Honey, I Shrunk the Data

The world’s data is stored on millions of computers, or servers, that take up buildings’ worth of space and consume about as much electricity as France. How do we keep up with the increasing amount of data that we are generating? In this episode, we talk to Dina Zielinski, a bioinformatician, about her unexpected solution: storing digital data on DNA.



Music: "Lode Runner" and "Onward" from Poddington Bear.

How to Build a Human: Part 2

In Part 2 of “How to Build a Human”, we continue our investigation of our unique features that set us apart from other animals. We spoke to Dr. Nathan Young from the University of California San Francisco, who studies the development of the human skeleton and looks at how the variations in our skeletal structure have contributed to our evolution and the development of human civilization.

Stay tuned at the end of the episode for our newest installment of Headlines, the Carry the One Radio newscast. Each month (give or take), Headlines hosts Nick Weiler and Arezu Sarvestani bring you the latest research news from around UCSF. In this month's episode, guest host Liz Droge-Young fills in while Arezu attends a hacker conference in Las Vegas. Nick and Liz check out stories about why aspirin may help prevent certain forms of cancer, how cutting down on sugar yields remarkable benefits for kids' heart health, and whether pale skin might be the result of evolutionary laziness. Happy Listening!

Music:

• Loll—Podington Bear
• Danse Macabre, Opus 40—University of Chicago Orchestra
• Monkeys Spinning Monkeys—Kevin MacLeod
• Pink Gradient—Podington Bear
• Camp—Podington Bear
• Gathering—Podington Bear
• Firefly—Podington Bear
• Sidecar—Podington Bear
• Patched In—Blue Dot Sessions

Sound Effects:

• “Splash Rock in Lake Sound”—www. Soundbible.com; Public Domain
• “Bite into and Chew Apple”—http://freesfx.co.uk
• “Alien Siren”—www. Soundbible.com; Public Domain

Cracking the Autism Code with Matt State

Our ability to diagnose and treat disorders of the mind lags far behind other medical disciplines. For our latest episode, we talked to Dr. Matthew State about why this is the case, and discussed how his research into the genetics of autism is revealing promising paths to future treatments.

Links

• Dr. Matthew State's Lab
• Atlantic Article about the Largest Mental Hospital (A Jail)
• Article about Estrogen Rescuing Phenotype in Fish: 
• "Estrogens Suppress a Behavioral Phenotype in Zebrafish Mutants of the Autism Risk Gene, CNTNAP2"   
• Article about spatial and temporal convergence of autism associated genes during development
• "Coexpression networks implicate human midfetal deep cortical projection neurons in the pathogenesis of autism"
• National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) statistics

 

Music Attribution

• Dry Air by Podington Bear
• TwilightGrandeur by Podington Bear
• Delta by Podington Bear 

• Artist: Chris Zabriskie
• License
• Songs: 
• Heliograph 
• Cylinder Six and Cylinder Eight 
• Land of the Golden Gate 

• Artist: Twin Musicom
• License
• Song: Lightning on a Blue Sky

Attribution Free Music

• Hydra by Huma-Huma
• Juicy by ALBIS
• Eureka by Huma-Huma
• Nevada City by Huma-Huma

My Little Thesis

Ready to get blasted with science? We recorded five different PhD students as they summarized their entire thesis in 3 minutes or less. The challenge was to describe their research with as little jargon as possible, for a general audience. You’ll hear about everything from cancer, to the developing embryo, to how dieting might make you smarter.

The music you heard in this episode includes the following:
Easy Jam by Kevin MacLeod (source, artist)
Ecossaise in E-flat by Kevin MacLeod (source, artist)
Bumper Tag by John Deley
The Creek by Topher Mohr and Alex Elena
About that Oldie by Vibe Tracks
60's Quiz Show (Podington Bear) / CC BY-NC 3.0

Origins

Humankind is fascinated by origin stories. We find them everywhere and they come in many forms... every religion has one, science has lots, they're in biographies, and they're even in superhero movies.

In this episode, Dr. Terry Deacon, a biological anthropologist at UC Berkeley, guides us through a novel perspective on how life itself might have started.

Music:

Attribution:
Constellation - Podington Bear
Dreamlike - Kevin Macleod

Other Public Domain:
USAF Band: Saturn and Neptune

Creative Commons:
Eureka by huma-huma
Elephants by huma-huma
In the Hall of the Mountain King - Edvard Grieg
Rag Time Time - Doug Maxwell/Media Right Productions
Let's Do It - Topher Mohr and Alex Elena

For more information on life's origins:

Deacon reference:
anthropology.berkeley.edu/sites/defaul…6_Deacon.pdf ("Reciprocal Linkage between Self-organizing Processes is Sufficient for Self-reproduction and Evolvability")

Prebiotic evolution:
what-when-how.com/molecular-biolog…lecular-biology/

Cliff Matthews:
DARK MATTER IN THE SOLAR SYSTEM: HYDROGEN CYANIDE POLYMERS

RNA world:
www.scientificamerican.com/article/ori…e-on-earth/ The origin of life on earth, scientific american.

Erratum: Soccer balls have both hexagons and pentagons!

Me, Myself & My Microbiome

On average, five pounds of our body weight is made up of bacteria. But what are they doing there? Do they keep us healthy, make us sick, or are they just along for the ride? In this two-part episode, we will explore the mysterious and complex function of these microscopic critters that collectively make up our micro biome.

In part 1, we talk with Katie Pollard, a UCSF professor who studies the microbiome. Katie explains the current state of microbiome research and how critical her work is to forming appropriate conclusions about 
the relationship between our microbial ecosystem and disease.

In part 2, we take a plunge into a man's toilet bowl! (Not-so-average) Joe Hiatt shares an audio diary of his experiences with two extreme diets and the changes he sees in his microbiome. Join him as he chronicles both his bathroom habits along with his microbial diversity.

Click here for more information about the Pollard lab.

Click here to visit uBiome's company website.

Produced by Lynn Wang, Lay Kodama, Ryan Jones, Kathleen Molnar

With Editing help from Meryl Horn, and Nick Weiler. 

Cover art from the Genetic Science Learning Center, University of Utah, http://learn.genetics.utah.edu

Launch Episode: What is Carry the One Radio?

Welcome to Carry the One Radio – a series of 10-minute chats with scientists about one question that they are working on. Your host for the program is Sama (Osama Ahmed), a neuroscience graduate student at the University of California – San Francisco. Spread the word about the show. Download the episodes – there will be one new episode every other Wednesday.


If you have any questions, or comments, or you want to support the show: please email CarryTheOneRadio@gmail.com