March 30, 2024 • 16 mins
Have you ever wondered why fireflies glow? Or if monkeys have a best friend? Discover the secrets of scientists on the Lingokids Podcast with Emily, Winston and our special guest Jessica Malaty Rivera, a scientist who specializes in infectious diseases. From observing nature to setting up experiments, to sharing new discoveries, the world of science is more exciting and vast than you ever imagined!
***** Parents, in the Lingokids app, we have plenty of interactive activities, games, songs, and more that blend educational subjects and modern life skills to help get your kids ready for today's changing world! From math to making friends, reading to resilience, collaboration, creativity, and so much more, spark curiosity, imagination, and success with Lingokids! *****
A Lingokids Original podcast produced by Paradiso Media
Starring Emily Calandrelli as Herself and Brock Powell as Winston.
Executive Producers: Emi Norris, Benoit Dunaigre, Lorenzo Benedetti, Louis Daboussy
Supervising Producer: Agathe Bouzat
Producer: Abi McNeil
With additional production support from Molly O’Keefe, Aimie Faconnier
Head Writer: Blake Knight
Associate Producer: Brendan Galbreath
Production Coordinators: Maddy Weinberg, Lucine Dorso
Editor: Marin Grizeaud
Theme Song Written by: Fredrika Stahl
Theme Song Composed by: Fredrika Stahl
Music Production: Dimitri Peronno
Theme Song Performed by: The Angel City Youth Chorale directed by Heather Catalena
Recording Engineers: Bill Trousdale at Audiovisions and Jason Schimmel at Bunker Studios
Legal Services: Lisa Nitti, Ludye Nisol, Alix d’Argentré
Special thanks to: Yael Even Or, Winfred Neisser
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hey there, Welcome to Growing Up with Emily, a Lingo
kids podcast. It helps kids discover how to be whatever
they want to be, growing.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Up well side, growing up, growing up side, and grow.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
I strongly believe that science is for everyone, and there
are so many different types of science and so many
different ways to be a scientist that you have tons
of time to decide what you're excited about. I feel like,
even now, so many years after I started my scientific journey,
I'm still learning. And so even if you change your mind,
(00:54):
that's kind of part of being a scientist. It's learning,
it's growing, it's asking more questions, and it's being comfortable
with failure. So keep going.
Speaker 4 (01:05):
So what are we doing for today's science experiment?
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Well, I'm pretty excited about this one, Winston. I call
it the Great swab Off. It's all about discovering things
that are hiding on everyday surfaces using cotton swabs.
Speaker 4 (01:19):
Things hiding on everyday surfaces, You mean like they're.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
Too small to see exactly Whinston, I'm talking about germs. Germs.
Oh yeah, very ooh. But germs are actually all around
us all the time. They're just too small to see
with your eyes. And some actually aren't bad germs at all.
Good bacteria can help keep our tummies healthy and boost
(01:44):
our immune systems. Immune system, Yeah, our immune system is
like an army that protects us from germs and keeps
us from getting sick.
Speaker 5 (01:53):
Hm, we should use the microscope, Emily, That's exactly what
we'll do when Stan.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
But first we're going to wipe cotton swabs on different
surfaces in our lab, things we touch every day. Then,
using the microscope, we'll zoom in really close and see
if there are germs living on those surfaces, to find
out whether or not they're the harmful ones that can
give us the colds, the flu, or even food poisoning.
Speaker 4 (02:21):
You know, it would help if we knew what they
looked like.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
Well, you know when you leave bread out for too long,
or maybe some old fruit and it starts to.
Speaker 5 (02:29):
Grow mold Oh yeah, I've seen that before, or like
ugh old moldy cheese, like the kind my uncle Bill
likes to eat.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
All right, onncent, what surface should be swabbed first?
Speaker 5 (02:41):
How about the doorknob? We touched that a lot. I
want to check out to see just how many germs
are on there. Okay, got it? Hmm what else on
your computer keyboard? We definitely touch that a lot too.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
So we've swabbed those surfaces, and now we're going to
take those swabs and pop them into these little glass dishes.
Speaker 4 (03:02):
So I want to do that part, Emily.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
Okay, Now we carefully label each dish and we wait.
The germs will start to grow after eating away this
jel I put in the dish. Then we'll be able
to check and see if they are the harmful germs
or the normal good ones.
Speaker 5 (03:18):
Swabbing all these surfaces and looking for good germs and
bad germs seems like a lot of work. And what
if there's a ton of germs? I mean, how will
we know who's good and who's bad.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Don't worry. We'll use what's called the scientific method to
figure it out.
Speaker 4 (03:36):
The scientific method.
Speaker 5 (03:37):
That sounds so so legit, But what is it, Emily, Well, it's.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
A special way for scientists to solve problems, Winston. First
we ask a question or two, then we do experiments
or observations to find an answer, and finally we share
what we've learned with others.
Speaker 5 (03:57):
All right, I'm getting it, So I guess our questions
are there harmful germs? On the surfaces in our office,
and which are the safe germs and which are the
ones that make us all fluid.
Speaker 4 (04:08):
And sneezy inside? And how many sick days do I
have here?
Speaker 1 (04:13):
Very good? We do have to wait a bit to
see if the germs will grow on that gel. But
then we'll check out each dish in the microscope to
see what's going on.
Speaker 5 (04:21):
Well, what do we do while we wait?
Speaker 1 (04:24):
Emily, we need to write down everything that we swapped.
Speaker 4 (04:27):
Write it down.
Speaker 5 (04:29):
Why, well, I'll be able to remember the doorknob, the keyboard,
and the light switch.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
Sure, Winston, we remember because it just happened. But what
if we want to swap for germs in a month
or even a year to compare them to the germs
we find today.
Speaker 4 (04:45):
Oh so we need to write everything down.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
Yes, exactly. It's important for scientists to write down their
observations and keep records every step along the way. Oh
that's my reminder. There's a I stream of a scientist
friend of mine. She's going to be doing an online
talk about her job as an epidemiologist. As an they're
a bit like doctors for the whole community, but their
(05:12):
mission is to figure out why people get sick.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
My name is Jessica Malatti Rivera, and I'm an infectious
disease epidemiologist and a science communicator. So five words or
phrases that describe the work that I do would be
disease detective, researcher, viruses, a translator, and an investigator.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
Epidemiologists help us find out one the reason for the
sickness and two how to stop it from spreading. For instance,
epidemiologist John Snow stopped a big outbreak of a disease
called cholera in London back in eighteen fifty four. You see,
most of the doctors at the time thought that the
disease came from something that was in the air. But
(06:01):
doctor Snow made a map of the places where people
were getting sick and realized that they all lived near
dirty water. And that was just one of the many
ways doctor Snow tried to figure out his problem, and
he made lots of mistakes before finding the right answer.
That's how the scientific method works.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
So a bit of my story about how I started
doing the work that I'm doing now kind of goes
all the way back to when I was in elementary school.
I was always interested in science and in math, and
then eventually that got really specific into I wanted to
understand why people got sick, and I thought I wanted
to be a doctor because I thought doctors were really interesting.
(06:42):
And then after I got more interested in things like
public health, I realized there's so many ways to understand
why people get sick and still be a scientist, and
so I studied public health when I went all the
way to college. And then after college, I got even
more specific and I studied infectious diseases. And that was
when I really got excited about the potential for the
(07:06):
kinds of work that you could do by studying infectious diseases.
I studied all types of viruses and bacteria that made
animal sick, plants sick, and human sick. And once I
got really specialized in that work, I became an epidemiologist.
Speaker 4 (07:23):
So do all scientists study science at school?
Speaker 1 (07:26):
Emily, Yeah, it's kind of a requirement. You can take
the basic science classes you have in school, and then
when you get to college you can take more specific
types of science classes too. Ooh, like one, Emily, Well,
like biology, psychology, computer science, astronomy. There are tons of
(07:46):
science classes and tons of scientists jobs to go along
with them. You can take your pick, but all scientists
use the scientific method to gather information called data in
whatever kind of work that they do.
Speaker 4 (08:00):
So Jessica learns about how to fight diseases.
Speaker 5 (08:03):
That's got to be important because COVID made a lot
of people sick when it first happened.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
It sure did Winson. In fact, almost seven hundred million
people got the virus because it spread so quickly, And
it was epidemiologist like Jessica who came up with the
vaccines and medicines who helped to prevent COVID from continuing
to spread and make even more people sick. But they
had to try many times over and over to find
(08:29):
a vaccine that would help.
Speaker 3 (08:32):
You know, part of being a scientist is experiencing failure,
and it can be kind of frustrating when you keep
doing something and don't get the right answer. But there's
kind of a resilience that comes with being a scientist
because you're used to failure and it's not a bad thing.
Speaker 4 (08:49):
You know.
Speaker 5 (08:49):
It's nice to know that scientists try over and over
when they're trying to solve a problem.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
Yeah, and that's the whole point of being a scientist.
Testing your ideas again and again until you up with
the right solution.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
I strongly believe that science is for everyone, and there
are so many different types of science and so many
different ways to be a scientist that you have tons
of time to decide what you're excited about, and so
even if you change your mind, that's kind of part
of being a scientist.
Speaker 5 (09:21):
Wow, anyone could be a scientist. You think that's true, Emily.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
I really do. Inston, you just have to find out
what you're curious about and start learning more about it.
That makes you an amateur scientist. Then once you go
to college, you can pick the type of science you
want to study to become a pro.
Speaker 4 (09:39):
An amateur scientist.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Yep, that means someone who's just beginning. For instance, I
just read an article about a fourteen year old scientist
from Virginia.
Speaker 4 (09:48):
Well, a fourteen year old scientist. How cool?
Speaker 1 (09:52):
Well, an amateur scientist anyway, but he'll be a pro
in no time. His name is Heman Mickela. Before he
moved to the United States, he then grew up in Ethiopia,
where it's super sunny all the time, so he was
worried about skin cancer, which is caused by saying out
in the sun for way too long. So he decided
(10:12):
to look for a solution, and, like every good scientist does,
he decided to do something about the problem to try
and solve it.
Speaker 4 (10:20):
What do you do, Emily, Well, since he.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
Isn't old enough to be a doctor, he couldn't use
all the equipment that they have, so he decided to
try something, something he could make at home. Guess what
he invented, Winston, I.
Speaker 4 (10:34):
Don't know, A new medicine soap.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
This teenage scientist spends a lot of time creating a
special kind of soap packed full of medicine skin cancer
fighting medicine. That is, he made batch after batch by
mixing different ingredients like water, lye, oils, and medicine until
he got it just right.
Speaker 5 (10:56):
Oh cool, magic healing soap. What a good yep.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
Basically, heman took regular soap and changed up the ingredients.
Speaker 4 (11:05):
What did the soap look like?
Speaker 5 (11:06):
I bet it's green and has little flakes of smell
good grains in it.
Speaker 4 (11:10):
Do you think it smells good and tastes good?
Speaker 1 (11:14):
I bet it smells good, yes, Winston. But it looks
just like most bars of soap do, like a little
white brick.
Speaker 4 (11:21):
Only with awesome magical medicine powers in it.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
That's right. After a lot of observations and testing, his
soap was so successful that he took home the top
spot and the Young Scientists Challenge a prize of twenty
five thousand dollars.
Speaker 4 (11:37):
What incredible.
Speaker 5 (11:38):
He probably needed a really big piggy pang for that,
and he'll be able to make a lot of soap
with all that cash. Then heman can help even more people.
That is so awesome and inspiring.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
It sure is Whinson. And he even made it so
that the soap will only cost people five dollars. That's
a good price for something that can help treat skin cancer.
I want to take a quick minute to tell you
and our listeners about Lingo Kids. You know how I
start every episode by saying that it's a Lingo Kids podcast. Well,
(12:10):
Lingo Kids is the number one learning app for kids.
They believe that learning can be fun and I think
so too. They transform screen time with educational and interactive games,
videos and songs and you can play all these on
their app. Hey, if you were a scientist, what field
would you go into?
Speaker 5 (12:30):
I don't know, Emily, maybe animals like a zoologist that'd
be fun, or the one you said earlier, the kind
of scientists who investigates how animals make friends.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
That would be so much fun. Hey, ready to take
another swing at our science experiment? When sim oh.
Speaker 4 (12:48):
Yeah, our science experiment. What was it again?
Speaker 1 (12:51):
Testing the services and our lab for germs that make
us sick?
Speaker 5 (12:55):
Oh yeah, let's see if any germs grew by checking
under the microscope.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
Excited, Oh, I can tell Winson? Can you grab that
microscope off the shelf for me.
Speaker 4 (13:05):
Way ahead of Yamiley here it.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
Is all right, use the microscope to take a look
at the dish we labeled doorknob and tell me what
you see.
Speaker 5 (13:15):
Hmm okay, let me twist these little knobs so I
can focus on them and then maybe oh, no.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
Way, cross, what is it? What do you see? Winston?
Speaker 4 (13:28):
Well, it looks.
Speaker 5 (13:29):
Like like their little blue worms moving around like they're swimming.
Speaker 4 (13:33):
In water something.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
Oooh those are germs, all right? Are there a lot
of them?
Speaker 4 (13:40):
Not a ton?
Speaker 5 (13:40):
But still this definitely tells us that there are any
bitty things living on our labs.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
Doorknob, that's called an observation. We can make a note
of that, just like any scientist. Would let me have
a look at the next one, the computer keyboard swap.
We did.
Speaker 4 (13:57):
Hey, you're the boss, be my guest.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
Hmm, okay, yeah. There are definitely some germs on here too,
more of the wiggly worm ones and oh a few
of the round ones too. It almost looks like they're
all bopping around to a song.
Speaker 4 (14:13):
There are germs everywhere.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
Yeah, that's right, we just can't see them because they
are so tiny. That's why, as I'm sure you know
by now, Winston, it's so important for us to always
wash our hands with soap and water for at least
twenty seconds. That way you can get rid of nasty
germs and stop them from spreading like mold spreads on
(14:35):
old bread.
Speaker 4 (14:36):
Twenty seconds. Got it. Thanks for the reminder, Emily.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
Okay, want to look at the last one, the swab
for the light switch.
Speaker 4 (14:45):
Let's see.
Speaker 5 (14:46):
Oh man, yep, there's more tiny germs here. They look
like spiky little jelly beans or something. We gotta clean
this police up, Emily. All these germs are gonna make
us sick.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
Actually, Whenson, We touch germs every day, but don't worry.
Most of them are too small to worry about. In fact,
a lot of them are good germs. They're called friendly bacteria.
These tiny helpers live in our tummies, help us digest
food and help our bodies fight off the bad germs.
Speaker 4 (15:16):
No kidding, but what about the bad germs, Emily.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
Well, you'll know when you found a bad germ. That's
what gives you a fever or tummy aches. That's why
we don't hug each other when we've got runny noses
and coughs. Coughs and colds are like a party for
bad germs, and they can easily jump from your hands
to your mouth and spread yuck.
Speaker 4 (15:39):
I wouldn't touch those kinds of things anyway.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
In the meantime, we just need to keep our hands
and services as clean as possible.
Speaker 4 (15:46):
I'm on an Emily.
Speaker 5 (15:47):
Oh boy, this lab will be bad germ free in
no time.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
That's all the time we have on today's episode. Thanks
so much for joining our chat about scientists. You can
be a scientist to just keep asking questions and remember
to always stay curious and keep exploring.
Speaker 6 (16:10):
Desert the line train, celebrity shower, flatten the moon to
count the sa race, fast coat. We can't do anything
we want. Close your eyes you'll see it. You have
(16:31):
to believe it
Speaker 4 (16:33):
Close up, yes, side
Hey there, Welcome to Growing Up with Emily, a Lingo
kids podcast. It helps kids discover how to be whatever
they want to be, growing.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Up well side, growing up, growing up side, and grow.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
I strongly believe that science is for everyone, and there
are so many different types of science and so many
different ways to be a scientist that you have tons
of time to decide what you're excited about. I feel like,
even now, so many years after I started my scientific journey,
I'm still learning. And so even if you change your mind,
(00:54):
that's kind of part of being a scientist. It's learning,
it's growing, it's asking more questions, and it's being comfortable
with failure. So keep going.
Speaker 4 (01:05):
So what are we doing for today's science experiment?
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Well, I'm pretty excited about this one, Winston. I call
it the Great swab Off. It's all about discovering things
that are hiding on everyday surfaces using cotton swabs.
Speaker 4 (01:19):
Things hiding on everyday surfaces, You mean like they're.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
Too small to see exactly Whinston, I'm talking about germs. Germs.
Oh yeah, very ooh. But germs are actually all around
us all the time. They're just too small to see
with your eyes. And some actually aren't bad germs at all.
Good bacteria can help keep our tummies healthy and boost
(01:44):
our immune systems. Immune system, Yeah, our immune system is
like an army that protects us from germs and keeps
us from getting sick.
Speaker 5 (01:53):
Hm, we should use the microscope, Emily, That's exactly what
we'll do when Stan.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
But first we're going to wipe cotton swabs on different
surfaces in our lab, things we touch every day. Then,
using the microscope, we'll zoom in really close and see
if there are germs living on those surfaces, to find
out whether or not they're the harmful ones that can
give us the colds, the flu, or even food poisoning.
Speaker 4 (02:21):
You know, it would help if we knew what they
looked like.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
Well, you know when you leave bread out for too long,
or maybe some old fruit and it starts to.
Speaker 5 (02:29):
Grow mold Oh yeah, I've seen that before, or like
ugh old moldy cheese, like the kind my uncle Bill
likes to eat.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
All right, onncent, what surface should be swabbed first?
Speaker 5 (02:41):
How about the doorknob? We touched that a lot. I
want to check out to see just how many germs
are on there. Okay, got it? Hmm what else on
your computer keyboard? We definitely touch that a lot too.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
So we've swabbed those surfaces, and now we're going to
take those swabs and pop them into these little glass dishes.
Speaker 4 (03:02):
So I want to do that part, Emily.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
Okay, Now we carefully label each dish and we wait.
The germs will start to grow after eating away this
jel I put in the dish. Then we'll be able
to check and see if they are the harmful germs
or the normal good ones.
Speaker 5 (03:18):
Swabbing all these surfaces and looking for good germs and
bad germs seems like a lot of work. And what
if there's a ton of germs? I mean, how will
we know who's good and who's bad.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Don't worry. We'll use what's called the scientific method to
figure it out.
Speaker 4 (03:36):
The scientific method.
Speaker 5 (03:37):
That sounds so so legit, But what is it, Emily, Well, it's.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
A special way for scientists to solve problems, Winston. First
we ask a question or two, then we do experiments
or observations to find an answer, and finally we share
what we've learned with others.
Speaker 5 (03:57):
All right, I'm getting it, So I guess our questions
are there harmful germs? On the surfaces in our office,
and which are the safe germs and which are the
ones that make us all fluid.
Speaker 4 (04:08):
And sneezy inside? And how many sick days do I
have here?
Speaker 1 (04:13):
Very good? We do have to wait a bit to
see if the germs will grow on that gel. But
then we'll check out each dish in the microscope to
see what's going on.
Speaker 5 (04:21):
Well, what do we do while we wait?
Speaker 1 (04:24):
Emily, we need to write down everything that we swapped.
Speaker 4 (04:27):
Write it down.
Speaker 5 (04:29):
Why, well, I'll be able to remember the doorknob, the keyboard,
and the light switch.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
Sure, Winston, we remember because it just happened. But what
if we want to swap for germs in a month
or even a year to compare them to the germs
we find today.
Speaker 4 (04:45):
Oh so we need to write everything down.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
Yes, exactly. It's important for scientists to write down their
observations and keep records every step along the way. Oh
that's my reminder. There's a I stream of a scientist
friend of mine. She's going to be doing an online
talk about her job as an epidemiologist. As an they're
a bit like doctors for the whole community, but their
(05:12):
mission is to figure out why people get sick.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
My name is Jessica Malatti Rivera, and I'm an infectious
disease epidemiologist and a science communicator. So five words or
phrases that describe the work that I do would be
disease detective, researcher, viruses, a translator, and an investigator.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
Epidemiologists help us find out one the reason for the
sickness and two how to stop it from spreading. For instance,
epidemiologist John Snow stopped a big outbreak of a disease
called cholera in London back in eighteen fifty four. You see,
most of the doctors at the time thought that the
disease came from something that was in the air. But
(06:01):
doctor Snow made a map of the places where people
were getting sick and realized that they all lived near
dirty water. And that was just one of the many
ways doctor Snow tried to figure out his problem, and
he made lots of mistakes before finding the right answer.
That's how the scientific method works.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
So a bit of my story about how I started
doing the work that I'm doing now kind of goes
all the way back to when I was in elementary school.
I was always interested in science and in math, and
then eventually that got really specific into I wanted to
understand why people got sick, and I thought I wanted
to be a doctor because I thought doctors were really interesting.
(06:42):
And then after I got more interested in things like
public health, I realized there's so many ways to understand
why people get sick and still be a scientist, and
so I studied public health when I went all the
way to college. And then after college, I got even
more specific and I studied infectious diseases. And that was
when I really got excited about the potential for the
(07:06):
kinds of work that you could do by studying infectious diseases.
I studied all types of viruses and bacteria that made
animal sick, plants sick, and human sick. And once I
got really specialized in that work, I became an epidemiologist.
Speaker 4 (07:23):
So do all scientists study science at school?
Speaker 1 (07:26):
Emily, Yeah, it's kind of a requirement. You can take
the basic science classes you have in school, and then
when you get to college you can take more specific
types of science classes too. Ooh, like one, Emily, Well,
like biology, psychology, computer science, astronomy. There are tons of
(07:46):
science classes and tons of scientists jobs to go along
with them. You can take your pick, but all scientists
use the scientific method to gather information called data in
whatever kind of work that they do.
Speaker 4 (08:00):
So Jessica learns about how to fight diseases.
Speaker 5 (08:03):
That's got to be important because COVID made a lot
of people sick when it first happened.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
It sure did Winson. In fact, almost seven hundred million
people got the virus because it spread so quickly, And
it was epidemiologist like Jessica who came up with the
vaccines and medicines who helped to prevent COVID from continuing
to spread and make even more people sick. But they
had to try many times over and over to find
(08:29):
a vaccine that would help.
Speaker 3 (08:32):
You know, part of being a scientist is experiencing failure,
and it can be kind of frustrating when you keep
doing something and don't get the right answer. But there's
kind of a resilience that comes with being a scientist
because you're used to failure and it's not a bad thing.
Speaker 4 (08:49):
You know.
Speaker 5 (08:49):
It's nice to know that scientists try over and over
when they're trying to solve a problem.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
Yeah, and that's the whole point of being a scientist.
Testing your ideas again and again until you up with
the right solution.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
I strongly believe that science is for everyone, and there
are so many different types of science and so many
different ways to be a scientist that you have tons
of time to decide what you're excited about, and so
even if you change your mind, that's kind of part
of being a scientist.
Speaker 5 (09:21):
Wow, anyone could be a scientist. You think that's true, Emily.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
I really do. Inston, you just have to find out
what you're curious about and start learning more about it.
That makes you an amateur scientist. Then once you go
to college, you can pick the type of science you
want to study to become a pro.
Speaker 4 (09:39):
An amateur scientist.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Yep, that means someone who's just beginning. For instance, I
just read an article about a fourteen year old scientist
from Virginia.
Speaker 4 (09:48):
Well, a fourteen year old scientist. How cool?
Speaker 1 (09:52):
Well, an amateur scientist anyway, but he'll be a pro
in no time. His name is Heman Mickela. Before he
moved to the United States, he then grew up in Ethiopia,
where it's super sunny all the time, so he was
worried about skin cancer, which is caused by saying out
in the sun for way too long. So he decided
(10:12):
to look for a solution, and, like every good scientist does,
he decided to do something about the problem to try
and solve it.
Speaker 4 (10:20):
What do you do, Emily, Well, since he.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
Isn't old enough to be a doctor, he couldn't use
all the equipment that they have, so he decided to
try something, something he could make at home. Guess what
he invented, Winston, I.
Speaker 4 (10:34):
Don't know, A new medicine soap.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
This teenage scientist spends a lot of time creating a
special kind of soap packed full of medicine skin cancer
fighting medicine. That is, he made batch after batch by
mixing different ingredients like water, lye, oils, and medicine until
he got it just right.
Speaker 5 (10:56):
Oh cool, magic healing soap. What a good yep.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
Basically, heman took regular soap and changed up the ingredients.
Speaker 4 (11:05):
What did the soap look like?
Speaker 5 (11:06):
I bet it's green and has little flakes of smell
good grains in it.
Speaker 4 (11:10):
Do you think it smells good and tastes good?
Speaker 1 (11:14):
I bet it smells good, yes, Winston. But it looks
just like most bars of soap do, like a little
white brick.
Speaker 4 (11:21):
Only with awesome magical medicine powers in it.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
That's right. After a lot of observations and testing, his
soap was so successful that he took home the top
spot and the Young Scientists Challenge a prize of twenty
five thousand dollars.
Speaker 4 (11:37):
What incredible.
Speaker 5 (11:38):
He probably needed a really big piggy pang for that,
and he'll be able to make a lot of soap
with all that cash. Then heman can help even more people.
That is so awesome and inspiring.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
It sure is Whinson. And he even made it so
that the soap will only cost people five dollars. That's
a good price for something that can help treat skin cancer.
I want to take a quick minute to tell you
and our listeners about Lingo Kids. You know how I
start every episode by saying that it's a Lingo Kids podcast. Well,
(12:10):
Lingo Kids is the number one learning app for kids.
They believe that learning can be fun and I think
so too. They transform screen time with educational and interactive games,
videos and songs and you can play all these on
their app. Hey, if you were a scientist, what field
would you go into?
Speaker 5 (12:30):
I don't know, Emily, maybe animals like a zoologist that'd
be fun, or the one you said earlier, the kind
of scientists who investigates how animals make friends.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
That would be so much fun. Hey, ready to take
another swing at our science experiment? When sim oh.
Speaker 4 (12:48):
Yeah, our science experiment. What was it again?
Speaker 1 (12:51):
Testing the services and our lab for germs that make
us sick?
Speaker 5 (12:55):
Oh yeah, let's see if any germs grew by checking
under the microscope.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
Excited, Oh, I can tell Winson? Can you grab that
microscope off the shelf for me.
Speaker 4 (13:05):
Way ahead of Yamiley here it.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
Is all right, use the microscope to take a look
at the dish we labeled doorknob and tell me what
you see.
Speaker 5 (13:15):
Hmm okay, let me twist these little knobs so I
can focus on them and then maybe oh, no.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
Way, cross, what is it? What do you see? Winston?
Speaker 4 (13:28):
Well, it looks.
Speaker 5 (13:29):
Like like their little blue worms moving around like they're swimming.
Speaker 4 (13:33):
In water something.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
Oooh those are germs, all right? Are there a lot
of them?
Speaker 4 (13:40):
Not a ton?
Speaker 5 (13:40):
But still this definitely tells us that there are any
bitty things living on our labs.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
Doorknob, that's called an observation. We can make a note
of that, just like any scientist. Would let me have
a look at the next one, the computer keyboard swap.
We did.
Speaker 4 (13:57):
Hey, you're the boss, be my guest.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
Hmm, okay, yeah. There are definitely some germs on here too,
more of the wiggly worm ones and oh a few
of the round ones too. It almost looks like they're
all bopping around to a song.
Speaker 4 (14:13):
There are germs everywhere.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
Yeah, that's right, we just can't see them because they
are so tiny. That's why, as I'm sure you know
by now, Winston, it's so important for us to always
wash our hands with soap and water for at least
twenty seconds. That way you can get rid of nasty
germs and stop them from spreading like mold spreads on
(14:35):
old bread.
Speaker 4 (14:36):
Twenty seconds. Got it. Thanks for the reminder, Emily.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
Okay, want to look at the last one, the swab
for the light switch.
Speaker 4 (14:45):
Let's see.
Speaker 5 (14:46):
Oh man, yep, there's more tiny germs here. They look
like spiky little jelly beans or something. We gotta clean
this police up, Emily. All these germs are gonna make
us sick.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
Actually, Whenson, We touch germs every day, but don't worry.
Most of them are too small to worry about. In fact,
a lot of them are good germs. They're called friendly bacteria.
These tiny helpers live in our tummies, help us digest
food and help our bodies fight off the bad germs.
Speaker 4 (15:16):
No kidding, but what about the bad germs, Emily.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
Well, you'll know when you found a bad germ. That's
what gives you a fever or tummy aches. That's why
we don't hug each other when we've got runny noses
and coughs. Coughs and colds are like a party for
bad germs, and they can easily jump from your hands
to your mouth and spread yuck.
Speaker 4 (15:39):
I wouldn't touch those kinds of things anyway.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
In the meantime, we just need to keep our hands
and services as clean as possible.
Speaker 4 (15:46):
I'm on an Emily.
Speaker 5 (15:47):
Oh boy, this lab will be bad germ free in
no time.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
That's all the time we have on today's episode. Thanks
so much for joining our chat about scientists. You can
be a scientist to just keep asking questions and remember
to always stay curious and keep exploring.
Speaker 6 (16:10):
Desert the line train, celebrity shower, flatten the moon to
count the sa race, fast coat. We can't do anything
we want. Close your eyes you'll see it. You have
(16:31):
to believe it
Speaker 4 (16:33):
Close up, yes, side
Host
Emily Calandrelli
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