Season 8 Episode 9: Winged Flight, Rile up The Dog, and Melly the Science Geek!

Your brain is way more flexible than your body. We start with a wild virtual reality study that asks a simple sci-fi question: could humans learn to fly if we had wings? After a week of VR training with motion tracking, participants don’t just get better at flying through rings and hovering over cliffs, their brains begin responding to wings the way they respond to arms. We unpack what that says about neuroplasticity, body perception, and why “embodiment” is the real magic behind great human-tech interfaces.

Then we shift to something you can try today with zero equipment: play with your dog for five extra minutes. A Royal Society study suggests short, focused interactive play like tug, chase, hide and seek, and rough-and-tumble can strengthen emotional closeness even more than adding extra training time. We share our own household chaos, the games that hype the dogs up, and why tiny daily interactions can matter more than you think.

Our guest, Melly Byrd (Melly The Science Geek), brings the big energy and the big brains. We talk about building a science communication audience on TikTok and Instagram, choosing topics that genuinely spark curiosity, and going deep on the biology of cannibalism, prion diseases like Kuru and Creutzfeldt-Jakob, and what mad cow disease taught the world about the food chain. We also get real about generational divides, phones in schools, and the growing push to limit generative AI so students can actually learn the skills they’re outsourcing.

Melly on Instagram

Melly's Website

All our social links are here!

Transcript

Welcome And Weather Check-In

SPEAKER_00 0:09

Hello, science enthusiasts. I'm Jason Zakowski.

SPEAKER_02 0:12

And I'm Chris Zakosky.

SPEAKER_00 0:14

We're the pet parents of Bunsen, Beaker, Bernoulli, and Ginger.

SPEAKER_02 0:18

The science animals on social media. If you love science and you love pets, you've come to the right spot.

SPEAKER_00 0:25

So put on your safety glasses.

SPEAKER_02 0:27

And hold on to your tail.

SPEAKER_00 0:29

This is the Science Podcast. Hi, welcome back to the Science Podcast. We hope you're happy and healthy out there. This is episode nine of season eight. Chris, are you enjoying all the rain?

SPEAKER_02 0:42

Yes and no. The rain is good for the farmers, but I'm really missing the warm days that we had.

SPEAKER_00 0:51

Yeah, we had some really hot days. So hot it was too hot for me. We had some, I think it was like 33 degrees Celsius one day, which is like a hot summer day for us. So it was a little bit of atypical weather early on.

SPEAKER_02 1:08

I could have that hot weather back in a second.

SPEAKER_00 1:11

Yes, you and Beaker and Bricks. I think Bricks really likes the hot weather. You took him out into the patio and he didn't freak out, probably because it was so hot and he just stretched out and enjoyed it.

SPEAKER_02 1:20

Oh, he was stretching out and really enjoying himself. He loved it.

SPEAKER_00 1:27

Let's talk about what's going to be on the show this week.

What’s On The Show

SPEAKER_00 1:30

In Science News, we have a really fun study that looked at what would happen if humans had wings. They looked at it in virtual reality, and it turns out the brain, the human brain, is pretty good at rewiring for things like wings. So we'll get into that. In pet science, we have a little study from the Royal Society from for open science about dog play, human and dog play. And it doesn't take that much time to have some really important benefits. Our guest in Ask an expert is Melanie Bird. She has a rapidly growing social media presence, especially on TikTok and Instagram. And she is a Gen Z scientist. So she's one of the youngest guests we have ever interviewed. I think the other guest we've interviewed that was younger, Chris, was uh Gideon from I've Pet That Dog, way back when we started out. But Gideon's probably 18 or 19 now. All right, let's get on with the show. There's no time like Science Time.

Learning To Fly With VR Wings

SPEAKER_00 2:34

This week in Science News, we're gonna look at a study about how the human brain can rewire itself for odd appendages like maybe wings. Now, I don't know about you, Chris, but I've never looked at a bird and wondered, oh, I would love to be able to fly.

SPEAKER_02 2:52

No, but Icarus did, and he got too close to the sun.

SPEAKER_00 2:56

That's right. I think I'm a little too scared of heights to pull an Icarus and get that high up in the sky. I'm okay being in a plane, but if the plane was me, I think I might be uh having a little bit of an anxiety attack.

SPEAKER_02 3:10

So no hang gliding for you?

SPEAKER_00 3:13

No, I think not. I think that's uh that's something that you don't have to do. It's like people that go deep down into those caves and squish themselves through tiny cracks. That nobody told you had to do that. You don't have that's not something that you have to do. You can just choose not to do that today. And that's like hang gliding.

SPEAKER_02 3:30

For you, yeah. What about bungee jumping?

SPEAKER_00 3:34

No, no, thank you. No, the only bungee jumping maybe over water, because I would have uh I have an inflated sense of how good of a swimmer I am. So I'd assume that if I baled with that, I would just be able to do a dive and swim away, even though I'd probably get hurt really bad.

SPEAKER_02 3:53

Yeah, maybe for sure.

SPEAKER_00 3:55

Well, this study explored whether humans could learn to fly using virtual wings in virtual reality, and then perceive those wings as part of their own bodies. Now, what the reason I wanted to do this one, Chris, was many episodes ago, before you joined as a co-host, I broke down a study where they had a third arm, a robotic therm third arm attached to people. And then the people controlled that third arm with their brain. And it started off kind of clunky, but after only about an hour of the interface, people were able to just use the third arm as if it was a part of their body the whole time. And then the study was talking about how handy it would be to have three arms and how the human brain just can rewire itself for an extra appendage. I just thought that was really cool. And this one was talking about wings, and I was like, I wonder if some of the same conclusions were made. I'm not sure how helpful a third arm would be, but uh I think I could think of a few things that three arms would be useful for because we have three dogs.

SPEAKER_02 5:11

That's true. That's true. So, what the study did demonstrate was the extreme flexibility or the plasticity of the human brain and its ability to adapt to those wings or those non-human body structures. The research actually began after one of the neuroscientists shared her lifelong dream of flying during a discussion with a researcher who was interested in virtual reality movement. And they wondered whether the humans could learn bird-like flight mechan mechanics in virtual reality and whether it would, whether having that experience would alter brain function.

SPEAKER_00 5:53

So the neuroscientist named Yi Yang Kai designed a week-long VR training program based on real bird flight mechanics. And participants wore VR headsets and motion tracking equipment that transformed them into bird-like figures with giant feathered wings. And some of the pictures are pretty goofy, but yeah, it's like if a person grew wings, uh, it would have to be pretty enormous, of course, to support our weight. I think they also tweaked the bone density because our bones are and our bodies are way too heavy. And uh there's some really fun pictures on that.

When Wings Feel Like Your Body

SPEAKER_00 6:30

Virtual reality can be quite trippy. Did we we've been to virtual reality a couple times?

SPEAKER_02 6:36

Yeah, absolutely. There's a place in town that we used to have called Control V, and we took the kids to do those uh virtual reality kind of sessions, and sometimes the kids felt a little bit sick after.

SPEAKER_00 6:51

Yeah, because you run around in a room. Uh there you as you get too close to the wall, like a virtual wall shows up, so you don't run right into the wall. But some of the games required you to move around and zombies would come at you from behind. I was pretty spooky. Uh, we played golf and I just about fell over because I I hit the ball and it teleported me out into nowhere where the ball was, and then I was over top of space and it felt like I was gonna die. So yeah, it did feel pretty trippy.

SPEAKER_02 7:20

Back to this study, though, wrist rotations and arm flapping directly uh controlled the virtual wings in real time. And there were 25 participants, and they gradually learned increasingly difficult flying tasks as they went through the study. Uh, those difficult tasks included swatting falling objects, hovering over cliffs, and steering through rings in mid-air. It makes me feel like Harry Potter when he was going through the Quidditch rings. Some participants they adapted immediately, while others required multiple sessions, but all of the participants showed clear improvement over time.

SPEAKER_00 8:01

So, something really interesting the researchers found that from this was that regions of the visual cortex associated with recognizing body parts began responding more strongly to images of wings after training. So they scanned the brain and showed people some wings, and the part of the brain that would light up for arms lit up for wings. There were brain responses to wings that started resembling the brain's own responses to upper limbs, which started to suggest that the wings were becoming incorporated into their body perception, which is exactly what happened with that third arm study.

SPEAKER_02 8:40

And so I always like to talk about the now, but also the future of how this research can be incorporated in subsequent studies, or how it can apply to other technologies.

Prosthetics, Exoskeletons, And New Senses

SPEAKER_02 8:56

So the researchers believed that these findings could eventually influence technologies such as prosthetics, exoskeletons, artificial limbs, and sensory enhancements. So it was really exciting because the experience also changed the participants' psychological understanding of movement and flight in ways reading or watching videos could not achieve. So scientists believe that virtual reality may eventually allow humans to experience entirely new forms of reality and embodiment.

SPEAKER_00 9:28

Very cool. So those science fiction movies and TV shows I've seen where people are piloting a mech with their mind, that's maybe is that possible? I wonder how much a mech would cost, though. Seems like that would be out of the price range for the average family. I think people would pay a lot of money, though, for virtual reality that would let you experience world as a dog or a cat. Think about that, Chris.

SPEAKER_02 9:54

I think though, for virtual reality, and when you were talking about the mech suit, you are interested in making a mech suit for Comic Con. And I wonder if you can incorporate some virtual reality into it.

SPEAKER_00 10:06

No, I think if I did, I'd fall over and hurt myself. All right, that's science news for this week.

Five Minutes Of Play With Dogs

SPEAKER_00 10:12

This week in Pet Science, let's talk about how humans and dogs can play together, which will strengthen your relationship with your pooch. I I think we play with the dogs just about every day. Bunsen doesn't really play anymore. He's older, but Bernoulli's very playful. He plays every day.

SPEAKER_02 10:31

So I'm just gonna let everybody know that Jason secretly plays with the dogs. He will have them in our bedroom and he'll have them jump on the bed, jump off the bed, jump on the bed, jump off the bed, hah blah blah blah. And he riles them up and he riles Bernoulli up and he riles Beaker up. And then if he does that and I come in and Bunsen's following me, Bunsen is the fun police, and he's like, Nope, this energy is too much. No, thank you. It needs to stop. But it's actually funny as well when I come in individually and Jason looks at me, and Bernoulli looks at me, and they look at me with guilt in their eye because they've just been riling each other up and having a great time. And it's super fun. But I do know that definitely increases the bond that you have with Bernoulli and with Beaker because Jason is one of the funnest people I know. Uh he's always into games and making things more fun and bringing joy. And he does that with his students with the games that he comes up with on the spot in five seconds. Oh, yeah, I came up with a cell game today, or oh, I came up with a plant game today, or oh, I did this. And uh the kids were running around, and it's like super fun. Jason's always a very fun person, and the dogs definitely benefit from that personality trait that he has.

SPEAKER_00 11:52

When I was young, people would always say, Don't rile up the dog, when we'd go over to like a new house, and that is my favorite thing to do is rile up a dog. It is my favorite thing to go wrestle with when I wrestle with Bernoulli or I make Beaker crazy. It's so I do this thing, it's probably wrong, but I put my hands over top of their head and then they don't know which hand to look at, and then I get them with both my hands because I've got hands and they don't. So it's just something perplexing to a dog. I think that a human can do that because they have to stand on all four with their paws, so they only can use their the note to stop the hands from coming in. Anyways, that's just one game, it's called two hands. I just came up with the name of it. Anyways, let's get back to this.

SPEAKER_02 12:43

I know, but I one more. When Bernoulli was a puppy, you put him on a blanket and you would haul him around, and he would just be having so much fun being pulled along on the blanket. It was just so much fun.

SPEAKER_00 12:54

Uh there's nothing more there's nothing more fun than throwing a blanket on a dog and then wrestling with them under the blanket. That's another game. It's called blanket wars.

SPEAKER_02 13:03

That game was called Blob or something.

SPEAKER_00 13:05

Oh, yeah, Blob. Oh, no, that's when you eat the dog when they're a puppy, where you're under the blanket and you put throw the blanket over them and you scoop them in, and then they're all bitey and riled up, and then you spit them out, you push them out, and then they're like, Hey, I really liked it under the blanket, so then you eat them again. It's that's called blanket blob. But, anyways, let's get back to the study. So the long and short of it is that researchers found that spending just five minutes extra per day with your dog can significantly strengthen the human-dog relationship.

SPEAKER_02 13:39

So scientists focused specifically on interactive social play rather than games like fetch. The activities that they focused on included tug of war, chase, rough and tumble play, like dog blanket. Yay, hide and seek, which is what we're doing.

SPEAKER_00 13:54

Oh, I do that with the dogs all the time. I do hide and seek that makes them crazy.

SPEAKER_02 13:59

Peekaboo and teasing hand games.

SPEAKER_00 14:02

So Jason, this study was written for you. I do. This is all the bad ideas.

SPEAKER_02 14:08

So, researchers, their premise was uh that emotionally engaging play would produce a stronger relationship, more so than structured training activities. So nearly 3,000 dog guardians completed surveys about how often they played with or trained their dogs. And of course, participants completed the M D O R S questionnaire, which measures emotional closeness, interaction quality, and perceived cost of dog ownership. And they split them up. A smaller group participated in a four-week experiment involving either additional play, additional training, or no changes in their routine.

Play Beats Training For Closeness

SPEAKER_02 14:50

The play group, they spent an extra five minutes per day engaging in various social play activities like the ones that we mentioned previously, and the train group spent an extra five minutes per day practicing reward-based obedience exercises using treats. The direction was that both groups were instructed to focus entirely on their dogs during the sessions, and people who regularly played with or trained their dogs generally reported stronger relationships overall. And after the four weeks, the play group showed stronger gains in emotional closeness than the train group.

SPEAKER_01 15:30

So that's interesting. Yeah, so just ril them right up.

SPEAKER_02 15:35

About 80% of participants in the play and train groups did report noticing positive changes in their relationship with their dogs. So that's not surprising. But dog guardians in the play group often reported or felt that their dogs appeared happier and initiated and initiated play more frequently with them. So researchers suggested that interactive play may benefit both humans and dogs emotionally.

SPEAKER_00 16:03

That makes sense though. Like when you watch dogs play with each other, like they're not they do nonsense. Like they do chase, they do I'm gonna bite you and not hard, and then I'll let you bite, and I'm gonna do a somersault, I'm gonna body check you. They do all these playbounds. Yeah, they do all of these rough and tumble things. So I don't know. I don't I never take it too far with them, but yeah, they get riled up when I play with them for sure.

SPEAKER_02 16:31

For sure. Now, scientists also suggested that social play may have uh played an important role in the domestication of dogs way back in uh the beginning. But the main uh focus and highlight of the study is that small daily interactions can meaningfully improve the bond between people and their dog. So it doesn't take much, just a few minutes a day to improve that closeness that you feel with your dog. And there's nothing like it. So today Jason and I were playing with Bernoulli and Beaker, uh, and we were playing Find Your Leash. So it was an obedience game, uh, but it incorporates a lot of skills that Bernoulli has been learning, like go find. And uh even right before we started, you should have seen his cute little face. And then uh he thought he was doing the right thing. He found his leash the very first time, and then he marked it. So he laid down. That's when he has finished the task. And then, of course, the next time we played, of course, he went back to that exact spot and he jumped up and he laid down and he was looking expectantly at us like, didn't I do it? Didn't I do the thing? And you and I were just looking at his cute little face, and I said, Look at that cute little face, because I wanted to reward it.

SPEAKER_00 17:50

Yeah, and then he tried to be super cute. He was like, Oh, is this it? And it wasn't working for him. So he's like, Oh, I better put on the goober charm.

SPEAKER_02 17:58

Yeah, oh, there was so much goober charm, but it just my heart was full of happiness and joy from that bond that we have.

SPEAKER_00 18:08

And you may not know this, Chris, and people listening probably can't tell, but uh Bernoulli's been with me this entire episode. He's sitting on my feet, and I've been screwing with him this entire recording episode. I've been grabbing his nose and pushing his butt, and we've been having a good old time. So there you go. He's definitely got more than five minutes of interaction from me.

SPEAKER_02 18:31

That's so fun. And I don't have any dogs because if I had Bunsen, he would be whining like a little baby because he uh has something called toddler time whenever we uh get on uh the podcast or whenever we're talking on the phone.

SPEAKER_00 18:45

Yeah, every dog's a little different. All right, that's pet science for this

Meeting Melly Bird From TikTok

SPEAKER_00 18:50

week. It's time for Ask an Expert on the Science Podcast, and I'm thrilled to invite Melly Bird, science communicator and upcoming author on the show. Melly, how are you doing today?

SPEAKER_03 19:02

I am doing wonderful. How are you doing?

SPEAKER_00 19:04

Great. We were kind of talking before we started recording, and my wife and I adore your social media. You do such a good job with topics that are very varied that we'll probably get to a little bit later. Very authentically, I'm thrilled to have you on our show.

SPEAKER_03 19:18

I appreciate it. And also I appreciate the fact that you called me an expert. That's some wild nameplay there, but I will take it.

SPEAKER_00 19:26

Where are you calling into the show from? Where are you in the world?

SPEAKER_03 19:29

So I am based in Austin, Texas. Um actually only am here because I haven't moved away from my college campus. I went to UT Austin for my biochem degree, so I'm just still here.

SPEAKER_00 19:42

Ah, you're a fellow biochemist. That's my that was my degree, my major.

SPEAKER_03 19:48

We're all geeks and we're all equally stressed-out geeks, but we all find each other somehow.

SPEAKER_00 19:54

I did an after-degree uh in Canada. You can do once you have four, you your after degree usually only takes two. Um, and I'm a high school science teacher.

SPEAKER_03 20:02

So Oh wow. Okay. I have so many things to pick your brain on.

SPEAKER_00 20:09

Were you a science kid growing up? You have your science training in biochem. Were you one of those science geeky kids? Or did you come into science a little bit later in life?

SPEAKER_03 20:18

I actually, it's funny because I find kid real quick, just so that we're on the same age category.

SPEAKER_00 20:24

Oh, I don't know. There's some scientists who have the stereotypical origin story where they're mixing potions, which are like shampoos when they're like little, and then other kids they see something and it's it awakens something in them to read a book or there's a program, maybe when they're in their early teens.

SPEAKER_03 20:42

Yeah, I'm actually the second kid. I originally, back whenever I was like early in high school, I wanted to actually become a band director. I was a huge band. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 20:55

Oh, my son played in a marching band, the Tuba.

SPEAKER_03 20:58

So my god, I played clarinet.

SPEAKER_00 21:00

So there you go. Yeah. We're yeah, very pro music and marching band and band. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 21:06

Yeah. I so I was a huge band kid, and I wanted to really be a music education major. I wanted to go do the whole thing and be a band director for a high school marching band and do all the fun stuff. And then the sophomore year of high school hit me like a freight train. It was in the midst of trying to keep up with my valedictorian status as far as credits went as with classes. And I had taken an extra science class, that being a college-level geoscience course.

SPEAKER_01 21:40

Oh, go geology.

SPEAKER_03 21:41

I know. I fell in love with it. When I tell you, I was so obsessed. I was that tree hugger sustainability geek who really loved for some reason talking about the water table, and then like learned about the Coriolis effect, and it changed my life. And so immediately I was like, oh no. I'm like obsessed with this. I need to get into this. And it changed immediately. Within two weeks, I went from this long dream of wanting to be a band director to you're gonna be a scientist.

SPEAKER_00 22:12

Oh, that's kind of cool. But you you did you keep up doing band throughout and music throughout high school, or did you just fall all in on science after that?

SPEAKER_03 22:20

I did keep up. I part of it was to I had multiple things I was doing. At the time, I was like captain of the powerlifting team. I was the I was really integrated and banned as far as leadership roles went. At one point, my senior year, I actually uh was one of the two drum majors that they had chosen for my dance. I was like all in still.

SPEAKER_00 22:41

Yeah, you gotta be all in to be a drum major.

SPEAKER_03 22:44

Oh yeah. Oh yeah, you do. And I so I did all of that, but on the back burner, it was science turned into something that I genuinely just started to feel joy in. And I don't know how I had the time to do any of this. I'm not gonna lie. I would just start researching this stuff out of nowhere, and it was so fun. But I was like, I have to do 18 assignments tonight.

SPEAKER_00 23:09

Yes. As I am rapidly aging, I look back to what I was able to accomplish as a younger person, and I'm like, how did I have the energy?

SPEAKER_03 23:17

Hey, I feel like I'm rapidly aging as well.

SPEAKER_00 23:22

Okay, so this gives us a good kind of a good uh framework for you as a person who got into science. But right now, uh right now, the where how we found you is your Instagram account, and you also have a really large TikTok account, hundreds of thousands of followers. So congrats right up to that. That isn't that does not happen by accident, as we have we have worked really hard on our social media. Uh but your social media is very Scicom based. How did that

From Band Kid To Science Nerd

SPEAKER_00 23:49

start? I would love to hear that origin story.

SPEAKER_03 23:52

Oh, that's such a long story. Okay, I will try my best to condense it because it's wild. First off, congrats on your social media account. That stuff is crazy. I absolutely love the dogs and I love everything. And I'm like, this is awesome. This is just a little corner of the internet that I absolutely adore. But as far as my journey in Scicom goes, I had actually started being an influencer before I even knew what science communication was, and for before I even started science communication. Because there's a whole other account that you guys don't know about. It's now called Melly after hours on TikTok, but I originally had a TikTok account where I told story times in the midst of 2020, whenever everyone was quarantined and we were all bored.

SPEAKER_00 24:39

Okay, pandemic times then.

SPEAKER_03 24:41

Yes. So I was a solid 17-year-old who had no idea what the world was about. We went into quarantine, two weeks spring break started, three weeks in, I was bored, half out of my mind. And I was like, I have a lot of stories about really ridiculous things that happened at my high school. And I kind of had this weird they can't get me now mentality.

SPEAKER_01 25:04

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 25:05

Yeah. So I was like, we're already home, they can't do anything. So I started posting stories about these things that had happened. Um, everything from at one point we had a walkout for our principal, like a whole school walkout. Um, another thing was like that semester, our uh vice principal had actually been arrested for intoxicated manslaughter, like crazy stuff. And so I started talking all about this, and I gained traction really fast, and it was weird. And so I didn't know what to do with it. I'm I'm a high schooler, I don't even know what my left from my right is at this point. So this kind of a cruise all the way up until I'm about a freshman in college, and I just was like, I'm really bored. I don't want to talk about my life, I don't want to make my life this spectacle. I want to keep my own private things to myself and actually still have something to be excited about within my own life without feeling like I have to tell it to thousands of people. And I thought a little bit about it, and I was like, okay, you you have this fascination with science still. At the time, I was actually an undeclared major too. I was trying to get into the biochem degree because I got rejected or initially from my major. Um, Valedictorian, I still got rejected from my major. It gets better, guys. But at the time, I'm like pursuing this, I'm really all in on it. And so I started this whole account July of 2022. I called it sciencey melee at the time, and I started talking about science that interested me. Now, originally it started out as these animals get intoxicated from these weird things, like how dolphins pass around a puckerfish and all of that stuff. Like still weird science that I found interesting, but it was very different. And then at one point, I started to realize, oh, hey, you're learning things in your because I also have a certificate in forensic sciences as well. I was working on that at the time as well. I was like, you're learning really cool things from your forensic science class or classes. And I was like, what if I made series about that? And so I started a series called Is That a Good Way to Get Rid of a Body?

SPEAKER_00 27:17

I love it.

SPEAKER_03 27:19

And I basically it started with Walter White using a hydro hydrochloric acidic acid, yes, yeah, to dissolve bodies. And I was like, that wouldn't work. And so I started with that, and then it went to like pigs and all of that, but things that people are interested in, and it gained a traction. And then out of nowhere, I took a five-month hiatus because I was taking organic chemistry at the time, and that was crazy to say the least. So after this five-month hiatus, I break my foot in three places. I can't go to class. This is like the second semester of sophomore year at this point. I can't go to class, I can't do anything, I'm bored, and on top of that, I'm living in a textbook and I need to study like crazy. And so at one point, I decided, oh, we're gonna start this back up because we're bored, but also we're gonna use it to study. So I started talking about the P53 pathway and DNA and like cool things about it. And out of nowhere, people started to really love it. And then they loved it even more when I started a weird, another weird series called Could That Kill Me. So we've gone through all the morbid verticals that we could possibly find. Um at least so I thought at the time, and people were loving it. And at that point, I had gained around, I think it was like 120,000 followers, and I was like, Yeah, but this is still a side gig. This is just a fun little thing. I never expected it to turn into this, but it turned into this.

SPEAKER_00 28:42

Nice, that's very cool. Um, and it doesn't get there by accident because anybody can put a camera up and talk about things, but you're very engaging as a presenter, and I think that comes across earnestly. A lot of people want that in social media, right? They want a connection with whoever's speaking. Uh so that from all that practice from your COVID one, I think you want to clean off.

SPEAKER_03 29:07

Thank you so much. I honestly like to tell myself that it was all luck and that I didn't do anything as a part of it, but I'm like, I gotta keep myself a little humble.

SPEAKER_00 29:18

Luck always has a role to play, but everybody in their life has lucky breaks. Uh it's just how you capitalize on it. Thank you so much. Yeah.

Building A Science Communication Audience

SPEAKER_00 29:28

So you have all of these varied topics. Uh yes, some are morbid. You have a really great series right now. Uh we were talking about just before recording on cannibalism. Um do you choose topics based now? Do you are you thinking now of, oh, this would play well for the audience, or do you choose them, oh, I'm interested in this first? I'm curious with your take on that.

SPEAKER_03 29:52

So I am always interested in it first. And the reason I go about it that way is because, yes, people want to learn about different things and there are different interests throughout my audience. But at the end of the day, I can't talk about it like I care about it if I don't care about it. And so I like to talk to people about science in a way that not only educates them and is communicated well to them, but also that engages them. And so if I don't find it engaging, I'm not gonna be able to excitedly tell you about cannibalism like like I do. And yeah, the cannibalism one was actually a really interesting one because I remember out of nowhere, I was thinking about it and I'm reading something. I don't even remember, I think it was like, oh, it was I was reading uh Kinder is the flesh, but like a summary of it because I was choosing whether I wanted to buy the book or not. And so, which is a wild book to want to buy, um, it's really good, but it's traumatizing. But I was reading a summary of it to choose whether I wanted to buy it or not, and I was thinking of it and I go, oh my god, what are the biological effects of cannibalism? And so I started looking it up and I started looking into it, and it started popping up with a ton of different prion diseases. And I was like, why are all of these prion diseases popping up? And so I went into a whole deep dive about it. Turns out, actually, cannibalism plays a huge part in prion disease research because Kuru disease, which was the uh the prion disease that was centered around Papua New Guinea within the, I think it's a foray people of that tribe. And so scientists that had discovered Kuru from this, and they started this discovery of Kuru started actually making it to where research was just intensified throughout all prion, all prion diseases because they were basically like, oh, there's

Cannibalism, Prions, And Fatal Misfolds

SPEAKER_03 31:45

this really good connection with prion diseases and cannibalism. I see it in a lot of different just because of how it naturally can spread and transmit, not only transmit, but spread just through your body, because of that mechanism, it's super easy to find a lot of links to cannibalism with any of them. And so I started getting into this whole thing, and I was like, yep, nope, we're talking about this. And so my very first video about the biological effects of cannibalism started with Cooper disease. But yeah, it was just a really fascinating thing to me. And I'm still fascinated by prion diseases to this day.

SPEAKER_00 32:22

It's a scary thing, very rare, but it's a hundred percent fatal, I think. Um you do not recover from this if you get it. There is zero chance at surviving.

SPEAKER_03 32:31

It's absolutely tragic, by the way. There is no treatment, there's no cure, there is nothing. And like you just get a spinal tap, you get multiple things to diagnose, by the way. But spinal taps are really good for diagnosis as far as pry-on diseases go. You get that. You get told you have CJD, Kruzfeld Jakob, and you're like, I have six to twelve months to live. That's the after symptoms pop up, and it's absolutely terrible. In simple terms, we have prions that are made in our bodies naturally, they are made from the PRP gene.

SPEAKER_01 33:06

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 33:08

And so we have normal healthy prions, they live within our bodies. We need them to survive. And whenever you have, so that's called a PRP C prion.

SPEAKER_00 33:20

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 33:21

Whenever, and this happens a lot, it'll just out of nowhere spontaneously misfold, which gives us a PRP SC prion, also known as a disease prion. Yeah, so it'll misfold. And mind you, like 80 to 90 percent of Kreutzweld Jakob disease cases are like spontaneous, they happen out of nowhere, and so no one can stop it. It's just a thing that happens to you. But what goes on is after that prion misfolds, it'll then make it to where the other proteins around it start to misfold as well. And that's how it spreads. So if you get one prion protein, like one disease-causing prion protein in your body, you're screwed.

SPEAKER_00 34:05

Yeah, I remember that like the single one that causes the Slail strap effect that wrecks everything.

SPEAKER_03 34:11

It is crazy how fast, like how fast it just completely deteriorates anything.

SPEAKER_00 34:18

Yeah, rough go. Um so the long and short of it as we move on is uh cannibalism, there's massive uh increases chances of getting these diseases as you are eating the brain matter which contains these misguided proteins.

SPEAKER_03 34:33

Yeah, and that's partially like how I like to think about it is that's partially what plays into the social stigma of cannibalism as far as humans go as well. Is one, we are social creatures. Of course, there's going to be a stigma around eating your friends, but there's also a biological factor that, mind you, prions only affect mammals, they're only a mammalian thing, but there is this biological factor that's like, no, you should not do that. And it's like deeply ingrained in you, where it's kind of like looking at a rat and being disgusted by it because you know it has a ton of pathogens on it. Like rats are cute and fuzzy, and if they're clean, then you're fine. But like people are still deathly scared of rats because of this biological thing. And so we have this like we have this situation going on though with this topic, especially in a lot of my videos, where there are people who think that I am stigmatizing these prions and these prion diseases. I'm not. Just because it can be a biological effect of cannibalism does not mean that cannibalism is the only thing that spreads these diseases. That's a very important fact that I feel like everyone should know.

SPEAKER_00 35:45

We were talking before the mad cow disease. Maybe people have heard of mad cow disease. Mammals, cows are, and they can get it. And there was an I want to say it was an outbreak. It happened in Alberta decades ago. Um, and that was because through either improper food processing or cutting of corners, uh, cows were being fed cow food, but the cow food had cows mixed in with the cow food.

SPEAKER_01 36:14

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 36:15

Or uh other animal parts, and within that cow food was cowbrain. And these cows got cat mad cow disease from that process. That is what the conclusion was. And it caused whole amounts of cattle herds to be called. Uh countries around the world didn't want Alberta beef, which is what my province of Canada, Alberta, uh, is known for in Canada, and many parts of the world does the good old Alberta beef. And it was devastating to the economy. So, yeah, it's not just cannibalism, uh, it's improper food processing for the animals that we eat.

SPEAKER_03 36:51

Yeah, because as I've I've stated this in one of my videos, uh, with Kreutzweld-Jacka disease, for instance, that is a prion disease where you can actually contract it from eating beef that has mad cow disease prions.

SPEAKER_01 37:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 37:06

And so it's a really dangerous thing as far as the food chain goes, or as far as animal agriculture goes. And this actually happened as well in the UK. So during the time that you guys were dealing with it, in the UK, from 1986 to 2015, around there, there was a huge mad cow disease outbreak. And so now, even now, like it's only 11 years after, but I have gotten so many people from the UK that have opened up conversations because of this cannibalism series that I have, where they're opening up conversations and talking about, yeah, even now, like blood donations, for instance, really hard to do because a lot of people are scared that some people have CJD and they just don't know it. But yeah, that it's prions are a huge thing, and they're not only connected to cannibalism, but there is definitely a connection with cannibalism.

SPEAKER_00 38:05

Got it, yeah. And the longtime listeners will remember we had a guest on who was uh who was a dog trainer, and she had trained a couple dogs to sniff out uh chronic wasting disease in elk, which is one of these prion disease uh things. So that was kind of cool. They of course protected the dog, but they were able to have this dog sniff out where the urine or the feces of infected animals might be.

SPEAKER_03 38:33

Uh wait, what can they do were you told what they can uh what exactly they're sniffing out whenever they're sniffing out prions? Because that's crazy.

SPEAKER_00 38:41

Yeah, they yeah, they trained an info as an a chronic wasting disease infected elk or deer. I think it was both, right? Uh and if this is in the United States, like Eastern Eastern United States? Yeah, I don't know your states off the top of my head. I'm gonna have to go back to my notes. Anyways, yeah, so she trained, she was one of the professors that trained these dogs to sniff COVID, uh, people who are COVID positive, and then COVID went away, and they're like, okay, let's train the dogs for something else. And yeah, they were able to successfully train the dogs to sniff out CWD. Uh I think it was through infect like feces of infected animals. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 39:17

Oh my gosh, that's crazy.

SPEAKER_00 39:20

There's the pet tie-in for everybody who's listening uh to the science podcast.

SPEAKER_03 39:26

Love it, absolutely adore.

SPEAKER_00 39:28

Awesome. Uh so yeah, we'll of course have your socials uh tagged in the show notes, but you're Melly the Science Geek on social media. Do check out her stuff. There's varied content there, lots of fun stuff, very informative and entertaining.

SPEAKER_01 39:40

So yeah.

Gen Z On Tech And Culture Gaps

SPEAKER_00 39:42

As we kind of switch gears here, I did put it in the questions and I was thinking it's it's kind of silly, but I don't think it is. Uh but I do think you're probably the youngest guest I've ever interviewed on the show. Um you are proud, proudly identify as Gen Z. And I was talking to my students today because I teach high school kids, right? And I'm like, hey, I'm talking to this Gen Z scientist, and they're like, Oh, that's so cool, it's a Gen Z scientist. And then one of the kids said, We're the last year of Gen Z, and then you've got those alphas coming up. And the other girl said, Yeah, they're all brain-rotted. So because I teach the kids and I'm on social media, I'm stuck with the lingo. But I guess my question to you, which is a fun one because I've never got to ask it, uh, being Gen Z and being younger than uh like many of like the people I've interviewed, uh do the older generations miss things sometimes, like the millennials, the Gen Xers like myself and the baby boomers? Um just curious I'm just curious. Like you have a different perspective than a lot of people I've talked to.

SPEAKER_03 40:44

So I definitely I love having, mind you, the generational divide conversation because it's so fun. How I like to think about it is because we're all humans at the end of the day. We all we all talk with each other, we can all share experiences, and that's the that's very valuable, especially as a social creature. But whenever it comes down to generations and generational divides, honestly, there is quite a bit of cognitive dissonance with certain things, especially when it comes to technology. Because my, for instance, my generation grew up with techno technology. We are actually known as, and I've heard this many times, as technological nomads. Um, so Gen Z has grown up with kind of as especially in comparison to, in my opinion, Generation Alpha, which is where you get the brain-rotted thing from. We had an experience with technology in which we grew up with it in at least an older Gen Z in a more healthy way towards technology, but to the point where we can still do certain things that our parents still need help with. Whenever it comes to some of the younger Gen Z and Generation Alpha, they came in to life whenever technology was hitting more of its peak. Like I was a young kid whenever flip phones came out. So there's definitely a divide there as far as how we use technology, how we respect technology, and how we go about our lives with technology. And what I mean by that is there is very much, at least what I've seen personally, and yes, this is anecdotal evidence. So please tell me if I'm wrong, especially as a teacher. Like generation alpha, I feel like is, and younger Gen Z also are very much, in my opinion, more likely to use generative AI and things like it without really internalizing the consequences of that usage. And there's like these things that we just, you know, younger Gen Z and Generation Alpha, I've seen uses they use technology for things they don't need it for. And sometimes it's to their detriment. So there's a huge technological gap as far as how we approach technology, but there's also a huge gap with older generations, not only in the technology sphere, but also in the wow, life kind of sucks sphere. As far as how things are going right now and with the world, with the country, with everything. It is definitely there is definitely a gap in understanding between the current 20-year-old trying to figure out their way through life and a 60-year-old who's already made it and can only go back on their own history about it. And so there is definitely a lot of gaps, and Gen Z definitely feels like the generation where we're siloed in a way, because we have a very different experience in life than both sides of the of the generational spectrum. And so, yeah, we're a bit, we're a bit isolated in a way, and I feel like there's this like Gen Z. Pride with it that kind of comes with it. You've probably heard from your students and everything. People talk about Gen Z, especially Gen Zers talk about Gen Z. Like we are this hopeful beacon in a way towards what's going on right now, sometimes.

SPEAKER_00 44:16

A little bit, yeah. Like the baby boomers are they're set in their ways, they ain't changing. Uh the Gen X, like myself, work in the last five to ten years of our careers, right? The millennials are just jaded, they're just beat up. I just feel so bad for them. Yeah, and the Gen Zs are they have this world that's like kind of messed up.

SPEAKER_03 44:40

Our world has been crashing down around us since we were born. And you whenever you're like used to that, it's exhausting. And so there is this level of like, no, I'm proud of I'm one of those people where I'm like, no, Gen Z needs to be a beacon of hope because if we aren't, then this whole world is crashing and burning.

SPEAKER_00 44:56

Like here's a funny anecdote for you. You might like the Artemis II was a big thing that I was and a lot of my students didn't know about it, right? They had no idea, right? Uh but I started to tell them about it. Every day we were talking about Artemis II. And the they one of the kids after after the recap of when we came back from spring break, they're just you they're just like, This is I what did they say? This made me so happy. This is something that is is so different than what's happening everywhere on social media. They said they said this is just a good this is just good. This has made everybody happy.

SPEAKER_03 45:36

Yeah, that genuinely, yeah, other than scientific for scientific purposes, honestly, Artemis 2, that whole live stream, everything was genuinely a huge call for unity. And I very much appreciated how it was gone about. Yeah, there was also something to be said about we had a perfect splashdown, it was beautiful. Meanwhile, yeah, like meanwhile, NASA's funding was drastically cut, and it's been drastically cut. And so this idea that like science won anyway was so hopeful, yeah, and it was so nice to see, especially as a scientist who can see like the entire world burning around them.

SPEAKER_00 46:17

Yeah. I think what the point the kid was making is like it's been a minute in their life before they've something like that has happened.

SPEAKER_03 46:25

Yes, a truly historical moment that wasn't bad. Crazy.

SPEAKER_00 46:29

Wasn't like some horrible force fire or war or something like that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 46:34

It's like we don't live in idiocracy. Wait, this is real life now? Okay, cool.

SPEAKER_00 46:39

Yeah, and just in case you're interested, uh there's uh been a huge massive massive pushback in education to de-technologic de-technoc techno what's the best

Schools Versus Phones And Generative AI

SPEAKER_00 46:49

way? To take technology out of schools and go back to pen and paper only. Uh just because the younger kids are they just they can't deal with technology the same way that the older kids can. And then any access to that gen generative AI stuff, they'll use it at first chance, right? So that's the big problem when high school kids are not writing essays at home. They're not writing anything at home. It has to be done at the school because they'll just use it for they'll just play it through ChatGPT and be done with it. So that's been a huge detriment to teaching, and a lot of schools, including ours, are going back to zero technology. Like teacher shows a YouTube video, maybe, and then it's textbooks and it's lecturing and hands-on activities, and that's it. We're not using Chromebooks, we're not using any of that stuff.

SPEAKER_03 47:37

I'm gonna flip the seats over here real quick and kind of be the interviewer. Uh, as a teacher, how do you feel about that?

SPEAKER_00 47:43

I'm happy. It's been disastrous. Uh cell phones, for example, they crept into schools, and then as schools didn't have really firm policies, it was like whack-a-mole to have kids put their cell phones away. And there's no way, even if I'm blowing stuff up in chemistry, TikTok wins with the kids at kids' uh attention, right? Because they could watch 10 people blow up something in five seconds by scrolling through TikTok. So our school now has a zero-tolerant cell phone policy. You get you out, you have your phone out, it is gone. And then you're you have to go get it at the office, and second offense, your parents have to come get it.

SPEAKER_03 48:20

Oh my gosh. Okay. I hated school whenever I was in it, but like I say, my my years were the golden years, I think.

SPEAKER_00 48:28

Maybe it's because, as you said, that you just had a different respect for the technology. Whereas, like the kids today, if you allow phones, they'll just be on their phone. They will not do anything else but be on their phone.

SPEAKER_03 48:41

So there is also something to be said about Chat GPT not really being much of a thing until I was about a sophomore in college.

SPEAKER_01 48:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 48:51

There there was definitely a huge, still a huge jump to using generative AI, especially in college. But it was still like at the time with the friend, not friend group, but like peer group I found myself in, all of us kind of looked at it and we were like, but if we're paying for classes and we're going to set classes so that we can get education for our future careers, this kind of feels dumb. So there was still a level of thinking a little bit about it. I do think maybe taking away the even access to generative AI for younger people, especially people who do not have developed frontal lobes by any means. Um I think, yeah, I definitely look back at who I was as like a teen, and I'm not gonna lie, there were some nights that like generative AI would have been really helpful. But like now that I can think about it and I'm thinking about the effects of using it for even useful purposes, not to mention very dumb purposes that I can do myself, it just doesn't seem as appealing.

SPEAKER_00 49:56

No, it's uh cause a degradation of a lot of skills, right? Um the best analogy that I give the kids is like if you use this thing, you don't know anything. You don't uh it unless you and there's ways protect you know, we thought, oh, we could teach the kids how to use it appropriately. No, we just can't. They're not ready for that. It's like teaching a kid when's the appropriate time to use something that we've decided as a society they're not allowed to have, like alcohol or using a gun or driving a car. But there's age ages when they're allowed to do that, and gen AI is one of those things. We just it's dangerous.

SPEAKER_03 50:32

Now, mind you, there's still good purposes for AI. Oh, yeah, not generative, but there's still good usages, especially if you need to save time doing something like organizing a whole lecture and notes and stuff, like not notes, but uh but flashcards and stuff. There are things to do that, and those are genuinely helpful uses of AI. But I think regulation is where we're falling short. And now that we're implementing that regulation, it's not in the AI field, but it is in schools. So there is a level of regulation we need, but now it's a matter of time, like where we're figuring out what that regulation is and how it can be sustainable. And that's a really hard thing to do.

SPEAKER_00 51:12

Yeah, I agree. We're playing catch up. It's kind of like with the vape pens. Schools got caught really bad with that. We're and then all of a sudden all the kids were addicted to vaping in the span of about a year, and we're like, oh no, what do we do? Now we're playing catch up to this thing.

SPEAKER_03 51:27

Teenagers are like, it can't be bad, it smells like mango.

SPEAKER_00 51:30

Exactly, exactly. It's good for you. Tastes like vitamins, anyways. Before I don't want to keep you too long. This has been, I could talk to you for a long time. Uh thank you for being such an engaging guest.

A Hopeful Future For Science Fans

SPEAKER_00 51:43

Uh, I guess we talked about things that we're worried about, but are is there something that you're really excited about in science as somebody who is just making their way first in the world and in the field?

SPEAKER_03 51:54

I am excited for more people, and especially because of social media and how much science communication has boomed over social media in general, not to mention, not only with my stuff, but with a lot of other creators. And it has its own field now. I do think this is a good usage of social media. And I do think that what excites me is the thousands of messages I get telling me that I'm the person who got this person into science. And there's this growing pool of aspiring scientists or people who are now even pursuing it. And it's exciting, it's exciting to see people from different backgrounds, different different levels of privilege, different everything, and seeing these people just thrive in something they didn't even know they loved before. And so, this growing pool of scientists, I do genuinely get excited about. And I'm like, oh my gosh, I can't wait to give you guys a college lecture at some point.

SPEAKER_00 52:54

That's so sweet. That that that congratulations. Uh that that is a huge thing to do to influence people in such a positive way.

SPEAKER_03 53:03

It's the only good part about being an influencer. Okay, not the only good part, but it's the best part.

SPEAKER_00 53:09

One of the things we ask all our guests about is if uh at the end of our interview is if you could share a pet story from your life with

Levy The Dog Acts Half Human

SPEAKER_00 53:16

us. We'd love to hear.

SPEAKER_03 53:19

I am trying to come up with one. I so my boyfriend and I, we just got a dog uh from re-homed him from one of our friends. Uh his name is Levy, and he is a huge three-year-old 76-pound pit bull.

SPEAKER_01 53:35

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 53:36

And so there is there are a lot of goofy things this dog does. Uh there will be times where I am walking him and out of nowhere, it's like he is half human. Because I'll say something and he'll go to it. And I'm like, I didn't even know you knew that word. I had no idea you knew any of that. And he'll look at me like we're communicating, like we're genuinely both talking in English about something. And I'm like, this is there's no way that you just heard that. There will be times whenever I'm because we have a balcony, I'll go onto the balcony and he'll follow me. He'll bring a toy or something. And if it's a monster toy, for instance, I'll I'll be like opening the door to come back in, and he'll look at me and he'll start following me, and then he'll wait and he'll go back and he'll grab his monster toy, and then he'll come in. And I'm like, Did you just take your toy in? So I didn't have to do it. And he'll do it so many times. And he did not do that whenever we first started. So mind you, only had him for a month, but out of the stories, sorry, I didn't give y'all a juicy one, but this is tragic.

SPEAKER_00 54:49

No, that's all good. A little moments sometimes that are the big ones that you remember about your pet. So that's yeah, it's all good.

SPEAKER_03 54:56

Yeah, he's definitely a little, a little smart guy. I absolutely love him.

SPEAKER_00 55:02

Yeah, our three dogs have very distinct personalities. I don't know which one is the most human-like, though. They all have they all do things that are very human-like. I think Beaker or Golden is the most dog of the dogs. He's the one that acts like them like a dog. Uh Bunsen's a little bit older, so he acts like an old man. He reminds me of my dad, who's in his 70s. And then Bernoulli has this massive personality. He's like the he's like the the six-year-old at the concert, just yelling. The Christmas concert, just yelling and trying his best and just making a fool of himself.

SPEAKER_03 55:38

That's iconic, and I love all three of them and their names. That's amazing. I will say, they're like you said, which dog was it that was very much dog?

SPEAKER_00 55:48

That beaker is very much a dog. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 55:51

So you said beaker was very much a dog. I will say, Levy, I don't think knows what he is. Like he has no idea. He'll we'll uh throw, we'll play fetch and I'll throw a toy across the room. He gets close to it, like he'll run after it, and then he'll use his two front paws and pounce on it like he's a cat. And I'm like, I don't know. I was like, I don't know what you're doing.

SPEAKER_00 56:14

That's cute. Our little our little kitty bricks, he's the only known dog, so I think he he is very much a dog. This cat. So it just depends on what they're around. I think sometimes too.

SPEAKER_03 56:26

You're like he barks in his sleep. Like yeah.

SPEAKER_00 56:32

We're at the end of the interview. Uh, Melly, thank you so much for being our guest today. Again, you're on social media at Meli the Science Geek, and that's on all the different platforms. Uh, Instagram and TikTok are your biggest ones, is that correct? Are you on uh Facebook or what is it, X?

SPEAKER_03 56:49

Oh, I am never gonna be on X. You will never find me on there, but I do have Facebook, I do have Instagram, and I am in fact on TikTok. So please feel free to come join our community of science geeks, and you might learn a thing or two.

SPEAKER_00 57:03

Nice. We'll make sure there's a show. There's start that again. We'll make sure there's links in our show notes. Thanks again for being a guest. This was super fun. Uh and uh best wishes in the future.

SPEAKER_02 57:14

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 57:15

That's it for this week's

Wrap-Up And Patreon Top Dogs

SPEAKER_00 57:16

show. Thanks for coming back week after week to listen to the science podcast. And a shout out to all the top dogs. That's the top tier of our Patreon community, The Popac. You can sign up in our show notes. All right, Chris, let's hear those names that are part of the top dogs.

SPEAKER_02 57:32

Amelia Fetting, Ree Oda, Carol Hanel, Jennifer Challenge, Linnea Janet, Karen Cronister, Vicki Oteiro, Christy Walker, Sarah Brown, Wendy, Diane, Mason and Lou, Helen Chin, Elizabeth Bourgeois, Marianne McNally, Katherine Jordan, Shelly Smith, Laura Stephenson, Tracy Linebaugh, Anne Uchida, Heather Burbach, Kelly, Tracy Halbert, Ben Rather, Debbie Anderson, Sandy Primer, Mary Raider, Bianca Hyde, Andrew Lynn, Brenda Clark, Brianne Hawks, Peggy McKeel, Holly Birch, Kathy Zirker, Susan Wagner, and Liz Button.

SPEAKER_01 58:24

Let's go adventure in the deep blue sea.