My guest today is Dr. Alexandra Bause, a biologist who has dedicated her career to advancing health, medicine and healthier human lifespans. Dr. Bause co-founded a company called Apollo Health Ventures in 2017. She is currently a venture partner at Apollo and immersed in the exciting work going on in Apollo’s Venture Lab. 

The company is focused on assembling a team of investors to realize important scientific breakthroughs in the life sciences. Dr. Bause and Apollo Health Ventures say that biotech is at “an inflection point” and is set to become a major driver of change and economic value. 

Previously, Dr. Bause worked at the Boston Consulting Group in its healthcare practice specializing in biopharma strategy, among other priorities

She did her PhD studies at Harvard Medical School focusing on molecular mechanisms that contribute to cellular aging, and she’s also a trained pharmacist

In the episode, we talk about the present and future of therapeutics that could increase people’s spans of health over the course of their lives, the benefits of certain lifestyle practice for health, the best use of electronic wearables for these purposes, and much more.

Dr. Bause is at the forefront of developing interventions that target the aging process with the aim of ensuring that all of us can have healthier, more productive lifespan.

Show links

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Making Sense of Science features interviews with leading medical and scientific experts about the latest developments in health innovation and the big ethical and social questions they raise. The podcast is hosted by science journalist Matt Fuchs

Today’s podcast guest is Rosalind Picard, a researcher, inventor named on over 100 patents, entrepreneur, author, professor and engineer. When it comes to the science related to endowing computer software with emotional intelligence, she wrote the book. It’s published by MIT Press and called Affective Computing.

Dr. Picard is founder and director of the MIT Media Lab’s Affective Computing Research Group. Her research and engineering contributions have been recognized internationally, for example she received  the 2022 International Lombardy Prize for Computer Science Research, considered by many to be the Nobel prize in computer science.

Through her research and companies, Dr. Picard has developed wearable sensors, algorithms and systems for sensing, recognizing and responding to information about human emotion. Her products are focused on using fitness trackers to advance clinical quality treatments for a range of conditions.

Meanwhile, in just the past few years, numerous fitness tracking companies have released products with their own stress sensors and systems. You may have heard about Fitbit’s Stress Management Score, or Whoop’s Stress Monitor – these features and apps measure things like your heart rhythm and a certain type of invisible sweat to identify stress. They’re designed to raise your awareness about forms of stress like anxieties and anger, and suggest strategies like meditation to relax in real time when stress occurs.

But how well do these off-the-shelf gadgets work? There’s no one more knowledgeable and experienced than Rosalind Picard to explain the science behind these stress features, what they do exactly, how they might be able to help us, and their current shortcomings.

Dr. Picard is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, and a popular speaker who’s given over a hundred invited keynote talks and a TED talk with over 2 million views. She holds a Bachelors in Electrical Engineering from Georgia Tech, and Masters and Doctorate degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT. She lives in Newton, Massachusetts with her husband, where they’ve raised three sons.

In our conversation, we discuss stress scores on fitness trackers to improve well-being. She carefully describes the difference between commercial products that might help people become more mindful of their health and products that are FDA approved and really capable of advancing the science. We also discuss several fascinating findings and concepts discovered in Dr. Picard’s lab including the multiple arousal theory, a phenomenon you’ll want to hear about. And we talk about the complexity of stress, one reason it’s so tough to measure. For example, many forms of stress are actually good for us. Can fitness trackers tell the difference between stress that’s healthy and unhealthy?

Making Sense of Science features interviews with leading medical and scientific experts about the latest developments in health innovation and the big ethical and social questions they raise. The podcast is hosted by science journalist Matt Fuchs

In today’s podcast episode, I talk with Renee Wegrzyn,  appointed by President Biden as the first director of a federal agency created last year called the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health, or ARPA-H. It’s inspired by DARPA, the agency that develops innovations for the Defense department and has been credited with hatching world changing technologies such as ARPANET, which became the internet.

Time will tell if ARPA-H will lead to similar achievements in the realm of health. That’s what President Biden and Congress expect in return for funding ARPA-H at 2.5 billion dollars over three years. 

How will the agency figure out which projects to take on, especially with so many patient advocates for different diseases demanding moonshot funding for rapid progress. 

I talked with Dr. Wegrzyn about the opportunities and challenges, what lessons ARPA-H is borrowing from Operation Warp Speed, how she decided on the first ARPA-H project which was just announced recently, why a separate agency was needed instead of trying to reform HHS and the National Institutes of Health to be better at innovation, and how ARPA-H will make progress on disease prevention in addition to treatments for cancer, Alzheimer’s and diabetes, among many other health priorities.

Dr. Wegrzyn’s resume is filled with experience for her important role. She was a program manager at DARPA where she focused on applying gene editing and synthetic biology to the goal of improving biosecurity. For her work there, she was given the Superior Public Service Medal and, just in case that wasn’t enough ARPA experience, she also worked at another ARPA that leads advanced projects in intelligence, called I-ARPA. Before that, she was in charge of technical teams in the private sector working on gene therapies and disease diagnostics, among other areas. She has been a vice president of business development at Gingko Bioworks and headed innovation at Concentric by Gingko. Her training and education includes a PhD and undergraduate degree in applied biology from the Georgia Institute of Technology and she did her postdoc as an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow in Heidelberg, Germany.

As Dr. Wegrzyn told me, she’s “in the hot seat” - the pressure is on for ARPA-H especially after the need and potential for health innovation was spot lit by the pandemic and the unprecedented speed of vaccine development. We'll soon find out if ARPA-H can produce something in health that’s equivalent to DARPA’s creation of the internet.

Show links:

ARPA-H - https://arpa-h.gov/

Dr. Wegrzyn profile - https://arpa-h.gov/people/renee-wegrzyn/

Dr. Wegrzyn Twitter - https://twitter.com/rwegrzyn?lang=en

President Biden Announces Dr. Wegrzyn's appointment - https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/09/12/president-biden-announces-intent-to-appoint-dr-renee-wegrzyn-as-inaugural-director-of-advanced-research-projects-agency-for-health-arpa-h/

Leaps.org coverage of ARPA-H - https://leaps.org/arpa/

ARPA-H program for joints to heal themselves - https://arpa-h.gov/news/nitro/ - 

ARPA-H virtual talent search - https://arpa-h.gov/news/aco-talent-search/

Making Sense of Science features interviews with leading medical and scientific experts about the latest developments in health innovation and the big ethical and social questions they raise. The podcast is hosted by science journalist Matt Fuchs

The Friday Five covers five stories in research that you may have missed this week. There are plenty of controversies and troubling ethical issues in science – and we get into many of them in our online magazine – but this news roundup focuses on new scientific theories and progress to give you a therapeutic dose of inspiration headed into the weekend.

Here are the stories covered this week:

- The eyes are the windows to the soul - and biological aging?
- What bean genes mean for health and the planet
- This breathing practice could lower levels of tau proteins
- AI beats humans at assessing heart health
- Should you get a nature prescription?

Making Sense of Science features interviews with leading medical and scientific experts about the latest developments in health innovation and the big ethical and social questions they raise. The podcast is hosted by science journalist Matt Fuchs

The Friday Five covers five stories in research that you may have missed this week. There are plenty of controversies and troubling ethical issues in science – and we get into many of them in our online magazine – but this news roundup focuses on new scientific theories and progress to give you a therapeutic dose of inspiration headed into the weekend.

Go the web page for in this week's Friday Five, here.

This episode includes an interview with Dr. Helen Keyes, Head of the School of Psychology and Sports Science at Anglia Ruskin University.

- Attending sports events is linked to greater life satisfaction
- Identifying specific brain tumors in under 90 seconds with AI
- LSD - minus hallucinations - raises hopes for mental health 
- New research on the benefits of cold showers
- Inspire awe in your kids and reap the benefits

Making Sense of Science features interviews with leading medical and scientific experts about the latest developments in health innovation and the big ethical and social questions they raise. The podcast is hosted by science journalist Matt Fuchs

This episode is about a health metric you may not have heard of before: heart rate variability, or HRV. This refers to the small changes in the length of time between each of your heart beats.

Scientists have known about and studied HRV for a long time. In recent years, though, new monitors have come to market that can measure HRV accurately whenever you want.

Five months ago, I got interested in HRV as a more scientific approach to finding the lifestyle changes that work best for me as an individual. It's at the convergence of some important trends in health right now, such as health tech, precision health and the holistic approach in systems biology, which recognizes how interactions among different parts of the body are key to health.

But HRV is just one of many numbers worth paying attention to. For this episode of Making Sense of Science, I spoke with psychologist Dr. Leah Lagos; Dr. Jessilyn Dunn, assistant professor in biomedical engineering at Duke; and Jason Moore, the CEO of Spren and an app called Elite HRV. We talked about what HRV is, research on its benefits, how to measure it, whether it can be used to make improvements in health, and what researchers still need to learn about HRV.

*Talk to your doctor before trying anything discussed in this episode related to HRV and lifestyle changes to raise it.

Show notes

Spren - https://www.spren.com/
Elite HRV - https://elitehrv.com/
Jason Moore Twitter - https://twitter.com/jasonmooreme?lang=en
Dr. Jessilyn Dunn on Twitter - https://twitter.com/drjessilyn?lang=en
Dr. Dunn's study on HRV, flu and common cold - https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2784555
Dr. Leah Lagos - https://drleahlagos.com/
Dr. Lagos on Star Talk - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jC2Q10SonV8
Research on HRV and intermittent fasting - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33859841/
Research on HRV and Mediterranean diet - https://medicalxpress.com/news/2010-06-twin-mediterranean-style-diet-heart-function.html#:~:text=Using%20data%20from%20the%20Emory,eating%20a%20Western%2Dtype%20diet
Devices for HRV biofeedback - https://elitehrv.com/heart-variability-monitors-and-elite-hrv-compatible-monitors
Benefits of HRV biofeedback - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32385728/
HRV and cognitive performance - https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnins.2021.691988/full
HRV and emotional regulation - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36030986/
Fortune article on HRV - https://fortune.com/well/2022/12/26/heart-rate-variability-improving-your-bodys-response-to-stress/

Making Sense of Science features interviews with leading medical and scientific experts about the latest developments in health innovation and the big ethical and social questions they raise. The podcast is hosted by science journalist Matt Fuchs

The Friday Five covers five stories in research that you may have missed this week. There are plenty of controversies and troubling ethical issues in science – and we get into many of them in our online magazine – but this news roundup focuses on scientific creativity and progress to give you a therapeutic dose of inspiration headed into the weekend.

Go the web page for in this week's Friday Five, here.

It features interviews with Dr. Christopher Martens, director of the Delaware Center for Cogntiive Aging Research and professor of kinesiology and applied physiology at the University of Delaware, and Dr. Ilona Matysiak, visiting scholar at Iowa State University and associate professor of sociology at Maria Grzegorzewska University. 

- Could this supplement help prevent Alzheimer's?
- Why you should care about smart senior towns
- Here's how to reverse being drunk
- Money can make you happy - if you're this type of person
- Personalized anxiety medicine

Making Sense of Science features interviews with leading medical and scientific experts about the latest developments in health innovation and the big ethical and social questions they raise. The podcast is hosted by science journalist Matt Fuchs

The Friday Five covers five stories in research that you may have missed this week. There are plenty of controversies and troubling ethical issues in science – and we get into many of them in our online magazine – but this news roundup focuses on scientific creativity and progress to give you a therapeutic dose of inspiration headed into the weekend.

Here are the promising studies covered in this week's Friday Five, featuring interviews with Dr. David Spiegel, associate chair of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford, and Dr. Filip Swirski, professor of medicine and cardiology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

- Breathing this way cuts down on anxiety*
- Could your fasting regimen make you sick?
- This type of job makes men more virile
- 3D printed hearts could save your life
- Yet another potential benefit of metformin

* This video with Dr. Andrew Huberman of Stanford shows exactly how to do the breathing practice.

Making Sense of Science features interviews with leading medical and scientific experts about the latest developments in health innovation and the big ethical and social questions they raise. The podcast is hosted by science journalist Matt Fuchs

What causes aging? In a paper published last month, Dr. David Sinclair, Professor in the Department of Genetics at Harvard Medical School, reports that he and his co-authors have found the answer. Harnessing this knowledge, Dr. Sinclair was able to reverse this process, making mice younger, according to the study published in the journal Cell.

I talked with Dr. Sinclair about his new study for the latest episode of Making Sense of Science. He said that turning back the clock on mouse age through what’s called epigenetic reprogramming – and understanding why animals get older in the first place – are key steps toward finding therapies for healthier aging in humans. We also talked about questions that have been raised about the research by Dr. Charles Brenner, Department Chair at City of Hope National Medical Center, and Dr. James Timmons, Senior Fellow at Queens Mary University.

Show links:

Dr. Sinclair's paper, published last month in Cell.

Recent pre-print paper - not yet peer reviewed - showing that mice treated with Yamanaka factors lived 9% longer than the control group.

Dr. Sinclair's podcast.

Previous research on aging and DNA mutations, noted in a critique by Dr. Charles Brenner.

Leaps.org podcast with Dr. Brenner.

Dr. Sinclair's book, Lifespan.

Making Sense of Science features interviews with leading medical and scientific experts about the latest developments in health innovation and the big ethical and social questions they raise. The podcast is hosted by science journalist Matt Fuchs

Each afternoon, kids walk through my neighborhood, on their way home from school, and almost all of them are walking alone, staring down at their phones. It's a troubling site. This daily parade of the zombie children just can’t bode well for the future.

That’s one reason I felt like Gaia Bernstein’s new book was talking directly to me. A law professor at Seton Hall, Gaia makes a strong argument that people are so addicted to tech at this point, we need some big, system level changes to social media platforms and other addictive technologies, instead of just blaming the individual and expecting them to fix these issues.

Gaia’s book is called Unwired: Gaining Control Over Addictive Technologies. It’s fascinating and I had a chance to talk with her about it for today’s podcast. At its heart, our conversation is really about how and whether we can maintain control over our thoughts and actions, even when some powerful forces are pushing in the other direction.

We discuss the idea that, in certain situations, maybe it's not reasonable to expect that we’ll be able to enjoy personal freedom and autonomy. We also talk about how to be a good parent when it sometimes seems like our kids prefer to be raised by their iPads; so-called educational video games that actually don’t have anything to do with education; the root causes of tech addictions for people of all ages; and what kinds of changes we should be supporting.

Gaia is Seton’s Hall’s Technology, Privacy and Policy Professor of Law, as well as Co-Director of the Institute for Privacy Protection, and Co-Director of the Gibbons Institute of Law Science and Technology. She’s the founding director of the Institute for Privacy Protection. She created and spearheaded the Institute’s nationally recognized Outreach Program, which educated parents and students about technology overuse and privacy.

Professor Bernstein's scholarship has been published in leading law reviews including the law reviews of Vanderbilt, Boston College, Boston University, and U.C. Davis. Her work has been selected to the Stanford-Yale Junior Faculty Forum and received extensive media coverage. Gaia joined Seton Hall's faculty in 2004. Before that, she was a fellow at the Engelberg Center of Innovation Law & Policy and at the Information Law Institute of the New York University School of Law. She holds a J.S.D. from the New York University School of Law, an LL.M. from Harvard Law School, and a J.D. from Boston University.

Gaia’s work on this topic is groundbreaking I hope you’ll listen to the conversation and then consider pre-ordering her new book. It comes out on March 28.

Making Sense of Science features interviews with leading medical and scientific experts about the latest developments in health innovation and the big ethical and social questions they raise. The podcast is hosted by science journalist Matt Fuchs

Last Thursday, scientists at Columbia University published a new study finding that cutting down on calories could lead to longer lives. In the phase 2 trial, 220 healthy people without obesity dropped their calories significantly, and a test of their biological age showed that their rate of aging slowed by 2 to 3 percent in over a couple of years. Small though that may seem, it amounts to a decline of about 10 percent in the risk of death as people get older, according to the researchers' estimate. That's basically the same as quitting smoking.

Previous research has shown that restricting calories results in longer lives for mice, worms and flies. This research is unique because it applies those findings to people. It was published in Nature Aging.

But what did the researchers actually show? Does the new paper point to anything people should be doing to have longer, healthier lives? Spoiler alert: Maybe, but first, you'd want to consult a medical expert about it.

I had the chance to chat with someone with inside knowledge of the research -- Dr. Evan Hadley, director of the National Institute of Aging's Division of Geriatrics and Clinical Gerontology, which funded the study. Dr. Hadley describes how the research participants went about reducing their calories, as well as the risks and benefits involved. He also explains the "aging clocks" used to measure the benefits.

Making Sense of Science features interviews with leading medical and scientific experts about the latest developments in health innovation and the big ethical and social questions they raise. The podcast is hosted by science journalist Matt Fuchs

The Friday Five covers five stories in research that you may have missed this week. There are plenty of controversies and troubling ethical issues in science – and we get into many of them in our online magazine – but this news roundup focuses on scientific creativity and progress to give you a therapeutic dose of inspiration headed into the weekend.

Here are the promising studies covered in this week's Friday Five:

- Artificial DNA gives cancer the hook
- This daily practice could improve relationships
- Can social media handle the truth?
- Injecting a gel could speed up recovery
- A blood pressure medicine for a long healthy life

Making Sense of Science features interviews with leading medical and scientific experts about the latest developments in health innovation and the big ethical and social questions they raise. The podcast is hosted by science journalist Matt Fuchs

On today’s episode of Making Sense of Science, I’m honored to be joined by Dr. Paul Song, a physician, oncologist, progressive activist and biotech chief medical officer. Through his company, NKGen Biotech, Dr. Song is leveraging the power of patients’ own immune systems by supercharging the body’s natural killer cells to make new treatments for Alzheimer’s and cancer. 

Whereas other treatments for Alzheimer’s focus directly on reducing the build-up of proteins in the brain such as amyloid and tau in patients will mild cognitive impairment, NKGen is seeking to help patients that much of the rest of the medical community has written off as hopeless cases, those with late stage Alzheimer’s. And in small studies, NKGen has shown remarkable results, even improvement in the symptoms of people with these very progressed forms of Alzheimer’s, above and beyond slowing down the disease.

In the realm of cancer, Dr. Song is similarly setting his sights on another group of patients for whom treatment options are few and far between: people with solid tumors. Whereas some gradual progress has been made in treating blood cancers such as certain leukemias in past few decades, solid tumors have been even more of a challenge. But Dr. Song’s approach of using natural killer cells to treat solid tumors is promising. You may have heard of CAR-T, which uses genetic engineering to introduce cells into the body that have a particular function to help treat a disease. NKGen focuses on other means to enhance the 40 plus receptors of natural killer cells, making them more receptive and sensitive to picking out cancer cells. 

Dr. Song is the grandson of the late Sang Don Kim, who was the first popularly elected Mayor of Seoul, South Korea. Dr. Song serves as the co-chair for a Campaign for a Healthy California. In 2013, he was named and served as the very first visiting fellow on healthcare policy in the California Department of Insurance. In addition, Dr. Song serves on the executive board of Physicians for a National Health Program California, People for the American Way, Progressive Democrats of America, Healthcare NOW, The Eisner Pediatric and Women's Center, and the Asian Pacific American Institute for Congressional Studies. Dr. Song graduated with honors from the University of Chicago, received his M.D. from George Washington University and completed his residency in radiation oncology at the University of Chicago. He sees Medicaid and uninsured patients at Dignity California Hospital.

With Dr. Song’s leadership, NKGen’s work on natural killer cells represents cutting-edge science that’s resulting in key findings about two of humanity’s most intractable diseases – contributing important pieces of the puzzle for treating them.

Making Sense of Science features interviews with leading medical and scientific experts about the latest developments in health innovation and the big ethical and social questions they raise. The podcast is hosted by science journalist Matt Fuchs

The Friday Five covers five stories in research that you may have missed this week. There are plenty of controversies and troubling ethical issues in science – and we get into many of them in our online magazine – but this news roundup focuses on scientific creativity and progress to give you a therapeutic dose of inspiration headed into the weekend.

Here are the promising studies covered in this week's Friday Five:

- Kids stressing you out? They could be protecting your health.
- A new device unlocks the heart's secrets
- Super-ager gene transplants
- Surgeons could 3D print your organs before operations
- A skull cap looks into the brain like an fMRI

Making Sense of Science features interviews with leading medical and scientific experts about the latest developments in health innovation and the big ethical and social questions they raise. The podcast is hosted by science journalist Matt Fuchs

The Friday Five covers five stories in research that you may have missed this week. There are plenty of controversies and troubling ethical issues in science – and we get into many of them in our online magazine – but this news roundup focuses on scientific creativity and progress to give you a therapeutic dose of inspiration headed into the weekend.

Here are the promising studies covered in this week's Friday Five:

- Reprogram cells to a younger state
- Pick up this sport for brain health
- Do all mental illnesses have the same underlying cause?
- New test could diagnose autism in newborns
- Scientists 3D print an ear and attach it to woman

Making Sense of Science features interviews with leading medical and scientific experts about the latest developments in health innovation and the big ethical and social questions they raise. The podcast is hosted by science journalist Matt Fuchs

What makes for a good life? Such a simple question, yet we don't have great answers. Most of us try to figure it out as we go along, and many end up feeling like they never got to the bottom of it.

Shouldn't something so important be approached with more scientific rigor? In 1938, Harvard researchers began a study to fill this gap. Since then, they’ve followed hundreds of people over the course of their lives, hoping to identify which factors are key to long-term satisfaction.

Eighty-five years later, the Harvard Study of Adult Development is still going. And today, its directors, the psychiatrists Bob Waldinger and Marc Shulz, have published a book that pulls together the study’s most important findings. It’s called The Good Life: Lessons from the World’s Longest Scientific Study of Happiness.

In this podcast episode, I talked with Dr. Waldinger about life lessons that we can mine from the Harvard study and his new book.

Dr. Waldinger is Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, in addition to being Director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development. He got his M.D. from Harvard Medical School and has published numerous scientific papers he’s a practicing psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, he teaches Harvard medical students, and since that is clearly not enough to keep him busy, he’s also a Zen priest.

His book is a must-read if you’re looking for scientific evidence on how to design your life for more satisfaction so someday in the future you can look back on it without regret, and this episode was an amazing conversation in which Dr. Waldinger breaks down many of the cliches about the good life… making his advice real and tangible. We also get into what he calls “side-by-side” relationships, personality traits for the good life, and the downsides of being too strict about work-life balance.

Show links

- Bob Waldinger
- Waldinger's book, The Good Life: Lessons from the World's Longest Scientific Study of Happiness
- The Harvard Study of Adult Development
- Waldinger's Ted Talk
- Gallup report finding that people with good friends at work have higher engagement with their jobs
- The link between relationships and well-being
- Those with social connections live longer

Making Sense of Science features interviews with leading medical and scientific experts about the latest developments in health innovation and the big ethical and social questions they raise. The podcast is hosted by science journalist Matt Fuchs

The Friday Five covers five stories in research that you may have missed this week. There are plenty of controversies and troubling ethical issues in science – and we get into many of them in our online magazine – but this news roundup focuses on scientific creativity and progress to give you a therapeutic dose of inspiration headed into the weekend.

Here are the promising studies covered in this week's Friday Five:

- A blood test to detect Alzheimer's
- Vets take their psychologist anywhere
- Can intermittent fasting affect circadian rhythms?
- A new year's resolution for living longer
- 3-D printed eyes?

Making Sense of Science features interviews with leading medical and scientific experts about the latest developments in health innovation and the big ethical and social questions they raise. The podcast is hosted by science journalist Matt Fuchs

Meet Charles Brenner, the Longevity Skeptic. Brenner, a leading biochemist at City of Hope National Medical Center in L.A., has been attending the largest longevity conferences with one main purpose: to point out that some of the other speakers are full of it.

Brenner is "throwing cold water" on several scientists in the field of aging, accusing them of hyping various fountains of youth, despite limited evidence for these therapies.

In this podcast episode, Brenner sat down with Leaps.org to discuss his groundbreaking work on metabolism and his efforts to counter what he considers to be bad science.

In addition to bringing his candor to conferences, Brenner is applying it in academic journals, publishing a paper in September, "A Science-Based Review of the World's Best-Selling Book on Aging," in which he pans the author of this bestseller, David Sinclair, a Harvard biologist, for talking up the potential for humans to live far past 100. These aspirations may sound nice, but they're not backed by science, Brenner says. He's had high-profile debates online with Sinclair and Aubrey de Grey, a prominent biomedical gerontologist.

Meanwhile, in his own lab work, Brenner is credited with identifying a vitamin precursor called NR that seems to enable repair of cellular damage that happens as we get older - a major discovery that he's helped turn into a supplement, commercialized with a company called ChromaDex.

Whether it's possible to extend human lifespan is a pressing question as investments in longevity startups are projected to increase from $40 billion to $600 billion over the next three years. 

Brenner is an intriguing figure in these debates. Although he’s been introduced in public appearances as a longevity skeptic, he calls himself an optimist.

Links:
Charles Brenner, City of Hope

Charles Brenner Lab

Charles Brenner on Twitter

Charles Brenner's debate with Aubrey de Grey

Brenner's paper, "A Science-Based Review of the World's Best-Selling Book on Aging"

Making Sense of Science features interviews with leading medical and scientific experts about the latest developments in health innovation and the big ethical and social questions they raise. The podcast is hosted by science journalist Matt Fuchs

The Friday Five covers five stories in research that you may have missed this week. There are plenty of controversies and troubling ethical issues in science – and we get into many of them in our online magazine – but this news roundup focuses on scientific creativity and progress to give you a therapeutic dose of inspiration headed into the weekend.

Here are the promising studies covered in this week's Friday Five:

- An mRNA vaccine that works against cancer
- These cameras inside the body have an unusual source of power
- A new theory for what causes aging
- Can bacteria make you excited to work out?
- Why women get Alzheimer's more often than men

Making Sense of Science features interviews with leading medical and scientific experts about the latest developments in health innovation and the big ethical and social questions they raise. The podcast is hosted by science journalist Matt Fuchs

The Friday Five covers five stories in research that you may have missed this week. There are plenty of controversies and troubling ethical issues in science – and we get into many of them in our online magazine – but this news roundup focuses on scientific creativity and progress to give you a therapeutic dose of inspiration headed into the weekend.

Here are the promising studies covered in this week's Friday Five:

- Catching cancer early could depend on sugar   
- How to boost memory in a flash
- This is your brain on books
- A tiny sandwich cake could help the heart
- Meet the top banana in the fight vs. Covid variants

Making Sense of Science features interviews with leading medical and scientific experts about the latest developments in health innovation and the big ethical and social questions they raise. The podcast is hosted by science journalist Matt Fuchs

The Friday Five covers five stories in research that you may have missed this week. There are plenty of controversies and troubling ethical issues in science – and we get into many of them in our online magazine – but this news roundup focuses on scientific creativity and progress to give you a therapeutic dose of inspiration headed into the weekend.

Here are the promising studies covered in this week's Friday Five:

- Research on a "smart" bandage for wounds   
- A breakthrough in fighting inflammation
- The pros and cons of a new drug for Alzheimer's
- Benefits of the Mediterranean diet - with a twist
- How to recycle a plastic that was un-recyclable

Making Sense of Science features interviews with leading medical and scientific experts about the latest developments in health innovation and the big ethical and social questions they raise. The podcast is hosted by science journalist Matt Fuchs

The Friday Five covers five stories in research that you may have missed this week. There are plenty of controversies and troubling ethical issues in science – and we get into many of them in our online magazine – but this news roundup focuses on scientific creativity and progress to give you a therapeutic dose of inspiration headed into the weekend.

Here are the promising studies covered in this week's Friday Five:

- How to improve your working memory   
- The plain old solution to stress?
- Progress on a deadly cancer for first time since 1995*
- Rise of the robot surgeon
- Tomato brain power

And in an honorable mention this week, new research on the gut connection to better brain health after strokes.

* The methodology for this study has come under scrutiny here.

Making Sense of Science features interviews with leading medical and scientific experts about the latest developments in health innovation and the big ethical and social questions they raise. The podcast is hosted by science journalist Matt Fuchs

The Friday Five covers five stories in research that you may have missed this week. There are plenty of controversies and troubling ethical issues in science – and we get into many of them in our online magazine – but this news roundup focuses on scientific creativity and progress to give you a therapeutic dose of inspiration headed into the weekend.

Here are the promising studies covered in this week's Friday Five:

- How to exercise for cancer prevention
- A device that brings relief to back pain
- Ingredients for reducing Alzheimer's risk
- Is the world's oldest disease the fountain of youth?
- Scared of crossing bridges? Your phone can help

Making Sense of Science features interviews with leading medical and scientific experts about the latest developments in health innovation and the big ethical and social questions they raise. The podcast is hosted by science journalist Matt Fuchs

A new competition by the XPRIZE Foundation is offering $101 million to researchers if they discover therapies that allow seniors to perform like when they were 10 to 20 years younger. 

For today’s episode, I talked with Dr. Peter Diamandis, XPRIZE’s founder and executive chairman. Under Peter’s leadership, XPRIZE has launched 27 previous competitions with over $300 million in prize purses. 

The lastest contest aims to enhance healthspan, or the period of life when older people can play with their grandkids without any restriction, disability or disease. The biggest prize for this competition, called XPRIZE Healthspan, is $81 million for improvements that restore cognition, muscle and immunity by two decades. Sponsors include Hevolution Foundation, a nonprofit, and Chip Wilson, the founder of Lululemon and the nonprofit SOLVE FSHD.

In our conversation, Peter explains why exponential technologies make the current era the most exciting time in human history. We discuss the best mental outlook for becoming truly innovative; how to overcome the negativity bias in ourselves and in mainstream media; how Peter has shifted his own mindset to become more positive; his personal recommendations for healthy lifestyle; the future of education; and the importance of democratizing tech and innovation, among many other topics.

In addition to Peter’s role with XPRIZE, he's the Executive Founder of Singularity University. In 2014, Fortune named him one of the “World’s 50 Greatest Leaders.” He has started over 25 companies in health-tech, space, venture capital and education. Peter is the author of multiple New York Times bestselling books, linked below, and holds degrees in molecular genetics and aerospace engineering from MIT, as well as an M.D. from Harvard University.

Show links

New XPRIZE Healthspan

Peter Diamandis bio 

27 XPRIZE competitions and counting

Peter Diamandis books 

Singularity University

Life Force by Peter Diamandis and Tony Robbins

Peter Diamandis Twitter

Longevity Insider newsletter – AI identifies the news

Peter Diamandis Longevity Handbook

Making Sense of Science features interviews with leading medical and scientific experts about the latest developments in health innovation and the big ethical and social questions they raise. The podcast is hosted by science journalist Matt Fuchs

The Friday Five covers five stories in research that you may have missed this week. There are plenty of controversies and troubling ethical issues in science – and we get into many of them in our online magazine – but this news roundup focuses on scientific creativity and progress to give you a therapeutic dose of inspiration headed into the weekend.

Here are the promising studies covered in this week's Friday Five:

- Kids treated for diseases before they're born
- How to lift weights in half the time
- Electric shocks help people regain the ability to walk
- Meditation just as good as medication?
- These foods could pump up your motivation

Making Sense of Science features interviews with leading medical and scientific experts about the latest developments in health innovation and the big ethical and social questions they raise. The podcast is hosted by science journalist Matt Fuchs

The Friday Five covers important stories in health and science research that you may have missed - usually over the previous week but, today, we're doing a lookback on breakthrough research over the month of October. There are plenty of controversies and troubling ethical issues in science – and we get into many of them in our online magazine – but this news roundup focuses on scientific creativity and progress to give you a therapeutic dose of inspiration headed into the weekend.

This Friday Five episode covers the following studies published and announced over the past month:

- New boots could have you moving like Iron Man
- The problem with bedtime munching
- The perfect recipe for tiny brains
- The best sports for kids to avoid lifelong health risks
- Can virtual reality reduce pain?

Making Sense of Science features interviews with leading medical and scientific experts about the latest developments in health innovation and the big ethical and social questions they raise. The podcast is hosted by science journalist Matt Fuchs

The Friday Five covers five stories in research that you may have missed this week. There are plenty of controversies and troubling ethical issues in science – and we get into many of them in our online magazine – but this news roundup focuses on scientific creativity and progress to give you a therapeutic dose of inspiration headed into the weekend.

Here are the promising studies covered in this week's Friday Five:

- The right facial expression for your mental health
- Can virtual reality reduce pain?
- Lab made blood vessels
- Gene editing muscles to lower blood sugar
- A magic ingredient coming from exhaust vents

Making Sense of Science features interviews with leading medical and scientific experts about the latest developments in health innovation and the big ethical and social questions they raise. The podcast is hosted by science journalist Matt Fuchs

The Friday Five covers five stories in research that you may have missed this week. There are plenty of controversies and troubling ethical issues in science – and we get into many of them in our online magazine – but this news roundup focuses on scientific creativity and progress to give you a therapeutic dose of inspiration headed into the weekend.

Here are the promising studies covered in this week's Friday Five:

- A diabetes drug finds a new purpose
- No pain - or mucus - no gain
- How to make cities of the future less noisy
- A new reason for mysterious stillbirths
- Making old mice younger with EVs

And an honorable mention this week: How treatments for depression can change the structure of the brain

Making Sense of Science features interviews with leading medical and scientific experts about the latest developments in health innovation and the big ethical and social questions they raise. The podcast is hosted by science journalist Matt Fuchs

The Friday Five covers five stories in research that you may have missed this week. There are plenty of controversies and troubling ethical issues in science – and we get into many of them in our online magazine – but this news roundup focuses on scientific creativity and progress to give you a therapeutic dose of inspiration headed into the weekend.

Here are the promising studies covered in this week's Friday Five:

- A new target for drugs to treat dementia
- Using math to stay a step ahead of aneurysms
- Putting human cells into rat brains
- Hunting a deadly superbug
- The best sports for kids to avoid lifelong health risks

And an honorable mention this week: The benefits of intermittent fasting when it comes to sleeping better

Making Sense of Science features interviews with leading medical and scientific experts about the latest developments in health innovation and the big ethical and social questions they raise. The podcast is hosted by science journalist Matt Fuchs

On today’s podcast episode, I had a chance to speak with Shai Efrati, a physician and professor in the schools of medicine and neuroscience at Tel Aviv University. Efrati also directs the Sagol Center for Hyperbaric Medicine and Research, and our conversation in this episode focuses on the potential health benefits of hyperbaric oxygen therapy.

Efrati's studies point to a connection between the use of hyperbaric chambers and improvements for a range of health problems such as Long Covid, strokes and traumatic brain injuries. Plus, Efrati has an early line of research suggesting that hyperbaric oxygen therapy could help protect against cognitive decline in healthy people and perhaps even slow down the overall aging process.

We talk about what’s going in on the body during hyperbaric oxygen therapy that could possibly lead to transformative benefits for patients, some of whom had searched for treatments previously and come up empty. We also discuss exactly where Efrati is with this line of inquiry, both what his studies have shown and the great deal of additional research that’s needed before the healthcare system can and should fully embrace hyperbaric oxygen therapy.

Efrati and I talk about why you can’t just go on Amazon and buy something that says hyperbaric – the only way it can have a positive effect is if you access the real version of the chamber and use it correctly under the supervision of a knowledgeable physician.

I also ask Efrati what we know about the short- and long-term risks for those who follow the research-based protocol on a regular basis. And what about accessibility to people without a lot of extra cash to spend on their health? Efrati is already rolling out this therapy at a small number of specialized clinics in places like the Villages retirement community in Florida.

Making Sense of Science features interviews with leading medical and scientific experts about the latest developments in health innovation and the big ethical and social questions they raise. The podcast is hosted by science journalist Matt Fuchs

The Friday Five covers five stories in research that you may have missed this week. There are plenty of controversies and troubling ethical issues in science – and we get into many of them in our online magazine – but this news roundup focuses on scientific creativity and progress to give you a therapeutic dose of inspiration headed into the weekend.

Here are the promising studies covered in this week's Friday Five:

- The problem with bedtime munching
- Scientists use AI to predict how stays in hospitals will go
- How to armor the shields of our livers against cancer
- One big step to save the world: turn one kind of plastic into another
- The perfect recipe for tiny brains

And an honorable mention this week: Bigger is better when it comes to super neurons in super agers 

Making Sense of Science features interviews with leading medical and scientific experts about the latest developments in health innovation and the big ethical and social questions they raise. The podcast is hosted by science journalist Matt Fuchs

The Friday Five covers important stories in health and science research that you may have missed - usually over the previous week but, today, we're doing a lookback on breakthrough research over the month of September. There are plenty of controversies and troubling ethical issues in science – and we get into many of them in our online magazine – but this news roundup focuses on scientific creativity and progress to give you a therapeutic dose of inspiration headed into the weekend.

This Friday Five episode covers the following studies published and announced over the past month:

- A new drug is shown to slow the rate of Alzheimer's disease
- The need for speed if you want to reduce your risk of dementia
- How to refreeze the north and south poles
- Ancient wisdom about Neti pots could pay off for Covid
- Two women, one man and a baby

Making Sense of Science features interviews with leading medical and scientific experts about the latest developments in health innovation and the big ethical and social questions they raise. The podcast is hosted by science journalist Matt Fuchs

The Friday Five covers five stories in research that you may have missed this week. There are plenty of controversies and troubling ethical issues in science – and we get into many of them in our online magazine – but this news roundup focuses on scientific creativity and progress to give you a therapeutic dose of inspiration headed into the weekend.

Here are the promising studies covered in this week's Friday Five:

- A new mask can detect Covid and send an alert to your phone
- More promising research for a breakthrough drug to treat schizophrenia
- AI tool can create new proteins
- Connections between an unhealthy gut and breast cancer
- Progress on the longevity drug, rapamycin

And an honorable mention this week: Certain exercises may benefit some types of memory more than others

Making Sense of Science features interviews with leading medical and scientific experts about the latest developments in health innovation and the big ethical and social questions they raise. The podcast is hosted by science journalist Matt Fuchs

The Friday Five covers five stories in research that you may have missed this week. There are plenty of controversies and troubling ethical issues in science – and we get into many of them in our online magazine – but this news roundup focuses on scientific creativity and progress to give you a therapeutic dose of inspiration headed into the weekend.

Here are the promising studies covered in this week's Friday Five:

- A pill to prevent lung cancer?
- Ancient wisdom about Neti pots could pay off for Covid
- Breakthrough for precision medicine and obesity
- How to refreeze the north and south poles
- The connection between taking multivitamin pills and brain health

Making Sense of Science features interviews with leading medical and scientific experts about the latest developments in health innovation and the big ethical and social questions they raise. The podcast is hosted by science journalist Matt Fuchs

A promising development in science in recent years has been the advance of technologies that take something natural and use technology to optimize it. This episode features a fascinating example: using tech to optimize psychedelic mushrooms.

These mushrooms have been used for religious, spiritual and medicinal purposes for thousands of years but only in the past several decades have scientists brought psychedelics into the lab to enhance them and maximize their therapeutic value.

Today’s podcast guest, Doug Drysdale, is doing important work to lead this effort. Drysdale is the CEO of a company called Cybin that has figured out how to make psilocybin more potent, so it can be administered in smaller doses without side effects.

Cybin isn’t Drysdale’s first go around at this. He has over 30 years of experience in the healthcare sector. During this time he’s raised around $4 billion of both public and private capital, and has been named Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year. Before Cybin, he was the founding CEO of a pharmaceutical company called Alvogen, leading it from inception to around $500 million in revenues, across 35 countries. Drysdale has also been the head of mergers and acquisitions at Actavis Group, leading 15 corporate acquisitions across three continents.

In this episode, Drysdale walks us through the promising research of his current company, Cybin, and the different therapies he’s developing for anxiety and depression based not just on psilocybin but another psychedelic compound found in plants called DMT. He explains how they seem to have such powerful effects on the brain, as well as the potential for psychedelics to eventually support other use cases, including helping us strive toward higher levels of well-being. He goes on to discuss his views on mindfulness and lifestyle factors - such as optimal nutrition - that could help bring out the best in psychedelics.

Show links:

Doug Drysdale full bio
Doug Drysdale twitter
Cybin website
Cybin development pipeline
Cybin's promising phase 2 research on depression
Johns Hopkins psychedelics research and psilocybin research
Mets owner Steve Cohen invests in psychedelic therapies

Making Sense of Science features interviews with leading medical and scientific experts about the latest developments in health innovation and the big ethical and social questions they raise. The podcast is hosted by science journalist Matt Fuchs

The Friday Five covers five stories in research that you may have missed this week. There are plenty of controversies and troubling ethical issues in science – and we get into many of them in our online magazine – but this news roundup focuses on scientific creativity and progress to give you a therapeutic dose of inspiration headed into the weekend.

Here are the promising studies covered in this week's Friday Five:

- The new stars of brain cancer research
- Scans inside the body can predict how patients will do after surgery
- Improving cognition in people with Down's Syndrome
- The need for speed if you want to reduce your risk of dementia
- Two women, one man and a baby

An honorable mention for this week's Friday Five: a breakthrough in understanding the Greek goddess of motherhood

Making Sense of Science features interviews with leading medical and scientific experts about the latest developments in health innovation and the big ethical and social questions they raise. The podcast is hosted by science journalist Matt Fuchs

The Friday Five covers five stories in research that you may have missed this week. There are plenty of controversies and troubling ethical issues in science – and we get into many of them in our online magazine – but this news roundup focuses on scientific creativity and progress to give you a therapeutic dose of inspiration headed into the weekend.

Here are the promising studies covered in this week's Friday Five:

- A new "polypill" regimen for prevent second heart attacks
- The best kind of plant for sucking toxins out of the air
- Diamonds, explosions and invisible medicine
- How to brew up a cancer drug in the lab
- AI knows if you have Parkinson's before doctors do

The honorable mention for this week's Friday Five: blue light could be having a much bigger effect than we thought.

Making Sense of Science features interviews with leading medical and scientific experts about the latest developments in health innovation and the big ethical and social questions they raise. The podcast is hosted by science journalist Matt Fuchs

My guest today for the Making Sense of Science podcast is Camila dos Santos, associate professor at Cold Spring Harbor Lab, who is a leading researcher of the inner lives of human mammary glands, more commonly known as breasts. These organs are unlike any other because throughout life they undergo numerous changes, first in puberty, then during pregnancies and lactation periods, and finally at the end of the cycle, when babies are weaned. A complex interplay of hormones governs these processes, in some cases increasing the risk of breast cancer and sometimes lowering it. Witnessing the molecular mechanics behind these processes in humans is not possible, so instead Dos Santos studies organoids—the clumps of breast cells donated by patients who undergo breast reduction surgeries or biopsies.

​Show notes:

2:52 In response to hormones that arise during puberty, the breast cells grow and become more specialized, preparing the tissue for making milk.

7:53 How do breast cells know when to produce milk? It’s all governed by chemical messaging in the body. When the baby is born, the brain will release the hormone called oxytocin, which will make the breast cells contract and release the milk.

12:40 Breast resident immune cells are including T-cells and B-cells, but because they live inside the breast tissue their functions differ from the immune cells in other parts of the body,

17:00 With organoids—dimensional clumps of cells that are cultured in a dish—it is possible to visualize and study how these cells produce milk.

21:50 Women who are pregnant later in life are more likely to require medical intervention to breastfeed. Scientists are trying to understand the fundamental reasons why it happens.

26:10 Breast cancer has many risks factors. Generic mutations play a big role. All of us have the BRCA genes, but it is the alternation in the DNA sequence of the BRCA gene that can increase the predisposition to breast cancer. Aging and menopause are the risk factors for breast cancer, and so are pregnancies.

29:22 Women that are pregnant before the age of 20 to 25, have a decreased risk of breast cancer. And the hypothesis here is that during pregnancy breast cells more specialized, as specialized cells, they have a limited lifespan. It's more likely that they die before they turn into cancer.

33:08 Organoids are giving scientists an opportunity to practice personalized medicine. Scientists can test drugs on organoids taken from a patient to identify the most efficient treatment protocol. 

​Links:

Camila dos Santos’s Lab Page.

Making Sense of Science features interviews with leading medical and scientific experts about the latest developments in health innovation and the big ethical and social questions they raise. The podcast is hosted by science journalist Matt Fuchs

The Friday Five covers five stories in research that you may have missed this week. There are plenty of controversies and troubling ethical issues in science – and we get into many of them in our online magazine – but this news roundup focuses on scientific creativity and progress to give you a therapeutic dose of inspiration headed into the weekend.

Here are the promising studies covered in this week's Friday Five:

- Not a fan of breathing in micro plastics? New robot noses could help
- You don't need a near-death experience to get the benefits
- How to tell the difference between good and bad inflammation
- Brain shocks for better memory - don't try this at home (yet)!
- A new way to know if your bum back is getting better

The honorable mention for this week's Friday Five: One activity can increase your longevity even without good genes for living longer.

Making Sense of Science features interviews with leading medical and scientific experts about the latest developments in health innovation and the big ethical and social questions they raise. The podcast is hosted by science journalist Matt Fuchs

The Friday Five covers five stories in health research that you may have missed this week. There are plenty of controversies and troubling ethical issues in science – and we get into many of them in our online magazine – but this news roundup focuses on scientific creativity and progress to give you a therapeutic dose of inspiration headed into the weekend.

Here are the promising studies covered in this week's Friday Five:

- Using graphene to repair shoulders
- Testing for PTSD with saliva
- Cancer detection with a microchip
- Best posture for pill taking
- Resilient food for climate change

And an honorable mention goes to research on a new way to induce healthy fat.

Making Sense of Science features interviews with leading medical and scientific experts about the latest developments in health innovation and the big ethical and social questions they raise. The podcast is hosted by science journalist Matt Fuchs

If you’re like me, you may have a case of email apnea, where you stop taking restful breaths when you open a work email. Or maybe you’re in the habit of shining blue light into your eyes long after sunset through your phone. Many of us are doing all kinds of things throughout the day that put us in a constant state of fight or flight arousal, with long-term impacts on health, productivity and happiness.

My guest for today’s episode is Sara Mednick, author of The Power of the Downstate, a book about the art and science of rest and relaxation – why it’s so important, the best ways to go about getting more of it, and the time of day when our bodies are biologically suited to get the most benefits from it. As a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of California, Irvine, Mednick has a great scientific background on this topic. Read her bio here.

Show notes

3:10 – The definition of “upstates” and “downstates”                              

5:50 – The power of 6 slow, deep breaths per minute to balance the nervous system

9:05 – Watching out for mouth breathing and email apnea

13:30 – Different ways of breathing for different goals

16:35 – Body rhythms – what is heart rate variability and why is it so important?

21:05 – Are you naturally a morning or night person? Nature vs nurture  

27:10 – The perfect storm that gets in the way of following our circadian rhythms

29:15 – The evolution of our pre-bedtime downstates – why it's important to check in with your cave mates 

30:10 – The culture shift needed for more people to follow their circadian rhythms and improve their health

35:10 – Employers and communities can build downstates into daily work and life

38:15 – Choosing how we react to the world 

41:00 – Being smarter about peak performance 

45:09 – The science of pacing yourself for long-term productivity

49:42 – The science of light exposure for circadian rhythms 

52:20 – Where to learn more about Sara Mednick’s research and writing

Links:

Sara Mednick’s website https://www.saramednick.com/  and her Twitter
Mednick’s recent book - The Power of the Downstate
Mednick’s book on the benefits of napping - Take a Nap! Change Your Life
The blue light blocking glasses recommended in Mednick’s book https://www.amazon.com/dp/B019C3O2UE?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details
An app for measuring heart rate variability - Elite HRV app  https://elitehrv.com/
Thorne take-home

Making Sense of Science features interviews with leading medical and scientific experts about the latest developments in health innovation and the big ethical and social questions they raise. The podcast is hosted by science journalist Matt Fuchs

The Friday Five covers five stories in health research that you may have missed this week. There are plenty of controversies and troubling ethical issues in science – and we get into many of them in our online magazine – but this news roundup focuses on scientific creativity and progress to give you a therapeutic dose of inspiration headed into the weekend.

Covered in this week's Friday Five:
- Sex differences in cancer
- Promising research on a vaccine for Lyme disease
- Using a super material for brain-like devices
- Measuring your immunity to Covid
- Reducing risk of dementia with leisure activities

Making Sense of Science features interviews with leading medical and scientific experts about the latest developments in health innovation and the big ethical and social questions they raise. The podcast is hosted by science journalist Matt Fuchs

The Friday Five covers five stories in health research over the previous week that you may have missed. There are plenty of controversies and troubling ethical issues in science – and we get into many of them in our online magazine – but this news roundup focuses on scientific creativity and progress to give you a therapeutic dose of inspiration headed into the weekend.

Covered in this week's Friday Five:
- A new blood test for cancer
- Patch of bacteria uses your sweat to power electronic devices
- Researchers revive organs of dead pigs
- Phone apps detect cancer-causing chemicals in foods
- Stem cells generate "synthetic placentas" in mice

Plus, an honorable mention for early research involving vitamin K and Alzheimer's

Making Sense of Science features interviews with leading medical and scientific experts about the latest developments in health innovation and the big ethical and social questions they raise. The podcast is hosted by science journalist Matt Fuchs

The Friday Five is a new series in which Leaps.org covers five breakthroughs in research over the previous week that you may have missed. There are plenty of controversies and ethical issues in science – and we get into many of them in our online magazine – but there’s also plenty to be excited about, and this news roundup is focused on inspiring scientific work to give you some momentum headed into the weekend.

Covered in this week's Friday Five:
- Puffer fish chemical for treating chronic pain
- Sleep study on the health benefits of waking up multiples times per night
- Best exercise routines for reducing the risk of mortality
- AI breakthrough in mapping protein structures with DeepMind
- Ultrasound stickers to see inside your body 

Making Sense of Science features interviews with leading medical and scientific experts about the latest developments in health innovation and the big ethical and social questions they raise. The podcast is hosted by science journalist Matt Fuchs

Over the last few decades, perhaps no one has impacted healthy lifestyles more than Deepak Chopra. While some of his recommendations are criticized, Chopra has helped bring meditation, yoga and other practices for well-being into the mainstream, in ways that benefit the health of vast numbers of people every day.

His work has led many people, including some scientists and doctors, to accept new ways of thinking about alternative medicine, the power of mind over body, and the malleability of the aging process. 

It's been said that Chopra’s impact is such that our culture no longer recognizes him as a human being but as a pervasive symbol of new-agey personal health and spiritual growth. Last week, I had a chance to confirm that Chopra is, in fact, a human being – and deserving of his icon status – when I talked with him for the podcast. Showing no signs of slowing down at age 76, he described his prolific work, including two popular books in the past year and a range of technologies he’s developing, including his meditation app, meditation pods for the workplace, and a chatbot for mental health called Piwi.

Take a listen and get inspired to do some meditation and deep thinking on the future of health. As Chopra told me, “If you don’t have time to meditate once per day, you probably need to meditate twice per day.”

Highlights:

2:10: Chopra talks about meditation broadly and meditation pods, including the ones made by OpenSeed for meditation in the workplace.
6:10: The drawbacks of quick fixes like drugs for mental health.
10:30: The benefits of group meditation versus individual meditation.
14:35: What is a "metahuman" and how to become one.
19:40: The difference between the conditioned mind and the mind that's infinitely creative.
22:48: How Chopra's views of free will differ from the views of many neuroscientists.
28:04: Thinking Fast and Slow, and the role of intuition.
31:20: Athletic and creative geniuses.
32:43: The nature of fundamental truth.
34:00: Meditation for kids.
37:12: Never alone.Love and how AI chatbots can support mental health.
42:30: Extending lifespan, gene editing and lifestyle.
46:05: Chopra's mentor in living a long good life (and my mentor).
47:45: The power of yoga.

Links:

- OpenSeed meditation pods for people to meditate at work (Chopra is an advisor to OpenSeed).
- Chopra's book from 2021, Metahuman: Unleash Your Infinite Potential
- Chopra's book from 2022, Abundance: The Inner Path to Wealth
- NeverAlone.Love, Chopra's collaboration of businesses, policy makers, mental health professionals and others to raise awareness about mental health, advance scientific research and "create a global technology platform to democratize access to resources."
- The Piwi chatbot for mental health.
- The Chopra Meditation & Well-Being App for

Making Sense of Science features interviews with leading medical and scientific experts about the latest developments in health innovation and the big ethical and social questions they raise. The podcast is hosted by science journalist Matt Fuchs

You’ve probably heard about intermittent fasting, where you don’t eat for about 16 hours each day and limit the window where you’re taking in food to the remaining 8 hours.

But there’s another type of fasting, called fasting-mimicking diet, with studies pointing to important benefits for health and longevity. For today’s episode, I chatted with Dr. Valter Longo, a biogerontologist at the University of Southern California about all kinds of fasting, and particularly the fasting-mimicking diet, and strategies for making these approaches especially beneficial while minimizing really bad hunger as much as possible.

If you’ve ever spent more than a few minutes looking into fasting, you’ve almost certainly come upon the name Valter Longo. Dr. Longo is the author of the bestselling book, The Longevity Diet, and he is the best known researcher of how to do a fasting-mimicking diet, as well as researching the benefits.

A quick primer is helpful background for listening to this episode: with intermittent fasting, your body might begin to switch up its fuel type. Your body’s usually running on carbs you get from food, which gets turned into glucose, but without food, your liver starts making something called ketones, which are these molecules that are more efficient than glucose and good for the body in various other ways.

But in addition to intermittent fasting, there’s an alternative that could offer more benefits to your health and boost your longevity. This is the fasting-mimicking diet, the one researched by Dr. Longo, where you go for several days eating only the types of food that, in a way, keep themselves secret from your body. So at the level of your cells, the body still thinks that it’s fasting. This is the best of both worlds – you’re not completely starving because you do get to have some food, and you’re getting some of the amazing benefits that come with letting a fast run longer than you’d have with intermittent fasting.

This episode really explores the science of fasting. Dr. Longo talks about his extensive research on why this might be one of the best things you can do for health. He’s the director of the Longevity Institute in USC’s Leonard Davis School of Gerontology, and the director of the Longevity and Cancer program at the IFOM Institute of Molecular Oncology in Milan. In addition, Dr. Longo is the founder and president of the Create Cures Foundation in L.A., which focuses on nutrition for the prevention and treatment of major chronic illnesses. He authored the bestelling book, The Longevity Diet. v2 In 2016, he received the Glenn Award for Research on Aging, which was based on the discovery of both genes and dietary interventions able to regulate aging and prevent diseases, among many other awards. Dr. Longo received his PhD in biochemistry from UCLA and completed his postdoc in the neurobiology of aging and Alzheimer’s at USC.

Check out the episode page to see the show links - www.leaps.org/heart-healthy-diet/

Making Sense of Science features interviews with leading medical and scientific experts about the latest developments in health innovation and the big ethical and social questions they raise. The podcast is hosted by science journalist Matt Fuchs

For this podcast episode, my guest is Raina Plowright, one of the world’s leading researchers when it comes to how and why viruses sometimes jump from bats to humans. The intuition may be that bats are the bad guys in this situation, but the real culprits are more likely humans and their intrusive actions. 

Plowright is a Cornell Atkinson Scholar and professor at Cornell in the Department of Public and Ecosystem Health in the College of Veterinary Medicine. Read her full bio here. For a shorter (and lightly edited) version of this conversation, you can check out my Q&A interview with Plowright in the single-issue magazine, ​One Health / One Planet​, published earlier this month by Leaps.org in collaboration with the Aspen Institute and the Science Philanthropy Alliance.

In the episode, Plowright tells me about her global research team that is busy studying the complex chain of events in between viruses originating in bats and humans getting infected with those viruses. She’s collecting samples from bats in Asia, Africa and Australia – which sounds challenging enough but now consider that the diligence required to parse out 1400 different bat species. 

We also discuss a high-profile paper that she co-authored last month arguing for greater investment in preventing pandemics in the first place instead of the current approach: putting all our eggs in the basket of trying to respond to them after the fact. Treating pandemic prevention as a a priority is a small price to pay compared with millions of people killed and trillions of dollars spent during the response to COVID-19.

Making Sense of Science features interviews with leading medical and scientific experts about the latest developments in health innovation and the big ethical and social questions they raise. The podcast is hosted by science journalist Matt Fuchs

Jessica Ware is obsessed with bugs. My guest today is a leading researcher on insects, the president of the Entomological Society of America and a curator at the American Museum of Natural History. Learn more about her here.

You may not think that insects and human health go hand-in-hand, but as Jessica makes clear, they’re closely related. A lot of people care about their health, and the health of other creatures on the planet, and the health of the planet itself, but researchers like Jessica are studying another thing we should be focusing on even more: how these seemingly separate areas are deeply entwined.  (This is the theme of an upcoming event hosted by Leaps.org and the Aspen Institute.)

Maybe it feels like a core human instinct to demonize bugs as gross. We seem to try to eradicate them in every way possible, whether that’s with poison, or getting out our blood thirst by stomping them whenever they creep and crawl into sight. But where did our fear of bugs really come from? Jessica makes a compelling case that a lot of it is cultural, rather than in-born, and we should be following the lead of other cultures that have learned to live with and appreciate bugs.

Jessica and I talk about whether learning to live with insects should include eating them and gene editing them so they don’t transmit viruses. She also tells me about her important research into using genomic tools to track bugs in the wild to figure out why and how we’ve lost 50 percent of the insect population since 1970 according to some estimates – bad news because the ecosystems that make up the planet heavily depend on insects. Jessica is leading the way to better understand what’s causing these declines in order to start reversing these trends to save the insects and to save ourselves.

Making Sense of Science features interviews with leading medical and scientific experts about the latest developments in health innovation and the big ethical and social questions they raise. The podcast is hosted by science journalist Matt Fuchs

Steven Austad is a pioneer in the field of aging, with over 200 scientific papers and book chapters on pretty much every aspect of biological aging that you could think of. He’s a strong believer in the potential for anti-aging therapies, and he puts his money where his mouth is. In 2001, Steve bet a billion dollars that the first person to reach 150-years-old had already been born.

I had a chance to talk with Steven for today’s podcast and asked if he still thinks the bet was a good idea. Steven is the Protective Life Endowed Chair in Health Aging Research, a Distinguished Professor and Chair of the Department of Biology at the University of Alabama Birmingham. He's also Senior Scientific Director of the American Federation for Aging Research, which is managing a groundbreaking longevity research trial that started this year. Steven is also a great science communicator with five books, including one that comes out later this year, Methusalah’s Zoo, and he publishes prolifically in national media outlets.

See the rest of his bio, linked below in the show notes.

Show notes:

​2:36 - Why a particular opossum convinced Steven to dedicate himself to studying longevity.

​6:48 - His billion dollar bet that someone alive today will make it to 150-years-old.

​10:38 - ​I ask Steven about Elon Musk’s comments this month that if people lived a really long time, “we’d be stuck with old ideas and society wouldn’t advance.” Steve isn’t so fond of that take.

​13:34 - Why women are winning maybe the most important battle of sexes: living longer than men.

18:20 ​- Why women actually have more morbidity earlier on than men even though they live longer.

​23:10 - How the pandemic could affect sex differences in longevity.

​24:55 - How often we should work out to maximize our longevity and health span.

​29:09 - The latest update on the TAME trial, plus how Steven and other longevity experts designed this groundbreaking research in a castle in the Spanish countryside.

​32:10 - ​Which therapies are the most promising at this point.

​39:32 - ​The drug cocktail approach to address multiple hallmarks of aging.

​41:00 ​​- ​How to read health news like a scientist.

​45:38 - ​Should we try a Manhattan project for aging?

​48:47 - Can Jeff Bezos and Larry Ellison help us live to 150?

Steven explains why we should want to live a long time, assuming that involves a longer health span, and why it would be good for society.

Show links:

Steven Austad's bio - https://www.uab.edu/icar/about/icar-leadership/steven-austad#:~:text=Bio%20Information%3A&text=Austad%20is%20a%20Distinguished%20Professor,American%20Federation%20for%20Aging%20Research

Pre-order Steven's new book, ​Methuselah's Zoo - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09M2QGRJR/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

Steven's journal article on Sex Differences in Lifespan - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27304504/

Elon Musk's comments on super longevity "asphyxiating" society - https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/11/elon-musk-on-avoid...

Steven's article on how to read news articles about health like a pro - https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/11/elon-musk-on-avoiding-longevi

Making Sense of Science features interviews with leading medical and scientific experts about the latest developments in health innovation and the big ethical and social questions they raise. The podcast is hosted by science journalist Matt Fuchs

Today's guest is Percy Griffin, director of scientific engagement for the Alzheimer’s Association, a nonprofit that’s focused on speeding up research, detecting Alzheimer’s earlier and other risk reduction measures. Percy has a doctorate in molecular cell biology from Washington University. He’s led important research on Alzheimer’s, and he's a gifted science communicator. His bio is linked in the show notes, below.

The topic of our conversation is the present and future of the fight against dementia. Billions of dollars have been spent by the National Institutes of Health and biotechs to research new treatments for Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia, but so far there's little to show for it. Last year, Aduhelm became the first drug to be approved by the FDA for Alzheimer’s in 20 years, but there have been red flags about its effectiveness, side effects and cost.

Meanwhile, 6.5 million Americans have Alzheimer's.

Show notes:

4:40 - What led Percy to concentrate on working in this important area.

6:20 - Defining Alzheimer's, dementia, and the key elements of communicating science.

10:20 - Why the Alzheimer’s Association has supported Aduhelm.

17:58 - Reason to be excited about therapeutics under development and how they could be tailored to a person's unique biology.

24:25 - Tradeoffs between investing more money into Alzheimer’s research compared to other intractable diseases like cancer, and new opportunities to accelerate progress, such as President Biden's ARPA-H proposal.

27:24 - The social determinants of health. The pros/cons of continuing to spend billions to develop new drugs versus expanding policies for better education, nutritious food and safe drinking water that have enabled some groups more than others to enjoy improved cognition late in life.

34:18 - Percy's top lifestyle recommendations for protecting your mind.

37:33 - Is napping bad for the brain?

39:39 - Circadian rhythm and Alzheimer's.

42:34 - Tests to check brain health today, and which biomarkers we're making progress on.

47:25 - Important programs run by the Alzheimer’s Association to support advances.

Check out this conversation if you’re concerned about your brain health, that of family members getting older, or if you’re just concerned about the future of the country with experts predicting the number people over 65 will increase dramatically in the very near future.

**After this episode was recorded, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services affirmed its decision to limit coverage of Aduhelm.

Show links

- Percy Griffin's bio

- The Alzheimer's Association's Part the Cloud program

- The paradox of dementia rates decreasing

- The argument for focusing more resources on improving institutions and social processes for brain health

- Recent research on napping

- The Alzheimer's Association helpline

- ALZConnected, a free online community f

Making Sense of Science features interviews with leading medical and scientific experts about the latest developments in health innovation and the big ethical and social questions they raise. The podcast is hosted by science journalist Matt Fuchs