1
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:01,000
Good and nice.

2
00:00:10,800 --> 00:00:12,000
Hello everybody.

3
00:00:12,000 --> 00:00:13,200
Welcome back.

4
00:00:13,200 --> 00:00:16,200
This is VK and this is K.

5
00:00:17,000 --> 00:00:24,800
This is our second episode for those who engaged with our podcast.

6
00:00:24,800 --> 00:00:28,300
Those who downloaded the first episode.

7
00:00:28,300 --> 00:00:32,400
We are so very grateful to have you with us.

8
00:00:32,400 --> 00:00:40,600
We are very excited to welcome new people who may be joining us for the first time.

9
00:00:40,600 --> 00:00:49,000
Please hit like and subscribe on whatever platform you're using to listen to us today.

10
00:00:49,000 --> 00:00:57,200
For those who are joining us for the first time, we'll do a brief introduction and I'll start with K.

11
00:00:57,200 --> 00:00:59,400
Hi, this is K.

12
00:00:59,400 --> 00:01:05,600
I have a PhD in physics and I am a college professor.

13
00:01:05,600 --> 00:01:15,000
We are here trying to talk to you about exciting science that almost always lies outside our discipline,

14
00:01:15,000 --> 00:01:16,200
but excites us a lot.

15
00:01:16,200 --> 00:01:24,000
It's about what is in current media and is to chat a little bit about what we found interesting in there.

16
00:01:24,000 --> 00:01:28,200
Because these are the conversations we have with each other for the whole week.

17
00:01:29,200 --> 00:01:30,800
And I'm VK.

18
00:01:30,800 --> 00:01:37,400
I am also a college professor and I have a PhD in psychology.

19
00:01:37,400 --> 00:01:46,400
Between the two of us, we have decades of teaching experience and we love talking science with each other.

20
00:01:46,400 --> 00:01:55,000
We find articles in newspapers and news media and then we spend time talking to each other about it.

21
00:01:55,000 --> 00:02:07,200
Most of the time, like you said, these articles are outside our realm of expertise and the sheer joy that we get from discussing the science

22
00:02:07,200 --> 00:02:10,800
is the reason that we're doing this podcast.

23
00:02:10,800 --> 00:02:23,800
Especially because these are difficult times for a lot of people and the newspapers, the media is full of negativity,

24
00:02:23,800 --> 00:02:32,800
despair, and we find that the science that we discover when we read the newspapers,

25
00:02:32,800 --> 00:02:42,800
when we read or watch mass media is the stuff that gives us glimmers of hope in this sea of despair.

26
00:02:42,800 --> 00:02:44,200
And absolutely.

27
00:02:44,200 --> 00:02:55,200
And for me to sort of add on top of that is the idea that the crowning discovery of our species is not the science,

28
00:02:55,200 --> 00:02:57,000
but it's the scientific method.

29
00:02:57,000 --> 00:03:09,600
And I think for me, every time we discuss science, these articles, the method that's being applied to do this is almost exactly the same as it was in the past.

30
00:03:09,600 --> 00:03:12,800
It's the same idea over and over again.

31
00:03:12,800 --> 00:03:23,800
Yeah, and I think that's a really important point, K, because the scientific method has stood the test of time.

32
00:03:23,800 --> 00:03:36,200
And in fact, when you read about scientists who've gone rogue, who published bad data or did things that were not correct,

33
00:03:36,200 --> 00:03:40,200
it's because they weren't following the scientific method.

34
00:03:40,200 --> 00:03:48,800
And there's a beauty and an elegance to that method, which really, I think, is what you're talking about, right?

35
00:03:48,800 --> 00:03:51,200
Yes, indeed. That's absolutely right.

36
00:03:51,200 --> 00:04:02,000
So I think it also for the other beautiful aspect of this is that the scientific method is the same across any discipline.

37
00:04:02,000 --> 00:04:15,800
And that's why these articles that we keep discussing are so fascinating because the method is applied to solve a problem from many different disciplines together.

38
00:04:15,800 --> 00:04:18,400
Yeah, that's a beautiful thing to say.

39
00:04:18,400 --> 00:04:26,600
Okay, I mean, and I'm so appreciative of you highlighting that because that not to like give the story away,

40
00:04:26,600 --> 00:04:34,400
but that's going to be a thing that I'm really going to highlight in our discussion today.

41
00:04:34,400 --> 00:04:37,200
Just as a reminder, we do this once a week.

42
00:04:37,200 --> 00:04:41,800
So, you know, usually do this on a weekend.

43
00:04:41,800 --> 00:04:45,600
This is our weekend joy.

44
00:04:45,600 --> 00:04:57,000
Also heads up, we went out yesterday on a date and I had like one cocktail and now my throat is just a little bit scratchy.

45
00:04:57,000 --> 00:05:04,600
So if my voice sounds hoarse or I need to take a little bit of a break to cough, it's only because of that.

46
00:05:04,600 --> 00:05:06,000
We had a lot of fun though, right?

47
00:05:06,000 --> 00:05:07,200
Yes, we had a lot of fun.

48
00:05:07,200 --> 00:05:09,400
So I think we're going to have a lot of fun doing this today.

49
00:05:09,400 --> 00:05:12,000
Exactly. All right.

50
00:05:12,000 --> 00:05:19,600
So we'll get started. The episode is Old Seed New Hope.

51
00:05:19,600 --> 00:05:21,000
What did we find, K?

52
00:05:21,000 --> 00:05:24,800
Oh, I don't know how this article came to your attention.

53
00:05:24,800 --> 00:05:34,400
I think you found it on a site and you told me about it and I was I think I looked for it on Google sort of, you know,

54
00:05:34,400 --> 00:05:49,000
so this article was about an archaeology group that had discovered a seed in one of their excavations and had to figure out where it came from,

55
00:05:49,000 --> 00:05:54,000
what it was, whether it was still viable.

56
00:05:54,000 --> 00:05:58,800
And yeah, it takes us into biblical references.

57
00:05:58,800 --> 00:06:07,400
Yes. So excuse me. I found this article on CNN and when I read it,

58
00:06:07,400 --> 00:06:21,600
I was immediately hooked because the seed in that they were talking about was found in a cave that was being excavated

59
00:06:21,600 --> 00:06:27,200
and they think the seed is at least a thousand years old.

60
00:06:27,200 --> 00:06:28,800
Am I right about that, K?

61
00:06:28,800 --> 00:06:35,400
Yeah. Well, in fact, they had to find out how old the seeds were because that was a part of the study.

62
00:06:35,400 --> 00:06:37,800
We're going to talk about that a little bit.

63
00:06:37,800 --> 00:06:49,600
Yeah. And this article was presented in CNN and CNN covered it and has an interview with the lead investigator.

64
00:06:49,600 --> 00:06:56,800
But the original articles actually published in Nature Communications Biology.

65
00:06:56,800 --> 00:06:59,800
It's an open source journal.

66
00:06:59,800 --> 00:07:06,600
We link both the CNN article and the original article that we both read.

67
00:07:06,600 --> 00:07:12,600
Yes. And unlike the episode that we did last time, this article actually was published in September of 24.

68
00:07:12,600 --> 00:07:14,000
So it's quite recent.

69
00:07:14,000 --> 00:07:17,100
Yep. Yep. It got published now.

70
00:07:17,100 --> 00:07:22,000
But as you'll see, times are variable in this story as well.

71
00:07:22,000 --> 00:07:31,000
Well, and just to sort of also add that the fact that there was a biblical reference at the end of this obviously got attention.

72
00:07:31,000 --> 00:07:38,800
Absolutely. And there's more to the biblical reference than just the fact that it's from the time.

73
00:07:38,800 --> 00:07:43,400
It's also because of what the seed actually represents.

74
00:07:43,400 --> 00:07:47,500
Oh, yeah. This was a really cool sort of publication.

75
00:07:47,500 --> 00:07:54,800
So we I had a lot of fun reading it and we're going to tell you everything about what we liked about it and what we thought about it.

76
00:07:54,800 --> 00:08:03,800
OK. So mostly, I found the article easy to read, but there were sections that were very technical.

77
00:08:03,800 --> 00:08:07,500
They use the word spectroscopy a lot.

78
00:08:07,500 --> 00:08:16,100
And I was thinking about you and I was feeling very grateful that I actually have someone who can explain this to me.

79
00:08:16,100 --> 00:08:26,400
Yeah, I will. And of course, in fact, I'm very excited to because this is sort of spans the multidisciplinary aspect of this.

80
00:08:26,400 --> 00:08:31,400
You know, science comes comes to the fore in this work.

81
00:08:31,400 --> 00:08:44,500
So, you know, before we sort of jump off, there was another thought that I wanted to sort of share with you was the the idea of finding a seed

82
00:08:44,500 --> 00:09:01,600
and then finding out where it came from and then making it sort of viable, making it a living thing again sort of really questions the borderline of what's living as we understand it and what's not.

83
00:09:01,600 --> 00:09:07,800
You know, there are certainly irreversibly sort of dead processes.

84
00:09:07,800 --> 00:09:13,100
And then there is life and then there are seeds. And it's fascinating what lies in between.

85
00:09:13,100 --> 00:09:25,100
Amazing. One of the things that got me hooked to the original article and I'm talking about the journal article as soon as I read it was that this is not the oldest seed they found.

86
00:09:25,100 --> 00:09:31,400
The oldest seed actually is from 30,000 years ago.

87
00:09:31,400 --> 00:09:36,300
And I think we have to clarify in this case, we are saying the seeds are viable.

88
00:09:36,300 --> 00:09:43,400
So these were viable seeds. So not only was the seed excavated, it needed to be dated.

89
00:09:43,400 --> 00:09:49,700
But we have to the first idea is to find out how and when this seed came from.

90
00:09:49,700 --> 00:09:56,300
And then then if it germinates and it becomes a living thing, then it's living now.

91
00:09:56,300 --> 00:10:02,100
Which I don't know about you, but it kind of reminded me of Jurassic Park.

92
00:10:02,100 --> 00:10:10,500
I was like, oh my gosh, are we bringing back like, which is exciting. I have to say it's exciting.

93
00:10:10,500 --> 00:10:22,900
It is exciting. And there is a lot of, you know, there's been a lot of popular media and films about this and certainly books and Jurassic Park is the first of it probably that comes to mind.

94
00:10:22,900 --> 00:10:25,400
We must be careful about timing here.

95
00:10:25,400 --> 00:10:34,300
And I will get into that a little bit as well, because we this is not prehistoric as in it's not millennia.

96
00:10:34,300 --> 00:10:49,900
Yeah, absolutely. You're right. I'm just using the Jurassic Park reference because the article talks about the fact that this is an important way of thinking about how to bring back old and extinct plants.

97
00:10:49,900 --> 00:11:00,500
Which if you think about it, as we head into a future with increased climate change, extinction of species,

98
00:11:00,500 --> 00:11:11,800
some of the plants that we depend on for food, for survival may need to be brought back or may need to be preserved.

99
00:11:11,800 --> 00:11:17,700
So this article actually has a lot of relevance to our lives.

100
00:11:17,700 --> 00:11:37,300
Yeah, that is true. I didn't think of that. And, you know, one of the stories I've heard when I visited some of the more rural parts of countries is about how there were so many different varieties of the same fruit or vegetable that existed,

101
00:11:37,300 --> 00:11:43,300
you know, about eight or ten decades ago compared to what exists in the same area today.

102
00:11:43,300 --> 00:11:58,600
So I think everything that you're talking about in terms of diversity and preservation and food for a changing world in terms of climate and weather patterns is something that we all have to consider.

103
00:11:58,600 --> 00:12:09,100
Absolutely. And one of the things that I found really interesting about this study and the plant that grew out of that seed,

104
00:12:09,100 --> 00:12:24,100
not to give the story away, is that the plant itself produces this resin that is known as myra.

105
00:12:24,100 --> 00:12:43,000
Or is it myra? But it's this like orange, beautiful amber color resin that actually in some species of this plant smells beautiful.

106
00:12:43,000 --> 00:12:56,100
And that's where you get frangusins from. And then in some other plants, it's medicinal, so it actually helps with like pain and anti-inflammatory, has anti-inflammatory properties.

107
00:12:56,100 --> 00:13:06,000
So the plant species themselves are like more than 200 within the same cluster. And all of them have different properties.

108
00:13:06,000 --> 00:13:09,600
So reading about that was fascinating.

109
00:13:09,600 --> 00:13:22,700
Yeah, and so just to sort of set the stage again, the study covered the idea of a seed, a seed of a plant that was covered during an archaeological excavation in the Judaean desert.

110
00:13:22,700 --> 00:13:33,900
They were able to germinate the seed and then plant that germinated seed into a pot and which became a whole tree.

111
00:13:33,900 --> 00:13:43,000
And they wanted to find out what this was and if it could have been a particular species that's mentioned in the Bible.

112
00:13:43,000 --> 00:13:49,200
And it turns out it was. It was a plant that was mentioned in the Bible.

113
00:13:49,200 --> 00:14:02,600
But here's where, Kay, like, can I interject a little bit with my specific interest in this, which was that when they got the seed, like Kay said, they germinated it.

114
00:14:02,600 --> 00:14:11,600
But it's not like they did anything special with it. They just, you know, like put some water on it and they allowed it to germinate and then they potted it up.

115
00:14:11,600 --> 00:14:21,100
Now, that by itself is astonishing because like Kay was saying earlier, it was just sitting in that cave for a thousand years.

116
00:14:21,100 --> 00:14:28,100
And they picked it up and they put it in water and they put it in soil and lo and behold, a little shoot came out.

117
00:14:28,100 --> 00:14:43,700
The other thing that I found really fascinating is that the researchers waited for 12 years while the plant grew, systematically studied it and then published the findings.

118
00:14:43,700 --> 00:14:57,200
Now, I don't know what you all call that, but I call that persistence and patience and just scientific rigor.

119
00:14:57,200 --> 00:15:04,400
Yeah. And one can imagine there were a lot of questions that were asked about, you know, whether, first of all, it was viable.

120
00:15:04,400 --> 00:15:10,100
So then how do you date it? So the idea of dating comes from radiocarbon dating mainly.

121
00:15:10,100 --> 00:15:20,100
And that's some of the stuff that I found really exciting from a physics standpoint, because although I understand sort of radioactivity is something that you all might know about.

122
00:15:20,100 --> 00:15:30,400
And that's where this comes from. But in a nutshell, we as living creatures, we breathe radioactive carbon that's in the atmosphere all the time.

123
00:15:30,400 --> 00:15:34,500
And once the creature dies, there's no more breathing.

124
00:15:34,500 --> 00:15:45,000
So it decays into the natural carbon and they sort of figure out how much is left versus how much was of one versus the other to date the species.

125
00:15:45,000 --> 00:15:50,600
So that's how this happens. And they're dated this to be about a thousand years.

126
00:15:50,600 --> 00:15:54,600
Yeah. Yeah, about a thousand years old.

127
00:15:54,600 --> 00:16:08,200
And I think one of the interesting things about radiocarbon dating, which I didn't know, is this idea that radiation levels in the atmosphere have grown over time.

128
00:16:08,200 --> 00:16:14,400
And that is one of the variables or indicators that they used to try and date it.

129
00:16:14,400 --> 00:16:16,600
It gets complicated. Yes, it does.

130
00:16:16,600 --> 00:16:23,100
I'm going off on a little bit of a tangent here, but this took me into all sorts of research.

131
00:16:23,100 --> 00:16:36,300
So there are two competing processes that can change the presence of radioactive carbon C14, as it's called in the atmosphere.

132
00:16:36,300 --> 00:16:47,700
Burning fossil fuels, I think, reduces it and the atomic tests of the 40s and 50s increased it.

133
00:16:47,700 --> 00:16:55,200
The recognition of these two processes has led to a lot of science that's been done in terms of calibration.

134
00:16:55,200 --> 00:17:06,700
So calibration standards for these are very important and maintained, and they come from some sort of oils, I think, from the 1890s.

135
00:17:06,700 --> 00:17:18,800
Yeah. And a lot of archaeological discoveries use radiocarbon dating to try and identify the time period within which the artifact existed.

136
00:17:18,800 --> 00:17:25,200
And in this case, this artifact is this beautiful seed that gave rise to this gorgeous plant.

137
00:17:25,200 --> 00:17:36,500
That's right. So they waited for the seed to germinate, took some of the husk of that germinated seed after it was parted, and then used that for radiocarbon dating.

138
00:17:36,500 --> 00:17:42,200
They also did. So, you know, all that is physics, and I'm a physicist, so we spent a long time talking about that.

139
00:17:42,200 --> 00:17:47,500
But there was a lot of cool chemistry because they actually figured out the molecular structures of these things.

140
00:17:47,500 --> 00:17:49,800
And that's where all the other kinds of spectroscopy came in.

141
00:17:49,800 --> 00:18:03,000
So gas chromatography, mass spectroscopy, NMR, a nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, all chemists tools to figure out the chemical components of the seed.

142
00:18:03,000 --> 00:18:13,400
And then there was biology. So they got DNA analysis done in order to find how you can draw what's called a phylogenetic tree,

143
00:18:13,400 --> 00:18:22,000
which tells us kind of sort of your evolution pathways because at some common ancestor point, man and monkey had a common ancestor.

144
00:18:22,000 --> 00:18:29,900
So that's the tree you draw. Right. I mean, I would really like you to quickly explain two things.

145
00:18:29,900 --> 00:18:37,700
One, what is spectroscopy? And then am I right about this? But phylogenetics is like a family tree, right?

146
00:18:37,700 --> 00:18:43,700
Yes, a family tree that comes, I think, in this case was built off genetic information.

147
00:18:43,700 --> 00:18:54,500
Spectroscopy is a very broad set of tools. It encompasses almost all our sensing technologies that we know of in modern physics.

148
00:18:54,500 --> 00:19:02,100
This could involve light. It can involve electrons. It could involve sound. All of that is spectroscopy.

149
00:19:02,100 --> 00:19:15,500
But ultimately, it's sort of interaction, if you will, of matter. What do you think of as sort of anything that's got mass and anything that doesn't like sound waves or light waves or electron waves?

150
00:19:15,500 --> 00:19:23,200
So it's wave matter interaction is what spectroscopy from a physics standpoint would get defined as.

151
00:19:23,200 --> 00:19:37,800
So let me get this right. The way you're describing it makes it sound like if I shone a light torch against your skin, I would get spectroscopic information.

152
00:19:37,800 --> 00:19:43,900
Yes, that's right. So with optics, anything that you do with light would be spectroscopy.

153
00:19:43,900 --> 00:19:50,500
So we see because of spectroscopy in sort of the most general way, if you want to think about it like that.

154
00:19:50,500 --> 00:19:57,200
That is really cool. In fact, we see in color because of spectroscopy. That is really cool.

155
00:19:57,200 --> 00:20:05,600
That is very exciting. OK, so here's some of the things that I found interesting that people might find interesting about this.

156
00:20:05,600 --> 00:20:14,000
Number one, they named the plant, y'all. Like they called the plant Sheba, which I thought was adorable.

157
00:20:14,000 --> 00:20:21,900
And then they over the 12 year period while they waited for the plant to grow, they tested the plant several times, right?

158
00:20:21,900 --> 00:20:26,400
Like this is what Kay was talking about earlier in terms of scientific rigor.

159
00:20:26,400 --> 00:20:39,000
Right. And I want to talk about that a little bit because there's a lot of emphasis on putting out scientific discoveries quickly to benefit society.

160
00:20:39,000 --> 00:20:49,900
And I don't deny that that's a good thing. I mean, for heaven's sake, we wouldn't have had COVID vaccines had people not moved quickly.

161
00:20:49,900 --> 00:20:59,200
But I also want to say that this is where scientific temperament and

162
00:20:59,200 --> 00:21:05,700
the ability to understand when speed versus slow is important comes in.

163
00:21:05,700 --> 00:21:11,800
And this is where training comes in. Right. Like the scientist who was interviewed by CNN was very clear.

164
00:21:11,800 --> 00:21:22,100
Like they did not want to report because they were not sure what the plant was. So they waited for 12 years.

165
00:21:22,100 --> 00:21:29,500
They sat on that data, observing it, trying to figure it out until they were sure they were not going to pull the plug.

166
00:21:29,500 --> 00:21:34,300
Yeah, it was a great study and it was painstakingly done.

167
00:21:34,300 --> 00:21:39,700
And the other thing was the collaboration team was international.

168
00:21:39,700 --> 00:21:47,800
So I think there were people from all over the world that were collaborating on different aspects of this study.

169
00:21:47,800 --> 00:21:52,900
And sort of the other fun fact that I wanted to mention was, you know,

170
00:21:52,900 --> 00:22:00,200
all of this was also modeled with statistics because and then I would sort of encourage any

171
00:22:00,200 --> 00:22:06,700
of the people who chase the paper link down to glance at the methods part of the paper.

172
00:22:06,700 --> 00:22:10,800
It's sort of the most technical component of these studies,

173
00:22:10,800 --> 00:22:21,300
but it gives you a sense of how much detail, attention to detail there is and how much we care about that in these sorts of peer reviewed journal articles.

174
00:22:21,300 --> 00:22:24,300
Yeah, and I want to highlight that again, this idea.

175
00:22:24,300 --> 00:22:34,400
I am so glad K is pointing to that because I think like when I think about old seed new hope,

176
00:22:34,400 --> 00:22:39,200
I also think the scientific method is like an old seed.

177
00:22:39,200 --> 00:22:43,500
It has all this potential, this beautiful rigor within it.

178
00:22:43,500 --> 00:22:50,400
When we don't follow it, when we are not trained to understand,

179
00:22:50,400 --> 00:22:56,500
when we need to take a beat and think about the data versus when we need to rush it out,

180
00:22:56,500 --> 00:22:59,100
that's when big mistakes happen, right?

181
00:22:59,100 --> 00:23:03,200
And you see this happening a lot with the tech industry.

182
00:23:03,200 --> 00:23:11,300
Things get put out and six months later, it's like, oh, that didn't work exactly as we thought.

183
00:23:11,300 --> 00:23:17,400
So I want us to really think about that.

184
00:23:17,400 --> 00:23:28,300
What if a seed can wait for a thousand years in a cave, waiting for the right opportunity to grow,

185
00:23:28,300 --> 00:23:31,000
waiting for the right conditions to grow.

186
00:23:31,000 --> 00:23:39,700
What that tells me is that knowledge, information, truth can take that time.

187
00:23:39,700 --> 00:23:41,200
I couldn't agree more with that.

188
00:23:41,200 --> 00:23:49,100
So, you know, I don't know if we talked about this idea on the podcast yet, but about, you know,

189
00:23:49,100 --> 00:23:56,200
we're creating knowledge and obviously our technological society is the product of the knowledge

190
00:23:56,200 --> 00:24:01,200
that we have created, but we are expanding this rate of creation of knowledge.

191
00:24:01,200 --> 00:24:07,500
Our technological success has come because the knowledge we created was true.

192
00:24:07,500 --> 00:24:12,600
It took time to refine the truth and get to it so that we could stand on it.

193
00:24:12,600 --> 00:24:18,400
And if we rush, I don't think those foundations get built right.

194
00:24:18,400 --> 00:24:25,600
I agree. I do also want to say, like the mRNA technology that produced the vaccines had to move.

195
00:24:25,600 --> 00:24:29,600
Like there was a genuine medical emergency.

196
00:24:29,600 --> 00:24:35,200
I think the thing that I'm trying to highlight, I completely agree with you, K,

197
00:24:35,200 --> 00:24:40,300
is that when you're taught to be a good scientist and you follow the scientific method,

198
00:24:40,300 --> 00:24:43,300
you will know when it's time. You will know.

199
00:24:43,300 --> 00:24:50,300
Yes. And even when you develop, in fact, even more so when you have to rapidly deploy things

200
00:24:50,300 --> 00:24:57,300
like the mRNA vaccines or, you know, other platforms that were developed during the COVID time,

201
00:24:57,300 --> 00:25:05,300
we had to test its veracity before it could be, you know, deployed in the world.

202
00:25:05,300 --> 00:25:11,300
And that was already an experiment that many people were not comfortable with the timeline

203
00:25:11,300 --> 00:25:15,300
because we usually take years to do these studies.

204
00:25:15,300 --> 00:25:19,300
And those concerns are legitimate. I completely agree with that.

205
00:25:19,300 --> 00:25:26,300
And I think one of the things that I would like us to think about is that

206
00:25:26,300 --> 00:25:32,300
as we go forward into making more scientific discoveries,

207
00:25:32,300 --> 00:25:40,300
I think it's the scientific method that helps us understand when it's time to publish,

208
00:25:40,300 --> 00:25:45,300
when it's time to talk about it, when it's time to present the findings.

209
00:25:45,300 --> 00:25:49,300
When it goes wrong is when the ego gets in the way.

210
00:25:49,300 --> 00:25:52,300
When it's no longer about the science, it's no longer about the discovery,

211
00:25:52,300 --> 00:25:55,300
it's about the person who did the work.

212
00:25:55,300 --> 00:25:59,300
And I wanted to say this in the beginning, too.

213
00:25:59,300 --> 00:26:04,300
We think the scientific method is dispassionate, but we are not.

214
00:26:04,300 --> 00:26:07,300
And we are the ones that practice the method.

215
00:26:07,300 --> 00:26:13,300
So it's important to understand that and it's important to try to sort of isolate that as best as possible.

216
00:26:13,300 --> 00:26:19,300
And the mantra in my lab is mostly let the data speak to you.

217
00:26:19,300 --> 00:26:23,300
Exactly. And I call it data fidelity.

218
00:26:23,300 --> 00:26:27,300
And I call it fidelity overall else.

219
00:26:27,300 --> 00:26:31,300
We've had a really interesting discussion today.

220
00:26:31,300 --> 00:26:32,300
This was a long discussion.

221
00:26:32,300 --> 00:26:34,300
It went into places that we didn't fully sort of think.

222
00:26:34,300 --> 00:26:37,300
I had notes that we couldn't get to, but that's great.

223
00:26:37,300 --> 00:26:39,300
We knew which means more things to talk about later.

224
00:26:39,300 --> 00:26:41,300
Yeah. And I feel like that's what seeds do.

225
00:26:41,300 --> 00:26:43,300
You never know what they're going to do.

226
00:26:43,300 --> 00:26:46,300
That's right. They sprout and they do their own thing.

227
00:26:46,300 --> 00:26:48,300
Yep. Exactly right.

228
00:26:48,300 --> 00:26:56,300
All right. So we want to make sure that folks who have joined us again for the second time know that we value you.

229
00:26:56,300 --> 00:26:58,300
We value your attention.

230
00:26:58,300 --> 00:27:03,300
Please hit like or subscribe on whatever platform you're listening to us.

231
00:27:03,300 --> 00:27:05,300
And I'll say the same thing.

232
00:27:05,300 --> 00:27:08,300
We really appreciate listeners' inputs.

233
00:27:08,300 --> 00:27:15,300
So if you can tell us what you would like us to talk about a little more or a little less, we might be able to accommodate.

234
00:27:15,300 --> 00:27:16,300
Absolutely.

235
00:27:16,300 --> 00:27:25,300
We're going to put an email address in the description along with links to the article so folks can look this information up.

236
00:27:25,300 --> 00:27:32,300
Next time, we are going to dig a little bit deeper into the whole climate change issue.

237
00:27:32,300 --> 00:27:41,300
Yeah, especially given the storms that hit North America and the amounts of rain and water damage there was.

238
00:27:41,300 --> 00:27:45,300
There's been an article that I think we both liked.

239
00:27:45,300 --> 00:27:51,300
Yeah. And in particular, I mean, this is also a little bit personal for us because we love Asheville.

240
00:27:51,300 --> 00:27:54,300
We've been there like about four times.

241
00:27:54,300 --> 00:28:04,300
And yeah, we want to talk a little bit about why people were so surprised and what are some of the reasons why the flooding is worse than people thought.

242
00:28:04,300 --> 00:28:12,300
And what we're learning about the natural ebbs and flows of why nature is the way it is.

243
00:28:12,300 --> 00:28:17,300
Yeah. So looking forward to catching up with you all next time.

244
00:28:17,300 --> 00:28:19,300
Well, next time. See you all.

245
00:28:19,300 --> 00:28:47,300
See ya.