Something You Should Know - How Aging Can Be Reversed & Science “Facts” That Aren’t True - SYSK Choice

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Starting point is 00:00:27 Download June's Journey now on Android or iOS. Today on Something You Should Know, why do people crave comfort food and just how comforting is it? Then, can you really slow down the aging process? Actually, we can do a lot better than that, according to one Harvard professor. Slowing down your aging process to get you to have an average of 14 extra years is easy. Going beyond that, I think, will be possible because we're starting to learn also how to not just slow down aging, but truly reverse the process and reset the body.

Starting point is 00:01:01 Then, why is it your stomach growls at exactly the wrong time? And facts about science you likely believe that aren't exactly true. So it turns out there's really nothing in nature that exactly corresponds to our concept of a 24-hour day. So, for instance, one rotation of the Earth on its axis tends to differ by four minutes from a 24-hour day. All this today on Something You Should Know. From the kitchen to the laundry room, your home deserves the best.

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Starting point is 00:01:57 Today, Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers. Hey there. Welcome. You know, almost every day I read in the podcast trade publications about some new podcast being debuted or often multiple podcasts being debuted every single day and that there are now like over 3 million podcasts to choose from. So I am very honored that you have chosen this podcast to listen to today, and I think we have a really interesting episode for you. And we start today with comfort food. Do you ever crave comfort food?

Starting point is 00:02:32 I know I do. Probably everybody does. And, well, first of all, it seems that everyone has their own comfort food, and it is directly related to your past. Comfort food seems to be something people associate very significantly with close relationships and probably comes about by individuals coming to associate a particular food with members of their family or social gatherings or the people who took care of them when they were young,

Starting point is 00:03:00 which is why we see a lot of comfort foods that are very traditional foods like mac and cheese or chicken soup or meatloaf and mashed potatoes or they're things that are consumed at a party like chocolate cake or ice cream. It seems men and women differ in what triggers a craving for comfort food. Guilt, depression and loneliness are the main drivers for women while men typically use comfort food as a reward for success. There is some debate about just how much psychological good eating comfort food actually does.

Starting point is 00:03:34 It may lift your mood, or it may just be an excuse to indulge. As one researcher said, although comfort food will never break your heart, it might destroy your diet. And that is something you should know. Everyone at some point thinks about getting older and what that will be like. How long will you live? And how healthy and active will you remain as you get older? Are there really things you can do to slow down the aging process?

Starting point is 00:04:07 Well, that's what Dr. David Sinclair studies. David is a leading authority on longevity. He is a professor at Harvard Medical School. Time Magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2014. And he is author of a book called Lifespan, Why We Age and Why We Don't Have To. Hi, David. Thanks for being here.

Starting point is 00:04:31 Michael, hi. Great to be on. I think most people believe, I guess I believe, that aging is really the toll that time takes on all the parts of your body that eventually lead to the end. That to me is aging, which is pretty depressing. But I mean, that's kind of inevitable, right? Isn't that aging? So aging isn't really what people used to think, which was an inexorable decline. It's actually quite malleable. In my lab, we drive it forwards and backwards pretty easily in mice. And that will no doubt be possible within our lifetimes.

Starting point is 00:05:07 But eventually something's going to get you. You can't last forever. Sure. Well, I'm not saying we're going to be immortal in the same way that we're going to completely cure cancer tomorrow. But it doesn't mean that it's not a topic that's worth working on. And the reason we should be working on aging even more so than specifically cancer and heart disease and Alzheimer's, though those are all extremely important pursuits. My mother died of lung cancer. I'd be the last person to say that it's not

Starting point is 00:05:34 worthwhile, but the biggest bang for your buck is going to be aging because 90% of the illness that happens, including those diseases I just mentioned, are driven by aging. There's a reason that young people don't get Alzheimer's disease and don't get heart disease. It's because their bodies can heal, their bodies are young, and that if we were to turn the clock back on an elderly person, those diseases would go away as well. So to turn the clock back, is it really a matter of reversing or is it a matter of slowing it down so it doesn't get worse faster? The easiest one to do, the easier one is to slow it down. And many people have learned to do that, though we didn't realize it was really slowing down aging. We thought it was just good for us.

Starting point is 00:06:15 But now we know that things you do in your daily life that include the type of food you eat, when you eat, how much you eat, the exercises, the supplements you might take, sleep, these things, we know are good for you. Doctors have been saying that for decades, but now we know very precisely how those things can impact the aging process. So slowing down your aging process to get you to have an average of 14 extra years is easy. It's just those things we can talk about today. Going beyond that, I think will be possible because we're starting to learn also how to not just slow down aging,

Starting point is 00:06:51 but truly reverse the process and reset the body. We just published a paper a year ago saying that we could reverse the age of an eye of a mouse and make it go from blind to having its vision again by reversing the age. So ultimately, we should be able to reverse aging. Right now, it's very difficult, but we're learning every year. So I think probably within the next decade, it could be maybe not commonplace, but certainly very doable to turn your age back by 20 years. So you said a moment ago that in our daily lives, we do things like what we eat, when

Starting point is 00:07:25 we eat, supplements, that kind of thing, exercise. So fill in those blanks. What should we eat? When should we eat? What kind of exercise should we do? Well, if there was only one thing I could suggest, it would be to eat less often. The old idea that you should be eating three main meals a day plus having snacks and never feeling hungry goes against the overwhelming evidence that that's not good for you. And we have this terrible obesity epidemic, but even those who don't become obese are not healthy. And the main reason is that our bodies have survival mechanisms that protect us against aging. And they are only turned on when the body perceives adversity. And one of those perceptions is when you're not eating.

Starting point is 00:08:14 And so I've cut my meals down. I started skipping breakfast. Then I skipped lunch. And now I generally don't eat much, if at all, until dinner. And that means my body goes through the night, all through the day, and then I have a substantial dinner to make up for all my calories, and it's very enjoyable. So that's the main thing.

Starting point is 00:08:34 There's also what you eat. More plant-based seems to be better. But avoid sugar and saturated fats. Those things will truly drive aging forward. And along with that, you should move. You want to at least do 10 minutes of exercise three times a week. You want to build your muscles or at least maintain them and lose your breath three times a week.

Starting point is 00:08:55 So that's the very minimum. There are a lot more things we can do besides that, but that alone will get you at least probably five to ten years of extra life, healthy life, that is. Well, the idea of eating less, you know, would certainly be hard for a lot of people to do. And there is the argument that if you're hungry, if your body is telling you it's hungry, that that must mean something and that that would probably be a good time to eat. Just because your body tells you to do something doesn't mean it's good for you. Our bodies also don't like to exercise, typically. They like us to sit in front of TV or watch a movie and eat popcorn. And that's, if you do that a lot, it's not going to be healthy. So I would

Starting point is 00:09:36 actually say that you should often do the opposite of what your body is telling you that it wants to do. So why dinner though? Why not eat a big breakfast and then not eat again until the next breakfast? What's so special about eating at night? There isn't anything. For me, that works. Some people much prefer eating breakfast, but then they should have a late lunch and not eat dinner. What we're trying to do is extend the period of when you're not eating and people typically don't eat when they're asleep so that you can either extend either the morning fast or the nighttime fast and get to at least 16 hours without food. And you can substitute, you don't have to feel hungry. You can substitute it with

Starting point is 00:10:14 water, tea, even coffee is fine. And it's not that hard, especially once you get through that first three week period. I'm very lazy. I like food. I like meat. I like, you know, I was obese as a kid, but I've learned that there are tricks to make it much easier. But here's the thing. I'm not out there saying, I'm not here saying, I'll just eat healthy and exercise. Anyone can tell you that. What we've learned in my field of aging research is why they work and how to supplement those activities with things like literally supplements and even medicines and just tweak the kind of food, what you eat and when you eat to maximize your potential longevity. And that's a big breakthrough because until about five years ago, we didn't really understand how these things that nutritionists and trainers were actually working.

Starting point is 00:11:04 And these are the things that we want to do to maintain our body's defenses. And the body has evolved to survive when it perceives future adversity. Okay, so the idea is to create a state that mimics adversity, not a state that mimics abundance. And abundance right now is everywhere. And that's the problem. Isn't how long you live wrapped up in your genetics? I've even heard the advice that if you want to know how long you'll live, look at how long your parents lived. So I'm a geneticist, and I'm partly guilty, like most geneticists,

Starting point is 00:11:38 of saying that DNA is everything. DNA is your destiny. That's true if you have susceptibility to a certain type of cancer, but it's not true for aging. It's not true for your future health. And we know this because twins in Denmark have been studied for decades who are genetically identical. And it turns out identical twins can live very different lives and die very different at different ages, sometimes decades. And so what you can calculate then, if you look at hundreds of twins,

Starting point is 00:12:11 is the contribution of genes versus the environment. In the case of aging, surprisingly, 80% is environmentally encoded, which is great news because we can actually change the way we live. It's much more difficult to choose your parents. When you talk about doing things to increase someone's lifespan, increase it by how much optimally? I mean, it's hard to imagine the human body lasting 300 years. Right. It's not built to last 300 years. But what we've discovered is that there are reset switches in the body that can turn back time, literally make the body young again and work as though it's young again. And this old idea that

Starting point is 00:12:51 we just wear out, that's true for teeth and some parts of the body. But most of the body is capable of great healing, even regenerating organs, and eventually we'll be able to regenerate limbs like some species we have that capacity it just it's that the body doesn't do it because we only needed to live 40 or 50 years to procreate and pass on our genes going back 50 100 000 years ago but now we live in a world where we can change our environment we live in houses we have clothes we have cars we have computers. The same should be true for aging. It doesn't matter what we evolved to be. Now we can take evolution into our own hands and turn on the body's regenerative potential. And we learned to do that. We cured

Starting point is 00:13:34 blindness in mice. This was just an, any high school student can do this now. Now what's the challenge is to make medicines that your doctor can send you or inject into you to truly reverse your age. And when you do that, this old idea of wear and tear, it turns out not to be true. The body can get rid of these problems and age can go away and the effects of aging also go away. So talk about these medicines. What are they? Here's the big picture. There are billions of dollars being put towards developing drugs that turn on the body's defenses. And some of those are already on the market. There's a drug called metformin for type 2 diabetes. And that drug is taken by

Starting point is 00:14:15 millions of people around the world. And those people that take the drug, even though they have type 2 diabetes or high blood sugar, they actually live longer than people that don't have type 2 diabetes, which is a remarkable fact. There's another one called rapamycin, which doctors prescribe. Right now, I would guess that rapamycin is prescribed more for aging than for anything else, but it was originally developed for transplantation patients to stop rejection of those organs. It's also seemingly good for preventing and curing cancer. The next type of drug that I am developing, and Jeff Bezos has

Starting point is 00:14:53 come into the ring, thrown his hat into the ring with $3 billion of his and other people's money, is to reset the age of the body. Sparked in part by research in my lab and just a few others around the world that have figured out that by turning on genes that are normally not switched on, but only were on when we were embryos, keeping us young men, we can truly reset the age of the body, not just by one year, but by many years. And a lot of it's been done in animals so far, but the proof of principle is here that mammals, us, have this reset switch and that the body can remember how to be young again. I'm talking with Dr. David Sinclair. He is a professor at Harvard Medical School and author of the book Lifespan, Why We Age and Why We Don't

Starting point is 00:15:39 Have To. This is an ad for better help. Welcome to the world. Please, read your personal owner's manual thoroughly. In it, you'll find simple instructions for how to interact with your fellow human beings and how to find happiness and peace of mind. Thank you, and have a nice life. Unfortunately, life doesn't come with an owner's manual. That's why there's BetterHelp Online Therapy. Connect with a credentialed therapist

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Starting point is 00:16:32 relaxation, and great Gulf Coast weather. Visit flyporter.com and actually enjoy economy. So David, when you talk about living a long time, how much longer could you keep someone alive? Well, if you can reset the body by one year every year, you know, obviously that means you don't get old. But I think practically for our generation and those behind us who are currently alive, 110, 120 is not crazy. There are people that have made it there already. And right now there's about a 2% chance to reach 100. But people, kids born today, will have a 30% chance of getting to 100.

Starting point is 00:17:18 And if there's a 30% chance of getting to 100, it makes sense that people will break the 122 record that exists for humanity that at least we know of. But ultimately, there is no law that says we have to age. There are plenty of species, even some that are very common and similar to us, such as the bowhead whale, a warm-blooded mammal that lives for hundreds of years. And so we just need to learn from them and be able to apply that knowledge into our healthcare, our daily lives and medicines as well. Does all of this apply to what you look like as well? Like if you live to be 120, will you look like you're 120? Or does this, does all of this include like it'll make you look younger too?

Starting point is 00:18:07 Well, the evidence seems to be that you'll look younger too. And we know this because scientists have looked at people who look young and who come from families that tend to live a long time. And also you can look at people's biological age now. We can measure it with this test that I mentioned. And those people that are biologically younger and tend to live a long time look younger as well. This makes sense.

Starting point is 00:18:34 The skin is a large organ, the largest organ. And if you slow down aging, you will also look younger. And it seems to be the case. And there are a number of people I know who've taken care of themselves, done the right things that I've talked about today, taken supplements that seem to activate longevity genes that can look 10 or 20 years younger than others that have not done those things. I always like to ask because much of what you're talking about, I haven't heard before. This is news to me. And you've described it as cutting edge. And often

Starting point is 00:19:06 cutting edge is also controversial. So I like to ask, do you have critics? And if so, what do they say about what you're doing? Some people don't like that I'm talking to the public so much. They like to be in the ivory tower. But I've never shied away from talking to the public, who by the way, funds my lab's research and theirs. So I think the public has a right to this information. But none of my science has been published in the world's leading journals for the last 25, 30 years. That's my defense. I'm not at a crappy institution either. Harvard still has me as a professor there. So I don't think people can criticize my research.

Starting point is 00:19:45 I've never been proven wrong yet. But do they look at me funny? Yeah, especially if you've never heard of the idea that aging is malleable and potentially treatable because we grow up thinking that it's not. Is it your, from your research in doing this, is it also, I don't know if you would call it a side effect, but in addition to living longer, would you also be healthier? In other words, are you going to get, you're going to live a long time, but have all kinds of problems or will you not?

Starting point is 00:20:17 Yeah, Michael, that should have been my first answer because what's often misunderstood is if you look at a hundred year old, you see someone who's frail and old looking typically, and you think, you know, God forbid, I don't want to become that old, but that's missing the point. The point is that we're talking about staying younger for longer and youth is equivalent in most cases to health. So I don't know how to make an animal or a person live longer other than by keeping diseases away. It turns out if you don't get sick and you have friends and family and a loving life, you don't die. And so my goal is to keep people healthy. And that's what I've been doing.

Starting point is 00:21:05 Now, as a side effect, you live longer, right? That's just what happens. But the primary goal is extending health. And that's what happens. In say 100 years ago, people would die more frequently in the middle of life, what we can now call middle of life. Right now, what we're doing increasingly is that most people will survive up until their hundreds and then die relatively quickly. It seems like people, or many people, have a rather fatalistic view of all of this. That when your number's up, your number's up, you can't control it. And so you might as well enjoy your life while you're here rather than do all these things that may prolong your life and then you get hit by a bus tomorrow so you know so just enjoy life and do what you can and

Starting point is 00:21:54 and yeah when your number's up your number's up yeah well that's a very 20th century way of thinking and we used to think that we used to think that way about cancer and heart disease in the 19th century. But, you know, we're definitely in a different world now. The science is now cutting edge. I can't pick up a leading scientific journal without something about a breakthrough in longevity research. And that's been going on now for 20 years. And there have been a couple of Nobel Prizes awarded for work that's related to aging. So this isn't what it used to be. It's not a backwater of biology and science. This is the forefront. And I would argue one of the most promising and globally emerging areas of medicine and the amount of money that's pouring into this

Starting point is 00:22:35 area. I mentioned some of it earlier from Jeff Bezos, but there's many others around the world pouring billions of dollars into this. I mean, it's no longer that we have to accept just what we're given. But we can really actively do something about it increasingly by doing the kind of things that I talked about today. But increasingly, we'll be really be able to add decades to life beyond what we can just do by being healthy in our daily lives. And we want I would I would really encourage everyone who's listening to read my book, but not because it's my book, but because there is a prescription in there that helps you live longer. So why do you want to live longer? Because you want to stay alive and healthy

Starting point is 00:23:16 until these technologies come online. And there will be a day when you can dramatically turn the clock back. It's not going to work on you if you're extremely frail or dead. We don't know how to reverse death, but we are learning how to reverse age. And so stick around because the future looks really exciting. And what part of that prescription, you've talked about several things that people can do. What are people doing that's having a negative effect? What should people stop doing? I mean, I don't know.

Starting point is 00:23:49 Obviously, smoking is probably not a great thing to do, but are there other things people are doing that's actually going to take them the other direction? Oh, yeah, many of them. So stop smoking if you do. That accelerates your aging process. We know that. So you're not just looking old externally. Your body is getting older. It's one of the reasons you will likely die sooner. So smoking is bad. Sedentary lifestyle, which many of us,

Starting point is 00:24:18 including myself, are guilty of, and not moving. That's almost as bad as smoking. Overeating, the other main thing that people do wrong is they stress out a lot. We live in a world that is extremely stressful and we don't get enough sleep and we get cortisol coursing through our veins. And so part of the prescription that I've adopted is to also focus on mental wellness. And that for me includes checking in, being grateful during the day, but also doing more and more meditation and trying my best to get enough sleep by avoiding things like a lot of blue light and working too late. Well, this is really exciting stuff. And, you know, I'm typically pretty skeptical about people promising the fountain of youth, but you do have the credentials, the credibility, and the results in the laboratory work you're doing that really make this very exciting and promising.

Starting point is 00:25:17 My guest has been Dr. Davidson Clare. He is a leading authority on longevity. He's a professor at the Harvard Medical School. Time Magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2014. And his book is called Lifespan, Why We Age and Why We Don't Have To. And there is a link to the book in the show notes. Thanks, David. Enjoyed having you on.

Starting point is 00:25:42 Michael, thanks. Thanks for having me on. Appreciate that. Metrolinks and Crosslinks are reminding everyone to be careful as Eglinton Crosstown LRT train testing is in progress. Please be alert as trains can pass at any time on the tracks. Remember to follow all traffic signals. Be careful along our tracks and only make left turns where it's safe to do so. Be alert, be aware, and stay safe.

Starting point is 00:26:10 People who listen to Something You Should Know are curious about the world, looking to hear new ideas and perspectives. So I want to tell you about a podcast that is full of new ideas and perspectives, and one I've started listening to called Intelligence Squared. It's the podcast where great minds meet. Listen in for some great talks on science, tech, politics, creativity, wellness, and a lot more. A couple of recent examples, Mustafa Suleiman,

Starting point is 00:26:40 the CEO of Microsoft AI, discussing the future of technology. That's pretty cool. And writer, podcaster, and filmmaker John Ronson, discussing the rise of conspiracies and culture wars. Intelligence Squared is the kind of podcast that gets you thinking a little more openly about the important conversations going on today. Being curious, you're probably just the type of person Intelligence Squared is meant for. We'll see you next time. nowhere is this more apparent than in science. Sometimes there's a grain of truth to it, or maybe it was once accepted wisdom that has since been disproven,

Starting point is 00:27:30 or maybe it's just people make it up and then say it often enough and other people start to believe it. But whatever the reason, there are things people commonly believe that just ain't so. As you're about to hear from Philip Bouchard, he is an educator, software engineer. In fact, he designed a computer game several years ago called The Oregon Trail, which went on to sell 65 million copies.

Starting point is 00:27:57 Time magazine named it one of the best 10 video games of all time. He has a book called The Stickler's Guide to Science in the Age of Misinformation, the real science behind hacky headlines, crappy clickbait, and suspect sources. Hey, Philip, thanks for coming on Something You Should Know. Mike, I'm delighted to be on your podcast. So let's start with the often cited idea that some people are left brain and some people are right brain thinkers, and that the two sides of the brain are very different and you have a dominant side and that determines if say maybe you're more creative so is there

Starting point is 00:28:35 any truth to this left brain right brain thing there's very little and this is a bit different and than many of my other topics where it turns out there is a significant amount of truth mixed with untruth. In this case, it's almost all untruth. Although it was based on the findings that the left and right sides of the brain are not perfectly symmetric. And that led to, that spiraled out of control and led to this idea that the left side of the brain controlled logical and math functions, the right side creative tasks, and that one side was dominant over the other, and that controlled your personality. It turns out that none of that is true. However, there are a

Starting point is 00:29:14 lot of fascinating things about the brain, a lot of specialized areas in all the different parts of the brain, and those are areas that are well worth diving into. And why do you suppose it persists? I mean, people still talk about this, even though it's been more or less debunked. People like shorthand ideas, little ways of categorizing things. And so if you think of it now as merely an analogy, if someone says your left brain,

Starting point is 00:29:40 they're trying to say you tend towards logical and math thinking. And if they say your right brain, they're saying you're tending towards creative tasks. So even if it's not literally true, it's possibly a helpful analogy or shorthand. Another thing we often hear is that we should eat more superfoods, that there are foods that are somehow super. Blueberries come to mind as like a superfood. Are there superfoods really? Well, the idea of superfoods is highly exaggerated, but an interesting aspect is that nearly everything that's promoted as a superfood does have certain value. It tends to be either

Starting point is 00:30:19 high in certain amino acids or high in antioxidants, tends to be high in something. But then we take that idea and we go way too far. We treat them almost as being magical, that if you take a small amount of something called a superfood, it's going to have a dramatic impact on your health. A much better way of looking at it is that you need to have a balanced diet, and the superfoods, so-called superfoods, are a helpful part of that diet in order to ensure you get all these essential nutrients. But sometimes you can go with much less expensive ingredients than whatever is currently trendy. But when you hear people identify a food as a superfood, like blueberries, what is it

Starting point is 00:31:02 about specifically about those foods that people have come to think that they're so super? Well, blueberries are mentioned in part because of the antioxidants. And almost any brightly colored fruit or vegetable is going to have antioxidants. And there's several different kinds of antioxidants. And those are, so those those are definitely useful people have mentioned quinoa because it has a nice balance of amino acids beyond that sometimes people mention particular ones that have foods that have particular types of fatty acids in their lipids so they're like certain fish so there are quite a few different categories. Talk about the five senses, because I think if you were to, you know, stop someone on the street and ask them how many senses there are, they would say five. That's pretty much conventional wisdom. Human beings have five senses. But you say we have much more than that, so talk about that.

Starting point is 00:32:03 Sure. So the idea that we have five senses is an ancient idea dating back more than 2,000 years. And we really wedded to that idea, even though in reality, we have more than five senses. So for instance, in our inner ears, there are organs both for hearing, which is the cochlea, and for balance, semicircular canals which detect gravity and acceleration. So there's a sixth sense right there. But in fact, if you look further, you can see quite a few others. You can divide up the sense of touch into temperature, which uses different receptors, and pain, which uses different receptors, and different nerve pathways.

Starting point is 00:32:42 Or you can look at all these receptors inside the body that tell you when you're hungry or thirsty or need to go to the bathroom and a lot of other things. So all in all, you can say we have more than 30 senses, which is just too many to count up. So if you focus exclusively, though, on the external senses, you'll still have more than five, but you'll have less, probably less than 10. So my favorite model says that we have nine senses as nine principal senses that are the five traditional senses plus balance, temperature, pain, and position,

Starting point is 00:33:19 which the formal name of which is proprioception. Well, that certainly sounds right. And I've always thought that there are things that you sense that don't fall into those five categories very neatly, that they must have their own and should have their own category. Although some scientists just lump a whole bunch of different senses into this broad one called touch. Yeah, like pain, that would be touch. Right. But it isn't really. It isn't sensing how things feel. It's feeling how you feel. Right. Not only is the perception different, but it's even different receptors and different nerves. So let's talk

Starting point is 00:33:58 about the 24-hour day, because that's, I mean, who doesn't believe that? I mean, it's a 24-hour day, but you say the day's not 24 hours. Yes, it's what turns out there's really nothing in nature that exactly corresponds to our concept of a 24-hour day. Our concept holds that each day is exactly 24 hours down to the millisecond, and we rely on this concept for our technology. And yet, an actual day by any objective measure tends to be a bit different than 24 hours. So, for instance, one rotation of the Earth on its axis tends to differ by four minutes from our 24-hour day. Or if you measure between true noon, when the sun is at its highest point in the sky each day, that differs by up to 30 seconds or so from 24 hours. So we got our idea of 24 hours basically from clocks by averaging the length of a true day across the entire year.

Starting point is 00:34:57 And this means that everything ends up being a little bit off during parts of the year, where the sunrise and the sunset are not quite what you would expect. Or particularly that by the clocks, the sun reaches its highest point in the sky not at noon, but at some other time, 15 minutes, up to 15 minutes before or after noon. And that's even not taking into account the time zones. Of all the things that you write about and that you've looked at, what is your, in your view, the most interesting or your favorite to talk about? Oh, there are several, but one of them is the idea that a gene, the essence of a gene is just that it's a recipe for constructing a protein. Now, we think of genes as controlling everything about

Starting point is 00:35:46 our bodies. And that's true, but only indirectly, because each gene is simply this recipe for constructing a protein. So, we have about 20,000 genes that can make about 90,000 different proteins. And it is those proteins that actually do all these amazing things that direct our development from a zygote to an adult and that control our metabolism in every cell throughout our entire lives. So the proteins are the agents of the DNA. The DNA just makes proteins. I know another interesting topic you write about and talk about

Starting point is 00:36:22 is this idea that's really part of our culture is that it's important to kill germs and we have to kill germs and microbes and all the little creepy crawly things because they cause a lot of problems make people sick which in fact can often backfire on us there are perhaps a million species of microbes out there and only about 100 that actually harm us. But we actually rely on microbes in order for our health. So if we over-rely on killing microbes, on killing germs, then antibiotics, we can breed antibiotic resistance. We can wipe out helpful bacteria in our guts. And we can cause ourselves to develop

Starting point is 00:37:07 autoimmune issues, or at least issues with our immune systems, because of not having enough exposure to microbes as we grow up. So what kinds of things are we doing or overdoing to kill germs and microbes and things? Well, one is the overuse of things that kill germs, particularly antibiotics. Antibiotics, by their very nature, breed antibiotic resistance. So, any antibiotic we use tends to have a limited useful life. So, if we are very careful and limited in our use of it, the antibiotic will have a much longer life. But as it is, we sometimes, by giving excessive amounts not only to people but to animals, a new antibiotic may only last for a few decades before it is useless. But don't they just keep coming up with new ones? To an extent.

Starting point is 00:37:56 We're not really keeping up very well with it. There are a number of multiply resistant organisms, staff and others, that now are resistant to certain strains are resistant to all of our antibiotics so if you get one of these multiply resistant diseases uh organisms there's really not much people can do for you now can we talk about uh i want to talk about radiation because that's that's a word you hear a lot about people are very concerned about radiation. We're surrounded by radiation. There's radiation from cell phones, microwaves, radio towers.

Starting point is 00:38:31 Should we be concerned? What are we concerned about? Well, that's a fascinating topic, too. Part of the problem is that the term radiation is really broad. For instance, visible light is a form of radiation. And yet we don't really fear visible light. So we have to be a little more careful about how we talk about it. So the danger from radiation depends upon the type of radiation, the intensity of the exposure, and the duration of the exposure. Some kinds of radiation are unlikely to harm you at all, including most

Starting point is 00:39:05 visible light and light that has wavelengths that are longer than visible light. But short wave visible light like ultraviolet and x-rays and gamma rays, those can be harmful and almost any kind of particle radiation can be harmful. But it depends upon the type, again, the type of radiation and how much exposure you have. Specifically, though, people are concerned about radiation from cell phones, from electric wires overhead, from radio transmitting towers. What about those? Those all fall into the category of longwave radiation. So far, there's not been any evidence that these kinds of radiation can directly cause chemical changes on any of our cells or any of the molecules in our cells. They can result in heat.

Starting point is 00:39:58 We know quite well that if you expose food to high-intensity microwaves, it'll heat. So you can cause chemical changes by overheating something. But otherwise, other than generation of heat, there doesn't seem to be any direct connection between these long wave forms of light and harm to our bodies. One thing I think people have, or think they have, a pretty good grasp of, because they experience it every second of their life, is gravity. But we don't necessarily understand it as well as we think, I think. So talk about gravity. Well, we see astronauts in the International Space Station. We see them floating around, and we say, oh, clearly there's no gravity.

Starting point is 00:40:44 On the other hand, we also know that gravity can act at a long distance because, for instance, the planets circle the sun because of gravity, and that's a lot farther away. The issue here is that at the elevation of the space station, Earth's gravity is still 90% of its strength as on the surface of the Earth. So it's not a lack of gravity, but the fact that the space station is constantly in free fall. So anything in free fall would be weightless. So imagine a jet plummeting towards the Earth and people inside floating around.

Starting point is 00:41:20 The difference with a space station, though, is that it has this huge lateral velocity, 17,000 miles an hour. And as it's falling towards the Earth, it's moving so rapidly sideways that the curved path produces an orbit around the Earth. So that even though it's constantly falling towards the Earth, it doesn't get any closer to the Earth. So, again, it's that free-falling rather than lack of gravity that results in the weightlessness. So wait, so at the elevation, where the space station is, gravity is 90% of what it is on. So if the space station were standing still, there wouldn't be a whole lot of difference. Exactly right. If the space station could somehow stand still

Starting point is 00:42:06 without falling towards the Earth, then people on the space station would experience, would be 90% of their weight as they are on the surface of the Earth. So the moon is in orbit around the Earth. So does that mean the moon is in free fall around the Earth? Yes, absolutely. Now, the farther away the object, the slower its velocity.

Starting point is 00:42:29 So the velocity of the moon in this orbit is much less than the velocity of the space station around the Earth. Another thing in science that people, I think, generally believe is in the concept of survival of the fittest, that a species, as it continues to evolve, only the fittest survive, and that's what makes the species better. But you have a different take on survival of the fittest. Yes, the problem is understanding what the word fittest actually means. To be fit, in this case,

Starting point is 00:43:02 is not about being large or strong or smart. It's simply about being able to survive current conditions. So therefore, a species or an individual might be fit because it's very good at hiding or very good at utilizing a new food source. And if those attributes are controlled by genes, then that individual can pass on those genes to the descendants. So survival of the fittest simply means having the, in this case, having the genes that helps one adapt to one's environment. But each population of that species has a slightly different environment. And each population has a different locally generated genes due to mutations. So each population within the species can evolve independently and result in multiple species.

Starting point is 00:43:55 Also, one of the consequences of this is if evolution depends upon genetic diversity, there would be no such thing as fittest if every organism in a species had the same genes. The COVID pandemic that we have all been through these last few years has been a major disruption for everyone. But as you point out, it's not that unusual historically. In one sense, it's not unusual in that pandemics spring up periodically. We can expect pandemics more in the future, and most of them tend to arise these days from organisms that cross over from animals. For instance, we get most of our flus from birds, we get most of the COVID diseases, or the coronavirus diseases

Starting point is 00:44:45 from bats, and so on. However, COVID was unusual in the sense that it's produced the highest number of annual deaths of any disease in over a century. So it really is a very deadly disease. And yet deadly is an ambiguous term here, because if we're talking about the total number of deaths as being deadly, but not the individual fatality rate. For a healthy young person who gets COVID, the odds of dying are pretty low. Therefore, COVID is deadly because of its high infection rate rather than a high fatality rate. And that's unusual? It's unusual only in the sense that we have suddenly have this new, completely new disease that has appeared,

Starting point is 00:45:34 and it has spread so much that it has jumped ahead of all of our other infectious diseases. It jumped ahead of tuberculosis. It jumped ahead of tuberculosis. It jumped ahead of AIDS. So this is unusual to find something brand new that jumps ahead of everything else, although AIDS did that, of course. So every few decades, we might expect another pandemic that suddenly becomes the most deadly disease in the world. And does it seem that we get better at fighting these things, or each one is a new fight and we have to, you know, circle the wagons and figure it out? Certain aspects are sort of repeatable. And the fact that now we are able to decode the genetics of a new microorganism so quickly, and we've got now these new techniques

Starting point is 00:46:19 for creating vaccines, it's in a sort of a brand new world now in the sense that we can respond so much more quickly than we could. For instance, when AIDS came along, it took decades to really get anywhere. And now with COVID, in a couple of years, we have made dramatic progress in controlling that disease. Lastly, talk about energy and what you think it is that people don't quite grasp about the concept of energy. Well, energy is kind of a difficult concept because it's hard to come up with something that unites all the different forms of energy. And therefore, we tend to sometimes invent other things and call those energy that don't really exist. So if you learn the different principal forms of energy, such as light energy, heat energy, chemical energy, kinetic potential, electric, nuclear energy, and waves in matter, and learn the properties of these different forms of energy, then you can

Starting point is 00:47:19 start to understand energy in its various forms. And as it turns out, one of the most interesting aspects of it is that in almost every case, the importance of energy is only apparent when that energy changes from one form to another. So for instance, we receive energy into our homes by way of electricity and natural gas, typically. But those only become important to us when that electricity is changed into some other form of energy, for instance, turns into light or turns into the mechanical energy of our devices. And likewise, the chemical energy of the natural gas is only important to us when it changes into the heat energy from burning it. And this goes on with all kinds of energy.

Starting point is 00:48:03 It turns out the significance is almost goes on with all kinds of energy. It turns out the significance is almost always connected to a change of state. Great. Well, you know, it's always fun to bust some myths and dig a little deeper and find out the truth about some of these things. And this was really educational. Philip Bouchard has been my guest. He's an educator, software engineer. He designed the computer game The Oregon Trail some years ago that has sold 65 million copies. His book is called The Stickler's Guide to Science in the Age of Misinformation. And there's a link to that book in the show notes. Thanks, Philip. Well, Mike, thank you for talking with me. It's been a pleasure.

Starting point is 00:48:49 We all know about the growling stomach. It's the reason why you don't want to go to church without eating something first. Because it always seems to happen at exactly the wrong time. So what's going on when your stomach growls? Well, first of all, it's not your stomach. It's your intestines, mostly. As air passes through, the intestines contract and expand, and that's what makes the noise you hear. When you have food moving through your system, it muffles the sound,

Starting point is 00:49:16 which is why people tend to associate a growling stomach with being hungry. But actually, you're always making that noise. You just don't hear it very much because when you've eaten, the food muffles the sound. Occasional stomach growling is completely normal. It happens to everyone. And that is something you should know.

Starting point is 00:49:38 We rely on you to help spread the word about this podcast, so please tell people you know, two, three, or four people, ten or better, and that helps us grow our audience. I'm Micah Ruthers. Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know. Welcome to the small town of Chinook, where faith runs deep and secrets run deeper. In this new thriller, religion and crime collide when a gruesome murder rocks the isolated Montana community. Everyone is quick to point their fingers at a drug-addicted teenager,

Starting point is 00:50:08 but local deputy Ruth Vogel isn't convinced. She suspects connections to a powerful religious group. Enter federal agent V.B. Loro, who has been investigating a local church for possible criminal activity. The pair form an unlikely partnership to catch the killer, unearthing secrets that leave Ruth torn between her duty to the law, her religious convictions, and her very own family. But something more sinister than murder is afoot, and someone is watching Ruth. Chinook, starring Kelly Marie Tran and Sanaa Lathan.

Starting point is 00:50:41 Listen to Chinook wherever you get your podcasts. A fantasy adventure series about a spirited young girl named Isla who time travels to the mythical land of Camelot. During her journey, Isla meets new friends, including King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, and learns valuable life lessons with every quest, sword fight, and dragon ride. Positive and uplifting stories remind us all about the importance of kindness, friendship, honesty, and positivity. Join me and an all-star cast of actors, including Liam Neeson, Emily Blunt, Kristen Bell, Chris Hemsworth, among many others, in welcoming the Search for the Silver Lining podcast to the Go Kid Go network by listening today.

Starting point is 00:51:34 Look for the Search for the Silver Lining on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Something You Should Know - How Aging Can Be Reversed & Science “Facts” That Aren’t True - SYSK Choice

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