Important, Not Important

In Episode 95, Quinn & Brian ask: how can we upgrade our microbiome (also, what’s a microbiome (also, why does it need upgrading))?Our guest is: Raja Dhir, Co-Founder of Seed Health a microbiome company pioneering the application of bacteria for both human and planetary health. He leverages years of expertise translating scientific research for product development to lead Seed’s R&D, academic collaborations, technology development, clinical trial design, supply chain, and intellectual property strategy.So, what is a microbiome? Overly simply put, it’s the 38,000,000,000,000 little guys in and on your body that help you do stuff; the bacteria, fungi, protozoa, and viruses that work symbiotically and allow us to function. Interest in the field grew rapidly around 2015, but Raja thought the rate of innovation and commercial response was lacking, not to mention the science behind many of the products that were being created. So Seed leveraged the “foundry model” to support many startups in the field, driv

In Episode 94, Quinn & Brian discuss: the most comfortable and sustainable shoes on the planet.Our guest is: Hana Kajimura, who leads the development and execution of the Allbirds sustainability program and strategy and is on a personal mission to make climate science fashionable. Allbrids was founded as a B-corp back in 2016, launching the world’s first wool shoes, which have been on Quinn’s feet pretty much the entire time since then. So are we shilling? A little bit. But we’re shilling *sustainably* — for the environment, if not our wallets — and that’s important.Hana has some fascinating insight into why the best sustainability happens when you build it into a product from the very beginning, how sustainability can be used as a competitive advantage, and how we can use storytelling to reduce fashion’s carbon footprint. And if the clothes you wear aren’t telling a story, then you’re probably just Quinn.Have feedback or questions? Tweet us, or send a message to questions@importantnotimportant.comNew her

 In Episode 93, Quinn & Brian ask: What can we do about all of this not-water in our water?Our guest is: Imari Walker, who is quite possibly the world’s preeminent Microplastics Bae. Imari is an Environmental Engineer, a Microplastics Researcher, a SciComm YouTuber, a Duke PhD candidate, and a true revelation to talk to.Here’s some fun facts: in 2018, there were ~359 million metric tons of plastic produced worldwide, and if current trends continue, roughly 12 BILLION metric tons of plastic waste will be in landfills or the natural environment by 2050. Also, to stay relevant, there are now almost as many disposable masks in the ocean as there are jellyfish. So where does all this waste come from (spoiler: check yo’ stretchy pants), why is it all just being thrown around willy nilly, and how can we get people to stop doing that?Have feedback or questions? Tweet us, or send a message to questions@importantnotimportant.comNew here? Get started with our fan favorite episodes at podcast.importantnotimporta

In Episode 92, we're headed off to climate school!Our guest is Anshuman Bapna, the creator (and headmaster) of Terra.do, which is like Hogwarts but for fixing the broken Earth. Of course, unlike Dumbledore, you can trust this headmaster won’t abandon you in your time of need. It seems so obvious that there should be a central (online) location where people can learn about climate change and how they can actually make a difference… but, until we learned about Terra.do, we didn’t even think about the fact that it didn’t exist. Luckily, now it does, and it has a strong bias towards taking participants from being interested in the topic to taking action to solve the problem — and it’s that critical DOING step that we need more people to take before we can hope to heal our planet and address some of the global inequities caused by industrialization and colonization.Have feedback or questions? Tweet us, or send a message to funtalk@importantnotimportant.comINI Book Club: "The Great Derangement: Climate Change

We’re back!In Episode 91, Quinn & Brian ask: Why is drinking water so unaffordable, or unavailable, or just filthy for so many people?Our guests are: Nina Lakhani & Mary Grant. Nina is environmental justice reporter for The Guardian US and Mary Grant is the Public Water for All Campaign Director at Food & Water Watch. They’ve bottled up their empathy and their anger for good, and we think they fit right in on the show.If it wasn’t already obvious: water is important. It’s one of the few things we actually need to survive, believe it or not. We’ve all heard of problems in Flint, but that’s not some crazy anomaly. It’s just the one town that got the most media attention, and even then, there are still huge problems with their water supply. The inequitable access to basic resources has been normalized in our country, but let's be clear about one thing — it’s NOT normal, and it doesn’t happen at anywhere near this scale in other developed countries. So, want to Make America Great Again? Well, let’s st

Back in Episode 51, Quinn & Brian asked: Are we thinking about CRISPR all wrong (and what the hell is it)?This is one of our most popular episodes, probably because it features one of our coolest guests: C. Brandon Ogbunu, an evolutionary systems biologist with a unique perspective on data and disease, and how both were influenced by evolution and ecology.We’ve talked about CRISPR before on the show, but if you’re not familiar, here’s a brief and overly simplistic overview of this potentially world-changing technology: it’s scissors for DNA. It’s still a very young technology — it was only patented in 2012 — but it has the potential to do everything from eliminating genetic diseases from our lineage to making our food supply more efficient and productive to creating a real-life Jurassic Park. But what can’t we do with it? And, perhaps more importantly, what shouldn’t we be doing with it? That’s what we’re going to find out today.Have feedback or questions? Tweet us, or send a message to questions@importan

We published our company statement on the Black Lives Matter protests on June 8th. This is an audio version of that statement, titled "A Letter to My Fellow White Men." You can read the original at https://www.importantnotimportant.com/blog/a-letter-to-my-fellow-white-men.Important, Not Important is produced by Crate Media

Please enjoy this preview of our weekly premium audio newsletter. Find out more at https://important.supportingcast.fm.This week: Racism is distracting us from the climate fight; if you’re black, you probably live near a coal plant; protests will worsen the coronavirus but we don’t really have a choice; COVID tracking apps are here, but how useful are they?; fighting for food equalityFind links from this newsletter and more at importantnotimportant.com/newsletterGot feedback? Email us at funtalk@importantnotimportant.comFollow us on Twitter at @importantnotimpImportant, Not Important is produced by Crate Media

Back in Episode 42, Quinn & Brian asked: What happens when you’re almost an astronaut... and what comes next?Our guest is Dr. Sian Proctor, an explorer, scientist, full-time professor, STEM communicator, and almost an astronaut. She joins the show to tell us how we can all help get more women and more people of color into space, one way or another. If you didn’t know — and we weren’t sure — being a white, male military pilot isn’t the only way to get to space! You can be exposed to radiation and get superpowers, become an (evil?) genius who starts their own electric car and space flight companies, or become a college-educated engineer, biologist, physical scientist, computer scientist, or mathematician. So we’re still out, but that’s a pretty wide range of qualifications.This episode is also extremely timely given what’s going on in the United States right now. This is not just the story of almost becoming an astronaut but the story of navigating a historically white and male space as a woman of color. Dr

In Episode 44, Quinn & Brian discussed: Why food waste is the stupidest thing we do and how can we cut it in half.Our guest was Dr. James Rogers, founder and CEO of Apeel Sciences and one of our most mind-blowing guests yet. You may think you know about avocados, but you have no idea. This episode is even more applicable now, when so many Americans have lost their jobs and the question of how to put food on the table is being asked by far too many families.For the first time in a long time, we’re actually talking about one of the things that America is best at — wasting food. We’re wasting about $165 BILLION of food every year. Or,  put another way, about 40% of the food produced in the U.S. is never eaten. It’s staggering and a little heartbreaking. But, of course, we chose this episode because there’s good news: avocados. Apeel avocados, to be precise.Have feedback or questions? Tweet us, or send a message to questions@importantnotimportant.comNew here? Get started with our fan favorite episod

To continue our Good News series, we’re looking back to Episode 78, when Quinn & Brian discussed: Planning for chaos. (Cheery, right?)For real, though. This episode offers an actionable, helpful, revealing, and — dare we say it? — PLEASURABLE way of looking at the world. And that perspective comes from the delightful Bina Venkataraman, author of The Optimist's Telescope and the Editor of The Boston Globe’s editorial page.Fair warning, so you don’t get upset like Brian did: this is not a real telescope. But you should still be excited, like Brian is now, because Bina is awesome and her book is fantastic — and it’s more applicable now than ever.Have feedback or questions? Tweet us, or send a message to questions@importantnotimportant.comNew here? Get started with our fan favorite episodes at podcast.importantnotimportant.com.INI Book Club: “The Lorax” by Dr. SeussINI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-clubLinks:Read: "The Optimist's Telescope"Twitter: @binajvWatch Bina’s

In Episode 75, Quinn & Brian discussed: Beating the crap out of childhood cancer with science and... zebrafish?Our guests are Dr. Jaclyn Taroni and Dr. Genevieve Kendall. Dr. Kendall is a Postdoctoral scholar at UT Southwestern Medical Center who utilizes zebrafish genetic models to understand how pediatric muscle cancers develop and better identify any therapies we can use to treat it. Dr. Taroni is a Principal Data Scientist at the Childhood Cancer Data Lab, an initiative of Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation, and her job is to help childhood cancer researchers like Dr. Kendall use data to answer some of the most important questions in the field.We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: fuck kid cancer. This conversation gets really nerdy and is surprisingly fun, and it offers some much-needed perspective — because there ARE people out there smarter than us using science to solve problems that may seem impossible from our positions at home right now.Have feedback or questions? Tweet us, or send a

If you haven’t already heard, we received a Webby nomination for Best Podcast Episode in the Science & Education category. We’re really proud to be nominated again… but, we also really want to win. So, today, we’re re-airing the episode that received a nomination and asking you to help us with your vote.Back in Episode 70, Quinn & Brian discussed: When things are broken, when the people who are working on those things are also broken, and why we need to help them.Our guest was Nikki Silvestri, the founder and CEO of Soil and Shadow, the Co-Founder of Live Real, and the former Executive Director of People's Grocery and Green for All. She is a nationally recognized thought leader and general good doer, including being named as one of The Root's 100 Most Influential African Americans and receiving both ELLE Magazine's "Gold" Award and OxFam America's "Act Local, Think Global" Award.We don’t hesitate or feel like we’re overselling things when we say that what Nikki has to say is something that most people

That's right, we are now a four-time Webby-nominated podcast! But what we really want is to be a Webby-winning podcast. So, please, go vote! It's free and you can stick it to the AARP.Vote for Important, Not Important for Best episode (Science & Education): https://vote.webbyawards.com/PublicVoting#/2020/podcasts/individual-episodes-mini-series-specials/science-educationVote for Important, Not Important for Best newsletter: https://vote.webbyawards.com/PublicVoting/#/2020/websites/general-websites/email-newsletters 

 In Episode 73, Quinn & Brian asked: Did A.I. take our jobs?Of course, we aren’t talking about our jobs. If A.I. took our jobs, the show would have won that goddamn Webby. No, no — we’re talking about really, really important jobs – the jobs being done by people like Dr. Mohammed AlQuraishi, who is a Department Fellow at the Laboratory of Systems Pharmacology and the Department of Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School.Still, Dr. AlQuraishi is hopeful about the future and his role in it — an attitude that was refreshing the first time we aired this episode and is downright necessary right now.Have feedback or questions? Tweet us, or send a message to questions@importantnotimportant.comNew here? Get started with our fan favorite episodes at podcast.importantnotimportant.com.INI Book Club: The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined by Steven PinkerINI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-clubLinks:Learn more at https://moalquraishi.wordpress.co

Our “Good News” series of replays begins today with Episode 66, when Quinn & Brian hosted a delightfully important discussion: Why, apparently, we shouldn’t just blow up asteroids.Our guest is: Professor K.T. Ramesh, who is an absolute delight and may have the coolest job in the world. He is the founding director of the Hopkins Extreme Materials Institute (HEMI), which is pretty much a real-life Avengers, except every member is like Bruce Banner without all the Hulk-iness or Tony Stark if he was never kidnapped by terrorists. Every day, they’re working to protect people, structures, and the planet, exploring a number of topics that are both critically important and impenetrably complicated.If, like us, you’ve always considered the seminal feature film Armageddon a blueprint for what to do in case of planetary disaster, Professor Ramesh is here to set the record straight about how we will have to deal with any incoming extraterrestrial projectiles. This conversation is just so much fun, and we hope it prov

In Episode 90, Quinn & Brian discuss: What it’s like to be a COVID-19 Lab Rat.Our guest is: Allie Broas, an almost-MBA and one of Quinn’s many, many cousins.We weren’t exactly planning to do more of these episodes right now — most of the people who are trying to change the world are quite busy at the moment — but then we had this unique opportunity to talk to someone who is not just a COVID-19 survivor but also, now, a COVID-19 test subject! So, we had to take it and learn more about how she contracted the virus, what her experience was like, and how she’s able to help doctors and scientists research it now.Have feedback or questions? Tweet us, or send a message to questions@importantnotimportant.comNew here? Get started with our fan favorite episodes at podcast.importantnotimportant.com.INI Book Club: Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austenhttps://www.amazon.com/registry/wishlist/3R5XF4WMZE0TV/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_ep_ws_2Gr8Ab6RS5WF3Links:"How You Can Help (And Mostly Still Stay At Home)"Twitter: twitter.com/a

Cast your mind back to Episode 79, when Quinn & Brian discussed: Optimism in the air (can it be?).Our guest is: Beth Gardiner, an environmental journalist and the author of Choked: Life and Breath in the Age of Air Pollution. The Guardian writes, “You couldn't ask for a better guide for ... concerned citizens,” which pretty much sums up our audience.We’re replaying this fan favorite during this crisis for two timely reasons: 1) breathing in pollution creates underlying conditions that dramatically elevate the risk of complication from diseases like COVID-19 and, CONVENIENTLY, 2) Trump just rolled back Obama’s vehicle tailpipe rules. This change should amount to “as much as 923 million more metric tons of carbon dioxide being emitted,” according to The Washington Post, which they report “is equivalent to the emissions from running 237 coal power plants for a year.” SO ANYWAYS. This is one place where we can actually make a difference in reversing the climate crisis, so Gardiner’s tips for citizen

Way back in Episode 65, Quinn asked: Was Chernobyl a preventable and rare accident from the past, or a vivid picture of what happens when the government abandons its citizens during a crisis?FUN STORY: turns out, it’s B!We’re replaying one of our most listened to episodes ever, because, well, COVID-19. Or, more specifically, because of the American government’s response to COVID-19. Which was to lie.Our guest is: Craig Mazin, a screenwriter, podcaster, and the creator of the Emmy-award winning HBO mini-series Chernobyl.This is the story of what happened in Chernobyl in 1986. And this is what’s happening in the USA right now. This moment, and how we choose to hold these people accountable, means everything.Have feedback or questions? Tweet us, or send a message to questions@importantnotimportant.comNew here? Get started with our fan favorite episodes at podcast.importantnotimportant.com.INI Book Club: Final Exit by Derek Humphryhttps://www.amazon.com/registry/wishlist/3R5XF4WMZE0TV/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_ep_

If you've been wondering how else you can help fight coronavirus besides staying at home in sweatpants, this episode is for you. Please share widely. You can find links and additional details at importantnotimportant.com/blog/fight. Find links from this newsletter and more at importantnotimportant.com/newsletter Got feedback? Email us at funtalk@importantnotimportant.com Follow us on Twitter at @importantnotimp Important, Not Important is produced by Crate Media