Science Friday - Fake COVID Testing Sites, Cannabis And Exercise, Electric Aviation. Jan 28, 2022, Part 2

Episode Date: January 28, 2022

Beware Of Fake Pop-Up COVID Sites In recent months, mobile COVID-19 testing tents and vans have sprouted on urban sidewalks and street curbs as demand has skyrocketed in response to the rapid spread of the omicron variant. Some of the sites run by private companies offer legitimate, timely and reliable results, but others are more like weeds. High demand and scarce supply opened the door to bad actors, and officials in some states are having a hard time keeping up their oversight amid the proliferation. And they are sounding the alarm that by visiting the pop-up industry’s sometimes makeshift tents, desperate patients could be putting their health, wallets and personal data at risk. “These conditions change so rapidly,” said Gigi Gronvall, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security who leads the COVID-19 Testing Toolkit, which provides guidance to employers and others. “It’s not a surprise that these conditions were totally ripe for consumers to be gouged and to get fraudulent tests.” Consumers seeking testing — either a rapid antigen test that provides results in under an hour or a polymerase chain reaction, or PCR, test that generally takes longer but is more accurate — may think all testing sites are created equal, but they’re not. Unfortunately, telling the good from the bad is not always easy. Read the rest at sciencefriday.com.   Understanding The Cannabis-Body Connection With Exercise As a person gets ready for a long run, there are a few things they need: keys, cellphone, earbuds. But what about a weed gummy? It may not fit the stereotype of the stoner locked on the couch eating chips. But as cannabis is legalized in an increasing number of states, anecdotal evidence points to a growing community of people mixing cannabis with exercise. In fact, a 2019 study from the University of Colorado Boulder found 80% of users in states where marijuana is legal use it as part of their workout routine. Prior research suggests there’s a good reason for this, especially for endurance athletes: the notorious feeling of “runner’s high,” which has been described as euphoria and tied to pain relief, appears to be connected to the body’s endocannabinoid system. Despite its different legal status in various states, marijuana is still classified federally as a Schedule I drug, putting it in the same category as heroin and meth. That affects the research able to be done with cannabis. Guest host Miles O’Brien talks to two people involved in the first human study of how cannabis and exercise interact: Laurel Gibson, PhD candidate in psychology and neuroscience at the University of Colorado Boulder, and ultramarathoner and study participant Heather Mashhoodi, also based in Boulder.   Are Electric Planes Finally Ready For Takeoff? You’ve probably had the experience of your flight landing, and as you wait your turn to deplane, seeing the ground crew running up to refuel the plane from a tanker of jet fuel. But could that tanker one day be replaced by a charging station, at least for some types of flights? Electric aircraft offer the potential of cleaner flight, with fewer emissions, as well as a quieter ride. Last week, Rolls Royce announced that a flight last November by their experimental electric propellor-driven aircraft “Spirit of Innovation” had officially beaten the world zero-emission speed record at 345 miles per hour. And on a more practical level, the company Eviation is set to test its nine-passenger electric commuter plane, named Alice, in the weeks ahead. Omer Bar-Yohay, the CEO of Eviation, and Mark Moore, the CEO of electric plane start-up Whisper Aero, join guest host Miles O’Brien to talk about electric aviation technology—and what it might take to bring battery-powered planes to an airport near you.   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 Miles O'Brien, filling in for Ira Flato this week. If you live in a city, you've probably noticed COVID testing sites springing up all over the place, on sidewalks, in parking lots, that telltale pop-up tent or van with a big sign promising free COVID testing. But if you're like me, some of these pop-up testing sites seem a little sketchy, even suspicious. Across the country, local governments are trying to crack down on bad actors. But if you're just trying to find a test, it's pretty hard to figure out if a testing site is fake. To help us understand what's going on in the world of pop-up COVID testing, we turn to Michelle Andrews, contributing writer for Kaiser Health News. Michelle, welcome to

Science Friday. Thanks for being here. Thanks for having me, Miles. So why are we seeing so many of these questionable COVID test sites popping up? Well, I think that entrepreneurs are rushing in where there's a demand. There's so many sick people who want testing and not enough tests available through the official, you know, city and state offerings. And so these, you know, smart business operators are running in and setting up tents and offering tests. So, Michelle, how can we know? What are the signs that we're getting into trouble with a pop-up COVID testing site that is not on the up and up. You know, if you see a testing van that is a rental van, for example, like the U-Haul that I saw on my street the other day, that's a big red flag. And if it doesn't seem clean or safe, if the people who are running it aren't wearing masks or, you know, they're pulling tests off the ground out of bags, that's a red flag.

You want to look for a clear identifier of where this tester testing operation is from, a company name. And I think that you can ask the people themselves, you know, what lab they're working with and possibly call that lab yourself. As far as what they might ask for from you, you know, if they're asking for your social security number, don't give it. That's a clear red flag. But don't hesitate to give insurance information. You know, that's perfectly legitimate. It seems like common sense. So, you know, follow your gut in this situation, I think. I think you're right.

So what you're finding then as part of your reporting is that this is an opportunity to steal someone's identity? That is one of the concerns for sure, because they're getting your DNA. They've got that, right, if you're giving them a swab. And if they ask for your Social Security number and a credit card number. I mean, you know, they're in pretty good shape to take a lot more than, you know, more from you than you want. Yeah. And we thought, we thought we lost our privacy and social media. That's a lot of information in one place. Exactly. You know, I think that it's important to also emphasize, though, that some of these places may not be fake, but they may just be not very

efficient. You know, some of the things I'm reading about are places that are just so kind of not very familiar with medicine and how that works. They're getting overwhelmed because they're getting so many people and they're just not keeping up. And so, you know, your tests are sitting in a bag for three days and they're no longer any good. So, you know, both are problems. Tell me about regulation of these pop-up sites. I imagine there are many laws in the books that contemplate a COVID pop-up testing site. So is this a loophole that these entrepreneurs, I'm putting that, in quotes in some cases are exploiting? It seems to be the case, yes. You know, our health departments are very on the ball and careful to monitor the labs in our states, you know, the labs where that process the tests that we send into them. But these pop-ups are so new that there's not a lot of regulation around them. And so when I talked with health departments in New York and in Philadelphia and Chicago,

and Chicago, you know, they say, gosh, we really, we really don't, don't regulate them at this time. And that's a, that is a big loophole for sure, because it just opens the door for them to, you know, do whatever they want. Well, and it's difficult to put laws on the books quickly enough to respond to something like this, even as the pandemic rocks on. So are there any ways that, you know, something can be done about this? In other words, if you, you know, if you're, you know, you know, you call and complain, certainly if you feel like your identity has been stolen one way or another, laws potentially have been broken, right? Potentially, for sure. And what these states and cities are urging is for people who worry about potential fraud to get in touch with their state attorney general's office because they all have, you know, forms that you can fill out to file a complaint, basically.

So is there much evidence that these operations are in the crosshairs, of authorities one way or another? In other words, is anybody cracking down? Well, as far as we can tell, I think that some of these states are launching investigations. You know, how far along they are in them or what they're uncovering is unclear because, you know, it's all over the country. There's not a central place to go to find this stuff out. I imagine if there were a bunch of regulations on the books, it would still be an enforcement nightmare if people are operating out of view halls, right? Yes. And there are a hundred. hundreds and hundreds of these places. As a consumer, you can go to the websites of the state

health department, and you can, you know, check that and find out whether they're listed on the website as, you know, an authorized test operator. But if they're not, that doesn't necessarily mean they're bad, because, again, this is all just emerging and not everything is up to date. Michelle, are there places where they're doing a better job at trying to crack down on fraudulent pop-up testing sites? The place that comes to mind is Philadelphia where the health department was looking into trying to put together some sort of official state or city placard that these testing sites could affix to their fronts so that you could, as a consumer, look at it and say, ah, that one's got the official stamp of approval from, you know, the government. I think an important point for everybody listening is not to take this as a message not to get tested, right? Correct. Testing is important. And, you know, you might have to try and do a, take a couple of extra steps to feel confident that the test you're getting is, is accurate and real, but testing is important. And, you know, presumably or supposedly, we're all going to get more tests available, at home tests available soon, right? So that would help reduce the demand for these little, you know, street side operations.

Yes, I ordered a bunch. So I've got a good stock on hand. So if you need one, let me know. Good. That's all the time we have. I want to thank you for joining us. Thank you. Michelle Andrews is contributing writer for Kaiser Health News. You can read Michelle's full story at ScienceFriday.com. Imagine you're getting ready for a long run. What are the things you need? You make sure your sneakers are tied, double knots preferred, some headphones for you to listen to music, or the Science Friday podcast. And maybe, just maybe, a cannabis gummy or a puff on a joint?

This doesn't quite fit the stereotype of the stoner locked on the couch, munching a bowl of chips. But as cannabis is legalized in an increasing number of states, we're learning anecdotally about all the ways people use weed in their lives. For a growing community of people, that means mixing cannabis with extra, exercise. But federally, cannabis is still classified as a Schedule 1 drug, and that means it's in the same legal category as heroin and meth. And that means it's really hard for researchers to do studies on how cannabis impacts people. In Colorado, one of the first studies in humans on how cannabis and exercise mix is underway. And joining me today are two people involved. L'O'Gipson is a PhD candidate in psychology and neuroscience at the University of Colorado in Boulder.

Heather Michoudi is an ultramarathoner and research participant, also joining us from Boulder. Welcome to both of you to Science Friday. Thanks for having us. Thanks for having us. So, Laurel, walk me through this. This is, I guess, the ultimate runners high. Had to get that one out there. What are the goals of your study?

Sure. So for this study, we're really interested in how cannabis, influences the experience of exercise. So more for the subjective experience versus exercise performance per se. So we're really curious about how cannabis might either remove or add barriers associated with regular exercise. So we're looking at things like pain, motivation, enjoyment, dissociation, things like that. So we're really curious to see how acute cannabis use of varying cannabinoid profiles

also teach the CBD, how that might help or hinder people who are interested in exercising more. So, Heather, you're an ultra marathoner, which means you log some serious mileage. I'd like to hear a little bit about that. But how does cannabis fit into your regime? Yeah. I do log some serious mileage in my peak training weeks. I try to hit 100 mile weeks. And, you know, I think once a week I have a long run.

and usually that's about half of the distance of whatever race I'm doing. So for a 100-mile race, I want to try and hit a 50-mile long run. And on my long runs, it's usually on a weekend. It's kind of a treat day. And so my protocol for that is to try and get halfway through my long run and then eat about a 5 milligram gummy. I don't have a good enough tolerance for any more than 5. And yeah, I usually get those effects of kind of a blissful connected state with nature, which is what I'm out there for originally.

So it's good to kind of enhance that effect. All right. So help us understand a little bit of what you're finding. We know about runners high, and we've always said, oh, endorphins. But maybe it's not. Is it something to do perhaps with the endocannoid system? Is that what you're finding? So I can't speak necessarily to this study in particular because we haven't analyzed any of our data yet.

We're waiting until we're done collecting participants. But what we do know from other researchers is it seems like the endocannabinoid system is playing a role in this runner's high right, which is what long distance runners often experience, such as euphoria, feelings of effortlessness, things like that. And so what scientists are beginning to think is that it's actually endocannobinoids and not endorphins causing this because endoconitis. cannabinoids are able to cross the blood-brain barrier. And what studies have shown is that acute exercise actually increases circulating end of cannabinoids. And this release is associated with reductions in pain, reductions in exertion and things like that. So it's still to be determined whether exogenous cannabinoids like THC or CBD might kind of mimic this process or if they might interfere

with it in some way. So we're curious to see what we find. We have to take a break. When we come back, more on the science of cannabis and exercise. This is Science Friday. I'm Miles O'Brien in for Ira Flato. We're continuing our conversation about research on how cannabis and exercise mix. My guests are Laurel Gibson, PhD candidate in psychology and neuroscience at the University of Colorado in Boulder, and Heather Mashutie, ultra-marathoner and research participant, also joining us from Boulder.

You know, it's interesting. I think timing and dosage are so important. And I do know when you ingest with a gummy, it takes a little while for the effects to take hold. How do you time it? So timing is relative to miles I'm already in. So halfway through a long run, right now I'm running 20 mile long run. So it would be 10 miles in, I would take it. And the reason why is because, you know, usually halfway through, that's when the pain really starts to kick in.

And also that's when the kind of natural endocannabinoid system is working. And I'm starting to feel connected and just kind of in a trance, right? And so that's when I try to time taking the gummy. You're kind of getting your runners high mid run. You're sort of changing the time frame when you experience that feeling. And I assume it, if nothing else, it makes your run more pleasant. But do you think it changes the way you run? I think if anything, you know, the biggest benefit is the psychological aspect, even more than pain relief.

So, you know, I think maybe what we haven't touched on yet is just this class of drugs, more so enhancing our feelings of connectedness. I know this sounds kind of like ethereal and hippie-dibby, but it's really, it's really, it was a motivator for me to originally even start long distance running was. The trees are so much greener and, you know, and, oh, the dirt is like at the perfect humidity. I mean, weird stuff happens, you know, but it's really, it's really quite transformational. You say you use the gummy in the middle of one of your very long runs. Would you be reluctant to smoke it because you are, after all, a long-distance marathoner and probably are concerned about your lung capacity? Yeah, and to participate in Laurel's study, I did use flour, but it's definitely not. incorporated into my regular routine when I run. And, you know, I'm in Colorado doing a lot of

higher elevation stuff. But I know athletes who run and use flower. So it's not far far off. Laura, let's talk a little bit more about how you've created this study. How is it set up? Is the way Heather described it kind of typical? I mean, not everybody's running those long distances. So how do you try to understand how this works beyond anecdotal information? Yeah, that's a great question. And it's true that people are really running a variety of different mileages when they're doing this on their own. And unfortunately, we don't have the time for folks to come into the lab and get out a 50 mile long run rate. So for this study, we standardize it across participants and we have folks run in 30-minute sessions. And so participants

come into our lab three different times. The first is just for a baseline where we get some measurements of VMI. We do an exercise test to determine the speed and the intensity that they need to be at when engaging in moderate intensity exercise. And then we also have them fill out a survey. And then folks come in an additional two times. One time they will use their assigned cannabis product beforehand, come into the lab, do a 30-minute run while they're high, and fill out some measures during that time. And then the other time, they come in when they're sober. So that's our non-cannabis exercise session, and they run again for 30 minutes. So let's talk about Laurel, the limitations on research. It wasn't too long ago that if you were doing research at a university

involving cannabis, there was like one place in the country in Mississippi to go get the bud, and it really wasn't analogous to what a typical person could get in a dispensary. So it was kind of didn't have a lot of usefulness for scientists. How have you kind of gotten around that? Because you don't want to end up on the wrong side of the DEA, do you? Yeah, it's tough. And I will say that research is still going on with NIDA grown cannabis. And if you want to have folks actually use cannabis on a university campus in a lab setting,

that's the stuff you need to use. But you're right, it doesn't necessarily reflect what people are actually using when they go to a dispensary in a legal market and get the, their products. So we kind of have to jump through some loopholes in our lab to study legal market cannabis. And one of those loopholes is we can't actually have participants use in our lab because CU is a federal institution and cannabis is still illegal at the federal level, right? So what we do instead to get around this is we have our mobile pharmacology lab, which some of our participants like to call the Canavan. And we will drive that mobile lab to participants' homes. Participants use

their product in their own homes, up to them how much they want to use. And then they come back out to the mobile lab. And typically for our other canvas studies, you would just stay in the mobile lab. You'd do all the assessments, all the measures in there. But for this study, we unfortunately can't fit a treadmill in the mobile lab, even though we talked about it. So what we do instead is we have people driven back to campus while they're still high. And then once they get to our exercise facility, they'll run on our treadmills. So there's a van that comes bias. Like the good humor truck for adults, I guess, or something like that.

Exactly. Good humor indeed. This all seems kind of silly, frankly. Are things changing for the better on this front? Not imminently. No. I think until cannabis is legalized at the federal level, we probably won't see much

of a change in how we conduct studies using legal market products that are readily available to our participants. And even to a certain extent, like in Canada, where they recently legalized it at the countrywide level, they're still facing a lot of barriers to studying these substances in the lab. And so a lot of researchers are still turning to this more observational methodology rather than having participants come into the lab and smoke.

Well, how much does that undermine your scientific goals? It's definitely a limitation, and it's something that we thought about a lot, right? So we do have various ways of trying to minimize the limitations, I guess you could say. So one is we want people to still be acutely intoxicated by the time they get to the lab, right? So we keep it within a certain radius of campus. So participants need to live 20 minutes or less from campus. So by the time they get there, they're still high. But it's kind of, you know, we have to weigh the limitations and strengths of the approach because we want to study what participants can actually get in a dispensary. The cannabinoid profile, the strength of the

product, and that's just isn't always reflected in products that you can get from the government. All right. Well, of course we know, and we've learned this recently, that in, you know, athletic endeavors like the Olympics, cannabis is a big no-no. We saw the sprinter Shakari Richardson unable to participate in the summer games because she tested positive for THC. Laurel, does this research in any way lead you to believe it is performance enhancing? So I can't speak necessarily to the findings from our study yet, but what I will say, you know, from what we know from previous studies that have looked at cannabis and exercise performance, from the standpoint of performance enhancing in terms of strength or speed, probably not.

But it's also important to note that the world anti-doping agency isn't just banning substances based on how they affect sports performance. So it's also whether they pose a risk to their athletes or whether it influences the spirit of sport per se. So there are a lot of other factors that go into that decision-making process. So Heather, does it improve your performance? Okay, so I think we have to define that term. I'm going to speak around it as well as Laurel did.

This is a gray area, isn't it? Right? Because if you feel better psychologically, if you recover faster, in a sense, you are enhancing your performance, even though maybe your time, it really gets complicated quickly, doesn't it? Yeah. And I think, you know, that's part of my protocol that I bake into my long run is I don't take the gummy until I'm halfway through. Because, you know, I want to get to that point where, you know, I've earned it. I've put in some work to get there. you know, if I do it before halfway, I'm kind of prone sometimes to turn around.

Yeah, that's enough. And it's not that it makes me lazy or unmotivated. It's just like I'm more in tune with my body and my feelings and I'm less likely to push myself. So I guess that's a, that's a more concrete anecdotal answer probably for you. Should it be allowed in competitions like the Olympics? I'm not going to give you yes or no. I wouldn't, I wouldn't, I wouldn't do it on a race day, right? And it's, you know, it's, for me, it's just to make the training more enjoyable, to make those long schlags, you know, kind of, kind of a treat, something that I look forward to during the week. And you wouldn't do it in a competition because why? I just think for me, I'm kind of a square too, right? And that, like, a lot of runners will take a whole bunch of caffeine pills with them.

I, you know, I'm kind of like, let's just see how far I can take this myself, you know, on my own energy metabolism system. I think that's a personal thing. That's really interesting. You kind of get in the zone and that flow and this assists. Now, you do have a background in the sciences, neuroscience in particular. Is that what led you to this study? Yeah, I guess I'm a citizen scientist. I'm an ally.

I'm by no means of scientists. So I definitely have a strong, a passion for being a research participant. I am, like, totally enamored with Laurel's work in her lab and her, you know, motivation to do this as her dissertation. It's a really large sample size she's trying to get to, and it's a really, really cool idea, especially being in Boulder. So, you know, I'm just, I'm really passionate about the ways that we can help as allies, you know, help, help scientists and researchers, especially with harder stuff, schedule one stuff, right? Well, walk us through. There's any number of ways to ingest cannabis. You can inhale it. You can vape it. You can.

smoke it. What are the pros and cons? Sure. So what we have seen anecdotally, especially among ultra-runners and folks running longer distances, is it's more common to use edibles because they metabolize a bit slower and their effects are longer lasting. But we've also seen at the same time that people who run shorter distance are more likely to turn to cannabis flour because its acute effects happen faster. And so for our study, we're looking at the effects of of cannabis flour rather than edibles, just because cannabis edibles metabolize so much differently from participant to participant, and there isn't really a standardized length of time to wait. So we have all our participants use cannabis flour up to them how they want to use it,

if they want to use a vaporizer, a joint, or a bowl, but that's what they smoke before coming into the lab. I'm curious about what strains of marijuana you're using. Do you use an indica, a setiva, or some kind of. hybrid? So that's a good question. And actually, in terms of the scientific evidence out there, there's not much distinguishing the effects of Indica, Sativa, and hybrids. That's more of an anecdotal report. So what we're focusing on instead is various ratios of cannabinoids. So we're using two different strains. One is a THC heavy strain, and then one is a CBD heavy strain for our study.

That's interesting because when you go to a dispensary, they'll tell you if Sativa is more for focus and being awake and, you know, the Indica is more for lying on the couch. And that's not true? I won't say that it's not true. There's just not much scientific evidence out there saying that there are different effects. So we're choosing to just focus on CHC versus CBD. And I would love to see a study out there eventually that looks at, you know, whether Indica and Sativa really does have different effects or if that's something that we see more in dispensaries than in pop culture. That's all the time we have.

Thank you to my guests. Laurel Gibson is a PhD candidate in psychology and neuroscience at the University of Colorado in Boulder. And Heather Mashoudi is an ultra marathoner and research participant. Also joining us from Boulder. Thanks for having us. Longtime listener. Thank you for having us. I'm Miles O'Brien, and this is Science Friday from WNYC Studios.

For the rest of the hour, electric aviation, as the world looks to, decarbonize transportation. Aviation is the high-hanging fruit. Transitioning from fossil fuels won't be easy, but that doesn't mean it's not happening, and maybe sooner than you think. Last week, Rolls-Royce announced that an experimental aircraft, it calls spirit of innovation, has officially beaten the world zero-emission speed record at 345 miles per hour. The flight took place in November. And on a more practical level, the company, Aviation, is set to flight test its nine-passenger electric commuter plane, Alice, in the weeks ahead. Joining me now are two electric aviation pioneers trying to help this movement take flight. Mark Moore is a former

NASA engineer who has worked on electric propulsion for more than 30 years. He co-founded Uber Elevate and is now CEO of Whisper Arrow. and Omar Bario-Hi. He is co-founder and CEO of Aviation. That's the company with the Alice Commuter Plain that I just mentioned. Welcome to you both. Thank you. Thrill to be here.

Thanks, Miles. Thanks for having us. Mark, you've been around for a long time in this business. There's been a lot of talk about electric aviation for a long time, but in recent years, it seems like the pace has quicken. Give us a sense of how much innovation is underway in a lot of these small startup companies. It's funny how money will quicken the pace, isn't it?

Because there has been a lot of money going into electric flight. You name it, whether it's the SPACs, where the Jobies and the verticals and the Lillium have each raised about a billion dollars to get their electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft flying and through certification to the fantastic, work that Omar is doing with more practical and faster E.C. Toll, that is, elector conventional takeoff and landing aircraft, which they're just about to fly, and everyone can't wait to see it

fly because it's gorgeous. And it's a mission free. So, yeah, it's just, this is a new Wright Brothers era where there's about 600 companies, some of them are just small efforts in their garages, but many seriously funded efforts to get all sorts of different electric aircraft from small recreational one person, all the way to commercial transports. In fact, the largest one right now is being developed by heart aerospace at the 19-seater scale. You know, I've heard the analogy. It's not unlike Detroit at the turn of the last century when there were a lot of little shops and garages trying to figure out what the automobile would look like. Is that a good analogy? That is an excellent analogy. And the reason General Motors is called General Motors is because

they combined a whole bunch of companies together in a period of consolidation. And that's going to happen for us too, right? You're not going to have 600 winners. Frankly, it's so expensive to certify an aircraft that probably there's only going to be about five EV-toe companies that that get through certification, and maybe five to ten ECTO companies that get through. And look, many of the smaller companies are going to consolidate or just go away. But it's a really healthy period of innovation, right? You let the genetic algorithm run wild and try every single type of experiment. We're going to have to take a break.

We'll be back with more on the future of electric aircraft after this short break. This is Science Friday, and I'm Miles O'Brien. We're talking electric aviation this hour with Mark Moore of Whisper Arrow and Omer Barrio High of aviation. Let's explain to people the challenge of electrifying aviation. And I know, Omer, you are deeply involved in this. It has to do, well, frankly, a gallon of jet fuel pound for pound is an incredibly potent thing. And trying to match that with batteries as a challenge. isn't it? The energy density question is definitely a big part of the problem, but it's also a big part of the opportunity. It's a different system. So you don't need to look just at a pound per pound comparison. You need to look at the bigger picture. And I think one of the beautiful things that, as Mark very accurately said, what you're seeing is how much electric propulsion opens up the design space. You can do more things. You can put propulsors and integrate them differently into the wing. You can create all sorts of weird shapes of planes. Some of it is trying to solve a problem.

Some of it is trying to gain an advantage. But you're right, Miles, with the fundamentals. A battery today holds far less energy than the equivalent volume and weight of fuel. the motor itself, by the way, converts that energy to propulsion more efficiently, but that doesn't even come close to compensate for that change. On the other hand, the fact that we have both zero emissions, simpler maintenance, and that expansion of design space allows us to create new tools or new flying devices that do better than the prevailing design out there today for a reciprocating. engine. Miles, you know I hate it when you do that direct energy comparison, because it doesn't take

into account so many factors, right? I mean, as Omar said, these electric motors are 95% efficient. A small turboshaft or reciprocating engine is about 28 to 30% efficient. So there's a three times difference in the efficiency or three times less energy that's lost or acquired right up front. and the cost of electricity is less than these aviation fuels. And what's really important is it's far more steady. Oil prices go up and down all the time, and it drives airlines crazy in terms of being able to have reasonable costs. Electricity is very flat and level costing and lower.

So this is a key point. And, Omer, I want you to comment on this. An electric motor is much smaller. You can place it all over the. the airfoil, and that can affect the controllability in fundamental ways. But when you look at your aircraft, the ALICE, it looks like those could be just plain old turbine engines in the back. And I assume, you know, this is, you've got to start somewhere.

As Mark pointed out, is this because you have to get through this process with the FAA and certification and it has to be a little more conventional? And down the road, might it look very different? I think the answer on our end is all of the above. I think the Alice is a revolutionary plane from many aspects, but if you take two steps back, it looks like an airplane. It takes off from a runway. It has two props in the back. It has control surfaces that are fairly standard. There are a few things we couldn't get away with when transitioning to electric propulsion, and we had to hit a higher mark of efficiency. But as Mark rightfully said, there are more efficient way to have propulsors integrated with controls and with lifting devices with the wings and create configurations that can do more things.

The question is, when can they do them safely and when can they do them reliably? And can you get a product out the door in two years time from where I'm standing today or three years time from where I'm standing today? And I think the interesting part is that it's the right thing to do in the short term because there is so much learning and so much pushing on just getting the first part 23 light aircraft all fly by wire. No one did that before. Everybody's talking about the alice being the first commuter aircraft that's all electric. That's tremendous. That's why I started the company. It's my pride and joy.

That said, I think the challenge of making this airspace. plane all fly by wire is not smaller than making it all electric. And making this something that you can really bring to market in a reasonable time frame is the only way for a startup company to survive. And it serves a huge purpose because it opens the door for those next iterations and those improvements going forward. And it already has this tremendous role to play in an industry that's just waiting to be revolutionized. You called it the high-hanging fruit. It's definitely a fruit, and we can get there.

So the question is how practical it is and how can it be certified and do you have the components? And that kind of folds back to the challenges you asked about it. It's not just that there is, you know, less energy. From a sustainable supply chain perspective, from a maintainability perspective, from a charging infrastructure perspective, There are so many things that need to be solved and done right for a plane to really be out there, work safely like a workhorse, that getting something that can go to market in a certified way, we believe is the most important thing right now. And getting it to perform great and be, you know, the Tesla of the skies. It didn't really change the car, but it was an awesome car.

And then can we do better going forward? Well, yes, and I think Mark's company and some other efforts out there today really are showing the way. Omer, I'm glad you mentioned the car. When you get into the idea of penetration of electric vehicles on the ground, the big issue is range anxiety. What are the practical limits of range for a battery-driven aircraft at this point? So it really depends on the type of electric aircraft, right? So for the EC toll, the conventional takeoff and landing like Omar is developing, three to 500 range is what batteries can do today.

And that's miles, correct? Yes, statute miles. So if it's an EV toll aircraft, then they're really limited to anywhere from 60 to 150 mile range. And a really important discriminator on range is whether you're, flying visual flight rules or instrument flight rules. So Miles, you know as a pilot that if you're going to fly in all weather conditions, which is what commercial aircraft have to do, then you've got to keep a lot of reserve energy on board to do a 40-minute loiter plus an alternate to another airport. That almost halves the amount of range available for an aircraft when you're flying in non-ideal

weather conditions. Okay. So range sort of limits the potential growth for all battery aircraft. One of the other issues, which comes up, particularly when you start talking about these EV-Tol, electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicles, which would be akin to the mission of a helicopter today. One of the big issues there is noise. And I know, Mark, you have spent a lot of time thinking about this. If, in fact, they become as ubiquitous as the visionaries in this space see these things. And we're talking about people who imagine millions of these craft populating cities. Isn't the noise potentially a showstopper? Noise is huge. If you're talking about getting to scale and scale is where great direct operating

costs happen. So, yeah, so after I left Uber Elevate, instead of joining Joby, which is an awesome EV tool company, I decided to do my own startup. And for this whole first year, the startup, all we did was reinvent and create the next generation of distributed electric propulsion that had specifically the goal of being able to be the quietest way to produce thrust ever developed. And we have done that. and now we're integrating our propulsors into different aircraft type that can be the most community-friendly way to fly. So yes, we think it is absolutely critical. Maybe not in the first couple years, but if you're going to get to scaled operations and not just in urban areas, one of the nice things about urban areas is there's a lot of background noise. So that's one of

advantage they have, but they use a lot of power. So they make quite a bit of noise, these EV tow aircraft. For EC toll, they're taking off at small airports, but they're flying over a lot of residential communities. So if you're talking about, you know, doing 50 to 100 operations per day at a single location, you better be quiet or else, you know, you're going to show up on a Google search like Surfair, San Carlo Airport, where mothers are. are holding picket signs saying, your aircraft are waking up my baby. I don't like this aircraft alarm clock. Something that needs to be solved for sure. Omer, another issue which came up in the course of the development of your craft, which was a setback, is the battery systems themselves.

You had a thermal runaway, which is a complicated way of saying a big fire, and destroyed the aircraft. Help us understand what the challenge is when you're using lithium ion batteries, and how have you solved that concern or attempted to solve it? First of all, thanks for the reminder. It was literally two years ago, and seeing the Alice kind of taxing at speed on the runway, just the 50 or 150 feet from me right now, kind of reminds us of how a good team can bounce back. Yes, we've had a lot of testing done to batteries, and we've had intended and unintended fires happening every once in a while.

The battery world and any storage of energy, I mean, if you come to think of it, there is a risk in putting a, you know, flammable, combustible liquid in a tank and then burning it a couple of times a second in a piston chamber or any other combustion chamber. So batteries as a chemical solution and a structure that holds energy has unproductive or, let's say, not safe ways of discharging that energy as well. And if mistreated or mechanically hurt significantly, they could combust.

The way to fix it is actually not that complicated, but it is very different than the way the auto industry, for example, treats a battery. The auto industry has the perception of what's called a graceful burn or a graceful thermal runaway, meaning if I give you enough minutes to leave your car and your car burned, maybe it's not so bad. This doesn't quite work for aviation, and it doesn't quite work for the systems that we want to see on airplanes. With this in mind, We've created, and I assume that anybody who wants to be successful in this space right now will have to create, not just a set of systems that test batteries to the point that sometimes they burst into flames and then you model it and make sure that you know how to handle it, get rid of the energy that's exhausted and not allow it to propagate, but also battery manage and prevent. And that combination is really the heart of any safe propulsion system that's battery driven.

Getting there has a lot to do with the scrutiny coming in from the regulator. There are a lot of standards in place to how to do this right and how to test it, but also has a lot to do with our ability as an industry to look at the battery cell and to build on top of that. The cell has its own characteristics, and it's a lithium ion cell, but that's kind of the high-level declaration. There are so many specifics and differences. In the cylindrical cell that Tesla uses and in the pouch cells that other car manufacturers use, you have different ways to handle thermal runway. And those need to be explored, built, and then proven to the point that, A, you didn't have too much overhead in terms of the safety systems on board.

And on the other hand, you created the system that is safe to allow that repeated safe operations that we want and need to expect from the aviation industry. I'm Miles O'Brien, and this is Science Friday from WNYC Studios. So, Mark, let's talk for a moment then about the regulatory process here. The FAA doesn't have a ton of experience certifying electric aircraft. So what's that going to look like? What sort of timeline is realistic? In short, when are we going to get into these aircraft? Is it sooner than we think?

Or when you get into FAA regulations, sometimes I can rock on for quite a while? We are getting very close. And first of all, look, the FAA vehicle certification division is doing an excellent job facing these new technologies. So I firmly believe from everything I've seen and heard that you will see electric conventional takeoff and landing aircraft certified within the next two years. I think Omar's on a path to do that. You can disagree it.

And I think the electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft are on track to certify by 2024. The wonderful thing is that both of these types of aircrafts, will be certified through what's called Part 23. It's for small aircraft, and the FAA did an excellent job getting ahead of things by essentially rewriting all of Part 23 to be able to utilize consensus standards, ASTM and SAE, other standards. So essentially these are ways for electric motor, a standard way of ensuring that it's safe.

For batteries, a standard way to ensure that it won't go into thermal runaway. So previously, you know, a couple of years ago, the FAA could not use these performance standards. You had to follow their prescriptive recipe for how to certify. And it was cumbersome, complex, and just not a great way to do business. So thank goodness that now we can all use these performance. standards and be able to benefit from them. Unfortunately, we've run out of time, gentlemen. Mark Moore is a former NASA engineer who has worked on electric propulsion for about 32

years. He co-founded Uber Elevate and is now CEO of Whisper Arrow. And Omenar Barrio High, he is the co-founder and CEO of Eviation. Good luck with the upcoming test flights. Keep us posted. And thanks to you both for joining me today. Thank you, Miles. Thanks so much for having us.

And if you want more on the world of electric aviation, I recently filmed a Nova episode on this topic, which we talked about briefly. It's called the Great Electric Airplane Race. You can find a link to that at sciencefriiday.com slash electric airplanes. If you missed any part of this program or would like to hear it again, subscribe to our podcasts or ask your smart speaker to play Science Friday. Every day is now Science Friday. And just a note, Science Friday is hiring. We're looking for folks both on our radio and audience teams. You can find out more at ScienceFriday.com slash careers. Ira is back next week.

Have a great weekend. I'm Miles O'Brien.