The Science Pawdcast

Season 5 Episode 25: Sports Supplements Deception, What Dogs Hear, and Biochemistry PhD Candidate Grant Steiner

• Jason Zackowski • Season 5 • Episode 25

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Prepare to be shocked as we expose the deceptive world of sports supplements, revealing that only 11% of the 60 tested products contained an accurate amount of the ingredients listed on the label. With prohibited compounds lurking in 7 of these supplements, we question how these inaccuracies bypass the FDA's attention. But it's not all gloom and doom; we also dive into the commendable efforts made by organizations to ensure these supplements are accurately represented.

We also look at a study that mapped dog brains after hearing human and dog sounds.  What do you think the findings were?  You'll have to listen to find out!

Our guest for this episode is the dynamic Grant Steiner, a biochemistry PhD candidate at Loyola Chicago. His personal encounter with a cancer scare at 13 fostered his fascination with foundational sciences and their role in understanding the human body. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg! Grant’s current research on cyanobacteria, photosynthesis, and the Great Oxygenation Event offers intriguing insights into the planet’s history and future. We also touch on his studies on carbon capture as a climate change mitigation strategy and the critical role of Rubisco, the most abundant protein on Earth.

Adding a touch of warmth and humor, we slide into discussions about Grant's lifelong love for animals, starting with his beloved pet, Shelby. Discover how pet ownership can cultivate empathy for animals. We emphasize the importance of engaging young minds in STEM and environmentalism, and the significant role of voting in shaping these fields. And of course, no show can end without some laughter, so we wrap up with a light-hearted conversation about Annalise's donut-craving cats, Mouse and Larry. So, brace yourself for an exciting mix of science, pet tales, and environmental advocacies!


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Speaker 2:

Hello science enthusiasts. My name is Jason Zikowski. I'm a high school chemistry teacher and a science communicator, but I'm also the dog dad of Bunsen and Beaker, the science dogs on social media. If you love science and you love pets, you've come to the right place. Put on your lab coat, put on your safety glasses and hold onto your tail. This is the Science Podcast.

Speaker 2:

Hello everybody, welcome back to the Science Podcast. We hope you're happy and healthy out there. Guess who is back? Yeah, that's right. Adam and Chris are back from their 11 day marching band trip to the East Coast. They had a wonderful time. The dogs literally went bananas when they came inside the house. So they are all the dogs are so happy that Chris and Adam are back. So am I. So things are kind of back to normal in the household and our week has been so fun where we've been paddle boarding. We have the rest of the summer to look forward to.

Speaker 2:

Okay, what's on the Science Podcast this week? In Science News, we're going to look at a bit of an expose on sports supplements, hmm, yes. And in pet science we are going to look at the dog's brain in response to human speech. This is a cool one, our guest and ask an expert is PhD candidate Grant Steiner who's going to talk to us about cyanobacteria, that's the bacteria that causes the blue green algae blooms, which is toxic to dogs Except, is it blue green algae? Well, you'll have to listen. Okay, since we're talking about sports today, let's do some sports puns. Did you know that a lot of fish refuse to play basketball? They're afraid of the net. And wait, wait, there's one baseball player that holds the water the best. Which baseball player is it? It's the pitcher.

Speaker 2:

Okay, all these puns can't be champions on with the show, because there's no time like science time. This week in Science News, this study came across the airwaves of social media and I decided to do a little bit deeper dive into it. It's about sports supplements. Now this is maybe heading a little close to home, because when I was a university student, I worked at this store called GNC Maybe you've seen it in malls general nutrition center or something. I actually forget what their acronym stands for. But boy, we sold all manner of supplements protein powders, bars, creatine, amino acids, vitamins, everything, herbs, you name it. This place sold it, and I know Chris and I do take some supplements. We take protein powder. There is this shake that I've had every single morning for literally a year. Well, okay, I haven't had it every single morning, sometimes not if we've been traveling, but if I'm home I'm having this shake. It's delicious, but it uses vanilla protein powder and I was like, oh no, what's going on with sports supplements?

Speaker 2:

In a report to JAMA network open, a group of scientists looked at 60 dietary supplements and only 11% of them contained an accurate amount of the ingredients listed on the label. That was the kicker. So that's like the headline. That's not necessarily great. So it says you're getting I don't know. Let's take protein powder, for example. Let's say you're getting 25 grams of protein in your protein powder, but you're not. You're getting way less. Well, you're getting kind of I'd be feel like I'm getting kind of ripped off. Or maybe you're getting way more of something like sugar. Maybe you're trying to, you know, not have a lot of sugars in your diet and this has, but says it's got six, but really it's got 12. So that 11% accuracy is really concerning. Now, further concerning is 40% of the tested supplements didn't even have detectable amounts of the ingredients listed, meaning that they said they had, I don't know, vitamin C at a certain level, and they could not even detect it in the lab. If you're wondering what things they looked at in the study, that's a great question. I was too.

Speaker 2:

The analyzed 57 sports supplements that claimed to have things like our of the maturia, halo, stashin, octopamine, turcan, sterone. So, anyways, their stimulants are muscle builders. When they looked at these 57 specific muscle building supplements, only 34 of them contained the claimed ingredient, which means they said they had an ingredient on the label. That was like a big deal and 34 of them had it. But that means that means 13 didn't have any and only six of the 34 had the right amount, the approximate right amount, to be fair. In the remaining 28 supplements, a few of them were pretty accurate, so they weren't right on the money. They were like within 0.02%, but somewhere is off as 334%, that is bananas.

Speaker 2:

To make this a little worse, in the United States, of course, americans have the US Food and Drug Administration, the FDA, and in seven of those products they found one compound that was not allowed, that was prohibited, that was illegal. No, that's not great and you might be wondering wait, how is that able to be sold? Supplements in the United States and many places around the world they get around like food and drug laws. The FDA doesn't have authority to look or approve or disprove dietary supplements before they sold, but one thing it does require is that the supplements contain the ingredient on the label. You don't have to be tested for does it work or not, or like? Is your claim accurate? But if you say it's got vitamin C in it, it should have vitamin C in it.

Speaker 2:

There are other organizations that do check these supplements In the United States. They're like ones called the NSF. Anyways, they analyze supplements and give their stamp of approval, but they miss stuff. I mean there's a lot of supplements out there. Timothy Caulfield has talked about this before, if you remember. He's a bit of a debunker. He definitely wages a war against pseudoscience and there's a lot of pseudoscience in the supplement industry.

Speaker 2:

Remember that just because a supplement is in a store like it's at market, it doesn't mean that it's safe. It doesn't mean that it's effective and, based on this study and lots of other studies, this is just one. It doesn't have what it says that it has and because of this, celebrities, random people, can just tell you yeah, this is a good supplement. It made me grow muscles, this is a great supplement. I lost weight on it. And nobody is going to fact check that claim. And if they are fact checking it, the only thing they're fact checking is if it has the thing in it. They say that it has in it, not that the thing works at all. So be skeptical. I guess that's the main thing is be skeptical.

Speaker 2:

Supplements that are fat incinerators or metabolism boosters or things with those catchphrases. I would be really skeptical of that. If you're wondering, how do you know if a supplement is good or not? There is an online scorecard developed by the US Department of Defense and that can assist customers in evaluating the safety of your supplements. So there's like the US Department of Defense, I guess, and I think that's the American military. I guess they want to make sure their military is getting the good, good stuff. They have an online scorecard. I guess. If you probably Google online scorecard supplements US Department of Defense, you'll find it. If I find something, it'll be in the show notes. So it makes me a little worried about that delicious vanilla protein I've been having every single day. It says it's got I don't know 25 grams of protein. So does it. I need to check the laws in Canada. That's science news for this week.

Speaker 2:

This weekend, pet science. Oh man, we're going to talk about a really cute study. It's about how the dogs brain process. Human and canine sounds differently. I love talking to the dogs and like trying to think with their understanding or hearing. Beaker has really dark eyes and she's very mysterious. When she looks at you it's hard to tell what she's thinking. She's a bit chaotic that way, and but we always talk about how. Bunsen's eyes are just so honest. You can just see in his face exactly what he's thinking, or can you Okay.

Speaker 2:

So this study was conducted by canine neuroscientist Anna Balint and her colleagues at the Lorrand University. So to study how dogs process sounds. The researchers used EEG technology to measure the brain waves in 17 family dogs. These dogs included border collies, golden retrievers and a German shepherd, and the dogs had the lie still for an extended period of time. Now we've talked about similar studies to this on the science podcast. Why do they have to lay so still? Well, just have to keep listening.

Speaker 2:

The study played audio clips of human and dog sounds. The human sounds included things that were kind of non language, like laughter and coughing. Well, the dog sounds included things that dogs would make sounds doing, like barking and sniffing and panting. Now, each sound conveyed something good, positive or something neutral, meaning that it was good, the sound was in a good context, or the sound was just neutral. They obviously didn't play sounds that had a negative connotation, like a happy dog barking at a ball for a ball or something like that.

Speaker 2:

So how did they test this? Well, they used the brain waves of the dogs. Within the first 250 to 650 milliseconds of hearing the sounds, the dog brains exhibited changes in their brain waves. What's wild is if you compare that to a human brain, that signal difference in the same timeframe is associated with things like decision making and motivation. It suggests that the dogs were attempting to figure out what the sound was, where it was coming from and what they should do Decision making. Within the first 250 milliseconds there wasn't a whole lot of data they could use. And that for humans is, I guess, when we start to process things like pitch and tone. This difference is interesting because the dog at this point is not noticing differences in the voice. They're probably processing them differently.

Speaker 2:

One other wholesome part of the data is that during this 250 to 650 millisecond timeframe, when the dogs heard a human, the human sound triggered more quote unquote positive brain waves. Well, when they heard a dog sound, it was more neutral. What does it mean by positive brain wave, the positive or negative? In the context of this experiment is changing the electrical voltage in the brain, not how intense it is, or did the dog really like it? It just meant that there was a positive change in electrical voltage. However, that difference in voltage between the waves triggered by the human and dog sounds was really significant.

Speaker 2:

There was something going on and the dogs got confused. Some of the sounds that were not distinguishable as being dog or human. That definitely confused the dog. There was clear like the data from the brain waves was like. When it was a species specific sound and it was like a dog barking, they knew it was dog barking and if it was a human laughing they knew it was a human laughing. But if it was some kind of murmuring where it wasn't really clear that it was a human or a dog, then, yeah, the dogs didn't pick up on it in the same way. There was definitely difference in their brains.

Speaker 2:

Now, I mentioned at the start that dogs had to lie really, really still, and that's because they were in an EEG machine. They had to remain completely motionless as much as they could while they were listening to the sound. So they required a lot of training. You couldn't just throw a beaker in there. Maybe Bunsen would do good at it, because he would just lay down and probably relax.

Speaker 2:

What can we conclude from this study? Well, we can conclude that for the first little bit of hearing a sound, it appears that dogs and humans process auditory sounds differently. There's something different going on in a dog brain and they're compared to human brain. We can also conclude that when a dog recognizes a human voice, something happens that is much, much different than when it recognizes a dog sound. So one funny thing to think about is that that means when you're talking to your dog and maybe they're doing something that they shouldn't, based on this study, they are having a quote-unquote positive reaction to your voice.

Speaker 2:

What do you all think about this study? Do you have any further questions you'd like me to look into? Give us a comment on Good Pods. That's Pet Science for this Week.

Speaker 2:

Hey everybody, before we get to the interview section, here's a couple of ways you can help the science podcast out. Number one if you're on any place that rates podcasts, give us a great rating. Tell your friends and share it with people who love science and pets like teachers. Number two think about signing up as a member of the Paw Pack. It allows you to connect with people who love our show and it's a way to keep the show free. Number three check out our merch store. We have the Bunsen Stuffie 2.0. There's still some beaker stuffies left that they're adorable as well Warm, cuddly clothes and adorable drinkware. The link is in the show notes. Now on to the interview. It's time for Ask an Expert on the Science Podcast, and I have PhD candidate Grant Steiner with me today. Grant, how are you doing? I'm good. Jason, how are you? I'm super good. I'm excited to talk to you. Yes, I'm very excited.

Speaker 2:

We're actually talking about something we've never talked about on the Science Podcast before, but we'll get to that in a second. Where are you in the world? Where are you calling into the show from?

Speaker 4:

Yeah, I am actually calling in from my desk in my lab that I work in at Loyola Chicago on our beautiful Lakeshore campus. Nice, so we're housed in Rogers Park Chicago.

Speaker 2:

OK, are you from the Chicago area? How did you have to move around a bunch for your education?

Speaker 4:

I actually am not from Chicago. I moved here last December as a health care worker. I worked in emergency rooms for quite a while.

Speaker 3:

OK.

Speaker 4:

And so I started at Loyola last January. So I've lived here ever since then. But I'm from a little town in central Illinois called Normal, where I went to undergrad.

Speaker 2:

I love that You're from. You're from Normal.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, they have a lot of cute little merch that says far from Normal and it's like the state of Illinois with a little heart in the middle, very cute.

Speaker 2:

Yes, I can imagine a whole bunch of great branding and pun related merch.

Speaker 4:

It genuinely is one of the most normal cities I've ever visited as well, so it's very fitting.

Speaker 2:

Well, I imagine anybody that's not like abnormal. You're like, hey, you know what this is. We've got to have a talk, absolutely. We're going to have a talk and they get booted out like jokie and the Smurfs. That's it. That's a joke for the the Gen X crowd that listens to the size of the podcast. That's a joke for like two people.

Speaker 4:

Anyway, I appreciate it.

Speaker 2:

Could you tell us a little bit about your science training? You mentioned you were a health care worker before, so I'd imagine it's a bit interesting to get where you are today.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, so I have always been interested and did pretty well studying science. My my first actual physical science that I enjoyed was chemistry. I enjoyed how it's basically like the building block for like other things right, Like you can't get a lot smaller than atoms and elements themselves.

Speaker 4:

So I've always been interested in chemistry, but when I was 13, I actually had a cancer scare. I have a large birthmark on my back that I've had most of removed now, but that was my first segue into studying medicine. So I studied medicine for a long time, from the time I was 13 until recently when I started my master's here at Loyola. I was still planning on going to medical school, which is why I moved to Chicago.

Speaker 4:

So I, like I said, went to undergrad in normal Illinois at Illinois State, where I did a dual degree program and my primary major was chemistry. But I also studied neurobiology, physiology and I have a minor in psychology because I think interacting with people and knowing how people work, you know, is a huge part of health care and just being a person who can communicate well. So I was pre-med until I moved here and started at Loyola and I just I love our biochem department and the students and the faculty so much that I decided to stay here and do biochemistry PhD as opposed to continuing on with medical school. So I worked in emergency departments for quite a while Was my specialty.

Speaker 2:

When you were young, grant, were you? You said you've done well at science, but were you like a little science kid? Were you gathering up random stuff around the house and making potions and catching frogs and stuff?

Speaker 4:

I was. I was always very inquisitive and analytical. I still have very bad ADHD, so I always liked that. In science, you know you can think ahead with things and there's usually with science and math, a static answer to something. And that was something I always yearned for was I need to know why this is the way it is, how it works with most things, and I felt a lot of solace and you know chemistry and biology with finding exact answers to things and being able to be creative in an analytical sense. So yeah, I've always been very much into science. I my first love, even before chemistry, was space. I actually have a very large tattoo sleeve of the solar system on my arm. That's cool, grant. I love it. I am a huge fan of NASA and everything space. I am hoping, if I'm able to do a postdoc if there's a good astrochemistry program somewhere, that would be phenomenal.

Speaker 2:

Grant, do you have a picture of that sleeve anywhere? I don't have a single tattoo on my body, but I love when people have a tattoo stuff on them that they're just really passionate about, and I have such a soft spot for scientific and nerdy tattoos, so I would love to see a photo of that, if you've got one somewhere.

Speaker 4:

Absolutely, I can send it to you, I actually just recently started it. You know, going into med school I was very weary of getting tattoos anywhere visible, so I actually have a lot on my legs.

Speaker 2:

Oh gotcha.

Speaker 4:

They're easy to hide. But I'm about a third of the way, completely done with the solar system sleeve, but I will definitely send you a video of it so you can see. It's all around my arm right now.

Speaker 2:

Nice, that's very cool. That's very cool.

Speaker 4:

Thank you, thank you.

Speaker 2:

So I was wondering if we could talk about your current research or you're just like what you've wrapped up about photosynthesis Now I think everybody has a general idea about what photosynthesis is from high school, but you study photosynthesis with cyanobacteria. Did I say that right?

Speaker 4:

That is correct, yeah.

Speaker 2:

What the heck are those things? What's going on there?

Speaker 4:

Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up. I know a couple episodes back you had talked about cyanobacteria in reference to the Great Oxygenation Event. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So that is a big thing, along with another subject that I'll get to in a minute in regards to cyanobacteria and photosynthesis in general. So the evidence that we have shows that bacteria were actually the first organisms to evolve the ability to use light to create things. So before cyanobacteria evolved the ability to create oxygen out of water, there are these other type of bacteria called purple and green sulfur bacteria that did a very similar thing using sulfur, which is very similar to oxygen. It's in the same chemical family, they operate very similarly, but when cyanobacteria evolved the ability to take water and create oxygen, like most oxygenetic photosynthetic organisms do now, they were the first things that did so and so, as you talked about, this created a large shift in the atmosphere and the chemicals that were there and created a lot of problems for a lot of species.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, didn't it straight up murder a whole bunch of things that were just? Like minding their own business.

Speaker 4:

And one of the weirdest things about that is a lot of people don't consider the Great Oxygenation Event as a mass extinction, even though it, in my eyes, very much qualifies as one of those.

Speaker 2:

Oh yeah, I know I agree with you, Grant.

Speaker 4:

But so cyanobacteria are just a gram negative bacteria that can take in light and create oxygen with it, and they vary from other photosynthetic organisms that we'll talk about, like algae and plants, mainly in the way that they're prokaryotes as opposed to eukaryotes like algae and plants are, but they also have a different set of proteins that they use to harvest light, called a phycobilzome. So that is solely used in cyanobacteria and red algae specifically. And one of the big things with cyanobacteria is they're named blue-green algae commonly. Yes, and when we talk about another thing recently that was on the podcast was talked about by Dr O'Reilly was talking about algal blooms in Lake Erie. So an algal bloom is a bit of a misnomer because they're caused by cyanobacteria. A lot of the dangerous things are caused by a specific cyanobacteria called microcystis, which creates a toxin.

Speaker 2:

Right, that's the one that kills dogs, correct?

Speaker 4:

But cyanobacteria aren't algae, but they're called algae so often that people get a little bit confused about what's the difference between the two of them.

Speaker 2:

Oh, come on science, get your act together.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, there's frequently a lack of collaboration with naming things. I will even get to in the names of the photosynthetic proteins the one that. I work with is called Photosystem 2. Yeah, but it's the first protein in the electron transport chain.

Speaker 5:

Oh, that's neat.

Speaker 4:

Later on there's a Photosystem 1, but it's Photosystem 1 because it was discovered first and they refused to change the order.

Speaker 2:

Oh my goodness, it's like we're practicality meets ego.

Speaker 4:

Right, right. So yeah, I study the photosynthetic electron transport chain, or some people call it the photosynthetic apparatus. You might see the term the Z scheme, but those are all the same thing. It's just a general name for how photosynthesis works inside of bilicoids. The other big thing with cyanobacteria is this thing a lot of people in bio might know called the endosymbiotic theory, so mitochondria and chloroplasts inside of plants. There is a theory that those were originally their own organisms. So mitochondria was an aerobic bacteria that got engulfed by a larger organism and then they coexisted symbiotically.

Speaker 2:

The one didn't eat the other. They just kind of wrote an agreement.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, they work in a tight. There's three types of symbiosis, and the one that endosymbiotic theory talks about is called mutualism, where they both benefit, and in plants the theory is that chloroplasts were originally a cyanobacteria that had evolved the ability to exhibit photosynthesis and conduct water to oxygen transitions, and then was engulfed by a larger thing and then later became algae in plants.

Speaker 2:

It got ate by something else I love it.

Speaker 4:

Yes, absolutely so. Cyanobacteria was really the start of it, the start of it all.

Speaker 2:

Do they? Okay, I know in general sense what they are, but one of the things like I had a question I was a student asked me like do they go through photosynthesis like plants do? Do they make glucose or do they just make oxygen and some other stuff?

Speaker 4:

Yeah, so that's the interesting thing, and one of the pieces of evidence towards the endosymbiotic theory is that the photosynthetic apparatus in all photosynthetic organisms, barring a few minor changes, is very conserved. So they do all of the same things that algae and plants do, they just have a different biochemical structure to the actual cells that surround them.

Speaker 2:

Okay. So the products is the same, but how they look is different, how they're made and what they're used to Correct.

Speaker 4:

Okay, so that light harvesting complex, the phycobilazone, is actually what gives cyanobacteria their common cyan color or their blue-green color Right, and that's why they look a little different in color than most algae or plants do.

Speaker 2:

Would you like people to just straight up start calling them cyanobacteria instead of blue-green algae, Like? Would that make you happy as a scientist? I feel like it would cause a lot less public confusion for sure We'll start, we'll be on we're on team cyanobacteria from now on.

Speaker 4:

I will say the grain of salt. There were a lot of things in science nomenclature that I would immediately change that I think would be in public interest that a lot of people would disagree with.

Speaker 2:

Data point of one. There you go. Yeah, kids get frustrated when naming things. We have French, just in chemistry alone. We have English and a French immersion stream. Sometimes the French immersion kids. After a certain amount of years they come to take the advanced chemistry and I'm one of the only advanced chemistry teachers. So in French the naming of ionic compounds is backwards to what it is in English. So they're like super frustrated and English kids are super frustrated with the French kids and it's like come on, you guys, it's all made up anyways, we just have to get to the end with a goal ourselves.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, unfortunately, I feel like that doesn't end with a lot of I teach orgo or gen. I'm depending on the semester. I'm hopeful. I'm hoping that now that I'm starting my second year I'll be able to teach biochem next year. Yeah, the students also get really frustrated with IU pack naming of compounds. They're so overly complicated.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, oh, those hydrated compounds, watch out.

Speaker 4:

But my actual research. So we use both algae and cyanobacteria. We don't currently use plants very often because cyanobacteria and algae are typically unicellular or like small multicellular organisms that'll grow a lot faster. And I work on one main project that I'll work out, work throughout my PhD on, and then I do some other little things. The small side project that I'm currently working on I can't go into extensive detail about, but the gist of it is we have some collaborators that 3D print these cubes that are representative of coral in the ocean. Oh wow. We try to study the way that cyanobacteria interact with these artificial coral and the sand underneath them to study how we can sort of try to revive these coral reefs that are dying and mitigate some other natural disasters. So that one has been really fun. But my main project is studying that first protein in the photosynthetic apparatus and how it recycles energy when it gets too much light. So a big thing that we talk about.

Speaker 2:

Does this lead us into renewable energy?

Speaker 4:

It does, it does.

Speaker 2:

Okay, so yeah, like that's what I know, I know when we had chat by email. This is this is where this cyanobacteria research is going is the link to renewable energy, and I would love for you to explain that because I'm baffled. I have no idea how the two link together. I couldn't wrap my head around it, so you're going to have to help me, grant.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, so we we study a specific subject within renewable energies, which includes a lot of things like wind and solar and geothermal energy we study.

Speaker 4:

It's called biomass and we can use biomass to create new and effective like fuels and other chemical products that are useful to use as energy as a replacement to, like you know, drilling them out of the planet and harming the earth. And so the crux of my main thing studying how the energy is recycled is hopefully to get a better understanding of that mechanism within photosynthesis, to make agriculture and crops more efficient, to create bigger biomasses so we can create fuels for, like ethanol, which is commonly mixed in with a lot of gases, to make that that gas a little more efficient and a little healthier for your car. So a lot of what we do is like a little microcosm of how biological things act. As these little solar panels that take in energy from the sun, we can fix carbon and get carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and sell it, sort of mitigate these issues that we have with climate change and limited resources of fuels and other energy that we get from the planet.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, carbon capture is that is going to be like the huge part of climate change mitigation? Absolutely, as I think we can probably both agree, governments are moving kind of slow on alternative energy. Yes, they're not moving super fast in places.

Speaker 4:

I completely agree.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, but I do. I do see the point of people. I'm more neutral in the middle because I like I'm like, okay, we, we need better battery tech, obviously to store, absolutely Store, energy, like that's what that's the missing conversation between both sides is like we could do it. We just don't have the tech yet to store the energy. But carbon capture like I've read some stuff that it's from promising to make believe to we're getting closer. Where do you think we are with that? Like, is this a viable thing? Do you think?

Speaker 4:

Yeah, so actually the protein within photosynthetic organisms that does direct carbon fixation is this enzyme called ribulose, one five bisphosphate carboxylase, which is a long name, so we call it Rubisco, right.

Speaker 2:

I'd imagine that first one would win you at scrap. Oh, absolutely.

Speaker 4:

Triple word score If you could put it on the board.

Speaker 2:

Triple word score, you win.

Speaker 4:

I'll give you the whole game, but Rubisco is actually far and away the most abundant protein on the planet. No way, really by a lot.

Speaker 2:

Okay, okay.

Speaker 4:

So even a percentage of weight of like all plants is just this single protein that does carbon fixation, because it's so important.

Speaker 4:

Rubisco also, when organisms run out of carbon to fix, will also fix oxygen and add oxygen to other things. So it's a very important enzyme but, yes, very, very abundant, very important. The caveat with that is there are dozens and dozens of people who study Rubisco and it's been shown computationally that it's almost as efficient energetically as it can be. You know, a big thing about what we do is I have a huge respect for Mother Nature and you know she's always my friend. But in terms of trying to perfect the thing that she's had billions and billions of years to perfect, she's kind of my enemy, right?

Speaker 2:

I see, yeah, she's had maybe a little bit more time to do it. Is that what you're saying?

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Like, if you get a couple of days extension on your assignment, it doesn't matter.

Speaker 4:

Right, right. So hopefully, hopefully in the future, we'll be able to find some advancements on, you know, accelerating carbon fixation. Hopefully, after I fingers crossed, can figure out the mechanism of how we can keep this energy within these photosynthetic systems without them being damaged.

Speaker 2:

The recycling of the energy.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, so the way we typically think of photosynthesis is there's these four big proteins, like I talked about. Photosystem two is the first one. There's this smaller one in the middle called cytochrome B6F that will communicate between photosystem two and photosystem one, which is the protein after it. And then the last one is ATP synthase, which is what actually creates ATP. You know, the energy monocule, so that Rubisco can do its carbon fixation, and when organisms receive too much light? You know, because plants and algae can't really move themselves right, Unless they're an ant. Yes, exactly.

Speaker 2:

I do believe it actually carried some hobbit, so it was actually fairly strong and movable.

Speaker 4:

That's good, yeah. And when these, when these organisms receive too much energy, they have to do something with it. So instead of the typical linear flow of electrons, what we call, they can cycle around the two photosystems, and we know a little bit about how they cycle around photosystem one, but we don't know a whole lot about how they cycle around photosystem two, which is really important, because when too much light is received, they get all this extra energy and it creates these dangerous reactive oxygen species that will damage the proteins and destroy them.

Speaker 2:

Like it makes free radical oxygen, or like other, absolutely Yep, that is great. And yeah, because free radical oxygen from a chemical standpoint is like crazy good at breaking things down.

Speaker 4:

Yep, Yep. So so if the organisms you know get an overabundance of these reactive species, or even just enough energy to energetically elevate the oxygen that's supposed to be there, can destroy them too. And photosystem two is a large protein and it costs a lot of time and energy to replace that. So the cell very much does not want this to happen.

Speaker 3:

Right.

Speaker 4:

So this cyclic electron flow is like an evolutionary way to sort of hinder that destruction of these proteins.

Speaker 2:

I feel like it's like have you played roller coaster tycoon? Have you heard of that game?

Speaker 4:

I have yes.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I feel like it's you've. If a plant gets too much light, it's like building a giant, huge, tall roller coaster and then the people go creaning off the end. But because of the system it's just like the extra energy is looped back around in a very Willy Wonka, dr Zeus, eskman fashion Right. Absolutely Like zippity, zippity, zippity, zippity. They come around the circle, yeah.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, that's pretty good. The analogy I usually tell my students when I try to like make it understandable the things that I study, you know and do without going into a crazy amount of detail, is like you need, you need water to live, right? What if you had a hose that was just constantly pouring water into you? You got to be able to get rid of that water, right, otherwise, yeah, you die.

Speaker 2:

Not great things are going to happen. Yeah, huh, yeah you, while you'd have to go pee, that's for sure.

Speaker 4:

Yes, yes.

Speaker 2:

The body's not that efficient if it's just like blasting into. That's a really good analogy. I like that. Can I steal?

Speaker 4:

that, can I actually do that?

Speaker 2:

You have that trademarked.

Speaker 4:

I do not. Okay, you can steal it.

Speaker 2:

I will send you some Bunsen merch for that, that joke.

Speaker 4:

You can definitely steal it if I can steal the pee thing, because that's actually really good. That's analogous to like the linear regular flow. Right, it needs time to get all of that extra water out, so that's, it's a very good parallel.

Speaker 2:

We'll trade analogies. How about that? All right. So Sienna Bacteria everybody, you've heard me talk about it and we've had an expert break it down for you all, so I think we're all experts and we are, from this point on, everybody who listeners of the science podcast. No longer will we call Sienna Bacteria Blue-Green Algae. That is over.

Speaker 4:

Thank you.

Speaker 2:

It is over from this point forth. Thank you. We have some standard questions on the science podcast. I wonder if you could answer for us. The first one is a pet story. It makes everybody listening look at scientists more holistically. Like you know, as somebody that's not just a Sienna Bacteria expert, you might have a pet story too. Would you share one with us?

Speaker 4:

Absolutely I do, and you were talking about the merch. Actually, your dog, beaker, reminded me very much of my childhood dogs. I grew up with Goldens and she looks very, very similar to my first childhood dog and this story that I decided I was going to tell is sad. Fair warning I talked to the person that actually put me in contact with you, kathy Hi, kathy, I'm listening and she said it's a good story and I will, at the end, actually try to bring it back to something you talked about earlier this week this study that seeing animals with more empathy and realizing in your own mind's eye that they have emotions is such a great advance, and I'll get back to that. So, growing up, like I said I had, I had Goldens and my, my first dog's name was Shelby Absolute horse of a dog. He was huge. There's a part of my life when I was a teenager where he was. He was bigger than me. No way, really. I got him when, when I was for my eighth birthday and he surpassed me. No way, monstrous dog.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, goldens can be big, though Like beakers tiny, our beakers, just a little, he's pocket sized.

Speaker 4:

We say yes, absolute, monster, dog, giant, teddy bear, right. So one of one of the most emotional showing things that he he used to do is, every time there was a thunderstorm, he would get very scared and would run into our bathroom and curl up in our bathtub. Oh no, and it was. It was so cute at the same time, like knowing that he's like terrified and I'm like, oh, you're okay, like I would go sit with him and I'm like this is almost the worst place for us to be sitting.

Speaker 4:

There's a window right where we are, but so every time there was a thunderstorm, he'd go racing in there. I'd know exactly where he was and when. When I grew up, shelby had passed away when I was at college in undergrad, and somewhere somewhere in my phone I have this picture. I'll have to go searching for it. We had Shelby cremated and there's a picture of my grandfather holding Shelby's urn the first time there was a thunderstorm after he passed away, just sitting in the tub. Oh, I'm like, oh, that's so sweet. I cried so very hard. Yeah, but the thing you had talked about, about seeing seeing your animals as sentient things with like emotions and empathy right, I feel like one of one of the best things that I can ask for for people listening to have empathy for more animals and the environment is, if you don't have pets, please go get them and love them through all of their thunderstorms, know all of the times that they're happy and you know, just have some extra love in your life, right, it'll give you more appreciation for earth and the environment.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's a wonderful story. That was a very cool study too.

Speaker 3:

Yes.

Speaker 2:

Because it is so true. If you see your and that's I mean this is on I'm not sure when this, I'm not sure when this episode will come out actually. So this we might be referencing a podcast that was many, many weeks ago, but the study was so very cool. If you see your animal with empathy and having emotions like a human would, you are way more likely to see all animals, all living creatures on earth, with that same lens, and I think we just need more people to have that lens.

Speaker 4:

I completely agree.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's tough to care for. It's tough to care for other animals when you don't have a connection to any animals. That was the point of the study.

Speaker 4:

Especially one that you live with all the time.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, how can you not? They're. They're your family. Though we did have a snake Ackless and I did not have a connection with that snake, I will admit that freely, and everybody knows my feelings about the snake.

Speaker 4:

So I feel like you're probably not alone. I know a lot of people don't love snakes.

Speaker 2:

But my son Adam loved that snake so he had a connection to it. That's a sweet story. Thanks for sharing that, grant.

Speaker 4:

Thank you.

Speaker 2:

So the other, the other standard question we have is a super fact. It's something that you know, that when you tell people it kind of like blows their mind a bit. Do you have a super fact you could share with us?

Speaker 4:

Oh sure, um, I guess staying in the realm of environmental science. So one of the one of the big things we talk about in one of the greatest rooms for improvement in the future and renewable energy is solar energy. Right, the sun is very important to all life. On my sleeve it's the biggest centerpiece, it's almost half of the thing. It's very important. The sun creates so much energy that if we could somehow harness it the the photons and the heat coming off of it for less than a day, we could power every country in the globe for over a year. But because we're so inefficient at actually obtaining that energy, we can't do that yet. Um, so solar energy is is is one of the has the biggest room for improvement that will hopefully, in the future, be very, very advantageous for us.

Speaker 2:

Yeah Well, hasn't solar panels been getting sneakily better year on year? Yes, they have, and that's what people I think that's what people don't realize is like, yeah, 20 years ago they were absolute trash, but over the over 20 years they've improved by like one to 2% or something like that, and that adds up real quick.

Speaker 4:

It really does. Um they they also for people who care, which is a lot of people care about what things cost. Um, you know, they're costing less and less too for your return on investment If you have the ability to install panels around your home or on your roof. Um, it used to be like a couple of decades to get that money back, but it's becoming less than a single decade now. Yeah, it's wild.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, they even in in Alberta, canada, where I live with. You know we're a uh. I don't know if you know much about Canadian politics, uh, but Alberta is the oil and gas producing province of all of Canada.

Speaker 4:

Right.

Speaker 2:

Um and like solar pan, and the irony is that Calgary, alberta, is the sunniest place in basically all of North America. It's sunny. It has more sunny days than Florida, if you can believe it.

Speaker 4:

Oh, wow.

Speaker 2:

It's just cold. But right. I mean. The sun doesn't go away in the winter, it's still shining.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, and that's that's the thing about. Like each each region has its own like specialties. You know, like Canada has a lot, yeah, A lot more room for like hydroelectric power than a lot of other countries do too.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, well, yeah, british Columbia gets almost all of its power from hydro BC hydro, yeah. So I don't think Saskatchewan could Well. Maybe Saskatchewan was pretty freaking flat. That's a joke for the Saskatchewan people. Please continue listening to the Science Podcast. We love you. It's where all of the grain in Canada has grown, so keep growing food for us, please.

Speaker 4:

I know that my fellow Illinoisans can empathize with that?

Speaker 2:

No, we're late. Illinois is hella flat, isn't it?

Speaker 4:

Yes, it really corn, Corn, corn in Chicago.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, corn, that's a great super fact. I love that. It reminds me, oh, my youngest son, adam. He was going on about this Dyson sphere. I was like what are you talking about? Like a vacuum? He's like no, it's like what a type, something or other civilization would put up around a star to like get all the energy somehow. I'm like I don't think that's happening with us anytime soon. Adam, we got rovers on Mars and that's pretty impressive, so we've got a ways to go.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, we do, and hopefully I don't know that we'll ever get an actual sphere around the sun.

Speaker 2:

I don't know, never know, never know.

Speaker 4:

No one knows the future. That's right.

Speaker 2:

Hey, would we be talking about artificial intelligence the way we are, like a year ago?

Speaker 4:

Absolutely not. No, we actually, as a university, just created a task force a couple, a couple weeks ago to like monitor chat, gpt and how it's being used in academic settings. Yeah Well, there's chat.

Speaker 2:

Gpt for chat. Gp five is going to be what? Five months away or something like that, there's barred on the Google suite, it's. It is such a thing right now.

Speaker 4:

Have you heard of Dolly yeah? Yeah, yeah, mid journey, wow that it's a thing, science is very exponential. It's scary sometimes.

Speaker 2:

That's right. That's right. Well, okay, we're not here to talk about AI, but it is related to probably what you're going to be doing in the next 10 years. You're going to have to make use of it, I'd imagine, just like I make use of it as a teacher. Yeah, yeah, absolutely so. One of the last questions of the interview is to share something about hobby or cause you're passionate about and, without without going into detail, you want to talk about getting people more into the environment. In my own, the right track.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, absolutely. Another thing that you know, my friend Kathy and I were talking about the other day is, like, one of the great things about you know, media, like what you're doing is getting young people involved in things that will be helpful for, you know, their generation and future future generation getting involved in STEM, and there's a lot of ways to get involved in environmentalism, just like with all other social issues. So, if anyone has questions, my friends have made fun of me for not having Twitter and Instagram, so I made them this week. Oh, okay. So if anyone has questions about ways to get involved, you can my. My Instagram handle is grant fell down the stairs and my Twitter is grant fell down.

Speaker 4:

So if anyone has questions, but yeah, getting getting young people involved in STEM and, you know, caring for the planet and other animals and other people is always a huge thing and so, like I had mentioned earlier when we were talking, one of the one of the biggest ways to do that is, you know, to be educated about voting for people in power. Unfortunately, environmental, of environmentalism, falls to the wayside a bit In America. You know, when people are afraid to be at schools or people of color don't feel like they have equity. Women feel like they don't have equity, so environmentalism goes hand in hand with things like education and equity and things that we need to consider when we research people to elect in positions of power.

Speaker 2:

This is true. Yeah, this is true. That's a good message.

Speaker 4:

So that's one of the biggest things that I do, obviously, day to day, trying to help fix. So is environmentalism specifically.

Speaker 2:

That's an admirable cause. Good, good for you.

Speaker 4:

Yes, I definitely would not have felt comfortable switching from, you know, medicine, another subject of helping people day to day, unless I felt like I was doing something equally as important.

Speaker 2:

Well, you know, thanks for sharing that with us. It's a good, you know it's. It actually has been a while, since it's been a minute, since the science podcast has had a discussion about like climate change. For one, we've we've kind of skirted around it with meteorologists and talked about it a bit, but you know, that's it's good to keep it in people's mind. I think, like you mentioned, there's other huge, huge, impactful emotional things that take it out of the forefront of people's minds. Covid, I think the pandemic shoved all of that away. You know it was like let's worry about that later. We are in a pandemic and it's always good to revisit it now.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, I mean even the fact that there are people who deny the mountains and mountains of evidence that show that, you know, over billions of years the atmosphere has been able to regulate itself. But now you know, now that we have billions of people on earth to take care of and, you know, make crops for and have energy for, that there's a lot of damage that we have to help mitigate in order to do those things. So I'm hoping that myself and my lab in general can try to help fight for that.

Speaker 2:

That's awesome. Well, keep us in the loop, Grant. Now that you're on social media, you can tag us Absolutely.

Speaker 4:

You'll probably look very strange. I have one post so far.

Speaker 2:

It's all good. Everybody starts with one post. We did two. We started with nothing. Why Grant fell down the stairs? Why Grant fell down? Did you fall down? Is this a joke?

Speaker 4:

I was throwing around different things that I just thought was funny. I have a really stupid sense of humor sometimes and I just thought it sounded funny.

Speaker 2:

Oh, okay, it's catchy.

Speaker 4:

I told my friends earlier oh, it's an analogy. Obviously, I'm Grant and life is the stairs.

Speaker 2:

They probably were like what I thought it was literally.

Speaker 5:

You need to get a hold of like.

Speaker 2:

There's a cartoonist on Twitter that draws cartoons of all of the scientists. I don't know if you've seen their avatars on Twitter. So you can have one of yourself just getting yeeted down the stairs. You know, people are like whoa, what's up with this guy? And you're like psych. I actually study cyanobacteria.

Speaker 4:

I know all of my students will immortalize that as their image of me forever. It would be fantastic.

Speaker 2:

Well, we're at the end of the interview, grant, this has been a treat talking to you. Thanks for giving up your time to chat on the Science Podcast. So one more time. I normally ask guests where they can be followed on social media and, fresh out of nowhere, you are now on social media and your handles one more time are.

Speaker 4:

My Instagram is Grant fell down the stairs and Twitter is just Grant fell down. Depending on feedback, they might be changing, since they're very new.

Speaker 2:

Perfect. Well, whatever they are, when this show comes out we'll put them in the show notes. So if it changes to Grant fell up the stairs or Grant fell down the plane, we'll keep you all informed.

Speaker 4:

Absolutely. Thank you very much. I've had an absolutely amazing time talking to you.

Speaker 2:

We are proud to have Bark and beyond supplycom now as an official sponsor of the science podcast. Bark and beyond supplycom is a small family owned company that started off making joint supplements for dogs, but now they sell toys and treats and a whole bunch of other goodies. Skip the big box stores and check out the amazing deals and awesome stuff at Bark and beyond supplycom. You'll see a link in our show notes and use the coupon code Bunsen B U N S E N for 10% off at Bark and beyond supplycom. Click the link. Skip the big box stores. How?

Speaker 1:

about the little guy. Okay, it's time for story time with me, adam. If you don't know what story time is, story time is only talk about stories that have happened within the past one or two weeks. Dad, do you have a story?

Speaker 2:

Well, the first off is you and mom are back from the Maritimes.

Speaker 1:

We are back from Maritimes.

Speaker 2:

Yes, I'm sure when we get to you and mom you might tell some stories from the Maritimes. I have no stories because I did not go. Oh, but I was home alone with the dogs and the cat until Monday. But my story is about going paddle boarding with the dogs, seeing how differently Bunsen acts with Chris on the kayak, because when I went with the dogs when they were gone, I had both Bunsen and Beaker in the kayak and it's maybe not Bunsen's favorite but I kind of like goes to the front and lays down, which is great, and Beaker sits in the back like a little pirate with perched up on the side of the kayak.

Speaker 2:

But this time around I was on the paddle board with Beaker and she just smiled at me the whole time but Bunsen wanted to be in Chris's face the entire kayaking. I think that was a huge problem because when you have a giant dog in front of you is very hard to paddle because you need to hold the paddle in front of you and if you have a 100 pound giant dog that's a bit of a trouble. To Chris's credit, she didn't give up and somehow continued to pilot the craft for a good hour and Adam did not have a dog so he was unencumbered and was zooming around Lake Home Lake. I didn't fall in, that was good. I almost biffed it once trying to turn around when the wind came up. But aside from I think maybe Chris was a little frustrated with Bunsen because he was very, very needy inside the kayak. It was a wonderful day on the water and that is my very unassuming story.

Speaker 5:

Guess what Adam does.

Speaker 2:

He rams you.

Speaker 5:

He rams you like the pirate and then he goes away. He escapes, but as he goes away he splashes you with his ore.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it takes surgical precision because I hit mum and I didn't hit Bunsen, because if I hit Bunsen he would have gotten mad. Yeah, that is what I do Sometimes. I go like really, I like follow mum really close behind or I go like right in front of her and just thread the needle and have her almost hit me, which is kind of funny. But yeah, that is what I do. Okay, it is maritime story time. My story is that in Linenburg I think it was Linenburg In Linenburg, there were two cats.

Speaker 1:

We saw two cats. One of them was named Smokey and he was gray, and the other one, we don't know its name, but it was Walkaround and it was Tabby. They were both so cute. Smokey gave me some heat. He smacked my hand I pet him too hard and he smacked me. Yeah, he didn't like me petting him too much, but he liked people and I pet him and I think I pet him too hard. And then he smacked me. He smacked my hand, but he didn't use his claws, he just smacked me. It's like ginger with beaker. But yeah, that's my story. There's two cats in Linenburg. Mom, do you have a story?

Speaker 5:

I sure do. I pet every single dog that I came across in the Maritimes I'm like, hi, hello, can I pet your dog? And I was wearing my Royals gear and so sometimes they were probably like who is this lady? But it was me. And then they were asking about the Royals and I told them all about them but then I just was petting their dogs. There was a really cute Samoid named Dawson oh my God, he was so smiley. And I met a little Golden, or I met a little Bernese Mountain dog puppy named Cooper in the mall. What.

Speaker 2:

I know that's very lucky, because Burner puppies are just something other kind of cute.

Speaker 5:

They had just gotten him like that week.

Speaker 2:

Really Was he so happy.

Speaker 5:

He was so happy and they were from Newfoundland and they were on their way back to Newfoundland and none of their family knew that they picked him up.

Speaker 2:

Oh, my God.

Speaker 5:

And so he was going to be a surprise.

Speaker 2:

Was he bitey.

Speaker 5:

He was a little bitey Because he's a puppy, super cute. I came home and Bunsen was so happy to see us and Beaker was so happy to see us, but I think you were expecting a larger meet and greet.

Speaker 2:

No, no, I thought Bunsen made like this like weird guttural, like oh, like he was just so happy to see you guys and Beaker was doing a normal weight wag thing. It was also like two o'clock in the morning, so they were probably super confused and very tired. Do you know who did not come to say hello to either of you for more than 30 seconds?

Speaker 5:

Was that Ginger?

Speaker 2:

Ginger did not even care that you guys came back.

Speaker 5:

Now did you tell everybody on this podcast how sick you were?

Speaker 2:

I may have mentioned it last week, yes, so.

Speaker 5:

Jason got super, super sick, maybe with food poisoning, we are not sure. But I was all the way in the Maritimes, which is over 3000 kilometers away, and Jason texted me and he said I am so sick. I have never been so sick. I have been throwing up, I have a headache. So I was freaking out, trying to remain calm in front of everybody, like I was like the duck paddling underwater where my feet were paddling and trying to look calm on the surface, and so what I did to combat that was he wasn't texting me back, probably because you were so sick, I was so sick, I was so sick.

Speaker 5:

So I would creep on the house using the furbo we have a furbo so I would watch the dogs just to make sure they were okay. And then I also have find my friends. But Jason's phone did not leave a location in the house for two days. That's how sick I was, that's how sick you were. So I was like his phone is not moving, he's not going to his workouts. Well, I wasn't. I was a little bit nervous about that. You were going to be so sick and maybe have to go to the hospital. But then you did periodically text me back so I knew that something was going on. And then I would just watch to see if your shoes moved by the front door.

Speaker 2:

No, they did not move.

Speaker 5:

They did not move, so I was a little panicked.

Speaker 2:

I did take the dogs out to the bathroom. That first day was rough. Maybe I went out in my bare feet. Actually, I think I just went out in my bare feet, so that's probably why my shoes didn't move.

Speaker 5:

Anyway, I'm so glad you're okay.

Speaker 2:

Oh yeah, I bounce back pretty good.

Speaker 5:

But I was very worried, but what would I do? What could I do?

Speaker 2:

I'm fine.

Speaker 5:

And I guess that's my stories. More than one story for this week.

Speaker 1:

I think we have a surprise appearance from a surprise guest on this episode of the podcast. Come here, surprise guests and introduce yourself.

Speaker 3:

Hello, my name is Annalise. I'm a surprise guest. I have a story.

Speaker 2:

Are you a surprise guest?

Speaker 3:

Yes.

Speaker 2:

Oh my goodness, we have a surprise guest.

Speaker 3:

I have a story from Adam's papa's house where his cat mouse. So basically, I work at a flower shop and I made myself a beautiful bouquet of flowers and I was so excited because I got my favorite flower, which is Snapdragon, in this beautiful bouquet. And actually the night that Adam and his mom came back from the Maritimes, mouse knocked over my flowers and I had just gotten them and I almost cried, and it was a lot. I didn't cry, though, but mouse is just. I can't control him. I just keep him out all the time. Now he's just uncontrollable, but that's my story.

Speaker 5:

Mouse, you should see the plants at papa's house. He used to have nice plants and then mouse arrived and now the plants are all eaten. It's terrible.

Speaker 1:

Well, finn also eats the plants. They all eat the plants.

Speaker 3:

They ate the donuts today.

Speaker 1:

The cats ate donuts that Annalise got for her work. They ate the donuts. Oh, they didn't eat them, but they tried to eat them. Yeah, they're all like that's good because I had none of the donuts she brought over.

Speaker 2:

I didn't want to have a cat eating donut.

Speaker 1:

Like dog, like butter. They didn't get to the donuts but they wanted to. Mouse and Larry are both scavengers. But yeah, that's the end of this week's episode of Storytime. Thank you so much for listening to Storytime this week and like and almost every week probably you stick around until my section Special episode, return from the Maritimes and surprise guest. So thank you so much for listening, bye, bye.

Speaker 2:

That's it for this week's show. Thanks for coming back week after week to listen to the science podcast. Super happy to have Adam and Chris home, as well as the dogs. Special thanks to our guest this week, phd candidate Grant Steiner. What an amazing conversation and a shout out to our top members of the pop pack. They make what we do so much more possible without their support and they get their names. Shout it out, so take it away, chris.

Speaker 5:

Julie Smith, terry Adam Shelly Smith, jennifer Smathers, laura Stephenson, tracy Lienbaugh, Courtney Proven Fun, lisa Breanne Haas, bianca Hyde, debbie Anderson, anne Eucida, Donna Craig, amy C, susan Wagner, kathy Zercher, liz Button and Ben Rathart.

Speaker 2:

Thanks for science, empathy and cuteness.