NightSide News Update

It's Nightside with Dan Ray.

I'm WBS Boston's news radio.

Thanks a lot, Madison. Welcome in everybody. My name is Dan Ray. As Madison was kind enough to mention Rob Brooks, our producer back in the control room tonight, as we start a Friday night edition of Nightside, heading you into the weekend. All I gotta do is jump aboard the Nightside train. We will bring you right up to Saturday morning, well till about eleven fifty eight Friday night. Close enough,

Unfortunately no, but I a lot.

Second. My follow up question is how many times have you been asked that question?

Many?

I've been married for about twelve years, and I think I get it more than my husband does. But no, not to our knowledge at least.

I mean I got to assume there are on too many people with the last name of Zappa.

I just we have not heard many. I really should do some you know testing on those sites to see if we're a connection toological research.

Yeah. Related, Well, first of all, we're not here to talk about Frank Zappa or music you hear in your capacity as executive vice president of one warm Code National Share of the Warmth Day? Is that today or is it coming up?

It's coming up on October eighth, and it's really our kickoff to CODE Drive season. So it's a national awareness day that you know, we started a few years ago to get people aware of our organization and of the need for warmth, you know, especially among vulnerable populations as we get into the four months of the year.

Yeah, let me tell you, no matter what happens, it gets chili right around Thanksgiving and it stays with us about Saint Patrick State, particularly all of us here in the Northeast. So let me let me ask you, is you as a national organization or are you located just in the cold weather spots? Tell us about the group.

So we're a national organization. We were actually sounded in San Francisco and I am from the Philadelphia area. So to me, I was like, oh, this coat organization, you know, started in California. Sounded like a little strange, but you know, of course the weather in San Francisco. San Francisco can get so cold. And we started in nineteen ninety two when a woman had a coat that she no longer had a need for and she could not find anywhere

Yeah, We're a Boston radio station, but we're heard not only throughout in New England, but our over the year signal, what's called the terrestrial signal, is very strong, and we have people anywhere east of the Mississippi River who are listening to us right now, and that doesn't include those around the world who can pick us up on the internet. So, yeah,

So the best way is to go to our website, which is one Warm coat dot org. And to your point, you know what you were just saying, you can do a number of things. You can just donate coats, you know, go through your closets, pull out the coats that are gently worn, they don't have holes and stains, they're clean, but you're just not using them anymore. And you can search on our website to find co drives in your area, so you can just drop off a coat. The next

That's a great answer to my question, which I think would be hanging over the minds of many people. You really nailed it. So it's one warm coat and I assume one is spelled out one warmth yes war mcoachcoat dot org. Do people participate on an annual basis? Do you have sort of a backbone of volunteers and people around the country who you know, every September October are going to spend some time doing this.

Absolutely, we have a number of people that do it every year. And you know, someone just came to mind as a little girl who she's not little Chelly, a teenager now she's been doing it with us since is probably eight years old, and continue to do it every year.

Great great, great program, great drive and certainly you see people who are walking the streets in wintertime and they some of them don't have shoes, some of them don't have coats, and this is a great project. Patty's Apple. Thank you very much for spending some time with us this Friday night, and I hope that you having me volunteers as result of our few minutes talking.

Thank you so much, Thanks so much. I appreciate it, very welcome.

Coming up on the other side of the break here, we're going to talk about the Red Bull Tug of or not the trunk Tug of War, but a tug of or a r on the Charles River. This Saturday, we will talk with Mike Ferry, former Riverside President and the MC of Red Bull Tug of War. We'll get it all in for you right after the break. You listen to WBZ. If you have any trouble picking MWBZ on your car radio and your home radio, and you shouldn't have because you do have a very strong signal.

It absolutely is. Dan, Yeah, So thanks for having me this evening. So I am the former president of Riverside Boat Club in Cambridge, Massachusetts. So one of the many story gun clubs. Indeed, yeah, so so rowing on the Charles every day. I love it and happy to have led that organization.

Okay, so now you are going to be as I understand that coming in here, and are you the organizer? What is your title with this? Yeah?

Yeah, so I'm going to be the MC and I am part of the planning team for a one of a kind rowing event going on tomorrow called tug.

Of Or Now when you say one of a kind are you talking about this is the first time? Because I have never heard of this type of event. I'll have you explain it in a moment. But they do a lot of rowing on the Charles River. But is this the the initial effort or has this been done in previous locations before this?

This has never been done before. And Dan, let me tell you so, I've been a rower for twenty five years, and even I know that traditional rowing is frankly not the best specter your sport. Right, So maybe you've seen head of the Charles and there you see some boats crash and that's cool, but you see each boat for thirty seconds and you never know exactly who's winning, right, I.

Thought it wasn't a crew team. In high school and we used to go to these crew races and first of all, you have to have binoculars. They all look the same in the boats from the Yeah where are they? You know? Maybe oh no, here the I think she comes, No there they go.

So, yeah, this is different exactly how it works. And maybe you see it on the Olympics once every four years, and unless you're an insider like me, right, it just looks like people going and boring straight lines for seven minutes.

Yeah, okay, so this is not going to be going in a straight line. It's going to be a tug of or give us the set it up for us.

Sir, Yeah, yeah, exactly. So it's it's red bull tug of oar. And so it's a twist on tug of war. Right, So the game we all played on field day when we were in middle school. But tomorrow we're of course going to be doing that in the rowing boats and the two boats are going. So it's going to be two boats head to head and they're connected to each other by a strong rope, and then the crews are literally going to try to drag each other over a line. So they're really going.

To be back I'm not a rower, but are they're going to be back to back as opposed to.

Exactly? Yeah? So, so they will actually be facing each other, right, So when you're when you're rowing, you're actually facing backwards right to get the most leveraged. So they're going to look at each other straight in the eye as they tug each other over the line. Yeah.

No, wait a second, I'm maybe so you will have a line in the water. And then how far the boats separated?

Oh, that's a good question. Actually, so I don't know the exact length. I have to talk to my ops team about that, but it's okay, thirty pretty good, Maybe ten twenty feet.

That's all. That's all.

That's it.

Yeah, so we we don't want a lot of slack. We just want maximum carnage, right, we want intensity.

Okay, So they are looking face at each other, face.

To face, uh huh, yep, yep.

But instead of going forward, one of them is going to pull the other across the line. And so this is sort of like a one and done tournament. You have, I believe, is that sixteen teams and each team is co ed one guy, you got.

It right, Okay, exactly right.

It must be eighteen years of old. Is it too late to sign up? Not that I'm going to sign.

Up, but yeah, so it's a little too late to sign up. But this is an inclusive event, so we want to get as many people down there as possible. Even if you've never seen rowing, you never touched an or it doesn't matter. Just come down check it out, and who knows, maybe next year, hopefully we're hoping to make this a tradition and maybe next year some of the spectators can join in and get in on the fund.

Okay, so my understanding is it runs from one o'clock tomorrow afternoon until approximately four to forty five, and the best viewing sites are the Week's Footbridge. Is that near the Well Boathouse. I'm trying to figure where the Week's footbridge is.

They have so many exactly yeah, that's exactly right. So we nails you nailed it, yeah, absolutely man. So yeah, so it's on the Charles River at the Week's Footbridge. So that's not the bridge that leads into JFK Boulevard. If people are used to driving around like Soldier sealed road and all that, but it's close, right, So it's

So, now, how did you select the lucky participants?

Yeah, so I don't know how lucky they're going to be because this is going to be a lot of a lot of action, right so, and they're going to be really tired at the end. But so we put out an open call for participants. Again, I have to talk to my registration team to figure out exactly how many.

So there will be sixteen teams, and so you'll have eight competitions. Those eight winners will then face off in a second round. You'll go down four people for four teams. They'll face off, and then the two finalists will face off. Is it all one and done? There's no like two out of three or anything like that.

Yeah, no, we're we're going cutthroat, We're going brutal. Right, So it's a single elimination bracket tournament, similar to March Badness or or other kinds of tournaments like that. Yeah, and whoever wins gets a trophy at the end. No really, Oh yeah yeah, no, this trophy, I've seen it. It would look pretty good sitting on your mantle, just saying. And of course the ultimate prize is the bragging rights, which you can't really put a value on. Of course.

Now I'm assuming I could be wrong, but I'll make the assumption that all of your teams are probably, if not New England based, at least maybe even Boston based.

Yeah, yeah, so that that is definitely a fair assumption.

Right, Ringer team from Siberia, I assume.

No, definitely not. But I mean, so the Charles is in many ways the best possible venue for this event, right, So we have a critical mass of really good rowers, right, So, super great athletes signed up, including some former national team athletes, right, who have competed at the highest levels of sport has to offer. So you know, spectators tomorrow are really going to be in for a treat.

Now, people going to be able to. We now have legalized sports betting in Massachusetts. If there's going to be anyone taking bets.

On over the on the bridge, yeah, I don't know. People could be taking action. I'll be on the lookout for that tomorrow.

Yeah. So how did you get involved in this? Are you? Are you actually a Boston guy who's coming home for this event or are you somebody who is Boston based? Yeah?

I have lived in Yeah, I've lived in the Boston area now for twenty five years. I've been a rower. I'm a champion myself, so I've won Head of the Charles three times, and so a few friends of mine we're putting this together in collaboration with Red Bull. We've done similar events in the past as well. And they called me up and I said, yeah, man, sign me up for one more ride.

I'm only did you row in college?

I did?

Yeah?

No, So I wrote it Mit. You lost every race except one, and I decided that wasn't enough, so I kept going.

My son in law played basketball at MIT, and so I know that it's a Division III school. I had no idea what they were in terms of rowing. But you were able because you went to MIT. You can figure this sixteen down to eight, down to four, down to two, down to a champion pretty easily. You got the math down at least for this, I'm sure.

Right, absolutely, Yeah, I'll be checking the list twice, but I think I got it.

Yeah, all right, Mike. You got a good sense of human you got a good way about you. You could be a radio guy or a TV guy. Very good at what you're doing. You're gonna be the MC tomorrow. I'm sure it's going to be very entertaining, entertaining and a lot of fun. It starts at one o'clock goes until close to five, four forty five. The the John W. Week's Footbridge on the Charles kind of near Harvard and the world Boat House, and the parking's not bad over

Yeah, I'm sure there will be a spot for everyone, and it's not too hard to get to via the tea or the bus as well. So come check us out Week's foot Bridge. Like you said, one to five tomorrow, all right.

Sounds great, Mike Ferry. I appreciate the time. You've got a great sense of humor in for an M I T. Guy. You're pretty quick. I mean no, no, only kidding, only getting Thanks very much. I appreciate it.

Right, have a great evening, Dan, Thank you, thanks so much.

We go back. We're going to talk about something all of us would like to have more of happiness. Stay right with us here on Nightside. We're trying to have fun on a Friday night. Tell you about some things. Maybe that if you have nothing to do tomorrow, or if you do it, have something scheduled earlier in the day, go down and get the and take it. This should be fun. That should be fun. We'll be back on Nightside right after this. Now back to Dan ray Line from the Window World.

Night Side Studios on WBZ News Radio.

All right, I'm delighted to introduce to you doctor David Wexler. He's an ear nose and throat specialist at Marlborough Hospital and he's been collaborating with NASA to analyze the effects of space on hearing. Doctor Wexler, I don't want to sound like a pessimist, but this sounds like an extraordinary effort that you're making.

How are you able to even do this, well, I've been an inros Anda guy for a long time. Oh, I've always been interested in the ear and hearing. It took me a little while to find there was a need to do this study with NASA. NASA is always interested in cup health and safety right from the beginning, from the early days of the military transition into modern spaceflight,

Yeah, so let me ask you. There have been I can remember Alan Shepherd and John Glenn and some of the astronauts who died, Gus Grissom, as well as of course the Challenger and all of that. They must have a lot of data on the astronauts who have spent a lot of time up in space. Is the focus of this study to find out what impact spaceflight has, what residual impact spaceflight has on an individual's hearing? Is that the focus of the study.

It's a very good question, what you ask, and we're interested, of course in all of it. So there's an office called the Longitudinal Surveillance of Astronaut Health. They can concerned themselves with the whole thing during the astronaut years and the rest of the life of the astronauts to see how things play out. The main focus of the study that I'm doing is to say, hey, what happens to hearing in space? We know what their baseline hearing test

Up to a year.

That's a lot of stress on the system. Of course, it shows up in other ways too, not just the ears. There's concerns about changes in vision, there's bone loss. There's a lot that happens if you stay in space for a long time. So all the organ systems are understudy, they're under surveillance, and of course I'm interested in the hearing part of it. So we have the hearing tests and it's done by astronauts, not by professional audiologists, So we're we have to factor that into the accuracy of

When the study is.

The astronauts, the tester done on the astronauts, but they're not being tested by audiologists. Are being tested by other astronauts. That I misunderstand.

Well, until we get an audiologist in space. I mean they're on the space station, gotcha, Okay, they're doing instrumentation on this. Everything that's measured on astronauts is done by astronauts.

I think what I thought, what we were talking about was when an astronaut first goes into space. All of us who have ever been on an airplane know that as the airplane moves up five thousand and thirty thousand feeds you your ears sort of pop. Everyone has had a has had that experience. So if that happens while you're on an airplane, which is in a controlled situation,

So that data, the older data is published. It was looked at around two thousand and three and published, and the ear holds up pretty well. When you test postflight, it's looking not bad.

Okay. I like that.

There was some concern that there's changing during flight, because again your body's floating, the fluid is shifting in your body. You're getting different pressure in your head and then your sinuses and then your mastoid. So there was concern is the hearing shifting on orbit and could just have operational implications. But to answer your question, before and after, so far that data is looking good. Now there's some additional review I'm doing in a large data set, but my main

Okay, so you're testing up there, and I assume that the results are still too early to define anything specifically.

Well, I'm not supposed to release what I have yet until it clears with NASA, they're very careful, okay with data control mass. This study is happening and we will have some answers.

Okay, how long do you think we'll have to wait for those? Are we talking about six months? People will want to look forward to hearing it and say, gee, I heard doctor Wex Lauran with Dan Ray and WBZ in September. Is there a time frame on the release of that information.

Well, I'm hoping to get approval for an abstract for Aerospace Medical Association meeting. You know, in the next couple months or so, and that'll get our foothold.

Yeah, so that would be a public formal presentation with be open to the media and the public or is that a closed event by.

The time of the official meeting, which is I think it's going to be on June first, then it's definitely out in the public. Okay, So I think it might be approved for release before then, but the official public presentation would be like in June in Atlanta, Okay.

So therefore less than than a year from now the findings will be released. One final question, has there been a long term study on astronauts compared to the to the to the non astronauts, to the public at large that as the astronauts have aged, I think all of us who age lose a little acuity in hearing. I would think that probably true. Absolutely their loss of acuity and hearing any greater than the public at large?

Or is it is it?

Is it better you know, less loss of acuity and hearing.

Well, you definitely ask all the right questions. There's some unpublished data, even though we do there is a study. I'm holding a study from twenty fourteen that shows how this hearing drops off with age in astronauts, and although we still have to go back and compare against the general population, I think it's a bit worse than astronauts because many of them that are older now started off as military pilots with a lot of noise exposure from the old jets, so that was a disadvantage. Let me

But I will also add there were male astronauts for many years before female astronauts, so I hope they have taken that into consideration.

Yeah, the curbs don't go all the way out for women because they got into the game later. Okay, there's many trends that have to be followed, and NASA does follow them, and that's and I'm trying to be part of it.

So it's exciting.

You've you've been a great guest. I really enjoyed it. I've asked you tough questions and uh, but you've more than my match. Doctor. Thank you so much, Thank you very.

Much, And let's let's follow up next to your Thanks.

I'd love to doctor David Wexler ear knows and throws specialists at Marlborough Hospital. You know what I like about your doctor. You're enthusiastic about what you're doing, and I just think that is the key for anyone. Your enthusiasm comes through the radio loud and clear. I mean that as a total, the absolute compliment that I could possibly are for. Thank you very much.

I really appreciate that and my pleasure to speak with you. Thanks great.

All right, we come back. We're going to talk about a pretty ugly incident that took place in Newton last night. I guess around five point thirty six o'clock. We'll break it down, and I hope you'll join the conversation on this one because this is an ugly incident in what a considered to be one of the nicest communities in the country, Newton, Massachusetts. Back on nightside after the nine o'clock news