Science Friday - Cephalopod Week Salutes See-Thru Squid, Hyperbole In Science Publishing, Art and the Brain, Rover Competition. June 23, 2023, Part 1

Episode Date: June 23, 2023

We have a new podcast! It's called Universe Of Art, and it features conversations with artists who use science to bring their creations to the next level. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.    A See-Through Squid Success Story Adult octopuses have about 500 million neurons, which is about as many neurons as a dog. Typically, more neurons means a more intelligent and complex creature. But it’s a bit more complicated than that. Unlike dogs, or even humans, octopuses’ neurons aren’t concentrated in their brains—they’re spread out through their bodies and into their arms and suckers, more like a “distributed” mind. (Scientists still haven’t quite figured out exactly why this is.) And that’s just the tip of the iceberg, in terms of unanswered cephalopod questions. Now, researchers have successfully bred a line of albino squid that were first engineered using CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing technology, creating a see-through squid. Their unique transparency allows scientists to more easily study their neural structure, and a whole lot more. SciFri experiences manager Diana Plasker talks with Joshua Rosenthal, senior scientist at the University of Chicago’s Marine Biological Laboratory, based in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, about this see-through squid success story. When Eye-Grabbing Results Just Don’t Pan Out You know the feeling — you see a headline in the paper or get an alert on your phone about a big scientific breakthrough that has the potential to really change things. But then, not much happens, or that news turns out to be much less significant than the headlines made it seem. Journalists are partially to blame for this phenomenon. But another guilty culprit is also the scientific journals, and the researchers who try to make their own work seem more significant than the data really supports in order to get published. Armin Alaedini, an assistant professor of medical sciences at Columbia University Medical Center in New York, recently co-authored a commentary on this topic published in The American Journal of Medicine. He joins Ira and Ivan Oransky — co-founder of Retraction Watch and a medical journalism professor and Distinguished Writer In Residence at New York University — to talk about the tangled world of scientific publishing and the factors that drive inflated claims in publications.     How Art Can Help Treat Dementia And Trauma We might intrinsically know that engaging with and making art is good for us in some way. But now, scientists have much more evidence to support this, thanks in part to a relatively new field called neuroaesthetics, which studies the effects that artistic experiences have on the brain. A new book called Your Brain On Art: How The Arts Transform Us, dives into that research, and it turns out the benefits of the arts go far beyond elevating everyday life; they’re now being used as part of healthcare treatments to address conditions like dementia and trauma. Universe of Art host D. Peterschmidt sits down with the authors of the book, Susan Magsamen, executive director of the International Arts + Mind Lab at the Pederson Brain Science Institute at Johns Hopkins University, and Ivy Ross, vice president of design for hardware products at Google, to talk about what we can learn from neuroaesthetic studies, the benefits of a daily arts practice, and the kinds of art they both like making.   Testing Mars Rovers In Utah’s Red Desert Take a 20-minute drive down Cow Dung Road, outside of Hanksville, Utah, and you’ll stumble across the Mars Desert Research Station. This cluster of white buildings—webbed together by a series of covered walkways—looks a little alien, as does the red, desolate landscape that surrounds it. “The ground has this crust that you puncture through, and it makes you feel like your footprints are going to be there for a thousand years,” said Sam Craven, a senior leading the Brigham Young University team here for the University Rover Challenge. “Very bleak and dry, but very beautiful also.” This remote chunk of Utah is a Mars analogue, one of roughly a dozen locations on Earth researchers use to test equipment, train astronauts and search for clues to inform the search for life on other planets. While deployed at the station, visiting scientists live in total isolation and don mock space suits before they venture outside. To read the rest, visit sciencefriday.com.   To stay updated on all-things-science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters. Transcripts for each segment will be available the week after the show airs on sciencefriday.com.   Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

This is Science Friday. I'm Ira Plato. It's that most wonderful time of the year. Of course, I'm talking about cephalopod week. We're cephaloprating our favorite invertebrates. I'm talking squid, octopus, cuttlefish, and joining me now to share some of the latest Ceph Science is Cy-Fry experiences manager, Diana Plasker, yo, Diana. Howdy, Ira? So, did you know that adult octopuses have about 500 million neurons, which is about as many neurons as a dog has. Oh, but how well can they catch a frisbee? You know, I'm not sure anyone has ever tested it, but who knows? The future is vast. Okay, so typically, more neurons means a more intelligent and complex creature, but it's

complicated, right? Unlike dogs or even humans, though, octopus neurons aren't concentrated in their brains. They're spread out through their bodies, into their arms and suckers, more like a distributed mind, you might think. And scientists still haven't quite figured out why exactly this is. It's just the tip of the iceberg in terms of unanswered cephalopod questions, which is why I'm really excited about a new study that came out this week. Researchers have successfully bred a line of albino squid that was first engineered using CRISPR Kast9 gene editing technology. So basically, a see-through squid. No, a see-through squid? That's right. Yeah, in this way, we can more easily study their neural structure and a whole lot more.

Here to tell us more about this see-through squid success story is my guess. Joshua Rosenthal, senior scientists at the University of Chicago's Marine Biological Laboratory based in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. Josh, thanks for joining us today. Well, thanks very much for having me. Okay, so to start off, what do see-through squid have to do with getting a more detailed understanding of cephalopod brains? Well, one of the basic approaches that neuroscientists use to study brain activity is to actually look at it. And you can do that by what we call putting a fluorescent molecule in the brains of animals that will become fluorescent only when the nerve cells are active. And in order to look at that fluorescence, you have to be able to see it.

It can't be obstructed by things like pigmentation. And so by generating basically a see-through squid, we've developed a line of squid now where you can actually see the neurons in action in large numbers of them at once. And then we can start asking basic things on how this really incredible nervous system works. That's amazing. So let's talk a little bit about how you actually did this. So you use CRISPR gene editing technology to knock out the squid's pigmentation. Tell me a bit about the genes you identified and what the process was to make that happen. Yeah, that's a great question.

So this is basically a follow-up to a study we did a couple years ago where we knock out pigmentation in our local squid here. And the issue with our local squid here is it's a really interesting animal, but you can't culture it. We just can't keep it alive in the lab. And by culture, you mean actually breed in the lab? Exactly. And what we were trying to do now was basically not only knock out, segmentation in that first generation, but also be able to breed success in lines because that ultimately is going to be much more useful.

So let's say, we said, let's make it easy. Let's knock out the exact same gene we did from our local squid into this new one called Euprimnibrii. The gene is called TDO or Triptophen-2-3 dioxygenase in complex terms. Ah, an easy name. Yes. And we did it now in our new model. you prim to bury eye and nothing happened.

That sounds like science, yeah. Yeah, and so we said, okay, what could have gone wrong? And so finally, after scratching our head, we looked really more carefully into this pathway of similar genes and found that, you know, invertebrates, in vertebrates like us, there are two genes that produce proteins that can do the same reaction. One is Tideo, the one we targeted, and the other is called IDEO. So basically, my collaborator on this whole study, Carrie Alberton, went and she started digging deeply into other invertebrate genomes to see if IDEO could possibly be in some cephalopods.

And lo and behold, she found that they had this other gene that, in us at least, catalyzed the same reaction. So we then made two different CRISPR guides targeting two different genes, co-injected them at the same time, and lo and behold, we were able to knock out pigmentation. Amazing. So it was a many-stepped process. Can you tell me a bit more about why you chose this specific species of squid? So the other local squid wasn't working out. But the common name for this one is the hummingbird bobtail squid, right? Why that squid? Cephalopods are notoriously very difficult to culture. When you're looking for a new model, there are certain characteristics that are advantages. One of them is that you can culture them through their life cycle, obviously. The other is that that life cycle is pretty short in that they reach sexual maturity quickly. And that's just pragmatic.

Yeah, so this hummingbird bobtail squid, it reaches sexual maturity in about three months after hatching. So that's pretty good as a cephalopone. The genome has recently been sequenced. You know, that's an advantage too. And basically a generally docile demeanor is good. And finally, you know, especially if you can put more than one animal in a tank, it saves space. Certain cephalopods like octopus are, you know, notoriously cannibalistic, and that's not so good. And then finally, the last thing is they should be small.

These are, you know, an inch and a half long. Amazing. You're talking about a small inch-long squid. It buries itself in the sand. Can you describe for our listeners what these squid look like before the gene editing happens? Yeah, they basically are, as you said, they're small, they bury in the sand and stay hidden for most of the day, and then they come out and hunt little shrimp in our systems at night. They're fairly darkly pigmented. These are pigmented sort of a dark, reddish, dark brown on the outside. You know, some people, people who are used to looking at, things like octopuses or cuttlefish that do this tremendous camouflage, think they're, frankly, a little boring. But they have these characteristics that make them great for culture in the lab. Very cool. And so what do they look like when they're albino? You can see through them. So how does that change the way that you actually see them with your eyes and maybe with a microscope?

Yeah. So they're exceptionally transparent when you knock out this pigment. For instance, With my naked eye, I can look through and see the main parts of the nervous system, which is tremendous. However, there is one caveat here is when you knock out this pigmentation gene, it's lethal eventually. We think it's because they can't hunt effectively. Well, so one of the fascinating things about cephalopods that people probably really like and are curious about is that, you know, they can camouflage their surroundings. They can change shape and colors. If you knock out the genes for pigmentation, can you still observe that process? No, but I think it might be useful for understanding that process better.

So, for instance, the camouflage itself is controlled by these organs in their skin called chromatophores. And those chromatophores are controlled by nerves, by nervous activity. Actually, the chromatophores are expanded and contracted with specialized muscle, which are then innervated by nerves that come directly from their brain. And so by knocking out the pigmentation in these chromatophores, I think we'll be able to better see the underlying neural activity because it would have been blocked.

So as you mentioned, these labrace squid, they don't actually reach adulthood. What are some of the benefits and drawbacks of studying these young squid? One of the benefits is essentially because they're small, I mean, these things are several millimeters long. They fit much better under the common microscopes people use for imaging neural activity. It sounds small, but an inch and a half adult would not fit very conveniently in a chamber under a microscope. So it's almost beneficial to have these little animals to be able to image. Some of the drawbacks is, you know, they're not exactly the same as an adult.

So their behavior is still, their nervous systems are still developing to some extent. So we are limited a little bit and what kind of questions we can ask. We've talked a lot specifically about these animals, but I want to zoom out a little bit. What are some of the big questions this line of genetically modified squid might help you and other scientists better understand about cephalopods? One of the big, the very intriguing things is from the aspect of neuroscience and how you make a behaviorally complex, sophisticated organism. Almost all of the complex organisms that we know evolved along a common evolutionary branch.

That's, you know, us vertebrates, complex birds, mammals. So essentially, if you look at, let's say, what makes a bird smart or what makes a muskrat smart or what makes a rat smart, you're going to be looking at a lot of common derivatives of the same innovations. Cephalopods did this along their own trajectory. They're more similar to clams and oysters than they are. to anything along the vertebrate track. So they enable us to ask a really unique question, and that is, what elements do you need to create a sophisticated nervous system

that are in common between these two branches and what are some of the individual innovations between these two groups? I think the stuff I work on in RNA editing is another example where cephalopods create unbelievable diversity in the molecules, that drive their nervous behavior, much more than we have through RNA editing. And so how do they use that to good purpose? And what would it mean to science as a field to accept cephalopods like these little hummingbird bobtail squid as model organisms like mice or fruit flies?

We still have a long, long, long way to go to be able to look at things with the sophistication you can with, let's say, a fruit fly, or a zebrafish or a mouse. people have focused on these few organisms, and we know a lot about a few organisms, and there's all this biological diversity out there of these new, different organisms doing incredible things that we understand very little about. And so in order to do that, we have to extend these models out beyond a few that people commonly use. Yeah. Well, I feel like we've gone a long way just today in this conversation, Josh. Thank you so much. That's actually all the time we have, and I'd like to thank you for being here with us today. Joshua Rosenthal, senior scientists at the University of Chicago's

Marine Biological Laboratory based in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. Thanks so much for being here, Josh. Thank you very much for having me. It's a pleasure to be on Cephalopod Week. For Science Friday, I'm Diana Plasker. Thanks, Diana. That was really fascinating. And if you still can't get enough Cephalopod facts, we've got some really cool Cephalopod Week events planned. Diana, tell us what's in store. Don't you mean what's in shore? All right, I'll jet along to the point, Ira. The Cephalopausea week's Cephalobrations are just getting started.

We are hosting a whole series of events over the next few days, so if you're in Miami, Houston, Atlanta, or Thousand Oaks, California, grab those tickets before someone else with eight arms gets there first. You can find out more on our website, ScienceFriada.com slash octopus. That's right. That's science friday.com slash octopus. We have to take a quick break, and when we come back, How come so many big claims in biomedical research turn out to be just hot air? We'll talk about it.

This is Science Friday. I'm Ira Plato. You know the feeling. You see the headline in the paper or get the alert on your phone about a big scientific breakthrough that has the potential to really change things. And then not much happens or that news turns out to be much less significant than the headlines made it seem. Well, part of the blame lies with the jury. journalists and headline writers, but part may also lie with the scientific journals and the

researchers publishing in them, trying to make their own work seem more significant than the data really supports. Joining me now to talk about that are my two guests, Armin Aladini, assistant professor of medical sciences at Columbia University Medical Center in New York, and co-author of a commentary on this topic published in the American Journal of Medicine, and Ivan Oransky, co-founder of Retraction Watch. He's also distinguished writer-in-residence at NYU, where he teaches medical journalism. Welcome both of you to Science Friday. Hi, Ira. Thanks for having me.

Thanks, Ira. Good to be here. You're welcome. All right, Armin, you recently wrote about what you see as this troublesome trend. Can you tell us why you elucidate a little bit more? Well, as scientists, the primary method of communicating what we find in our research is really through publishing our works in scientific journals. Now, generally speaking, scientists are trained to approach their observations with a lot of skepticism, and we try to really avoid any unwarranted claims that may not be based on our data.

At the same time, when we communicate our findings in these papers as authors of the scientific articles, we naturally try to emphasize the significance and impact of the work that we've done. And we try to interpret them in certain ways to make it most compelling. But there is a balance here. And unfortunately, the balance between this compelling presentation on the one hand and the avoidance of hyperbole on the other, we think might be shifting. And this is something that I and my colleagues have been especially seeing in the form of these very provocative publication titles that seem to be written to basically imply major breakthroughs and sort of transformative or paradigm-shifting findings.

When we look at this data, of course, you know, you start sort of digging in a little bit more carefully. Often we see that those claims are not quite what they are supposed to be and they're not always supported by the data that's in those papers. Can you give me an idea of the kind of overstatements so our listeners have an idea of what you mean? I don't mean it may not be an exact paper, but the kind of research that gets published. Yeah. So, for example, there may be a statement to the effect that sex has, plays an important role in the persistence of symptoms in long COVID or that patients with long COVID actually have the virus still in their bodies. These are two examples that I specifically focused on in the commentary that I wrote because they were in actual articles that were published and other people did

analyses of those data, looked at those data. And it was clear that the claims did not perfectly match the data that was in those papers. Now, Ivan, you've been watching the publishing field for a long time now. Is this a new phenomenon? You know, Ira, there's nothing new under the sun. and this is an example. Now, that doesn't mean we shouldn't be very concerned about this, so I share the concern here about what's been going on. But this is a long-standing problem. This certainly predates my examination of the scientific literature for issues and, you know,

hype and bias. I can remember when I was at Reuters Health, when I left there 10 years ago now, some of the stories that I actually wrote a few, but my staff wrote even more about a lot of hype when it came to, you know, chemotherapy. And so the kinds of things you would see, maybe aren't quite as stark as what we're discussing today,

but they really overemphasized benefit. They picked markers. In other words, they picked signs of progress that were, you know, maybe misleading or you might even say cherry-picked, and they would omit side effects or they would downplay side effects. Those are all the kinds of hype that you see that I think they're endemic. And I think they've been endemic for a long time. And a lot of it, I think, has to do with the incentive structure that we're, you know, all scientists are working under.

And I think that when we ignore the incentive structure, we're going to make the same mistakes over and over. Publisher perish is a real phenomenon. And in order to get published, you generally need to say something pretty important, pretty sort of, you know, quote unquote, earth-shattering or groundbreaking. Those are all these terms people use. And of course, Ira, I think that are appropriate when you're talking to geologists or a seismologist, but maybe not so much when you're talking to someone who's looking at cancer or something like that. And it tends to happen in grant applications.

It's how people get funding. It certainly happens in publications. And it does happen. Let's take some of the blame, if you will, Ira, amongst ourselves as journalists, when we try and get the attention of readers, listeners, viewers, it's noteworthy that those stories that tend to have a sort of false binary. This is absolutely wonderful. Do much better than the ones that have a lot of new ones. I did want to note one thing, if you'll allow. I think it's also important to be global about this issue. So in other words, not just look at specific examples that one particular group

may have issues with. They think that a particular paper was hyped. And so, they might want to sort of point that out. I think that's very important. But I think that it's also important to keep in mind everyone's own biases and to sort of platform the fact that this is a global issue. And again, I would say an endemic issue. Armine, if Ivan has seen this going on for so many years that he's been following it, what did you find troubling? Is there a new trend? Is it being done more often? Is it more blatant? I think I'm seeing more of it. especially during the pandemic with this explosion of research articles, studies on COVID, there were a lot of claims being made in many places, including in research articles,

that did not necessarily follow the data. So during the pandemic, I think I saw more of it. But in general, in the past, I've been doing research for over 20 years. And I see more and more of this sort of hyped up titles. And perhaps with the increase in how people get their news online, where we click on things, if you go on CNN, you know, the most exciting titles get clicked the most. I think with this, we're seeing even more and more of these hyped titles. Is it the journals that are trying to attract this?

I think the journals are not stopping it, but it's, I think, primarily initially coming from the researchers themselves, because, as I even pointed out as well, it's the incentive structure. It's the structure of that. It's basically for scientists, you know, publishing the most prestigious journals is related to how they get promoted, how they get funded for their research, and increasingly, they get more publicity in the media. So these are all incentives and they're all related. Yeah, so you have these journals publishing them,

and then you have the click-driven media picks up on this and amplifies them without digging any deeper because that's that's what they do. Well, I don't know if I may, there's an interstitial there, which is press releases. And, you know, for years, actually, people have studied this too. I, you know, want to be mindful. This is not my idea at all. People have looked at if it's an error or hype that appears in a press release, how, you know, effortlessly and without any real questioning, that shows up in media coverage. And this, the studies I'm thinking of happened, even before the sort of explosion of social media where things get even more soundbited, if you will.

And so that's actually quite depressing as a journalist. I think you'd agree either that things are just sort of passed along. Nobody's really doing any deep dives or even questioning, even in the moment of analysis. But that sort of thing, I think we have to look at every stage. I absolutely agree with Armin that, you know, it's starting with the researchers. It's in the journals. I would probably less generous than what Armin said in terms of journals, not stopping it.

A lot of them are writing the press releases that are problematic. So are universities. Because they all need to get what are known as impact factors. You know, they need to be cited more often. These are sort of terms of art. You know, for example, during the pandemic, to speak to Armand's comments about what might have been happening over the past few years, two very major journals.

Actually, they were in an arms race, which one of them won for the moment, where they, you know, one of them more than doubled their impact factor, which is a very flawed metric of how often papers are cited. And because they were publishing so many of these really splashing COVID-19 papers, some of which, by the way, were retracted, which is where we started thinking about them and writing about them. But they were publishing all these papers that people had to cite because, you know, everyone was reading them and needed to be up on things, et cetera. And so it's at every, every player in this, including, again, journalists and journals and universities and researchers, even funding agencies, everyone is playing this game where they need more attention. And one of the key ways to get more attention is to, you know, frankly, overplay and hype your findings. Yeah, that's interesting, Armin. You talked about the big name journals being drawn to these splashy findings.

Do you find that then, on the other hand, the lesser known journals are doing better at this? Well, some are, I think, generally speaking, the sort of society journals that have a sort of a more narrow focus, generally speaking, they publish less of those articles. But this is becoming a problem that's affecting the entire business, especially with this sort of open access publishing. We are seeing more and more of that. But in general, I would say we see less of it with the lower tier, more focused, specialized journals. And also, let me talk about specialized journalists, Ivan, for a second, because you teach medical journalism. You know, there are not as many medical journalists around on the major media platforms. They don't hire medical, specialized science reporters, do they? Yeah, I think, you know, again, there's always nuance, but I think, generally speaking, you're correct.

And it actually parallels what Armin was just saying, what you were asking, Ira, about the specialized journals, right? there's actually been a, what I've considered, a fairly significant growth in specialized news outlets, whether there are trade publications, in other words, for professionals in the space, which I've worked in a lot of those for a number of years, or for a public that is more interested in science, maybe than average, for lack of a better term. I think there's been a fair amount of growth there, although some contraction as time goes on. But that's where a lot of, for example, you know, to be fair, my students and students and other programs who are very specialized. I'm obviously quite biased here, and I think they're very talented and well trained. But that's where a lot of

them gravitate because they want to have more of an impact they feel on having and having richer discussions that can include nuance. And, you know, Armin was mentioning CNN earlier, et cetera, large news outlets that you can't necessarily have those kinds of nuanced discussions because you have to compete with, you know, whatever the political or other big stories are that day, I do think that it's something that has been tracked pretty well, and the large publications have just not kept up in terms of hiring those folks. This is Science Friday from WNYC Studios. Can you offer a solution to this, Armin?

Well, I think as Ivan sort of alluded to, we have to deal with the incentive structure, and we can think of some sort of short-term and long-term approaches. And the short-term universities really need to be rethinking how they reward their scientists. Sure, they want their scientists to publish in the best journals and to bring in as much money as possible to the university to do their research. But really, to do good science, publishing in those sort of prestigious journals, that may not be the best policy for universities or funding agents. cease to advance science. The other thing is, of course, you know, this sort of peer review of manuscripts or everything that we publish is supposedly peer reviewed, right? So we have other experts, our peers reviewing this and determining whether this should be published in its current format

or not be published at all, et cetera. That peer review process needs to be changed and needs to be done more diligently. There should be reviewers that are involved, needs to be. to have the proper expertise to review these papers. The editor who oversees this needs to also be familiar with the field. And also, you know, we talked about journalism and having expert journalists. In the long term, though, I think the solution really has to come from a change in how we teach our students, the culture of how we emphasize certain things in the way we teach. the sort of PhD students and MD students.

Scientific rigor is extremely important how data should be analyzed and how data should be interpreted. I can tell you that during my PhD, I was not taught that and I sort of learned it along the way. But I think we can change the way that we teach research to students. And we need to prioritize these certain values of how we analyze data and how we communicate. communicate them. That should become part of the graduate program, in my opinion. Ivan, solutions. Any thoughts on that? No, I essentially agree with Armand in terms of where the various areas for improvement are. I would push on the peer review process and not to disagree with anything that Armin has said about rigor and improving it, but I would even take a step

back and say, let's be more honest about what peer review really can and can't do. I think we have been, if you'll forgive me, sort of sold the bill of goods by people who have a vested interest in convincing us that or having us believe that peer review is a sort of good housekeeping seal of approval. There's a sort of false binary that it's peer reviewed or it's not peer reviewed. That has been actually, I think, upended recently in what I would say is a good way by what are known as preprints, papers, manuscripts that are posted online that are not peer-reviewed, but that clearly say they're not peer-reviewed. And if that sort of nuance and that sort of context is provided to other scientists, of course, and as well as to readers and listeners and viewers, I think we'd have

a much better understanding of how science really works, of how peer review works and doesn't work. During the pandemic, journals were so desperate to publish papers about COVID-19 because they wanted to get cited more often. They actually asked me to peer-review five different papers about COVID-19. Now, you may think I know something about retractions, maybe about scientific publishing, a smattering of other things. I really don't know anything about COVID-19 other than what, you know, I've tried to keep up as others have with the literature. And yet, that's what happened. And it also reveals a real problem, which is that there just aren't enough qualified peer reviewers to do the kind of job we've been expected to think that peer review does. And I think being honest about that is a really good start to having more trust in the process rather than in any particular result, which is what we've unfortunately gotten to as a result of everything we've talked about today.

Wow, really interesting point. We could start another whole program on that. We'll have to save that for another time. Ivan and have you and Armand come back and talk about because we have run out of time. Thanks to both of my guests, Ivan Oranski, co-founder of Retraction Watch, Armin Aladini, assistant professor of medical sciences at Columbia University Medical Center in New York. Thank you, both of you for being with us today. Thank you, Ira.

Thank you, Ira. We have to take a break, and when we come back, a book looks at art and the brain. Stay with us. This is Science Friday. I'm Ira Flato. I think that most of us feel that engaging with and making art is good for you in some way. Well, science is all about testing out our assumptions, and now scientists have much more evidence to support this, thanks in part to a relatively new field called neuroaesthetics, which studies the effects that artistic experiences have on the brain. A new book called Your Brain on Art, How the Arts Transform Us, Dives into that research.

and it turns out the benefits of the arts go far beyond elevating everyday life. The arts are now being used as part of health care treatments to address conditions like dementia and trauma. I'd like to bring you a conversation with the authors of the book. Susan McSammon, Executive Director of the International Arts and Mind Lab at the Peterson Brain Science Institute, that's at Johns Hopkins University, and Ivy Ross, Vice President of Design for Hardware at Google. It's from our new podcast, Universe of Art, hosted by Science Friday producer, D. Peter Schmidt. If you'll like your science with a side of art, we think you'll love Universe of Art. Check it out, wherever you listen to podcasts.

We'll also have a link to it in our show notes. Now here's Dee, talking to the authors of Your Brain on Art. So to start off, a lot of research in this book is based on kind of a relatively new field called neuroesthetics. Susan, can you explain what that is? Sure. So neuroaesthetics, it's a great word, right? It's like a $100 bill word. And it really is really simply the study of how the arts and aesthetic experiences measurably change the brain, body, and behavior. And I think importantly, how this knowledge is translated into specific practices that advance our health and well-being. You know, it's only been in the last 20 years that advances in technology have

really enabled us to get inside our heads to study the extraordinary ways that the arts impact us. And, you know, in the beginning, like in tribal times, and that's still, some tribes still exist today, but they didn't even have a word for art because it was their culture. The way they lived was through the arts, singing, dancing, storytelling, drawing. And then, you know, at a certain point we decided to optimize for productivity right after the Industrial Revolution and push the arts aside as nice to have or not to be engaged in unless it was something you were going to make a profession in or you thought you were good at. And we thought this optimization for productivity would make us happy as a society. And I think the experiment has failed. And it's time we bring them

back and understand the role they have in our lives. And it's not either or, it's and both. We need productivity and we need the arts. For example, we learned by doing this book that actually when you're doodling, your memory is better, you'll retain information and your focus is better. So all those times when someone would, you know, gives you a dirty look in a meeting because you're doodling and they think you're not paying attention, it's actually allowing you to focus better. Yeah, it's funny. A lot of my friends are illustrators, and I can't count how many times we've hung out, and they're just kind of doodling or drawing away. We're having like really deep conversations. And it really doesn't get in the way. Yeah. In fact, now we know that it actually enhances the retention of that information. Yeah. So, you know, that's kind of on the recreational side. Both of you talk about research in the book about using the arts and healthcare and in trauma treatment. Can you talk about some of the research there?

Sure. And health care. We know that singing helps people with dementia, recall, and reconnect with family. It also improves cognition and quality of life. We see dance helping people with Parkinson's disease, stroke, and other motor-based challenges improve their gait, their cognition, their sleep, and their mood. There's some fabulous work happening right now at MIT with light and sound that's literally altering the progression of dementia. Chronic pain is being managed by dance.

And interestingly, by virtual reality, moms with postpartum depression are using singing and humming to feel better faster. You know, one thing that's worth noting is that artists have always intuitively understood the value of the arts. And I think what the book is doing is helping to show the many ways of knowing and evidence. So what we're trying to do is explain how evidence is formed. And I think some of the neurobiological evidence is new and compelling, and I think starts to make the case and validates some of the things that we have intuitively known. And one of the most important things here is that you do not have to be good at the art. And that has been such a relief to many people who have written to us after reading the book that said, thank you for giving me permission to engage in the arts, even though I don't feel I'm good at it.

because you have to take that judgment out of the equation, because it's the act of doing the art without judgment, which is really self-expression. Right. I think when some people hear, like, oh, you know, the arts are really good for you to, like, engage with, but also make. And I think maybe some people are like, oh, I'm not an artist. You know, I wasn't trained or anything like that.

I haven't spent a lot of time practicing. I think people imagine that's like, oh, to like have these benefits from it, you know, I need to like produce like a 10 foot tall oil paint. every day or something like that. Absolutely not. Absolutely not. You know, there's a, we interviewed a woman who started something called Art to Ashes, and she was taking frontline firemen out of blazing fires who would go home to their families with trauma held within from that day's work, and gave them a paintbrush and a canvas and just said, start just throwing that paint on the canvas. And we interviewed a fireman, he found that he would do that as soon as he would come out of a

blazing fire, go home, and he was able to, you know, not take the trauma home with him. And he's now going to other firehouses, getting the firemen to do some of these art practices. And so these are people that absolutely, in most cases, have not had any arts training, but just the act of expressing what's inside through these different variety of arts is what helps alleviate some of that trauma immediately. And firefighters and first responders don't see themselves as, you know, post-traumatic stress. They're constantly in these environments that are creating ongoing stress. So they see it as a practice. Some of them weld. Some of them are doing woodworking. Other first responders are doodling, doing expressive writing. So, you know, it's also interesting

to see what art forms help different people respond to those kinds of traumas and release. some of that pent-up information that's held so deeply in the body. So this idea that 20 minutes of art a day can really accelerate your health and well-being, just like science has proven that exercise, we need 20 or 30 minutes a day. This is no different. You know, you were talking about, you know, how does somebody who's never made art approach art? And one interesting story is with a group in the military called Creative Forces.

And these are active military and veterans. who have had PTSD and trauma. And, you know, when you have trauma, sometimes the part of the brain called the Broca region literally shuts down. So you are not able to find words for what has happened to you. And so you're holding it

and it's triggering and you're reliving it. And at Walter Reed and now across the country, they're literally making masks. And these masks allow them to share symbol and metaphor and create a visual story. These masks allow you to get this information out in a visual way. And then they come back working with creative arts therapists and start to create a narrative around what's happened to them and how they feel.

And they're able to continue to heal and release that knowledge. And it's been very powerful work. And it also actually extends to the family because in the family's able to understand what's been happening with their loved one where they hadn't been able to express it before. Yeah, well, I believe you've both brought something to share with our listeners. Susan, you're a poet, and do you have a poem of yours to read? I like to say that I write poetry, which I think is different than being a poet. But yes.

So my son and I over COVID decided that every couple of days we would write a piece of poetry in nature, and we'd share it with each other. So this is a piece I wrote early in the pandemic. and it's called Coming Back. We planted a beautiful new willow tree on the side of the pond. It's shiny leaves glistening in the sun. But in only two days, it seemed to be done. Overnight the branches turned gray, and every leaf began to stray. One by one, they fell to the earth.

I hope it didn't hurt. We watered her every day, whispering, What can we say? Please grow back in failure. her leggy tendrils. She must have heard our hopes and thoughts because she began to sprout. Little green leaves where there were none, a million of them for everyone. And while she is still tender, we love the way her leaves are filled with splendor. That was beautiful. Thank you. Yeah, lovely. And so I've been studying sound and vibration for about 40 years and played the drums as a kid

and could not bring my drum set here to work to play for you, but I've been leading design departments in corporations most of my life and that there are times when I carry my tuning forks with me in my backpack and we'll pull them out in a meeting when someone is amplified their stress levels and kind of needs to be brought down because sound is now, there's been some studies about just sound, not music, can release nitric oxide in your body, which adds to this relaxation effect. So I'm going to try and hit these two tuning forks and see how it sounds in the microphone.

But let's see. There we go. Well, I've never, yeah, had someone play tuning forks during an interview before. So I think that should be like a more normal part of the process. You should start every interview. That's all end every interview from now on. Well, Susan and Ivy, thank you both so much for taking the time and thank you for the book. Oh, you're welcome. Thank you for talking to us about it.

Really a pleasure. Susan Mag Samin and Ivy Ross are the authors of the book, Your Brain on Art, How the Arts Transform Us. If you'd like to read an excerpt from the book, you can head to sciencefriiday.com slash art brain. That was Dee Peter Schmidt, host of the new Science Friday podcast, Universe of Art, talking with the authors of the book, Your Brain on Art. find a link to the Universe of Art in our show notes, or you can listen wherever you get your podcasts. And now it's time to check in on the state of science. This is KERNNO, St. Louis Public Radio News, Iowa Public Radio News. Local science stories of national significance. You've heard of the Battle of the Bots, right?

Where robots compete to outdo one another in feats of daring and skill? Well, get ready for the Battle of the Mars Rovers. It's a lot more friendly, competition, and it takes place in what's called a Mars analog. That's a place in Utah that is similar to the terrain found on Mars. It's a landscape where robot teams test equipment, astronauts train, all to prepare for journeys to Mars. Amanda Hype, science journalist based in Moab, Utah, went to this location and reported this story for KUER Public Radio. Welcome to Science Friday. Thank you. Glad to be here. Nice to have you. Okay, so robot teams come from all over the world. hoping that someday their rover may climb the hills of Mars. Tell us what it's like being there at this competition. Yeah, happy to. So Hanksville itself is teeny tiny.

There's only about 160 people that live there. So you can imagine that when 500 college undergraduates roll up, the vibe in town kind of changes. I had asked a local how it feels, and he kind of joked that the town's collective IQ goes up by 40 points for the weekend. So there are teams coming from all over the world. I think this year they had 10 countries.

As soon as you get out of town, though, that isolation really kind of comes back to you. And so out at the analog site where the competition is taking place, people are very focused. You know, everything is timed. So the moment you show up, you're kind of in it. And then you put in this burst of really intense energy for an hour or two. And then you have the rest of the day to kind of recuperate and reset before you do it again the next day. That's cool. What makes Utah such a good place for mimicking conditions on Mars?

Yeah. So each Mars analog on Earth recapitulates some aspect of Mars. And so for Hanksville in particular, it's really about the geology. And even without kind of talking about any of the science, when you go there, it's very obvious why they picked it. You know, it's very desolate. It's rugged. It's red. There are these really beautiful striations.

You know, I had a picture printed out that Perseverance had sent back from Mars. And if you kind of held it up to the horizon and squinted, you could almost see it as like a continuation. Wow. Sam Craven, who's the BYU team lead or the Brigham Young University team lead, had a really good description of it. The ground kind of has this sort of crust that you sort of puncture through. Makes you feel like your footprints are going to be there for a thousand years. Very, very bleak and dry, but very beautiful also. What are the goals that these teams are trying to do?

Yeah, so there's four tasks that every team has to go through, and you're kind of assigned randomly to them over three days. And so just kind of following on what the Brigham Young University team did because I was with them most of the time. So the first two that they did were called equipment servicing. So that's basically there is a mock lander setup. And the students who are in a command station, which is a U-Haul trailer, will pilot the rover. And they can choose from a list of tasks that they want to do to earn points.

So for example, they can pick up a canister, open a drawer on the lander, put it in, and then screw the drawer shut. And then as soon as that task is done, you have a 10-minute gap before you start what's called autonomous navigation. And so that one is different because rather than piloting the rover, basically the students are just putting GPS coordinates in, and the rover has to navigate itself. Then the next morning was the science mission, which I was personally very excited for. And essentially you've got three pans of dirt,

and one has been seated with spirulina like you would put in your smoothie. One is diatomitius Earth, which is basically the fossilized remains of little aquatic organisms. And then one is basically nuked dirt. And the rover has to be. go up to these pans and run tests on them to say which one has life in it, which one has extinct life in it, and which one is dead. And then the last one, you have to guide your rover out onto this rocky field and you have to find a fossil that you then take to an astronaut, which will then

give you another clue of a thing you need to go find and so on and so forth. So last question, Amanda, is any of these rovers going to make it to the highlands of Mars, do you think? I don't think so, but that is not a knock against these teams. I think what they've done is extremely innovative. It's more that while Hanksville is like Mars, it isn't Mars. So for example, Mars has less gravity than Earth. It's really cold. There's no magnetosphere. So there's a lot more UV radiation hitting the surface. And so these are all challenges that they just didn't really have to think about. But having said that, a lot of these students do go on to contribute to actual missions. So one student I spoke to was recently hired to help build a rover that will likely be going to the moon in the next few years.

So I think about myself at that age, and I think it just makes it all the more impressive. Must have been exciting to be there. Maybe next year I'll go to that one. Thank you very much for taking time to be with us today. Yeah, it was great chatting with you. Thanks for having me. Yeah, Amanda Height, science journalist, based in one of my favorite cities, Moab, Utah. She reported this story for KUER Public Radio.

That's it for this hour. We had help from lots of folks this week, including individual giving manager Annie Niro, Nahima Ahmed, manager of impact strategy, and grants managers Jordan Smudjik and Jason Rosenberg. BJ Leatherman composed our theme music, and of course, if you missed any part of the program, we'd like to hear it again. Subscribe to our podcasts. Have a great weekend. I'm Ira Flato.