On July 25th, 1978, in the northwest of England, a baby was born. On its surface, that’s not a big statement — babies are born every single day. But this birth attracted media attention from around the world. The baby’s name was Louise Brown, and she was the first baby born from in vitro fertilization, or IVF. In this episode of Tiny Matters, Sam and Deboki answer a question that came from a listener who asked, “How on earth did they come up with IVF?” They cover the science behind IVF, the rese...
Apr 03, 2024•30 min•Ep. 56
Tiny Matters listeners are THE BEST and we want to bring you more of what you like! Head to bit.ly/tinypodsurvey to give us feedback and help us make Tiny Matters even better. The survey should take no more than 5-10 minutes to fill out. Your motivation? Filling out the survey will enter you into a Tiny Matters mug raffle! Thank you in advance <air hug> See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info ....
Mar 26, 2024•1 min
This week, Sam and Deboki are joined by Trace Dominguez and Julian Huguet, the hosts of That’s Absurd Please Elaborate, a podcast where they do serious research to answer silly questions like, "What if the world had more sheep than people?" and "What would happen if you filled a volcano with concrete?" In this episode of Tiny Matters, Trace and Julian answer the question, "Who invented the lawn?" It may sound like a question with a simple answer, but that is not the case! (Not even close). Their...
Mar 20, 2024•34 min•Ep. 55
Although we look very different from many of the other creatures on this planet, we’re more connected than you might think. Our evolutionary history means we share many of the same genes and physiology, and that’s not just cool to think about — it’s useful. Because it means that, to learn about the things we lack or wish we could do better, we can study the exceptional abilities of other animals. In today's episode, Sam and Deboki cover two species with extreme lifestyles— brown bears and Mexica...
Mar 06, 2024•25 min•Ep. 54
It's happening again! A Tiny Matters Q&A and mug giveaway! Sam and Deboki answer listener questions about science, like, ‘Is it true that when we think of a memory we are actually remembering the last time we thought of the memory?,’ ‘Why do differently colored cats have such differing personalities,’ and ‘What is quantum entanglement?,’ plus questions about methanol poisoning, sea foam, science podcasting, and what Sam and Deboki would ask Bill Nye if given the chance. They wrap up the epis...
Feb 21, 2024•46 min•Ep. 53
Love is everywhere: In friendships, in romance, in the songs we listen to, books we read, and movies we see. So whether you love love, hate love, or are somewhere in between, you’re still hearing about it all the time. And that means you’ve probably learned about a molecule called oxytocin, aka the ‘love hormone’ or ‘love drug.’ Oxytocin was at first considered a hormone strictly for childbirth and nursing. But, starting around 50 years ago, research began to shed light on the vastness of its im...
Feb 07, 2024•26 min•Ep. 52
In the winter of 1829, Dutch-Belgian anthropologist Philippe-Charles Schmerling discovered a fossil in a cave in Engis, Belgium — what looked like the partial skull of a small child. Schmerling is often called the father of paleontology, but even he had no idea what he had stumbled upon. Decades later, as other similar fossils came to light, the significance of Schmerling’s finding became clear: it was the skull of a child Neanderthal. It was not only the first Neanderthal fossil ever uncovered ...
Jan 24, 2024•31 min•Ep. 51
Last fall Sam and Deboki did a Q&A/mug giveaway episode and it was a hit. Round 2 it is! Anyone living within the U.S. is eligible. Entering the raffle is easy. Just send your question(s) to [email protected]. Questions can be about a previous episode, some science thing you're dying to know the answer to, a question about podcasting, a question about science communication (scicomm) more broadly ... the sky’s the limit! Just sending in a question enters you into a raffle to win a Tiny Matt...
Jan 02, 2024•2 min
Today, Sam and Deboki are taking a look back at a handful of their favorite episode moments from the second year of Tiny Matters. And it just so happens to also be episode 50! Asteroid updates, atom-sized transistors, a world without photosynthesis, and more! Have suggestions for topics for 2024? Email us! [email protected]. Pick up a Tiny Matters mug here ! All Tiny Matters transcripts are available here . See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https:...
Dec 27, 2023•27 min•Ep. 50
A warning to listeners — this episode contains sensitive material surrounding homicide and assault. On November 29th, 2012, a group of men broke into the Silicon Valley mansion of 66 year old investor Raveesh Kumra. The men attacked and tied up both Raveesh and his ex-wife who was living there, and then ransacked the home for cash and jewelry. By the time the paramedics arrived, Raveesh — who had also been gagged with tape — had died of suffocation. A few weeks later, the police arrested 26 year...
Dec 13, 2023•29 min•Ep. 49
The FDA drug approval process is known to be a lengthy and rigorous one. But the FDA-approved ingredient phenylephrine — found in common cold medicines like Sudafed, Mucinex, and NyQuil — was recently found to be no better than a placebo. Phenylephrine has been on store shelves for nearly 90 years. How could that happen? In this episode of Tiny Matters, Sam and Deboki are joined by none other than Deboki's dad, Deb Chakravarti. Deb is a professor with years of industry experience and the current...
Nov 29, 2023•29 min•Ep. 48
In 2021, 80,411 people in the United States died of an overdose involving opioids, making up 75% of all drug overdose deaths that year. That’s also 10 times as many opioid overdose deaths as in 1999. How did we get here? In this episode, Sam and Deboki trace the origins of opioids, from opium and morphine to fentanyl, and scrutinize the significant role pharmaceutical companies played in kick starting the opioid crisis in the 1990s. Today, the highly potent opioid fentanyl has become the street ...
Nov 15, 2023•31 min•Ep. 47
We often hear that dogs help lower our blood pressure, decrease our allergy risk, and even alert us to disease. But is there science behind those claims? In this episode of Tiny Matters, Sam and Deboki unpack some dog domestication history and fascinating research with Jen Golbeck and Stacey Colino, authors of the new book, The Purest Bond: Understanding the Human-Canine Connection. Links to the Tiny Show & Tell stories are here and here . Pick up a Tiny Matters mug here ! All Tiny Matters t...
Nov 01, 2023•28 min•Ep. 46
Happy spooky season, Tiny Matters listeners! In today’s episode, Sam and Deboki tackle two Halloween themed topics: The Salem witch trials and mummies. In 1692 and 1693 a series of hearings and trials took place in Salem, Massachusetts, leading to 19 people being executed, marking the last executions for witchcraft in the United States. Sam and Deboki speak with a researcher who has spent over a decade piecing together what did and probably did not happen during this time, helping unpack a popul...
Oct 18, 2023•30 min•Ep. 45
A couple weeks ago, NASA did something they’d never done before: they collected material from an asteroid and brought it back to Earth. These samples — harvested as part of the OSIRIS-REx mission — could tell us more about our planet's beginnings and even reveal information about the origins of life. But collecting samples from space doesn't come without risk. In this episode, we delve into the heated debates among geologists and biologists during the construction of the Lunar Receiving Laborato...
Oct 04, 2023•31 min•Ep. 44
Why do we need an influenza vaccine every year when there are many vaccines we only need to get once every few decades? In this episode, Deboki and Sam kick things off by covering the different strains of influenza that are most likely to cause, or already caused, pandemics. They also chat with experts about the new, more deadly strain of avian influenza — H5N1 — that has been making its rounds in the United States since January 2022, leading to the deaths of over 58 million birds, not just impa...
Sep 20, 2023•30 min•Ep. 43
This episode is outside the Tiny Matters norm — it’s a Q&A and mug giveaway! Sam and Deboki answer listener questions about science, like, ‘Can parasitic hookworms cure allergies?,’ ‘How do you measure the end of the universe?,’ ‘What’s the science behind why we can’t stand nails on a chalkboard,’ plus questions about making the leap into science communication, including podcasting. They wrap up the episode with a drawing where five lucky listeners win a Tiny Matters coffee mug! To support T...
Sep 06, 2023•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 42
Flavor and taste are not the same thing. In this episode of Tiny Matters, Sam and Deboki explain why, and unpack the important role flavor plays in health. They also chat with experts about ways of making the foods you don’t like more appealing. The Tiny Show & Tell stories are here and here . And to support Tiny Matters, pick up a mug here! Check out The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week here . All Tiny Matters transcripts are available here . Maybe MOST importantly, here’s that chocolate ...
Aug 23, 2023•28 min•Ep. 41
Colonialist practices, past and present, combined with climate change are having catastrophic effects on poorer countries in the global south. In this episode, Sam and Deboki talk with experts about how and why that’s the case and unpack two major examples of this impact: the 2022 Pakistan floods and the global factory, particularly the garment industry. Laurie Parson's book is here . The organizations he suggests at the end of the episode are Fashion Revolution , Clean Clothes Campaign , and Tr...
Aug 09, 2023•30 min•Ep. 40
Mad cow disease, also known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) was first discovered in cattle in the UK in 1986. In 1996, BSE made its way into humans for the first time, setting off panic and fascination with the fatal disease that causes rapid onset dementia. In this episode, Sam and Deboki cover the cause, spread and concern surrounding mad cow and other prion diseases. The Tiny Show & Tell stories are here and here . Pick up a Tiny Matters mug here ! All Tiny Matters transcripts a...
Jul 26, 2023•30 min•Ep. 39
On April 20, 2010, a drilling rig called Deepwater Horizon exploded, capsizing 36 hours later. Eleven workers were killed and, over the next 87 days, more than 100 million gallons of oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico in what the EPA has called the largest marine oil spill in history. With public distrust of the companies responsible mounting, scientists had to find a way to study the spill and communicate what they found. So when faced with a crisis of this magnitude, when the stakes are so hi...
Jul 12, 2023•29 min•Ep. 38
Sam and Deboki will be raffling off Tiny Matters coffee mugs in an upcoming Q&A episode. Entering the raffle is easy! Just send your question(s) to [email protected] . Questions can be about pretty much anything — a previous episode, some science thing you're dying to know the answer to, a question about podcasting, or about Deboki's and Sam's past lives as researchers or what helped them get into science communication as a career... the sky’s the limit! Just sending in a question enters y...
Jul 05, 2023•1 min
In this episode of Tiny Matters, Sam and Deboki unravel two very different environmental disasters: Hurricane Katrina and this year’s Ohio train derailment. They’ll cover the science underlying those events, the confusion and misinformation that followed them, and how human influence infiltrates all of these disasters, even ones deemed “natural." The Tiny Show & Tell stories are here and here . And to support Tiny Matters, pick up a mug here! All Tiny Matters transcripts are available here ....
Jun 28, 2023•30 min•Ep. 37
A few months ago, we did a bonus Q&A about the HBO series The Last of Us, a show about a pandemic caused by a fungus that turned people into terrifying zombies. After that bonus episode aired, we received emails from people who wanted to learn more about fungi and the fungal infections on the rise, like white nose syndrome in bats and Candida auris in humans. This episode is all about fungal pandemics in a huge range of organisms — how they take hold and the fight to stop them. You can find ...
Jun 14, 2023•25 min•Ep. 36
In the mid-20th century, psychedelic research to treat conditions like depression began to take off, yet by 1970 almost all of that work came to a screeching halt. But guess what? It’s back, and access to guided therapy to treat various mental health conditions is becoming a reality. The link to The New York Times article about Roland Griffiths is here . The Tiny Show & Tell stories are here and here . Pick up a Tiny Matters mug here ! All Tiny Matters transcripts are available here . See Pr...
May 31, 2023•30 min•Ep. 35
There's a whole lot of information (and misinformation) out there about depression, as well as debate surrounding how it's treated. In this episode, Sam and Deboki unpack this complex mood disorder that impacts over 300 million people across the globe as well as the effectiveness of SSRIs and the work being done to find better drugs. A link to David Hellerstein's new book The Couch, The Clinic and the Scanner: Stories from Three Revolutionary Eras of the Mind is here . The Tiny Show & Tell s...
May 17, 2023•31 min•Ep. 34
The first computer was created in 1945 and came in at double the size of a one-bedroom apartment. Just 50 years later, the architecture of the computer on a chip that measured just 7.44 by 5.29 millimeters in size. And now, computers have gotten smaller and smaller [looks down at Apple Watch]. So how did we go from apartment-sized calculators to the tiny devices we use to look up cat pictures when we’re bored? And just how much smaller can we go? Links to the Tiny Show & Tell stories here an...
May 03, 2023•27 min•Ep. 33
The question of whether or not life exists on other planets is an important and interesting one. But maybe the more intriguing question is, “what if it does?” In this episode of Tiny Matters, Sam and Deboki chat with science writer Jaime Green about what it would mean for life to exist beyond Earth. Her book, “The Possibility of Life: Science, Imagination, and Our Quest for Kinship in the Cosmos,” is a mix of history, astronomy, biology, philosophy, and sci-fi, and just hit store shelves. To ord...
Apr 19, 2023•44 min•Ep. 32
Since the very beginning of the space age, people have been wondering if algae could provide a life support system beyond our planet. From dozens of studies over the last 60 years, we’ve figured out that algae probably can thrive for up to a year in space. But what if we wanted to live permanently on another planet, like Mars? This episode is all about algae: how it shaped early Earth, how we might use it to terraform planets in the future, and how it’s being used in biomanufacturing to hopefull...
Apr 05, 2023•31 min•Ep. 31
For millennia, humans have looked to the sea to find medicine. Today, medical treatments that come from the ocean have been clinically approved for pain, cancer, and Alzheimer’s disease, and over a dozen more are in clinical trials. In this episode of Tiny Matters, Sam and Deboki are tackling marine natural products—things like proteins, fats, and other molecules that aquatic organisms produce—that humans are hoping to use to treat the diseases that plague us. Links to the Tiny Show & Tell s...
Mar 22, 2023•29 min•Ep. 30
