June 20, 2025 • 59 mins
Innovations in science are making daily life better through passive cooling paint and insights into pet interactions.
In the Science News section we explore technologies that could transform how we maintain comfortable living spaces and manage our emotions at work.
• Cement-based cooling paint from Nyang Technological University uses three cooling strategies: radiative cooling, evaporative cooling, and solar reflection
• The specialized paint maintains effectiveness after two years of testing, reflecting 88-92% of sunlight while conventional paints yellow and lose performance
• Buildings using this paint required 30-40% less electricity for air conditioning, potentially reducing urban heat islands
• Research shows looking at photos of your own dog (not random dogs or cats) significantly reduces anger and aggressive intent
The Guest in Ask an Expert...
• Dr. Lori Palen discusses how data communication bridges the gap between scientific discovery and real-world impact
• Data Soapbox helps scientists translate complex findings into accessible, engaging content that drives positive change
• Science communication needs to be planned from the outset rather than treated as an afterthought
Dr. Palen's links
Data Soap Box: https://datasoapbox.com/
Dr. Palen on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/loripalen.bsky.social
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Hello science enthusiasts.
I'm Jason Zukoski.
And I'm Chris Zukoski, we'rethe pet parents of Bunsen,
beaker, bernoulli and Ginger.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
The science animals on social media.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
If you love science.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
And you love pets.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
You've come to the right spot, so put on your
safety glasses and hold on toyour tail.
This is the Science Podcast.
Hello everybody, welcome backto the Science Podcast.
We hope you're happy andhealthy out there.
This is episode 19 of seasonseven.
Chris, the summer is so close,I can taste it.
(00:44):
If you could taste such a thing.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
If you could taste such a thing, it would be so
tasty, delicious even.
I'm picturing ice cream andhanging out just at our house
and playing with the dogs andwith Ginger and relaxing.
I'm looking forward to it.
So a taste of summer is on themenu.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
As we're both high school teachers, the kids are
prepping and writing their testsand we are not teaching, so it
is quite a different workloadright now because you're not
prepping and marking the sameway you would normally.
And this time next week I thinkwe're done Wednesday or
Thursday next week, you're doneFriday next week, right?
Speaker 3 (01:29):
Our last thing that we do is grad.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Ooh is that on the Friday?
Speaker 3 (01:33):
That is on our last day, our teacher organization
organizational day.
Yeah, gotcha.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Let's talk about what the podcast this week will be
about.
Our science news item is aboutthis paint that could cool down
a house.
I wish we had that when welived in the trailer, because
that house was way too hot.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
Magma.
It was as hot as the surface ofthe sun.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
I think it would be cooler if we moved there, and
our second study may ruffle somefur, because it is talking
about how looking at pets may ormay not reduce how angry you
are, and that's an interestingtake on the stress level that
(02:15):
usually comes with a reductionwhen you're interacting with
pets.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
I was reading that article and I was after we share
.
I think I have some strategiesto use at my place of work and
Chris.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
The guest and ask an expert is Dr Lori Palin, who's
going to be talking to us aboutdata and how.
Data is the core of science.
Communication, which is kind ofcool.
Yeah, all right, let's get onwith the show.
There's no time like sciencetime this week in science news.
Could you cool?
(02:49):
A house without airconditioning and a paint is the
key ingredient, as mentioned.
I wish we had this in thetrailer.
This was pre Bunsen by a longways.
We were.
When we were a young couple andwe were just starting out,
(03:10):
chris, we lived in a trailerlike a modular house a modular
home, jason, that that's what itwas and we moved it onto the
property that we live on now.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
That's been in my family since the late 1800s, and
we just parked it out in themiddle of the, in the middle of
a field, and there was no shade,no trees, no, nothing for a
very long time, and so there wasno respite from the sun it was
warm in the winter as long asthe furnace didn't quit, but in
(03:46):
the summer and our summers gethot, not Texas or Arizona hot,
but our summers get hot it wasunbearable.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
Like it was.
You could not sleep at night.
We had fans in every room tocool us down.
To cool us down Our oldest son,duncan he was a little guy then
.
He taped water bottles to hisbody at night.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
Do you remember that?
Just to stay cool, I do.
We had them refrigerated orfrozen and he just taped them
and put them in his bed.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
So this comes from Nyang Technological University
in Singapore, and they'vedeveloped this cement-based
cooling paint that passivelycools surfaces like how we sweat
.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
It's so cool, Jason.
This cement-based cooling paintcomes from three different
strategies actually Radiativecooling, which is cooling that
reflects sunlight and emitsabsorbed heat back into the sky,
and then also, like you said,we sweat.
Evaporative cooling cools asthe water slowly evaporates.
(04:52):
And the third type oftechnology or strategy is solar
reflection, and it actuallyreflects 88% to 92% of sunlight
even when it's wet, important inthe in the climate of singapore
yeah, and that's why theydeveloped it here, because
singapore, unlike alberta,canada, is hot and humid.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
We are dry, like I would say.
Our climate's pretty dry herein alberta.
Dry and cool.
Would you agree with that?
Dry and cool?
That's the opposite of ourclimate and traditional go ahead
.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
Yeah, I just noticed that sometimes my skin is dry
and sometimes it's not, andsometimes it cracks in the
winter and I just need moremoisturizer.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
Oh, our winters are really dry, yeah, so the reason
why this was developed inSingapore was their traditional
cooling methods.
They lose effectiveness becausewater vapor gets trapped that
the cement-based paint attacksbecause it's porous, so the
structure retains a lot of waterand that allows very slow
(05:59):
evaporation.
And that's why sweat works.
When you get, when you sweat,the water that your body
perspires as your body heats up,that energy that you're
irradiating goes into the sweatand then the sweat evaporates
off your body, taking all ofthat extra heat with it.
So it's like a heattransference, in the simplest
(06:22):
terms to explain.
And the cement-based paint doesthat, which is cool, but it's
got more than that going oninside it.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
Another cool thing about the paint structure is
that it has nanoparticles in it,and what the nanoparticles do
is that they boost thereflectivity and the strength of
the paint, which helps thepaint maintain its white color
over time.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Now this is all on paper sounds amazing, but they
tested it.
So this is why this is a realthing that we're talking about
right now, because real sciencewas put into work to test this
cement paint.
They had three small testhouses and they were painted and
exposed to two years of sun andrain in Singapore.
They used just regular whitepaint, commercial radiative
(07:12):
cooling paint so that's somefancy paint.
And then this new cement, ntudeveloped cooling paint and they
looked at results after twoyears.
As you mentioned, chris, thatregular paint and the commercial
paint yellowed and lost itseffectiveness after those two
years.
As you mentioned, chris, thatregular paint and the commercial
paint yellowed and lost itseffectiveness after those two
years.
However, the NTU's paintremained super white,
(07:34):
maintaining its reflectivity andcooling performance.
So as a material science, as amaterial matter, it held up
really well over two years and Idon't know what kind of
sunlight and weather you get inSingapore, so I have no concept
of that.
But if you just paintedsomething outside in Alberta, it
(07:57):
would look beat up after twoyears if you didn't put any
finish on it probably.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
There's more Energy savings.
The new paint actually required30 to 40% less air conditioning
electricity compared to theother two.
And what you notice about airconditioning is it takes and
puts heat out into theenvironment, so it's twofold in
terms of a broader impact on theenvironment.
(08:23):
So you get to stay coolerwithout using all that
electricity, but then alsowithout putting extra heat out
into the environment.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
A huge percentage of a building's energy globally is
used for cooling.
I just think, of course, weshouldn't throw stones within a
glass house.
I just think, of course, weshouldn't throw stones within a
glass house because where welive in the world we have to use
considerable energy to not diein the winter, and that's
natural gas.
The cold provinces of Canadapredominantly use natural gas as
(08:58):
a heating method to not freezeto death.
But we've been to really warmplaces Like, I'm thinking, las
Vegas right.
Every place we walked into thecasinos and the hotels and
people's homes.
I'm sure the vast majority ofthem have air conditioning to
cool their home.
Because I don't know if thatwould be tolerable for the
(09:18):
average person to live in anon-air conditioned house in the
desert Probably not.
So I'd imagine those buildings.
More than 60% of their energywould be used for cooling, and
this paint produces that.
(09:39):
It's an invisible hand helpingyour house and it's truly
passive cooling.
Now, where perhaps the studyneeds to work on is or they need
to work on the paint is thatit's really effective in humid
climates and that's where allthose other paints fail.
And, of course, because it'shumid, there's more water that
could be absorbed for thatpassive cooling.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
For sure, and it also allows that reduction of the
urban heat island idea, wherethe air conditioning systems
release the warm air into theenvironment.
This actually releases heat asthat invisible infrared
radiation which then justescapes into the atmosphere, and
so it just reduces that localheat accumulation in cities,
(10:22):
which is awesome and amazingheat accumulation in cities,
which is awesome and amazing,yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
And any way you can lower building cooling costs or
how much demand there is on thegrid, that's great.
Even in Alberta in the last twoyears, we've had warnings from
the government that we are wewere reaching like max capacity
for electricity.
Do you remember that lastsummer?
Speaker 3 (10:49):
yeah, the possibility of a brownout, because like
please don't use water orelectricity during these peak
hours because there isn't enoughgoing around for for that usage
.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Yeah, and I don't remember another time in my life
where there was a warning fromthe government about that.
I can't remember the last time.
As our climate changes and oursummers are getting warmer and
they are getting a little bitwarmer, this paint is super cool
and maybe in the future couldbe part of your normal building
(11:21):
costs to decrease how much youhave to cool the house, which is
cool.
Speaker 3 (11:25):
Jason, you said it was super cool, so that's a pun,
good job.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
Okay, thanks.
That's science news for thisweek.
This week in pet science, we'regoing to be talking about how
pets and pictures of pets canmaybe reduce your anger, or
maybe not.
Speaker 3 (11:47):
Yeah, I was actually a little bit surprised about
this, because you and I havecovered studies before that have
looked at people who eitherhave a pet or are looking at
images of pets, and it said thatthe looking at an image of a
pet, like, reduced your stressor your anger, as well as
actually being in the presenceof a pet.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
No, not anger like stress and anxiety.
I don't think we've ever doneone where it's talked about
aggression.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
No, and so that's what made it interesting,
because I was looking at it fromthe lens of stress and anxiety.
So I was looking for someconfirmation bias in this study
going oh yes, it's going to work, because I was equating those
emotions.
But anger is a differentemotion and it makes sense that
the results of the study aredifferent than looking at
(12:34):
anxiety and the release of thehormones that we have when we
look at pets or have a pet withus.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
And I think we all get angry.
I hold in a lot of myfrustration, but I do get angry
and I do have angry outburstsoccasionally.
So I was like, looking at this,and everybody who has stress in
their life may get to a pointwhere they're like you're just
so angry.
So it'd be interesting to see,as we go through the study, what
it says, because it does have a, I guess, a counterintuitive
(13:04):
conclusion so the participants.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
There were two lab-based experiments which
involved a random dog photo, arandom cat photo, a photo of
their own dog, of theparticipants own dog and a photo
of their own cat.
So these participants werebrought together and then,
simultaneously, the participantscompleted an anger inducing
(13:30):
writing task.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
I was glad it wasn't math, I know I'm glad it wasn't
math.
Because they've used mathbefore to stress people out, to
give them anxiety and that'swhere the anxiety came from.
Speaker 3 (13:44):
The idea of the anxiety was from that other
study that we broke down aboutthe people having to do math and
then all those anxious smellswere coming off of them.
But this one was an angerinducing writing task, which is
super funny.
So in the first study it wasself-reported anger and a
hypothetical retaliation on asituation that you were angry
(14:08):
about.
So, immediately post-task, theparticipants rated their anger
on a scale and then they alsoindicated their willingness to
retaliate in scenarios.
So if they were, for example,being insulted by a coworker,
what kind of snappy responsewould they have?
(14:29):
Or what kind of retaliationwould they have?
Speaker 2 (14:33):
But we're high school teachers, like the kids snark
at us all the time.
We're immune to this.
A little bit I'm immune.
If I was in a job and then somemy coworker was like you're
dumb, I'd be like your wordsmean nothing to me.
My soul is dead and black fromworking as a high school teacher
(14:54):
without the kids can be sosnarky and cruel.
Sometimes you have nothing.
Being insulted by a coworkerwho cares.
Anyway, chris, I just thoughtthat was so funny and so what?
Speaker 3 (15:07):
the key finding of that study was that the
participants who viewed theirown dog significantly reduced
both their felt anger and theiraggressive intent.
So the other images that theywere told to look at or asked to
look at so the cats or otherrandom animals actually had no
(15:29):
effect which was interestingyeah.
I was a little shocked by that.
I thought they would all justhave a Zen moment looking at
animals.
But no, it's your own personalpet that brought down the heat.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
Now the second study is wild.
Speaker 3 (15:48):
So study number two was a behavioral measure of
aggression.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
So participants, what they did is they played
competitive reaction time gamewhere they could choose the
intensity and duration of anaversive white noise blast to
punish an opponent so you loseit and he gets blasted in your
ears with this annoying whitenoise, and then you could choose
(16:13):
how loud and how long to do itfor to be a jerk.
Speaker 3 (16:17):
That's hilarious and especially with very competitive
people.
You could see that they wouldbe in your face and you would
have the worst level ever.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
I never want to go up against you in this game.
I would be listening to onlylong and loud white noise in my
head.
Speaker 3 (16:34):
Okay, I'll let everybody in on a little secret.
You have a noise machine, jason, and so the white noise machine
goes all night.
So I listen to white noise allnight, but it doesn't bother me.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
I know, but it lets me sleep.
That was a game changer for mefalling asleep Huge I used to
have some trouble with insomnia,chris.
You just go right to sleep, nomatter what's happening.
I could be having a full onconversation with you, the TV
could be on and there could be alightning storm outside, and
you will fall asleep in fiveseconds.
(17:06):
So yeah yeah, you, that is yoursuperpower.
Speaker 3 (17:09):
And I wasn't going to say anything negative about the
white noise, but I just thinkI'm like would be used to it and
it wouldn't necessarily affectme as much.
But the result was those whoviewed a picture of their own
dog chose milder blasts and thatdemonstrated less aggressive
(17:29):
behavior, and there was nosignificant changes for the
other images.
So looking at their own dogcalmed you down enough to not
give the triple boost of whitenoise.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
Yeah, but they also showed people photos of their
own cats and it had no effect.
Speaker 3 (17:47):
Interesting.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
Isn't that sad Because ginger is very cute?
Yes, right, but I don't knowthat's so wild that they had
zero effect.
I can see like a random dog orespecially a random cat, cause
I'm not really I'm a gingerperson, I'm not a cat person
Like.
I really like ginger, but I'mtake it or leave it with other
cats.
I can see that.
But I would be calmed downright now if I saw our dogs like
(18:13):
, because I love those dogs yeah, I do too, and they all have
great faces he has a goober face.
Please goober face would calm medown and beaker's smiley face
or even, like her deadpan lookI'd find that funny she just had
her beaker face and I'm feelingthat way from somebody blasting
me with white noise, and thensomebody showed me beakers like
(18:37):
expressionless dark-eyed look,and I'd be like I feel you
beaker.
That's how I feel right now andit would calm me down I feel,
yeah, so there's someimplications and conclusions for
this study.
Speaker 3 (18:48):
And in the office you could have only personalized
dog photos, not cat photos orunfamiliar animals, because that
could appear to buffer angerand aggression in the office or
your workplace.
And you know what?
One thing that you typicallycan't have in the workplace is
real pets.
So you know what using personalimages of your pets might be a
(19:12):
low cost strategy to reduceanger and improve workplace
harmony.
So what I want to do now is goon to everybody's social media
and pull their dogs and thenjust stick them around their
work area, and so I think Imight do that as a bit of a
prank, and they'll be like oh, Ijust feel so calm looking at my
Rufus, or I feel so calmlooking at Blue, and of course
(19:37):
I'm not going to lie.
I have our Munson and Beakercalendar and Bernoulli calendar
up.
I have the three stuffies rightat my desk.
I've got vultures of parliamentart.
I am already decked out withour dogs.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
My desk is decked out with stuff too.
The kids love it, though.
They love looking, but youteach in, you teach and then
your office is in a pod with 10other teachers and my classroom
is my classroom, Whereas whereasmy desk.
I couldn't do that, I wouldthrow myself off a cliff.
I need to quiet and be awayfrom my colleagues to get stuff
(20:10):
done.
Speaker 3 (20:10):
But what I do in my classroom is I have we rate, the
we rate dogs calendar, and Irip off the day and I stick it
on the board and so there's dogpictures all over my classroom.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
Now they're random dog pictures, but you know it's,
so it's not going to be helpful.
Speaker 3 (20:24):
Not for anger, but for anxiety.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
Yeah, so I have.
I used to have a Bunsen stuffybut I think I brought it home.
I've got a Beaker stuffy in myroom and kids want the stuffy on
their desk when they write atest, so they fight over it,
which is cute, but we're gettingoff track.
Here is a couple couple futurethings or future real world
effects in the workplace theycould test.
Would hanging a photo of yourdog at your desk work on
reducing your anger?
Speaker 3 (20:49):
I'm going to try it tomorrow.
Speaker 2 (20:51):
Yeah, could digital photo frames with all of your
pets help?
Not just one, but like athousand, the ones that flash
through.
They show for five seconds andthey go.
This may lead, because it'ssuch a good conclusion and if
it's backed up in future studies, employers might have to
consider implementing amandatory pet photo policy as a
(21:18):
way to help wellness and youranxiety, but, most importantly,
your aggression, if you work ina stressful environment.
And I'm just thinking.
You know, the post office thatwe go to went from two kiosks to
one and the lineups havedoubled and the post office
(21:39):
people that I've been there havehad to deal with some pretty
angry people through no fault oftheir own.
And I just wish, as somebodywould come up to the till though
this is super invasive andcreepy it would scan them and
then they would, on their sideof the till, their dog would
come up, so they would be nicerto the post office workers.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
That could potentially be a Black Mirror
episode.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
Yeah, there you go.
And if they're oh, and ifthey're listening, you got to
give.
You got to give chris and Icredits in black mirror yeah
because some black mirrorepisodes are wholesome they're
not all dystopian and terrible,so that could be a good one this
would be a good one.
Speaker 3 (22:16):
You know what?
It's just not any dog picture,it's a picture of your own pet
and just being pet inclusive.
If you can't be pet inclusive,be virtually pet inclusive.
If you can't be pet inclusive,be virtually pet inclusive in
your workplace, and then we'llall just be not as angry.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
That's a good place to end.
That's Pet Science for thisweek.
Hello everybody, here's someways you can keep the science
podcast free.
Number one in our show notessign up to be a member of our
Paw Pack Plus community.
It's an amazing community offolks who love pets and folks
who love science.
We have tons of bonus Bunsenand Beaker content there and we
(22:55):
have live streams every Sundaywith our community.
It's tons of fun.
Also, think about checking outour merch store.
We've got the Bunsen stuffy, thebeaker stuffy and now the
ginger stuffy.
That's right, Ginger, thescience cat, has a little
replica.
It's adorable.
It's so soft, with the giantfluffy tail, safety glasses and
a lab coat.
(23:15):
And number three if you'relistening to the podcast on any
place that rates podcasts, giveus a great rating and tell your
family and friends to listen to.
Okay, on with the show.
Back to the interviews.
It's time for Ask an Expert onthe Science Podcast and I'm
thrilled to have Dr Lori Palin,who is the founder, the chief
(23:37):
bottle washer, the chiefconsultant for Data Soapbox,
with us today.
Lori, how are you doing?
Speaker 1 (23:46):
Hanging in there.
Thanks for having me today.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
Good, good.
Where are you calling into theshow from?
Where are you in the world?
Speaker 1 (23:52):
So I am in currently sunny Cary, north Carolina in
the US.
So in the Raleigh-Durham, thecapital area of North Carolina.
For those who know SaaSsoftware, saas is here in Cary,
north Carolina.
For those who know SAS software, sas is here in Cary, north
Carolina, and that's just aboutour biggest claim to fame.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
I was wondering if you could talk to us about your
training.
I did introduce you as Dr Palin.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
What's going on with your?
Speaker 2 (24:15):
Yeah, we'd love to know.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
The PhD is legit, so I did my undergraduate degree in
psychology.
I really thought I was going tobe a therapist.
I took a couple of years offand worked in human services and
worked with a bunch ofhigh-risk populations worked
with individuals experiencingopioid dependence, worked with
teens who were in foster care orDepartment of Social Services
(24:40):
who were in group housing,worked with individuals who had
Down syndrome and there isdefinitely a place for direct
service out there.
We need our direct serviceproviders.
There are lots of people outthere who are excellent at it
and I appreciate them so much.
I am not that person.
I realized that direct serviceprobably wasn't the route for me
, but also didn't want to be atherapist either and I guess
(25:01):
that's also direct service butdecided I wanted to go back to
school to learn more aboutprevention science.
So I was working.
For example, when I was workingin a drug treatment clinic, I
was working with clients whowere middle-aged and their
issues with drugs didn't startlast week or a month ago or a
year ago.
A lot of times the origins werein their adolescence.
(25:24):
I might have experienced somesort of trauma or used for the
first time and thatunfortunately set off a
trajectory for down the line.
So, yeah, found Penn State'sPrevention Research Center.
So there's a whole researchcenter there that works on
figuring out how we prevent badoutcomes among people and also
how we promote good things, howwe promote thriving and
(25:46):
wellbeing.
Yeah, so I went back and got myPhD in human development and
family studies.
So I function, or my educationis developmental psychology
broadly.
I am not trained as a clinician, so people often joke and say
and say oh, I bet you could helpme out with my issues, and no,
unfortunately I cannot do that.
(26:07):
No clinical training, but workedas a researcher.
So I worked on mainly tworesearch projects when I was at
Penn State.
One of them looked at how whatkids do in their free time
whether it's sports or music orvolunteering or something in
their faith community, how thethings they did in their free
time related to theirdevelopment.
And I worked on a projectevaluating an HIV and substance
(26:31):
use prevention program for teensin South Africa.
So that was really my trainingwas adolescent research and
prevention programs and figuringout if we design a program to
put it out there and stop thingslike substance use or risky
sexual behavior or violence.
We need to figure out whetheror not that actually worked, and
(26:51):
so I was the kind of scientistwho went in and figured out how
that works.
So that's what I was trained todo and what I started my career
doing.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
Two very different focuses there.
Wow, can you?
Could you elaborate a littlebit on the because I'm a teacher
, my wife's a teacher about theadolescent study, I'd love to
know more.
What did you find out, or wasit inconclusive?
Speaker 1 (27:16):
Well, in particular, the study I did that evaluated
the prevention program in SouthAfrica.
We did a bunch of studies tofigure out did it actually help
with various prevention outcomes?
And we found that I believe itwas effective in preventing some
metrics of substance use and itwas also it helped with
adolescent identity development.
(27:38):
So I mentioned before I'd donesome work around adolescent free
time activities and what teensdo in their free time.
So that program capitalized onthat and worked on teaching kids
how to use, find healthy waysto spend their free time and
things that were motivating tothem and things that they just
enjoy doing rather than thingsthey were forced to do.
Some sort of functional reason.
(27:58):
It was all about discoveringwho you are and what sorts of
things you love to do, so therewere also effects on that.
So, yeah, it was a cool studyto be part of.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
I'd imagine the whole things adolescents do in their
free time today, versus 20 yearsago, would involve a lot more
screen time, which isn'tnecessarily good for kids.
Speaker 1 (28:20):
Yeah, yeah.
So I was thinking about, yeah,I didn't get my first cell phone
until I graduated from college,circa 2001.
I got my first cell phone and Iwrapped up grad school in 2008.
So, yeah, technology,especially for kids, were.
It was in the early, early days.
Facebook was just gaining inpopularity and I'm not even sure
(28:41):
how much YouTube we had andthat sort of thing way back in
the day.
Yeah, so I imagine screen timeis a much bigger thing.
I feel back then in the early2000s we had some video game
kinds of responses, butdefinitely not the social media
that we have now.
That is totally new on thescene.
And I will say that when Ifinished graduate school my
(29:03):
focus in some ways shifted.
So I'd spent a lot of time ingraduate school focusing on
these free time activities.
But as a professional programevaluator there wasn't
necessarily that focus.
So I worked on often federally,us government funded studies on
teen pregnancy prevention, ondrug prevention and violence
(29:26):
prevention and schools often itwas schools, but not always
schools communities wouldimplement programs that again
we'd go in and figure outwhether or not that worked.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
So almost you're fact-checking the facts.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
Yeah, a little bit, and I think it too is supporting
accountability and alsoprotecting kids.
Speaker 2 (29:49):
I was just going to say in today's climate, that's a
big thing the public wants alittle bit more of is they want
to know that science isaccountable, which it is, but
it's always good to be moretransparent.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
Yeah, absolutely.
And I think of accountabilityat a few different levels.
So we want to make sure moneyis spent appropriately A lot of
these.
Somebody had to fund everysingle program that I evaluated
and the funding differed.
Sometimes it was the federalgovernment, sometimes it was
state government, sometimes itwas private philanthropy, but
someone somewhere was givingmoney to this initiative.
(30:26):
So part of what we did isfigure out like was this a
worthy investment?
Should you invest in somethinglike this again?
Should you maybe change?
Sometimes you'll learn refiningpoints, like maybe a program
worked in certain groups but notfor other groups of kids.
Like maybe it worked foryounger kids versus didn't work
great for older kids.
(30:47):
Or maybe it worked great in anurban setting, not in a rural
setting.
So we can also fine tune, notjust did it work, yes or no, but
who did it work for, just toinform how we make investments
later.
So do we?
Does this look like this worksgreat in our population?
Should we do this again andagain, or should we change our
(31:08):
approach?
Should we change who we'reimplementing these programs with
?
Should we change the kind ofprogram we're implementing?
So there's that accountabilityand sort of being good stewards
of the money we have advocatingfor future funds and figuring
out how do we spend money in thefuture, but also with kids,
it's really important that wegive them benefit and don't
(31:34):
cause any harm.
So there have been in thehistory of programs with teens.
There have been programs thathave what we call iatrogenic
effects and that's just a bigfancy word, for it does harm.
So they found, for example,there were programs that brought
together, let's say, youthinvolved with the juvenile
justice system, and there havebeen programs like that that
(31:55):
found that actually bringing allthose kids together was harmful
.
And I'm not saying every kindof program like that is harmful,
but there have been studies ofcertain programs that do that
and you get these youth togetherand they share tips and tricks
for delinquency, right.
So actually getting themtogether and having this program
makes them more effective andengaging in these sort of
(32:17):
antisocial behaviors.
So we want to make sure, too,that we're just not hurting kids
.
There's been political and moraldebate about, I think about sex
education, right, and should wejust be telling young people to
not have sex under anycircumstances?
There's some people who say ifwe talk about sex and we talk
about contraception, that meansit's going to make kids suddenly
(32:39):
have ideas that they want to goout and have sex.
Right, and that's an empiricalquestion.
It's something that's beenproven false that talking about
sex doesn't make kids go out andhave it and have all sorts of
sexual risk behaviors.
But that's an empiricalquestion, right, and we can test
that and say does getting kidstogether to talk about sex ed,
does that help them or does thatharm them?
(33:00):
So that's another form ofaccountability to just making
sure that we're protecting youngpeople.
Speaker 2 (33:07):
I think that one specifically with ours at least.
Being a teacher, not that I'vehad to teach, haven't had to
teach sex ed in a while butoverwhelmingly school districts
that decide to do little, noneor abstinence only, they
traditionally at least with thedata I've seen have the highest
amounts of teen pregnancy.
It's counterintuitive to theend goal.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
Yeah, it's good we test the questions or we look at
the data after we've triedsomething.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
That's what I'm all about?
Speaker 1 (33:38):
I'm all about doing evidence-based things for kids
and doing things that have beenproven in research to be a good
use of funds, a good use ofresources and something that
actually helps kids.
Speaker 2 (33:50):
Right, and I think this is a good pivot to your
company Data Soapbox.
I was wondering if you couldtalk to us a little bit about
that.
Speaker 1 (33:59):
Yeah, so I worked after graduate school.
I worked as an evaluationresearcher at a contract
research organization for about12 years and worked on all
aspects of research.
So from writing contractproposals or grant proposals,
designing studies, designingquestionnaires, collecting data,
(34:20):
analyzing data, reporting dataI did it all from front to back
and it's these are to back andthese are big research teams on
these large projects.
So I didn't do it all myselfbut at different points was
involved in all parts of thatprocess and I was okay at all of
the steps.
But I will say there's lots ofpeople who are okay or even
better than what I was.
(34:40):
I wasn't an expert in thingslike survey data collection and
we had people where I worked whoknew everything there was to
know about survey datacollection and how do you survey
kids in schools, and there's awhole science behind that and
that wasn't my area of expertise.
But where I found that I stoodout was in communication.
So once we had results, we hadpages and pages of output from
(35:03):
our analyses.
How do you figure out what totalk about and how do you talk
to people about it?
Who do you even talk to andwhat do you say?
And that's largely self-taught.
I will say that I've always,since I was a kid, had an
(35:23):
interest in art and design andthroughout my life have been
artsy-crassy.
So I had that.
I liked to write when I was akid.
I would write stories from allthroughout my childhood.
So writing and design werealways a part of my life
recreationally.
So I had that sort ofproclivity Learned about.
I went to a workshop with EdwardTufte.
For folks who don't know, he'sa grandfather of data
(35:43):
visualization, charts and graphsin the modern era and he is an
economist and statistician andsculptor and so he brings his
sort of art brain and his databrain together.
So I went to a workshop withhim, learned a ton about data
visualization, a ton about justhow we share information as
scientists.
(36:04):
I had sat as a young researcherand as a student.
You know I would sit in theseconference presentations and I
would joke with a friend who waswith me.
I said I think I have adultonset, ad, because I just can't,
I'm not following and notengaged at all, and she would
say I think you're just bored.
I don't think it's any sort ofpsychiatric diagnosis, but
(36:28):
Edward Tufte was the firstperson to say yes, like those
slides that are packed withbullet points and tiny graphs
with hundreds of nodes on them.
That is boring, that is notengaging, that is not focused.
And I it was like I bloggedabout this.
It was like the emperor's newclothes Like I kept on saying I
think the emperor is naked andeverybody is.
(36:48):
No, that was a fabulouspresentation.
And then finally somebody washere saying like no, it's not
fabulous.
Slides packed with bulletpoints, 300 page reports,
they're not fabulous.
Yeah.
So I got on that soapbox andstarted learning more and more
about what good sciencecommunication was.
Attending virtual workshops, Iread a lot of books and visited
(37:12):
a lot of websites, just learningfrom people who are big in the
field, and it started withlearning.
Sort of data visualization waswhere I started.
So people like Steph Evergreenand Cole Naflik and John
Schwabish people who are in thatoften social science data
visualization world and thenbranching out and learning about
(37:33):
what is a good slidepresentation.
So people like Gar Reynolds Igot turned on to him and what he
says about the Zen ofpresenting yeah, and so just
continue to learn and bringingthose skills back to my research
projects at my organization andsaying how can we do better
presentations?
How can we write moreattractive, engaging, effective
(37:56):
reports?
How can we do better posters atour scientific conferences?
So more and more I got pulledinto sort of that part of broad
research teams, getting pulledinto how do we talk about this?
And yeah, I just did more andmore of that and learned more
and got better at it and gotmore excited about it, realized
(38:17):
I just wanted to do that for ajob and tried to find a place
where I could do that for a joband didn't get a lot of traction
.
I investigated at theorganization where I was, I
investigated at otherorganizations and Really no one
said yes, absolutely, come workwith us and just help with
communication.
(38:38):
I will say that a lot oforganizations have folks on
staff who are editors, technicalwriters, graphic designers.
Those sorts of people say theseare the exact words we want to
(38:59):
say, or here's a pencil sketchof the diagram we want.
Now go on and make it lookbeautiful or edit it for typos
or whatever the folks on thatstaff do.
And super useful, loved thefolks I worked with in creative.
But there's a missing link for alot of organizations and a lot
of labs out there in academicsettings where there's not
somebody to say, hey, we've gotthis pile of data and we're not
(39:21):
even sure what to say about it,like what message do we want to
convey?
We collected 200 questions onthis survey.
What here is important?
What message do we want toconvey here?
So I found myself being in thatsort of bridge position of
going from raw data and summarystatistics to then what is the
product that we need to have?
(39:42):
Look nice, and there justwasn't that out there and nobody
wanted to hire me to do it.
So I said you know what?
I'm going to go on my own, I'mgoing to start my own thing and
hope that people will want towork with me.
So I left my job in 2021 andfound a data soapbox and yeah,
so we've been going for fouryears, yeah, and I did the kinds
(40:03):
of things that I did when I wason a communication role in a
broader team.
So I collaborate withresearchers and other people or
organizations who have data andI help them develop reports,
manuscripts, infographics,presentations, all of those sort
of products basically anythingto get numbers and get data
(40:25):
translated and conveyed tosomeone who can use it to do
good in the world, and I'veworked on projects that are
really substantively alignedwith what I did as a scientist.
So I've worked on, for example,substance use prevention
initiatives for teenagers sowhere it's right in my
wheelhouse.
But I've worked on projectsthat are like I knew nothing
(40:49):
about before I started workingon the project from a topic area
standpoint.
So I had a collaborator who wasworking on firefighter culture
of workplace safety right, so itwas all about does how does
your firehouse protecteveryone's health and safety and
worked with her to develop somecommunication products based on
(41:10):
surveys and interviews that shedid.
I've done stuff in youthmentoring.
So I have a client who wepartner on just peer review
journal manuscripts about topicslike young people working with
mentors and programs like BigBrothers, big Sisters.
I've done stuff on foodinsecurity.
I've done stuff onpharmaceutical trials.
(41:31):
I've done things aroundindigenous populations here in
the States and how we canpromote their wellbeing.
So just all kinds of differentthings, but the common thread is
helping all of them communicatesome sort of data to people who
can use it to inform decisionsthat improve lives.
Speaker 2 (41:52):
That communication piece is.
It's so critical for scienceand everybody has a different
skill set, so I'm not knockingscientists as a general group,
but I do see there there is astruggle with.
This is what we found to.
Let's tell people about it in away that people want to listen
(42:16):
and care about let's tell peopleabout it in a way that people
want to listen and care about.
Speaker 1 (42:23):
Yeah, it's there.
Scientists don't get into doingwhat they do to just bury the
results somewhere and move on.
They get into it to make adifference in whatever it is
that they want to make adifference in.
So in my case, I'm a socialscientist, so for me it's about
making a difference in people'slives.
But there's people who makeimpact on our physical
environment.
There's people who make impacton animals, right.
So I'm not saying it has to beimpactful on a human life
directly, but yeah, I thinkpretty much all scientists
(42:46):
they're about making our livesbetter and I think this has
gotten better.
But I know when I went throughmy training, communication
training was very just modelingoff what other folks in your lab
did.
So you know I need to do aposter for a scientific
conference.
Let me look at what a moresenior graduate student did.
Or I'm learning to write amanuscript with my advisor who
(43:09):
writes manuscripts.
It's a very like use a templatethat exists in your sort of
academic sphere.
Use a template that exists inyour sort of academic sphere.
Work with mentors and learn todo it the way they do it.
There was very, I would say,really no direct training and
just hear the best practices incommunication.
And what's funny is scientistsreally value things being
(43:32):
evidence-based right.
That's why we're out there.
We're building evidence to findout about the world and figure
out the way the world works.
But I find it's funny there's anegligence of the research
evidence we have about howpeople learn and what makes
people remember and what makespeople pay attention.
For folks who are so focused onempiricism, there's not a lot
(43:55):
of acknowledgement of oh, thereis a whole science around
communication and what does thatscience say?
And let's follow the scienceabout what we do visually or how
we write about things.
So, yeah, I think my personalview for whatever that's worth
is I do think every scientistshould get basic communication
(44:16):
training.
But scientists can't be anexpert in everything.
So just when I worked onresearch projects, we brought in
statisticians right, and theywere expert in.
You got all these complexsurvey data.
We will help you analyze themthe right way and that is what
we do and we are so good at itand we read all the journal
(44:36):
articles about it.
We know all the trends and allthe latest developments and
statistics and we will help youright.
There's not the equivalent incommunication.
There's not usually people outthere who say it is.
My sole focus is to stay on topof best practices and research
communication, and I don't dothe research myself, but I will
(44:56):
take it and package it and makeit great.
There's not many people inthose kinds of positions, I
would say, especially in socialscience.
I feel like I see it a littlebit more in the natural sciences
.
I don't see it as much insocial science.
Speaker 2 (45:14):
And the odd person without training just has a good
innate skill set like they'rejust.
They're just, everybody's goodat different things without
having to work that hard at itso that it may come easy to some
people and then to others.
Your training is that's justcompletely alien.
To go that route, probably likelearning, yeah, no, I was just.
(45:34):
I was just going to say finishyour yeah, go ahead, finish.
And then I got my follow-upquestion.
Speaker 1 (45:40):
Sure.
So to me it feels just anyother skill that you would learn
.
Right.
There's some things.
There are people out there whoare naturally athletic or
graceful or good with numbers orcan do something really fast.
Like all of us have strengthsand skills that are more natural
or more innate.
And it's not saying those can'tbe learned, but yeah, I think
(46:03):
there are some people in anysort of skill set who have an
innate leg up.
But I think it is somethingthat can be learned.
But just like scientists don'tresearch every topic or do every
single part of a researchprocess.
If you don't like sciencecommunication and it's not quite
clicking with you, I thinkbeyond, I think the biggest
(46:25):
thing is to know where to go forhelp, so it's you don't have to
do it yourself, but it's sayingyou know, what.
This isn't my jam and I want tofind somebody who it is their
jam and I want to pay them to dothis for me, and that's okay.
I don't change the oil in myown car.
I bring it to somebody who canchange the oil for me.
I don't.
I use this analogy like I don'traise the chickens that my kid
(46:48):
eats in his chicken nuggets,somebody else goes out and
raises that chicken and makesthem dinosaur shaped and sends
them to my house.
So we all have things that wedon't want to do, and for some
people that may be research,communication, and then that's
okay.
There are people out there whodo it.
Speaker 2 (47:05):
And that's where Data Soapbox comes in.
You work with those people toget their message out in a
concise and eye-catching way,because I'm looking at your work
samples yeah yeah, I wassneaking a peek before.
Yeah yeah.
Speaker 1 (47:22):
Go ahead.
I felt like when I started thebusiness and still now there are
a lot of people out there inthe science communication world
focused on teaching.
So we can teach you how to dothis.
Focused on teaching, so we canteach you how to do this.
Just like not everybody haswants to do or has proclivity to
do or has the time to learneverything, I'm and I'll do
(47:45):
workshops occasionally for folkswho request it, but it's we
really do the work.
So it's saying somebody says Iam mid career if I I'm not going
to spend sink lots and lots oftime into how to deliver the
perfect slideshow, but I'm goingto bring in somebody who does
that and bring in that sort ofexpertise.
And so, yeah, that's what we dois we come on as freelance
(48:07):
members of a team often and sayyou know what, don't stress
about X, don't stress about thispresentation or this brief, or
X, don't stress about thispresentation or this brief or
whatever it is.
Hand it off to us and we'lldraft something and it may not
be 100% what you would do if youdid it yourself, but maybe we
get it 95% of the way there andthen we just you give your
(48:29):
tweaks and we get it to whereit's 100% what you want your
message to be.
Speaker 2 (48:34):
Nice.
Yeah, I could also take somecourses to learn how to fix my
car.
I do not have any interest inthat.
Just like Data Soapbox, I takemy soapbox racer to somebody who
knows how to do it.
Speaker 1 (48:50):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (48:51):
Yeah, we'll have, we'll make sure.
In our show notes there's alink to Data Soapbox for folks
to check that out and, just likeout of curiosity, for people
who are interested in science.
There's a bridge to sciencecommunication that I feel
sometimes is lacking.
If we had more folks doing thisfor science, of course, which
(49:11):
costs money I think we wouldhave maybe a better chance to
compete against misinformation.
Speaker 1 (49:17):
I think we would have maybe a better chance to
compete against misinformation,because misinformation is simple
and flashy and that's what getspeople more than complicated
and wordy, yeah and that's astruggle that I often work with
clients on is science is reallynuanced and trying to find that
(49:41):
balance between giving enoughdetail to be accurate and
ethical and not misleading, butnot so much detail that it's
off-putting and distracting.
Yeah, it's a tough tightrope towalk, maybe, of wanting to
balance rigor with just consumewhat's readable.
What's consumable is tricky.
Speaker 2 (50:00):
If only science could grift like the grifters we
would be sure of everything, wewould be sure of everything with
a hundred percent accuracy allthe time, but science is not
that way.
I have a quick question beforewe get to our last one here,
lori you are.
Science is not that way.
I have a quick question beforewe get to our last one here Lori
you are.
You're an expert with thevisual storytelling, with data
(50:23):
and communicating that.
What do you think people shoulddo?
Because we have a lot of peoplewho listen to us that are love,
love, science.
How can they help with sciencecommunication themselves?
How could they help with notnecessarily using data soapbox,
I'm not saying, but like ingeneral, If they want to use
data soapbox.
Speaker 1 (50:43):
I'm not going to turn them away, but I have a few
thoughts Go, use data soapboxeverybody.
I'm not going to fight you ifyou want to use me, but I have a
few thoughts, depending on whatthat person's relationship is
to science.
So if it's someone who doesscience who's a scientist, I
would say to make sure youinclude in your budget and your
(51:04):
timeline science communication.
So a lot of times SciComm is anafterthought, it's oh crud.
We are at the end of ourfive-year grant and we have a
month left.
Let's churn out as many papersas we can.
Science communication issomething that is best planned
from the outset and saying, okay, if this is the five-year
project timeline, at what pointsdoes it make sense for us to
(51:28):
share things from that project?
And being really deliberate inplanning that.
And again, either get thetraining and SciComm yourself if
that's something of interest,and if it's not, reach out to
some sort of expert who can helpyou with that.
So I say that's for the folkswho do science, the scientists,
I would say then there are folkslike you, jason, who teach
(51:49):
science.
For those folks I would saymake sure to teach communication
as part of doing science.
So I think about the big sortof SciComm communication product
that stands out to me, let'ssay, from high school, was if
you did a science fair posterright, we got essentially zero
(52:09):
guidance on the poster.
We got all sorts of guidance.
Speaker 2 (52:12):
Yeah, right.
Speaker 1 (52:14):
It was like put it on a tri-fold board.
Good luck to you.
Yeah, may the odds be like putit on a tri-fold board.
Good luck to you.
Speaker 2 (52:17):
Yeah, may the odds be in your favor.
Just go do it, kids.
Speaker 1 (52:21):
Yeah, exactly, cut out some construction paper and
let's do this.
So I would say, teaching goodcommunication practices
alongside of good researchpractices.
So what does it mean to write agood scientific abstract, for
example?
So there's a whole model ofscientific storytelling by this
(52:41):
guy, randy Olson, and he talksabout ABT and but therefore, and
he uses that as a way tostructure a scientific abstract
in a way that's reallycompelling.
Or let's talk about eight coreprinciples of visual design and
how that would apply to aresearch poster Eight core
principles of visual design andhow that would apply to a
research poster.
So those sorts of things.
Let's talk about jargon andplain language and how to
(53:02):
address that.
So, yeah, having some educationon SciComm within broader, how
do you do research, scienceeducation and I would say,
having students both producescience communication as part of
any research-based work they doand also seeing examples of
science communication in allforms and having a chance to
(53:23):
reflect on that and reflect onwhat works and what doesn't.
Yeah, so that's for theteachers and then for the fans.
I would just say to continue tosupport science communication
channels like this one, likeother podcasts, like NPR shows,
I think, about Science Friday onNPR, but that's one of many
outlets, just the one that popsto mind right now.
(53:45):
But consume science, comment onit, share it, show that there's
a demand for sciencecommunication.
Speaker 2 (53:54):
What great advice.
I really appreciate that, andsomething I need to think about
more is giving the kids a littlebit more structured direction,
if and when we have time to do aposter project or something
like that, instead of good luck,yeah.
So that's something for me tothink about.
Speaker 1 (54:11):
Yeah, finding the time.
It's always a challenge to findthe time.
I do have a blog post about mytop tips for kids and
presentations, and it was gearedtowards my son's fourth grade
class, but I find that it'sactually applicable to adults
and if I had to boil it down tothree things I would tell adults
to do it's the same big threethings I would tell kids or
(54:32):
adults.
Speaker 2 (54:34):
Nice.
I do appreciate when kids usememes to communicate chemistry,
so that shows a very deepunderstanding of the concept,
because they're putting togethertwo abstract concepts into
humor.
So I think that's probably thehighest form of learning, if
kids can just answer questionswith memes.
Speaker 1 (54:54):
Love that too.
Speaker 2 (54:55):
But that's just my opinion.
Lori, thanks so much fortalking with us about your
amazing Data Soapbox website andthe stuff you do there Some
great advice.
We have one question we wrap upour interview with and that is
a question about your pets or apet story from your life, and I
was wondering if you could shareone.
Speaker 1 (55:17):
So we are.
I will wondering if you couldshare one.
So we are, I will say, justaccidental pet owners.
So I will say, my whole life Iwasn't really into cats.
I was allergic to cats, didn'treally vibe with cats.
And in 2010, my husband and Ibought a new home and about two
months later a litter of kittenswas born at our house and I'd
never lived really a place withstray cats before, so I didn't
(55:37):
understand.
Was born at our house and I'dnever lived really a place with
stray cats before.
So I didn't understand thatthese were strays and I was
sending out angry neighborhoodposts about who let their
pregnant cat out.
I finally came to realize thiswas a litter of stray kittens,
so we brought them in enrolledwith a rescue, got a couple
adopted, had a couple of failedfosters.
So now, all these years later,we are still proud cat parents
(56:01):
to Bubba, who is 15.
And we also brought ineventually, his mama and we just
named her mama because we'rethat creative and she, we think,
is 16 or 17.
So we became accidental catowners for a very long time.
We also have a tank full ofvarious aquatic animals.
That was plotted by my son, whoreally wanted a fish tank, so
(56:23):
we have a whole tank of littlefish and little blue shrimp and
a couple of snails and it'stherapeutic to watch them glide
by in the kitchen.
Speaker 2 (56:33):
Glide by in the kitchen.
That's great.
We have a couple turtles mywife rescued and they're neat to
watch swim around too.
Yeah, Maybe not as charismaticas the dogs.
They've got their.
They've got their own thinggoing on.
Speaker 1 (56:46):
And your dog set a high bar for charisma and
attitude.
They're lovely.
Speaker 2 (56:51):
Yeah, bernoulli is such.
He's 100% charisma and 100%gooberness, so it's a good
combination.
It's perfect.
He's such a meathead.
But anyways, thank you so muchfor sharing about your pets.
Appreciate that.
So, lori, we're at the end ofthe chat.
Thank you so much for talkingwith us a little bit about what
(57:14):
you do.
It's definitely something thatis brand new.
We've never had a guest likeyourself on before to talk about
the science of communicationand all that, so I appreciate
you giving up your time.
Thanks, okay, we'll make surewe have a link to Data Soapbox
in our show notes.
And the last thing is, laurie,are you on social media anywhere
(57:35):
that people can connect, or not?
So much.
Speaker 1 (57:38):
I am, so you can find me on Blue Sky, which is a hot
happening place for scientiststhese days, and I'm at Laurie
Palin.
Speaker 2 (57:45):
Okay, we'll make sure there's a link there as well in
the show notes.
Have yourself a nice night, andit was nice to get you up on
our soapbox of sciencecommunication.
Speaker 1 (57:55):
Thanks so much for the opportunity.
Speaker 2 (57:58):
That's it for this week's show.
Thanks for coming back weekafter week to listen to the
Science Podcast.
Special thanks to our guest anda shout out to all the top dogs
.
That's the top tier of ourPatreon community, the Paw Pack.
You can sign up in our shownotes.
All right, Chris, let's hearthose names that are part of the
top dogs notes All right.
Speaker 3 (58:41):
Chris let'sbert, ben Rather, debbie Anderson, sandy
Brimer, mary Rader, bianca Hyde,andrew Lin, Brenda Clark,
brianne Hawes, peggy McKeel,holly Burge, kathy Zerker, susan
Wagner and Liz Button.
Speaker 2 (58:57):
For science, empathy and cuteness.
Hello science enthusiasts.
I'm Jason Zukoski.
And I'm Chris Zukoski, we'rethe pet parents of Bunsen,
beaker, bernoulli and Ginger.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
The science animals on social media.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
If you love science.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
And you love pets.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
You've come to the right spot, so put on your
safety glasses and hold on toyour tail.
This is the Science Podcast.
Hello everybody, welcome backto the Science Podcast.
We hope you're happy andhealthy out there.
This is episode 19 of seasonseven.
Chris, the summer is so close,I can taste it.
(00:44):
If you could taste such a thing.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
If you could taste such a thing, it would be so
tasty, delicious even.
I'm picturing ice cream andhanging out just at our house
and playing with the dogs andwith Ginger and relaxing.
I'm looking forward to it.
So a taste of summer is on themenu.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
As we're both high school teachers, the kids are
prepping and writing their testsand we are not teaching, so it
is quite a different workloadright now because you're not
prepping and marking the sameway you would normally.
And this time next week I thinkwe're done Wednesday or
Thursday next week, you're doneFriday next week, right?
Speaker 3 (01:29):
Our last thing that we do is grad.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Ooh is that on the Friday?
Speaker 3 (01:33):
That is on our last day, our teacher organization
organizational day.
Yeah, gotcha.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Let's talk about what the podcast this week will be
about.
Our science news item is aboutthis paint that could cool down
a house.
I wish we had that when welived in the trailer, because
that house was way too hot.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
Magma.
It was as hot as the surface ofthe sun.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
I think it would be cooler if we moved there, and
our second study may ruffle somefur, because it is talking
about how looking at pets may ormay not reduce how angry you
are, and that's an interestingtake on the stress level that
(02:15):
usually comes with a reductionwhen you're interacting with
pets.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
I was reading that article and I was after we share
.
I think I have some strategiesto use at my place of work and
Chris.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
The guest and ask an expert is Dr Lori Palin, who's
going to be talking to us aboutdata and how.
Data is the core of science.
Communication, which is kind ofcool.
Yeah, all right, let's get onwith the show.
There's no time like sciencetime this week in science news.
Could you cool?
(02:49):
A house without airconditioning and a paint is the
key ingredient, as mentioned.
I wish we had this in thetrailer.
This was pre Bunsen by a longways.
We were.
When we were a young couple andwe were just starting out,
(03:10):
chris, we lived in a trailerlike a modular house a modular
home, jason, that that's what itwas and we moved it onto the
property that we live on now.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
That's been in my family since the late 1800s, and
we just parked it out in themiddle of the, in the middle of
a field, and there was no shade,no trees, no, nothing for a
very long time, and so there wasno respite from the sun it was
warm in the winter as long asthe furnace didn't quit, but in
(03:46):
the summer and our summers gethot, not Texas or Arizona hot,
but our summers get hot it wasunbearable.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
Like it was.
You could not sleep at night.
We had fans in every room tocool us down.
To cool us down Our oldest son,duncan he was a little guy then
.
He taped water bottles to hisbody at night.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
Do you remember that?
Just to stay cool, I do.
We had them refrigerated orfrozen and he just taped them
and put them in his bed.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
So this comes from Nyang Technological University
in Singapore, and they'vedeveloped this cement-based
cooling paint that passivelycools surfaces like how we sweat
.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
It's so cool, Jason.
This cement-based cooling paintcomes from three different
strategies actually Radiativecooling, which is cooling that
reflects sunlight and emitsabsorbed heat back into the sky,
and then also, like you said,we sweat.
Evaporative cooling cools asthe water slowly evaporates.
(04:52):
And the third type oftechnology or strategy is solar
reflection, and it actuallyreflects 88% to 92% of sunlight
even when it's wet, important inthe in the climate of singapore
yeah, and that's why theydeveloped it here, because
singapore, unlike alberta,canada, is hot and humid.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
We are dry, like I would say.
Our climate's pretty dry herein alberta.
Dry and cool.
Would you agree with that?
Dry and cool?
That's the opposite of ourclimate and traditional go ahead
.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
Yeah, I just noticed that sometimes my skin is dry
and sometimes it's not, andsometimes it cracks in the
winter and I just need moremoisturizer.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
Oh, our winters are really dry, yeah, so the reason
why this was developed inSingapore was their traditional
cooling methods.
They lose effectiveness becausewater vapor gets trapped that
the cement-based paint attacksbecause it's porous, so the
structure retains a lot of waterand that allows very slow
(05:59):
evaporation.
And that's why sweat works.
When you get, when you sweat,the water that your body
perspires as your body heats up,that energy that you're
irradiating goes into the sweatand then the sweat evaporates
off your body, taking all ofthat extra heat with it.
So it's like a heattransference, in the simplest
(06:22):
terms to explain.
And the cement-based paint doesthat, which is cool, but it's
got more than that going oninside it.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
Another cool thing about the paint structure is
that it has nanoparticles in it,and what the nanoparticles do
is that they boost thereflectivity and the strength of
the paint, which helps thepaint maintain its white color
over time.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Now this is all on paper sounds amazing, but they
tested it.
So this is why this is a realthing that we're talking about
right now, because real sciencewas put into work to test this
cement paint.
They had three small testhouses and they were painted and
exposed to two years of sun andrain in Singapore.
They used just regular whitepaint, commercial radiative
(07:12):
cooling paint so that's somefancy paint.
And then this new cement, ntudeveloped cooling paint and they
looked at results after twoyears.
As you mentioned, chris, thatregular paint and the commercial
paint yellowed and lost itseffectiveness after those two
years.
As you mentioned, chris, thatregular paint and the commercial
paint yellowed and lost itseffectiveness after those two
years.
However, the NTU's paintremained super white,
(07:34):
maintaining its reflectivity andcooling performance.
So as a material science, as amaterial matter, it held up
really well over two years and Idon't know what kind of
sunlight and weather you get inSingapore, so I have no concept
of that.
But if you just paintedsomething outside in Alberta, it
(07:57):
would look beat up after twoyears if you didn't put any
finish on it probably.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
There's more Energy savings.
The new paint actually required30 to 40% less air conditioning
electricity compared to theother two.
And what you notice about airconditioning is it takes and
puts heat out into theenvironment, so it's twofold in
terms of a broader impact on theenvironment.
(08:23):
So you get to stay coolerwithout using all that
electricity, but then alsowithout putting extra heat out
into the environment.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
A huge percentage of a building's energy globally is
used for cooling.
I just think, of course, weshouldn't throw stones within a
glass house.
I just think, of course, weshouldn't throw stones within a
glass house because where welive in the world we have to use
considerable energy to not diein the winter, and that's
natural gas.
The cold provinces of Canadapredominantly use natural gas as
(08:58):
a heating method to not freezeto death.
But we've been to really warmplaces Like, I'm thinking, las
Vegas right.
Every place we walked into thecasinos and the hotels and
people's homes.
I'm sure the vast majority ofthem have air conditioning to
cool their home.
Because I don't know if thatwould be tolerable for the
(09:18):
average person to live in anon-air conditioned house in the
desert Probably not.
So I'd imagine those buildings.
More than 60% of their energywould be used for cooling, and
this paint produces that.
(09:39):
It's an invisible hand helpingyour house and it's truly
passive cooling.
Now, where perhaps the studyneeds to work on is or they need
to work on the paint is thatit's really effective in humid
climates and that's where allthose other paints fail.
And, of course, because it'shumid, there's more water that
could be absorbed for thatpassive cooling.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
For sure, and it also allows that reduction of the
urban heat island idea, wherethe air conditioning systems
release the warm air into theenvironment.
This actually releases heat asthat invisible infrared
radiation which then justescapes into the atmosphere, and
so it just reduces that localheat accumulation in cities,
(10:22):
which is awesome and amazingheat accumulation in cities,
which is awesome and amazing,yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
And any way you can lower building cooling costs or
how much demand there is on thegrid, that's great.
Even in Alberta in the last twoyears, we've had warnings from
the government that we are wewere reaching like max capacity
for electricity.
Do you remember that lastsummer?
Speaker 3 (10:49):
yeah, the possibility of a brownout, because like
please don't use water orelectricity during these peak
hours because there isn't enoughgoing around for for that usage
.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Yeah, and I don't remember another time in my life
where there was a warning fromthe government about that.
I can't remember the last time.
As our climate changes and oursummers are getting warmer and
they are getting a little bitwarmer, this paint is super cool
and maybe in the future couldbe part of your normal building
(11:21):
costs to decrease how much youhave to cool the house, which is
cool.
Speaker 3 (11:25):
Jason, you said it was super cool, so that's a pun,
good job.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
Okay, thanks.
That's science news for thisweek.
This week in pet science, we'regoing to be talking about how
pets and pictures of pets canmaybe reduce your anger, or
maybe not.
Speaker 3 (11:47):
Yeah, I was actually a little bit surprised about
this, because you and I havecovered studies before that have
looked at people who eitherhave a pet or are looking at
images of pets, and it said thatthe looking at an image of a
pet, like, reduced your stressor your anger, as well as
actually being in the presenceof a pet.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
No, not anger like stress and anxiety.
I don't think we've ever doneone where it's talked about
aggression.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
No, and so that's what made it interesting,
because I was looking at it fromthe lens of stress and anxiety.
So I was looking for someconfirmation bias in this study
going oh yes, it's going to work, because I was equating those
emotions.
But anger is a differentemotion and it makes sense that
the results of the study aredifferent than looking at
(12:34):
anxiety and the release of thehormones that we have when we
look at pets or have a pet withus.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
And I think we all get angry.
I hold in a lot of myfrustration, but I do get angry
and I do have angry outburstsoccasionally.
So I was like, looking at this,and everybody who has stress in
their life may get to a pointwhere they're like you're just
so angry.
So it'd be interesting to see,as we go through the study, what
it says, because it does have a, I guess, a counterintuitive
(13:04):
conclusion so the participants.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
There were two lab-based experiments which
involved a random dog photo, arandom cat photo, a photo of
their own dog, of theparticipants own dog and a photo
of their own cat.
So these participants werebrought together and then,
simultaneously, the participantscompleted an anger inducing
(13:30):
writing task.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
I was glad it wasn't math, I know I'm glad it wasn't
math.
Because they've used mathbefore to stress people out, to
give them anxiety and that'swhere the anxiety came from.
Speaker 3 (13:44):
The idea of the anxiety was from that other
study that we broke down aboutthe people having to do math and
then all those anxious smellswere coming off of them.
But this one was an angerinducing writing task, which is
super funny.
So in the first study it wasself-reported anger and a
hypothetical retaliation on asituation that you were angry
(14:08):
about.
So, immediately post-task, theparticipants rated their anger
on a scale and then they alsoindicated their willingness to
retaliate in scenarios.
So if they were, for example,being insulted by a coworker,
what kind of snappy responsewould they have?
(14:29):
Or what kind of retaliationwould they have?
Speaker 2 (14:33):
But we're high school teachers, like the kids snark
at us all the time.
We're immune to this.
A little bit I'm immune.
If I was in a job and then somemy coworker was like you're
dumb, I'd be like your wordsmean nothing to me.
My soul is dead and black fromworking as a high school teacher
(14:54):
without the kids can be sosnarky and cruel.
Sometimes you have nothing.
Being insulted by a coworkerwho cares.
Anyway, chris, I just thoughtthat was so funny and so what?
Speaker 3 (15:07):
the key finding of that study was that the
participants who viewed theirown dog significantly reduced
both their felt anger and theiraggressive intent.
So the other images that theywere told to look at or asked to
look at so the cats or otherrandom animals actually had no
(15:29):
effect which was interestingyeah.
I was a little shocked by that.
I thought they would all justhave a Zen moment looking at
animals.
But no, it's your own personalpet that brought down the heat.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
Now the second study is wild.
Speaker 3 (15:48):
So study number two was a behavioral measure of
aggression.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
So participants, what they did is they played
competitive reaction time gamewhere they could choose the
intensity and duration of anaversive white noise blast to
punish an opponent so you loseit and he gets blasted in your
ears with this annoying whitenoise, and then you could choose
(16:13):
how loud and how long to do itfor to be a jerk.
Speaker 3 (16:17):
That's hilarious and especially with very competitive
people.
You could see that they wouldbe in your face and you would
have the worst level ever.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
I never want to go up against you in this game.
I would be listening to onlylong and loud white noise in my
head.
Speaker 3 (16:34):
Okay, I'll let everybody in on a little secret.
You have a noise machine, jason, and so the white noise machine
goes all night.
So I listen to white noise allnight, but it doesn't bother me.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
I know, but it lets me sleep.
That was a game changer for mefalling asleep Huge I used to
have some trouble with insomnia,chris.
You just go right to sleep, nomatter what's happening.
I could be having a full onconversation with you, the TV
could be on and there could be alightning storm outside, and
you will fall asleep in fiveseconds.
(17:06):
So yeah yeah, you, that is yoursuperpower.
Speaker 3 (17:09):
And I wasn't going to say anything negative about the
white noise, but I just thinkI'm like would be used to it and
it wouldn't necessarily affectme as much.
But the result was those whoviewed a picture of their own
dog chose milder blasts and thatdemonstrated less aggressive
(17:29):
behavior, and there was nosignificant changes for the
other images.
So looking at their own dogcalmed you down enough to not
give the triple boost of whitenoise.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
Yeah, but they also showed people photos of their
own cats and it had no effect.
Speaker 3 (17:47):
Interesting.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
Isn't that sad Because ginger is very cute?
Yes, right, but I don't knowthat's so wild that they had
zero effect.
I can see like a random dog orespecially a random cat, cause
I'm not really I'm a gingerperson, I'm not a cat person
Like.
I really like ginger, but I'mtake it or leave it with other
cats.
I can see that.
But I would be calmed downright now if I saw our dogs like
(18:13):
, because I love those dogs yeah, I do too, and they all have
great faces he has a goober face.
Please goober face would calm medown and beaker's smiley face
or even, like her deadpan lookI'd find that funny she just had
her beaker face and I'm feelingthat way from somebody blasting
me with white noise, and thensomebody showed me beakers like
(18:37):
expressionless dark-eyed look,and I'd be like I feel you
beaker.
That's how I feel right now andit would calm me down I feel,
yeah, so there's someimplications and conclusions for
this study.
Speaker 3 (18:48):
And in the office you could have only personalized
dog photos, not cat photos orunfamiliar animals, because that
could appear to buffer angerand aggression in the office or
your workplace.
And you know what?
One thing that you typicallycan't have in the workplace is
real pets.
So you know what using personalimages of your pets might be a
(19:12):
low cost strategy to reduceanger and improve workplace
harmony.
So what I want to do now is goon to everybody's social media
and pull their dogs and thenjust stick them around their
work area, and so I think Imight do that as a bit of a
prank, and they'll be like oh, Ijust feel so calm looking at my
Rufus, or I feel so calmlooking at Blue, and of course
(19:37):
I'm not going to lie.
I have our Munson and Beakercalendar and Bernoulli calendar
up.
I have the three stuffies rightat my desk.
I've got vultures of parliamentart.
I am already decked out withour dogs.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
My desk is decked out with stuff too.
The kids love it, though.
They love looking, but youteach in, you teach and then
your office is in a pod with 10other teachers and my classroom
is my classroom, Whereas whereasmy desk.
I couldn't do that, I wouldthrow myself off a cliff.
I need to quiet and be awayfrom my colleagues to get stuff
(20:10):
done.
Speaker 3 (20:10):
But what I do in my classroom is I have we rate, the
we rate dogs calendar, and Irip off the day and I stick it
on the board and so there's dogpictures all over my classroom.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
Now they're random dog pictures, but you know it's,
so it's not going to be helpful.
Speaker 3 (20:24):
Not for anger, but for anxiety.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
Yeah, so I have.
I used to have a Bunsen stuffybut I think I brought it home.
I've got a Beaker stuffy in myroom and kids want the stuffy on
their desk when they write atest, so they fight over it,
which is cute, but we're gettingoff track.
Here is a couple couple futurethings or future real world
effects in the workplace theycould test.
Would hanging a photo of yourdog at your desk work on
reducing your anger?
Speaker 3 (20:49):
I'm going to try it tomorrow.
Speaker 2 (20:51):
Yeah, could digital photo frames with all of your
pets help?
Not just one, but like athousand, the ones that flash
through.
They show for five seconds andthey go.
This may lead, because it'ssuch a good conclusion and if
it's backed up in future studies, employers might have to
consider implementing amandatory pet photo policy as a
(21:18):
way to help wellness and youranxiety, but, most importantly,
your aggression, if you work ina stressful environment.
And I'm just thinking.
You know, the post office thatwe go to went from two kiosks to
one and the lineups havedoubled and the post office
(21:39):
people that I've been there havehad to deal with some pretty
angry people through no fault oftheir own.
And I just wish, as somebodywould come up to the till though
this is super invasive andcreepy it would scan them and
then they would, on their sideof the till, their dog would
come up, so they would be nicerto the post office workers.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
That could potentially be a Black Mirror
episode.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
Yeah, there you go.
And if they're oh, and ifthey're listening, you got to
give.
You got to give chris and Icredits in black mirror yeah
because some black mirrorepisodes are wholesome they're
not all dystopian and terrible,so that could be a good one this
would be a good one.
Speaker 3 (22:16):
You know what?
It's just not any dog picture,it's a picture of your own pet
and just being pet inclusive.
If you can't be pet inclusive,be virtually pet inclusive.
If you can't be pet inclusive,be virtually pet inclusive in
your workplace, and then we'llall just be not as angry.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
That's a good place to end.
That's Pet Science for thisweek.
Hello everybody, here's someways you can keep the science
podcast free.
Number one in our show notessign up to be a member of our
Paw Pack Plus community.
It's an amazing community offolks who love pets and folks
who love science.
We have tons of bonus Bunsenand Beaker content there and we
(22:55):
have live streams every Sundaywith our community.
It's tons of fun.
Also, think about checking outour merch store.
We've got the Bunsen stuffy, thebeaker stuffy and now the
ginger stuffy.
That's right, Ginger, thescience cat, has a little
replica.
It's adorable.
It's so soft, with the giantfluffy tail, safety glasses and
a lab coat.
(23:15):
And number three if you'relistening to the podcast on any
place that rates podcasts, giveus a great rating and tell your
family and friends to listen to.
Okay, on with the show.
Back to the interviews.
It's time for Ask an Expert onthe Science Podcast and I'm
thrilled to have Dr Lori Palin,who is the founder, the chief
(23:37):
bottle washer, the chiefconsultant for Data Soapbox,
with us today.
Lori, how are you doing?
Speaker 1 (23:46):
Hanging in there.
Thanks for having me today.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
Good, good.
Where are you calling into theshow from?
Where are you in the world?
Speaker 1 (23:52):
So I am in currently sunny Cary, north Carolina in
the US.
So in the Raleigh-Durham, thecapital area of North Carolina.
For those who know SaaSsoftware, saas is here in Cary,
north Carolina.
For those who know SAS software, sas is here in Cary, north
Carolina, and that's just aboutour biggest claim to fame.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
I was wondering if you could talk to us about your
training.
I did introduce you as Dr Palin.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
What's going on with your?
Speaker 2 (24:15):
Yeah, we'd love to know.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
The PhD is legit, so I did my undergraduate degree in
psychology.
I really thought I was going tobe a therapist.
I took a couple of years offand worked in human services and
worked with a bunch ofhigh-risk populations worked
with individuals experiencingopioid dependence, worked with
teens who were in foster care orDepartment of Social Services
(24:40):
who were in group housing,worked with individuals who had
Down syndrome and there isdefinitely a place for direct
service out there.
We need our direct serviceproviders.
There are lots of people outthere who are excellent at it
and I appreciate them so much.
I am not that person.
I realized that direct serviceprobably wasn't the route for me
, but also didn't want to be atherapist either and I guess
(25:01):
that's also direct service butdecided I wanted to go back to
school to learn more aboutprevention science.
So I was working.
For example, when I was workingin a drug treatment clinic, I
was working with clients whowere middle-aged and their
issues with drugs didn't startlast week or a month ago or a
year ago.
A lot of times the origins werein their adolescence.
(25:24):
I might have experienced somesort of trauma or used for the
first time and thatunfortunately set off a
trajectory for down the line.
So, yeah, found Penn State'sPrevention Research Center.
So there's a whole researchcenter there that works on
figuring out how we prevent badoutcomes among people and also
how we promote good things, howwe promote thriving and
(25:46):
wellbeing.
Yeah, so I went back and got myPhD in human development and
family studies.
So I function, or my educationis developmental psychology
broadly.
I am not trained as a clinician, so people often joke and say
and say oh, I bet you could helpme out with my issues, and no,
unfortunately I cannot do that.
(26:07):
No clinical training, but workedas a researcher.
So I worked on mainly tworesearch projects when I was at
Penn State.
One of them looked at how whatkids do in their free time
whether it's sports or music orvolunteering or something in
their faith community, how thethings they did in their free
time related to theirdevelopment.
And I worked on a projectevaluating an HIV and substance
(26:31):
use prevention program for teensin South Africa.
So that was really my trainingwas adolescent research and
prevention programs and figuringout if we design a program to
put it out there and stop thingslike substance use or risky
sexual behavior or violence.
We need to figure out whetheror not that actually worked, and
(26:51):
so I was the kind of scientistwho went in and figured out how
that works.
So that's what I was trained todo and what I started my career
doing.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
Two very different focuses there.
Wow, can you?
Could you elaborate a littlebit on the because I'm a teacher
, my wife's a teacher about theadolescent study, I'd love to
know more.
What did you find out, or wasit inconclusive?
Speaker 1 (27:16):
Well, in particular, the study I did that evaluated
the prevention program in SouthAfrica.
We did a bunch of studies tofigure out did it actually help
with various prevention outcomes?
And we found that I believe itwas effective in preventing some
metrics of substance use and itwas also it helped with
adolescent identity development.
(27:38):
So I mentioned before I'd donesome work around adolescent free
time activities and what teensdo in their free time.
So that program capitalized onthat and worked on teaching kids
how to use, find healthy waysto spend their free time and
things that were motivating tothem and things that they just
enjoy doing rather than thingsthey were forced to do.
Some sort of functional reason.
(27:58):
It was all about discoveringwho you are and what sorts of
things you love to do, so therewere also effects on that.
So, yeah, it was a cool studyto be part of.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
I'd imagine the whole things adolescents do in their
free time today, versus 20 yearsago, would involve a lot more
screen time, which isn'tnecessarily good for kids.
Speaker 1 (28:20):
Yeah, yeah.
So I was thinking about, yeah,I didn't get my first cell phone
until I graduated from college,circa 2001.
I got my first cell phone and Iwrapped up grad school in 2008.
So, yeah, technology,especially for kids, were.
It was in the early, early days.
Facebook was just gaining inpopularity and I'm not even sure
(28:41):
how much YouTube we had andthat sort of thing way back in
the day.
Yeah, so I imagine screen timeis a much bigger thing.
I feel back then in the early2000s we had some video game
kinds of responses, butdefinitely not the social media
that we have now.
That is totally new on thescene.
And I will say that when Ifinished graduate school my
(29:03):
focus in some ways shifted.
So I'd spent a lot of time ingraduate school focusing on
these free time activities.
But as a professional programevaluator there wasn't
necessarily that focus.
So I worked on often federally,us government funded studies on
teen pregnancy prevention, ondrug prevention and violence
(29:26):
prevention and schools often itwas schools, but not always
schools communities wouldimplement programs that again
we'd go in and figure outwhether or not that worked.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
So almost you're fact-checking the facts.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
Yeah, a little bit, and I think it too is supporting
accountability and alsoprotecting kids.
Speaker 2 (29:49):
I was just going to say in today's climate, that's a
big thing the public wants alittle bit more of is they want
to know that science isaccountable, which it is, but
it's always good to be moretransparent.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
Yeah, absolutely.
And I think of accountabilityat a few different levels.
So we want to make sure moneyis spent appropriately A lot of
these.
Somebody had to fund everysingle program that I evaluated
and the funding differed.
Sometimes it was the federalgovernment, sometimes it was
state government, sometimes itwas private philanthropy, but
someone somewhere was givingmoney to this initiative.
(30:26):
So part of what we did isfigure out like was this a
worthy investment?
Should you invest in somethinglike this again?
Should you maybe change?
Sometimes you'll learn refiningpoints, like maybe a program
worked in certain groups but notfor other groups of kids.
Like maybe it worked foryounger kids versus didn't work
great for older kids.
(30:47):
Or maybe it worked great in anurban setting, not in a rural
setting.
So we can also fine tune, notjust did it work, yes or no, but
who did it work for, just toinform how we make investments
later.
So do we?
Does this look like this worksgreat in our population?
Should we do this again andagain, or should we change our
(31:08):
approach?
Should we change who we'reimplementing these programs with
?
Should we change the kind ofprogram we're implementing?
So there's that accountabilityand sort of being good stewards
of the money we have advocatingfor future funds and figuring
out how do we spend money in thefuture, but also with kids,
it's really important that wegive them benefit and don't
(31:34):
cause any harm.
So there have been in thehistory of programs with teens.
There have been programs thathave what we call iatrogenic
effects and that's just a bigfancy word, for it does harm.
So they found, for example,there were programs that brought
together, let's say, youthinvolved with the juvenile
justice system, and there havebeen programs like that that
(31:55):
found that actually bringing allthose kids together was harmful
.
And I'm not saying every kindof program like that is harmful,
but there have been studies ofcertain programs that do that
and you get these youth togetherand they share tips and tricks
for delinquency, right.
So actually getting themtogether and having this program
makes them more effective andengaging in these sort of
(32:17):
antisocial behaviors.
So we want to make sure, too,that we're just not hurting kids
.
There's been political and moraldebate about, I think about sex
education, right, and should wejust be telling young people to
not have sex under anycircumstances?
There's some people who say ifwe talk about sex and we talk
about contraception, that meansit's going to make kids suddenly
(32:39):
have ideas that they want to goout and have sex.
Right, and that's an empiricalquestion.
It's something that's beenproven false that talking about
sex doesn't make kids go out andhave it and have all sorts of
sexual risk behaviors.
But that's an empiricalquestion, right, and we can test
that and say does getting kidstogether to talk about sex ed,
does that help them or does thatharm them?
(33:00):
So that's another form ofaccountability to just making
sure that we're protecting youngpeople.
Speaker 2 (33:07):
I think that one specifically with ours at least.
Being a teacher, not that I'vehad to teach, haven't had to
teach sex ed in a while butoverwhelmingly school districts
that decide to do little, noneor abstinence only, they
traditionally at least with thedata I've seen have the highest
amounts of teen pregnancy.
It's counterintuitive to theend goal.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
Yeah, it's good we test the questions or we look at
the data after we've triedsomething.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
That's what I'm all about?
Speaker 1 (33:38):
I'm all about doing evidence-based things for kids
and doing things that have beenproven in research to be a good
use of funds, a good use ofresources and something that
actually helps kids.
Speaker 2 (33:50):
Right, and I think this is a good pivot to your
company Data Soapbox.
I was wondering if you couldtalk to us a little bit about
that.
Speaker 1 (33:59):
Yeah, so I worked after graduate school.
I worked as an evaluationresearcher at a contract
research organization for about12 years and worked on all
aspects of research.
So from writing contractproposals or grant proposals,
designing studies, designingquestionnaires, collecting data,
(34:20):
analyzing data, reporting dataI did it all from front to back
and it's these are to back andthese are big research teams on
these large projects.
So I didn't do it all myselfbut at different points was
involved in all parts of thatprocess and I was okay at all of
the steps.
But I will say there's lots ofpeople who are okay or even
better than what I was.
(34:40):
I wasn't an expert in thingslike survey data collection and
we had people where I worked whoknew everything there was to
know about survey datacollection and how do you survey
kids in schools, and there's awhole science behind that and
that wasn't my area of expertise.
But where I found that I stoodout was in communication.
So once we had results, we hadpages and pages of output from
(35:03):
our analyses.
How do you figure out what totalk about and how do you talk
to people about it?
Who do you even talk to andwhat do you say?
And that's largely self-taught.
I will say that I've always,since I was a kid, had an
(35:23):
interest in art and design andthroughout my life have been
artsy-crassy.
So I had that.
I liked to write when I was akid.
I would write stories from allthroughout my childhood.
So writing and design werealways a part of my life
recreationally.
So I had that sort ofproclivity Learned about.
I went to a workshop with EdwardTufte.
For folks who don't know, he'sa grandfather of data
(35:43):
visualization, charts and graphsin the modern era and he is an
economist and statistician andsculptor and so he brings his
sort of art brain and his databrain together.
So I went to a workshop withhim, learned a ton about data
visualization, a ton about justhow we share information as
scientists.
(36:04):
I had sat as a young researcherand as a student.
You know I would sit in theseconference presentations and I
would joke with a friend who waswith me.
I said I think I have adultonset, ad, because I just can't,
I'm not following and notengaged at all, and she would
say I think you're just bored.
I don't think it's any sort ofpsychiatric diagnosis, but
(36:28):
Edward Tufte was the firstperson to say yes, like those
slides that are packed withbullet points and tiny graphs
with hundreds of nodes on them.
That is boring, that is notengaging, that is not focused.
And I it was like I bloggedabout this.
It was like the emperor's newclothes Like I kept on saying I
think the emperor is naked andeverybody is.
(36:48):
No, that was a fabulouspresentation.
And then finally somebody washere saying like no, it's not
fabulous.
Slides packed with bulletpoints, 300 page reports,
they're not fabulous.
Yeah.
So I got on that soapbox andstarted learning more and more
about what good sciencecommunication was.
Attending virtual workshops, Iread a lot of books and visited
(37:12):
a lot of websites, just learningfrom people who are big in the
field, and it started withlearning.
Sort of data visualization waswhere I started.
So people like Steph Evergreenand Cole Naflik and John
Schwabish people who are in thatoften social science data
visualization world and thenbranching out and learning about
(37:33):
what is a good slidepresentation.
So people like Gar Reynolds Igot turned on to him and what he
says about the Zen ofpresenting yeah, and so just
continue to learn and bringingthose skills back to my research
projects at my organization andsaying how can we do better
presentations?
How can we write moreattractive, engaging, effective
(37:56):
reports?
How can we do better posters atour scientific conferences?
So more and more I got pulledinto sort of that part of broad
research teams, getting pulledinto how do we talk about this?
And yeah, I just did more andmore of that and learned more
and got better at it and gotmore excited about it, realized
(38:17):
I just wanted to do that for ajob and tried to find a place
where I could do that for a joband didn't get a lot of traction
.
I investigated at theorganization where I was, I
investigated at otherorganizations and Really no one
said yes, absolutely, come workwith us and just help with
communication.
(38:38):
I will say that a lot oforganizations have folks on
staff who are editors, technicalwriters, graphic designers.
Those sorts of people say theseare the exact words we want to
(38:59):
say, or here's a pencil sketchof the diagram we want.
Now go on and make it lookbeautiful or edit it for typos
or whatever the folks on thatstaff do.
And super useful, loved thefolks I worked with in creative.
But there's a missing link for alot of organizations and a lot
of labs out there in academicsettings where there's not
somebody to say, hey, we've gotthis pile of data and we're not
(39:21):
even sure what to say about it,like what message do we want to
convey?
We collected 200 questions onthis survey.
What here is important?
What message do we want toconvey here?
So I found myself being in thatsort of bridge position of
going from raw data and summarystatistics to then what is the
product that we need to have?
(39:42):
Look nice, and there justwasn't that out there and nobody
wanted to hire me to do it.
So I said you know what?
I'm going to go on my own, I'mgoing to start my own thing and
hope that people will want towork with me.
So I left my job in 2021 andfound a data soapbox and yeah,
so we've been going for fouryears, yeah, and I did the kinds
(40:03):
of things that I did when I wason a communication role in a
broader team.
So I collaborate withresearchers and other people or
organizations who have data andI help them develop reports,
manuscripts, infographics,presentations, all of those sort
of products basically anythingto get numbers and get data
(40:25):
translated and conveyed tosomeone who can use it to do
good in the world, and I'veworked on projects that are
really substantively alignedwith what I did as a scientist.
So I've worked on, for example,substance use prevention
initiatives for teenagers sowhere it's right in my
wheelhouse.
But I've worked on projectsthat are like I knew nothing
(40:49):
about before I started workingon the project from a topic area
standpoint.
So I had a collaborator who wasworking on firefighter culture
of workplace safety right, so itwas all about does how does
your firehouse protecteveryone's health and safety and
worked with her to develop somecommunication products based on
(41:10):
surveys and interviews that shedid.
I've done stuff in youthmentoring.
So I have a client who wepartner on just peer review
journal manuscripts about topicslike young people working with
mentors and programs like BigBrothers, big Sisters.
I've done stuff on foodinsecurity.
I've done stuff onpharmaceutical trials.
(41:31):
I've done things aroundindigenous populations here in
the States and how we canpromote their wellbeing.
So just all kinds of differentthings, but the common thread is
helping all of them communicatesome sort of data to people who
can use it to inform decisionsthat improve lives.
Speaker 2 (41:52):
That communication piece is.
It's so critical for scienceand everybody has a different
skill set, so I'm not knockingscientists as a general group,
but I do see there there is astruggle with.
This is what we found to.
Let's tell people about it in away that people want to listen
(42:16):
and care about let's tell peopleabout it in a way that people
want to listen and care about.
Speaker 1 (42:23):
Yeah, it's there.
Scientists don't get into doingwhat they do to just bury the
results somewhere and move on.
They get into it to make adifference in whatever it is
that they want to make adifference in.
So in my case, I'm a socialscientist, so for me it's about
making a difference in people'slives.
But there's people who makeimpact on our physical
environment.
There's people who make impacton animals, right.
So I'm not saying it has to beimpactful on a human life
directly, but yeah, I thinkpretty much all scientists
(42:46):
they're about making our livesbetter and I think this has
gotten better.
But I know when I went throughmy training, communication
training was very just modelingoff what other folks in your lab
did.
So you know I need to do aposter for a scientific
conference.
Let me look at what a moresenior graduate student did.
Or I'm learning to write amanuscript with my advisor who
(43:09):
writes manuscripts.
It's a very like use a templatethat exists in your sort of
academic sphere.
Use a template that exists inyour sort of academic sphere.
Work with mentors and learn todo it the way they do it.
There was very, I would say,really no direct training and
just hear the best practices incommunication.
And what's funny is scientistsreally value things being
(43:32):
evidence-based right.
That's why we're out there.
We're building evidence to findout about the world and figure
out the way the world works.
But I find it's funny there's anegligence of the research
evidence we have about howpeople learn and what makes
people remember and what makespeople pay attention.
For folks who are so focused onempiricism, there's not a lot
(43:55):
of acknowledgement of oh, thereis a whole science around
communication and what does thatscience say?
And let's follow the scienceabout what we do visually or how
we write about things.
So, yeah, I think my personalview for whatever that's worth
is I do think every scientistshould get basic communication
(44:16):
training.
But scientists can't be anexpert in everything.
So just when I worked onresearch projects, we brought in
statisticians right, and theywere expert in.
You got all these complexsurvey data.
We will help you analyze themthe right way and that is what
we do and we are so good at itand we read all the journal
(44:36):
articles about it.
We know all the trends and allthe latest developments and
statistics and we will help youright.
There's not the equivalent incommunication.
There's not usually people outthere who say it is.
My sole focus is to stay on topof best practices and research
communication, and I don't dothe research myself, but I will
(44:56):
take it and package it and makeit great.
There's not many people inthose kinds of positions, I
would say, especially in socialscience.
I feel like I see it a littlebit more in the natural sciences
.
I don't see it as much insocial science.
Speaker 2 (45:14):
And the odd person without training just has a good
innate skill set like they'rejust.
They're just, everybody's goodat different things without
having to work that hard at itso that it may come easy to some
people and then to others.
Your training is that's justcompletely alien.
To go that route, probably likelearning, yeah, no, I was just.
(45:34):
I was just going to say finishyour yeah, go ahead, finish.
And then I got my follow-upquestion.
Speaker 1 (45:40):
Sure.
So to me it feels just anyother skill that you would learn
.
Right.
There's some things.
There are people out there whoare naturally athletic or
graceful or good with numbers orcan do something really fast.
Like all of us have strengthsand skills that are more natural
or more innate.
And it's not saying those can'tbe learned, but yeah, I think
(46:03):
there are some people in anysort of skill set who have an
innate leg up.
But I think it is somethingthat can be learned.
But just like scientists don'tresearch every topic or do every
single part of a researchprocess.
If you don't like sciencecommunication and it's not quite
clicking with you, I thinkbeyond, I think the biggest
(46:25):
thing is to know where to go forhelp, so it's you don't have to
do it yourself, but it's sayingyou know, what.
This isn't my jam and I want tofind somebody who it is their
jam and I want to pay them to dothis for me, and that's okay.
I don't change the oil in myown car.
I bring it to somebody who canchange the oil for me.
I don't.
I use this analogy like I don'traise the chickens that my kid
(46:48):
eats in his chicken nuggets,somebody else goes out and
raises that chicken and makesthem dinosaur shaped and sends
them to my house.
So we all have things that wedon't want to do, and for some
people that may be research,communication, and then that's
okay.
There are people out there whodo it.
Speaker 2 (47:05):
And that's where Data Soapbox comes in.
You work with those people toget their message out in a
concise and eye-catching way,because I'm looking at your work
samples yeah yeah, I wassneaking a peek before.
Yeah yeah.
Speaker 1 (47:22):
Go ahead.
I felt like when I started thebusiness and still now there are
a lot of people out there inthe science communication world
focused on teaching.
So we can teach you how to dothis.
Focused on teaching, so we canteach you how to do this.
Just like not everybody haswants to do or has proclivity to
do or has the time to learneverything, I'm and I'll do
(47:45):
workshops occasionally for folkswho request it, but it's we
really do the work.
So it's saying somebody says Iam mid career if I I'm not going
to spend sink lots and lots oftime into how to deliver the
perfect slideshow, but I'm goingto bring in somebody who does
that and bring in that sort ofexpertise.
And so, yeah, that's what we dois we come on as freelance
(48:07):
members of a team often and sayyou know what, don't stress
about X, don't stress about thispresentation or this brief, or
X, don't stress about thispresentation or this brief or
whatever it is.
Hand it off to us and we'lldraft something and it may not
be 100% what you would do if youdid it yourself, but maybe we
get it 95% of the way there andthen we just you give your
(48:29):
tweaks and we get it to whereit's 100% what you want your
message to be.
Speaker 2 (48:34):
Nice.
Yeah, I could also take somecourses to learn how to fix my
car.
I do not have any interest inthat.
Just like Data Soapbox, I takemy soapbox racer to somebody who
knows how to do it.
Speaker 1 (48:50):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (48:51):
Yeah, we'll have, we'll make sure.
In our show notes there's alink to Data Soapbox for folks
to check that out and, just likeout of curiosity, for people
who are interested in science.
There's a bridge to sciencecommunication that I feel
sometimes is lacking.
If we had more folks doing thisfor science, of course, which
(49:11):
costs money I think we wouldhave maybe a better chance to
compete against misinformation.
Speaker 1 (49:17):
I think we would have maybe a better chance to
compete against misinformation,because misinformation is simple
and flashy and that's what getspeople more than complicated
and wordy, yeah and that's astruggle that I often work with
clients on is science is reallynuanced and trying to find that
(49:41):
balance between giving enoughdetail to be accurate and
ethical and not misleading, butnot so much detail that it's
off-putting and distracting.
Yeah, it's a tough tightrope towalk, maybe, of wanting to
balance rigor with just consumewhat's readable.
What's consumable is tricky.
Speaker 2 (50:00):
If only science could grift like the grifters we
would be sure of everything, wewould be sure of everything with
a hundred percent accuracy allthe time, but science is not
that way.
I have a quick question beforewe get to our last one here,
lori you are.
Science is not that way.
I have a quick question beforewe get to our last one here Lori
you are.
You're an expert with thevisual storytelling, with data
(50:23):
and communicating that.
What do you think people shoulddo?
Because we have a lot of peoplewho listen to us that are love,
love, science.
How can they help with sciencecommunication themselves?
How could they help with notnecessarily using data soapbox,
I'm not saying, but like ingeneral, If they want to use
data soapbox.
Speaker 1 (50:43):
I'm not going to turn them away, but I have a few
thoughts Go, use data soapboxeverybody.
I'm not going to fight you ifyou want to use me, but I have a
few thoughts, depending on whatthat person's relationship is
to science.
So if it's someone who doesscience who's a scientist, I
would say to make sure youinclude in your budget and your
(51:04):
timeline science communication.
So a lot of times SciComm is anafterthought, it's oh crud.
We are at the end of ourfive-year grant and we have a
month left.
Let's churn out as many papersas we can.
Science communication issomething that is best planned
from the outset and saying, okay, if this is the five-year
project timeline, at what pointsdoes it make sense for us to
(51:28):
share things from that project?
And being really deliberate inplanning that.
And again, either get thetraining and SciComm yourself if
that's something of interest,and if it's not, reach out to
some sort of expert who can helpyou with that.
So I say that's for the folkswho do science, the scientists,
I would say then there are folkslike you, jason, who teach
(51:49):
science.
For those folks I would saymake sure to teach communication
as part of doing science.
So I think about the big sortof SciComm communication product
that stands out to me, let'ssay, from high school, was if
you did a science fair posterright, we got essentially zero
(52:09):
guidance on the poster.
We got all sorts of guidance.
Speaker 2 (52:12):
Yeah, right.
Speaker 1 (52:14):
It was like put it on a tri-fold board.
Good luck to you.
Yeah, may the odds be like putit on a tri-fold board.
Good luck to you.
Speaker 2 (52:17):
Yeah, may the odds be in your favor.
Just go do it, kids.
Speaker 1 (52:21):
Yeah, exactly, cut out some construction paper and
let's do this.
So I would say, teaching goodcommunication practices
alongside of good researchpractices.
So what does it mean to write agood scientific abstract, for
example?
So there's a whole model ofscientific storytelling by this
(52:41):
guy, randy Olson, and he talksabout ABT and but therefore, and
he uses that as a way tostructure a scientific abstract
in a way that's reallycompelling.
Or let's talk about eight coreprinciples of visual design and
how that would apply to aresearch poster Eight core
principles of visual design andhow that would apply to a
research poster.
So those sorts of things.
Let's talk about jargon andplain language and how to
(53:02):
address that.
So, yeah, having some educationon SciComm within broader, how
do you do research, scienceeducation and I would say,
having students both producescience communication as part of
any research-based work they doand also seeing examples of
science communication in allforms and having a chance to
(53:23):
reflect on that and reflect onwhat works and what doesn't.
Yeah, so that's for theteachers and then for the fans.
I would just say to continue tosupport science communication
channels like this one, likeother podcasts, like NPR shows,
I think, about Science Friday onNPR, but that's one of many
outlets, just the one that popsto mind right now.
(53:45):
But consume science, comment onit, share it, show that there's
a demand for sciencecommunication.
Speaker 2 (53:54):
What great advice.
I really appreciate that, andsomething I need to think about
more is giving the kids a littlebit more structured direction,
if and when we have time to do aposter project or something
like that, instead of good luck,yeah.
So that's something for me tothink about.
Speaker 1 (54:11):
Yeah, finding the time.
It's always a challenge to findthe time.
I do have a blog post about mytop tips for kids and
presentations, and it was gearedtowards my son's fourth grade
class, but I find that it'sactually applicable to adults
and if I had to boil it down tothree things I would tell adults
to do it's the same big threethings I would tell kids or
(54:32):
adults.
Speaker 2 (54:34):
Nice.
I do appreciate when kids usememes to communicate chemistry,
so that shows a very deepunderstanding of the concept,
because they're putting togethertwo abstract concepts into
humor.
So I think that's probably thehighest form of learning, if
kids can just answer questionswith memes.
Speaker 1 (54:54):
Love that too.
Speaker 2 (54:55):
But that's just my opinion.
Lori, thanks so much fortalking with us about your
amazing Data Soapbox website andthe stuff you do there Some
great advice.
We have one question we wrap upour interview with and that is
a question about your pets or apet story from your life, and I
was wondering if you could shareone.
Speaker 1 (55:17):
So we are.
I will wondering if you couldshare one.
So we are, I will say, justaccidental pet owners.
So I will say, my whole life Iwasn't really into cats.
I was allergic to cats, didn'treally vibe with cats.
And in 2010, my husband and Ibought a new home and about two
months later a litter of kittenswas born at our house and I'd
never lived really a place withstray cats before, so I didn't
(55:37):
understand.
Was born at our house and I'dnever lived really a place with
stray cats before.
So I didn't understand thatthese were strays and I was
sending out angry neighborhoodposts about who let their
pregnant cat out.
I finally came to realize thiswas a litter of stray kittens,
so we brought them in enrolledwith a rescue, got a couple
adopted, had a couple of failedfosters.
So now, all these years later,we are still proud cat parents
(56:01):
to Bubba, who is 15.
And we also brought ineventually, his mama and we just
named her mama because we'rethat creative and she, we think,
is 16 or 17.
So we became accidental catowners for a very long time.
We also have a tank full ofvarious aquatic animals.
That was plotted by my son, whoreally wanted a fish tank, so
(56:23):
we have a whole tank of littlefish and little blue shrimp and
a couple of snails and it'stherapeutic to watch them glide
by in the kitchen.
Speaker 2 (56:33):
Glide by in the kitchen.
That's great.
We have a couple turtles mywife rescued and they're neat to
watch swim around too.
Yeah, Maybe not as charismaticas the dogs.
They've got their.
They've got their own thinggoing on.
Speaker 1 (56:46):
And your dog set a high bar for charisma and
attitude.
They're lovely.
Speaker 2 (56:51):
Yeah, bernoulli is such.
He's 100% charisma and 100%gooberness, so it's a good
combination.
It's perfect.
He's such a meathead.
But anyways, thank you so muchfor sharing about your pets.
Appreciate that.
So, lori, we're at the end ofthe chat.
Thank you so much for talkingwith us a little bit about what
(57:14):
you do.
It's definitely something thatis brand new.
We've never had a guest likeyourself on before to talk about
the science of communicationand all that, so I appreciate
you giving up your time.
Thanks, okay, we'll make surewe have a link to Data Soapbox
in our show notes.
And the last thing is, laurie,are you on social media anywhere
(57:35):
that people can connect, or not?
So much.
Speaker 1 (57:38):
I am, so you can find me on Blue Sky, which is a hot
happening place for scientiststhese days, and I'm at Laurie
Palin.
Speaker 2 (57:45):
Okay, we'll make sure there's a link there as well in
the show notes.
Have yourself a nice night, andit was nice to get you up on
our soapbox of sciencecommunication.
Speaker 1 (57:55):
Thanks so much for the opportunity.
Speaker 2 (57:58):
That's it for this week's show.
Thanks for coming back weekafter week to listen to the
Science Podcast.
Special thanks to our guest anda shout out to all the top dogs
.
That's the top tier of ourPatreon community, the Paw Pack.
You can sign up in our shownotes.
All right, Chris, let's hearthose names that are part of the
top dogs notes All right.
Speaker 3 (58:41):
Chris let'sbert, ben Rather, debbie Anderson, sandy
Brimer, mary Rader, bianca Hyde,andrew Lin, Brenda Clark,
brianne Hawes, peggy McKeel,holly Burge, kathy Zerker, susan
Wagner and Liz Button.
Speaker 2 (58:57):
For science, empathy and cuteness.
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