Town Hall Seattle Science Series

Prebiotics and probiotics. Fecal microbiota transplants. Optimizing a diet personalized to you. These microbiome-themed topics are all around us in the media, but microbiome research remains a fairly nascent field of study and wasn’t on many people’s radars even 10 years ago. UCSD Professor Dr. Jack Gilbert and Institute for Systems Biology (ISB) Assistant Professor Dr. Sean Gibbons came together to tackle this exciting area of research. What have we learned over the past few years? What has gone well, and what could we do better? The two discussed some exciting developments on the horizon and share when they think people might see microbiome-based technologies in their daily lives. Dr. Jack A. Gilbert is a Professor of Microbial Oceanography in the Center for Marine Biotechnology and Biomedicine at Scripps Institute of Oceanography, and holds a joint appointment in the Department of Pediatrics in UCSD School of Medicine. Dr. Gilbert is also cofounder of the Earth Microbiome Project and American Gut Project,

Human beings are extraordinary meddlers. We’ve been shaping the world around us since the last ice age, and the longer we’re around, the better we become at resetting the course of evolution. From domesticating animals to CRISPR, a revolutionary new gene-editing tool that garnered a Nobel Prize in 2020, humans haven’t stopped tinkering and probably never will. There’s an understandable nervousness around human interference; what are we potentially destroying, or at least mucking up, when we tamper with nature? In her new book, Life as We Made It: How 50,000 Years of Human Innovation Refined — and Redefined — Nature, Biologist Beth Shapiro argued that meddling is the essence of what humans do to survive and thrive. Hunting, hybridizing plants, domesticating animals, and conserving the living things around us are all forms of intervention, none of which are new to us. With that in mind, Shapiro made the case to free ourselves from fear of obtrusion and instead become better meddlers. In turn, we may find opport

We know we have to do something about climate change, and we know we need to move immediately. The mere thought of it tends to make people freeze in their tracks from sheer overwhelm. Thousands of ideas exist, but there’s no clear, collective plan. Try as some people might, jumping on a rocket to the next planet isn’t the answer. But what if we don’t need groundbreaking new inventions to move the needle on climate change? What if most of the innovations already exist? Could we build a better, cleaner future (and maybe even generate millions of new jobs while we’re at it)? Engineer and inventor Saul Griffith shared a detailed plan of action in his new book, Electrify: The Optimist’s Playbook for our Clean Energy Future. Take note of two important words in the book’s title, electrify and optimist. Griffith’s strategy circles around the transformation of our infrastructure to electrify everything, update our grid, and adapt homes to make it possible. And then there’s optimism: if we’re to build the future we

The year 2050 once felt like a far-off speck on a distant horizon. But with less than three decades left before we reach the halfway point of the 21st century, that faraway mote doesn’t feel quite so distant. Is it possible to avoid the worst effects of climate change by then? What efforts can we focus on to truly make an impact? In The Decarbonization Imperative, Professor Michael Lenox and Rebecca Duff described the urgent situation we’re in and why the year 2050 is so significant. They clearly and methodically broke down 5 key sectors— Energy, Transportation, Industrial, Building, and Agricultural— to look at which technologies stand the best chance of decarbonizing each sector. They also considered areas where investments and policy actions are needed to quicken the pace of adopting new technologies. The good news? In some sectors, clean technology is emerging or already exists; we only need a plan to transition in time. Lenox and Duff reminded us that climate change isn’t just looming; it’s here. And wh

Escaping infectious disease and managing its spread has long been at the forefront of the human mind; it’s certainly taken front and center in the minds of today’s humans as the globe continues to wade through the COVID-19 pandemic. In an especially timely and fascinating look at the story of disease past and present, historian Kyle Harper explained the evolutionary past of humanity’s uniquely dangerous disease pool in Plagues Upon the Earth: Disease and the Course of Human History. Disease, he argued, is accelerated by technological progress and entangled with the history of slavery, colonialism, and capitalism. And while triumph over disease helps our lives progress, it’s actually destabilizing the environment and fostering new diseases. Gulp. But all is not lost. Harper pointed out what we can learn by looking at history while simultaneously looking forward, examining patterns of wealth, health, power, and inequality, paired with insights from cutting-edge genetic research. And, he reminded us, that human

Whether we can see it or not, the impacts of Monsanto— the agrochemical giant best known for creating the herbicide Roundup and the genetically engineered seeds that resist it— are everywhere. Monsanto has shaped and reshaped the farms that provide food to people worldwide; and while we might not be able to see the breadth of the company’s impacts, we’re most certainly eating them. In Seed Money, Bartow J. Elmore investigated how the future of food remains tethered to Monsanto, despite a toxic and troubling past that extends far beyond Roundup. Through extensive fieldwork, previously-unseen records, and countless interviews with farmers, lawyers, chemists, and past employees, he traced Monsanto’s rise and eventual domination of an agricultural empire. While it’s easy to imagine a cadre of evil corporate villains at the helm, plotting the demise of the world, Elmore found something more subtle. His research revealed a cautionary tale of what happens when a series of seemingly small decisions have a cascading e

When it comes to human reproduction, particularly from a Western perspective, there’s no shortage of physical things involved. Pregnancy tests. Maternity clothing. Pacifiers. Baby carriers. Reproduction and parenting involve a plethora of objects, each designed with a purpose in mind and each contributing to the reproductive experience, for better or for worse. Historians and authors Michelle Millar Fisher and Amber Winick explored the stuff of reproduction in their new book, Designing Motherhood: Things that Make and Break Our Births. Their highly visual, design-driven book explores over 80 objects that have shaped the world of people and babies during the past century, revealing designs that range from iconic to just plain strange. Together, Fisher and Winick considered how design impacted everything from the clothing that pregnant people wear to how the home pregnancy test was once a “threat” to male gynecologists—and beyond. Michelle Millar Fisher, a curator and architecture and design historian, is Rona

We’ve pondered the puzzles of the human body for millennia, questioning the function of both the visible parts and the parts hidden away behind layers of skin, muscle, and bones. When it comes to the human body— and the bodies of many other living creatures— the heart is an organ that’s long been central to our understanding of life. How did humans get from mummifying the heart separately from the body in order to weigh the soul inside it, as ancient Egyptians once did, to the modern ability to save and extend lives by transplanting a heart from one human into another? In Pump: A Natural History of the Heart, zoologist Bill Schutt explored the mind-boggling history of the heart in both human and non-human life forms. He covered everything from clear-blooded Antarctic icefish to the origin of the stethoscope, weaving in fascinating myths, hypotheses gone wrong, and scientific breakthroughs along the way. You’ll never consider that rhythmic thumping in your chest the same way again. Bill Schutt is a vertebrate

All human beings are 99.9 percent identical in their genetic makeup. All our differences are found in the remaining .1 percent. Our DNA makes us different in our personalities and in our health, and both matter when it comes to educational and economic success in our current society. In The Genetic Lottery, clinical psychology professor Paige Harden aimed to reclaim genetic science from the legacy of eugenics and dismantle dangerous ideas about racial superiority. She argued that we must acknowledge the role of genetic luck if we are ever to create a fair society. Genetically associated inequalities, Harden brought forth, can be viewed through a lens of “luck egalitarianism.” This philosophical perspective on fair versus unfair inequality is already manifest in current research and policy. She proposed that genetic research can be used to advance equity goals. Regardless of the .1 percent, we can all be equal. Paige Harden, Ph.D. is a professor of clinical psychology at the University of Texas at Austin, wher

Plastic is everywhere, and it lasts forever. But humans have a hard time grasping “forever”— the scope is far greater than our comprehension. That’s precisely the problem that Allison Cobb explored in her new book, Plastic: An Autobiography. Cobb aimed to give shape to behemoths like climate change, nuclear technologies, and racism, using plastic waste as the thread that connects them all. She insisted that the current design of manufacturing and retail, which relies on a cycle of consuming and discarding, obstructs our view of the humans who actually create objects. It’s a design that’s intentional; because if consumers truly knew how things were made and who was making them, could we continue living the way that we do on this planet? Allison Cobb is the author of four books: Plastic: an Autobiography, Green-Wood, After We All Died, and Born2. Her work has appeared in Best American Poetry, Denver Quarterly, Colorado Review, and many other journals. She was a finalist for the Oregon Book Award and National P

The Sahara desert, once upon a time, wasn’t a desert at all. It was green. It was a pleasant place, fed by rivers and lakes. It was home to crocodiles, hippos, turtles, and fish of all stripes. Prehistoric hunters and gatherers came to the lush land, as well, to partake of its rich bounty. It’s now the largest hot desert in the world, equal in size to the United States. Temperatures can reach upward of 130 degrees and sand dunes can climb to nearly 600 feet in height. All this begs the question: What happened? Martin Williams, in When the Sahara Was Green: How Our Greatest Desert Came to Be, helped answer this question, and asks many more. A time-traveler, of a sort, Williams went back millions of years to showcase the rich history of earth’s greatest desert. Why did its climate change? Did it really have forests roamed through by dinosaurs? How has all this impacted human populations? Will the desert ever return to that verdant Eden? And what will climate change do to the desert? He also brought to the fore

The web of life is sometimes freezing. Take, for instance, what’s happening in the Alaska Arctic. In one of the largest remaining wilderness ecosystems on the planet, the frigid place is home to the Western Arctic Caribou Herd, and is also a hotspot to study the effects of climate change. What becomes of the caribou if climate change continues unabated? Further, what becomes of those that live, and depend, on the caribou, like the indigenous Iñupiat people, if the caribou disappear? The interconnectedness of us all is hanging by a thread. Seth Kantner was born and raised in northern Alaska and has worked as a trapper, wilderness guide, wildlife photographer, gardening teacher, and adjunct professor. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, Outside, Orion, and Smithsonian. Kantner is the author of the award-winning novel Ordinary Wolves, memoir Shopping for Porcupine, and collection of essays Swallowed by the Great Land: And Other Dispatches from Alaska’s Frontier. He has been a commercial fisherman in

What’s a little lizard to do when another ferocious hurricane comes tearing through its homelands? Grow larger toe pads to grip more tightly. Where are the long-spined urchins going? South, to find cooler homes. How come the aggressive butterflyfish isn’t fighting anymore? The coral they loved is no longer worth fighting for. Thor Hanson, who last appeared at Town Hall to talk about bees, is back with a story, ultimately, of hope. Climate change is a disaster and is wreaking havoc the world over. However, the natural world is doing what it can to cope with the new problems and trying to come up with solutions of its own. Plants and animals are responding to climate change in a variety of ways: adjusting, evolving, or dying out. Hanson has visited grizzly bears in Alaska, Walden Pond (that’s grown 4 degrees warmer since Thoreau’s time), and brown pelicans looming over the sea. Fraught with peril, it is. But there’s also hope: if a little lizard can adapt, humans can too. Thor Hanson is an author and biologist.

Methuselah lived to 969 years old, according to the Bible. In our recent age, Jeanne Calmet holds the title of the oldest person who ever lived. She lived to be 122 years and 164 days old. There’s a woman in Japan, Kane Tanaka, who is currently 118. Jiroemon Kimuri, also from Japan, is the oldest man of all time, living to 116 years and 54 days. How did they do it? How do some people avoid the deterioration and weakness that plagues many of their peers decades early? Is it luck, or something else? Is it possible to grow older without getting sicker? Could a 90-year-old not look a day over 50? In Age Later, Dr. Nir Barzilai, a pioneer in aging research, looked both at the four age-related diseases that take most of us (diabetes, cancer, heart disease, and Alzheimer’s) and at SuperAgers (people who have maintained active lives well into their 90s who’ve never experienced any of those diseases). What can we learn from these subjects, who have not only reached a ripe old age but have further ripened the older th

Want to have a tooth pulled? There’s a risk in doing so. Need to have an X-ray because you broke your femur? There’s a risk in doing that, too. Chemotherapy? Having your appendix removed? Getting the COVID-19 vaccine? There’s risk in all of it. From risk, however, can come innovation and solutions. In You Bet Your Life, Dr. Paul Offit gave a long-ranging peek into how medical treatments come to be. It’s made, in part, through risk. From the first blood transfusions 400 years ago to the hunt for the COVID-19 vaccine, risk has been essential. It’s fraught with danger though with many relationships at play. Between intellectual breakthroughs, political realities, and human foibles, the path is a rocky one, but, from it, we can reach new plateaus of medical understanding and healthier lives. Dr. Paul Offit is the chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases and the director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Author of nine books, he is also professor of vaccinology and pe

Barney is a friendly purple Tyrannosaurus rex. Dino, everyone’s favorite pet from The Flintstones, is a “Snorkosaurus.” Godzilla is a “Godzillasaurus.” Dinosaurs have fascinated us all for as long as we first discovered dinosaurs. From Jurassic Park to the sitcom The Dinosaurs, we’ve been enthralled by Stegastauruses, Velociraptors, Brontosauruses, and all the other long-long reptiles of millennia ago. But what do we actually know of these ancient creatures? And what can we still learn? Plenty. Luckily, Darren Naish is here to help answer some of those questions. With Dinopedia: A Brief Compendium of Dinosaur Lore, Naish gave an entertaining and informative account of dinosaurs in all their immensity. All we know about them have changed in recent decades. Since the late 1960s a scientific revolution has taken place in the study of them. New ideas have been explored, showing how the extinct creatures were marvels of evolution that surpassed modern reptiles and mammals in size, athletic abilities, and more. Nai

Love isn’t the only thing that hurts. Leigh Cowart knows. Eating the world’s hottest pepper hurts. Ballerinas dancing on broken bones hurts. A sideshow performer electrocuting themself hurts. Ultramarathon running, jumping into an icy lake, and tattooing all hurt. Why are we doing all of this to ourselves on purpose? This question, and many others, are answered in Leigh Cowart’s scintillating new book, Hurts So Good: The Science and Culture of Pain on Purpose. Masochism, Cowart’s learned, is a part of who we are. But why? What are the benefits? And at what cost? What does giving ourselves pain say about the human experience? Cowart dives into the neuroscience behind it, through conversations with psychologists, scientists, and those who seek pain for pleasure. Cowart, by the way, is a self-proclaimed masochist, seeking out the thrill of it. They participate in painful activities to find some greater understanding of how our minds and bodies find meaning in pain, and the relief after. Sideshow performer Dan Bl

Quarantining during COVID certainly wasn’t the first time we’ve had to restrict our movements to prevent the spread of disease. Far from it. Take, for instance, that time in the 14th century when the Black Death decimated populations (killing off, some suggest, 60% of the entire European population). And take some other alarming maladies like yellow fever, tuberculosis, Ebola, and cholera. With Until Proven Safe, Geoff Manaugh and Nicola Twilley offered a survey of the uses and abuses of quarantines, from the days of the Black Death to the lockdowns of Covid-19. With a quarantine there is an interplay of forces – biological, political, and technological – that is powerful and effective but also dangerous. When quarantined, it means we are waiting to see if something hidden inside us will be revealed. It also operates under an assumption of guilt. In quarantine, we are considered infectious until proven safe. Whatever challenges being in quarantine has, such as the tedium of isolation and the physical spaces

We’re not to blame for climate change. It’s a part of the natural cycle. The earth is flat. The round Earth conspiracy is orchestrated by NASA and other government agencies. No one should get the coronavirus vaccine. Bill Gates wants to use it to implant microchips in people. This is, of course, all bunk. But how can we change the minds of people who believe it to be true? Lee McIntyre offered thoughts and suggestions to try and reach, communicate, and change the minds of science deniers in How to Talk to a Science Denier. And, he warned, it’s best not to just dismiss them and ignore them. Why? Science denial can kill. From attending a flat earth conference to chats with anti-vaxxers, McIntire presented the five factors involved in science denial: cherry-picking evidence, belief in conspiracy theories, reliance on fake experts, logical errors, and setting impossible expectations on what science can achieve. Can we achieve understanding with the irrational? Not through belittling them or through anger, McInty

There aren’t many in this world who can be called a real-life Lorax. In fact, there’s just one: Dr. Meg Lowman. Lowman was nicknamed that by National Geographic for her enthusiasm and knowledge of all things trees. A true tree hugger, Lowman, executive director of the TREE Foundation, has been up in the branches and crowns for decades, learning and sharing that enthusiasm and knowledge about the arboreal world all around and above us. With her new book, Arbornaut: A Life Discovering the Eighth Continent in the Trees Above Us, Lowman shares her incredible story. From the first seeds of wanting to explore the Australian rainforests in her graduate school days, to measuring tree growth in the northeastern United States; from climbing up the enormous redwoods on the Pacific, to saving Ethiopia’s last forests with the help of local priests, Lowman’s adventures become our own. Part memoir, part fieldwork account, The Arbornaut highlights her rise, one of only a few women in the scientific world of dendrology (the