Science Friday - Summer Science Books, Effect of Roe on Obstetric Care, Female Athletic Injuries. July 1, 2022, Part 2

Episode Date: July 1, 2022

How Will Doctors Train For A Post-Roe World? It’s been one week since Roe v Wade was overturned by the Supreme Court. Many people are still wrapping their heads around what this overturn means for their states— and for their lives. For physicians and medical professionals, there’s another level of fear and concern about what practicing in a world without Roe v. Wade will mean. Questions are circulating about how training for OB/GYN’s may change, or if abortion care will stop being taught in medical school in states that do not allow the practice. For years, the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has warned that a shortage of gynecologists will persist, and many in the industry fear the overturn will exacerbate this issue.  Joining Ira to talk about how the Roe overturn could impact training of medical professionals is Dr. Maria Isabel Rodriguez, associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Oregon Health and Science University in Portland, Oregon.   Why Are Female Athletes At A Higher Risk Of ACL Injuries? During 2021’s NCAA March Madness tournament, photos and videos from inside the athletes’ weight rooms went viral. The images showed the difference between what was available to the men’s and women’s teams.  The men’s weight room was chock full of fitness training devices. For the female athletes, the only weights were six pairs of dumbbells. This was just one example of a harmful stereotype that has persisted about women in sports: strength training is for men, not for women. This kind of thinking is not only wrong, but can have serious consequences. Research shows female athletes are more prone to certain injuries, most strikingly ACL injuries. Women and girls are up to six times as likely to get an ACL injury compared to boys and men. Joanne Parsons, physical therapist and associate professor at the University of Manitoba, says, “A high school girl who plays basketball or soccer for one season, so let’s say three to four months-ish, will have a 1% chance of rupturing their ACL.” Parsons and her colleague Stephanie Coen, health geographer and associate professor at the University of Nottingham, UK, join Ira to talk about how the way athletic training works now puts women and girls at a disadvantage, and what can be done to better protect athletes. Watch the live call-in at sciencefriday.com.   The Best Science Books To Read This Summer, 2022 Edition Whether you’re on the beach this summer, taking a staycation, or whiling away too many hours spent delayed in airports, you’ll want something to read. Ira and guest authors Riley Black and Deb Blum are here for you, with recommendations for the best books to soak in during the season of escapism.  The full list of book recommendations can be found at sciencefriday.com.   Transcripts for each segment will be available a week after the show at 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. In the week since the Supreme Court removed federal protection for abortions, many people are still wrapping their heads around what this means for their states and themselves now that abortions are governed state by state. For physicians and medical professionals, there's fear and confusion about what practicing in a world without federal protection means. For example, will training for OBGYNs change? How will abortion care? How will abortion care? be taught in medical school. Joining me today to talk about how the Roe Overturn could impact training of medical professionals is Dr. Maria Isabel Rodriguez, Associate Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology

at Oregon Health and Science University in Portland. Welcome to Science Friday. Thanks so much. It's great to be here with you. Nice to have you. Tell me what kind of concerns are you hearing from fellow OBGYNs after the fall of row. Gosh, it's hard to know where to start. all of us are incredibly concerned about what this is going to mean.

Most importantly, for the care of the women that we see every day, how are we able to provide care for them when it's being legislated by laws that are written vaguely and aren't always clear as to the impact. Abortion is an essential part of health care. We can't just silo one area of reproductive health care without there being far-reaching implications, and this is something that we're all trying to sort through and figure out how to best sell provide evidence-based care for the women we see. And for years, if you look at a map of the U.S., you see a shortage of OBGYNs in many states. Why is that?

Well, exactly. I think there's multiple things to reflect on there. And in part of it, it might have to do with hospitals closing in rural areas simply because of the costs of maintaining a labor and delivery. And then that leading to fewer OBGYNs in the area. But there's also been a shortage of abortion providers for years. You know, even though OBGYN residencies since 1995 have said that it's a requirement to teach abortion, we know from recent surveys that about 80% of them have had challenges doing so, either from institutional reasons of not allowing abortion training or for state policies.

And that's led to a shortage of abortion providers across the country, particularly those that are trained in providing second trimester care. You know, I chose to train at OHSU specifically so I would have. of comprehensive training and reproductive health care, and I'll never forget the call I got one night as a chief resident from a woman who'd presented to a different ER in our city with a highly desired pregnancy, 19 weeks along, but had gone in because she was hemorrhaging, bleeding heavily from a placenta previa. Even though there was no heartbreed and the pregnancy was clearly not viable, there was nobody in that hospital that was trained to perform a D&E, and they were considering performing a hysterectomy. that was their only option. Wow. You know?

Wow. Yes, she would have lost her fertility and ability to have any more kids. And it was a complicated call where we were trying to figure out, could we stabilize her enough with transfusions, get a helicopter and get her to our hospital where we'd be able to treat her with a DNA and save her not just her life, but also her ability to have more kids. And that's because the physicians in that hospital were not trained well enough? Either because of training or sometimes people will get a limited amount of training in their residency, but if they practice in a Catholic hospital or a religious affiliated hospital where they're not allowed to provide the care, they're not going to maintain ongoing competency in that scale. And we've really allowed abortion to become kind of siloed to either outside clinics or just a few sites.

And that has significant repercussions for how we take care of people who are pregnant. Quickly tell us what a D&E is. A D&E is just emptying a pregnant uterus. Let's talk about this problem on what is currently taught in medical schools about abortion. When do med students learn about abortion? Well, in some cases, it's not even taught in medical school. In some medical schools, it's mentioned as part of their kind of core curriculum in women's health, or they learn about it on their OBGYN, which most students have to go through.

through. But it's typically a fairly short amount if it presents it at all. But in many places, it's only in OBGYN residencies where it's mandated. And that's problematic because half of the people all doctors are going to see are female. And it affects not just Obie Gein residents, but family medicine residents, ER residents. A variety of specialties are going to care for pregnant women. And since nearly a quarter of all American women will have an abortion at some point in their lifetime, this is a really common procedure that all. physicians and health care workers need to be educated in. Yes, for example, shouldn't we be teaching how to save the life of a mother, like in an ectopic pregnancy? Absolutely. And it's not just

ectopic pregnancies, which is a life-threatening emergency, is never going to be viable, and swift operative treatment is needed, but it's just regular pregnancies. We have had a patient that's been flying into us from a restricted setting five times over the last six weeks, because she's pregnant. She has a common mental health problem, the same anxiety that's crippling a lot of people right now, but it became worse for her during pregnancy. And she could not find anybody in her home state that was willing to take care of her at a fear that the drugs they would prescribe for anxiety might harm the fetus and that they would be liable for criminal charges. So she kept flying to us, and her anxiety had gotten to the point where she felt like she couldn't continue the pregnancy.

Fortunately, she was able to come to us. We were able to get her the mental health treatment she needed so that her care could be stabilized and she's been able to continue the pregnancy. Yes, this seems like it's a case where being an OBJAN, you're providing very time sensitive care. Could this overturn delay these kinds of treatments? Absolutely.

We're currently passing legislation that's devoid of not just science, but common sense. Some of the laws are written in such a vague way that it's incredibly hard to know how to interpret them. And they could apply to not just treatment of induced abortion, but treatment of ectopic. They could affect IVF treatment. The same skills that we use for abortion procedures

are used throughout gynecology, heavier life-threatening uterine bleeding, miscarriage management, uterine biopsies. And volume really matters in training. The more procedures and counseling you do, the better you are at efficiently providing high-quality care. And with a lot of these conditions, minutes matter. people's lives are really on the line. You can lose a significant amount of blood quite quickly,

and you need to be able to intervene timely. You don't want to be either on the phone consulting with a lawyer to figure out how long you have to wait before you can provide treatment, or you want to be skilled and competent to recognize complications and to be able to intervene quickly. So do you think that med schools now are going to avoid teaching OBGYN techniques that they used to? I hope not. I hope that we're going to see a resurgence the opposite way where there's going to be a recognition of how important this training is and that we see it not just in Obie Gein Residencies, but in medical schools and family medicine residencies and for ER physicians too. I'm afraid that we're going to have to turn back the clock going back to some of the complications we used to routinely

see for people to understand the importance of this care and that it doesn't just affect women seeking to end a pregnancy, this legislation is really going to affect all of us. I mean, we only have to look to countries around the world where abortion is restricted to know what's going to happen in the United States. Globally, you know, unsafe abortion is a major killer of women. About every eight minutes, there's a woman who dies from an unsafe abortion globally. And there's significant morbidity that goes along with that, too, whether it's hemorrhage or infection, uterine perforations. These are all complications that have been largely eliminated since the passage of Roe in the United States. And I think we need to expect to see not just an increase in maternal mortality rates from people

having either unsafe abortion care or complications, but also women who are critically ill that are having an increase in unplanned births. And this is going to affect the people that are already suffering from the highest rates of maternal mortality in the United States, people of color and people who are lower income who can't afford to fly out of state or can't afford to travel even a few hundred miles to seek care elsewhere. Is the fact that some mid-schools won't be teaching OBGYN techniques anymore? Is it out of fear of the law or is it because they don't think future physicians will need these skills in many states?

I think in most cases it's political. This is such a common integral part of women's health care. care. You know, I interviewed for residences back in 2003, and I specifically sought out programs where abortion was a normal integrated part of the curriculum. And I can tell you at multiple sites, silly reasons were present for abortion not being trained. Like, for example, a donor had made a huge gift of a new football stadium with the understanding that abortion would not be part of the top curriculum. So it doesn't have anything to do with evidence or reason. We all know that These are skills that all physicians need to have, as well as other allied healthcare professionals.

I think it's really important to note that, you know, while we need physicians trained in abortion skills, sometimes one of the biggest challenges for me in being able to do an emergent case has to do with getting nurses that are willing to participate and be part of the care as well. As a resident, we rotated through Catholic hospitals where there's significantly more restrictions on the care that you can provide. and in many cases as a physician, even though I have the recommended course of action, I had a patient I saw one night that was having heavy bleeding again from a miscarriage, and it was clear she needed a DNC, a simple three-minute procedure I could have done in the ER room, but I needed to convince the nurses to allow me to do it there, to have a nurse that was willing to provide the medication for anesthesia so the woman wouldn't be in pain,

and that all takes time. And there's a lot of misunderstanding of, about legality, what this means, and what's allowed for us to do. And that's going to institute delays across the health care system and providing the life-saving care that women need. As we know, the effects of Roe v. Weight Overturn are going to vary state by state. Do you think this overturn is going to change where OBGYNs go after medical school? I think it will. We all became experts in women's health because we deeply care about women, and we see ourselves as advocates for women's health.

And to be told that you need to practice in such a way that flies in the face of evidence and science and your patient's best interest is incredibly hard to handle as a physician. And while I know there will be many dedicated individuals that stay in those locations to try to fight the good fight, it's also going to drive people out. And I think we're going to see even further increases in maternal morbidity and mortality in those areas. Well, Dr. Rodriguez, thank you so much for talking about this, this very needed conversation we have to have. Thank you so much for highlighting it. Dr. Maria Isabel Rodriguez, Associate Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Oregon Health and Science University in Portland.

We have to take a break, and when we come back, we'll talk about how the difference is in the ways we train male and female athletes sets up women and girls for injury. Stay with us. This is Science Friday. I'm Ira Flato. Last year during the NCAA March Madness Tournament, photos and videos from inside the athlete's weight rooms went viral. The images showed the difference between what was available to the men's and women's teams. The men's weight room was chock full of fitness training devices. For the female athletes, the only weights were six pairs of dumbbells. People were understandably mad. Women were insulted. The NCAA A leadership apologized and the women's weight room was upgraded. This was one of many examples of a

harmful stereotype, a misconception about women in sports that has been around for, well, as long as I can remember, you know, strength training is for men, not for women. That kind of thinking is not only wrong, but can have serious consequences. As research shows, female athletes are more prone to certain injuries and a lack of strength training is a big reason why. Join me to talk to talk about this topic are two researchers who study gender differences in sports training. Joanne Parsons, a physical therapist and associate professor at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg. And Stephanie Cohen, health geographer and associate professor at the University of Nottingham in England. Welcome both of you to Science Friday. Thank you so much for having us,

Ira. It's a pleasure to be here. Nice to have you. Just a reminder that this conversation was recorded in front of a live Zoom audience. And if you want to learn more about how you can join a future recording, go to ScienceFriday.com slash live stream. Joanne, let's start with you. I know you both work together on research about ACL injuries in women and girls. Let's talk about what is an ACL and why are ACL injuries? What are they? Sure.

So ACL stands for anterior cruciate ligament. So it's one of the main stabilizing ligaments in our knees. And it prevents kind of rotational movement in our in our knees. And we chose to study ACL injuries or chose them as a good example in our paper because they're relatively common in sports from all levels, whether you're a recreational athlete up to the elite levels. And when they do happen, they are devastating. They can be life altering for people, not just the immediate pain and the lack of ability to participate in their sport. but people who experience this injury often have to have surgery. The rehabilitation, whether you have surgery or not, can take nine months or more.

And then you end up with increased risk of developing early onset osteoarthritis in your knee and having a joint replacement earlier in life. So very significant injury that does happen to a lot of girls and women in particular. Well, how big of a gender difference is there with ACL injury? Yeah, it does depend on the level that you're playing, whether recreational or competitive sport. It also depends on the sports. So basketball and soccer tend to be higher risk sports. The risk can be anywhere between, it's about two to six times higher injury risk in girls and women compared to boys and men.

Yes, it is significant. And just to give it kind of an individual risk example, a high school girl that plays basketball or soccer for one, season, so let's say three to four months-ish, we'll have a 1% chance of rupturing their ACL. So not completely insignificant there. Stephanie, what did you find about why women, why women are more susceptible to ACL injuries? So what we're trying to propose in the work that we're doing is actually that we need to consider the kind of cumulative effects of gendered exposures over the life course in terms of shaping women and girls' ACL injury risk. So we know a lot about how sex-based biological factors may play into some of the sex-based

or gender disparities that we see in terms of things like hormones and knee biomechanics. But as Joanne said, this gender disparity has persisted and it's persisted for a long time. So part of what we're trying to do in our work is to ask new questions about why this gender disparity in ACL injury might be occurring and that might hopefully give us some new solutions in terms of how we can address this inequity. So what we conceptualize is that we actually might consider the ways that women and girls are exposed to different gendered environments throughout our lifetimes and ways that might shape how we move and use our bodies and ways that might make us more susceptible to these particular types of injuries. So these kinds of

of social exposures might then play out over time materially in our bodies, and that might be part of why we see this kind of gender disparity. And so in the work that Joanne and I and our colleague Shari Becker are doing, we've proposed kind of four environments where we might think about the way that this occurs. So we talk about the pre-sport environment. So this is very early in life where we're socialized to move and use our bodies in highly gendered ways. If we think about, for example, rough outdoor play for boys and indoor play for girls. And then when we move into the context of sport, whether it's recreational or leisure sport or more competitive sport, we can think about training environments like the gym, for example.

And then as well, the competition spaces. So, you know, we might think about the different ways that perhaps women might be social, to coping with and playing through pain. And then Joanne mentioned the complexities involved in rehabilitating an ACL injury after surgery, after intervention. And so the rehabilitation environment is another place where we might think about why do we see different outcomes between women and men. And maybe we need to think about the sort of gendered context of women's lives. You know, women might have more caring responsibilities. And what does that mean for women's capacities to complete a full course of rehabilitation or adhere to a rehabilitation regimen.

So what we're trying to do is kind of say, here are a bunch of domains that we think might be having an impact. And we want to start asking those questions. It's not that biology doesn't matter, but actually what we want to consider is how do these social contexts over time materially play out in our bodies? Because if we can change aspects of our needs, we can change aspects of our environments, that can have wide-reaching impacts for populations of women and girls. Joanne, as a physical therapist, do you see a lot of misconceptions about why girls and women experience some sports injuries more than men and boys? I mean, in certain parts of their bodies, perhaps? Yes, absolutely. And Steph kind of alluded to this sport injuries and ACL injuries in

particular have always been approached with a very biological viewpoint. So, thinking that things like your anatomy, so women have wider hips, for example, hormonal changes during the month, physiology, so the thought that women and men have different contraction rates with their muscles and different contraction patterns with their muscles. So those kinds of things are the, you know, the causes of injury. So that the interesting thing is that there's been literally tens of thousands of research studies done since the 1990s. when the first studies about ACL injury and the injury rate disparity between girls and boys came out,

tens of thousands of research studies, but that injury rate disparity has not changed. And so we have to be missing something. There has to be more to the story than that. And that's what Steph is talking about, considering the gendered aspects of our lives and how that might affect our injury risk. And even one thing beyond that, too, is that not only are the current approaches not working, They've got us to a certain place for sure, but it's not only not working, but it could introduce other risks and potential harms. For example, a couple of years ago, a paper came out that suggested that physicians recommend oral contraceptives to all girls competing in sport to reduce ACL injuries. And we don't believe that that's a realistic approach or even an ethical approach.

So we need to challenge these misconceptions and ask new questions. And we have our first question from our Zoom audience. Let's go to Lauren. Hi, Lauren. You have a question about a personal injury. Go ahead. Hi, Ira. So, yeah, I tore my ACL when I was 16. So it's been probably 20 years now. It's been a while playing soccer. And I just want to preface this was I grew up in Texas. And the doctor told me that while I was very thin, I had wide baby-making hips. So he wasn't surprised. that I tore my ACL. And that phrase has stuck with me for 20 years and I've always wanted to know, is there any validity to that at all? Oh, that's a great question because we've heard that so many times before, right?

Joanne, right, Stephanie? Absolutely. That is one of the go-to reasons that you'll see on social media when it's written about in news articles and from, unfortunately, from health care professionals. And no, there's almost no validity to that, I'm going to say. And I'm sorry you had that experience, first of all. That's not a good positive experience to have when you've just experienced this huge life-altering injury. There may be a slight contribution of anatomy to ACL injury risk, but it would be so minute.

It is not the driving force of why our young girls. And usually it's women or girls between about the ages of 13 and 17. that's the highest rate of injuries that happen in girls and women at that age. It's such a small contribution that I'm never going to say no validity because I'm a scientist and that can never really be proven. But I would say very, very little validity to, unfortunately, what your physician had told you. Yeah, definitely. I also just wanted to jump in on that and just say that I think that is such an illustrative

example of how sexism is kind of baked in to our current parents. paradigm around thinking about ACL injury, you know, kind of blaming women's bodies as being somehow inherently risky. So that's part of what we're trying to do with this work, is to kind of counter that and offer other plausible ways and mechanisms that we need to explore that might be shaping these outcomes. So, so thanks for that question, Lauren. Stephanie, though, your research does make a distinction between sex and gender. Can you walk us through that? So this is one of those cases in science and in research where we're often constrained to operationalizing things in sometimes oversimplified ways. And this is arguably the case with sex and gender in which

sex is generally thought of as pertaining to biological characteristics. So hormones, genes, reproductive anatomy, that distinguish maleness and femalness in very binary ways sometimes. And gender is thought of as a social phenomenon. That's about how we identify as men, women, gender diverse people, the roles that society ascribes to us and how gender is institutionalized and structured society. But theories and evidence now really show us that, of course, both of these are complex and neither is actually binary. So in our work, we draw on theories from the field of social epidemiology that further challenge, the binary distinction as well between sex and gender. So this challenging that binary between the biological and the social

and actually suggests that we need to understand sex and gender as entangled. So that means that we can't neatly distinguish between the biological and the social, but that we have to understand them as having interactive relationships, which may actually be difficult to tease out in practice. It's, it's complex stuff. But this line of thinking takes as a starting point that gendered life experiences have material effects on the body. So that's where this entangling of the biological and the social comes into play. And that's what we're trying to open up with this line of thinking that we are exploring around ECL injury. This is Science Friday from WNYC Studios. We're on a Zoom meeting talking with Joanne Parsons and Stephanie Cohen, who are both studying ACL injuries in women

and sports training. So Joanne, I'm going to give you a magic wand. I know you need one. And if you could fix hypergendered exercise, what would your ideal form of non-gendered sports conditioning look like? That's a good question. It may be a loaded question. The first thing I'd get rid of is gendered reveal parties, but that's for another conversation. perhaps. I would say that our work is not necessarily about non-gendered conditioning. It's about creating equitable opportunities rather than equality. We're talking about equitable opportunities so that we're meeting people where they're at. We're providing each individual person with what they need regardless of their sex gender. But having said that, we do know that there are gendered environments

in sports. So the weight room is the perfect example. You use the NCAA example, which we, we, we constantly go back to as well because it's so high profile. And there is some research as well that shows us that the types of exercises that are prescribed by coaches during warmups can be different depending on whether the coach is a man or a woman and whether the athletes are women or men. And the thing about specific to ACL injuries that's interesting is that there's been a push in the last few years to develop specific injury prevention programs for women and men, so separate programs that are different. And, And our feeling is that sex-specific programming may knowingly or unknowingly really embed and

perpetuate these stereotypes and differences that already disadvantaged girls and women. So we think that before we assume that training for ACL injury prevention needs to be different for girls and women or boys and men, we need information as to what already exists. We actually don't have a great idea about the gendered environments that exist in sport and how that may relate to injury risk for the ACL. And so I wouldn't say that we would, you know, non-gender exercise. We need the information first to figure out what's already happening, and then where do we need to go from there.

And so, Stephanie, how do we make strength training more inviting for both women and girls? So I think we need to, as we've kind of been touching on in this conversation, sort of move away from a focus on kind of fixing women, you know, the example that Joanne gave about sort of oral contraceptives as an intervention to thinking more comprehensively about how we can change our environments and intervene in the gendered relations that disadvantage women in physical activity in sport. And so I would situate strength training environments within this kind of wider context. So there's work that needs to happen within training environments, strength training environments, but it is also this sort of bigger project.

And I think sometimes when we think about the bigger project, it can be kind of daunting in terms of how do we actually do that. But I do think there are a few things we could do within training environments or strength training environments specifically. So one thing is I think women's strength training begets women's strength training. So in some of the work that I've done around gym environments, women commented to me that, you know, not seeing women in particular sections of the gym, like the free weight section, signaled to them that it wasn't a space for women. it wasn't a space where women were welcome. So I think we need to insert women and gender diverse role models in those spaces. And I also think that there's work that shows that, you know, a lot of strength and conditioning coaches are men.

So when it comes to more competitive athletes, I think we need to think about, you know, how do we support more women and getting into those strength and conditioning leadership positions. And I think that's where we're going to have to stop because we have run out of time. Some great talk here. Thank you both for taking time to be with us today. And thank you all on Zoom. Joanne Parsons, physical therapist, associate professor at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada. Stephanie Cohen, health geographer, associate professor at the University of Nottingham in the UK.

Thank you both for taking time to be with us today. Thank you so much. Thank you. You're welcome. We have to take a break. And when we come back, we're talking about the best science books for this summer, the perfect read for your next trip to the beach or the park. It's not too late for this summer. Stay with us.

This is Science Friday. I'm Ira Flato. I hope you're listening to this from somewhere relaxing, whether you've made it to the beach this summer, you're whiling away hours of flight delays at the airport, not too relaxing. Or you're saving your inflated dollars with a staycation. But wherever you are this summer, you need something to read, right? So why not make it sciencey? To help out, we're back with our soft. fry bookworms to recommend some enthralling summer readings. Let me introduce them. Deb Blum

directs the Knight Science Journalism Program at MIT. Her latest book is The Poison Squad. She joins us from Boston. Welcome back, Deb. Thanks. It's great to be back. Nice to have you, as always. And Riley Black is a science writer and author of The Last Days of the Dinosaurs. She joins us from Salt Lake City. Welcome back, Riley. Oh, always good to be on. Thank you. Nice to have you. And I just want to say, we're talking too fast for you to keep up or you've got sunscreen on your fingers right now, no worries. You can check out the fullest of our summer book recommendations on our website, science friday.com slash summer books. That's science friday.com slash summer books. Okay, let's get right into the recommendations. Deb, I know you tried to recommend Riley's book

for our summer lists. I did. It's such a good book and I love it. And so I'm glad to be here and say that to you in person, Riley. That's a remarkably good job. Thank you. That makes me so happy. I mean, you were one of my inspirations to become a science writer, so I can't think of higher praise than that. So I really appreciate it. We actually got to your book earlier this summer, and so it was really great, great reading also. Deb, seriously, though, your first book is about people who steal trees. Is that right? Yes. So tree thieves. It's the subtitle is Crime and Survival in America's Northwoods. It's by Lindsay Burgon. It's just an amazing book because, and I followed my husband around the house reading sentences, one of his least favorite things that I ever do. But I'm like,

did you know? Because it really gives you insights into this phenomenal, international, illegal trade in timber. I had no idea how vast it was, how much many billions. of dollars it was, how intricately connected criminal families around the world. That part's fascinating. But she also, because she's setting it in the Pacific Northwest, really gets into the people who steal trees and why they steal them and how desperate they are and builds these almost compassionate looks at people that at one side do terrible harm, personal opinion. And on the other side, are just struggling to survive when their normal lines of work are disappearing. It's just beautifully done.

Couldn't recommend it more. I'm sold on it. It really sounds great. Yeah, me too. Riley, it's peak sweat season. I hope you're keeping cool, but you do have a recommendation for us to learn more about how that works, right? Yeah, I mean, I never thought I would be so enthusiastic about a book called The Joy of Sweat.

But it really is. Sarah Everett's book is really just a phenomenal look at this thing. I think so many of us, you know, we want to avoid, right? I would feel embarrassed about it. But it really is this celebration of sweat, not just its function and how amazing that is that we have our own sort of, you know, air conditioning system that's, you know, very unique amongst mammals. But all the information that it can convey or how quickly things that we eat and drink show up in our sweat. And it really is one of these books, you know, in science writing, we have so many now about different body systems, whether it's, you know, skeletons or hearts or pulmonary systems or what have you, that, you know, really want to explain the science of it, but the joy isn't always there.

And it's like, it really is the joy of sweat. I think you'll leave this book feeling, you know, pretty impressed the next time that, you know, system kicks in on your body, even if it's always not at the most convenient time. Are there people who love to sweat? I'm like a whiny sweater. Well, people go into saunas and steam rooms and things like that or they do hot yoga, right? Yeah, my girlfriend makes mopo tuff all the time. It just makes me start sweating.

That's how I know it's good that she got it right is when the Sushwan pepper starts to make me sweat. So, yeah, I mean, sometimes it's good. Okay, so far we've got the tree thieves and the joy of sweat. Let's move on to talking about what makes a good summer book, Deb. What do you think makes for a good summer book? I don't know. There's something about summer reading that, to me, you know, whispers escape, escape. It's like it's this time of the year we're theoretically, we're dialing back a little.

thinking about, you know, escaping into different ideas or different zones or different worlds even. That to me is a good summer science book. You know, I know you guys would come up with kinds of books you want to read and take to the beach. I came up with a couple of books that are really great coffee table books, but they're terrific. And my first one is called The Thinkers. And it's illustrated by Zachary Pullen and written by Brad Herzog. It's not on Amazon. You have to go to the thinkers book.org to get it.

But this is an amazing book of the history and illustrated histories of your curies, your Einstein's, your jobs, your loveless, your Da Vinci. But there are also people you have never heard of. I'm going to try to get these name right. Shandra Sekharra Venkata Raman, lauded by Prime Minister Gandhi as the greatest scientist of modern India. And then there was Dr. Qian Xing-Wu, the first lady of physics. You've got Anne Sukamoto, one of the world's most famous stem cell scientists, Dr. Wangari Matai, I hope I'm getting those names right, became the first Eastern African woman to earn a PhD in the Rachel Carson era and go on to talk about environmentalism.

And not only are these people in there that you've never heard of from all parts of the world, but the illustration of them in group photos by the artist is just worth the price of the book alone. I'm already mourning for my wallet. Like, you know, all these books sound fantastic already. That sounds great. Let's go back to you, Deb. What's your next recommendation? So this is nothing like the book about dinosaurs that Riley did, but I really liked the monster's bones, which just came out this month.

The subtitle is The Discovery of T-Rex and How It Shook Our World, and it's by David Randall. And I like it because it is the... story of Tyrannosaurus rex, but set in through the lens of the early dinosaur fossil hunters, the dinosaur hunter that he focuses on is sort of a self-taught hunter, so that, you know, in an era where you didn't have to go and become a PhD paleontologist and do all the things that you have to do today, goes out there and really into the wild, wild west of fossil hunting, which it was at the time, which makes it fascinating. He also looks at the motivations and the competitions between museums at the time, which is a really vicious, which is, speaking of escape,

is also really fascinating to get into these sort of backstabbing stories of the early builders of the museums. And he also looks at some of their evil motivations in educating the public. And so it all comes together in the story, which is science and dinosaurs and science history and wicked people. Wow, you got everything in there. Yes. It actually would be a pretty good beach read, I think, but it's a smart book. The Monster's Bones. Riley, what's next for you?

I was going to say it's a great summer for paleontology in general. I'm not counting my own book in that per se, but just between the monster's bones. in the past, you've had Dr. Elsa Pansaroli's book, A Beast Before Us, which is all about mammal evolution. So this is the sort of untold story of our ancestors and where we came from. And so often we're told that mammals lived in the shadow of the dinosaurs and they were underfoot. And these little insectivores kind of hiding out in the corners of the ancient world. And we now know that's not true at all. That, you know, there's this really fantastic story that, you know, she really anchors through her research and her

field experience at these sites all around the world to talk about basically how our predecessors evolved alongside these animals that now have left their monster's bones to us. And I think that's a really fantastic look at our own backstory. And I think you had mentioned one on your list as well, the rise and rain of the mammals that Steve Brousotti just did. Yeah, one of my favorite authors, one of my favorite scientists. And yeah, we're reviewing it. We reviewed it a couple of weeks ago. and that's on my list. And I mean, we have a whole theme of a paleontology and archaeology here. And I want to add one more to that.

A book, another coffee table book, Great Illustrations. It's called Discovering Us, 50 Great Discoveries and Human Origins. And the book starts out paying homage to the leakies, you know, and their contributions and the people around them like Jane Goodall and Diane Fawsey. But then they trace the work of 50 great discoveries that followed them over the last 70 years. Donald Johansson and Lucy's, Vante Papo, and the genome of Nandertal, on and on. If you want a concise, beautifully photographed history of human evolution and origins, you'll get it all in this book.

It's called Discovering Us, The 50 Great Discoveries in Human Origins. Let's move on to another book that I know you both are enjoying or have enjoyed vagina obscure it. Tell us about that, Riley. Yeah, I mean, the title really says it all, right? This is something that, you know, about our own bodies, about the bodies of the people that we love and live with that are so often treated as mysterious or unknown when these things aren't unknown. We know quite a bit. And it's really like this journey that leads through and builds on itself, not just through human anatomy, but the history, what we think and why we do.

And how, you know, the topic of this book is relevant to everybody. I think Rachel specifically, you know, Tini did an excellent job of weaving through that, you know, you might think that the story. book is specifically for women. It's really not there are men who this book is very relevant to. Non-binary people. The way the book ends is great, focusing on, you know, why gender-affirming surgeries work for people. So really from beginning to end, it's just this really sort of passionate and well-written exploration of something that we don't talk about as much as we probably should. Really? Really. Deb, what would you want to add to that endorsement? I mean, I agree with everything Riley just said.

I also want to emphasize that this is a wonderful book that also explores the politics of science, so that you see early on in the definitions of the reproductive system. It's an all-male show. And so she's able to go in and both shows some of the ways that men misidentified reproductive anatomy to sort of suit their own purposes. and how we've been sort of correcting that ever since and rethinking how the human body works in some wonderful ways. I shouldn't say Rachel was one of my fellows, a KSJ fellow,

so I want to have that out there. And she was doing some of the research on this book while she was at MIT. And for her final presentation, she 3D printed models of the clitoris and plastic and handle them out. Which makes me laugh just saying it, but there is a wonderful, also,

sense of humor and warmth to the book that I think makes it work. That's good to hear. Isn't it really amazing that researchers are really only just beginning to understand the biology of this reproductive system? You know, it sounds like

who is doing the research has a big influence on its ability to progress, death. A hundred percent, because we bring our very, And science is a human enterprise. It's forever reminding people. And so those human biases and perceptions really come into the way we define all different parts of the human body and how it works and who's on first and who's on third and all of the above.

And this book really illustrates some of that as well in a very nice way. Yeah. And we'll be talking about the gina obscure later this summer actually with the author Rachel Gross. so our listeners can even look forward to hearing her talk about that soon. Okay, I want to move on to a health book I really like this called Medical Marijuana. And you know, in this age where so many states are legalizing marijuana and there's a national movement to this, it took a doctor who has been studying marijuana for decades to actually come up with a book. And he calls basically a blueprint for other doctors about how to use marijuana in medical practice.

It's amazing. That's kind of a brilliant idea, Ira, actually. Yeah, he's had to tell these people because if you go to places where marijuana is sold medicinally, you'll have people called bud tenders there, right, who will prescribe for you how to use it when your doctor doesn't know how to, and it may be erroneous. The book is called Medical Marijuana by Mikhail Kogan and Joan Liebman-Smith. I'm Ira Plato. This is Science Friday.

from WNYC Studios. One last book from each of you, but let's get weird. Let's make it fiction. Riley, what you got? Yeah, so I've really been enjoying the Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi,

which seems pretty far removed based on its title from science, right? Because, you know, the science of Godzilla is certainly its own sort of topic, but this is a fictional take on what if these giant monsters actually existed. But rather than focusing in

on sort of the military or the monster fights, So although there's certainly aspects of those, it's more like, what does the bureaucracy look like around these things? More of the different interests that people would have and how's the biology of these animals work? So I think if you're looking for something that takes, you know, something that's fantastical, but really gets into like the nuts and bolts of like, what does this mean if this really happened and existed? It's certainly a really fun bee trade. The Kaiju Preservation Society.

Yes, I join. Yeah. And, Deb, what about you? Can I just give a shout out to Lydia Kang? She's a practicing physician and internal medicine specialist in Nebraska, and she writes nonfiction. Her book of last year was Patient Zero about the origins of outbreaks. But she also writes fiction. She has a book out this year called The Half Life of Ruby Fielding, which is really kind of a crime, murder mystery set during the development of the atomic bomb. I want to mention it because I'm really fascinated by writers who can sort of cross the boundary between writing good nonfiction and writing good fiction. Annalie Newitz is another example of that. And I want to just mention that the half-life of Ruby Fielding has some wonderful stuff about poison in it, which is one of the things that always gets me excited. I mean, there's this sentence deep in the pockets.

I could feel the bottle of zinc chloride, such a simple compound, a fluffy white crystalline substance. And, you know, so it's really wonderful in the way it kind of slides science into the narrative. I really admire that. Anything doing with poisons you're in. We certainly have our fields between poison and dinosaurs, I feel like it. Well, unfortunately, we have to stop talking about both of them because we have run out of time. But I want to thank both of you for taking time to be with us today. Riley Black Science writer, author of The Last Days of the Dinosaurs,

and Pulitzer Prize winner Deb Blum, who directs the Knight Science Journalism Program at MIT. Her latest book is The Poison Squad, see? And for a full list of their book recommendations, go to our website, ScienceFriiday.com slash summer books. Thank you both for joining us today. Thank you so much. Always happy to talk, bucks. I have one last recommendation from Sci-Fi Book Club member, Harold.

I've been enjoying Bill Bryson's book. the body this summer. I love Bryson's easygoing and humorous style, plus the way he focuses on the little things that make stuff weird. And every few pages, there's a nugget or two to make you stop and scratch your head. We'll give you your chance to share your summer reading picks later this month. And that about does it for today. Wishing a warm welcome to folks listening to us on WJFF Radio Catskill. Yes, serving the Catskills of New York and Western PA. Glad to have you along for the ride. If you miss any part of the program or you'd like to hear it again, subscribe to our podcasts or ask your smart speaker to play Science Friday. Of course, you can say

hi to us on social media, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. Have a great holiday weekend. We'll see you next week. I'm Ira Flato.