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Episode 5 Season 7: Advanced Hands, The Woolly Mouse, and Irish Chemistry with Dr. Kevin Morgan

• Jason and Kris Zackowski • Season 7 • Episode 5

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Through groundbreaking prosthetic hand technology and controversial genetic engineering, this episode explores where science meets the ethical boundaries of what we can versus what we should do.

• Revolutionary prosthetic hand from Johns Hopkins University combines rigid 3D-printed structures with soft polymers to mimic human capabilities
• New prosthetics send sensory feedback (temperature, texture, slippage) directly to users through electrical nerve stimulation
• "Woolly mice" genetically engineered with mammoth traits mark a controversial step toward de-extinction
• Critics question whether de-extinction resources might better serve conservation of endangered species
• Dr. Kevin Morgan shares Belfast's rich chemistry history and the science behind Irish spirits for St. Patrick's Day

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Speaker 1:

Hello science enthusiasts. I'm Jason Zukoski. And I'm Chris Zukoski, we're the pet parents of Bunsen, beaker, bernoulli and Ginger.

Speaker 2:

The science animals on social media.

Speaker 1:

If you love science.

Speaker 2:

And you love pets.

Speaker 1:

You've come to the right spot, so put on your safety glasses and hold on to your tail.

Speaker 1:

This is the Science Podcast. Hello and welcome back to the Science Podcast. We hope you're happy and healthy out there. This is episode five of season seven. It's been good for my mental health this week to do some research for the Science Podcast and, of course, talk to some amazing guests coming up for y'all to listen to over the next couple months and then just have time with chris to have some fun back and forth um with you know how the roller coaster we are experiencing up here in canada at this time is um, not a roller coaster is the dogs. They're really steady. Bunsen's maybe plateaued a bit this week. So if you're worried his health, it's not like he's gone backwards, but unlike the previous weeks where we've seen some gains, he's kind of plateaued a bit. I'm not sure if that's good or bad. Big breaking news, though, is Beaker went to with Bernoulli to Waggle's puppy daycare and she had a great day. She's a COVID puppy and can be a little snippy with dogs occasionally not all the time, but occasionally so we were a little worried about that, but the reports are she had tons of fun and made some friends and we got some photos of her smiling and that made it so, so worth it. It's good for her to get out with some other dogs and burn off some energy.

Speaker 1:

Okay, well, what's on the science podcast? This week In science news, chris and I break down a really big advancement in prosthetic hands. That is almost science fiction-y. Very cool and good news there. And in animal science we break down the viral picture study controversy around the woolly mouse. It was a lot of fun talking about it. Little spooky, little spooky yep. And our guest and ask an expert this week is Dr Kevin Morgan. St Patrick's Day is coming up and Dr Kevin is from Ireland. A proud Irish chemist talks to us a little bit about the history of chemistry in Ireland and celebrating St Patrick's Day with a little bit of chemistry. All right on with the show. There's no time like science time this week in science news. I think we got to give science a hand for its developments here, chris.

Speaker 2:

Ooh, very good.

Speaker 1:

And, while the puns fit, the science that we're looking at is actually quite serious for folks that might need it. Now I'll start with I love robotics. I'm not a robotic programmer, but I guess I love the idea of robotics and robots for as long as I could remember, and I have been showing my class the progression of these robots built by Boston Dynamics. Are you familiar with those robots, Chris?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, Flint is a Boston robotic dog at the Tellus World of Science.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that spot for the people that maybe are following Boston Dynamics. They have a four-legged robot, they have a two-legged robot and they've got a couple giant robots on wheels. I think where it stems from for me, chris, is that it's a very dated movie. I watched Short Circuit like a thousand times when I was young. Do you remember Short Circuit?

Speaker 2:

I do. I'm not as familiar with it as you are, because you said you watched it so many times, johnny number five is alive and you are yourself like a robot, where you're able to pull facts and data as if by out of the air.

Speaker 1:

You're amazing that way all right, we'll get to the science news item, because it's actually extremely cool. Let's start with giving k news item, because it's actually extremely cool. Let's start with giving kudos to where it's from Engineers at John Hopkins University. They've developed a first of its kind prosthetic hand that can grip everyday objects with precision. That means it can adjust its grasp to prevent squishing or mishandling. And where previous prosthetics maybe aren't as good, especially the robotics, one is they were either way too rigid or soft, meaning they would squash things or not be rigid enough to pick up stuff. And this system from John Hopkins balances flexibility and strength. Now where this is coming in with Boston Dynamics, as I show the kids a video, what the robot dog thing Flint Spot. It has an arm that can go on its back and it tried to pick up a soda can or pop can and it grabbed it and exploded all over the guy it was supposed to hand to.

Speaker 2:

So anyways, so that's lacking both flexibility. I guess it has the strength, but it doesn't have the. It's too rigid.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, think about. I guess. Just think about stuff in your everyday life that requires the softest touch to pick up, and if you were like Rammy with it, you would damage it. Think of everything like eating a sandwich even right, Like a sandwich is soft bread and it could fall apart. Just the manual dexterity to touch things is quite lacking with robotic systems.

Speaker 2:

But this innovation is very promising because it can potentially significantly improve the lives of individuals that have upper limb loss and actually revolutionize how the robotic arms interact with their environment.

Speaker 1:

Chris, what is it made of?

Speaker 2:

They have that hybrid design that you were talking about, which combines rigid 3D printing internal structures. I know I was thinking boy, jason's gonna really like that part, because Jason's also an avid 3d printer person but it combines the internal structure that's 3d printed with soft rubber like polymers which replicate human bone joints and tissues, and it has a multi finger system system which includes air-filled finger joints that actually can be controlled using forearm muscle signals.

Speaker 1:

Now that's the wild part, chris. If you have this arm, you flex the same muscles in your forearm, not one-to-one, but very close. You control the hand to grab and to grasp things as the person I don't know. It's crazy.

Speaker 2:

That's wild. And this prosthetic hand is inspired by human skin, and so the hand actually has three layers of sensors to detect and differentiate between various object shapes and textures, and so what that allows the prosthetic to do is like what you were saying having a gentle touch when needed versus a more firm grasp when it's warranted.

Speaker 1:

Right, and then continuing. The cool part is there's a whole bunch of like machine learning AI that's integrated into it. So from the fingers it processes that, those senses that you just mentioned. You know that's modeled after human skin and it converts the data into nerve like signals, sending it back to the person with the hand for realistic sensory feedback through electrical nerve simulation. So they don't have folks who've had the hand with testimonial, but the idea is like you grab something very soft like a sponge, it sends the signal back to your arm and you feel the hand grabbing the sponge and it sends, and then that artificial hand sends touch signals to the brain. And also this is another wild part it allows the user to sense temperature, texture and if you are slipping with your grip, so hot and cold objects, rough and smooth, and if the sandwich you grabbed is falling apart.

Speaker 2:

The hand was tested on 15 everyday objects, and those objects included soft items like plush toys and sponges, delicate items like thin plastic cups that were filled with water.

Speaker 1:

Oh man, I struggle with those myself, chris.

Speaker 2:

As I was reading this article, I thought, oh boy, like I. I think my nickname should be Butterfingers, because everything just slips out of my grasp, but this hand, yes, like I was saying, it was tested on those objects soft items, delicate items, but then also rigid objects, so things with more weight or substance, like metal, water bottles or pineapples, even, and actually cardboard boxes.

Speaker 3:

Are you ready kids.

Speaker 2:

I'm captain.

Speaker 1:

Because SpongeBob lives in a pineapple. I was just talking about the cardboard boxes, because bernoulli loves cardboard boxes, as does ginger yes, they have one brain, the two of them, and they ran the the hand or the hand through a bunch of performance metrics so, wildly enough, it's crazy accurate. It had a 99.7 accurate rate in handling objects, probably near the average person handling all those random things.

Speaker 1:

Think about everything you pick up in a day and how many times you drop it my keys, my keys, my phone yeah just shoots right out of my hands yeah, and adjust the hand automatically, adjusted things to prevent crushing or dropping, and they challenged the people to lift this fragile cup of water with only three fingers three of the fingers without denting it, and it did just fine. Absolutely, bananas. Yeah. One thing they mentioned was being able to have handshakes and vary the firmness of the handshake. That's so cool. I'm sure you've shake. Have you shaken a lot of hands, chris? Some people are like squishers they squish your hand and some people are like limp fish.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, anyways, that's very cool. This prosthetic could tell the difference and adjust to cord accordingly. So you start to squish the prosthetic hand with your firm handshake and it'll squish you right back like that. But as science does, it looks to the future to improve.

Speaker 2:

This prosthetic hand was tested on heavier objects like water bottles, but they're looking at enhancing grip strength for even heavier objects and adding more advanced sensors heavier objects and adding more advanced sensors and that will improve sensory perception as well. Looking at different materials like industrial grade material for durability.

Speaker 1:

Oh, that makes sense, cause if you've got like a delicate skin, our bodies can make, remake skin as it gets damaged. But I don't know about this hand.

Speaker 2:

Right.

Speaker 1:

But the impact.

Speaker 2:

I wonder if it could do deadlifts, lift weights in the future maybe that hybrid dexterity technology could advance robotic hands used in manufacturing health care as well as space exploration. So it's not just something that can be used for someone who is missing or who is an amputee, and robots actually need delicate handling skills for materials like glass or fabric or electronics. So it has a use in a lot of different industries and fields.

Speaker 1:

See that's the thing that I love talking to kids about is like when this. Obviously money had to come from somewhere for this right and you can't always determine the future outcome of the research that you do. And yes, you make somebody's life better by improving this prosthetic hand, but if you're, like very into making money, how does that make you a lot of money helping people? It's always the offshoots of science that go on to make people big bucks. Space exploration is a good example. There was massive risk, without a lot of payback back in the day, to get things in outer space, and now space industry is privatized and making crazy money. When we help others, there are always offshoots of that in science. So high five for science, hey, chris.

Speaker 2:

High five for science.

Speaker 1:

All right, that's science news for this week, this week in animal science. Sorry, I couldn't find a pet article this week this week in animal science. Sorry, I couldn't find a pet article this week. Uh, but you forwarded me this article and we our account was tagged like 17 times by this article and the guest I spoke to yesterday, who will be on some future podcast, talked about this and it's the woolly mouse believe it or not, scientists have genetically modified mice to exhibit some key traits of the extinct woolly mammoth.

Speaker 1:

Now is the woolly mammoth one of your favorite extinct mammals. Not a dinosaur, but extinct animal. Do you have a favorite extinct animal?

Speaker 2:

The saber-toothed tiger.

Speaker 1:

Okay, I thought I knew that because you like cats. I think you know what mine is, because I talk about it non-stop not the spinosaurus no a mammal extinct mammal oh the mammal.

Speaker 2:

Okay, it's the.

Speaker 1:

It's a giant sloth yeah, the giant sloth, I love the giant sloths.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah and what's the name of it? Because we I got your picture with it I you need to go stand beside that giant sloth, and you're like no. And I said absolutely yes, is it called the giant sloth?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, they've got a bunch of different names. They are enormous. They roam South America all the way up into Canada. They think they're easily I don't know five times the size of a person when they stood up on their hind legs, like we're talking creatures that would boggle your mind. Woolly mammoths are no slouch either. They were enormous as well. But as this story is about the woolly mammoth and a woolly mouse, why is this a big deal Like? Why is this a thing that's a big deal beyond being odd?

Speaker 2:

I think we're going to get into the pros and cons of, you know, resurrecting the woolly mammoth or resurrecting extinct species, because there are definite pros involved but definitely cons as well. But the woolly mouse is a stepping stone towards de-extinction efforts for the woolly mammoth, and Colossal Biosciences is a Dallas-based company leading the research with the goal of resurrecting extinct species.

Speaker 1:

Now the science I went into. It's a lot of genetic engineering and they implanted genetically modified embryos into female lab mice and last October so October 2024, the woolly mice were born. But they're not called woolly mice, they're called woolly pups and the company believes that reviving species like the mammoth and dodo could help restore damaged ecosystems.

Speaker 2:

But on the flip side of that the critics of the resurrection. They question whether de-extinction is safe for the environment or the animals themselves.

Speaker 1:

You can Google image the woolly mouse and they are wild looking. They have long woolly hair and they have fat metabolism adapted for cold environments. Now you can't see the second one, but they do look pretty wild in the photos, in the articles. And these genetic traits were searched for in the woolly mammoth DNA, because ancient woolly mammoth DNA has been scooped up from the tundra.

Speaker 2:

from preserved woolly mammoths we've found what they did is they compared ancient mammoth DNA with the genetic sequences of African and Asian elephants, which are the mammoth's closest relatives, and then so they were looking for genetic traits and their search for those traits in mice, to see if they would produce similar effects.

Speaker 1:

So just to clarify, you're right, Chris. They identified the genes responsible for the mammoth characteristics in our elephants today and they use genetic engineering techniques to modify mice DNA based on mammoth genes. So they didn't necessarily put mammoth genes in the mouse. They modified mouse genes to mimic mammoth genes, so they didn't necessarily put mammoth genes in the mouse.

Speaker 1:

They modified mouse genes to mimic mammoth genes and they got mice with long woolly golden coats, not unlike Manny the Mammoth from the Ice Age movies. Everybody's intrigued, but there's a bunch of scientists who are doubtful that we can scale this up to elephants, because that's what they're looking at next, I believe they're going.

Speaker 2:

They're planning to use the same genetic modifications to asian elephant embryos and, similarly to the mouse. The modified embryos would be implanted into female elephants, which they will give birth to, calves with the mammoth like traits.

Speaker 1:

Oh my God, baby elephants are already so cute. Can you imagine a baby elephant with like long flowing golden hair? I know we're going to get to the ethics of it, but that would be adorable. Gabriello Mastromonaco is actually the toronto zoo and she's on record saying these de-extinction techniques are a distraction from conservation. There also could be unpredictable effects. When you're monkeying with dna and then letting them loose into the environment, especially if they can breed with elephants that are already out there, you're going to start to create new species. And what? Once it happens? You can't go back. There's a bunch of problems there.

Speaker 2:

Some critics are wondering will the restored species behave like the mammoths once did?

Speaker 3:

I don't know how did they behave?

Speaker 2:

That's just it right. The world is not quite the same place that it was when the woolly mammoths were walking on it, so how can they be sure that it's going to be a success? And, like you said, you can't put the toothpaste back into the tube once you have released this into the wild.

Speaker 1:

Right and mammoths, can you know? They're covered with long fur. They can withstand colder climates Like they are. The hope is that they're going to go and into areas and restore the ecosystems like they once were.

Speaker 2:

When we're talking about changing the ecosystem. They can reduce the carbon escape and affect climate change is what some of the scientists who are pro re-extinction, re-distinction or de-extinction are suggesting that they could potentially do.

Speaker 1:

And are we going to see these woolly mammoths like in 25 years wandering around in the tundra having to fight polar bear? I guess it might be another food source for the rapidly dwindling polar bear numbers. But are woolly mammoths violent? Or is our Inuit people that live way up there going to have to deal with mammoth attacks? There's so wild to think introducing some kind of crazy huge creature like that in Wetundra right Wild yeah, wetundra right.

Speaker 2:

Wild yeah. But there there are future plans, so the company aims to produce mammoth, like asian elephant embryos, by 2025. It's 2025 right now and they're later this year yeah, this year and they're looking at the first mammoth like calves, expected by 2028. Wow, they're also working on reviving the dodo bird and the tasmanian tiger that's crazy I don't know.

Speaker 1:

There's part of me that I'm curious. I want to see what they would look like moving around, because all we have is skeletons of the dodo bird, maybe paintings, and obviously no eyewitness accounts that are reliable of what the mammoths look like when they were alive and moving around. Oh, we have the skeleton, but the Tasmanian tiger that's relatively newly extinct.

Speaker 2:

It's a lot of resources being spent on de-extinction that that money could be spent on conservation and helping the animals that are currently endangered or very close to being extinct.

Speaker 1:

I just Googled that the Tasmanian tiger went extinct in 1936. So there's people alive today that would have potentially seen it move around, be alive as a creature have potentially seen it move around, be alive as a creature.

Speaker 2:

But like just think of like relocation efforts where they reintroduce wolves into yellowstone national park and the positive things that happened by doing that and our beaver is an ecosystem engineer and changing our ecological landscape in our creek.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and the settlers killed all the beavers and it messed up the water right. So you take something out of the ecosystem. It messes it up.

Speaker 2:

But now we have current ecosystems and then just re-bringing in something that has been extinct. What could that do? What kind of environmental risks are there? And you know what? There's only so many resources to go around. So if we're thinking of, like the specialist niche or the broad niche up north, what is the resource allocation and what is going to be the food source for the woolly mammoth?

Speaker 1:

What does it eat? What does it eat on the time? Grubby bushes, like there's not a lot of. I was on the tundra, chris. There's nothing, not a lot of. Like whole lot of nothing. Little scrubby bushes everywhere that these little ptarmigan birds live under. They're pretty cute. Actually, coming soon to a tundra near you 2028, according to this company is some little baby woolly mammoths.

Speaker 2:

Pretty wild.

Speaker 1:

And it all starts with a woolly mouse. All right, that's animal science for this week. Hello everybody, here's some ways you can keep the science podcast free. Number one in our show notes sign up to be a member of our Paw Pack Plus community. It's an amazing community of folks who love pets and folks who love science. We have tons of bonus Bunsen and Beaker content there and we have live streams every Sunday with our community. It's tons of fun. Also, think about checking out our merch store. We've got the Bunsen Stuffy, the Beaker Stuffy and now the Ginger Stuffy. That's right, ginger the Science Cat has a little replica. It's adorable. It's so soft, with the giant fluffy tail, safety glasses and a lab coat. And number three if you're listening to the podcast on any place that rates podcasts, give us a great rating and tell your family and friends to listen too. Okay, on with the show.

Speaker 1:

Back to the interviews. It's time for Ask an Expert on the Science Podcast, and I have Dr Kevin Morgan, an expert in catalysis chemistry. Doc, how are you doing today? I'm keeping on yourself. I'm good. I'm good Fun. I always ask guests where they are in the world and where they're calling in from. You're a little ways away from us? Where are you in the world?

Speaker 3:

I am. I'm the other side of the pond in Belfast in.

Speaker 1:

Northern Ireland. I would love to get to Ireland one of these days. My wife and I are seriously looking at a little trip through England, scotland and then Ireland maybe Very cool part of the world. Have you lived there your whole life?

Speaker 3:

I have. Yes, yeah, I've not lived anywhere else, but it's nice.

Speaker 1:

I like it. Nice, yeah, belfast is right. You're right on the ocean, aren't you Like? In between the Big Island and yourself? Isn't that where Belfast is? If I'm?

Speaker 3:

remembering. Yes, so we're right at the Irish Sea in between Ireland and Scotland.

Speaker 1:

Very cool. We're very landlocked here in Alberta, canada. Any kind of ocean is a day of driving at least straight. So jealous of you so I introduced you as a Dr Morgan expert in catalysis chemistry. What's your training in science? Can you tell everybody about that? Just briefly?

Speaker 3:

yeah, so I completed an undergraduate degree in chemistry, queen's university belfast yeah and followed that up with a phd in chemical engineering focusing on catalysts, and again, that was a queen's. I've not really left the island to do much with my career so yeah, that's primarily where my background has been. In the last six years I've moved, focusing much more on chemical education research just by virtue of teaching more and more chemistry to students, which is the physical chemistry side of things. It's catalyst, catalytic reactors, thermodynamics, that sort of stuff nice uh, I, I'm a high school chemistry teacher myself.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, very familiar with the whole catalyst part of chemistry. Very cool. What was it that got you into chemistry like? Why did you get bit by a chemistry bug? What happened there?

Speaker 3:

yeah, I suppose it's hard to pinpoint.

Speaker 3:

I think we can probably all point back to something in our childhood and you're probably familiar with as well the csi effect it's called. But I suppose growing up I remember ghostbusters and how maybe real science, just the pseudoscience and the authority of the Ghostbusters and how they were tackling stuff. And then growing up in the Jurassic Park from that and I suppose the interesting thing was always trying to do the right thing and how you can do that through science. And the thing that sticks out to me from Jurassic Park is Jeff Goldblum just saying your scientists were so interested in whether they could they didn't stop to think about whether they should. And I actually teach ethics now to our chemical engineers and that's something I always point back to. So there's those influences even outside of school. But then it's the z and a very enthusiastic chemistry teacher at school and I suppose that's where the you really catch the bug, when you have someone like that, someone like yourself, standing up and it just really infuses you about the subject and I think you just pursue it because of that.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's funny. You mentioned, like movie, tv show, pop culture influencing you. I've talked before on the science podcast. I was heavily influenced to become a scientist and then I'm not a teacher by Dr Dana Scully from the X-Files right. I just saw her as a hero of critical thinking, even as a teenager. So I love yeah, I love also the heroes of the Ghostbusters are the quote-unquote scientists, which are fun too.

Speaker 3:

So my wife would be a big fan of Dana Scully as well. I'm a big fan of Dina Scully as well. I'm a big fan of X-Files. So, yeah, I think there was just so much when we were growing up of science on television and the movies that it just really did pique that interest.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, we need that again, I love the Marvel movies but we need to bring back back some of the critical thinking, scientists or the heroes type thing.

Speaker 3:

It's better if the scientists create the heroes. I think that's what's happening now I think you'd probably enjoy. A colleague of mine that's based in Trinity College Dublin just released a book on chemistry in the movies and on television. Oh cool, and he does visiting talks on it. It's excellent all the things he talks about. But I mean there are some more recent examples. I suppose that maybe we don't think about, as you say, the world dominated by Marvel movies, but I mean we did have Oppenheimer, I know.

Speaker 1:

That was a good get for the history of physics at that time, for sure yeah yeah, just before I've got. I got a couple other questions for you, but I'm familiar with what catalysts are and since this is something you've studied very in depth, kevin, could you just give us a rundown of what catalysts are and maybe where they're used? Like where would somebody who's somebody not in science would understand where and why catalysts would be used? Do you mind?

Speaker 3:

No, not at all. I guess catalysts are probably everywhere. Automotive vehicle probably have a catalytic converter on it at the back which is just helping to clean up the exhaust and removing harmful substances from the air. So while people may not have heard of it, they've been utilizing it every day of their lives that way. But almost all industrial processes have a catalyst in there somewhere and the purpose of the catalyst is either to reduce the energy input or to increase yield and selectivity. Reduce waste.

Speaker 1:

That's a big one.

Speaker 3:

It is, yeah, so green chemistry just more sustainable. I don't even like to say the word waste. Normally, I always see waste as another resource. It's the feedstock for something else. But atlas are all about making the process more efficient, whether it is in terms of feedstock or energy and even cost.

Speaker 1:

Sometimes they are so important to everything that we use and maybe even take for granted, the analogy I give my students is like a catalyst in an industrial situation is the difference between baking a cake at 450 for 30 minutes and you'll be able to bake the cake at 100 Fahrenheit or whatever, because our stoves in Canada are Fahrenheit Celsius in 10 minutes. So you can just bake the cake cool, with less energy, quicker. I don't know if that's a good analogy for the higher level stuff that you stuff, you covered.

Speaker 3:

No, it's up up absolutely an apt analogy, but I suppose another one is sometimes it opens up a different route to the final product. So maybe a shortcut instead of going over all the hills of the traditional activation energy, maybe you find a secret valley that you don't have to go up to as high a temperature. So maybe a combination of the two analogies there would work quite well, I like it.

Speaker 1:

I appreciate that. I always like sneaking in chemistry where I can, because that's my background.

Speaker 3:

It's hard to get me to stop talking about it.

Speaker 1:

So this is fun. We've got a. We have something that you actually mentioned to me as we were leading up to this interview about there's some really cool chemistry history in Belfast and I was like I don't know anything about this and I'm sure our audience would you mind regaling us of some of the chemistry history you got to tell us.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I'll probably head backwards in time.

Speaker 3:

I think, Belfast is mostly known, either for a number of reasons of the Titanic, a divided society or Ireland in general being known for alcoholic beverages. But in terms of, yeah, absolutely. But in terms of chemistry, we're actually fortunate at Queen's University Belfast to be one of the few universities that has two Royal Society of Chemistry landmark plaques, and we unveiled one last year in honour of someone who taught me. He's an emeritus professor now. He only recently retired AP De Silva, who designed photo-induced electron transfer analysers which are used almost as disposable blood testing kits in emergency healthcare, so in ambulances, but also in veterinary applications, which obviously you'll be very interested in as well, and the inspiration for that was actually treating his own grandmother's high blood pressure. That's something that goes back to 1980s 1990s, so AAP is originally from Sri Lanka. He started the work there, he continued it when he moved to Belfast, very proud of that. The amount of lives that it has saved, that science that led to this device has been immeasurable. In fact, moving slightly further back then, queens and Belfast are quite well known for ionic liquids. I don't know if you've maybe heard of those or not, but they're salt in a liquid state under ambient conditions and they can be widely used in green chemistry as alternative solvents and catalysts, which we've already been talking about. The professor Ken Seddon, who unfortunately is no longer with us um, it was the founder of that in queens and he was well renowned for ionic liquids. But that's a research center and we love our acronyms in belfast, so it's quill. So queens university ionic liquids lab that's still going strong was founded in 1999. So it's been going for 25 years, nice. But it's not always been directly about chemistry. As we go a little bit further back to the 40s, we had a professor, alfred Stewart, who was very well known in organic chemistry, but actually he had a pseudonym and was a crime writer of jay connington and actually written 17 novels under that pseudonym. So there's that little bit of history. But queen's university is in its 180th year this year, so founded in 1845 and its first vice president was our first professor of chemistry, who was thomas andrews, who was taught by lord kelvin's father. So a lot of people maybe don't realize lord kelvin was born in belfast before moving to glasgow and thomas andrews taught in the same institute where Lord Kelvin's father had taught and where Lord Kelvin himself was educated and became that first professor of chemistry at what was the Northern College of the Queen's University of Ireland back then. That became Queen's College Belfast back in 1845. They didn't have students coming until 1849.

Speaker 3:

Thomas Andrews held on to those roles to 1879. 34 years at the top of the organisation. But his chemistry background was physical chemistry. A bit like myself, he was one of the first to identify that ozone was an allotrope of oxygen. But also he worked on the liquefaction of carbon dioxide. So a lot of his work has gone into liquid refrigerants, why we have household refrigeration. But that sort of work between continuity of gas and liquid state has become inspirations for others. Johannes Diederik van der Waals I'm sure you've heard of. His equation of state was based a lot on what Thomas Andrews' calculations were. This is quite apt for me because I actually teach equations of state. Even now, going back, that work from the 1860s is still holding up. So well.

Speaker 3:

But he is such an interesting character. He had what we would call a triple crown. Almost uniquely, he was a fellow of the Royal Society of London, a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and a member of the Royal Irish Academy, and very few people managed to get all three of those.

Speaker 1:

Sorry, it was the third one. The third one is that's, one I'm not familiar with.

Speaker 3:

Yes, so it's the Royal Irish Academy. It's the equivalent of both the Royal Society of London and the Royal Society of Edinburgh, but based in Dublin. So it's Irish based. It's Irish based.

Speaker 1:

Okay, gotcha. So Scotland, UK, and then.

Speaker 3:

Irish, but it dates back to, obviously, while the whole of Ireland was part of the United Kingdom.

Speaker 1:

Right.

Speaker 3:

So it dates well back. So it has retained its royal title Gotcha Even now. He was a real interesting character, even outside of chemistry. So as a leader of a university he was very much focused on what a university was about for the public good. He was an early advocate for admitting women to the university, as far back as 1870. Good on him. It was 1882 before Queen's finally admitted people.82 before Queen's finally admitted people, but before Queen's he was a general practitioner, a doctor, as was very common at the time for medically trained people to go into the natural sciences. But he did a lot of charity work and setting up soup kitchens to help those during the Irish potato famine Famine. So he helped with that. He's a really interesting character and one of the things he actually did from the medical point of view was investigated the harmful effects of alcoholic beverages, which is something that we're going to move on to Irony hey.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, absolutely, and I suppose the interesting thing about him and connecting with yourself is that we believe his descendants are in and around Vancouver and the wider state of British Columbia as well.

Speaker 1:

Oh, there you go.

Speaker 3:

He does have other descendants, but that seems to be where the largest cohort have ended up. But yeah, it's possibly one of the most influential chemists that you've never heard of.

Speaker 1:

That is amazing Good place to settle. If you're from Ireland, the climate of Vancouver would be similar. Yeah, absolutely. It would probably be a pretty rude awakening to settle where we live in the middle of Alberta.

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

I see all the snow all the time. Oh man, it's rough, we have rough winters. Can I quick question forget the the scientists you're mentioning that found the allotrope thomas thomas andrews andrews. Okay, gotcha a little more irony discovering ozone but then also working with refrigerated systems, which chlorofluorocarbons led to the destruction of the ozone layer later on. That's a fun connection there yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 3:

I think those refrigerants definitely predate him, but that that work did lead there in the end, yeah, okay, that is, that is really cool.

Speaker 1:

That is cool. Um, yeah, I don't have. I don't have much follow-up questions there, I'm just like processing, processing all of it. I do appreciate that some scientists, their inventions come from the need to help those around them, as is that the one chemist you mentioned that had a grandmother that was struggling with. It was blood pressure, yeah, so ap de silva yeah ap de silva. Okay, very cool, all right.

Speaker 3:

It makes me want to look more into this stuff we had great celebration last year with we unveiled ap de silva's national chemical landmark on the 10th of april and then we restored thomas andrews grave on the 11th of April and then we restored Thomas Andrew's grave on the 11th of April. So it was a very busy week and I was involved in organizing both. So it's a really enjoyable and humbling experience for different reasons, but definitely a very busy week.

Speaker 1:

I appreciate you giving us some of the history of the Belfast area. That's not a perspective that I don't know. I don't want to be silly about this, but I don't think many people would know anything about those folks without somebody like yourself telling us. So I do appreciate that.

Speaker 3:

I think it's a very harsh thing that we maybe don't shout from the rooftop about our achievements very often. Yeah.

Speaker 1:

You need to be a little bit more braggy sometimes. Yes, Moving on to some other science adjacent to some of the folks you talked about, St Patrick's Day is coming up. I hear tell that's a big deal in Ireland. Just a little bit.

Speaker 3:

Just a little bit. But not even just Ireland, I'm pretty sure it's. It's a one day of the year where everyone wants to be Irish, that's true, yep, okay, you got me there, yeah and some, some cities, and particularly your side of the Atlantic, um, do it much bigger than what we do here. Uh, yeah, it's one of our exports.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. So just to give you a perspective, where I live, the students, the kids because I'm a high school teacher try to wear green. Obviously, I have a green tie that I wear. And then there's kids wandering around with Kiss Me, I'm Irish t-shirts and they're like you're not Irish, you're from India, right? So they're just being silly right? So the one day of the year you want to be Irish, you're right, because I've seen the kids with the shirts and they're clearly not from Ireland.

Speaker 3:

We're a very inclusive society now. Despite our recent history, we try to be very inclusive.

Speaker 1:

Now on the terms of some beverages folks may want to enjoy on saint patrick's day. Many of them obviously are from ireland, like guinness bailey's irish cream, irish coffee and then some very nice whiskeys, I hear tell. I was wondering if you could tell us a little bit about the chemistry that goes into some of those drinks.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so actually Andy Brunning, who you've probably heard of from Compound Chem, has done a load of infographics around Guinness chemistry and whiskey and he's published them in Chemical and Engineering News. But, like some of the background is somewhat similar ingredients, when you think about it, to both the beers and the whiskies. So you're starting with a grain and in the case of Guinness it's hops and that's what gives it the better taste. The colour itself comes from the reaction between the sugars and the proteins when they're heated and that's why it's so dark as well. Uniquely, or perhaps unique to how I know, guinness contains nitrogen as well as carbon dioxide. So most beverages we're used to it being predominantly carbon dioxide, but there's a lot of nitrogen in there. Partly that helps to actually reduce the bitterness in in the taste of the guinness. I suppose that's how it's distinct from other beers. We do have lots of other beers in ireland, but I guinness is probably the best known oh, it's crazy well known.

Speaker 1:

yeah, if somebody in canada was like, hey, what's a drink from ireland? Two seconds they'd say Guinness and then probably Bailey's, because you'd put that in your coffee on a day that you got nothing else to do maybe you could end up in lots of different discussions as to what's a beer, what's a lager and what's a stout as well.

Speaker 3:

I'm not a big enough aficionado to be able to tell you the difference there, but that's what sort of discussion you would have. Then you mentioned the Irish coffee, which key ingredient is the whiskies which you also mentioned as well. From a very chemical perspective, physical chemistry, Irish whiskey has to be triple distilled or it's not allowed to be called Irish whiskey. Scot whiskey has to be triple distilled or it's not allowed to be called Irish whiskey. Scotch has to be doubly distilled to distillations, and a lot of North American whiskeys would maybe only have a single stage distillation. So that's a sort of very obvious differentiation between some of the more common whiskeys that you'd be drinking. Irish whiskey is typically a malted barley that goes into the mashing and the fermentation. As I said, triple distilled, usually in copper stills. We're back to using copper for heat conduction, but also there's consideration that copper can act as a catalyst for some of the reactions that you want to happen.

Speaker 1:

Oh nice.

Speaker 3:

That's part of the process. And then you have to age it. Irish whisky is aged in oak barrels. Now each distillery will use an oak barrel. It's never a virgin oak barrel. It's always been typically used to host some other spirit prior to that to add to the flavour, and that's at the discretion of those master distillers, going way back when to when those distilleries started. But that's where some of the colour comes from, as well as the flavours that comes from the, the Irish whiskeys there is a lot to that.

Speaker 1:

This is this could be an hour discussion if we get get into it we, during covid, had a whiskey session.

Speaker 3:

So I have a friend, a friend from Scotland, who knows all about the distillation process, as far as I know, for Queen's chemistry department. He did an informative talk, but it was an opportunity for us all to show off our whisky collections over Teams and Zoom at the time. That went on for more than an hour. As I'm sure you can imagine, we had nothing else to do those evenings.

Speaker 1:

So the next question before we wrap this up here, Doc, in Canada one of the very stereotypical meals you've probably heard of is poutine, and it's not something the average Canadianadian eats very often. It's just not. Does the average nice person from ireland do they partake in some of these drinks?

Speaker 3:

so I think we will call it potching. So actually there's probably similar origins in the language there. It wouldn't necessarily be a legal beverage. I've never known it to be present when I've been around before. But yeah, so I think you'd be talking home distilling and things like that to to create that if we're talking about the same type of beverage there.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, very fun. Yeah, what would you? Which drink would you recommend for somebody on saint patrick's day if they could get their hands?

Speaker 3:

I'm very hard because we've got.

Speaker 1:

Canada has really good relationships with ireland.

Speaker 3:

There's no tariffs or anything like that for people listening I'm partial to jameson's, the irish whiskey okay, which did start in dublin, and when you come visit with your wife there's a brilliant distillery tour for that, just like there's a brilliant tour of the the guinness storehouse as well in dublin. But production has moved to Cork down the very southwest now of Jameson's. But it's a very smooth whiskey and I tend to favor that.

Speaker 1:

Love it All. Right, thanks, Doc. As we wrap up our interview, we always ask our guests if they have any pet stories they'd like to share from their life.

Speaker 3:

as this is the Science Podcast, yeah, absolutely, any pet stories they'd like to share from their life. As this is the science podcast? Yeah, absolutely. I'll start and keeping on the irish theme that the um irish president, and so in the republic of ireland, dublin, is a big fan of bernie's mountain dogs as well, which you may not know no, I know he's a rather diminutive fellow and the dogs look giant next to him.

Speaker 1:

Is this correct?

Speaker 3:

Absolutely. He's had three of them. Unfortunately, only one of them is still with us, so he had Brode first, which is Irish for pride, then Sheeta, which is Irish for silk. He currently has Mishnock, which was the youngest. Mishnock overlapped with Broad until a few years ago.

Speaker 3:

Mishnock means courage, which I thought, considering Bunsen's run-in with the coyote, that you would find quite apt as well. But I just thought that it would interest you. And they live in Ars Anuchthron, which is the president's residence in the middle phoenix park in dublin. But I thought that was a nice link for you and your own family. Here at home we have a 14 year old lasa apso named dally. As you can imagine, he's getting a bit slower and lazier and now, but um, for most of his life he used to climb up on the back of our sofa just to get to lick my ears, and I would actually lean on my back pushing down on me to to lick my ears, um, so I've always loved doing that. The one other thing that I remember him doing is, um, an old bed that we had. He used to be able to go right underneath it and I used to have books under there, and he must have a craving for intellect, because he he used to chew particularly stephen fry books a whole good choice.

Speaker 3:

Some pretty good humor there yes, I wasn't particularly thrilled about it at the time, but looking back now you can laugh at that. But yeah, he's been great with our daughters, just so relaxed around them. Great dog, as I said, he's just so much energy sometimes, but right now he took himself off to bed and was just lazing upstairs at the moment.

Speaker 1:

So, yeah, bunsen's getting a little older and he does a little lot more sleeping too. But you know what he's put his he's what I tell people when he sleeps a little bit more. It's like he's earned that sleep, the amount of joy that he's given our family and the world.

Speaker 3:

he can start to move towards retirement yeah, absolutely, and you know you really enjoy the fact when they just sit up next to you and don't want to move. Yeah, on the couch, considering that they don't always like to be held and cuddled much harder with a bernese, of course but when they get to that point of actually wanting to stay next to you, it's rewarding for us in the same way as you said, they've earned that rest they have.

Speaker 1:

If any creature on earth has earned that rest, it's the dog absolutely well, kevin, thanks for sharing your pet story with us. That was really sweet and we there's a fan account of brode. They say that right the bernice mountain dog yeah yeah, there's a fan account that follows us that was constantly. It was just joyful seeing I'm sorry, is it the president of ireland?

Speaker 3:

it's the president of the republic of ireland republic of ireland.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it was joyful seeing the president with his dogs and I was trying to get into his pocket. There's like a viral clip, I think, of one of the dogs trying to get treats out of his pocket and he was giving like a very important talk or speech to the media and it was like he was shoving it away and it kept wanting treats.

Speaker 3:

It's very yeah yeah, no, that's it. But they're just such a great dog and they would have the run of the house, it seems, during state functions as well. So there's other videos. If you have time, you'll just see them searching through the state function rooms and a crowd looking for him and finding him to find. And again, it's always about the treats. Yeah, that's sweet.

Speaker 1:

We're at the end of the chat. Kevin, thank you so much for giving up your time to talk to us about some of your expertise in chemistry A really engaging history lesson of the chemistry of Ireland, specifically where you are in the Belfast region, and then a little bit about Irish spirits. Thanks for giving up your time, thank you. I'll ask the question and then I'll go ahead with whatever you'd like to say Before we wrap up. Doc, are you on social media anywhere? Folks could track you down.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so I'm on X, formerly known as Twitter, and on Blue Sky and LinkedIn as well, but you'll find me on X and Blue Sky as Dr Kevin Morgan and on LinkedIn, kevin Morgan at Queen's University, belfast.

Speaker 1:

Perfect, we'll make sure there's a couple links in our show notes. Okay, all right, take care of yourself. I know, with the time change it's got to be almost bedtime for you.

Speaker 3:

Have yourself a great evening. Yeah, thank you, and you as well.

Speaker 1:

That's it for this week's show. Thanks for coming back week after week to listen to us, and if you'd love to support what we do, check out the show notes and sign up for part of the Paw Pack. That's like our Patreon group and a top tier member gets their name shouted out. So, chris, let's hear those members that support us so much.

Speaker 2:

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Speaker 1:

For science, empathy and cuteness. Woof, woof, woof, woof.

Speaker 3:

Woof.