00;00;00;00 - 00;00;28;18
Unknown
My brain hurts right now because I have these ideas, or they're pretty far out and I suddenly believe in aliens. Thank you very much. Welcome, misfits.

00;00;28;20 - 00;00;53;06
Unknown
Hello, hello. Hello, misfits. I'm Kari Byron, and I'm Tori Blakely. Thank you again for joining us. Kari, do you remember? There's a lot of videos out there right now talking about. Did we land on them? Oh my God. What are your what are your thoughts? Really? We did this on the show. I know we tested it on the show, but I'm sure these myths we like, we went through it.

00;00;53;06 - 00;01;10;16
Unknown
Of course, we landed on the moon. I know so many people in the space industry like, yes, we landed on the moon. Are you gathering a bunch of myths for us to bust so that we can we can hitch a reboot or something. I want to, I want to I feel like we did a good job when we went to NASA.

00;01;10;17 - 00;01;30;16
Unknown
Then it was kind of. We we. It's funny how much interaction we had with NASA. You know, we would go into their window or their vacuum chambers and we did that moon landing episode. I do remember sitting around even at lunchtime and we're drinking water and they look and they're like, how's that water doing? Like fine. Like, yeah, you know what that is?

00;01;30;19 - 00;01;55;05
Unknown
Like what? Oh yeah. That's reconstituted astronaut pee like, but your drink wasn't. They were just pranking us. That wasn't actual. It was. No, no, they they told us that to get a reaction out of us. But later the producers were like, no, we're kidding like that. Nobody told me they were kidding. Yeah, they were joking. We weren't drinking, filtered urine.

00;01;55;08 - 00;02;14;00
Unknown
I can you imagine? I fell for that. I fell for you. Could you imagine drinking somebody else's filtered urine? Like drinking your own filtered is bad enough, but drinking somebody else's? Yeah, I feel like. I feel like you could filter it enough that it would be okay. I feel like it's possibly, I remember we were doing one.

00;02;14;00 - 00;02;37;17
Unknown
We were doing one experiment where I think it was dropping a feather in a vacuum. Yes. Dropping a hammer in a vacuum. Yeah, the old gravity trick. The old gravity trick. And I remember they had this arm that you could put your arm. It was a spacesuit and glove that, you know, I put my hand in, and I could, like, pick up the hammer and drop it.

00;02;37;17 - 00;02;54;29
Unknown
Pick up the feather, drop it. And I remember them saying, and I forget what I was saying. And the one of the guys goes, don't you be careful with that. That arm. And I was like, you know, because I was messing around like, you know, goofing off. And I was like, oh, is it expensive? Is I yeah, that's about a $200,000 arm right there.

00;02;54;29 - 00;03;17;23
Unknown
And it was half a oh yeah. Because it was half a million cuz it was one for each arm. Yeah. You were like you were twisting the finger back on. Tap out, tap out. I was like, yeah, hey that's crazy. Anyway, that episode was really fun to film. We, we've taken a couple of their experiments and incorporated into the show the one that Grant hated the most.

00;03;17;25 - 00;03;41;22
Unknown
Do you remember we made the Seasickness Chair, which was actually something that they used when they were training the Apollo guys. And it's, you know, we had a, revolving pedestal and we put a chair on top of it that, we bolted to it, and then there's four tennis balls around your head, and you have to move your head back and forth and side to side in the same rhythm until you throw up and like, you know, you and I did it and we didn't get sick.

00;03;41;22 - 00;04;11;27
Unknown
So clearly were the astronauts of the bunch. But then, Adam and Grant just. Oh yeah, they got like, their dating ruined green turn green. It didn't take long before Grant was laying out on the ground. He's like, I hate this. And then because they were the winners of being able to get seasick because we were applying it to seasickness myths, we had to get them seasick every single day just to make them try seasickness cures.

00;04;11;27 - 00;04;34;24
Unknown
I think this was Grant's most hated experiment, because every day he come into the shop and have to vomit, I you know it. I felt a little queasy, but I was like, there is no way I am going to admit that because I knew, I knew we were going to be doing this for weeks. So I was like, there is no even if I do get seasick, I'm not going to tell him because I know I'm going to have to do this every single day.

00;04;34;27 - 00;05;06;24
Unknown
I feel like, MythBusters was a training first for strength. There's so many experiments we did that were just experiments on your body. Like. Like, oh, like the the cure for hot sauce. Remember that? Like, every day we don't eat peppers. Ghost peppers until you sweat numb. And then it was like Vaseline and all sorts of stuff. So just to just to let the listeners know we, you know, we had like 12 things that we were going to test to see how you can beat a hot mouth from a chili pepper.

00;05;06;24 - 00;05;32;06
Unknown
And so it was like, okay, milk beer, like you're saying, Vaseline. So we had all these things lined up. And so we started with the peppers, like all of a said, like it was it burned our mouth. It was horrible. But then as we continued, like, our tongues just went numb. And so it turns out that the your nerves in your tongue get fried from the, the chili oil.

00;05;32;08 - 00;05;58;26
Unknown
So you have to wait 24 hours for, for your nerves and your tongue to regenerate. So this one day experiment turned into 12 days of coming into the shop, grinding up chili peppers, taking a spoonful, letting it burn our mouth. And then we would test whatever that day's, you know, remedy was it was, I still, when I smell habanero peppers, I want to vomit.

00;05;58;28 - 00;06;22;01
Unknown
Well, you are all ready in case you ever go on hot ones. You know what to do. You just, like, burn and. Yeah, for it to go numb and then, like, then you can do it. You get. Because you actually. Weren't you the one that won the Hall of Flame when we went to the restaurant to see we found the cure and we were just like, okay, we're going to get on the wall of flame, which is just eating their hottest dish.

00;06;22;03 - 00;06;48;04
Unknown
But all of us got so sick, I fell off first because I wanted to throw up. My mouth was burning so hard. You and Grant kept going because you two were so competitive. And then I think both of you were sick for like 24 hours. I just after it was the sheer amount because I got Patty by this giant plate of pad Thai and I'm like, why, I should have ordered something, you know, a smaller dish.

00;06;48;06 - 00;07;08;08
Unknown
And so I was like, I am going to get on the wall flame. But after I was done, I ran to the bathroom and threw up because it was just it was too much food and it was like all spicy. And then not to mention on the way out, I covered day the next day. Oh, if it's hot going in, it's hot coming out.

00;07;08;08 - 00;07;27;14
Unknown
Let me tell you folks at M7, we had the girls bathroom in the boys bathroom that was supposed to be designated because the, the, the, the main bathroom was supposed to be the one that the boys used. And then the outside one was the one that the girls used. But then all the boys started pooping in the girls bathroom because it was more isolated.

00;07;27;14 - 00;07;53;01
Unknown
So our bathroom was infiltrated by y'all. Oh, poop talk good. Oh, I am, I am excited about our guest today. She is a very accomplished woman and she knows so much. So I'm just really excited to get her on and just start firing questions at her. She wrote a book called There Are No Stupid Questions. And so we're going to have her on next and just start picking her brain.

00;07;53;08 - 00;08;09;24
Unknown
This is another one of those people that I completely stalked. She came up in my feed and I'm here following her, and I'm like, oh my God, I love this person. I am such a fangirl. She's so smart. She's so cool. She knows everything. I'm going to get her on the podcast. So yeah, it started. Start slipping in those DMs.

00;08;09;24 - 00;08;32;23
Unknown
Go on. Do you got to tell you, I think you have a problem. We need to talk. All I do when I want something, I'm going to get it. And today we're getting Leah Ellison, science communicator, scientist, author and all around badass. She'll be up after the break. Carrie, have we not tested some crazy myths on MythBusters? Yeah, definitely.

00;08;32;23 - 00;08;54;28
Unknown
So when we were testing the smell of fear, I remember back then, I wish I had had a better deodorant because I was sweating so bad and the smell was not pleasant. We all wished that. Actually, Tori, I think we all wish that. You know what? If I had had Mando back then, I would have been completely covered and I would have spared you guys all you want.

00;08;54;28 - 00;09;12;25
Unknown
No secret? I don't like the smell of girly ones, so I am actually wearing some right now. They sent a box for us to try and I know I was supposed to like give it to a guy who was dating or something like that. But no, I actually I just wow, I want to try it. I like those like earthy smells.

00;09;13;02 - 00;09;32;14
Unknown
Ever since Mando, I have not had to reapply the deodorant over and over all day, especially doing the podcast. I put it on once and I'm done. God, I wish we had a sponsorship for Mando back we were on MythBusters. At least one of our cast members could have really used it. I'm not gonna. I'm not going. I'm not going to name names.

00;09;32;14 - 00;09;49;03
Unknown
But there is at least one of our cast members. Are you talking about Buster? Yeah, I'm talking about Buster. Let's go with that. You know, I think out of all the products in the box, my favorite is the body spray. Well, what's the smell for that? What? What flavor are you today? It's whiskey and leather. Ooh. And it just.

00;09;49;06 - 00;10;11;14
Unknown
I spray it on. It smells good. It makes me feel good. This isn't your typical deodorant. It is clinically tested, and it is two times more effective than your typical deodorant. All right, so Mando is deodorant re-engineered to stop odor before it starts. Which means that it doesn't just mask the odor it's supposed to prevent it. So 100% of participants experienced an all day odor protection.

00;10;11;14 - 00;10;43;00
Unknown
That's all. Day. Mando's starter pack is perfect for new customers. It comes with a solid deodorant stick, cream tube, deodorant, and two free products of your choice, like a mini body wash or deodorant, wipes and free shipping. And as a special offer for our listeners, new customers get 20% off sitewide with our exclusive code use Code Misfits. That's my fit again, that is s h o p m a n dotcom.

00;10;43;02 - 00;11;03;26
Unknown
Please support our show and tell them that we sent you Mando's got you covered with deodorant plus sweat control. Say goodbye to sweat and stains and say hello to long lasting freshness. I can smell you now, Tori. Yeah, baby.

00;11;03;28 - 00;11;39;03
Unknown
Hey, misfits. Welcome back. I am really excited for our next guest because she has been in my social media feed for a while now. It is author, science communicator, scientist Leah Elson, possibly future astronaut. Oh, hopefully we'll see you. Thank you, thank you. I wanted to start this out by saying what a full circle moment this is, because I used to watch MythBusters growing up, and I don't know if the two of you realized probably how many formative years you molded and how many science communicators you probably sparked, you know, through the course of the filming.

00;11;39;03 - 00;11;59;12
Unknown
I mean, absolutely, I had so one of my fondest feelings. So I just watch with my dad. That's awesome. I told my dad I was I was coming on the show and he was like, really? How cool is that? So I got cool points with my dad, just so you know, nice. You're one of those people that I had, like, you know, in the Instagram suggests who you should follow.

00;11;59;12 - 00;12;20;09
Unknown
Like, I follow a lot of really cool women in space or just smart women. And like, you came up so like, I knows that you're somebody who I'd be friends with. You've got an algorithm curated, but obviously so, you know, I've been following you and hearing, you know, you're an author of a book, there are no stupid questions.

00;12;20;09 - 00;12;42;19
Unknown
And you addressed so many different interesting things about science. But you recently announced that you are going to try to train to become an astronaut. That. That's correct. So I, I'm putting my hat in the ring in the next round. For anybody out there also aspiring to space, NASA typically opens up astronaut candidacy once every four years.

00;12;42;27 - 00;13;08;16
Unknown
So next month, they're announcing their brand new class, and the next round is in 2028. And, so, yeah, it's it's incredibly competitive, but it's an honor to even be eligible, honestly, to apply for the position. So how are you training for that? Well, right now, I mean, a lot of it is kind of staying the course, aspects of what I'm doing academically involve intimately astronaut health, specifically nerve damage and astronauts, which is currently unrecognized.

00;13;08;16 - 00;13;27;24
Unknown
So I'm sort of the I'm the one out there with a, you know, with a sign like, hey, I think this is an issue that we should look into. And so I'm doing that. But a lot of it too is, you know, ensuring that I'm operationally trained because they don't just need scientists, they need scientists that can be reliable crew members when life and death is on the line.

00;13;27;26 - 00;13;47;17
Unknown
So a lot of it is, you know, wilderness first responder training. I already do a lot of, like, off trail solo multi-day backpacking trips, things like that. But, mostly just trying to to be somebody that if you were sitting across from me and you knew your life was in my hands, you would be okay with. So you think we did make it to the moon?

00;13;47;19 - 00;13;55;01
Unknown
We did. Just kidding. You know, we made it on the back lot anyway. You know what I mean? We.

00;13;55;04 - 00;14;18;29
Unknown
We made a hell of a director. Oh, man. He's wonderful. What did you go to school for? And when did you decide to become a science communicator? Oh, geez. Interesting question. So I went to school originally, and it may make a little sense. I have the gift of gab, and I originally, when I was in college, I started sportscasting, and so I was doing sort of a journalistic focus, and my dad got incredibly sick.

00;14;18;29 - 00;14;39;27
Unknown
He got cancer and he had this, these battery of surgeries that were happening back to back, you know, and watching him go through that was very sobering. And, I kid you not, it was one of those sort of canon moments where I was on the sidelines of a football field, and I have an earpiece in and the producers counting me down from the van, and we're about to go live, and I'm sitting there holding the mic, and I have this footage somewhere, and I'm live.

00;14;39;27 - 00;15;00;24
Unknown
And I just remember thinking, what am I doing with my life right now? I could be doing something so much more impactful. So I pivoted out and then ended up pursuing science. And so I, I went to Harvard to do all of my undergraduate sciences, because at that point I had sunk a bunch of time into journalism. So I did a hard pivot and, threw my hat in the ring for Harvard and got like the thin envelope from Harvard.

00;15;00;24 - 00;15;16;03
Unknown
So they gave me the head fake, and I was like, well, this is expected. And I actually put the acceptance letter down and, came back to it like a day later and opened it up, like, okay, let's like, I can frame a Harvard rejection that's kind of a flex. And then I read it through and it was like, blah, blah, blah, where please do it now.

00;15;16;03 - 00;15;35;07
Unknown
And I was like, oh, wait, hang on, hang on. It wasn't. And, yes, amazing. It was wild. It was real. Well, that's actually that's actually the letter right here on the back wall. That's the actual. Well, okay. But I, I would frame it as well. So you're, you're, you're a Harvard graduate, you are a journalist and you are way more qualified to be a mythbuster than Tory.

00;15;35;07 - 00;15;57;05
Unknown
And I totally I know nothing of that. So I was watching an interview you had and there were somebody was one of the questions is why is blood red? And you explained it the you know, there's there's iron in our blood and it oxidizes and turns red. But then you continued on octopus that the octopus blood is bluer because it's a copper based blood.

00;15;57;07 - 00;16;18;01
Unknown
Do you think they're aliens? Because their DNA doesn't match anything else on planet Earth? They're fascinating. You know, there's so many strange questions about cephalopods. You know, they're they're they're so brilliant. And it's one of those things where anytime I go into a sushi restaurant, I immediately feel so guilty because they're so sentient. And you see their little tentacles, they're like.

00;16;18;04 - 00;16;42;26
Unknown
And they're so delicious and so deep. Then I can't do it. Let's listen. Somebody has a moral compass in this room. And Tori, it's not you or I. Yeah, I don't, I don't know if I've been accused of that in a while. I well I said I'm your I'm your reprieve today. Yeah. They it's the idea of, panspermia, which is something being seeded from another planet and essentially starting life.

00;16;42;26 - 00;17;02;01
Unknown
You know, that's, it starts with, I think cephalopods would be, I don't know how that they would hold up to being careened through the atmosphere because they, you know, they're so gelatinous. But I think tardigrades are a good creature in the running for if, say, a meteor hit Earth and to a seed. What's a tardigrade? Oh, man.

00;17;02;01 - 00;17;22;03
Unknown
So a tardigrade. These are, you might have heard them called colloquially water bears. They're these little. They're microscopic animals. They're in the animal kingdom, and they're pudgy, and they have, like, multiple. They're they're little animals. They're. Some of them are carnivorous. Some of them eat plants, some of them eat other tardigrades. But the crazy thing about tardigrades is that they are so resilient.

00;17;22;03 - 00;17;54;04
Unknown
They have been boiled in alcohol, survived. They've been frozen, survived. They thawed them out. And then they'd started immediately eating and acting like nothing's happening. They have been even more exotically. A shot out of a gun into, like, a, like a sand bag backdrop to see if they could withstand a lot of impact. And they can so they, they check all these boxes, like extreme temperature impact that if you think about it, characteristically, they would have theoretically survived a potential meteor impact with Earth.

00;17;54;04 - 00;18;13;09
Unknown
And I mean, they might they live in permafrost. They live in the oceans. They live in every body of water. They live on land. And so it's very possible that you just gave me the aliens. Yeah. The the I the biggest belief I just I feel like you just exiled me. Like I, I just in 50 years now.

00;18;13;09 - 00;18;32;05
Unknown
Yeah. I just intercepted you. Yeah. It's it's they're so wild. They're so cool. Oh, and they can survive the vacuum of space. You stick them up in the vacuum of space, and they're. And they're great. So basically aliens. There would have been a good mythbuster episode if we could have just got some and tried all those different because we can't we have definitely tried every one of those situations.

00;18;32;05 - 00;18;46;15
Unknown
Oh, absolutely. And you can harvest them pretty easily. Like if you take moss, like if you got like moss growing in the backyard and you soak it in water overnight and you kind of squeeze it out, you'll be able to find them. You plate some of that on a they're everywhere. They're like ubiquitous. All right. I have a question about useless body parts.

00;18;46;15 - 00;19;08;29
Unknown
We have so many useless body parts. It's like our tonsils, our appendix tailbone. What a, your wisdom teeth. Like, why do we have so much extra stuff that we don't use anymore? I think a lot of it is just a product of the way that the environment develops around us and what it is we need. I mean, tail bones, they're shrinking slowly over time.

00;19;08;29 - 00;19;29;03
Unknown
Because if you trace us back far enough in lineage, you know, we had a common ancestor that may have had a tail that was used to help sort of navigate. Arboreal, wisdom teeth are interesting, actually. As our diets get softer, our palates get narrower, and so our teeth get more crowded. So maybe as we were chewing on tubers and roots, it expanded our palates.

00;19;29;03 - 00;19;54;22
Unknown
We had more room for teeth back in the day. And I'm actually going to contest your appendix claim because recently we think that the appendix is actually not vestigial. And there's a cool use for it. It's almost like a little slightly deflated balloon, but it is packed with bacteria. And the gut microbiome is actually so essential for human health that a lot of people speculate that it's almost like a little reserve store.

00;19;54;22 - 00;20;15;06
Unknown
So if you get wiped out, like let's say antibiotics or you get sick or inflammation, something wipes out your gut microbiome, you have a little store that can go and reseed for you. Look at that. Fun fact. Are you actually I how some of the answer to every single question. Kerry I don't have friends. I don't have friends.

00;20;15;06 - 00;20;35;26
Unknown
That's the that's the other. I would actually giggle every time I hear the word tailbone because I played this is why You have children. I played the long con prank on my daughter that her whole life. I told her she was born with the tail and that's to make her normal. We we cut it off at birth, but she has a tail and I to prove that.

00;20;35;26 - 00;20;56;21
Unknown
I told her that, you know, ask anybody, anybody in our family, anybody, if you were born with a tailbone. How? And so she went around until she was about, I think she was about 8 or 9 years old. And we were walking through a museum and some docent said something about seeing the tailbone on a statue. She turned around and looked at me with the betrayal.

00;20;56;23 - 00;21;24;07
Unknown
Oh my gosh, she's just hot. And I just fell over laughing. It was a nine year prank, that poor child. That's phenomenal. You're going to be paying for that. And therapy sessions for sure, I she will. I bet she had that like a thousand yard stare. And it just was replaying all the conversations she had had on the playground about her tail through the years, you know, and she's just she's traumatized for life.

00;21;24;13 - 00;21;51;04
Unknown
I know she has grandpa. She's asked aunts and uncles, like, legit. She was like, I was like, born with a tailbone. They're like, yeah, of course I love that. Everyone was unknowingly in on the prank too, just by giving objective information. And I feel like that's how you know you're winning as a parent, to be honest. What's the most mindblowing fact that you've learned over your career that you still it's still like, makes you stop and go, wow, how does that how does that work?

00;21;51;04 - 00;22;16;26
Unknown
Or how did that happen, that the conceptualization of what we know as the universe is colloquially called the observable universe. And that's only because we have a limit to how far we can observe based on how long photons have to travel beyond that threshold, we can't see anything. So our knowledge of the limit of the the quote unquote universe is actually just what is observed.

00;22;16;26 - 00;22;33;27
Unknown
So we have no idea. Is the universe infinite? Is the is there anything outside of that? Is everything that we can see there is is there another universe outside of that? We and we will never know. We will never. No matter how good our technology gets. That is the cosmic speed limit and we will never see it beyond that.

00;22;34;00 - 00;22;57;01
Unknown
That's what I love about science, is the changing definition of it by what we can actually discover. Yeah. And, you know, I think that's why science is so important because it's I call it the grand equalizer. Right? Because the staggering, the staggering reality of, you know, the fact that we're just this little nothing corner of the universe that is coalesced enough to recognize itself.

00;22;57;07 - 00;23;17;26
Unknown
We are all nothing. We are all equal under the gravity of what that implies, you know? And, so I think if more people knew more about just what's out there, I think there would be probably less interpersonal nastiness. We're always taught that space is infinite. But you're right. If we can only observe so far, we don't really know how far it goes.

00;23;17;29 - 00;23;35;24
Unknown
I think it kind of makes us. It makes me feel like. Are we in a simulation? Like, is this is this reality? I don't know, it's just it's it messes with my mind. But I'm curious, what are your thoughts on what if we're all just in a giant simulation? I love it, I love these questions because, I mean, really, the sky is kind of the limit conceptually.

00;23;35;24 - 00;24;01;18
Unknown
I think there's an interesting theory. It's it's thin. I've talked about it a little bit. There's an interesting theory that maybe we're inside of a black hole and like, inside of black holes, there's just enough matter and things dumped in to make a new universe. There's, an equation called the Schwarzschild radius. And it's essentially describes the amount of mass of a black hole is proportional to what its radius will be.

00;24;01;18 - 00;24;20;13
Unknown
So the more mass you stick inside of a black hole, the larger it will become. And interestingly enough, if you calculate the mass of our observable universe, you get a radius on orders of magnitude that is similar to what you would expect of a black hole. And so some people are like, that's a really cool math trick. Like, does that mean we're inside of a black hole?

00;24;20;13 - 00;24;38;17
Unknown
And so we call that black hole cosmology. And so a lot of people will lean on the mathematics, but there's sort of there's that little weird similarity. Now I know my I like it where we're all in the black. Well, I don't know. This is this is the breaking. It's breaking my brain. So we might be in the matrix.

00;24;38;17 - 00;24;57;09
Unknown
Tory I recently sent Tory this like thing. I saw that in China they have robots that are going to be able to just eat babies now like they, they, they like if they can do for fuel, I feel like next step for cheaper batteries, like for batteries. Yeah. Boston Dynamics that the robotics company they were God they were still fighting.

00;24;57;12 - 00;25;13;21
Unknown
I know when I was at Harvard, they were still working out of their garage and they were putting up YouTube videos and they were like, you know, on old potato phones. And it was like just the group of kids. And they were right across the river at MIT. And, so everybody at Harvard, MIT, we knew who they were, and we all followed them.

00;25;13;21 - 00;25;34;16
Unknown
They had like 600 followers or something. And, you know, you think about then what, what you would foresee for that company even, you know, and it's just, it's skyrocketed so quickly or, clone Robotics. Have you guys seen those eerie videos of their robotics suspended? And they have, Oh, yeah. It's a it's like muscles almost. It's.

00;25;34;18 - 00;25;56;09
Unknown
Yeah, exactly. It's like, it looks like tendons, like they're all twitching and it does and they, they've modeled they actually have a lot of the major organ systems. Like functionally they have like a nervous system that has been predicated on the human nervous system. They have the same number of bones and articulating joints. They have the same sort of like muscle contracture, moment arms and things like that.

00;25;56;09 - 00;26;16;00
Unknown
Physically it's it's very wild. And like three years ago, all they had was a prototype hand. And now they have a full body and it's amazing. What is your thoughts on the the way that this technology, especially with AI and the robotics, how quickly it's it's just evolving and getting better and and I'm just curious what your thoughts are on the future.

00;26;16;00 - 00;26;31;22
Unknown
Is this a good path that we're going down or is this and is this going to end bad. So I think what a lot of people have this question, I think they're the first thing they're thinking of is Skynet and Terminator. They're like how you know, like I'm like, am I going to have to punch a robot for fresh water?

00;26;31;22 - 00;27;05;02
Unknown
You know what I mean? Exactly. But I think really the, the biggest, the biggest issue that not a lot of people talk about is that the more elegant and the more comprehensive that these systems become, the more automated human tasks become. And so it's not going to be a takeover by force. I think it's it's potentially a human takeover by attrition, because there will come a time in which most human jobs are irrelevant because AI and robotics can do it better, faster, smarter, more accurately, more efficiently.

00;27;05;09 - 00;27;29;12
Unknown
And so then it becomes, well, what? What do you do? Like what is a human's purpose on earth? And that's a very that's a very existential crisis. And so, one of the things, you know, that Elon Musk has suggested is that people if you're a human, you have a universal salary like humans, just get a salary by virtue of the fact that they're human, because there will be no jobs available for them in the future.

00;27;29;15 - 00;27;48;22
Unknown
And so I know those there are talks about that. It is very weird. So I think it's less it's less Terminator less like, you know, metal morphing through cage bars. Yeah. And more. I think it's more a crippling, like, philosophic existential crisis that we're facing that no one, no one's ready for. And it's already. It's already upon us.

00;27;48;22 - 00;28;16;01
Unknown
It's already got me. What do you think about all these sightings? All these? They're not. They're no longer UFOs now. They're, UAP. UAP what? Like, what are your thoughts on that? Do you think it's from another planet? Another dimension? Or are they, you know, military? You know, it's so it's interesting because I think a lot of people would say, oh, you know, it's military technology from from a different, a different country.

00;28;16;03 - 00;28;38;00
Unknown
But if you look at the budget that America has on defense, and then you have fighter pilots that are like, I've never seen this technology in my life, you know, and you look at the scale of who invests in their military like rank wise. We're so far ahead of everybody else. So you're thinking if if there was some sort of like, new kid on the block and military wise, we might recognize some of that technology.

00;28;38;00 - 00;29;04;07
Unknown
But some of the, the movement, you know, you think about, like the TikTok video, the famous. Yep, the famous Tic TAC that they were logged on to, and they had these fighter pilots who've seen it all done it, all of that were speechless. It's fascinating. I mean, it makes you wonder, and you think if something had the ability to travel here, which is light years worth of time, that technology would be so developed that it's possible that, you know, perhaps we wouldn't notice.

00;29;04;07 - 00;29;23;27
Unknown
But then again, you know, I know we've got a pretty we've got a pretty solid, we've got a pretty solid camera system, I guess, for lack of a better term around the US. So it's, it's strange, but, you know, you think about these, these sightings and then you're like, now everybody has cell phones. Like, why don't we, seeing this huge influx, you know, if there's if they're really that pervasive.

00;29;23;27 - 00;29;41;19
Unknown
So it's right. Right. I don't know. It's interesting I think it's fascinating. There used to be a department of misinformation as well. So like they used to plant these ideas to, to, you know, put Russia off thinking that we were developing one thing when we were actually doing another. So I wouldn't doubt that that kind of thing still exists.

00;29;41;23 - 00;30;11;20
Unknown
Exactly, exactly. I had heard something the other day that that Congress had said. Yeah, a lot of the the UAP things that we had put out, it turns out that they were part of a program like a counter intelligence program or something like that. So, yeah, it makes you wonder, but, insofar as whether or not there are other civilizations, I mean, I think that if you look at the scope of how large the observable universe is, you know, how relatively young our solar system is comparatively and how how many stars have planets.

00;30;11;20 - 00;30;31;05
Unknown
And now the James Webb is just I mean, it's picking up new exoplanets day by day, you know what I mean? And so the odds are staggering that that we're the only ones out there. But except for the little critters that we've got now inside of our mass, well, you know, I think what's really fascinating is that there there's actually we don't know yet.

00;30;31;05 - 00;30;54;12
Unknown
And this is like one of those, like, mind blowers. We can't even confirm yet that there's not life in our own solar system. You know, we've never sampled. And so we have these interesting we have these interesting areas that could harbor life. Right. Like Europa. That's a moon that is, it's it's close enough to its parent planet that it has these gravity shifts that keeps the water, the salty water liquid instead of freezing.

00;30;54;12 - 00;31;09;15
Unknown
Since it's so far from the sun. And I mean, it's it's oceans are way deeper than Earth's, and we're like, there might be something if you plunge a camera down in there that swims up to the lens, you know what I mean? You just don't know. We have no idea, to know yet. We can't even confirm that there was.

00;31;09;17 - 00;31;26;14
Unknown
There is nothing or was nothing on Mars yet. So would you ever take a mission that you were never coming? Like, let's say you're going to Mars? Yes. To start a colony, would you? Yes you would. And you knew you were never coming back to Earth. Yes, I would, I wow. And it's a it's a big it's a big thing to say.

00;31;26;14 - 00;31;50;06
Unknown
But the personal ethos that has guided my life is that I wanted to make the maximal impact possible on human life with the limited time that I have. And, you know, that is the thing about astronauts in general and the idea of being an astronaut, it's one of those things where the term seems very rock star and it's like, oh, you know, astronaut.

00;31;50;06 - 00;32;10;17
Unknown
And it's like, I want to like, I'm going to go do this astronaut thing. But it's a lot of embracing the suck. It's not, you know, when you get there, it's not glamorous. It's being isolated in a tin can, you know? Very I mean, the moon is our closest thing that we're aiming for. And it's 250,000 miles away from Earth.

00;32;10;19 - 00;32;32;22
Unknown
It's a lot of isolation. It's a lot of psychological strain. It's a lot of being with the same people, doing the same monotonous thing. Day after day after day. But really selling it. I'm really selling it. Yeah. So for anybody who was thinking about going to space, but that's the reality of it, you know, and so for something like starting a colony, what that would represent is a lot of personal sacrifice.

00;32;32;22 - 00;32;50;04
Unknown
But it would it would open up the channel for human beings to be interplanetary, which I mean, right. What else is there, apart from, like, sacrificing for other people, you know what I mean? And in such an impactful way. Tory, would you go up even just would you be a space tourist or would you go up into space?

00;32;50;06 - 00;33;06;16
Unknown
Yeah, I would be a space tourist, but I want to come back like, I, I don't think I could do that. Just leave Earth forever and just be like, okay, this is I'm off this planet. I'm probably going to die on this other planet. I don't know that. Just I don't even like being on vacation for too long.

00;33;06;18 - 00;33;29;03
Unknown
I said, hey, yeah, it's it's. But, you know, I think that there shouldn't be an intent to have personnel up there without the intent to return. Now, the Mars missions will be quite long, because I think right now with current rocketry, it would take nine ish months to get there. So that's one way. So you're talking about nine months.

00;33;29;03 - 00;33;47;16
Unknown
They're nine months back, and then you have a mission to complete on surface. So the first missions will probably be three years long, you know? Wow. That's crazy. Yeah, yeah, it's a long time. I work with a lot of kids for the National Stem Festival, and I notice that they always ask some of the most similar questions, when they're talking to astronauts.

00;33;47;16 - 00;34;06;00
Unknown
And I'm wondering if there's anything that you're just not ready for in your training. For example, how do you poop in space? I have heard that when you for if when you're a new guy that they haze you and not tell you how the toilet works, just to see if you can figure it out. Are you ready for this kind of thing?

00;34;06;00 - 00;34;27;07
Unknown
And what is the most, what is what is the one thing that you're kind of like? Oh, no. Do I have to do that? You know, if I am lucky enough to kind of carry that honorable torch to represent humanity, I will gladly be hazed with the strange, complicated toilet space station. For anybody that doesn't know that.

00;34;27;09 - 00;34;52;21
Unknown
So there is, let's see, how do we put this very delicately? There is a physics associated with going number two on Earth, right. And there's a sort of a gravity, oriented disengagement process we'll call it. Right. Well done, well done. Politely. Very politely. Right. See, look at NASA if you're listening to this, see how well media trained I am already.

00;34;52;24 - 00;35;15;18
Unknown
So there there's a sort of a disengagement process into the receptacle, but you obviously don't have that in microgravity on the space station. And so there is this sort of suction blender mechanism that helps. And because you're floating around, there's also like a seatbelt, you know, so kind of strap you into the apparatus. So it's like an entire it's an entire thing.

00;35;15;21 - 00;35;42;13
Unknown
And then, you know, for, for the purposes of keeping everything very sterile, because obviously, if you're blending something like human waste and zero gravity, it's going to just disperse and aerosolized. Right. So there's like this very hefty suction. And the funny thing is that it actually took a lot of iterations to get this right. So there were a lot of the early generation astronauts who had to contend with toilets breaking things being aerosolized like thing.

00;35;42;16 - 00;36;03;14
Unknown
So there's some pretty non glamorous aspects of, of that part of space. There's also man, I can't wait to apply. I know there's also space diapers. So the Eva suits, they, they kind of just wear like big, big absorbent space diapers if they have to, if they have to, because Eva walks and actually like, conducting repairs and things on the space station.

00;36;03;14 - 00;36;19;26
Unknown
Now they they're quite long, you know, they can be like six, eight hours long. And so they, you're hooked up in a diaper up there in your big Eva suit. So that's crazy. Very fun, very fun. I don't know if peed in my wet suit before. I feel like I could do that part. Let's I know, I'm like, if you're a surfer, that's delightful.

00;36;19;26 - 00;36;33;18
Unknown
That's warm. You know what I mean? It keeps you up for a few minutes. You.

00;36;33;20 - 00;36;54;10
Unknown
So you were talking about nerve regeneration. You're working on that. Explain how that works. Is it even possible? Absolutely. So I think it's, it's something that people get confused about because a lot of people will say, oh, you know, nerve regeneration is impossible. I have a an uncle who's paralyzed, you know, or something, and it's not possible.

00;36;54;17 - 00;37;16;11
Unknown
So there are actually two separate sort of segmented pieces of your nervous system at large. There's the central nervous system, which is the brain and the spinal cord. And then there's the peripheral nervous system, which are all the nerves that innervate your arms, your hands, your organs, everything that you feel, touch, smell, you know, that's all going through peripheral nerves back to your brain for interpretation.

00;37;16;14 - 00;37;36;11
Unknown
Now, the central nervous system is a very, very difficult beast to regenerate and repair. There are a lot of things that, make the central nervous system get in its own way. So one of them is that the the central nervous system lacks support cells that help it to regenerate. It just doesn't have them, whereas the peripheral nervous system does.

00;37;36;13 - 00;37;58;01
Unknown
In the peripheral nervous system, they're called Schwann cells. And they help tremendously with the regrowth process. And then the central nervous system has all of these inhibitory molecules, like it's just sort of built to not fix itself once it's broken. Now, the peripheral nervous system, on the other hand, is not the case. So I think a lot of people hear that you can't repair the spinal cord, and they assume that that applies to all nerves in general.

00;37;58;01 - 00;38;15;29
Unknown
But this is not the case. The peripheral nervous system, you can actually sew together nerves. So if you let's say you're slicing an avocado in your hand, I've seen a lot of people use their hand as a cutting board and then they slip. And you see this a lot. They actually call it in the space avocado hand. Or you'll see like a knife go through the hand.

00;38;15;29 - 00;38;35;01
Unknown
And they kind of walk in with just, you know, the the butt end of a knife sticking out of their hand. And you'll, you'll sever a bunch of nerves. And those nerves can actually be repaired. There are sutures that are finer than a human hair, and you either look at it under a microscope or you look at it under a set of loops, and you can actually physically repair them.

00;38;35;03 - 00;38;56;25
Unknown
And the, the actual if you think of peripheral nerves like an electrical wire, they have insulation, right? That insulation is called myelin. And then the axons are sort of like the copper wiring in the middle. And so that copper wiring will actually reconnect itself across all distances if you if you can kind of help it along, if you sew it back together, it'll remake that connection.

00;38;56;28 - 00;39;17;24
Unknown
And there's also, you know, ways right now in which groups are looking at sort of turning on the good things about the peripheral nervous system that make it grow, you know, utilizing things called nerve growth factor, which is these molecules that signal to the nerve, like, hey, it's time to grow right now. It's time to go find your home and, seeing, you know, can we apply this to nerve?

00;39;17;24 - 00;39;36;11
Unknown
Can we inject it near nerve? Does it help it grow? Does it encourage the process? But in my line of work, the beauty is that, you know, there have been people that have come in with, let's say, a traumatic hand injury. And they we've not only been able to, you know, help surgeons understand how to reconnect those nerves, but the patients have full function afterward.

00;39;36;14 - 00;39;58;00
Unknown
They have full sensation. One big issue with women that undergo radical mastectomy is that their chest wall becomes completely numb. And that's a really terrible quality of life hit because you can't, for the rest of your life feel a hug. You know, you can't, if something is hot near your chest, you drop something hot. You know you can't feel it and so it will just cause tissue damage.

00;39;58;02 - 00;40;21;23
Unknown
So, we have actually done an extensive amount of work with breast reconstruction surgeons to, get those nerve to regrow so that you can start to feel the chest wall again. And so that's been a huge the huge thing. So nerve repair and regeneration in the peripheral nervous system is absolutely possible. And people like me, work every day to identify patients that need desperately need intervention in nerve repair.

00;40;21;23 - 00;40;41;07
Unknown
And we, we find them, we work with their surgeons, and we try to make it possible. I when I was a kid, I was maybe about 13 years old, and my dad and I were working in a kitchen, like a close quarters kitchen. And I turned to him to ask where something was, and he was holding his knife and I, like, smacked my finger on the knife.

00;40;41;09 - 00;41;06;00
Unknown
And I had like, you know, 12 stitches. And it was just I was like, and it's still to this day the tip is numb. Like, yeah, it's crazy. Digital nerves are probably some of the most common nerves that we, you know, we work with surgeons to help prepare. We actually, as part of the biotech company I work for, we hold big courses where we bring in a bunch of new fellows and brand new surgeons, kind of fresh out of residency, going into their own practice.

00;41;06;02 - 00;41;26;20
Unknown
And we sit there and we teach them how to repair nerves and microsurgery. I actually have I'm looking at right now, I have a little micro surgical repair kit and, like loops so that I sit and practice and, funny analog if, if you ever wanted to practice like sewing nerves or vessels together, if you're out there and you're like a pre-med or something like that, or you're or you're ten years old and you want to learn how to do this one day.

00;41;26;23 - 00;41;40;05
Unknown
Chicken thighs, you can actually find the nerve in the vessel in a chicken thigh from the store. Yeah. And you can go through and you can find them there near the bone, and you'll see them too little. They look like little white pipes. And you can cut them with scissors. And you can actually work to, to sew them together.

00;41;40;05 - 00;41;53;07
Unknown
They make a great analog for human tissue. And I'll never eat chicken. And now, yeah, learning new things every day. I was going to say, now, the next time you have a bone in chicken thigh, you're going to see it. You're going to be like, oh my gosh, Leah has ruined this for me. For the rest. Oh, oh, I got it.

00;41;53;07 - 00;42;17;19
Unknown
I got to repair this chicken's by. This is a nerve. This patient need help with that finger of his I got you taught him well. I'm pretty sure that the mythic community is going to want to watch you and support you on your journey because, how long do you have before you can apply? So the next round of applications for anybody who's also interested in applying opens up in probably about two and a half years, sometime in spring of 2028, so we can follow you.

00;42;17;21 - 00;42;35;04
Unknown
Gnarly by nature. Is your handle. Are there any other places where we can follow you? Oh, I'm on Instagram. I'm on TikTok posting science content, and that's primarily my public outreach. And and I'm always on there answering questions, answering your curious quandaries, folks. So please feel free to drop me a line. Thank you so much for coming on this.

00;42;35;05 - 00;42;52;15
Unknown
It it's like you've given us a lot to think about. And you guys were delightful. My brain hurts right now because I have these these ideas or they're they're they're pretty far out. I want to know, really believe in aliens. Thank you very much. I was going to say what I want to know. What scarred you guys the most?

00;42;52;15 - 00;43;15;27
Unknown
Was it the observable universe thing? Was it the tardigrades thing? Was it the chicken thigh nerve thing? I feel like all the things grace harbor things. All the things. Fever dreams, fever dream some. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for coming on. It's it was so much fun having this discussion. And you are a fascinating person and good luck in your pursuit of becoming an astronaut.

00;43;16;02 - 00;43;38;24
Unknown
Oh, yeah. We want to keep up with you and everybody. Follow Gnarly by Nature on Instagram. Oh, thank you guys so much. It was awesome. Thank you for having me on the show. My brain hurts, right? She broke our brains. Everything. She's not that smart I noticed. My God, it's like it's like talking to an encyclopedia. It's like we found our next gen Neil deGrasse Tyson like you.

00;43;38;25 - 00;44;02;10
Unknown
There was not a question you could throw at her that she didn't have an answer to you was amazing. Was a maze. Yeah, I would I was very excited for this. This was a great interview. That was awesome. And it's like, just some of the concepts or the, you know, the the theories, it just it does it, it it melts your brain anyway.

00;44;02;11 - 00;44;28;22
Unknown
And now it's time on the show where we take one of your questions and answer it. Are you ready for this, Carrie I am so this comes from our SF seven. Svenson. Is that how you pronounce it? G the question is this have you ever heard the narrator for the European version of MythBusters? There's a different narrator than Rob.

00;44;28;25 - 00;44;51;21
Unknown
Oh, yeah, I do. They also they also. Fun fact they dub in our voices. I got a call from a buddy who's in Mexico, and he, like, he's like, dude, I didn't know you spoke Spanish so fluently, but it was like, super, like. Hola, senor. Meta. Busted. Like, it was a very deep, way deeper voice. But they we were all dubbing.

00;44;51;21 - 00;45;11;17
Unknown
Your voice was like, super high. I've heard it. I was in Costa Rica and, I was MythBusters. Came on TV. I was like, oh, my God, I didn't even know they played that here. But what is that voice? And I actually at one point I met one of the people that played me as the voice actor. Oh, that's.

00;45;11;18 - 00;45;31;24
Unknown
And like, they're like, this is great. I had a steady job for a long time. Oh, isn't that cool? Yeah. He was so weird. It was very meta. I've never heard the European voice, but I it would be funny to to get all the because of the show was global to go around and see which, you know, all the different versions of our voices.

00;45;31;24 - 00;45;58;11
Unknown
That would be hilarious, yet so strange at so many different countries. It was. It was everywhere. I mean, I remember I went to, Russia, to do sort of a PR thing, and I was like, this Buster's is huge here. I mean, when I was in, I did a I went to Warsaw to do something, and it got chased down the street like a you were like the Beatles, man, when they had a giant science picnic.

00;45;58;11 - 00;46;14;00
Unknown
And, they, we did, like, a little stage show. And I was assigned a security guard like, this big buff dude. And, I had brought along, you know, the I had a handler, I had the security guard. And then I brought my best friend because I'm just like, oh, I got a plus one. You want to go?

00;46;14;01 - 00;46;38;00
Unknown
You want to go to Poland? Let's go. So she and the handler was standing back, and all of a sudden the crowd started pushing in because I was signing autographs. I mean, this I've never experienced anything like this before. This was. This was wild. Like we were way bigger there than we were here. They started pushing in, and then I started to walk away because I was like, oh my God, this is this is getting intense and started getting followed.

00;46;38;05 - 00;47;01;00
Unknown
And they were they were like chasing us to the point where I had to ditch the handler. I had to ditch Brittany and the security guard. He was like Special Forces, huge guy. He threw me over his shoulder and hopped a fence and like, I was just texting, like, we'll find you later. Like, oh, my God, that's crazy.

00;47;01;02 - 00;47;21;06
Unknown
Good times, good times in Poland. Kerry's big in Poland, we're huge in Poland. Well, this was fun. I'm glad we got to talk to Leah. She was awesome. Yeah, totally. If you guys have more questions, we think this would be really fun to incorporate some video or some audio to this. Yeah. So send your questions in video form.

00;47;21;06 - 00;47;40;17
Unknown
That way we can get you on the show. How cool would that be? It'd be fun. Yeah, I think you can, it's, at MIT. It's podcast on Instagram. You can send us an audio clip or a video clip of yourself, and we'll answer these questions to you directly. So we'd. All right. Everybody will. Thank you again for listening.

00;47;40;17 - 00;47;54;02
Unknown
Carrie, good to see you again. Please like follow, subscribe, tell all your friends and definitely come back next week.

00;47;54;05 - 00;47;57;08
Unknown
Pioneer.