September 14, 2025 • 26 mins
This week Titi and Zakiya let the conversation flow as they catch up on the latest news, from shifting vaccine guidelines to the rise of the “Great Lock-In” trend. They discuss the latest research on the importance of sleep, the dangers of digital scams, and why your favorite oysters might be off the menu.
Federal vaccine policies from NPR
The Great Lock In on TikTok
Sleep-dependent growth hormone release
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
I'm Tt and I'm Zakiyah, 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.
This week, we're running you through some of what we've
(00:25):
been seeing in our notifications, from our news app and
on our timelines. We've been traveling a lot, but luckily
we've been traveling together because we've been working on our
planetarium film with the Museum of Science in Boston. Yeah.
I got to DCA, one of my local airports the
other morning, and I immediately text you, Zakia, because it
(00:48):
was nasty in there. Everybody was coughing, everybody was sneezing,
everybody's noses were running. I saw a few people wipe
their nose on their sleeve, and I said, hey, girl,
bring a mask. You need to wear a mask in
the airport because it was like this in DC. I
know it's like that in Atlanta. I had just traveled
a week before and I always keep a mask in
my bag, and I'm like, yeah, it's time to put
(01:12):
my mask back on. I don't know what was going on.
I can't explain it, but falls here and along with
fall comes the ick. Okay. I can't remember who I
was talking to, but I was saying, are you getting
your flu shot in your COVID shot? And they were like,
are we allowed to get a COVID shot? And I
get it. Because the vaccine landscape is mountainous, it is
(01:35):
difficult terrain. Oh my gosh. Yes, because of all these
recent shakeups at the federal level. Because of RFK, junior
access to vaccines has changed, and it is varying from
state to state. So it's not even like, oh, me
in Maryland talking to you in Atlanta. We probably don't
have the same rules and regulations in place. Well at
(01:58):
the federal level, here's that's what happened last year twenty
twenty four to twenty twenty five for COVID boosters. The
recommendation was that anybody the six months are older should
get a booster shot. Okay, at the end of August,
and this is on the heels of RFK firing the
director of the CDC and wiping out that board that
(02:20):
makes the recommendations for immunization. On the heels of those
two events, at the end of August, they said, hey,
we're changing who we're recommending COVID vaccine boosters for so
instead of it being people six months are older regardless
of health status or risk factors, it was changed in
the recommendation now is people who are sixty five and
older or those with high risk conditions, and those high
(02:44):
risk conditions are like asthma, obesity, pregnancy, and like physical inactivity.
But it's tricky. In response to that, the states are like, nah, okay,
that might be the federal regulation, but we're gonna do
something different. And so there are some states like outwell,
there is a block of states I think it's Oregon, Washington, California,
and Hawaii that have been proactive. They built up this
(03:07):
West Coast Health Alliance the West Coast they're gonna ride Okay,
They're sharing data, reviews and issue in joint recommendation, so
pharmacy and clinics there can keep vaccinating people that are
younger than sixty five without a federal green light. Then
to other states like Florida going the completely opposite direction.
I know you saw that man. There was a lot
in my timeline about that man from Florida giving vaccine advice,
(03:30):
and I said, they eating you up on the internet, brothers.
I mean we all see those things. That's always like,
it always starts off with man from Florida, and it's
always gonna be something crazy. I don't know. You know,
I'm not gonna say it's just all people in Florida,
but it seems to be a trend. But with all
this talk about COVID vaccines, it makes me think about
the flu shot, like, are they still available for everyone?
(03:54):
Is it gonna be the same. The flu shots are free,
you know, but I don't now, I'm not really sure.
So the good news is that flu shots, on the
other hand, are still available for every one age six
months and up, and the CDC still recommends getting one
every year, and this season the flu shot covers like
three main flu strains. Now there is something exciting, or
(04:14):
at least exciting to meet about the flu. Being a
nerd and that I don't care. That makes me feel good.
Thank you. The nasal spray flu vaccine flu MISTED is
now proved for self administration if you're eighteen to forty one. Oh,
so you can literally vaccinate yourself. Now I want to know, TT,
(04:37):
would you try this? Would you try the nasal flu spray? Yes?
I think I would. Why not if they said that
there's efficacy there. You know, I'm using all of my
bio words. Yes, that's right, Like then my friends are
right only in this moment. But yeah, I think if
(04:58):
they're if they're saying that it's safe and that it works, absolutely,
I don't see why not. So here we have not
only our traditional flu vaccine, but expanded access that allows
us to do the flu vaccine by nasal spray and
you can get that ordered directly to your door. I
am not sponsored by flu mists. I have not taken
flu miss. I'm just excited about expanded access. You have
a fan fan flu mist, yes, And so here we
(05:21):
see expansion here and a narrowing of the label for
who should get vaccination on the covid side. And it
also it just feels like this term I learned when
we had doctor Barbara Hoefer and her colleague come on
to our show and talk about science denial, and they
talked about the cafeteria style like kind of picking parts
(05:43):
of science you want to put on your tray. Yeah,
picking and choosing. It's not that you don't believe vaccines
work because you're saying, hey, have a flu shot, but
don't have a COVID booster, right, And so the bottom
line is not to let political drama or the who
knows what kind of patience you would need at the pharmacy,
you know for access there. Right, So what should people do?
They should not let it stop them from protecting themselves
(06:06):
or their loved ones. Because over the holidays, I plan
on seeing all the older people in my family, and
I don't want to be the person that gets them sick.
And so I think reaching out to your primary care physician,
figuring out what's happening in your state, that's the best way.
I have seen people sharing great information on threads of
all places, they're like Walgreens on this street has the
(06:27):
COVID booster, like wow, word of wow, meet people where
they are. If they don't threads, go there. Isn't it
sad though, that our governance has put us in this spot,
like governance is at an all time low, right, And
it's hard because you want to turn away, but it
(06:47):
also feels like we need to be involved, you know
what I mean? You saying that is like the you
know how sometimes you hear a thing that you hear
it somewhere else in a different topic, like we need
to be involved? Is this theme hearing everywhere. I was
listening to this book by Karen Howe called Empire of Ai,
and so she's a journalist who's been covering AI over
(07:07):
the past few years. And then this book she talks
about open AI and she's like, open AI is just
what's on the plate, that's just the flavor of the moment.
We need to be looking at how we're whipping this
stuff up in the kitchen. And so she likens it
to Facebook. Facebook just used to be a social media
platform but without regulation and governance. Look at it now,
Look at Mark Zuckerberg. Okay, And so she talks about
(07:28):
she talks about AI and this ecosystem of web technologies
and she talks about it beyond like the large language
modelers like chat, GPT, and she was saying, we need
to be thinking about what it looks like to be
involved in governing what's happening. Because I know a lot
of people are saying opt out, don't be involved, and
I'm like, no, we need to be even more involved
in guiding. That's the only way you can protect is
(07:48):
if you are involved in God exactly because when you
think about it, when you think of like deep fakes,
all these scams I'm getting We were talking about this recently.
I'm getting ten scam text messages a day, I'm getting
scam calls. And when an AI starts to be a
part of the scam, people are going to really be vulnerable.
(08:10):
Like and I really think about our aging population who
are really vulnerable to this, Like they can receive a
phone call from someone that sounds exactly like their partner
or exactly like their grandchild and say, hey, I need
your help, can you send me this or that? Then
what if we've all opted out, then we don't know
how to fight this, and we don't know what to
(08:31):
ask regulators and our governments for in order to protect us.
So we really have to know what's going on in
the AI space so that we can arm ourselves with knowledge.
And that knowledge is power and it helps us to
guard ourselves against these the people that are trying to
pray on us to you know, scam us out of
(08:52):
our money, scam us out of our identities, and all
these things like that. So I think it's really important.
And I mean, even on the heels of that, I've
been watching a lot of documentaries. They got some good
documentaries out there right now, and speaking of like deep
fakes and pretending to be other people. Have you seen
that Netflix show Unknown Number Listen, Brittany just told me
(09:14):
to watch this a couple of days ago. I started
that documentary at like one am the other and we'll
talk about my sleep layers. But I still need your
ordering data and I'm afraid to upload it. I started
that documentary and it was wild tt you know, I
had heard a similar story before, and so when it
(09:37):
came to the end and there was that great reveal,
I was like, I knew it, you know, like I
don't want to spoil, but if you haven't seen it,
you should see it. Stop right now and go see
it and you can finish it episode. Absolutely, go see it.
I think it's been enough time. We can talk about it. Oh,
(10:00):
we can talk Okay. Then, So there was a young
teenage girl, probably like thirteen years old, who was going
to a school in a very small town in Michigan.
She was dating this boy. Her name was Lauren. She's
dating this boy named Owen. Lauren and Owen, you know,
I kind of grew up together. This is a very
very small town. They said they have one stoplight two bars.
(10:20):
There's only like one major school where it goes from
kindergarten all the way up to twelfth grade. So everybody
knows everybody. Everybody knows everybody, and so they begin to date.
And then after dating for a little bit, they start
getting text messages from a number that they don't know.
None of them have that number in their phones. They
don't know who it is, and it's saying these really
(10:42):
vile things about Lauren, very very vile, vulgar things about Lauren,
and they're all maliciously targeted at Lauren, and some very
sexually inappropriate things about Owen and saying like, oh, he
doesn't want you and he wants to be with me.
It was just so awful, saying really awful things about
(11:04):
Lauren's body and things like that. So as the story's progressing,
we're going it's been over like a year and a
half at this point, and they have suspected other people
at the school, but they haven't been able to figure
out who it was. The case gets turned over to
the FBI. The FBI is able to do like their
crypto forensics, and they trace IP addresses and it turns
(11:27):
out it was Lauren's mom the whole time, you like
your jaw hits the floor because then you think about
all the messages that were sent. She was telling her
daughter to die by suicide. She was saying the most
awful things about her. But then like she's saying, I
love my daughter so much, I love her, I love her,
I love her, And it's just like how do you
reconcile these things? One theory that they had in the
(11:49):
show is that she has like some form of Munchausen's,
which is a medical disorder where someone will go to
great lengths to either make them all seems sick and
in some cases they will do that with their kids
in order to gain attention and sympathy and things like that.
So some people are accusing her of having that disorder.
(12:11):
But it was just like a digital version exactly exactly.
And so I mean, if that's happening, imagine laying AI
on top of that. Who knows if they would ever
found out and like what the end of this story
would have been. That is so wild. It also reminds
me of that movie Run that had Sarah Paulson in it.
(12:32):
Not to give it away, but that was a good movie.
I'm gonna have to watch that, and Sad, I'm definitely
gonna have to watch that. You should watch it. As
(12:53):
we move more and more digital, I think about there
are places where you can create community. Everything is just
a tool, it's how you use it. In this case,
Lauren's mom was using digital tools to totally isolate her
daughter to cause mayhem, madness. I don't even know what
else to call it, because I was like, how can
she even show her face? She should be a shame.
(13:15):
Bring back shame, I'm sorry, bring it backly the fact
that she agreed to be a part of the documentary,
I was like, clearly, you don't feel like you did something.
What did she say? She said, we've all broken the law. Yeah.
I was like, baby, this is We're not talking about
legal or illegal. We're talking about the destruction, the destructive behavior,
the way you're tearing down your daughter. And that little
(13:35):
girl is young, but when she hits twenty twenty two,
twenty three, like that stuff is going to surface later
in life, and baby, I hate it for But also
we see people using digital tools to create these great communities,
to realize previously unrealized or unactualized potential. One of the
things I've been seeing and I just asked you about
(13:57):
this earlier, The Great Life. Yeah, I've been seeing that shit.
I first saw it on TikTok where people were saying, oh,
we're locking in starting on August first, and I was like,
why August first? You know what I mean? I saw
it on TikTok first, folks were saying, oh, we're gonna
start locking in August first. I was like, what's happening
(14:18):
August first? I don't understand, Like what fiscal year are
y'all on. I don't I don't understand why August first.
But then I was like, okay, let me not get
too hung up on that. And then I was like, okay,
what is this great lock in? And so the great
what a great lock in is just people saying, Okay,
starting now, I'm locking in to make sure I achieve
my twenty twenty five goals before twenty twenty six. So
(14:38):
August to December is for time for me to get
in shape, like really stay with my workout regimen, or
really lock into this business plan that I had, or
gain one hundred thousand followers on whatever social media platform
to start daily vlogging like I want to do like
anything that you have been putting off. They're saying, okay,
(14:59):
now of time to lock in and do it. Why
are we always locking in and never locking out, Like,
let's lay down, right, let's relax, and if we're really
being real, the great lock in to me just feels
like another remix of hustle culture. Remember seventy five hards.
They're still doing that. Remember I told you those people
(15:20):
try to put me in that seventy five hard group.
I said, baby, take me out, and they cannot trick me.
It's wow, It's just like these things, you know. I
don't know if I want to say survivor bias, but
it's some mechanism of that right where there are these
trends where if you work hard, you promises this like transformation,
or if you just grind enough for a set number
(15:42):
of days. There are people that grind for many, many
days okay, and nothing happens. And so now you adding
TikTok hype and hashtags and filters on top of that,
and it's like every few months there's a new font
exactly for like the same old productivity exactly. And what
that all leads to is burnout and We have done
(16:05):
an episode on burnout with Ann Helen Peterson, and it
is something that you know from our generation Millennials or
generation why whatever you want to call us, that we
are heavy engagers with like I'll sleep when I'm dead
and grind so hard blah blah blah blah blah blah,
and it doesn't lead to anything productive, and like it
(16:28):
doesn't work out well for us because we aren't even
set up economically in a way where that can work
out for us well. Like financially speaking, we are not
making as much as our parents, and we have far
less money saved, we have way more debt, there's way
less stability. It's just not the same. And so we
(16:51):
really we talk about locking in and everything like that,
and I just worry about folks because I'm just like,
you really gonna lock in and burn out and then
you're good to no one, especially yourself, Because if we're
talking about locking in and it comes to the detriment
of your rest, that's not the type of locking and
you should do because sleep is so essential for physical recovery,
(17:14):
overall health, hormone regulation, immune system support, stress reduction, improved
mood enhance, cognitive functions so that you can do all
that stuff that you claiming you want to do, locking
in barely making any progress because your cognitive function isn't
exactly that's not even increase creativity. So, really, all you
folks within the sound of my voice thinking about locking in,
(17:36):
and you've already been locked in for what a month
or something, Now take time to rest because it will
help you not just lock in for August through December.
It'll help you with creating an environment and ecosystem for
you to be overall locked in, locked into your mental health,
locked into your emotional health, locked into having the life
(18:02):
that you deserve, which is a life that has balance
with productivity and rest. Yeah, I think that's a lesson
I have really had to learn and relearn. Maybe that
means I've been feeling it's hard. It feels important to
reset the locking out for me, like I have had
to be like, Okay, I'm owning my own calendar. I
don't need it to be the first of August or
(18:26):
the twenty first night of September whatever earth Wind and
Fire said, Like I start when it's time for me.
I am claiming the timeline that actually fits my bandwidth.
You know, like, do I have the energy for this
right now? I think the other thing I've had to
do is decide what success looks like for me up front.
(18:46):
You know. I think for a long time I really
wanted things to be perfect, and I was like, hey,
it doesn't have to be perfect. Sometimes it just needs
to be done. You know, just last night, you sent
(19:10):
me a yup screenshot of something I see in you
in twenty sixteen. Right, I'm gonna pull it up. Pull
it up. Yeah'm gonna pull it up. She sent me
something on Snapchat. Now that I know people have gone
chat Snapchat, so enough shay, okay, but I've not been
on Snapchat since probably twenty sixteen, and so she sent
this to me and says, we all have a blinking line.
(19:33):
Your blinking line is whatever sits in front of you
waiting to be brought into existence. It's the book or
day or job or business or family or mission or
class or plan or cause or meeting or task or
project or challenge or phone call or life that is
waiting for you to bring it into being. That was
so timely when you shared it with me again, because
(19:53):
I was like, hey, you get to choose, you get
to choose what you're putting your energy towards, and it
doesn't have to be all those things in that list
all at the same time, right, And so I've been
doing a better job of honoring time for recovery. You know,
before I would pack my schedule, there was no time
that I was having whiplash, baby, and I'm like, Okay,
slow down, take a break. These things can wait. And
(20:16):
I think I've just found that to be incredibly rewarding.
One of the things I will say, I mentioned it
a little earlier, getting that sleep is key. Absolutely. Now
I admire you in that way because you're somebody to
go to sleep fast. I can go to sleep right now.
Literally in the middle of this sentence, I could close
my eyes and be almost right at sleep store. That's
(20:40):
how quickly it happens. Now, Do I always lay down
and do that? No, because I also struggle too sometimes. Yeah,
but we both have to prioritize sleep. There's a recent
study that just came out of Neurology. It was published Neurology,
which is the journal for the American Academy for Neurology,
and it says people with chronic insomnia had a forty
(21:02):
percent higher risk of developing mild cognitive impairment or dementia.
So I was, like, chronic insomnia do I have that?
Chronic insomnia is defined as having trouble sleeping at least
three days a week for three months or more. Wow,
ur ring was it was saying girl, you close. You
used to say girl, you're close. And so in this study,
(21:23):
they tracked people that were around seventy years old. They
looked at like twenty eight hundred almost twenty eight hundred people,
and they monitored them for an average of five and
a half years. Of the people who had chronic insomnia,
fourteen percent of them went on to have cognitive issues
compared to ten percent of the people who didn't have
chronic insomnia. So that's the forty percent difference they're talking about. Now,
(21:44):
that's one thing, But the other thing is there was
just a study from another study that came out from
the scientists that you see Berkeley, some scientists that you
see Berkeley, and they were looking at mice and they
dissected the brains and said that we finally figured out
the neural circuits or the pathways that happen when you're
asleep that allow you to release growth hormone. That's you
(22:05):
know when they say kids need a lot of rest
and grow, Yes, it's true, but you also need it
for adult metabolism. So the sleep is important for the kids,
but parents and big kids like me, it's important for
you too. I don't want to grow up. I'm a
toy us kid. Okay. We have to find productive ways
(22:28):
to get that recovery and wellness because you know, it
wasn't right. But when things got tough and I felt stressed,
I used to turn to oysters. And hey man, they've
taken that away, taken it away from us. Now they
are so they are finding bacteria in the oysters, like
deadly bacteria. It's always been bacteria there. But right, I
(22:51):
need to get my terms right. You see that quickly.
I'm no longer biologists. There's always bacteria that fast. I'm recovering.
I'm recovering and recovering. There's always bacteria. But this is
deadly backteria, bad bacteria, you know, And so that really
hurts because me and my friend we bond over oysters.
(23:12):
We love to go to a restaurant and just bring
us two dozen and my friend will fill out the
little car and be like two of this, two of this,
two of this. We'll just get two of everything and
we just enjoy ourselves laughing. You know, a little cocktail
on the side. And now I'm now I'm nervous if
I need to pour a cocktail on the on the
oyster try and kill something in it. No, No, I'm
(23:37):
just waiting for it to cool down, okay, where that
bacteria can't grow as well. And some of this is
just part of our food systems, Like who is no
one testing the oysters? We need to bring back Oyster South.
The folks from that group from the Virginia Marine Science
Institute that we're doing all these studies on oysters, fund
them because I need my oysters and I need them
to be safe. Yes, we need them very badly. I think,
(24:00):
you know, we could go on and on because there's
still so much news we haven't talked about. Yes, but
I'd hope people are feeling like there's a little science
behind all of you. I want to hear from people.
What have they been seeing on their timeline? Yeah, I mean,
because we were just talking about this too. Everybody's internet
is so different. Somebody looks like this viral body suit
(24:22):
I said, viral body suit. I have never seen this ever,
heard of her, never seen this. Hey you look good, girl,
but this is not viral. But then I realized, Hey,
viral for you, it's not the same thing as viral
for me. Like I'm you know what's viral for me?
Baryl jeans? Okay, I wore some viral jeans the other day.
YACKI clippings. Hey, don't sleep on a good clipping, all right,
(24:47):
change your whole mood. Change your mood, change life, change
your shoes. Change remember, Yes, my for you page is
all arts and crafts. It's about to be holiday season.
I can't wait to make Remember I made those a
Valentine's Day cards that was so sweet. Are you doing
Christmas cards? I'm ready to make cards, y'all. I'm doing
holiday cards. Yes, I am ready. Hit me up if
(25:08):
y'all on a car now. We touched on a little
bit of neurology this week, but t T tellum what's
coming up next with Yes, I am so excited because
in our science communication episode, we had a very phenomenal
neuroscience PhD student named Lindsey Edgoe, and she is coming
back to the show to talk about all the work
she does in the neuro science space and what her
(25:30):
research focuses on is pain and how our brains process
pain and things like that. So I am very very
excited for y'all to listen to this. Yes, it's gonna
be fun. All right, We're gonna see 'all this week.
(25:52):
You can find us on X and Instagram at Dope
Labs podcast, tt is on X and Instagram at dr
Underscore TSA, and you can find Zakiya at Ze said so.
Dope Labs is a production of Lamanada Media. Our supervising
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Dope Labs is sound designed, edited and mixed by James Farber.
(26:15):
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Dope Labs is executive produced by us T T show
(26:38):
Dia and Zakiah Wattleia
I'm Tt and I'm Zakiyah, 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.
This week, we're running you through some of what we've
(00:25):
been seeing in our notifications, from our news app and
on our timelines. We've been traveling a lot, but luckily
we've been traveling together because we've been working on our
planetarium film with the Museum of Science in Boston. Yeah.
I got to DCA, one of my local airports the
other morning, and I immediately text you, Zakia, because it
(00:48):
was nasty in there. Everybody was coughing, everybody was sneezing,
everybody's noses were running. I saw a few people wipe
their nose on their sleeve, and I said, hey, girl,
bring a mask. You need to wear a mask in
the airport because it was like this in DC. I
know it's like that in Atlanta. I had just traveled
a week before and I always keep a mask in
my bag, and I'm like, yeah, it's time to put
(01:12):
my mask back on. I don't know what was going on.
I can't explain it, but falls here and along with
fall comes the ick. Okay. I can't remember who I
was talking to, but I was saying, are you getting
your flu shot in your COVID shot? And they were like,
are we allowed to get a COVID shot? And I
get it. Because the vaccine landscape is mountainous, it is
(01:35):
difficult terrain. Oh my gosh. Yes, because of all these
recent shakeups at the federal level. Because of RFK, junior
access to vaccines has changed, and it is varying from
state to state. So it's not even like, oh, me
in Maryland talking to you in Atlanta. We probably don't
have the same rules and regulations in place. Well at
(01:58):
the federal level, here's that's what happened last year twenty
twenty four to twenty twenty five for COVID boosters. The
recommendation was that anybody the six months are older should
get a booster shot. Okay, at the end of August,
and this is on the heels of RFK firing the
director of the CDC and wiping out that board that
(02:20):
makes the recommendations for immunization. On the heels of those
two events, at the end of August, they said, hey,
we're changing who we're recommending COVID vaccine boosters for so
instead of it being people six months are older regardless
of health status or risk factors, it was changed in
the recommendation now is people who are sixty five and
older or those with high risk conditions, and those high
(02:44):
risk conditions are like asthma, obesity, pregnancy, and like physical inactivity.
But it's tricky. In response to that, the states are like, nah, okay,
that might be the federal regulation, but we're gonna do
something different. And so there are some states like outwell,
there is a block of states I think it's Oregon, Washington, California,
and Hawaii that have been proactive. They built up this
(03:07):
West Coast Health Alliance the West Coast they're gonna ride Okay,
They're sharing data, reviews and issue in joint recommendation, so
pharmacy and clinics there can keep vaccinating people that are
younger than sixty five without a federal green light. Then
to other states like Florida going the completely opposite direction.
I know you saw that man. There was a lot
in my timeline about that man from Florida giving vaccine advice,
(03:30):
and I said, they eating you up on the internet, brothers.
I mean we all see those things. That's always like,
it always starts off with man from Florida, and it's
always gonna be something crazy. I don't know. You know,
I'm not gonna say it's just all people in Florida,
but it seems to be a trend. But with all
this talk about COVID vaccines, it makes me think about
the flu shot, like, are they still available for everyone?
(03:54):
Is it gonna be the same. The flu shots are free,
you know, but I don't now, I'm not really sure.
So the good news is that flu shots, on the
other hand, are still available for every one age six
months and up, and the CDC still recommends getting one
every year, and this season the flu shot covers like
three main flu strains. Now there is something exciting, or
(04:14):
at least exciting to meet about the flu. Being a
nerd and that I don't care. That makes me feel good.
Thank you. The nasal spray flu vaccine flu MISTED is
now proved for self administration if you're eighteen to forty one. Oh,
so you can literally vaccinate yourself. Now I want to know, TT,
(04:37):
would you try this? Would you try the nasal flu spray? Yes?
I think I would. Why not if they said that
there's efficacy there. You know, I'm using all of my
bio words. Yes, that's right, Like then my friends are
right only in this moment. But yeah, I think if
(04:58):
they're if they're saying that it's safe and that it works, absolutely,
I don't see why not. So here we have not
only our traditional flu vaccine, but expanded access that allows
us to do the flu vaccine by nasal spray and
you can get that ordered directly to your door. I
am not sponsored by flu mists. I have not taken
flu miss. I'm just excited about expanded access. You have
a fan fan flu mist, yes, And so here we
(05:21):
see expansion here and a narrowing of the label for
who should get vaccination on the covid side. And it
also it just feels like this term I learned when
we had doctor Barbara Hoefer and her colleague come on
to our show and talk about science denial, and they
talked about the cafeteria style like kind of picking parts
(05:43):
of science you want to put on your tray. Yeah,
picking and choosing. It's not that you don't believe vaccines
work because you're saying, hey, have a flu shot, but
don't have a COVID booster, right, And so the bottom
line is not to let political drama or the who
knows what kind of patience you would need at the pharmacy,
you know for access there. Right, So what should people do?
They should not let it stop them from protecting themselves
(06:06):
or their loved ones. Because over the holidays, I plan
on seeing all the older people in my family, and
I don't want to be the person that gets them sick.
And so I think reaching out to your primary care physician,
figuring out what's happening in your state, that's the best way.
I have seen people sharing great information on threads of
all places, they're like Walgreens on this street has the
(06:27):
COVID booster, like wow, word of wow, meet people where
they are. If they don't threads, go there. Isn't it
sad though, that our governance has put us in this spot,
like governance is at an all time low, right, And
it's hard because you want to turn away, but it
(06:47):
also feels like we need to be involved, you know
what I mean? You saying that is like the you
know how sometimes you hear a thing that you hear
it somewhere else in a different topic, like we need
to be involved? Is this theme hearing everywhere. I was
listening to this book by Karen Howe called Empire of Ai,
and so she's a journalist who's been covering AI over
(07:07):
the past few years. And then this book she talks
about open AI and she's like, open AI is just
what's on the plate, that's just the flavor of the moment.
We need to be looking at how we're whipping this
stuff up in the kitchen. And so she likens it
to Facebook. Facebook just used to be a social media
platform but without regulation and governance. Look at it now,
Look at Mark Zuckerberg. Okay, And so she talks about
(07:28):
she talks about AI and this ecosystem of web technologies
and she talks about it beyond like the large language
modelers like chat, GPT, and she was saying, we need
to be thinking about what it looks like to be
involved in governing what's happening. Because I know a lot
of people are saying opt out, don't be involved, and
I'm like, no, we need to be even more involved
in guiding. That's the only way you can protect is
(07:48):
if you are involved in God exactly because when you
think about it, when you think of like deep fakes,
all these scams I'm getting We were talking about this recently.
I'm getting ten scam text messages a day, I'm getting
scam calls. And when an AI starts to be a
part of the scam, people are going to really be vulnerable.
(08:10):
Like and I really think about our aging population who
are really vulnerable to this, Like they can receive a
phone call from someone that sounds exactly like their partner
or exactly like their grandchild and say, hey, I need
your help, can you send me this or that? Then
what if we've all opted out, then we don't know
how to fight this, and we don't know what to
(08:31):
ask regulators and our governments for in order to protect us.
So we really have to know what's going on in
the AI space so that we can arm ourselves with knowledge.
And that knowledge is power and it helps us to
guard ourselves against these the people that are trying to
pray on us to you know, scam us out of
(08:52):
our money, scam us out of our identities, and all
these things like that. So I think it's really important.
And I mean, even on the heels of that, I've
been watching a lot of documentaries. They got some good
documentaries out there right now, and speaking of like deep
fakes and pretending to be other people. Have you seen
that Netflix show Unknown Number Listen, Brittany just told me
(09:14):
to watch this a couple of days ago. I started
that documentary at like one am the other and we'll
talk about my sleep layers. But I still need your
ordering data and I'm afraid to upload it. I started
that documentary and it was wild tt you know, I
had heard a similar story before, and so when it
(09:37):
came to the end and there was that great reveal,
I was like, I knew it, you know, like I
don't want to spoil, but if you haven't seen it,
you should see it. Stop right now and go see
it and you can finish it episode. Absolutely, go see it.
I think it's been enough time. We can talk about it. Oh,
(10:00):
we can talk Okay. Then, So there was a young
teenage girl, probably like thirteen years old, who was going
to a school in a very small town in Michigan.
She was dating this boy. Her name was Lauren. She's
dating this boy named Owen. Lauren and Owen, you know,
I kind of grew up together. This is a very
very small town. They said they have one stoplight two bars.
(10:20):
There's only like one major school where it goes from
kindergarten all the way up to twelfth grade. So everybody
knows everybody. Everybody knows everybody, and so they begin to date.
And then after dating for a little bit, they start
getting text messages from a number that they don't know.
None of them have that number in their phones. They
don't know who it is, and it's saying these really
(10:42):
vile things about Lauren, very very vile, vulgar things about Lauren,
and they're all maliciously targeted at Lauren, and some very
sexually inappropriate things about Owen and saying like, oh, he
doesn't want you and he wants to be with me.
It was just so awful, saying really awful things about
(11:04):
Lauren's body and things like that. So as the story's progressing,
we're going it's been over like a year and a
half at this point, and they have suspected other people
at the school, but they haven't been able to figure
out who it was. The case gets turned over to
the FBI. The FBI is able to do like their
crypto forensics, and they trace IP addresses and it turns
(11:27):
out it was Lauren's mom the whole time, you like
your jaw hits the floor because then you think about
all the messages that were sent. She was telling her
daughter to die by suicide. She was saying the most
awful things about her. But then like she's saying, I
love my daughter so much, I love her, I love her,
I love her, And it's just like how do you
reconcile these things? One theory that they had in the
(11:49):
show is that she has like some form of Munchausen's,
which is a medical disorder where someone will go to
great lengths to either make them all seems sick and
in some cases they will do that with their kids
in order to gain attention and sympathy and things like that.
So some people are accusing her of having that disorder.
(12:11):
But it was just like a digital version exactly exactly.
And so I mean, if that's happening, imagine laying AI
on top of that. Who knows if they would ever
found out and like what the end of this story
would have been. That is so wild. It also reminds
me of that movie Run that had Sarah Paulson in it.
(12:32):
Not to give it away, but that was a good movie.
I'm gonna have to watch that, and Sad, I'm definitely
gonna have to watch that. You should watch it. As
(12:53):
we move more and more digital, I think about there
are places where you can create community. Everything is just
a tool, it's how you use it. In this case,
Lauren's mom was using digital tools to totally isolate her
daughter to cause mayhem, madness. I don't even know what
else to call it, because I was like, how can
she even show her face? She should be a shame.
(13:15):
Bring back shame, I'm sorry, bring it backly the fact
that she agreed to be a part of the documentary,
I was like, clearly, you don't feel like you did something.
What did she say? She said, we've all broken the law. Yeah.
I was like, baby, this is We're not talking about
legal or illegal. We're talking about the destruction, the destructive behavior,
the way you're tearing down your daughter. And that little
(13:35):
girl is young, but when she hits twenty twenty two,
twenty three, like that stuff is going to surface later
in life, and baby, I hate it for But also
we see people using digital tools to create these great communities,
to realize previously unrealized or unactualized potential. One of the
things I've been seeing and I just asked you about
(13:57):
this earlier, The Great Life. Yeah, I've been seeing that shit.
I first saw it on TikTok where people were saying, oh,
we're locking in starting on August first, and I was like,
why August first? You know what I mean? I saw
it on TikTok first, folks were saying, oh, we're gonna
start locking in August first. I was like, what's happening
(14:18):
August first? I don't understand, Like what fiscal year are
y'all on. I don't I don't understand why August first.
But then I was like, okay, let me not get
too hung up on that. And then I was like, okay,
what is this great lock in? And so the great
what a great lock in is just people saying, Okay,
starting now, I'm locking in to make sure I achieve
my twenty twenty five goals before twenty twenty six. So
(14:38):
August to December is for time for me to get
in shape, like really stay with my workout regimen, or
really lock into this business plan that I had, or
gain one hundred thousand followers on whatever social media platform
to start daily vlogging like I want to do like
anything that you have been putting off. They're saying, okay,
(14:59):
now of time to lock in and do it. Why
are we always locking in and never locking out, Like,
let's lay down, right, let's relax, and if we're really
being real, the great lock in to me just feels
like another remix of hustle culture. Remember seventy five hards.
They're still doing that. Remember I told you those people
(15:20):
try to put me in that seventy five hard group.
I said, baby, take me out, and they cannot trick me.
It's wow, It's just like these things, you know. I
don't know if I want to say survivor bias, but
it's some mechanism of that right where there are these
trends where if you work hard, you promises this like transformation,
or if you just grind enough for a set number
(15:42):
of days. There are people that grind for many, many
days okay, and nothing happens. And so now you adding
TikTok hype and hashtags and filters on top of that,
and it's like every few months there's a new font
exactly for like the same old productivity exactly. And what
that all leads to is burnout and We have done
(16:05):
an episode on burnout with Ann Helen Peterson, and it
is something that you know from our generation Millennials or
generation why whatever you want to call us, that we
are heavy engagers with like I'll sleep when I'm dead
and grind so hard blah blah blah blah blah blah,
and it doesn't lead to anything productive, and like it
(16:28):
doesn't work out well for us because we aren't even
set up economically in a way where that can work
out for us well. Like financially speaking, we are not
making as much as our parents, and we have far
less money saved, we have way more debt, there's way
less stability. It's just not the same. And so we
(16:51):
really we talk about locking in and everything like that,
and I just worry about folks because I'm just like,
you really gonna lock in and burn out and then
you're good to no one, especially yourself, Because if we're
talking about locking in and it comes to the detriment
of your rest, that's not the type of locking and
you should do because sleep is so essential for physical recovery,
(17:14):
overall health, hormone regulation, immune system support, stress reduction, improved
mood enhance, cognitive functions so that you can do all
that stuff that you claiming you want to do, locking
in barely making any progress because your cognitive function isn't
exactly that's not even increase creativity. So, really, all you
folks within the sound of my voice thinking about locking in,
(17:36):
and you've already been locked in for what a month
or something, Now take time to rest because it will
help you not just lock in for August through December.
It'll help you with creating an environment and ecosystem for
you to be overall locked in, locked into your mental health,
locked into your emotional health, locked into having the life
(18:02):
that you deserve, which is a life that has balance
with productivity and rest. Yeah, I think that's a lesson
I have really had to learn and relearn. Maybe that
means I've been feeling it's hard. It feels important to
reset the locking out for me, like I have had
to be like, Okay, I'm owning my own calendar. I
don't need it to be the first of August or
(18:26):
the twenty first night of September whatever earth Wind and
Fire said, Like I start when it's time for me.
I am claiming the timeline that actually fits my bandwidth.
You know, like, do I have the energy for this
right now? I think the other thing I've had to
do is decide what success looks like for me up front.
(18:46):
You know. I think for a long time I really
wanted things to be perfect, and I was like, hey,
it doesn't have to be perfect. Sometimes it just needs
to be done. You know, just last night, you sent
(19:10):
me a yup screenshot of something I see in you
in twenty sixteen. Right, I'm gonna pull it up. Pull
it up. Yeah'm gonna pull it up. She sent me
something on Snapchat. Now that I know people have gone
chat Snapchat, so enough shay, okay, but I've not been
on Snapchat since probably twenty sixteen, and so she sent
this to me and says, we all have a blinking line.
(19:33):
Your blinking line is whatever sits in front of you
waiting to be brought into existence. It's the book or
day or job or business or family or mission or
class or plan or cause or meeting or task or
project or challenge or phone call or life that is
waiting for you to bring it into being. That was
so timely when you shared it with me again, because
(19:53):
I was like, hey, you get to choose, you get
to choose what you're putting your energy towards, and it
doesn't have to be all those things in that list
all at the same time, right, And so I've been
doing a better job of honoring time for recovery. You know,
before I would pack my schedule, there was no time
that I was having whiplash, baby, and I'm like, Okay,
slow down, take a break. These things can wait. And
(20:16):
I think I've just found that to be incredibly rewarding.
One of the things I will say, I mentioned it
a little earlier, getting that sleep is key. Absolutely. Now
I admire you in that way because you're somebody to
go to sleep fast. I can go to sleep right now.
Literally in the middle of this sentence, I could close
my eyes and be almost right at sleep store. That's
(20:40):
how quickly it happens. Now, Do I always lay down
and do that? No, because I also struggle too sometimes. Yeah,
but we both have to prioritize sleep. There's a recent
study that just came out of Neurology. It was published Neurology,
which is the journal for the American Academy for Neurology,
and it says people with chronic insomnia had a forty
(21:02):
percent higher risk of developing mild cognitive impairment or dementia.
So I was, like, chronic insomnia do I have that?
Chronic insomnia is defined as having trouble sleeping at least
three days a week for three months or more. Wow,
ur ring was it was saying girl, you close. You
used to say girl, you're close. And so in this study,
(21:23):
they tracked people that were around seventy years old. They
looked at like twenty eight hundred almost twenty eight hundred people,
and they monitored them for an average of five and
a half years. Of the people who had chronic insomnia,
fourteen percent of them went on to have cognitive issues
compared to ten percent of the people who didn't have
chronic insomnia. So that's the forty percent difference they're talking about. Now,
(21:44):
that's one thing, But the other thing is there was
just a study from another study that came out from
the scientists that you see Berkeley, some scientists that you
see Berkeley, and they were looking at mice and they
dissected the brains and said that we finally figured out
the neural circuits or the pathways that happen when you're
asleep that allow you to release growth hormone. That's you
(22:05):
know when they say kids need a lot of rest
and grow, Yes, it's true, but you also need it
for adult metabolism. So the sleep is important for the kids,
but parents and big kids like me, it's important for
you too. I don't want to grow up. I'm a
toy us kid. Okay. We have to find productive ways
(22:28):
to get that recovery and wellness because you know, it
wasn't right. But when things got tough and I felt stressed,
I used to turn to oysters. And hey man, they've
taken that away, taken it away from us. Now they
are so they are finding bacteria in the oysters, like
deadly bacteria. It's always been bacteria there. But right, I
(22:51):
need to get my terms right. You see that quickly.
I'm no longer biologists. There's always bacteria that fast. I'm recovering.
I'm recovering and recovering. There's always bacteria. But this is
deadly backteria, bad bacteria, you know, And so that really
hurts because me and my friend we bond over oysters.
(23:12):
We love to go to a restaurant and just bring
us two dozen and my friend will fill out the
little car and be like two of this, two of this,
two of this. We'll just get two of everything and
we just enjoy ourselves laughing. You know, a little cocktail
on the side. And now I'm now I'm nervous if
I need to pour a cocktail on the on the
oyster try and kill something in it. No, No, I'm
(23:37):
just waiting for it to cool down, okay, where that
bacteria can't grow as well. And some of this is
just part of our food systems, Like who is no
one testing the oysters? We need to bring back Oyster South.
The folks from that group from the Virginia Marine Science
Institute that we're doing all these studies on oysters, fund
them because I need my oysters and I need them
to be safe. Yes, we need them very badly. I think,
(24:00):
you know, we could go on and on because there's
still so much news we haven't talked about. Yes, but
I'd hope people are feeling like there's a little science
behind all of you. I want to hear from people.
What have they been seeing on their timeline? Yeah, I mean,
because we were just talking about this too. Everybody's internet
is so different. Somebody looks like this viral body suit
(24:22):
I said, viral body suit. I have never seen this ever,
heard of her, never seen this. Hey you look good, girl,
but this is not viral. But then I realized, Hey,
viral for you, it's not the same thing as viral
for me. Like I'm you know what's viral for me?
Baryl jeans? Okay, I wore some viral jeans the other day.
YACKI clippings. Hey, don't sleep on a good clipping, all right,
(24:47):
change your whole mood. Change your mood, change life, change
your shoes. Change remember, Yes, my for you page is
all arts and crafts. It's about to be holiday season.
I can't wait to make Remember I made those a
Valentine's Day cards that was so sweet. Are you doing
Christmas cards? I'm ready to make cards, y'all. I'm doing
holiday cards. Yes, I am ready. Hit me up if
(25:08):
y'all on a car now. We touched on a little
bit of neurology this week, but t T tellum what's
coming up next with Yes, I am so excited because
in our science communication episode, we had a very phenomenal
neuroscience PhD student named Lindsey Edgoe, and she is coming
back to the show to talk about all the work
she does in the neuro science space and what her
(25:30):
research focuses on is pain and how our brains process
pain and things like that. So I am very very
excited for y'all to listen to this. Yes, it's gonna
be fun. All right, We're gonna see 'all this week.
(25:52):
You can find us on X and Instagram at Dope
Labs podcast, tt is on X and Instagram at dr
Underscore TSA, and you can find Zakiya at Ze said so.
Dope Labs is a production of Lamanada Media. Our supervising
producer is Keegan Zimma and our producer is Issara Acevez.
Dope Labs is sound designed, edited and mixed by James Farber.
(26:15):
Limanada Media's Vice President of Partnerships and Production is Jackie Danziger.
Executive producer from iHeart podcast is Katrina Norvil. Marketing lead
is Alison Canter. Original music composed and produced by Taka
Yasuzawa and Alex sugi Ura, with additional music by Elijah Harvey.
Dope Labs is executive produced by us T T show
(26:38):
Dia and Zakiah Wattleia
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