End of Semester 5: What We Learned - Lab 129

It's been a year that we've been doing this. Yes, yes, yes, but the science doesn't stop just because the semester is over. So the lab lights are still on. That's what you're saying, that's frighting overly on. I'm TT and I'm Zakiah and this is Dope Labs. Welcome to Dope Labs, a weekly podcast that mixes hardcore science with pop culture and a healthy dose of friendship. Over the last year, we've covered a lot of ground in the labs that we have done. Yeah.

Some of them have been heavy topics, yes, and others have been really fun and some topics that had us texting each other like wait, what is happening? Listen. It's not just the topics but the news too. I'm still wondering what is happening every day I wake up and I say, are we still in twenty twenty six? A lot has happened in just a few short months. But today we're wrapping up semester five. But before we step away for a little bit, we want to talk about

what we've been discussing and what we're keeping our eyes on. Okay, so what do we know over the last year. We've talked about a lot. But you know what stands out to me the most. A lot of our labs that we've done have been about systems. So, okay, what do you mean by systems? I think, if I were to like sum it up, it's like the invisible stuff, the stuff we can't see that's shaping how we live our algorithms.

That's markets, labor markets, economic markets, environmental exposures, institutions. Right, because we talked about everything this semester, AI relationships, sports betting and prediction markets, the psychology of Black Friday shopping, air pollution, and what's actually in the air we're breathing. I know the air in my office right now is mostly make up setting spray. We even talked about the

science behind the Grammys, which I still think people are underestimating. Yeah, there's a lot of math in the Grammys, a lot of psychology, and yeah it's heavy. It's heavy stuff. So if you zoom out, what do you think the big theme of our year was, Well, to piggyback off of what you're saying, because you put that bug in my ear. It's probably how science and systems are quietly shaping our lives.

And unfortunately, or fortunately I feel it was like the quiet party is out loud now, oh my goodness, very loud. All right, So we did a little look back at what we've talked about. But we're going to be away and I know we'll text about what we have our eyes on. Yes, I want to know, so you can tell everybody else what you have your eyes on for twenty twenty six. Well, for twenty twenty six, I am

keeping my eyes open on the policy stuff. You know, I'm into the policy arm now and so now all of those things are just in the forefront of my mind. I feel like so much is going on behind the scenes, like people are doing some very strange things that are very anti what we're used to, Okay, and so I'm just kind of like holding my breath. But also making sure that I'm staying up to date with what's going on in politics. It could be draining, but it's important.

It is so important to stay on top of it. I'm also keeping my eye out on ways that I can make sure that in the midst of all of this turmoil and things that are stressing me out, ways to incorporate self care because all of this can be

heavy on your psyche. All this can be heavy on your emotions, and so making sure that I'm not suffering from burnout with everything that's going on in the world, and injecting more levity, injecting more art, injecting more music, injecting all the things that make me smile, because I think there has to be a balance there, you know. Yeah, for sure, what are you keeping your eye on? I think everything everything they're shifting around, looking right, looking weird

in the corner. Okay, I think there are a couple things. So when you said self care, that really rang a bell for me. You know, I think I've talked about it on the show a lot, about getting my right sleeping pattern. I'm back biking, hopefully in the next few weeks because it's warming up here enough for that. Yeah, and so getting outside, being in nature and also trying to avoid all the pollen that will come along with that, but also some community care and not just self care.

So one of the things recently I was like, oh, I think I'll volunteer. And sometimes it feels like you have to go to a church or a library to volunteer. And I was like, let me start with the people in my community. And so I just reached out to some people I know here in Atlanta that are friends and I was like, Hey, do you need any help

with anything today? I love that or tomorrow whatever. And so I think, you know, people are aching for a community, but a lot of the conversation I've seen is like, hey, you got to be willing to contribute and create that community that you want to be there for you. And so that's one piece. The other thing is a little bit more sociology and behavior. But it's Punched the monkey. Okay have you seen them acaque over in Japan? Poor Punch. I felt so bad for the baby. Let people know

who Punch is before you you talk about him. Punch is a macaque in the I Chicago City Zoo in Japan, and he was rejected at birth by his mother. This is a very devastating thing to happen for someone like him. I'm saying someone an animal. And he was bottle fed by the zoo staff. He had to be reintegrated into this new troop and they had to he had to kind of fight for his own position. And one of the monkeys was in there being a bully. Okay, a bully.

I said, get him out. Listen we he started throwing Punch around. I said, get him out of there. Go get our boy. The internet rally behind Punch. Yes, Punch has pissed so many people on his side, and I think that's interesting because it's animal behavior that we're seeing, but we're able to resonate with it. And it made me think about our first episode Cuffing Season, where we talked about animal behavior around mating and how it looks

similar in some ways to human behavior. And then once again we're seeing those same people are able to identify and they're like, oh, this person is Punch his friend or you know, we're looking at these social behaviors that we also exhibit, and so I think it's really I'm like, hey, we're all primeates. Baby, Yeah, these fingernails soft claws, soft clause. As my friend would say, Oh my goodness, I'm also keeping my eye out on AI. And this kind of goes to the policy honestly, because I mean AI is

changing every five minutes, literally, like every week. There's new developments in the AI space, and the technology is advancing. It is like when we say breakneck speed. It is really really fast, and folks are just trying to keep up. No one who works in the AI space anticipated that it would be where it is right now in twenty twenty six, and so one of the big questions that scientists are asking right now is whether AI can actually

help discover new science. Let me tell you I was asked from that question a while back, and I think part of that is because people think about the large language modelers and the interfaces that are like generic uses like chat, GPT. But Anthropic has been growing on the scene. You know, I've been following what they're doing with AI for science, and I gotta tell you, I am I

am impressed. Okay, Now, I think they're showing us just what's possible, even just for like one example I saw was like this plug in and you can have all your lab's data So think about a lab. Think about the lab that I was in in grad school. You know, my advisor ended up retiring, but there were samples in those freezers from the eighties and nineties. Okay, so we're talking in twenty fourteen. I'm trying to look back through

books and see writing in people's lab notebooks from the nineties. Now, imagine all the results from our lab, negative results that don't get published, all of that being catalog. Imagine those things being scanned in and we have a database. So when a new student comes along, they can say, hey, actually it's not published, but I know this this and this won't work, or here are the results of this other experiment. So we don't waste time, we don't waste resources.

We could say, are there any patterns that I hadn't see over the past twenty years but that AI can detect and then I can test and verify, Like, baby, what do you know what we could have done with that type of technology? PhD in ten days they just gonna be giving it out. But that's just one small

use case, and it's exciting. It is. And I think that when people talk about AI, it's always just you know, chat, GPT, and we got to expand our understanding of what AI is and what it's possible with AI, because there's a lot of really cool work being done. I know that there are a lot of folks talking about its impact on the environment and things like that, and we the

scientists understand and are working on those things too. As AI advances, the the sustainability of it all will also advance, so I think that that's something that we have to keep in mind as well. Another thing that we talked about this year was money, Where is it all going? People are always want to know what's going on with the economy, and I feel like the economy is such a big word, like what does that even mean? And

everything it seems right? And we talked about the psychology of spending, Black Friday, gambling, risk and all of those things associated with it, because we really wanted to focus on the individual because it feels like that's the only thing we can control. All of this is behavioral science,

and I've been interested in this over the years. This is not where my training is, okay, but I do think I'm curious with the rise of AI and with so much information, what about human processing of that information? That's gonna matter even more. And so like understanding the drivers what makes you do the things you do. With all this information, you now have access to what makes you act on a thing or not all of that. It feels like we're gonna need to understand that even better.

And I think in a world where capitalism is in the driver's seat, it pays to know these things absolutely. And the big question, one of the big questions right now is what does AI mean for jobs? And I think that folks are really nervous. People are nervous about what that means for their jobs in the future. I know, like in the law space, lawyers are actually really nervous because you know all of that. I don't even know what the right words are roxy if you're listening case law,

all those books and stuff. AI is able to do redlines. AI is able to do all of these things. And so I know it's not just the folks that are doing jobs and a factory. It's like every industry is feeling the impacts of AI. And so I think we're going through one of those moments where technology changes the

kinds of work that humans do. I don't think that it's going to just get rid of like whole sectors, like we always going to need lawyers, you know what I mean, And we're always going to need doctors, and we're always going to need people that can help with building people with trade skills. I think the jobs is just gonna look a little different. I think they will definitely look different, and how we prepare will look different. Listen, these types of changes and shifts in the human workforce

have happened before the Industrial Revolution. Having computers, having the internet, all those things have changed how we train, They've changed what the education system looks like. And so I'm thinking back to our episode where we talked about the economy and the changes in the workforce, and I think what we will see is a shift to more intermittent training.

So that means you don't just go to school one time and you stay in that career for thirty years and you rely on that knowledge from the institutional knowledge from school and then the experiential knowledge from over time. I don't think that's going to be the way it is. I think you'll have three and four careers, and what we need is infrastructure to support that to help people shift as the workforce does. That's such a great point.

And that also makes me think about because we talked about the politics more, and we talked about politics a lot this season and found its way into almost every single episode. And that's because science is never isolated from politics. You know, we've talked about immigration, surveillance, who knew Enemy of the State was real? Nonfiction? All of these things

are shaped by what policy allows. Even when we look at you know, what medicines are available, treatments are being approved, what careers people are able to get loans for so that they can continue to go to college. All of these things are shaped by policy. And we know science is also affected by those things because it depends on ideas moving, even when they're not clear cut or they feel messy at the beginning. So and it depends on

knowledge moving. Absolutely, those two things are intertwined, as are all things. That's why we say science is in everything, you know what I mean? Yeah, And that's like the bedrock of Dope Labs is that science is in everything and that we need to arm ourselves with resources that will help us understand what is going on around us in the world day to day. Yes, so we talked about rabbit holes at the beginning. I didn't quite let you get into it. But what rabbit hole are you

currently in? Thank you for opening the door. It's just a little bit, don't get I put my foot in there. Okay, you won't be able to close it back for me. I think the there are a couple rabbit holes. So I mentioned biking, but also birds. It's time the birds are moving fir rating. Oh okay, you should have seen the look she gave me. All she was not happy with what do you mean time for what? Listen? These are a pollinators. Sometimes these are our cues of seasons changing.

They're so exciting. There's so much to learn, and I really would like to do a little bit. But what do they call that container? Garden it? The earths are expensive, okay, and they're going mushy in the refrigerator fab so I need my own supply. I remember when we were in grad school, you would open up their back door and just cut out cut basal leaves and stuff like that, and I was like, what is going on back there, honey? Like I had never seen that before in my life.

Somebody opened their door and cut stuff and then put it in the food Like is these lawn clippings no flavor. Ho really should have excited me for that. Oh my gosh, Now what about you, I'm not letting you get away? Uh huh Okay. So for me, the rabbit hole that I'm going down is mainly focused on human behavior. I think the rise of parasocial relationships, like people feeling like they know someone because they follow them on Instagram or

TikTok or watch their YouTube videos. Yes, that is just so interesting to me because and it's not even coming from a place of judgment. I be feeling like I know these people. I've been following some people for over a decade, and when they get married, I'm like, wow,

I didn't even get invited. It's interesting though, because we talk about this t t and I feel like there are some og Dope Labs listeners that I'm like, hey, I can't believe how much your baby has grown, and I'm like telling them I said, hello, look at our little tiny shift. Right, That's how I feel. And then some people I'm like, who is this? You know? Right, there's this woman on TikTok who had a very public dating relationship. When she went on a first date with

this man, knew about it. She talked about him. She eventually married this man and UH had like a what felt like a TikTok wedding where it was like all these brands, like brands bought her dress, brands did the makeup brands, like it was just very TikTok because she's

like one of the most popular TikTokers or whatever. She also let us like a little bit too much into her life and so we were we observed like her husband's drug addiction and like now they're getting a divorce, and so people are just like in the comments talking crazy and I'm just like, we don't know her, we don't know her. I'm like, I have the biggest we

don't know her. We don't know her. Like she's volunteered a lot of information, and so people are like, well, if you put that out there, we're allowed to comment, and I'm like, but you don't have to. But you don't have to. You don't have to, and so it's just really interesting how people make those decisions. I'm like, is it a generational thing? I don't think so, because I see some folks my age and older who are in the comments section doing stuff behaving terribly. Yeah, because

I'm and I'm just like me. I'm not like the way that I interacted with the Internet. I feel like you're the same way too, Like we remember what it was like before there was social media. We know, in person beef, you know, yes, all this it don't mean nothing to me. All that typing, all that typing, right, oh, in person beef and internet beef is making me think about fifty cent and TI the South got something to say now. I haven't even been able to keep up

what's going on? Can you please bring me up to speed really quick. It's not even important. It's grown people being ridiculous. Okay, that's all it is. I don't think that beef is worth any of our time. There's so much on our plate. Take that little piece of beef off. Okakay, don't don't even worry about it. That's the gristle. Throw it in the track, yes, the gristle. So well, that's

mainly what my rabbit hole has been. And just like why we make the decisions that we make, and trusting some technologies over others, and you know, how we interact with technology. Those are the things that I've been kind of like deep diving into and trying to understand more. If there's something I can say, I want everybody to keep their eye on and to keep the pressure on, is scientific discovery. Don't stop asking for more things, you know.

I feel like we're seeing funding cuts. I was on the GAO website which I said, I don't think I'm even supposed to be over here, okay, and that's the Government Accountability Office. I've been looking at research infrastructure, how

it's slowed since twenty twenty four. What was expected. Projects are being scrapped, so scope has decreased, delivery is delayed, and so I'm just like I recently went to a Rare disease conference put on by the Boston Globe, and I was looking at what's happening next, what's in the pipeline, and how these companies are pushing for these things, and I was like, we need our government to push as well, and so like, I am keeping my eyes on scientific discovery,

innovation and application for people to have better lives across the board. Absolutely, I think I'm right there with you because it is so so important to stay on top of these things. What they're hoping is is that we won't and that all these things will be going on in the background and we are being distracted by a bunch of other stuff. The midterm elections are coming up, and we have got to get to the polls because

when we vote, we win. Okay, that's the theme for this next midterm is like, you got to get to the polls because if we all show up and vote, we will win. Period. I like that. And don't be distracted. Like you said, you can always click another link, add another tab, come back to it later and read it, learn about it, be informed exactly. Science doesn't stop, Curiosity doesn't stop, that's right, just curiouser and curiouser. So that's

a wrap on semester five. This has been so much fun bringing you labs every single week for the past year, hit after hit after hit after here and I guess we'll just see you next time. You know where to find us, by y'all. You can find us on X and Instagram at Dope Labs podcast. You can find me ct on X, threads and Instagram at dr Underscore t Sho, and you can find Zakiya at z said So. Dope Labs is a production of Lemonada Media. Our supervising producer

is Keegan Zemma. Dope Labs is sound designed, edited, and mixed by James sparber Lemonada's Senior Vice President of Content and Production is Jackie Danziger. Executive producer from iHeart Podcast is Katrina Norvil. Marketing lead is Alison Kanter. Original music composed and produced by Takayatsuzawa and Alex suki Ura, with additional music by Elijah Harvey. Dope Labs is executive produced by us T T Show Dia and Zakiah Wattley.