Science Friday - Revisiting The Titanic, STEM Drag Performers As Science Ambassadors. May 6, 2022, Part 2

Episode Date: May 6, 2022

The Seafaring Life Of ‘Modern-Day Captain Nemo,’ Robert Ballard In 1985, oceanographer Robert Ballard was sent on a secret deep-sea search operative with a very specific mission: to seek two sunken nuclear submarines. Ballard, who by then had explored the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and helped design deep-sea research submersibles, was assigned by the U.S. Navy to investigate and take images of the U.S.S. Thresher and U.S.S. Scorpion. But locating these two wreckages wouldn’t bring him to fame—instead, it was another watery grave he would find along the way. After he located the two subs, Ballard had time left in the mission to satiate a hunt he had begun nearly a decade prior: He discovered the R.M.S. Titanic, which sank into the North Atlantic 110 years ago. While the Titanic might be his most publicized finding, the famed marine archaeologist has adventured beneath the waves on more than 150 expeditions that have broadened our understanding of the oceans and the planet. “We think there’s probably more history in the deep sea than all of the museums of the world combined—and we’re only now opening those doors to those museums,” he says. Ballard’s recorded the activity of hydrothermal vents, the ecology of hot springs on the ocean floor, and the diversity of incredible marine creatures. In excerpts from two conversations in the Science Friday archives (originally recorded in 2000 and 2009), Ballard describes the 1985 expedition in which he discovered the wreck of the Titanic. He also discusses the value of combining the efforts of oceanographers, engineers, and social scientists to study the world’s deep oceans. Plus, Ballard elaborates on his belief that some undersea finds should be left preserved and protected, and his work in expanding access to ocean research via telepresence and computer links.   Meet The Drag Artists Who Are Making Science More Accessible Each generation has had science communicators who brought a sometimes stuffy, siloed subject into homes, inspiring minds young and old. Scientists like Don Herbert, Carl Sagan, and Bill Nye are classic examples. But our modern age of social media has brought more diverse communicators into the forefront of science communication, including the wild, wonderful world of STEM drag stars. These are queer folk who mix the flashy fashions of the drag world with science education. Some, like Kyne, use TikTok as a medium to teach concepts like math. Others, like Pattie Gonia, use drag to attract more people to the great outdoors. The accessibility of the internet has made these personalities available to a wide audience. Kyne and Pattie Gonia join Ira to talk about the magic drag can bring to science education, and why they think the future of SciComm looks more diverse than the past. This segment originally aired on February 11, 2022.  Transcripts for each segment will be available the week after the show airs on sciencefriday.com.     Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

This is Science Friday. I'm Ira Flato. This year marks the 110th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic. And I can't think of a better way to recall the tragedy than to resurrect a conversation with the man who found the ocean liner in its final resting place, Robert Ballard. His team located the wreck back in 1985. And I'm going to play a conversation with him from the year 2000, about the discovery and some of his other amazing underwater finds. Looking at underwater explorer, Dr. Robert Ballard's resume, it seems hard to believe that it's all the work of just one person. He trained dolphins, discovered sunken Nazi warships, discovered giant worms and volcanoes called black smokers at the bottom of the ocean. He's explored places as diverse as the Mediterranean Sea, Lake Ontario, the Atlantic Ocean, the Black Sea, and the Galapagos. and through his Jason project, he has virtually taken hundreds of thousands of kids with him on his fantastic adventures via computer. But most people will think of Bob Ballard by one thing.

They'll know him as the discoverer of the wreck of the Titanic. And this hour we're going to be talking with Bob Ballard. Robert Ballard is the director of the Institute for Exploration at the Mystic Aquarium in Mystic, Connecticut, and a National Geographic Explorer in Residence. He's also the author with Will Hively of the Eternal. Darkness, a personal history of deep sea exploration published by Princeton University Press, and he joins us today from Providence, Rhode Island. Thank you for being with us, Dr. Ballard. Oh, it's a pleasure to be here. I've listened to you so often. It's nice to be at this end

of the game. Very kind of you to say so. So many questions, so little time. Let me get to some of the questions that everybody's been asking over the years, and that is, and I read it in your book in searching for a Titanic, you say that you've always been interested in searching for underwater ships, and especially the Titanic. Well, I became fascinated actually in human history when the U.S. Navy asked me to survey the Thresher and the Scorpion. Up into that time, everything I'd explored was natural history, volcanoes and life forms like I just talked about. But when I came upon the wreck of the Thresher and the Scorpion, even though it was sad because as a naval officer, I was in the Navy during those two tragic sinkings, I was fascinated by the state of preservation of, many of the objects. And certainly when we went on to find the Titanic, again, finding her bow

upright on the bottom, I can remember landing on the bow of the deck up there and reading off the ballards and the Capstons, the manufacturer's name. And as we explored the promenade, seeing a little brass sign said first class entrance. And that was amazing. And as you know, we went on to find the German battleship Bismarck. And that was very chilling to come up over that ship at 16,000 feet and see this swastika still painted on the deck of the ship. So I went on several years of exploring contemporary history beneath the sea. What if I'm fascinating about the Titanic especially was that you basically were doing a, exploring the thresher for the Navy, and then you had extra time left on your mission.

They had 11 days left on the use of the equipment, and you said, let's go find the Titanic with it. Is that basically right? You had a collaboration with the French. You had a French team that was helping you at the same time. But you basically were piggybacking on a Navy exploration project. Exactly right. You know, in those days, you couldn't say, well, you know what I want to do is I want to go out and find the Titanic? Everyone thought you were loony.

And you had to be more serious, quote unquote. But I had this passion, and I wanted to demonstrate that our new robots that we were building the Argo-Jason system was going to revolutionize undersea exploration. And it seemed to me a good way of demonstrating that to the public was to go after something the public would find interesting. But the Navy were the sponsor of it. And so I said to the Navy, I said, look, I'll be more than glad to do what you want me to do. In fact, you can have all sorts of naval officers out there with me.

But when I'm done, can I have the extra time? And they said, well, if you can finish your job and our guys will sign off on it, then yes, you can use the other. Remaining time, just don't lose anything with the instructions. Don't spend any more money than we've already given you. And those were pretty much my marching orders, sort of like sale in the interest of the queen. And I like those kinds of marching orders, and that led to the discovery of the Titanic. And basically, you came up with a sort of a problem.

I see it through the book, and you wrestled it with yourself over the years, is whether it's better to explore with a submersible, like the Alvin that you pioneered and spend hundreds of, or to use a robotic little, what's you call, an eyeball on a tether, whether to have a robot go instead. And you've now arrived at the conclusion it's better now. We're done with the age of that sort of manned deep sea underwater exploration vessel. Well, many people will argue with me, but I feel I've, you know, I've spent 40 years doing it. And I've done it both ways.

And I'm confident robotic technology is not only, equal but superior. Now, the reason I think it's superior, you have to realize that unlike Neil Armstrong, when he landed on the moon on the lamb, he got to get out. He got to get out and walk around. When you go down beneath the sea, you don't get to get out. So you're not really down there. I mean, you're having to look through a window and you're having to operate manipulators. Your hands aren't out there. So if you could move the window, and that was the whole strategy, simply move the window. Remember that the average depth of the ocean is 12,000. feet down. It takes you two and a half hours in Alvin to get down to 12,000 feet, and then it

takes you two and a half hours to get home at night. So at a minimum, you have a five-hour commute. The average bottom time of Alvin over its history has been 3.8 hours, 3.8 hours with a pilot, generally a novice, and one scientist. With the robotic technology, you can put it down and leave it down and operate around the clock 24 hours a day. You can use satellites to network people in as we do with the Jason Project, where we bring hundreds of thousands of children down to the bottom of the ocean at the speed of light with this technology. Also, you can have as many cameras as you want, and now that we're moving into high-definition cameras, and we're building a new robot, we're going to test it Monday. It's called Little Hercules, and it's going to be a system

we're using with National Geographic this summer in the Black Sea. And that vehicle will by the end of the year be a high-definition vehicle. And I venture to say that the new vehicles will just be breathtaking to use. And what are you going to be searching for in the Black Sea? Well, we have two missions. National Geographic wants me to do two things there. There was a wonderful book that came out by two of my colleagues at Columbia University is at Lamont Doherty. Bill Ryan and Walter Pittman, who are two marine geologists, earth scientists, wrote a book called Noah's Flood. And in that book, they postulated that a great cataclysmic flood occurred about the time of the legend of Noah, in and about the right place, the Black Sea. Last summer, we went in to see if there

was evidence of a great flood, and sure enough, we found the ancient shoreline that they postulated would be found, if you went 550 feet underwater in the Black Sea. We found it. We went along that ancient fossilized beach, and on the beach were shells. We picked up the shells. We had them analyzed. We were told that we had two collections of shells.

We had a collection of saltwater shells, which is no surprise. The Black Sea is saltwater, and its closest relatives were in the Mediterranean, which is no surprise, because they're connected by way of the Bosporus. It was the second collection of shells that were really fascinating. They were freshwater shells and they were extinct.

And when we had the Carbon 14 age dates done on them, we found that the Black Sea, if you go back into time, was a saltwater ocean until it abruptly converts back to what it used to be 7,000 BP before present or about 5,000 BC. It used to be a fresh water lake. And so there was a cataclysmic change. This summer we're going in to go along that ancient shoreline, move inland a little, and see if we can find evidence of human habitation of the people that were living there before the flood happened.

That's our primary mission. Our secondary mission, although I must say they're both interesting to me, is the Black Sea is the only major body of water that has no oxygen on the bottom, 7,000 feet down to the bottom of the Black Sea, you get down there, there's no oxygen. And as a result, you don't have wood-boring organisms. Now, one of the problems I've encountered as I've moved from contemporary history to archaeological history and ancient history, I've been finding ancient ships.

My first expedition found the largest concentration of Roman ships ever discovered in the ocean. And last summer, I found two Phoenician ships from the time of Homer. But in the case of all these ships, because they were made of... wood, wood boars had found them and eaten the exposed wood portions of the ships, which is all the fascinating upper part of the ship. In the Black Sea, however, there shouldn't be any wood boars. And if that's true, we should find the most preserved ships of antiquity ever discovered in the deep sea there. And have you sort of moved into the ship discovery phase back again?

Well, I've become convinced that the ocean, the deep sea. ocean has more history in it than all the museums of the world combined. I venture to say there's close to a million ancient ships in the deep sea. Think about it. A million time capsules. Every chapter of human history is probably in the bottom of the deep sea, and we're just now looking for those chapters of history. And I think you're going to find over the next decade or two tremendous discoveries

about our ancient history. What about going back to Antarctica for the famous Ernest Shackleton ship? Are you going to do that? Well, that is really, to me, a technological challenge. If you look at my expedition, some of them I do because the subject matter in itself is intrinsically fascinating, whether it's for scientific purposes, historical purposes, or archaeological purposes. But the Shackleton, as you know, I don't know, I'm sure a lot of viewers know the story of Sir Ernest Shackleton and his team aboard the They were going to make the first ocean-to-ocean through the South Pole crossing.

This was in the early 1900s just before World War II broke out. And their ship, a wooden ship, abound for the Antarctic landmass, on its way, it entered what's an ocean called the Weddle Sea. And as they were just about to get to the surface where they could offload and begin their trek, they got locked up in the ice. And their ship then drifted for more than a year in a big clockwise rotation around the Weddell Sea. And halfway around that rotation, the ship was crushed and sank in 9,000 feet of water. They watched it sink.

They say her stern rose into the air and then she slid beneath the waves, much like ship's sink. So we know that she's probably intact, but it's where she's at that's challenging. That conversation with oceanographer and undersea archaeologist, Robert Ballard, was recorded back in 2000. Oh, by the way, that wreck of the endurance? They finally founded this year. After the break, we'll leap ahead to 2009 for more conversation with Bob Ballard. Stay with us. This is Science Friday. I'm Ira Flito. This year marks the 110th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic. continuing a conversation with oceanographer and undersea archaeologist Robert Ballard recorded in July of 2009, where he talks about his disappointment with the looting of the wreck of the Titanic.

I know how you feel about the Titanic, and I've been seeing more exhibits about things being brought up and shown around the country, and that does it upset you, doesn't it? Well, for a number of reasons. So one, it's the primary motivation of this is making money. So, I mean, this is not being done for like a research program. They're down there to make money. And we've had these kinds of people since they built the pyramids. So this is something that societies dealt with for a long, long time.

My saddest moment was when I went into the pyramids of Egypt and everything was gone. I already go to the, I think the Elgin Marbles should be back in Athens. That's where they belong or the Rosetta Stone. And so it's sort of like taking belt buckles off the Arizona. I think that that's just something you don't do. You don't go to Gettysburg with a shovel. I think there are certain sites. I'm not saying you preserve everything, but certain sites that deserve to be preserved.

And now with the technology of telepresence, we can take you there. We did with National Geographic a few years ago. We did a live broadcast from the deck of the Titanic. and what someday you're going to actually wire the Titanic and it's going to be a place you visit electronically. Because telepresence technology that we're sort of pioneering is really the beginning of electronic travel. You're going to have in your home, certainly within the next 10 years, a room, we used to call it the den. And when you turn on the room, the walls will come on. And you'll sit, probably spherical, so it isn't square like walls, but you'll be in a spherical room.

and you'll rent a robot from Hertz, and you'll go for a drive in the Serengeti. It's been the afternoon driving around, and it'll be very inexpensive compared to flying to this Serengeti. What's really neat about these installation of remote cameras, we've been doing it in the National Marine Sanctuaries, particularly Monterey. We went in installed underwater cameras on cable so they could ride through the sanctuary. And what we found was when we were installing the cameras. cameras, everyone ran away. But as soon as we left, all the creatures came back out, went up and

poked their noses into the cameras. And we were able to see things that divers wouldn't see. And, you know, this is something you can do in Yellowstone Park. You can, you know, go and wire up Yellowstone. They've already got the ring road in there. And you'll be able to see creatures that would normally run away, like the packs of wolves. So telepresence is really going to change our lives. We're going to do more and more from home. I think what's wonderful about telepresence, because it's impacting on my personal life, is it's reinventing the family. You're able to spend much, much more time at home, even in my business of exploration. I'm spending now more time at home than any time in my life, and I'm exploring more than any time in my life. So it's really a plus-plus.

Let's go to Dave in Tallahassee. Hi, Dave. Hello. Dr. Ballard, you work with my mother on the Black Sea Shipwreck. The sure name is Dr. Cheryl Ward. Oh, of course. Yes, I did. We've met a couple times, too. I just wanted to say it's a lot of your work and her work that inspired me to be a mechanical engineer. I went to John Hopkins, where I worked with Lewis Whitcomb. Yeah, a neat guy. He worked a lot with us at Woods Hall when I was there years ago. Well, what I was wondering was, sort of the inspiration that you gave to me. I was wondering if you had any ideas where you could you know, get more the public involved in maritime exploration and things like that, because it seems like it's sort of a hush.

Well, what's really neat about this new interspace center at the University of Rhode Island is that we now, thanks to National Geographic and funding from NOAA and the state of Rhode Island, we're building a complete television production studio. And with that, we're able to then broadcast live our discoveries to schools and organizations all across the country. We have two programs, as you know, the Jason Project, which is a distant learning program for middle school kids at National Geographic. And then we also have another one at the Sea Research Foundation called Immersion Presents. And we do a lot of informal broadcasting to kids at risk and boys and girls clubs and museums and aquariums all across the country. And so through exploration, we want to use the excitement of exploration and discovery to motivate young people, particularly kids in middle school, because that's where the battle.

for a scientist and an engineer is one or lost to get them turned on by exploration and then maybe turned on to take those extra classes that are maybe a little tougher than the other ones. Thanks, Dave, for calling. Have a good weekend. Thanks a lot, Ira. You're welcome. In your early career, you were doing all these scientific pursuits down. You were going out to the hydrothermal vents, the underwater earthquakes and the sea mounts. And then in the 80s you began searching for sunken ships.

What made you decide to ship gears at that time? Well, you know, in many professions, you progress up the chain of command. I, for example, was a naval officer for 30 years, and you start out as an inch and you move up the ranks. And everyone wants to be an admiral someday. And I actually refused promotion above a commander because I knew that if you got above a commander, you got out of the battle. I mean, I wanted to stay in the game. And in academia, I always stayed. within the research game. I didn't want to become a chairman of a department or a dean because then,

again, you leave the battlefield. And so I've always tried to stay in the game, but I wanted to be energized by it. And I sort of tried to reinvent myself about every 10 or 15 years to take on a whole new genre so that I would be excited by it and motivated by something new, but still stay in the field of exploration. And fortunately, when I went to University of California at Santa Barbara, I had a quadruple major in math, physics, chemistry, and geology. So I have a broad-based background, and I feel comfortable in a lot of different things, and I certainly feel comfortable working with engineers. And most recently, I've begun working with social scientists because I always actually loved history as a kid, thinking my passion for history would be just something that would

fall by the wayside as I went into physical sciences and got my doctorate. oceanography, but through this reinvention and through the creation of this new field, which is a very exciting new endeavor, archaeological oceanography, which is taking oceanographers, engineers, and social scientists, and

going into the deep oceans where we think there's probably more history in the deep sea than all the museums of the world combined and we're only now opening those doors to those museums. And so that's very exciting. And that's why I changed my course

just stay alive and young. Would it be possible to actually find fossils that may be millions of years old, buried under water? Oh, definitely. In fact, the issue you have to deal with is at depth below about 3,000 feet. You pass below what's called the calcium carbonate compensation depth, and the water in the deep sea is undersaturated in calcium carbonate, which is mostly what bones are made of.

For example, on the Titanic and on the Bismarck, those ships are below the calcium carbonate compensation depth. So once the critters eat their flesh and expose the bones, the bones dissolve. Now, in the Black Sea, because there's no critters to eat, the bones should not be exposed. So you should have perfectly mummified fossils. You should actually have perfectly mummified ancient mariners in the Black Sea. And we expect someday as we're excavating these ships to actually come across crew members who will look like they're asleep. We've seen, for example, dolphins down there that have died a natural death. And they're on the bottom and they look like they're asleep.

And so they're not only fossilized, they're perfectly preserved. Now, to get a fossil, though, you know, you're talking about millions and millions of years. I actually have a meeting coming up next week with Paul Serrano, who's another explorer in residence for the National Geographic. society, and he's interested in me finding a completely fossilized dinosaur bones that were lost on a ship. And there they're not calcium carbonate. There they've been placed in most cases by silica. And silica will be preserved.

So, yes, you should be able to find fossils that are no longer calcium carbonate-based fossils, but silica-based fossils. I was at a meeting recently of archaeologists, people actually studying hominids. and as one scientist who was talking about his theory, and this has been, this theory has been around for a while, that some hominids may have made their way, apes may have made their way to live on the seashore of Africa in eastern Africa. And that, you know, the problem is you could never find the fossils of these people or these not people. Well, if they've been truly fossilized where you've replaced the calcium carbonate with silica, for example, then yes, the fossils should. be there. And in fact, if you go down off of Miami, and I've been diving down there, there's a place

called Miami Terrace, and there, everything has been fossilized by phosphates, and you can find fossils down there. And we have. So we have found fossils under the ocean. Do you think of yourself as like a modern-day Captain Nemo? Well, I hope so. I mean, that was my dream as a little kid, and it's been my driving engine for years and years. 20,000 leagues, as you remember, was not down to the bottom of the ocean. It was driving along the bottom of the ocean and his submarine looking out of that big window. And that's what I'm doing. So I think I might have pulled it off.

When did you first, how young were you? When did you first discover that this was your career? This is what you wanted to do. Oh, very early. When I grew up in San Diego, I was a little kid, and I lived by the ocean. And that was my play yard. And back then, the parents simply said, you know, get home before it's dark. Right.

And I would spend the day in the tidal pool, so I had to learn the tides. And I remember the movie Robin and Crusoe, and I wanted to see those footprints of Friday in the sand. So I just began extremely early. And then I got a big break when I was in high school. I got a, in fact, it was 50 years ago this month. And on my first oceanographic expedition at the Scripps Institute of, oceanography. I had a scholarship there by the National Science Foundation. And we went out and we got in a huge storm. We got hit by a rogue wave and we got rescued by the Coast Guard and I was 17.

And so, you know, too young to realize I was supposed to die. And it was just an incredible experience. And I became hooked on going out to sea on expeditions. And in the 50 years since, I've done around 120, 5, 130. And we're getting ready to do it again. next month when we head into the Black Sea and the Mediterranean on our own ship. The first time I've ever had my own ship, and guess what its name is?

Naturally, we've named it the Nautilus. This conversation was recorded in July of 2009. You're listening to Science Friday from WNYC Studios. So where do you go now immediately, Bob? What's your next? You have the boat, you have the boat going out?

Two boats, have one with the Nautilus? You have that one going to the Pacific. That's right. Well, I'm taking, in fact, in the studio here, I'm looking in him right now as my son, Benjamin, and he's 15 years old, and he's been waiting and waiting and I told him when he could first talk, and he said, Dad, I want to go on one of your expeditions. And I said, Ben, you can't go till you're 15. Well, he's 15. And so he's going to be a Jason Argonaut on our expedition, and he's going on the Nautilus with me in August, on the maiden voyage out of the Bosporus into the C.M.R. and down to Gull, and down to Gull. Lippoli. So that's my next expedition. We'll be in the Aegean, and then we're going to end it up in the Black Sea. So I'm right now getting ready to go to Block Island. So we always go there as a family, and we love to live off the sea. And so we're going to do a lot of fishing and clamming and just enjoy New England. Finally, the sun actually comes out once in a while this year. June was the most dreary June I've ever seen. I know. I live in Connecticut. So right next. Sure. Just in a couple of minutes I have left. Tell me, what's it like to have to be your own salesperson, right? You're an entrepreneur. You've spent your whole life having to sell your ideas and then get them. Yeah, but then you get to live them. I think that comes with the turf. If you really want to be free, you're going to be alone. I mean, freedom is, most people say they want to be free, but real freedom is you wake up and it's a blank sheet of paper. And most people, you're going to be alone. And most people, you're going to be alone. I mean, freedom is, most people, would like to have it written. And I love the freedom. I love dreaming up things. And fortunately, I have great sponsors like National Geographic, like the Navy, like Noah, who bet on my horse

over the years. And I just enjoy doing things that have never been done before. I enjoy the freedom of an explorer to literally go where no one has gone before. I'm confident that the Nautilus and the Okianus Explorer are going to make incredible discoveries. How can we fail? Most of my really important discoveries were done by accident, the discovery of hydrothermal vents, black smokers, etc. All were found while looking for something else. And when I think about how many wonderful discoveries we've made and then realize how little real estate we made them in, the potential for discovery on our planet is amazing. What's hard is to convince sponsors. See, most sponsors want to know what you're going to discover and when. Well, those aren't

sponsors I talk to very much because they don't understand. I can't tell you what I'm going to discover or when I'm going to discover it, but I can show you an incredible track record of making discoveries. And if you'll just bet on our horse, I'll bet you we're going to make discoveries. And so that's what we're up. The next year to me is going to be the year of ocean discovery because we finally actually have ships that are dedicated the process of exploring. You don't have to borrow someone else's ship? Nope, we got our own now. You have the resources.

We have the resources, and Congress has been very generous in this last go around. The House and Senate were extremely generous in increasing. We hope we have to go through a conference between the House and Senate, and then President Obama has to sign it. But I think we have a group of people now in charge that actually get it. They understand the importance of science and they understand the importance of exploration. And so I'm very optimistic because I believe many of our discoveries are going to have commercial impact upon our country. There's vast resources that have yet to be discovered.

The Easter bunny didn't put them just on the land part. There's vast resources to be discovered, living. and non-living resources, pharmaceuticals, on the list goes. So I'm confident this process of discovery that we're just beginning will not only lead to great scientific discoveries and motivate kids to want to be explorers, but actually impact on the economy of our country. Well, we wish great luck to you, Robert Ballard. Thank you.

And we hope that we can be part of your discoveries. You'll come back and talk to us when you discover something new. Well, stay tuned. The game has just begun. My best stuff is in front of me, not behind me. The best is yet to come. All right. Thank you very much.

Bob Ballard is the president of the Institute for Exploration and Explore in Residence for the National Geographic Society. Also, director of the Center for Ocean Exploration and Archaeological Oceanography at the University of Rhode Island. Thank you, sir. Good luck to you. That conversation with Robert Ballard, recorded in July of 2009. We have to take a break. I'll let me come back. a look at the wonderful world of science-focused drag queens.

We need to think about who the narrator are between science subjects. Also, who are the new communities to reach to bring into this amazing scientific knowledge that's out there? Stay with us. This is Science Friday. I'm Ira Flato. Who is your generation's favorite science popularizer? Was it Don Herbert, Mr. Wizard? Just sprinkle that over the camera.

What don't you tell me what it is before you? It's called Lycopodeum. Like a podium? Like a podium. So it would be similar to a perhaps a lectern. Or the legendary Carl Sagan? The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. How about Bill Nye?

Bill Nye, the science guy. Our modern age of social media has fostered a new look and new science messengers, stem-focused drag queens. These are queer folk who mix the flashy fashions of the drag world with science education, like Analytical, who does coding tutorials, and Dr. Sassie Science, who champions diverse voices in STEM. There's a wild world of science savvy, drag-draped communicators out there, and two prominent voices join me today. Kine, a mathematician based in Kitchener, Ontario, and Patagonia, environmental activist and educator based in Bend, Oregon. Both of you,

welcome to Science Friday. Thanks for having us. Nice to have you. Kyn, let me start with you. Drag is a very visual medium, which makes it a bit tricky for us on radio, but I want you both to describe, for our audience, how you mix science and drag.

What does that look like visually for both of you? And as I say, Kahn, you can begin. Sure. So it's funny, I started out just as a drag queen, you know, like doing shows and lip-sinking. I had a YouTube channel where I was like showing people how to style wigs. And that was like all my side hobby, right?

And my main thing was I was in school getting my math degree at the University of Waterloo. And then when this pandemic started, you know, all of a sudden I had all this free time on my hands. And I thought, why didn't I try something new? So I started making these math videos on TikTok. I didn't really think they would take off. I mean, everybody told me it was going to be like such a tiny niche. I mean, math is already an unpopular subject, let alone math taught by cross-dressers. So I was like, who's going to be into this?

See, I thought it would just be funny. I would be like, I don't know, the troll from Dora the Explorer telling people little riddles and like these crazy costumes. Amazing. But, you know, all of a sudden, after maybe like three, four videos, people were like, oh my gosh, I'm really understanding math through you. Like, I love learning math this way. So, you know, I just started out telling people what I found interesting about math because I think that the way math is taught makes people think it's so boring. And my whole thing is that math is interesting and fun and beautiful. So I think hearing that from just somebody on social media who doesn't look like a traditional

teacher, it opens people's minds up to math. It sounds like you were as surprised by your own work as everybody else was, how successful it was. Yeah. I've always been a big math nerd and I've always felt like more people should get into math. But I didn't really know how I could sort of get the word out there. I never once thought I'd be doing it in a wig and a dress and high heels. It worked.

And Patty, what about you? How did you get into this? Kind, I love your story so much. There's so many similar rungs to the tree of my life, too. I started getting outdoors and backpacking as a kid and really was trying to get into the outdoors in a time in place in Boy Scouts in Nebraska in an environment that really wasn't supportive of me as a queer person. And so really, when I did drag for the first time in the outdoors,

as an adult about three years ago, I put on six-inch high-heel boots. I started strutting on the trails and in high heels and doing drag outdoors. And I fell in love with nature in a whole new way. I saw how queer nature was. I saw how much science was out there, how many queer scientists were out there. And I think that it's really beautiful to take the reality of climate change, but to really be mindful of the beauty of creative solutions and highlighting amazing scientific work that's being done out there, amazing research, amazing scientists that are, are just doing an incredible thing. So I think of myself as a climate communicator. I think of myself as trying to entertain and educate. And it's so fun to get to take a lot of abstract subjects and

bring them to people in new ways and creative ways to reach a whole new population of people too. You know, we need to think about who the narrator are between science subjects. Also, who are the new communities to reach to bring into the climate movement to bring into this amazing scientific knowledge that's out there. How do you think that drag has helped you do that reach these new communities? That is a great question. I feel like I'm learning more about that every single day, but I think that really at the end of the day, drag is a playground where anything is possible, and drag is really a chance to engage people in new ways. It's so entertaining, but also I think when people see drag, they see the drag queen that's inside of themselves, and they see what's

possible when we can bend gender and communicate in new ways and connect in different ways. Kind, do you also think that there's a drag queen inside each of us? And you can tap into that? I think so. You know, I think drag opens people's hearts. It makes people comfortable. It makes people just feel more, you know, outgoing and they want to have laugh. You know, so to have drag queens be the educators and the influencers, it makes people more ready to, you know, maybe take a pill they wouldn't have wanted to swallow yesterday. You know, I watched your math TikTok pieces and thoroughly enjoyed your math teaching skills because although you are singing and you're changing outfits, I can see that you take

these math lessons very seriously. Oh, I do. I do. Math is, it's always been my favorite subject and it's always been my passion. So looking good is important, but also teaching the math is is very important to me. Let me address this to both of it. Do you think that you would see it as a supreme triumph of teachers assigned your lessons to their classroom students? That would be a dream. It would be amazing. It's so awesome, too, to get to do what we do on the internet, I feel like, and be able to take that into real life and into science classrooms. It's been amazing to be a guest speaker inside science classrooms and to see kids' faces light up with someone that maybe represents them that they've never seen before in media that they've never seen.

as a science communicator. So that's been one of the most special parts of the journey for me. Agreed. Really interesting. Patty, you recently launched a nonprofit, I understand, called the Outdorist Oath. Tell me about the mission behind this project. Yeah, we believe that we need to stop the siloed conversations of planet inclusion and adventure and really start getting people into the outdoors in many different ways outside of the

definition of quote unquote outdoorsy that we've known and really embrace the outdoors because if we can fall in love with the planet, then we can better fight for it, right? Because we fight for what we love. So we want everyone to get outside, connect to the planet, connect to themselves, connect to people that aren't necessarily like themselves or look like themselves. And then intersectionally fight for planet Earth because this is the only planet with a Beyonce on. whom do you imagine whom do you imagine is your audience do you define it in a certain way do you aim it at a certain audience because that's a question most communicators get

who are you trying to reach and you want to go for it i'd be curious to hear from you it's funny when i you know write my little tic-togs my goal is to reach people around high school age college age i don't find that i'm that good at teaching like very very young kids about math. High school level, college levels around the level that I find interesting for me to talk about personally. But the people that comment on my videos are all kinds of ages. I get teachers who are showing my lessons to classrooms of grade four students. I get people who are long out of school and there's 30s, 40s, 50s saying that I've, you know, reignited a love for math. So I guess my videos are for everyone. But when it comes to, I guess, the

curriculum. I guess they're targeted around a high school college level. Patty, any comment? Yeah, I definitely think that when I think about my audience, I definitely think about a younger version of me, someone who watched a lot of science communication as a kid and didn't see anyone like me. I think a lot about queer youth and about different ways to reach them, especially around environmental messages. But I also think a lot about allies. I think that oftentimes we forget the power of allyship and allies in the fight for climate or in the fight for social justice or in the fight for just a more inclusive outdoors. So I definitely try to be as inclusive as possible and trying to speak to as many people as possible while also still

remembering that I'm kind of speaking to a younger me. Yeah, because you're both very active on social media, which I think skews your audience to younger folks, don't you agree? I think you'd be amazed. I have a lot of 50, 60, 70, 70, year old people who follow me when I do group hikes and take the community offline in real life. I have people of all different ages. I have people bring their grandparents out and their grandparents are bigger fans than even they are. It is surreal and so beautiful. That is surprising. If the medium is the message, as they used to say, what message do you offer that you think is different than, let's say, Bill Nye or David Attenborough? In terms of what I have in common with them, you know, I'm trying to

show that math and I guess STEM in general is wonderful and I'm trying to instill a love for learning in people. But I think being a, you know, Asian queer drag queen, I want to show people that, you know, you can be feminine and still have a career in STEM and in math. You don't have to hide your gayness. You don't have to hide your queerness. You can look however you want to look and wear what you want to wear. And when it all comes down to it, what really matters is what's in your brain. And if you work hard and you study, then you can achieve what you want. And you, Patty? Yeah, so much of what kind said really resonates with me. I feel like at the end of the day, I just want everyone to know that they can pursue whatever subject that they want, especially sciences, especially if they are queer,

especially if they have a unique identity that they want to intersect with their passions, because that's the most beautiful action we can all take. I mean, when I look at my work, when I look at Kinds work, when I look at your work, Ira, I think that we're all using our talents and skills and applying them to things we love and work we think needs to be done. And I want a future where we're all doing more of that because I think we need it. Yeah, I like the idea that we are all trying to find new ways to be communicators. Yeah, absolutely. And not afraid to try new things.

Yeah, we have to try new things. I mean, like, let's look at like queerness in species. is a pioneering trait in species where we're figuring out new ways to do things, new ways to not only survive but thrive. And I think nature teaches us every single day that diversity in any environment is key for an environment to thrive. And I think that we really need to apply that to STEM. We really need to apply that to the sciences field because I think that throughout diversity and who we are and our identities, we're going to be such a beautiful future that really supports an ecosystem, especially of, youth that are different than ourselves to join us.

It is certainly true that nature really likes diversity, and you can't have nature without a lot of diversity there. Was there a science communicator who inspired you, Patty, when you were growing up? It's hard to not think of my childhood without thinking about the TVs that we rolled into classrooms and to the science classrooms and see Bill Nye on the screen, and I think I just really fell in love with how such an abstract subject of science or math, for example, could be so beautifully entertaining as well. And I think a lot of that's influenced the work that I do nowadays. And I think when I'm even thinking about the work I do now, there's amazing

science communicators like Hood Naturalist, who's an amazing black femme scientist, who's a birder who is teaching an incredible thing. So I think that I'm really glad that it's being diversified in so many different ways nowadays too. Kyn, you too? Do you have someone who influenced you? I would say Carl Sagan was a big influence for me. I think watching old episodes of Cosmos, just the way that he talked about the planet

and talked about the universe was the first time that I really started to see science as beautiful, which I never would have described before. Because, you know, the way we learn it in school is just about memorizing facts. And I think Carl Sagan was the first to really make me think, I'm so thankful to be on this planet and to be able to look up to the sky and to be able to wonder why things are the way they are.

You know, it's about that curiosity and that enthusiasm for learning that I really loved about his communication. This is Science Friday from WNIC Studios. One of the things that we have today that, you know, Carl Sagan didn't have back in his days is social media. And of course, social media is free, right? You don't have to get a subscription to your cable box. Does accessibility play a role in what you do, Patty? What do you think? Yeah, for sure. I mean, there are so many barriers for entry to the outdoors. You have to have thousands of dollars of gear. There are so many barriers of entry to academia and being able to

read through thousands of pages of paper, probably maybe not even in your first language. There are so many barriers to not feeling safe as a queer person in different labs and in different environment. So I really feel like social media is an amazing place that removes barriers and improves access to reach new people in new ways. And I think, you know, social media gets crapped on a lot that it is seen as just like a less than tool or can be cheap or like low quality or kind of bad for us and I say social media is a tool. I think it depends how we use it, right? We can use a tool for good. We can use a tool to build. We can use a tool to harm. And so I'm really trying to think about how can we use social media as a tool in science to share information to build community,

to build authentic community that really removes barriers and improves access. Last question for both of you. What do you see is the future of science communication? And by that, I mean, do you see more room for creative personalities like yourself? I think the future of science communication is social media. I think with social media, you don't have the same gatekeepers as you have in traditional media. You know, neither I nor Patty had to get a show greenlit by some, you know, office of executives. We just went on social media and started doing our thing. And I think because of that freedom, that's, you know, opened the door to all kinds of different creative personalities. So, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm so excited to see who will be the next communicators in our field. Patty, do you think that drag science is a flash in the pan? Oh, no way. Or is it going to be around forever?

It's going to be around for forever, at least as long as I'm on planet Earth, as long as kinds on planet Earth. And also, like, the kids these days, I just cannot get enough of youth and where they are taking the field of science and how they are studying at Yale or Harvard and doing these incredible media projects to really think of, about how are we translating what we are learning here, what we're studying here to people and removing barriers and avoiding gatekeepers.

So when I think about the future of science, I think it looks queer as hell. I think it looks full of BIPOC people. I think it looks full of people who are passionate about just sticking their talent and their special skills and their identities and applying it to the field of science and hopefully making a future where all of us feel more welcome and where we can really truly be grounded in,

The one thing that unites us all is this planet, and it's time to fight for her. Can't say anything better than that for an ending. We have unfortunately run out of time. I want to thank both of you for taking time to be with us today and really love what you are doing. Kind mathematician, drag queen based in Kitchener, Ontario, Pedagonia, Environmental Activist and Educator based in Bend, Oregon. Thanks so much for having me. Thank you so much, Ira. If you want to know more and see photos of the folks in the STEM drag community, you can head to our website, Science Friday.com slash stem drag. And that's about all the time we have for this hour. A special shout out to folks in Eastern Kentucky.

Listening to us on 88.9, W.E.KU. Glad to have you on board. If you missed any part of this program or you would like to hear it again, subscribe to our podcasts or ask your smart speaker to play Science Friday. Have a great weekend. We'll see you next week. I'm Ira Flato.