about them at projectfoawesome dot com. And
Speaker 1: that donation was made possible by sponsors of the show,
Speaker 1: whom I shall now yammer about very briefly. Okay, you
Speaker 1: had questions for Raven, but in addition to the questions,
Speaker 1: you had praise and compliments in general fawning, I loved
Speaker 1: it before I read you questions. Kelsey Napa says, holy crap,
Speaker 1: I love her.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I love you too, Kelsey.
Speaker 1: Crystal Hakka just says, Raven the science Maven and all
Speaker 1: caps answered Jonah Hill squealing and hand flailing.
Speaker 2: Chiff Here.
Speaker 1: Alanda Cole says, Hi, Raven, I'm a huge fan. I
Speaker 1: have no specific question, just saying that I just can't. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I love it. Florence Jan says Raven, I follow you
Speaker 1: on Twitter and I'm a big fan. Seb Kencino says, Hi, Raven,
Speaker 1: I love how you illuminate Twitter. So yeah, just a
Speaker 1: lot of messages saying all caps squealing because they are
Speaker 1: very people that are very excited that you're on.
Speaker 2: The feeling is mutual. Thanks every joting me. A lot of.
Speaker 1: Folks had questions, including I'm Brandon Butler and Ashley Emmanuel.
Speaker 1: Is mitochondria actually the powerhouse of the cell? What is
Speaker 1: the mitochondria doing? Lah?
Speaker 2: So, yeah, it definitely is the mitochondria of eukaryotic cells,
Speaker 2: meaning not bacteria basically. And what mitochondria do is they
Speaker 2: break down sugars and turn them into energy.
Speaker 1: It's almost like something that breaks down gasoline in our car.
Speaker 2: Honestly, yeah, it's pretty much.
Speaker 1: Okay, I look this up and wouldn't you know it,
Speaker 1: Molecular biology happens to be a little bit more complicated
Speaker 1: than a Honda civic engine. But still mitochondria do sort
Speaker 1: of burn our food fuel and produce a source of energy.
Speaker 1: This whole process is called oxidative phosphorylation, and it does
Speaker 1: require oxygen, just like a combustion engine. Also, there can
Speaker 1: be a bunch of mitochondria shoved into one cell. The
Speaker 1: swimmy sperm have mitochondria that run in a spiral down
Speaker 1: as flappy floppy tail, kind of like ribbons on a
Speaker 1: really horny maypole. Your hard working heart muscles right now
Speaker 1: are really jam packed with mitochondria. So yes, mitochondria is
Speaker 1: the powerhouse of the cell. It is useful information to
Speaker 1: know if you're into breathing and being alive and stuff. Now,
Speaker 1: as long as we are gossiping about spiral structures, let's
Speaker 1: get into the heroic helix, shall we. Keana Spinelli asks,
Speaker 1: I was told several times when I was younger that
Speaker 1: there were six plus feet of a DNA strand in
Speaker 1: just one cell. Is this true or is that flim flam?
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh. So I don't know the exact answer
Speaker 2: to this, but I would not be surprised because DNA
Speaker 2: is super coiled inside of your nucleus. I mean, it's
Speaker 2: It doesn't just hang out and there like spaghetti. It's
Speaker 2: wrapped around itself. It's wrapped around things called histones, and
Speaker 2: it's very tightly and neatly packaged inside of your nucleus.
Speaker 2: So I wouldn't be surprised if you stretched it all
Speaker 2: out that it did that it did end up being
Speaker 2: six feet or six and a half feet.
Speaker 1: Okay, I was so curious. I had to double check this,
Speaker 1: and geneticist doctor Barry Starr does confirm that it's about
Speaker 1: six feet or two meters of DNA strands inside each cell,
Speaker 1: and then he calculated that each human being has around
Speaker 1: ten billion miles of DNA in them, meaning that your
Speaker 1: DNA your DNA right now, just as you're sitting here
Speaker 1: eating pirate's booty or whatever, your DNA could stretch to
Speaker 1: the Sun and back. What you, beautiful freak, You just
Speaker 1: living pooping work of magic, all of us. I have
Speaker 1: a ton of questions, and I will list all of
Speaker 1: the people who asked about it, because it is numerous. Okay,
Speaker 1: deep breath, I'm looking at you, patrons. Eric Pahanka, Gabriel Stern,
Speaker 1: Austin Davis Bourne, Colin, Mike Monoikowski, Anna Goosman, Alanda Cole,
Speaker 1: Adele Maisonneve, Mattie Reeves, Morgan, Alexander Coburn, Seth Succi, Bennett Gerber,
Speaker 1: and Jen Squirrel Alvarez, as well as first time question
Speaker 1: askers Katie Willis, Melanie Lee and Nano Naturalist who called
Speaker 1: them foldy boys, and Jizle Balpazar Carazone, who wrote in
Speaker 1: specifically this question just tickled me. So I'm reading you.
Speaker 1: But as far as I understand it, a preon disease
Speaker 1: is due to a fucked up protein which fucks up
Speaker 1: unfucked up proteins when they end. Is it possible to
Speaker 1: engineer a beneficial preon or whatever, like a blessed protein
Speaker 1: saundering around blessing the unenlightened common proats that's what they're
Speaker 1: called now, so that they can work more effectively, efficiently
Speaker 1: and blessedly inside our disgusting sacks of disappointment and gore.
Speaker 1: How superheroes are made the preonic man, we have the technology.
Speaker 2: A lot of.
Speaker 1: People asked how terrified should I be about preon diseases?
Speaker 1: Davis Board asks, please tell us everything about all caps preons.
Speaker 1: I hope I'm saying it prions because I've I've read
Speaker 1: that it's preons or prions, and I get very self
Speaker 1: conscious about how it stand.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've said prior. Okay, you know I'm not saying
Speaker 2: I'm not saying prion to correct you. It's just let's
Speaker 2: just cover all of our bases here. So yes, hypothetically
Speaker 2: that would be it would be possible for us to
Speaker 2: create a prion that that can do this, But I
Speaker 2: don't think that we even have a good enough understanding
Speaker 2: of protein folding at this point to do that, Like
Speaker 2: we just I'm not sure if you caught what what's
Speaker 2: happened recently with the alpha fold.
Speaker 1: Yes, we have so many questions about that. Oh you
Speaker 1: do alpha side note was developed by Google's deep Mind,
Speaker 1: and this AI program ranked number one multiple times on
Speaker 1: predicting protein folding structures. Its last victory and such a
Speaker 1: competition was back in November, and it yielded results that
Speaker 1: scientists called astounding. Everyone lost their shit about this for
Speaker 1: good reason. It was nuts, and a lot of people
Speaker 1: asked about it, including Hudson Ansley, Adam Drake, Jamie Jensen,
Speaker 1: and then Sam Kilgore, who phrased it, how excited are
Speaker 1: you about deep Mind's protein folding AI on a scale
Speaker 1: from ferry to OMFG.
Speaker 2: Well, basically, I should say that my entire master's degree
Speaker 2: is about protein folding. And I spent two and a
Speaker 2: half years characterizing the structure and the function of a
Speaker 2: chaperone protein, which is a protein that helps other proteins fold.
Speaker 2: It took me two and a half years to just
Speaker 2: do that, to look at the sequence and understand based
Speaker 2: on this, based on these amino acids, this is how
Speaker 2: this chaperone protein should fold. The alpha fold alpha fold
Speaker 2: program can probably take the same information and do it
Speaker 2: in less than a minute, if not seconds. Oh my god,
Speaker 2: So we within you know, I want to say, just
Speaker 2: a handful of years, we've been able to make this
Speaker 2: advancement in technology, and this advancement and having AI help
Speaker 2: us understand how proteins fold and make those predictions will
Speaker 2: help us to understand how proteins interact with each other
Speaker 2: because there are a lot of a lot of pathways,
Speaker 2: meaning you know, chains of reaction where things are interacting
Speaker 2: with other things in the Celler's a lot of pathways
Speaker 2: that we are still trying to figure out. So it's
Speaker 2: very possible that we could make a protein do assist
Speaker 2: with prion diseases, but we haven't figured out really the basics. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but technology is very promising and helping us do that.
Speaker 1: So how do these prion preon diseases even start. I
Speaker 1: want to say that they are the work of a
Speaker 1: tiny microscopic or a gommi goblin, but is that true?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so prions, there are misfolded proteins proteins they are
Speaker 2: when they come out of the ribosome as they're being made.
Speaker 2: They're folding based on their amino acid sequence. But there's
Speaker 2: also a lot of other checkpoints that are happening in
Speaker 2: that process that is acting as a safeguard to make
Speaker 2: sure that that protein's being folded properly. So we have
Speaker 2: other proteins that are called chaperone proteins, and literally they
Speaker 2: are helping the protein fold into its correct shape. And
Speaker 2: the protein shape determines its function, so to fold the
Speaker 2: exact right way so that it can do its job.
Speaker 2: When that doesn't happen the right way, it can cause disease.
Speaker 2: Some things that can happen are when the proteins are misfolded,
Speaker 2: they can accumulate together, they can stick together, they're affecting
Speaker 2: other variants of the same protein and causing them to misfold.
Speaker 2: So it's something that you really don't want to happen. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and mad cow disease is one of them. There's quite
Speaker 2: a few of them. I don't know them all because
Speaker 2: this is like a very small subset. It's a really
Speaker 2: interesting area. I think proteins are so interesting.
Speaker 1: So a few tiny tidbits. Priyon comes from the portmanteau
Speaker 1: of the words protonacious, infectious particle. And I just read
Speaker 1: that the scientist who coined the phrase wat and it
Speaker 1: pronounced predon, So we may have a real jift gift
Speaker 1: sitch here. Please do not write to me. I don't
Speaker 1: want to hear it. So, according to a twenty nineteen
Speaker 1: Seminars in Neurology article, preon diseases share the commonality and
Speaker 1: preon diseases share the commonality of abnormally shaped proteins that
Speaker 1: resist being broken down by heat, even extreme heat, and
Speaker 1: by chemicals like proteases. So there are a few variations.
Speaker 1: There's sporadic, genetic and acquired. But don't freak out too
Speaker 1: hard though. Preon disease is still pretty rare, with about
Speaker 1: three hundred and fifty cases happening in the US per year.
Speaker 1: My main advice is just try not to eat a
Speaker 1: lot of brains. Isn't that helpful? Also, if you're worried
Speaker 1: about chronic wasting disease, which is spreading in deer populations
Speaker 1: in the United States, there's some info on that in
Speaker 1: the Cervidology episodes I did in September about deer. But
Speaker 1: let's talk about cuter things like little ABT proteins with legs,
Speaker 1: marching a molecule down a path. You mentioned also chaperone protein.
Speaker 1: Someone Jacob Elsbury asked, how accurate is that viral Jeff
Speaker 1: of a cute little Kinesian protein trotting around the cell
Speaker 1: carrying a giant backpack of what I'm assuming it's more protein.
Speaker 1: Is that at all accurate?
Speaker 2: It's accurate, But the reality is that it is not
Speaker 2: walking that slowly at all. Like, oh no, those little
Speaker 2: bad boys, whatever bad things, the little bad things, they
Speaker 2: are zipping across like faster than you can even blink.
Speaker 2: So that's the only real difference there. I mean, obviously
Speaker 2: it's not gonna be that cute.
Speaker 1: That little thing is so cute.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's running, he's running for his life.
Speaker 1: A few people asked about motor proteins. Honey wants to know.
Speaker 1: Can you tell us about motor proteins. How the heck
Speaker 1: do they work?
Speaker 2: Ah? So, the little guy walking is a motor protein
Speaker 2: and they carry cargo. Basically, the cargo go that are
Speaker 2: containing molecules, proteins, whatever it could be. Anything it could be.
Speaker 2: They could be carrying organelles, they can carry different structures
Speaker 2: within the cell. They can move chromosomes. They're just they're
Speaker 2: working hard. Okay, they're working hard, and they move in
Speaker 2: particular ways. Think of this as a highway, and one
Speaker 2: end of the highway is a negative side and the
Speaker 2: other side is positive. Dininge walks towards the negative end,
Speaker 2: and they're carrying their cargo from the peripheral side of
Speaker 2: the cell to the center of the cell. And then
Speaker 2: Keynesin is like Dinine's sister, and they are walking in
Speaker 2: the opposite direction. So they're walking towards the positive side,
Speaker 2: and they carry their cargo from the center of the
Speaker 2: cell to the periphery of the cell. So in order
Speaker 2: to move their little feet, they use ATP, which is
Speaker 2: the energy currency of the cell, which comes from the mitochondria.
Speaker 2: So now we've come full circle back to the mitochondria.
Speaker 2: They're going so fast.
Speaker 1: John Sanson has a question about where did DNA even
Speaker 1: come from? Like how did random bits of atoms and
Speaker 1: molecules know to build themselves into proteins and then assemble
Speaker 1: into DNA strands which now tell other things to build
Speaker 1: other DNA strands.
Speaker 2: This is something that I think about too much and
Speaker 2: it freaks me out. My brain is melting. But let's
Speaker 2: look great. That's that's a question about the origin of life,
Speaker 2: because all living organisms on Earth use DNA to generate
Speaker 2: their life process, and we don't necessarily know exactly how
Speaker 2: this all started, and this will be a question that
Speaker 2: we're we are likely trying to answer for many, many
Speaker 2: years to come. But I love thinking about it because
Speaker 2: of all the possibilities.
Speaker 1: So for years, the hypothesis has been that DNA started
Speaker 1: with the simpler single strand RNA, But in the past
Speaker 1: decade or so, other scientists are just begging to differ
Speaker 1: and say that DNA, which kind of has a trickier
Speaker 1: sugar molecule as well as that double helix shape, could
Speaker 1: have arisen at the same time. It's even possible that
Speaker 1: a hybrid RNA DNA molecule first arose and then split
Speaker 1: off into two forms. Who's to know if you have
Speaker 1: a time machine, let us know. Now. One thing we
Speaker 1: are sure about is that these replicated codes have been
Speaker 1: encased in cellular goo and structures for billions of years.
Speaker 1: Billions with a B plus. In all this talk about DNA,
Speaker 1: I wanted to know if Raven has any feelings about Watson,
Speaker 1: Crick and Franklin. Is that something that ever gets her goat?
Speaker 2: Oh it does. It's funny because I'm actually on the
Speaker 2: Rosalind Franklin the Society's advisory boards, so shout out to
Speaker 2: shout out to Rosalind Franklin. But yeah, the way that
Speaker 2: I learned the story was that Rosalind Franklin, there were
Speaker 2: several scientists working at the same time to understand the
Speaker 2: structure of DNA, and my understanding is that Rosalind, Franklin, Watson,
Speaker 2: and Krik were all scientists who were They weren't working together.
Speaker 2: Rosalind Franklin was working separately than the others, but the
Speaker 2: two guys Watson and Krik made a visit to Rosalind's
Speaker 2: lab as she was doing similar work and stole some
Speaker 2: of her information so that they could further their own
Speaker 2: findings and ultimately win a Nobel price for it. So
Speaker 2: there's that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, a few people Katrina nujen Adele Davis Bourne epigenetics.
Speaker 1: What's going on? How does it change DNA expression and
Speaker 1: pass it on to the next generation? Katrina ask will
Speaker 1: my children have my same weird quirks and habits?
Speaker 2: This is really interesting and something that I wish I
Speaker 2: had spent more time on when I was on my
Speaker 2: genetics cake. But epigenetics it's a part of molecular bio
Speaker 2: that's looking at heredity, but not heredity that's caused by
Speaker 2: actual alterations in DNA itself. Right, the DNA has a code,
Speaker 2: and that set of code again codes for proteins and
Speaker 2: protein products. But epigenetics it's like they are changes on
Speaker 2: the DNA, like literally on it. But it's really cool.
Speaker 2: It's a different way of looking at heredity.
Speaker 1: So for a very very quick primer on epigenetics, your
Speaker 1: DNA is a big ass long coat, kind of like
Speaker 1: a recipe or an ingredients list, and that double helix
Speaker 1: is like a big old long scroll, just meters of
Speaker 1: it right in each cell. So how does a cell
Speaker 1: with all the instructions for all the other cells know
Speaker 1: to be a heart cell or groamy one, bristly mustache
Speaker 1: hair or line my guts. So certain genes are turned
Speaker 1: on or off by signals or even proteins according to
Speaker 1: the function of the cell. But the proteins can also
Speaker 1: turn on and off other expressions of the cell in
Speaker 1: response to environmental factors and then replicate from there, and
Speaker 1: that is called your epigenome. Now, speaking of hearts, many
Speaker 1: patrons wanted to know what was closest to Ravens and
Speaker 1: Katie matt Sicato, Earl of Graymulkin, Kathleen sachs, Ira Gray,
Speaker 1: and Ashley Emmanuel all had favorite questions essentially favorite type
Speaker 1: of cell or protein or organelle or nitrogenous base, just
Speaker 1: normal questions you'd ask. Really any celeb. George Powell wants
Speaker 1: to note, what's your favorite protein?
Speaker 2: Oh, you know what, that's a really good question. I
Speaker 2: personally am fascinated by how people name proteins. There is
Speaker 2: a protein called the pokemon protein. What. Yeah, There's a
Speaker 2: protein called sonic hedgehog, which is actually a critical gene
Speaker 2: involved in human development. And there's a nemo one. There's
Speaker 2: a cannon Barbie protein. There's scramblease, which is an enzyme
Speaker 2: that scrambles phospholipids between the inside and the outside of
Speaker 2: this a cell membrane. There's pikachuran protein. There's spock one
Speaker 2: that's in zebrafish and it causes the fish to develop
Speaker 2: like pointy ears like spock.
Speaker 1: No, yeah, I mean earl of Gramblekin asked do you
Speaker 1: have a favorite protein or protein name? And I had
Speaker 1: no idea why. They asked about the name. Who gets
Speaker 1: to name these?
Speaker 2: The scientists that discover them get to name them.
Speaker 1: Oh, my gosh, A lot of animation fans apparently.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean these these are They're really funny.
Speaker 1: Obviously, there's so many things that must be difficult about
Speaker 1: trying to wrap your brain around these tiny rotein structures.
Speaker 1: But what is the most difficult thing about being a
Speaker 1: molecular biologist who is also a science communicator, who is
Speaker 1: also responsible for teaching so many people about very complicated topics, Like,
Speaker 1: what's the hardest part about it?
Speaker 2: Oh, the hardest part about what I do? Uh, that's
Speaker 2: a good one. Let's see. Hmm. I think that maybe
Speaker 2: the hardest part of what I do is it's also
Speaker 2: one of the most important things that I that I do,
Speaker 2: and I know, although it's hard, I really do try
Speaker 2: my best, and that is to always just make sure
Speaker 2: that you're communicating accurate information because oftentimes people they may
Speaker 2: not necessarily go to directly to the source for their
Speaker 2: primary understanding of what's going on in the science world,
Speaker 2: and they're looking at people like me or going on
Speaker 2: social media to get their information. And it's just so
Speaker 2: important that although what we do is fun and it's
Speaker 2: meant to be friendly and approachable, that we're always focused
Speaker 2: on giving as accurate, if information as possible. And I'm
Speaker 2: very careful to only speak on things that I feel
Speaker 2: like I'm truly an expert in, and if I'm not
Speaker 2: an expert in it, I definitely point people to a
Speaker 2: recon source, a person who is an expert, or I
Speaker 2: find very basic information and try to translate that the
Speaker 2: best way that I can. But I definitely think that
Speaker 2: it's important to always be accurate first and then be
Speaker 2: engaging second. You can do those things at the same time,
Speaker 2: but definitely not one without the other.
Speaker 1: Do you have any advice for anyone who is going
Speaker 1: into molecular biology or science communication, or things that if
Speaker 1: you had a time machine you could go back and
Speaker 1: pep talk yourself about.
Speaker 2: You know, I think that maybe one of the biggest
Speaker 2: pieces of advice I would say for somebody who's interested
Speaker 2: in doing both of those things, make sure that you're
Speaker 2: applying to programs that will support you in both of
Speaker 2: your interests. There are programs that exist, they seem to
Speaker 2: be very few, but just keep an eye out for
Speaker 2: programs that can support your interest in being a scientist
Speaker 2: who wants to communicate and who has a desire to
Speaker 2: be a public facing information source, and look out for
Speaker 2: programs that have opportunities for you to learn how to
Speaker 2: be the best communicator and the best scientist at the
Speaker 2: same time. Try not to sacrifice your interests. There are
Speaker 2: a lot of times that I've heard people who are
Speaker 2: interested in being a scientist and an educator often have
Speaker 2: to choose between the two when they're looking to enroll
Speaker 2: in programs. But it doesn't have to be the case.
Speaker 2: So definitely look hard and make sure you find your
Speaker 2: home that's going to be good for you and will
Speaker 2: serve your best interest.
Speaker 1: And what about the thing you love the most about
Speaker 1: what you do.
Speaker 2: I truly love building community, and I think that because
Speaker 2: I am who I am, I tend to build communities
Speaker 2: that are very diverse because I show a lot of
Speaker 2: different sides of myself that I feel like people from
Speaker 2: different walks of life and different backgrounds can relate to.
Speaker 2: And I try to be very transparent about who I
Speaker 2: am and what I'm interested in and what I'm passionate about,
Speaker 2: so that people who even aren't in science can latch
Speaker 2: onto something about a scientist that they see and maybe
Speaker 2: be more willing to listen and learn about science because
Speaker 2: they do relate. And I also love bringing these communities
Speaker 2: together in conversations about important things and watching people in
Speaker 2: my community learn from each other and teach each other.
Speaker 2: That's probably the best thing that I enjoy about what
Speaker 2: I do.
Speaker 1: You have a lot of projects guard going on. Is
Speaker 1: there anything that we should be looking out for, anything
Speaker 1: that you're working on that you're really excited about?
Speaker 2: Yes, I am. I'm always working on new things. That's
Speaker 2: one of the awesome parts about having ADHD. And I
Speaker 2: think a lot of people are like, how do you
Speaker 2: do so many things at once? I have help. I
Speaker 2: have people around me who want to see me succeed
Speaker 2: and try to step in where they can to make
Speaker 2: sure that everything runs relatively smoothly. But one of my
Speaker 2: most exciting things that I'm working on is my new
Speaker 2: fashion line, Smarty Pants. And Smarty Pants is really what
Speaker 2: I've always wanted to do for the STEM community. I've
Speaker 2: always wanted to give something to people that they could
Speaker 2: wear that expressed their sense of belonging in the field
Speaker 2: and their desire to be seen for both the brilliance
Speaker 2: that they have inside and also make that shine from
Speaker 2: within to the outside. And so it's it's really meant
Speaker 2: to be clothes that empower you as you go on
Speaker 2: about your everyday work in STEM and beyond, because it's
Speaker 2: really not just for STEM professionals, just for anybody who
Speaker 2: supports STEM, enjoys learning about STEM, or somebody who identifies
Speaker 2: as a smarty Pants mm hmm.
Speaker 1: It's just it's really infectious the way that you communicate
Speaker 1: your science. So I'm excited to call you doctor Baxter.
Speaker 1: When I know any idea timeline on that, when we
Speaker 1: can pop all the champagne in the world ever, that would.
Speaker 2: Be late April, I will be doctor Raven the science
Speaker 2: maven Ah. That's so exciting. It sounds nake.
Speaker 1: It's amazing. I'm so excited for you. Do you know
Speaker 1: how you're gonna celebrate?
Speaker 2: I want to throw a party, but we'll see. I
Speaker 2: just want everybody who's who's happy for me to also
Speaker 2: have the chance to sell right. So I'm thinking maybe
Speaker 2: an online Shenanigan, Yeah, like a I don't know. I'm
Speaker 2: thinking a disco party. Yes, please?
Speaker 1: So ask smart Maven's very simple, shameless questions. Because you
Speaker 1: only live once, and maybe your molecules may get rebuilt
Speaker 1: and refolded into proteins and become a frog. But why
Speaker 1: not learn while you're alive and a person. So To
Speaker 1: follow or see Raven's videos or ted talk, you can
Speaker 1: head to her website simevn dot com or find her
Speaker 1: on Instagram at raventhscience Maven or on Twitter at Ravensimevan.
Speaker 1: Those links, plus links to her YouTube and her videos
Speaker 1: will be up also at aliwar dot com slash ologies
Speaker 1: slash Molecular Biology. You can follow me if you like
Speaker 1: on Instagram and Twitter. I'm at Aliward with one L
Speaker 1: on both. We're also at ologies on Twitter and Instagram.
Speaker 1: Ologies Merch is available at ologiesmerch dot com. Thanks Shannon,
Speaker 1: fields and Bonnie Dutch for managing that. Thank you Emily
Speaker 1: White and all the transcribers from making transcripts available. Those
Speaker 1: are linked in the show notes as well. Thank you
Speaker 1: Caleb Patten for leaping episodes so that they are kids safe.
Speaker 1: That's linked in the show notes as well. Thank you
Speaker 1: Noel Dilworth aka the Best, who helps me manage all
Speaker 1: my scheduling. Because inside my skull is just one steaming
Speaker 1: scoop of chili, it doesn't always get the job done.
Speaker 1: So thank you also to Jared Sleeper who assistant edits
Speaker 1: and does so much more like he just grabbed me
Speaker 1: a bag of carab chips to snack on, no joke,
Speaker 1: and I like them. And also to the glitter on
Speaker 1: our poster, Stephen Ray Morris, who now hosts three podcasts
Speaker 1: see Jurassicwright, The per Cast, and Everything but the Movie,
Speaker 1: a Star Wars Books podcast. Nick Thorburn wrote and performed
Speaker 1: the theme music. He is in a band called Islands,
Speaker 1: which is a very good band, and if you listen
Speaker 1: through the credits to celebrate those people, then I also
Speaker 1: tell you a secret at the end of the episode
Speaker 1: this week. Okay, so we're getting some work done in
Speaker 1: the yard and it involves poored concrete, and I feel
Speaker 1: really awful because I learned after that concrete is terrible
Speaker 1: for the environment and carbon emissions. And then that led
Speaker 1: me down a path of using stone stacking to build
Speaker 1: some other stuff in the yard. And I found out
Speaker 1: there are these free rocks you can get literally by
Speaker 1: the ton, almost anywhere, and sometimes people will deliver them
Speaker 1: for free. And the stone is called urbanite, and it's
Speaker 1: just broken up concrete. It's just straight up junk that
Speaker 1: they would throw away, but you can get it for
Speaker 1: free and you could build stuff with it. So look
Speaker 1: up urbanite like walls and stuff. Pretty cool. It looks
Speaker 1: kind of awesome. It looks like old stone walls, a
Speaker 1: little craggy. Anyway, Urbanite it's a thing, and if you're
Speaker 1: looking for it, you can just check Craigslist under the
Speaker 1: free section for free concrete or urbanite. Some people are
Speaker 1: already hip to the name. And I realized just now
Speaker 1: that in telling you the secret, maybe this might help
Speaker 1: me atone for my concrete use before I knew any better.
Speaker 1: So just go on craig list and look for free
Speaker 1: concrete or urbanite. Pinarest the hell out of it. And
Speaker 1: let's try to use more of that and less concrete. Okay,
Speaker 1: A bright Pacadermatology, hobbiology, r doo, zoology, lithology, new technology, meteorology, metatology, menthology, seriology,
Speaker 1: selenology
Speaker 3: Bengal Dino DM