Speaker 1: It's Nightside with Dan Ray.
Speaker 2: I'm WBS Boston's news radio.
Speaker 1: Thanks a lot, Madison. Welcome in everybody. My name is
Speaker 1: Dan Ray. As Madison was kind enough to mention Rob Brooks,
Speaker 1: our producer back in the control room tonight, as we
Speaker 1: start a Friday night edition of Nightside, heading you into
Speaker 1: the weekend. All I gotta do is jump aboard the
Speaker 1: Nightside train. We will bring you right up to Saturday morning,
Speaker 1: well till about eleven fifty eight Friday night. Close enough,
Speaker 1: close enough. I hope you'll stay with us. If you're
Speaker 1: driving anywhere on this beautiful mid September weekend, roll the
Speaker 1: windows down, turn the radio up, and we'll keep your company.
Speaker 1: We'll keep you awake. Don't worry about that, that is
Speaker 1: for sure. We have four very interesting guests coming up
Speaker 1: in this hour. There'll be no phone calls in the
Speaker 1: first hour. We call it the Nightside News Update. We
Speaker 1: give you a little bit of information. Some of it
Speaker 1: is social information, some of it deals with cultural matters,
Speaker 1: some of it deals with news. It's kind of a polperri.
Speaker 1: Then'll get into the main course of the night at
Speaker 1: nine o'clock, going to talk about this crazy scene in
Speaker 1: Newton where some pro Israel demonstrators were attacked by an
Speaker 1: individual both well, at least most of the TV stations
Speaker 1: have been covering that story today, and we have some
Speaker 1: sound from that event. There's a again, you know, why,
Speaker 1: why can't we all just get along? I mean just crazy?
Speaker 1: And then we're going to look at ten o'clock at
Speaker 1: the Karen Reeve case. I think that the lawyers for
Speaker 1: Karen Reid have a real shot here at the State
Speaker 1: Supreme Court. I will explain why. And then in the
Speaker 1: twentieth hour tonight, I would really like to hear from
Speaker 1: some of you about your Friday the thirteenth phobias. We'll
Speaker 1: get to all of that, I promise, But first off,
Speaker 1: I love to introduce to you Patty Zappa. She's the
Speaker 1: executive vice president of One Warm Coat, which sounds like
Speaker 1: a fabulous organization. Patty, my first question has to be
Speaker 1: any relation to one Frank Zapper.
Speaker 3: Unfortunately no, but I a lot.
Speaker 1: Second. My follow up question is how many times have
Speaker 1: you been asked that question?
Speaker 2: Many?
Speaker 3: I've been married for about twelve years, and I think
Speaker 3: I get it more than my husband does. But no,
Speaker 3: not to our knowledge at least.
Speaker 1: I mean I got to assume there are on too
Speaker 1: many people with the last name of Zappa.
Speaker 3: I just we have not heard many. I really should
Speaker 3: do some you know testing on those sites to see
Speaker 3: if we're a connection toological research.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Related, Well, first of all, we're not here to
Speaker 1: talk about Frank Zappa or music you hear in your
Speaker 1: capacity as executive vice president of one warm Code National
Speaker 1: Share of the Warmth Day? Is that today or is
Speaker 1: it coming up?
Speaker 3: It's coming up on October eighth, and it's really our
Speaker 3: kickoff to CODE Drive season. So it's a national awareness
Speaker 3: day that you know, we started a few years ago
Speaker 3: to get people aware of our organization and of the
Speaker 3: need for warmth, you know, especially among vulnerable populations as
Speaker 3: we get into the four months of the year.
Speaker 1: Yeah, let me tell you, no matter what happens, it
Speaker 1: gets chili right around Thanksgiving and it stays with us
Speaker 1: about Saint Patrick State, particularly all of us here in
Speaker 1: the Northeast. So let me let me ask you, is
Speaker 1: you as a national organization or are you located just
Speaker 1: in the cold weather spots? Tell us about the group.
Speaker 3: So we're a national organization. We were actually sounded in
Speaker 3: San Francisco and I am from the Philadelphia area. So
Speaker 3: to me, I was like, oh, this coat organization, you know,
Speaker 3: started in California. Sounded like a little strange, but you know,
Speaker 3: of course the weather in San Francisco. San Francisco can
Speaker 3: get so cold. And we started in nineteen ninety two
Speaker 3: when a woman had a coat that she no longer
Speaker 3: had a need for and she could not find anywhere
Speaker 3: to donate it. So she started a coat drive and
Speaker 3: did that for a number of years before our national
Speaker 3: founder a proaster and said, you know, this is such
Speaker 3: a great idea. This should be happening everywhere. Anyone should
Speaker 3: be able to donate a coat at any point. So
Speaker 3: since then we've grown. We're a national organization, you know,
Speaker 3: primarily the facilitate coat drive across the country. Last year
Speaker 3: we collected and distributed about five hundred thousand coats across
Speaker 3: the US. We have about four thousand volunteers that work
Speaker 3: with us. Every year, they register hold a coach drive
Speaker 3: in their local community, and those coats stay local. So
Speaker 3: although we are national, the impact is local stays local.
Speaker 3: Any coats that are collected in Boston, you know, stay
Speaker 3: in those local communities. So it's a great program.
Speaker 1: Yeah, We're a Boston radio station, but we're heard not
Speaker 1: only throughout in New England, but our over the year signal,
Speaker 1: what's called the terrestrial signal, is very strong, and we
Speaker 1: have people anywhere east of the Mississippi River who are
Speaker 1: listening to us right now, and that doesn't include those
Speaker 1: around the world who can pick us up on the internet. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: we're at Boston station. I get that. But what can
Speaker 1: people do nominally here in New England, but up and
Speaker 1: down the East coast and as far really as west
Speaker 1: as the Mississippi River. How do they find a contact
Speaker 1: locally so they can help out, volunteer or maybe even
Speaker 1: start a coke drive themselves. What's the last way people
Speaker 1: who want to help can find you or get in
Speaker 1: touch now with you personally but within the organization.
Speaker 3: So the best way is to go to our website,
Speaker 3: which is one Warm coat dot org. And to your point,
Speaker 3: you know what you were just saying, you can do
Speaker 3: a number of things. You can just donate coats, you know,
Speaker 3: go through your closets, pull out the coats that are
Speaker 3: gently worn, they don't have holes and stains, they're clean,
Speaker 3: but you're just not using them anymore. And you can
Speaker 3: search on our website to find co drives in your area,
Speaker 3: so you can just drop off a coat. The next
Speaker 3: step is to hold your own co drive. So you know,
Speaker 3: we have preschoolers, we have huge companies, we have churches,
Speaker 3: Girl Scouts, sports teams. It's a great activity for any
Speaker 3: group or an individual. You can make it a couple
Speaker 3: of days, you can make it a couple of weeks.
Speaker 3: The program is really customizable to whatever people are looking
Speaker 3: to achieve. So you know, if there's not any co
Speaker 3: drives in your area right now, create a co drive
Speaker 3: that would be an awesome way to go. And then
Speaker 3: as we get further into you know, the co drive
Speaker 3: season October, November, December. A lot of national retailers will
Speaker 3: also hold co drives with that, so Land's End kicks
Speaker 3: off in September, Jakru will start in October, and we
Speaker 3: have a number of others as well. So the goal
Speaker 3: always for one Warm Coat is to make it super
Speaker 3: accessible so that anyone in the country can go to
Speaker 3: our website and find a co drive nearby to take
Speaker 3: coats too.
Speaker 1: That's a great answer to my question, which I think
Speaker 1: would be hanging over the minds of many people. You
Speaker 1: really nailed it. So it's one warm coat and I
Speaker 1: assume one is spelled out one warmth yes war mcoachcoat
Speaker 1: dot org. Do people participate on an annual basis? Do
Speaker 1: you have sort of a backbone of volunteers and people
Speaker 1: around the country who you know, every September October are
Speaker 1: going to spend some time doing this.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, we have a number of people that do it
Speaker 3: every year. And you know, someone just came to mind
Speaker 3: as a little girl who she's not little Chelly, a
Speaker 3: teenager now she's been doing it with us since is
Speaker 3: probably eight years old, and continue to do it every year.
Speaker 3: But we have probably about thirty percent of our volunteers
Speaker 3: each year do it every year, and then we have
Speaker 3: a lot of new people as well, and you know
Speaker 3: that's also doesn't speak to you know, the bake retailers
Speaker 3: and corporations that also will come back and do it
Speaker 3: with us every year because it's such a great it's
Speaker 3: a simple way to make a big impact in your community.
Speaker 3: So once people do it and they realize how fun
Speaker 3: it can be, you know, people are really creative with
Speaker 3: what they do. We've had companies do like a chili
Speaker 3: cookoffs to see you know how many coats they can
Speaker 3: bring in. So people are very creative with the way
Speaker 3: that they encourage people in their community, in their workplace
Speaker 3: to bring in codes. So it's really fun and to
Speaker 3: your point, you go to the website. Also, we're one
Speaker 3: warm Coat on all of the social media channels, so
Speaker 3: we encourage everyone to follow us there as well. We
Speaker 3: can really see, you know, what we're doing, what people
Speaker 3: in the community are doing, and how you can get involved.
Speaker 1: Great great, great program, great drive and certainly you see
Speaker 1: people who are walking the streets in wintertime and they
Speaker 1: some of them don't have shoes, some of them don't
Speaker 1: have coats, and this is a great project. Patty's Apple.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much for spending some time with us
Speaker 1: this Friday night, and I hope that you having me
Speaker 1: volunteers as result of our few minutes talking.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much, Thanks so much. I appreciate it,
Speaker 3: very welcome.
Speaker 1: Coming up on the other side of the break here,
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about the Red Bull Tug of
Speaker 1: or not the trunk Tug of War, but a tug
Speaker 1: of or a r on the Charles River. This Saturday,
Speaker 1: we will talk with Mike Ferry, former Riverside President and
Speaker 1: the MC of Red Bull Tug of War. We'll get
Speaker 1: it all in for you right after the break. You
Speaker 1: listen to WBZ. If you have any trouble picking MWBZ
Speaker 1: on your car radio and your home radio, and you
Speaker 1: shouldn't have because you do have a very strong signal.
Speaker 1: You always can listen to WBZ News Radio on the
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app. All you have to do is just go
Speaker 1: to that app and download it and you can listen
Speaker 1: to it for free. My name's Dan Ray. This is Nightside.
Speaker 1: You are listening to w BZ, Boston's news Radio ten
Speaker 1: thirty and your AM dial. We'll be back with three
Speaker 1: more guests before nine o'clock, and then we'll get into
Speaker 1: the more controversial topics of the evening right after the
Speaker 1: nine o'clock news. Now back to Dan Ray, live from
Speaker 1: the Window World nights Side Studios. I'm WBZ News Radio.
Speaker 1: Quer welcome Mike Ferry. He's a former Riverside President, the
Speaker 1: MC for Red Bull Tug of or Mike, I'm not
Speaker 1: familiar Riverside President. Is that a connection to Boston?
Speaker 2: It absolutely is. Dan, Yeah, So thanks for having me
Speaker 2: this evening. So I am the former president of Riverside
Speaker 2: Boat Club in Cambridge, Massachusetts. So one of the many
Speaker 2: story gun clubs. Indeed, yeah, so so rowing on the
Speaker 2: Charles every day. I love it and happy to have
Speaker 2: led that organization.
Speaker 1: Okay, so now you are going to be as I
Speaker 1: understand that coming in here, and are you the organizer?
Speaker 1: What is your title with this? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I'm going to be the MC and I
Speaker 2: am part of the planning team for a one of
Speaker 2: a kind rowing event going on tomorrow called tug.
Speaker 1: Of Or Now when you say one of a kind
Speaker 1: are you talking about this is the first time? Because
Speaker 1: I have never heard of this type of event. I'll
Speaker 1: have you explain it in a moment. But they do
Speaker 1: a lot of rowing on the Charles River. But is
Speaker 1: this the the initial effort or has this been done
Speaker 1: in previous locations before this?
Speaker 2: This has never been done before. And Dan, let me
Speaker 2: tell you so, I've been a rower for twenty five years,
Speaker 2: and even I know that traditional rowing is frankly not
Speaker 2: the best specter your sport. Right, So maybe you've seen
Speaker 2: head of the Charles and there you see some boats
Speaker 2: crash and that's cool, but you see each boat for
Speaker 2: thirty seconds and you never know exactly who's winning, right, I.
Speaker 1: Thought it wasn't a crew team. In high school and
Speaker 1: we used to go to these crew races and first
Speaker 1: of all, you have to have binoculars. They all look
Speaker 1: the same in the boats from the Yeah where are they?
Speaker 1: You know? Maybe oh no, here the I think she comes,
Speaker 1: No there they go.
Speaker 2: So, yeah, this is different exactly how it works. And
Speaker 2: maybe you see it on the Olympics once every four years,
Speaker 2: and unless you're an insider like me, right, it just
Speaker 2: looks like people going and boring straight lines for seven minutes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, so this is not going to be going
Speaker 1: in a straight line. It's going to be a tug
Speaker 1: of or give us the set it up for us.
Speaker 2: Sir, Yeah, yeah, exactly. So it's it's red bull tug
Speaker 2: of oar. And so it's a twist on tug of war. Right,
Speaker 2: So the game we all played on field day when
Speaker 2: we were in middle school. But tomorrow we're of course
Speaker 2: going to be doing that in the rowing boats and
Speaker 2: the two boats are going. So it's going to be
Speaker 2: two boats head to head and they're connected to each
Speaker 2: other by a strong rope, and then the crews are
Speaker 2: literally going to try to drag each other over a line.
Speaker 2: So they're really going.
Speaker 1: To be back I'm not a rower, but are they're
Speaker 1: going to be back to back as opposed to.
Speaker 2: Exactly? Yeah? So, so they will actually be facing each other, right,
Speaker 2: So when you're when you're rowing, you're actually facing backwards
Speaker 2: right to get the most leveraged. So they're going to
Speaker 2: look at each other straight in the eye as they
Speaker 2: tug each other over the line. Yeah.
Speaker 1: No, wait a second, I'm maybe so you will have
Speaker 1: a line in the water. And then how far the
Speaker 1: boats separated?
Speaker 2: Oh, that's a good question. Actually, so I don't know
Speaker 2: the exact length. I have to talk to my ops
Speaker 2: team about that, but it's okay, thirty pretty good, Maybe
Speaker 2: ten twenty feet.
Speaker 1: That's all. That's all.
Speaker 4: That's it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so we we don't want a lot of slack.
Speaker 2: We just want maximum carnage, right, we want intensity.
Speaker 1: Okay, So they are looking face at each other, face.
Speaker 2: To face, uh huh, yep, yep.
Speaker 1: But instead of going forward, one of them is going
Speaker 1: to pull the other across the line. And so this
Speaker 1: is sort of like a one and done tournament. You have,
Speaker 1: I believe, is that sixteen teams and each team is
Speaker 1: co ed one guy, you got.
Speaker 2: It right, Okay, exactly right.
Speaker 1: It must be eighteen years of old. Is it too
Speaker 1: late to sign up? Not that I'm going to sign.
Speaker 2: Up, but yeah, so it's a little too late to
Speaker 2: sign up. But this is an inclusive event, so we
Speaker 2: want to get as many people down there as possible.
Speaker 2: Even if you've never seen rowing, you never touched an
Speaker 2: or it doesn't matter. Just come down check it out,
Speaker 2: and who knows, maybe next year, hopefully we're hoping to
Speaker 2: make this a tradition and maybe next year some of
Speaker 2: the spectators can join in and get in on the fund.
Speaker 1: Okay, so my understanding is it runs from one o'clock
Speaker 1: tomorrow afternoon until approximately four to forty five, and the
Speaker 1: best viewing sites are the Week's Footbridge. Is that near
Speaker 1: the Well Boathouse. I'm trying to figure where the Week's
Speaker 1: footbridge is.
Speaker 2: They have so many exactly yeah, that's exactly right. So
Speaker 2: we nails you nailed it, yeah, absolutely man. So yeah,
Speaker 2: so it's on the Charles River at the Week's Footbridge.
Speaker 2: So that's not the bridge that leads into JFK Boulevard.
Speaker 2: If people are used to driving around like Soldier sealed
Speaker 2: road and all that, but it's close, right, So it's
Speaker 2: a pedestrian bridge that's right next to it. It's near
Speaker 2: well Boat House, it's near Harvard's campus, and of course
Speaker 2: you could do a web search for weeks foot bridge
Speaker 2: and GPS will take you right there.
Speaker 1: So, now, how did you select the lucky participants?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I don't know how lucky they're going to
Speaker 2: be because this is going to be a lot of
Speaker 2: a lot of action, right so, and they're going to
Speaker 2: be really tired at the end. But so we put
Speaker 2: out an open call for participants. Again, I have to
Speaker 2: talk to my registration team to figure out exactly how many.
Speaker 2: But we very carefully curated the list right to be
Speaker 2: inclusive and make sure that we've got some really top
Speaker 2: end athletes from conventional traditional growing and some relative newcomers
Speaker 2: as well, just to shake things up.
Speaker 1: So there will be sixteen teams, and so you'll have
Speaker 1: eight competitions. Those eight winners will then face off in
Speaker 1: a second round. You'll go down four people for four teams.
Speaker 1: They'll face off, and then the two finalists will face off.
Speaker 1: Is it all one and done? There's no like two
Speaker 1: out of three or anything like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, we're we're going cutthroat, We're going brutal. Right,
Speaker 2: So it's a single elimination bracket tournament, similar to March
Speaker 2: Badness or or other kinds of tournaments like that. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and whoever wins gets a trophy at the end. No really,
Speaker 2: Oh yeah yeah, no, this trophy, I've seen it. It
Speaker 2: would look pretty good sitting on your mantle, just saying.
Speaker 2: And of course the ultimate prize is the bragging rights,
Speaker 2: which you can't really put a value on. Of course.
Speaker 1: Now I'm assuming I could be wrong, but I'll make
Speaker 1: the assumption that all of your teams are probably, if
Speaker 1: not New England based, at least maybe even Boston based.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, so that that is definitely a fair assumption.
Speaker 1: Right, Ringer team from Siberia, I assume.
Speaker 2: No, definitely not. But I mean, so the Charles is
Speaker 2: in many ways the best possible venue for this event, right,
Speaker 2: So we have a critical mass of really good rowers, right, So,
Speaker 2: super great athletes signed up, including some former national team athletes, right,
Speaker 2: who have competed at the highest levels of sport has
Speaker 2: to offer. So you know, spectators tomorrow are really going
Speaker 2: to be in for a treat.
Speaker 1: Now, people going to be able to. We now have
Speaker 1: legalized sports betting in Massachusetts. If there's going to be
Speaker 1: anyone taking bets.
Speaker 2: On over the on the bridge, yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 2: People could be taking action. I'll be on the lookout
Speaker 2: for that tomorrow.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So how did you get involved in this? Are you?
Speaker 1: Are you actually a Boston guy who's coming home for
Speaker 1: this event or are you somebody who is Boston based? Yeah?
Speaker 2: I have lived in Yeah, I've lived in the Boston
Speaker 2: area now for twenty five years. I've been a rower.
Speaker 2: I'm a champion myself, so I've won Head of the
Speaker 2: Charles three times, and so a few friends of mine
Speaker 2: we're putting this together in collaboration with Red Bull. We've
Speaker 2: done similar events in the past as well. And they
Speaker 2: called me up and I said, yeah, man, sign me
Speaker 2: up for one more ride.
Speaker 1: I'm only did you row in college?
Speaker 2: I did?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: No, So I wrote it Mit. You lost every race
Speaker 2: except one, and I decided that wasn't enough, so I
Speaker 2: kept going.
Speaker 1: My son in law played basketball at MIT, and so
Speaker 1: I know that it's a Division III school. I had
Speaker 1: no idea what they were in terms of rowing. But
Speaker 1: you were able because you went to MIT. You can
Speaker 1: figure this sixteen down to eight, down to four, down
Speaker 1: to two, down to a champion pretty easily. You got
Speaker 1: the math down at least for this, I'm sure.
Speaker 2: Right, absolutely, Yeah, I'll be checking the list twice, but
Speaker 2: I think I got it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, Mike. You got a good sense of
Speaker 1: human you got a good way about you. You could
Speaker 1: be a radio guy or a TV guy. Very good
Speaker 1: at what you're doing. You're gonna be the MC tomorrow.
Speaker 1: I'm sure it's going to be very entertaining, entertaining and
Speaker 1: a lot of fun. It starts at one o'clock goes
Speaker 1: until close to five, four forty five. The the John W.
Speaker 1: Week's Footbridge on the Charles kind of near Harvard and
Speaker 1: the world Boat House, and the parking's not bad over
Speaker 1: there at this time of year. I hope Harvard doesn't
Speaker 1: have a football game tomorrow. Maybe you know that. I
Speaker 1: don't know if they do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm sure there will be a spot for everyone,
Speaker 2: and it's not too hard to get to via the
Speaker 2: tea or the bus as well. So come check us
Speaker 2: out Week's foot Bridge. Like you said, one to five tomorrow,
Speaker 2: all right.
Speaker 1: Sounds great, Mike Ferry. I appreciate the time. You've got
Speaker 1: a great sense of humor in for an M I T. Guy.
Speaker 1: You're pretty quick. I mean no, no, only kidding, only
Speaker 1: getting Thanks very much. I appreciate it.
Speaker 2: Right, have a great evening, Dan, Thank you, thanks so much.
Speaker 1: We go back. We're going to talk about something all
Speaker 1: of us would like to have more of happiness. Stay
Speaker 1: right with us here on Nightside. We're trying to have
Speaker 1: fun on a Friday night. Tell you about some things.
Speaker 1: Maybe that if you have nothing to do tomorrow, or
Speaker 1: if you do it, have something scheduled earlier in the day,
Speaker 1: go down and get the and take it. This should
Speaker 1: be fun. That should be fun. We'll be back on
Speaker 1: Nightside right after this. Now back to Dan ray Line
Speaker 1: from the Window World.
Speaker 2: Night Side Studios on WBZ News Radio.
Speaker 1: All right, I'm delighted to introduce to you doctor David Wexler.
Speaker 1: He's an ear nose and throat specialist at Marlborough Hospital
Speaker 1: and he's been collaborating with NASA to analyze the effects
Speaker 1: of space on hearing. Doctor Wexler, I don't want to
Speaker 1: sound like a pessimist, but this sounds like an extraordinary
Speaker 1: effort that you're making.
Speaker 4: How are you able to even do this, well, I've
Speaker 4: been an inros Anda guy for a long time. Oh,
Speaker 4: I've always been interested in the ear and hearing. It
Speaker 4: took me a little while to find there was a
Speaker 4: need to do this study with NASA. NASA is always
Speaker 4: interested in cup health and safety right from the beginning,
Speaker 4: from the early days of the military transition into modern spaceflight,
Speaker 4: so they've always checked hearing. But in the last twenty
Speaker 4: years or so, they've started checking hearing on orbit, not
Speaker 4: just before and after spaceflight, but while they're up there orbiting,
Speaker 4: like on the International Space Station, so that test is
Speaker 4: caught an on orbit hearing assessment. It's actually done by
Speaker 4: the astronauts and the OOHA or ouha is the on
Speaker 4: orbit hearing assessments that they do. Interestingly, side note, the
Speaker 4: Russian word for ear is uha uha, So the Russians
Speaker 4: have their uha, but we in NASA have ouha the
Speaker 4: hearing tests, and that data has been collected for a
Speaker 4: long time. There's hundreds of these tests. Of course, it's
Speaker 4: been looked at, but it's never been systematically and fully
Speaker 4: analyzed or published. So I got involved with that this
Speaker 4: past year, okay, And so the study is underway. It's
Speaker 4: a whole process to get approval for this. There's a
Speaker 4: lot of privacy issues with the astronaut data, but you
Speaker 4: go through all the committees and all the training and
Speaker 4: like there you go. The study is happening, and it's
Speaker 4: very exciting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so let me ask you. There have been I
Speaker 1: can remember Alan Shepherd and John Glenn and some of
Speaker 1: the astronauts who died, Gus Grissom, as well as of
Speaker 1: course the Challenger and all of that. They must have
Speaker 1: a lot of data on the astronauts who have spent
Speaker 1: a lot of time up in space. Is the focus
Speaker 1: of this study to find out what impact spaceflight has,
Speaker 1: what residual impact spaceflight has on an individual's hearing? Is
Speaker 1: that the focus of the study.
Speaker 4: It's a very good question, what you ask, and we're interested,
Speaker 4: of course in all of it. So there's an office
Speaker 4: called the Longitudinal Surveillance of Astronaut Health. They can concerned
Speaker 4: themselves with the whole thing during the astronaut years and
Speaker 4: the rest of the life of the astronauts to see
Speaker 4: how things play out. The main focus of the study
Speaker 4: that I'm doing is to say, hey, what happens to
Speaker 4: hearing in space? We know what their baseline hearing test
Speaker 4: was pre flight. How we doing when we're on orbit
Speaker 4: for a month or six months or.
Speaker 3: Up to a year.
Speaker 4: That's a lot of stress on the system. Of course,
Speaker 4: it shows up in other ways too, not just the ears.
Speaker 4: There's concerns about changes in vision, there's bone loss. There's
Speaker 4: a lot that happens if you stay in space for
Speaker 4: a long time. So all the organ systems are understudy,
Speaker 4: they're under surveillance, and of course I'm interested in the
Speaker 4: hearing part of it. So we have the hearing tests
Speaker 4: and it's done by astronauts, not by professional audiologists, So
Speaker 4: we're we have to factor that into the accuracy of
Speaker 4: the data. That's my job to work on that and
Speaker 4: get the proper statistical analysis.
Speaker 2: When the study is.
Speaker 1: The astronauts, the tester done on the astronauts, but they're
Speaker 1: not being tested by audiologists. Are being tested by other astronauts.
Speaker 1: That I misunderstand.
Speaker 4: Well, until we get an audiologist in space. I mean
Speaker 4: they're on the space station, gotcha, Okay, they're doing instrumentation
Speaker 4: on this. Everything that's measured on astronauts is done by astronauts.
Speaker 1: I think what I thought, what we were talking about
Speaker 1: was when an astronaut first goes into space. All of
Speaker 1: us who have ever been on an airplane know that
Speaker 1: as the airplane moves up five thousand and thirty thousand
Speaker 1: feeds you your ears sort of pop. Everyone has had
Speaker 1: a has had that experience. So if that happens while
Speaker 1: you're on an airplane, which is in a controlled situation,
Speaker 1: obviously they must be more impact on astronauts. My question
Speaker 1: is this, and again I probably am asking dumb questions,
Speaker 1: but I learned in law school there's no such thing
Speaker 1: as a dumb question. Has there been studies which say, okay,
Speaker 1: before this space flight, their hearing level is here, and
Speaker 1: after that seven days in space or seven weeks in space,
Speaker 1: the hearing when they come back to Earth, they test
Speaker 1: them up in space. I assume they test them when
Speaker 1: they come back and you can have an audiologist test.
Speaker 1: Is there a change.
Speaker 4: So that data, the older data is published. It was
Speaker 4: looked at around two thousand and three and published, and
Speaker 4: the ear holds up pretty well. When you test postflight,
Speaker 4: it's looking not bad.
Speaker 1: Okay. I like that.
Speaker 4: There was some concern that there's changing during flight, because
Speaker 4: again your body's floating, the fluid is shifting in your body.
Speaker 4: You're getting different pressure in your head and then your
Speaker 4: sinuses and then your mastoid. So there was concern is
Speaker 4: the hearing shifting on orbit and could just have operational implications.
Speaker 4: But to answer your question, before and after, so far
Speaker 4: that data is looking good. Now there's some additional review
Speaker 4: I'm doing in a large data set, but my main
Speaker 4: focus is what's happening in between before and after. I'm
Speaker 4: doing like while they're up there.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you're testing up there, and I assume that
Speaker 1: the results are still too early to define anything specifically.
Speaker 4: Well, I'm not supposed to release what I have yet
Speaker 4: until it clears with NASA, they're very careful, okay with
Speaker 4: data control mass. This study is happening and we will
Speaker 4: have some answers.
Speaker 1: Okay, how long do you think we'll have to wait
Speaker 1: for those? Are we talking about six months? People will
Speaker 1: want to look forward to hearing it and say, gee,
Speaker 1: I heard doctor Wex Lauran with Dan Ray and WBZ
Speaker 1: in September. Is there a time frame on the release
Speaker 1: of that information.
Speaker 4: Well, I'm hoping to get approval for an abstract for
Speaker 4: Aerospace Medical Association meeting. You know, in the next couple
Speaker 4: months or so, and that'll get our foothold.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so that would be a public formal presentation with
Speaker 1: be open to the media and the public or is
Speaker 1: that a closed event by.
Speaker 4: The time of the official meeting, which is I think
Speaker 4: it's going to be on June first, then it's definitely
Speaker 4: out in the public. Okay, So I think it might
Speaker 4: be approved for release before then, but the official public
Speaker 4: presentation would be like in June in Atlanta, Okay.
Speaker 1: So therefore less than than a year from now the
Speaker 1: findings will be released. One final question, has there been
Speaker 1: a long term study on astronauts compared to the to
Speaker 1: the to the non astronauts, to the public at large
Speaker 1: that as the astronauts have aged, I think all of
Speaker 1: us who age lose a little acuity in hearing. I
Speaker 1: would think that probably true. Absolutely their loss of acuity
Speaker 1: and hearing any greater than the public at large?
Speaker 2: Or is it is it?
Speaker 1: Is it better you know, less loss of acuity and hearing.
Speaker 4: Well, you definitely ask all the right questions. There's some
Speaker 4: unpublished data, even though we do there is a study.
Speaker 4: I'm holding a study from twenty fourteen that shows how
Speaker 4: this hearing drops off with age in astronauts, and although
Speaker 4: we still have to go back and compare against the
Speaker 4: general population, I think it's a bit worse than astronauts
Speaker 4: because many of them that are older now started off
Speaker 4: as military pilots with a lot of noise exposure from
Speaker 4: the old jets, so that was a disadvantage. Let me
Speaker 4: say something interesting to close out. In this same chart
Speaker 4: that I'm looking at right now, the female astronauts did
Speaker 4: better than the men as a group. The male astronauts
Speaker 4: really have diminished hearing compared to the women with age.
Speaker 1: But I will also add there were male astronauts for
Speaker 1: many years before female astronauts, so I hope they have
Speaker 1: taken that into consideration.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the curbs don't go all the way out for
Speaker 4: women because they got into the game later. Okay, there's
Speaker 4: many trends that have to be followed, and NASA does
Speaker 4: follow them, and that's and I'm trying to be part
Speaker 4: of it.
Speaker 2: So it's exciting.
Speaker 1: You've you've been a great guest. I really enjoyed it.
Speaker 1: I've asked you tough questions and uh, but you've more
Speaker 1: than my match. Doctor. Thank you so much, Thank you very.
Speaker 4: Much, And let's let's follow up next to your Thanks.
Speaker 1: I'd love to doctor David Wexler ear knows and throws
Speaker 1: specialists at Marlborough Hospital. You know what I like about
Speaker 1: your doctor. You're enthusiastic about what you're doing, and I
Speaker 1: just think that is the key for anyone. Your enthusiasm
Speaker 1: comes through the radio loud and clear. I mean that
Speaker 1: as a total, the absolute compliment that I could possibly
Speaker 1: are for. Thank you very much.
Speaker 2: I really appreciate that and my pleasure to speak with you.
Speaker 2: Thanks great.
Speaker 1: All right, we come back. We're going to talk about
Speaker 1: a pretty ugly incident that took place in Newton last night.
Speaker 1: I guess around five point thirty six o'clock. We'll break
Speaker 1: it down, and I hope you'll join the conversation on
Speaker 1: this one because this is an ugly incident in what
Speaker 1: a considered to be one of the nicest communities in
Speaker 1: the country, Newton, Massachusetts. Back on nightside after the nine
Speaker 1: o'clock news