Science Friday - Nursing Homes, Volcano Science. Sept 18, 2020, Part 2

Episode Date: September 18, 2020

America’s Elder Care Has A Problem Since the pandemic began, long-term care facilities across the country have experienced some of its worst effects: One of the first major outbreaks in the U.S. began in a nursing home in Washington state. Since then, the virus has ravaged through care centers across the country—as of September 16, more than 479,000 people have been infected with COVID-19 in U.S. care facilities.  But COVID-19 is merely adding stress to an already fragile system of long-term care facilities—including nursing homes, assisted living, and other rehabilitation centers. Coronavirus outbreaks have only exacerbated pre-existing problems, including overworked and underpaid staff, limited funding, and poor communication with families.   In Kansas, more than half of the state’s COVID-19 deaths have been among nursing home residents, with 50 active outbreaks in long-term care facilities as of August 26, reports Celia Llopis-Jepsen for the Kansas News Service. In the midst of these challenges, facility administrators have reported major issues with staff turnover and availability.  When facilities are so vulnerable, COVID-19 won’t be the only hazard that becomes a problem. A recent KQED investigation, Older and Overlooked, found that thousands of long-term care facilities in California are also located in high risk wildfire areas. Many of these facilities have inadequate or poorly communicated evacuation plans, reports KQED's Molly Peterson. This adds to the growing concern over this year’s devastating wildfire season, with fires currently threatening facilities in Vallejo and Fairfield.  Re-thinking long-term care will become even more important as our population ages. In the United States, the number of those 85 and older is expected to nearly triple from 6.7 million in 2020 to 19 million by 2060, according to the Population Reference Bureau’s analysis of U.S. census data. This is the demographic that most relies on long-term care facilities—but experts doubt the current system can support the demands of our growing elderly population.  In this week’s segment hosted by radio producer Katie Feather, Celia Llopis-Jepsen and Molly Peterson give a closer look at the issues inside nursing homes in Kansas and California. Then, gerontology professor Robert Applebaum and gerontologist Sonya Barsness dig into the root of the systemic problems, and look for solutions that can build better long-term care for our aging population. Hunting For The Crystalline Clues Of A Volcano’s Eruption We notice volcanoes when they erupt. It’s hard to miss the huge, dramatic plumes of ash, or red glowing lava spewing high into the air.  But the geologic precursors of these giant eruptions are less obvious. To learn more about when and why these catastrophic events occur, scientists study the gases and rocks inside of volcanoes. Volcanologist Kayla Iacovino, for example, conducts research on volcanoes from Costa Rica to Antarctica—and now, is even looking to other planets.  Iacovino is featured in our second season of Breakthrough: Portraits of Women in Science, a video series profiling scientists and how their lives and work intersect. Here, she explains how the gases and crystals released by volcanoes provide important clues into why volcanoes erupt. 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 Flato. A bit later in the hour, we'll talk to a volcanologist studying volcanoes from North Korea to Antarctica and even on other planets. But first, it's time to check in on the state of science. This is KERR. W.N. St. Louis Public Radio News. Iowa Public Radio News. Local stories with national significance. COVID-19 has forever changed traditional. institutions as we once knew them, schools, the workplace, hospitals, and nursing homes. Our long-term care facilities have seen some of the worst outbreaks of the disease. And while nursing homes may be under scrutiny now, experts say problems with the system existed long before this virus. Science Friday producer Katie Feather has more.

Ask anyone who knows something about nursing homes and long-term care facilities in the U.S. and they'll tell you that the cracks were there even before the pandemic. The families of residents in nursing homes know this all too well. We asked our Science Friday listeners to tell us their experiences with nursing home care on the SciFri Vox Pop app, and this is some of what they shared. My mom was in independent living for two years, but declined to where we moved her into a nursing home. She rapidly declined and passed three months later. I'm very angry about my mother's care in the last three months of her life.

I know there's good people out there and it's a tough job, but my mom did not get the care she needed. Staff were apathetic and patient injuries went untreated. It's difficult for me to talk about. I've had all four parents in assisted living. Although it's been sort of okay, the food is generally just terrible. The staff turnover is very high because the wages are low, so you get inconsistent help. The so-called activities directors usually treat the residents like infants and infants. and so you get very little intellectual stimulation. And the management is usually more interested in the bottom line than the real care of their residents. My mother was in a nursing home slash rehab facility, and it was just horrible.

The occupational and the physical therapy was not designed to her particular needs and lifestyle prior to admission. And there was always the threat of her being discharged if she didn't cooperate. also they sent a $12,000 bill after she passed. That was Dan from Raleigh, North Carolina, John from Pleasant Hill, California, and Janet from St. Louis, Missouri. Poor communication, overworked staff, inadequate care, and lack of financial support were common themes among the stories we heard. So we wanted to check in on two states. Kansas, where almost half of all COVID-related deaths have been linked to long-term care settings. In California, where nursing homes are fighting a war on two fronts,

writing a war on two fronts, a pandemic and this month's devastating wildfires. Joining me now to take a deeper look at what long-term care facilities in these two states are currently up against are my guests. Molly Peterson is a science and environmental reporter for KQED in San Francisco, California. She's based in Los Angeles. Celia Yopee's Jepson is a health reporter for the Kansas News Service. Welcome to Science Friday. Thank you. Happy to be here.

Molly, I want to turn to you first because even though nursing homes have been been dealing with the coronavirus for the past several months. Facilities in California have been facing a much more pressing threat with these wildfires. Right. We've got wildfires. As of today, we've got wildfires burning about 3% of the state's land so far this year. And we've got a couple more months of this season left to go. We've got a lot of facilities that are evacuating some of them to multiple locations and some of them for the second or third time this year already. I gather from your reporting that there isn't a set of policies describing how facilities would evacuate residents if there was a wildfire. In Santa Rosa, in fires a couple

years ago, we saw assisted living facilities where residents were left behind by staffers. They didn't have access to keys. They didn't know how to get the vans, to get them into vans. They didn't know where to take people locally because the fire was coming so close. There wasn't an easy evacuation location. And generally speaking, those facilities were unprepared. They didn't get into a lot of trouble. These are state-regulated assisted living facilities, not health care facilities. And there weren't a lot of requirements on these facilities. That's since changed. But we're talking about a lot of facilities around the state, some of which only have six beds and may not be ready for a rapidly moving fire to come their way. It's just so surprising that there wasn't a policy in place.

earlier, and it seems like it takes the families by surprise, too. You have a story about the Tubbs fire which burned down one senior care center, Villa Capri. And you spoke to a family, a daughter and her mother who was living in the facility and who had been abandoned by staff there. That's right. Another member of my team, April Dembski at KQED, spoke to Beth, Eurota Steffey and her mother, Alice Steffie. Alice was rescued by yet other family members of other folks at that facility. I was just so angry. I can't even really put into words how angry I was and how disappointed in a state agency whose job it is to get up every morning and protect people like my mom, living in a facility like that, and they failed them. What I think is interesting is these

facilities, when they're planning, really rely on volunteer support, staffing is minimal. And at night, even if everyone had stayed, there were only a handful of folks there for a facility that had several hundred residents. So getting people out really was this community effort. And looming in the background of all this, we're still dealing with the coronavirus. So how are these facilities able to do all this evacuation and removal of residents in light of COVID-19? Yeah, they're making it up as they go along. They have not had a lot of guidance from state and federal regulators.

The guidance is sort of generally for social distancing. But for example, in San Luis Obispo in the central coast of California, there was a fire in June that caused some small assisted living facilities to evacuate. When those facilities were given the all clear to go back, some of the residents had essentially broken quarantine, gone home with family members to be safe. The other residents had stayed quarantined and segregated and separate in hotels. How do you rejoin those populations safely if you don't have a series of testing protocols, or plans for how to isolate people. In some states, testing availability is a real, real issue. In California, in some places, you can drive up and get a test and get a result the next day,

and in some places you have to wait. And that's been a challenge for facilities here, too. And one of those places where testing has been an issue has been in Kansas, so I want to turn to Celia, what's going on at the facilities there in your state? Well, it's exactly, as you mentioned, they're struggling with access, consistent, affordable access to testing with fast results. It varies by where you are in the state. It varies even within a single city depending on, you know, the week and how slammed the hospitals and labs in your area are. So half a year into this pandemic, nursing homes are frustrated that they

still, you know, they still have to deal with this. And we heard from some of our listeners about high turnover of staff. And you mentioned in some of your reporting that the lack of testing is exacerbating those problems. Yeah, so that's a good example. So for example, I talk to one nursing home in Topeka. And, you know, in an average week, they have maybe six staff members that have a sore throat or some symptom that is concerning and make some think, okay, don't come into work. We need to check if you have COVID-19. They fan out to their very. doctors offices or hospitals and maybe some of them get lucky and get test results really fast and they're back to work in 48 hours and maybe someone else that went to the other hospital in town,

that person ends up waiting five days to find out that they're clear. So in the meantime, while you have half a dozen people out, the other employees are working even longer shifts. So, you know, more than 60 hours a week to cover for this situation. So there is a real risk of burnout and exhaustion when this is going on week after week. We've all heard the stories of residents dying alone in these facilities. You also pointed out in one of your stories that even if residents aren't getting sick and passing away, they're still isolated and they're alone in their rooms and they can't see their family members. And that's having an impact on their mental health. Yeah, it is absolutely. And, um,

now I think that access to family kind of varies on where you live. I just talk to one nursing home today in a very rural area of the state that still since the beginning of the pandemic has not allowed any visitors in because they've had one issue after another. And I've talked to nursing aides who've said that when their residents that they work with are really isolated, you can see that people feel like giving up. Like there's not there's, I mean, this is going to sound brutal, but, you know, I had one nursing assistant cry while telling me this, that she felt like people give up because they feel like there's not a reason to live because they're not having the same contact that they're used to, you know, leaving the nursing home every weekend to have dinner with their families. So how will we emerge on the other side of this? Will things get better in these facilities now that we're looking at them and realizing their need for support? I'm thinking about how in California we call people vulnerable when they might get COVID more often than other people or when they might have to evacuate from a fire and the risk that they face is so great.

But actually what I've seen is the way that the systems are vulnerable. The systems that we have for taking care of people and taking care of their health towards the end of life seem broken. we've actually put people in charge of these homes to take care of people and protect them in a pandemic and in a wildfire. And how we handle that obligation going forward, I think, is something we're not going to stop paying attention to. Yeah, I think we'll have a better idea of whether this will solve some issues long term when we see even some of the issues we're dealing with now being solved. because yes, we're paying more attention to nursing homes now, but we're not effectively solving the problems yet that they're dealing with. So the problem isn't solved.

On paper, it may say that this testing is going to happen, but I'm looking at nursing homes that are scrambling, trying to figure out how the heck they're going to do it. And I've still seen so many problems that aren't actually being solved yet, so I'm little hesitant to say that things are going to be fantastic after this. Molly Peterson is a science and environmental reporter for KQED in San Francisco, California, she's based in Los Angeles. Celia Yopee Sjepson is a health reporter for the Kansas News Service.

When we come back, we take a look at what's keeping long-term care facilities from succeeding and what, if anything, might change after the pandemic. This is Science Friday. I'm Ira Flato. We're talking this hour about the state of nursing home care in the U.S. Long before the coronavirus infected people in these facilities cracks in the long-term care system, we're already weakening it. Producer Katie Feather is back with that story. The coronavirus has turned the nation's attention to many of the issues with nursing home care,

but those issues long preceded the virus. The question now is, can we emerge on the other side of this pandemic with a system that provides better care for older and disabled Americans? Joining me to offer insight into that question and more are my guests. Robert Applebaum is a professor of gerontology and director. of the Ohio long-term care project with the Scripps gerontology Center at Miami University in Ohio. Sonia Barnesness is a gerontologist and industry consultant based in Washington, D.C. Welcome to Science Friday. Thanks. Thank you. I want to start our conversation today by asking you both to give a grade to our current system of nursing home care.

Sonia, let's start with you. That's a great question. I would have to break it down into, I guess, different aspects. I would, would say the people that work in nursing homes, I would say are solid probably A, you know, B plus in the sense that I think they work incredibly hard in a very difficult system. I think the system is probably a D, maybe even an F sometimes, because I don't think it really is working for either the people that work in it or live in it. Yeah, I think that's really a good way to think about it. There are many, many dedicated folks who are working in the nursing home industry, but you really have to go back to the structure. We don't really want to pay for serving people in nursing homes, and in fact, people don't want to pay themselves. And people don't really

think about the fact that someday they might experience a severe disability. And so most of us don't save for long-term care. We don't have private insurance. And then it leaves society through the Medicaid program to essentially pay. And states don't really want to spend a lot of money on Medicaid. So we have a system that really is not very well thought through. And so even though we have good people in many cases, the structure just does not set up well to actually provide high quality care. So who are the people in this nursing home setting? Who are we talking about here? Nursing homes really serve two very distinct populations. And over the last 20 years, nursing homes have changed dramatically. So, for example, today, a lot of people who use nursing homes are there for very

short periods of time, and they're basically there to receive rehabilitation following a hospital stay. We did a study in Ohio where we followed everybody who went into a nursing home, and after three months of everybody who walked through the door, only 16% of those people were still there, and most of them had gone home. Today, for many people, nursing homes are what hospitals used to do, and they're providing short-term rehabilitation. So for that segment, it's not the old nursing home that we would think of. And then for some people who do stay longer, and typically these days those folks mostly have cognitive impairment or some type of dementia, they're long stairs. So I think the nursing homes are really do very different things for different people. Sonia, you're a consultant for this industry.

I'm curious about when facilities reach out to you for help. What are they struggling with and what are they looking for? I think there's a wide variety of reasons. I think, you know, for the most part, the type of work that I do, which is trying to apply a different paradigm of how we can support people in nursing homes, you know, these are organizations that are looking to, you do better. They want to change nursing homes from an institutional, medically driven culture to one that is based on person-centered values. So I think there are a segment of people that certainly are looking just to do better to change the way they do things, recognizing that there is a different way. You mentioned this person-centered mode of care. That makes a lot of sense. I would assume that

institutions would do that if they were capable of doing that. So what is keeping these institutions from offering this level of care? What are some of those obstacles? There are many reasons why I would say nursing homes may be hesitant or discouraged to change to a person-centered culture. One is just simply, I think, that this is a culture, this institutional culture, it has been so pervasive. You know, the roots of nursing homes are in an institutional medical model. So undoing that over the years has been a challenging process. It's inherent in the policies. It's somewhat inherent in regulations, the reimbursement system, et cetera. So it's undoing and unlearning a system that has essentially been built over years. And so I think that change in thinking

to me is sometimes the biggest barrier. Then there are the logistics of how to do it. But that change process is very difficult because it's very deep and it affects literally every single person. And it affects literally every single person working in that organization. So it does require an entire organization to be committed to change and to perhaps have guidance on how to do that and to have the not just the passion, but maybe the tools and resources to be able to do that. Bob, I want to turn to you because you do trainings with nursing home administrators. And I want to hear from you what wisdom you're imparting to them and what you hear from them about these new models of care. One of the biggest challenges that we face is, from a societal perspective, we are most concerned with safety in making sure that frail older people are being taken care of.

And the problem is that when you focus so much on safety, and of course we all want to be safe, but life doesn't stop when we have frailty or disability. And we think that it does. And so we tell administrators and we tell staff, don't let people fail, don't let people be unsafe. And so we're not very consistent with our messages. And it's a very challenging time to be an administrator because the funding is a challenge, the staff as a challenge. We've just finished a study where we found that the retention rate for nurse aides in Ohio facilities was around 60. So that means after a year, you've got a whole bunch of staff that aren't there anymore. And if you're doing very personal kinds of things with people and you have different people coming in, that makes quality difficult.

You know, related to your comments on autonomy, I think what's been really interesting with COVID is that I think this tension that we've always had in long-term care between autonomy and risk is really being brought up to light. there's a greater focus on risk because of the virus and the need for them not to have visitors to go outside to participate in group activities. And so I do really feel like that this is an opportunity with this virus for us to unpack this and to look at how we can do a better job at leading with autonomy rather than leading with risk. Yeah. And some of the perennial problems with nursing homes even before COVID have to do with staffing and funding. What are nursing homes doing right in terms of staffing and keeping retention rate high? What have you seen in your research? So my colleagues at the Scripps Dherentology Center did a study a few years ago where we identified

the best performing facilities in the state in terms of having high retention rates, and we went out and visited them. And what we found was that, yes, economic conditions and benefits and those kinds of things are important, but we also found that the facilities that were the best in the state were able to demonstrate to staff that they cared. You know, this set of the employment population are folks who are low paid, they have relatively low education, they have many challenges that low-income workers face. Their cars break down, they get evicted, and what these facilities did, what these administrators did was they were able to communicate that they had their back.

And so they would help them fix their car. They would help them find a place to live. And for those folks, they knew that the administrator cared. And when it came time to thinking about leaving to go to a different job, they didn't go. So one of the things we see is this is a place where management matters. And yes, the structure of the industry is a challenge, but management also matters. So I want to take the opportunity here to talk about possible reforms, ways we can improve this system. one of them being maybe we walk away from this model of nursing home care altogether.

A lot of the conversation around elder care in the United States right now is focused on aging at home and providing more support for that. Sonia, do you think that one solution to all this is just to walk away from this model? You know, it's my belief that we will always need some sort of nursing home level of care, meaning care for people with complexness. medical needs, complex chronic conditions, and particularly here in support for people living with dementia. However, I do think that what has to exist is not what we see now in terms of the model of nursing homes. What I would love to see is rather than us talking about aging in place as something separate, whatever we develop that is like a nursing home, that is senior living is integrated into communities so that it's not separate.

If I could jump in to say that the shift to home and community-based services really has happened. I think the question now is how do we do things differently? You know, a physician named Bill Thomas many years ago began to, he was working in a nursing home, and he said, wow, these are sterile environments, and we need to make this a place where people live. And he brought in pets and plants and after a few years of doing that, he decided, Dr. Thomas decided that that just isn't going to be enough change. And so he created something called the greenhouse or the small house where people would be living in groups of 10 and they would be living together. And that's been a reform attempt. And there are others as well. But the fact of the matter is it's very

difficult. The average nursing home in America is about 100 people, some much bigger than that. And it's very difficult in that institutional setting, particularly when it's doing many things, to make it a home-like environment that we all want to be living in. I'm Katie Feather, and this is Science Friday from WNYC Studios. Talking about nursing home reform with my guests, Robert Applebaum, Professor of Gerontology and Director of the Ohio Long-Term Care Project with the Scripps Gerontology Center at Miami University, Sonia Barnesness, a gerontologist and industry consultant based in Washington, D.C. So what I hear you both saying is that we don't really think about needing this type of care. We don't

plan for it until it's too late. But the pandemic has really directed the nation's attention in a focused way to this system. Do you think that maybe that will provide the momentum to create change after this? You know, to some extent, I think that's exactly right. You know, if you look at most states, you're talking about 40 to 50% of the deaths in a particular state from COVID are people in nursing homes. So they certainly have got a lot of attention and people are wondering, but I think the challenge is that the attention is much more regulatory and safety focused and we're going to need to shift our attention to this is where people live and this is the life they kind of live. So I think it can shift attention, but the question is, how is it going to shift attention? And can we shift it in a way to think about what's the best way to live with a disability and what's the best setting to do that? And I'll add to that too is that I think one way that we have to move forward with change is by not just giving new money or additional money to the existing system as it is.

I think that we do need a total redesign and that hopefully will include more reimbursement, more money, more focus, but that to just continue to use the same system, but, you know, throw money at it is really not going to help in terms of a redesign. One of the things that has also come out of the pandemic is an incredible advocacy movement of family members of people living in long-term care that have been. advocating for the voices and the rights of their loved ones living on long-term care to ensure their safety, to ensure that their ability to be socially connected with others outside their communities. I'm so glad you said that, Sonia, because I want to end by saying that we had a lot

of Science Friday listeners call in to share their mostly negative experiences with nursing home care for their loved ones. And until we have a very high standard and very high level of care at all facilities across the country. I want to ask what can these folks do if you're having to face a difficult decision of putting a loved one in a nursing home? What are the questions that they should be asking? Where should they be turning to for good information about how that nursing home is treating its residents? Are there any tools that these families can use before they make that decision? The Pioneer Network actually has several really good tools for families. that are key questions to ask.

And I feel like these questions are a little bit unique than some of the other questions out there because they prompt a family member or a person looking to live in long-term care to look at things like, do people welcome you when you walk in the building? Do they look at you in the eye? Are people smiling?

As well as things like are the people that work there consistently assigned, meaning that the same people work with the same residents. Existing tools like nursing home compare, from the Center for Medicaid and Medicare services that provide clinical information about nursing homes, ratings, all sorts of great data. And I would say just talking to people in your community and talking to the people that live in these nursing homes and just living communities that you're considering to get a sense of what life is like there. Yeah. And I guess I would say

once somebody is in a facility, I can't sort of emphasize. enough how important is to have a presence in that facility to visit and to know staff and be able to support both staff and family member living in the facility. And having a family presence is always going to be critical. There are a lot of caring workers, but we've got structural issues that need to be addressed in order to have us be satisfied with the quality of care we're going to have in this country. All right. We have to leave it there. But thank you so much, both of you for joining us. Robert Applebaum is director of the Long-Term Care Project at Scripps Gerontology Center at Miami University in Ohio, and Sonia Barnesness is a gerontologist and industry

consultant based in Washington, D.C. Thank you guys for joining us. Our pleasure. Thank you. For Science Friday, I'm Katie Feather. And you can read more of our coverage of nursing home care and hear stories from our listeners on our website at ScienceFriday.com slash nursing home. Oh, also, this week on the Science Friday Vox Pop app, we want to hear from our listeners out on the West Coast. Are there long-term health effects due to these wildfires that you are concerned about? We want to hear from you. That's on our Science Friday Vox Pop app wherever you get your apps. We're going to take a break, and when we come back, a volcano scientist takes us on a video tour of some of her favorite volcanoes.

You're going to want to watch this and listen. Stay with us. We'll be right back after this short break. This is Science Friday. I'm I Refledo. We notice volcanoes when they erupt. Huge, dramatic plumes of ash, glowing lava, spewing high into the air. Those volcanoes know how to make an entrance, don't they? That was the sound of an eruption from inside of Mount Redoubt in Alaska, collected by researchers at the Alaska Volcano Observatory and the University of Washington.

But the geologic precursors of these giant eruptions, well, they are less obvious. And scientists are studying the gases and the rocks inside of volcanoes to piece together answers to this question, how will we know when they erupt? And they hope to understand what volcanoes can tell us about the impacts they have on the planet's climate, atmosphere, and geology. My next guest is one of those scientists. She studied volcanoes from Costa Rica to Antarctica and is even looking to other planets. Kayla Yacavino is an experimental petrologist for Jacobs at NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston. She's featured in our second season of Breakthrough Portraits of Women in Science, our video series that profile scientists and gets a closer look at

how their lives and work intersect. Well, go back to Science Friday. Kela. Hi, Ira. Great to be here. Well, it's nice to have you back. You were out in the field staring at a gaping hole in the volcano in previous discussions that we had. Yeah, I think it was the first time we talked was, what, 10 years ago when I was on the flanks of Aribis volcano down in Antarctica speaking to you via sat phone. Now, I've heard from you and from studying your biography that you started out as a different kind of Vulcan fan, a big Star Trek fan. That's right. Yeah, born and raised. Did Star Trek, did it influence your career at all on what you're studying?

Yeah, I think it definitely did. I'm a huge Star Trek fan, huge sci-fi fan to this day, and it takes up a lot of my free time. And I think what influenced me was the spirit of exploration, not only of the natural world, which started my interest in science in general, but also the study of the human condition. In my studies, some of the most rewarding things about what I get to do is to meet people from all over the world, people who are living with volcanoes right on their doorsteps and really dealing with the actual hazards of them on a day-to-day basis. And that's the part of my job, really, that I love the most is the human element. Not only that, but volcanoes fascinate you themselves.

I was watching you in the video that we have done here in our breakthroughs. series lovingly touching the side of some sediment that you're collecting. It's funny, you know, because for me, I feel that joy and I feel that excitement. And I actually, I love hearing that other people can see that as well. What can I say? I'm a nerd. I get a kick out of rocks. I do too to tell you the truth. We won't tell anybody. You mentioned 10 years ago when you called into the show live from Antarctica while you were in the middle of an expedition to Mount Arabis, Take us back there. What did you find out from that trip? Yeah, so that was during my PhD studies when I was a PhD student.

The work I did there set the tone for a lot of the work that I've done throughout my career. And what we did there was to look at the entire system of the volcano. And that means from the surface, even from the atmosphere to the surface all the way down into the guts of the volcano, which sit miles beneath the surface. And the way that I do that and the way that I investigate volcanoes is to look at. at the volcanic gases that come out of the top. And I like to say that volcanic gases are like the messengers of a volcanic system. They can travel kind of anywhere they want, you know, moving in and out of different parts of the volcanic system, and they record their journeys. So when they reach the surface, they have a composition or a chemical fingerprint, if you will,

that gives us some information about, you know, what they've been through to get to the surface. and combining those measurements of the gases themselves along with measurements of the rocks that have been belched up from within the belly of the volcano, we can build this really unique and whole scale picture of a volcano. So we can say, oh, the gases are doing this or they're changing to do that, that indicates that the volcano is doing something different at depth. So it's like giving us this glimpse into the normally unseen parts of the volcanic system. And really, that's important because the inside of a volcano is really the volcano's heart. It's where all of the things that are happening down in the guts of the volcano are what's driving the system.

So all that energy that comes out the top, you know, rocks exploding into the air, ash, gas, that all starts deep down inside the volcano. And it's all driven by energy that comes from that point. So understanding that part of the system is really important if we want to say, you know, Why does this volcano erupt or will it erupt again? And if it does, what will that eruption look like? In the breakthrough video, we followed you to a volcano in Costa Rica, and the landscape there is very stark. You know, it's covered in ash.

It's all gray. What does it feel like to walk through there? It's really otherworldly. Harking back to the Star Trek thing, I think that is part of also what drives me is this idea of exploring strange new worlds right here on Earth. So on the side of this volcano, Turialba in Costa Rica, there's a dead forest that used to be a thriving rainforest and covered in green and lush. And because of the volcanic activity, not only the ashfall, but also gases that seep out the side of the volcano, toxic gases rich in carbon dioxide, they just flood and choke all vegetation there.

And so that whole side of the mountain has died off. and you're left with this scar of the activity. And it's, you know, when the weather rolls in and the rainy season and it gets foggy and you're walking through this mist surrounded by just gray, all grays everywhere around you and the earth winning through your feet is sort of gray and ashy. It's really just, it's a stark reminder of the power of that volcano. And that's when it's just sitting there, you know, happily doing nothing. That's not a serious danger.

So, you know, you can imagine when it, if it does, to erupt in a more explosive way, it could have a much bigger impact on areas much more far reaching than just right on the flanks. And give me an idea of exactly what you were trying to find out about that volcano. In Costa Rica, we were working on an active volcano called Volcan Terialba. So one of the questions we want to be able to answer is, why do volcanoes erupt and when might they erupt in the future? And to understand that, we look to the volcanoes past to the geologic record, shows us a history of what sort of kinds of events such as changes in chemistry, changes in the magma system had to have occurred before an eruption took place. And at Turielba, for this particular

aspect of the project, we were looking at not at the gases themselves, but at a tracer of those gases that get locked up in the rocks. So there are these things called melt inclusions, which are little blobs of liquid magma. So you can imagine inside of a magma chamber deep within the earth, there's a liquid molten vat of magma and crystals. And as those crystals grow within the magma chamber, they sometimes trap a little piece of liquid magma. You can imagine like trapping a fly in amber, for example. And when that happens, when that crystal traps that piece of magma, it gets locked in time. So what we end up with at the surface, these rocks come to the surface carrying these crystals, they erupts and we can pick them up.

And now we have a record of these snapshots of the magmatic system throughout its life leading up to the time at which that rock erupted. And so we can look back and have this whole history of what was going on deep inside the volcano before it erupted. And of course, one of the big questions is why do volcanoes erupt? Do these crystals reveal any of those reasons? and what do we know so far about what might cause or lead up to an eruption? Yes, so these crystals do reveal that sort of information. And what we've learned is that volcanoes tend to erupt when certain thresholds are breached, if you will. So, for example, when too much gas accumulates within the magma chamber such that the pressure grows and grows and grows

until it breaches the rocks at the surface and then you can have an explosive eruption. If new magma is in place from great depths, so you have a magma chamber sitting in the crust, but maybe some new magma from beneath intrudes into that, enters into that space, increases the pressure, causes chemical reactions to occur within the magma chamber. That can also lead to an eruption. But really what we need to be able to do is to take all of this information and create some sort of a generic model to say, okay, if X happens, the volcano will erupt. the tricky part about predicting volcanic eruptions is that every volcano is unique. So by doing

more and more studies of individual volcanoes, we can start to build a generic picture to say something about volcanoes in general. I know you've traveled to volcanoes all over the world and stared into these lakes of magma. You must be able to feel the heat. What's it like to stare down there? You must have some sort of fear, I would imagine. You know, it's funny. I can't really say that I feel fear in that situation. I won't say that I've never felt fear on a volcano because that wouldn't be true. But, you know, when I look at a lava lake and I do, by the way, to answer your question, yes, you can, if the lava lake is large enough or close enough to you, feel the heat from the lava itself. And you can smell the gases. You can feel it in your face and in your lungs.

And, you know, if those are tolerable levels, then what I feel when I look at that is more of a sense of awe rather than fear. It's just this amazing natural phenomenon that we get to behold. But I know you've had a close encounter with a lava bomb. Tell us about that. I was walking with a friend just for fun. We were walking around the crater rim, circumnavigating the crater. And we're just walking and chatting and having a good time. And we're just to, down far enough on the flank that we can't quite see to the lava lake. We can just see the rim right above us. And we're walking along. We hear this boom, this just gauderil deep boom. And we both looked at each other. And I think, I imagine she was thinking the same thing that I was

thinking, which was, you know, for the first split second was what was that? And then immediately after that, it was like, oh, of course, I'm on a volcano. It's the volcano. And so we're looking at each other and then we turn and we both run towards the flank of the volcano so we can see what's happening. And we get there just in time to see this red, hot, glowing hot balls of magma flying straight up into the air and then reaching the peak of their arc, slowing, turning around, you know, stopping in midair as they reached the peak of their arc and then gracefully falling back down into the crater. and it was just magnificent to see.

You're now working for NASA and you're looking at rocks from other planets. Tell us how this is connected to volcanoes. Yeah. So one of the things I've been able to do, I've been working for Jacobs at NASA for the last couple of years now, and it's been really an opportunity for me to stretch my skill set beyond our planet. And the reason we can do that is, is because the processes that we study here on Earth,

the fundamental geologic processes, are the same ones that are happening on other planets, so on other rocky bodies. So Venus, Mars, Mercury, asteroids, and even planets outside of our solar system. And so what we want to understand is how did these planets form? How did they evolve to the point where they're at today? And what does that mean for our planet?

You know, everything we learn about other planets puts Earth into context. For example, one of the questions that the research group that I'm in that we study is understanding water on Earth. Where did it come from? And we have these clues from very, very ancient meteorites and samples that we have from other planetary bodies. They give us clues as to which of these groups of meteorites may have been the messengers to deliver water. And other things like sulfur, fluorine, chlorine, phosphorus, all these things that we need for life to exist on Earth. How did they get here? And why is Earth so unique in the way that it looks in terms of these elements?

So, yeah, it's a very exciting field to be a part of and sort of learning how to work with these different datasets and doing really working with exotic rocks has just been a blast. I'm Ira Plato, and this is Science Friday from WNYC Studios. In case you're just joining us, talking with Kayla Iakovino, who's a volcanologist talking about her adventures studying volcanoes. Scientists this week talk about having detected a giant gas cloud on Venus that they suspect if they look at what it's made of

could have been created by living things. What's your take on that as a volcanologist? This is something that's so exciting. I have to admit, I am hashtag Team Venus. I'm a huge Venus fan. They've detected phosphine in the... the clouds on Venus, which is a really promising biosignature, meaning that it may have been put there by life. And the authors of the work are saying that they feel this is a strong possibility.

It could have been generated in some non-biological process, like some high heat reaction, but we just don't know. But as a volcanologist, the thing that really gets me is this blows my mind every time. We do not know if Venus is volcanically active. It's 20-20, and we don't know if Venus is volcanically active because we haven't sent the right instruments to make those measurements. And we have some clues telling us that, you know, it might be, if I had to guess, if I were a bedding woman, I would say, I would guess that Venus is volcanically active. NASA has been very focused on the search for life to the whole like follow the water mnemonic and has led them on a lot of places to Mars and now they're looking towards other places like Europa and Titan. But yeah, Venus gets discounted for life, and so people tend to overlook it. So I'm hopeful that this discovery will help sort of open that up.

And, you know, the public will get interested in it, and that'll drum up some more support for good old Venus, our sister planet. One last question for you, which I ask a lot of scientists, and that is if you had a blank check, I don't have it in my back pocket. What would you use it for? What do you want to know that you don't know now about volcanoes or the makeup of our planet or other planets? First of all, send some instruments to Venus to Venus, but really the heart of what I would love to do is to create models and systems that can tell us about when a volcano is going to erupt and give us predictive capabilities, you know, something that can really make an impact in the world, I think. And it warms my heart when there's part of my research that can really have a direct

impact on other people on the planet. There would be some money well spent there. Well, it's time well spent with you, Kayla. I want to thank you for taking your time to be with us today. Oh, thanks so much for having me, Ira. Kayla Yacavino is an experimental petrologist for Jacobs at NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston. She's featured in our second season of Breakthrough, Portraits of Women in Science video series. We'll be premiering a new episode every Friday through October, and we're partnering with Alamo Draft House, where you can watch all the videos and listen to panels

with the filmmakers and scientists. And you can watch the video. Yeah, you can watch the video and learn more at breakthroughfilms.org. And it's a beautiful, beautiful video. I think you really will enjoy it. Luke Groskin put it all together, fantastic stuff. And on the Science Friday Voxpop app this week,

we want to hear from you out there on the West Coast about the terrible fires and their long-lasting health of things. Are the long-term health effects due to the wildfires concerning you? Are you concerned about it? We want to hear from you that's on our Science Friday Voxpop app wherever you get your apps. Have a great weekend. We'll see you next week.

I'm Ira Flato.