December 21, 2024 • 57 mins
This episode uncovers the mysteries of beluga whale communication, exploring their unique melon structures and the signals they may convey. It also examines how companion animals influence adolescent participation in sports and features an interview with Mara Williams about the vital role of medical lab scientists.
• Beluga whale melon shapes as a form of communication
• Findings on companion animals impacting adolescents' sports involvement
• Insights from Mara Williams on life as a medical lab director
• Overview of the challenges facing the medical lab field today
• Encouragement for future scientists and appreciation for animal roles in human lives
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Hello science enthusiasts.
My name is Jason Zukoski.
I'm a high school chemistryteacher and a science
communicator, but I'm also thedog dad of Bunsen and Beaker,
the science dogs on social media.
If you love science and youlove pets, you've come to the
right place.
Put on your lab coat, put onyour safety glasses and hold on
(00:28):
to your tail.
This is the Science Podcast.
Hello everybody, welcome backto the Science Podcast.
We hope you're happy andhealthy out there.
This is episode 39 of season 6.
It is so close to Christmas youcan almost taste it.
Well, I can taste Christmasbecause we've had a lot of
chocolate in our house from thewonderful gifts our students
(00:49):
give us on the last day.
You know it's a good idea topace yourself, but I can never
do that If I get those littleball chocolates I forget the
name of them.
Chris would be able to tell me.
You know what I'm talking aboutthose little ball chocolates.
Oh, they're so good.
Tastes like happiness anddiabetes.
We won't have a family sectiontoday.
Adam has been doing finals thislast week and he is working and
(01:10):
it's just time to get thepodcast out.
But just a fun little aside.
Beaker and Bernoulli came to myschool on Friday for the whole
day the last day of classes andit was truly amazing and the
kids loved those dogs so muchand the dogs loved the kids back
.
It was wow.
It's just so cool to see.
Dogs are magic, All right.
(01:32):
Well, what's on the show thisweek In science news?
Chris and I break down the headshapes of beluga whales.
It's a really fun study and inpet science we look to see if
there's any correlation betweenhaving a companion animal and a
bunch of factors that mayinfluence adolescence.
Very cool.
Our guest and ask an expert isprogram director for medical lab
(01:56):
students, Mara Williams, and weget into some really
interesting discussions aboutwhat that job entails and what
medical lab students would doand why would.
You would need people who workin a medical lab.
Okay, bad joke, this one'sterrible.
What do whales need to stayhealthy?
Uh, vitamin c.
Okay, on with the show, becausethere's no time like science
(02:19):
time.
This week in science news we'regonna go under the sea, but
instead of a rather news, we'regoing to go under the sea, but
instead of a rather tropicalarea, we're going to cold water
and we're looking at belugawhale noggins.
Is that correct, Chris?
Beluga whale heads they'recalled melons.
(02:40):
They're called melons.
That's their head.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
Yeah, it's their head , it's their melon, it's the
bulbous melon on their forehead.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
So, like the Gen X put down, for somebody who was
smart, you'd call them a melonhead.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
I'm not familiar with that term.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
I did see a viral video of this gentleman and a
person I'm assuming thegirlfriend were in the aquarium
and they were standing in frontof the beluga whale exhibit and
the whale was just swimmingthere looking at them and then
he got down on one knee and theface, the facial expression of
(03:23):
the beluga went into this bigsmile, like what it was like, so
cute, and I saw that on socialmedia.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Now I know you like dolphins.
Dolphins are probably yourfavorite aquatic mammal.
Mine for sure, is the belugawhale.
I think they're just so smileyand cute.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Now a study has come out that maybe sheds light into
their communication, which issuper cool.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
And we are going to be looking at their melon.
As you said, it's their squishyfat-filled structure on top of
their forehead.
Previous research seems to showthat melon aids in echolocation
by directing sound waves, buttoday's study looks at how it
creates visible expressions.
So maybe that melon is cute toother belugas, chris.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
Maybe it is, I'm sure it is.
The study focused on developinga visual encyclopedia which
documented various beluga melonexpressions while they were
observed in captivity, and theyidentified five distinct melon
shapes.
I'll list them flat lift, press, push and shake.
(04:38):
So that reminds me of DanceRevolution, when you would go up
, left down up and you were ableto do all of those moves in an
incredibly swift and excellentmanner.
I didn't know how you did it.
I don't even know how you playvideo games Left to left up,
toggle, all that.
That just reminds me of that.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
I'm not as good as I used to be, but I do remember
playing a lot of DanceRevolution on this mat that we
had in our house.
That's good exercise, by theway.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
The melon movement capabilities.
They did something like aforward extension where the
melon jut over their lips like acap's brim, or they did a
flattening motion where themelon compressed against their
skull.
Another movement was thevertical lift, so the melon
rises like a fleshy top hat.
(05:30):
That'd be interesting to see.
I know so funny.
And then jiggling, so the melonshakes which resembles jello.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Some lucky researchers, though it's a lot
of work.
They took these observationsover a one-year period, from
2014 to 2015 at the MysticAquarium, and these observations
involved four belugas.
They took video footage oftheir social interactions and
analyzed it to identify andclassify these melon shapes.
Surprisingly, the belugasproduced an average of two melon
(06:03):
shapes per minute during theirsocial interactions.
So they're talking away,looking at each other and
changing the shape of the melonon their head.
It's like raising eyebrows atsomebody.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
It is or giving side eye.
So because 93% of the melonexpressions occurred within
another beluga's line of sight,that suggests that the shapes
may serve as deliberate signalsrather than involuntary
responses.
So it's purposefulcommunication between the
belugas and we are a G-ratedpodcast.
(06:40):
But the shaken press was linkedto courtship and attracting a
mate.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
And they weren't sure .
Shaken press, that's likeshaking your booty.
You said it not me no you saidit, not me.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
No, and they weren't sure what flat meant.
That was less clear and thatmight require further study or
looking for subtle changes, andthat those subtle changes might
be just difficult for us tounderstand or interpret.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
The study suggests that these documented shapes
might be just the tip of theiceberg, or tip of the melon,
for understanding beluga melonuse in the wild during when
groups are foraging for food andwhen mothers are talking to
their babies or interacting withtheir babies.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
Because that would be further future research and
implications.
Right, how are these belugascommunicating in the wild?
Speaker 2 (07:38):
Another thing they're hoping to look at in the future
is if there's a relationshipbetween these melon expressions
and how the belugas have such anextensive vocalization.
They whistle, they chirp andthey click.
Their vocal abilities haveearned them the nickname
canaries of the sea, that's cute, that's so cute yeah there you
(07:59):
go, everybody.
Next time you see a belugawhale and it's pressing and
shaking its melon at you, yeah,it really likes you.
It really likes you a lot, sowatch out.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
Watch out Swim away, swim away.
You can't.
They're probably swimming wayfaster than you.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
Yeah, that's science news for this week.
This week in pet science astudy came out that piqued my
interest, chris, about companionanimals and how they may or may
not affect adolescentparticipation in sports.
Now, I don't think I'vementioned to you why I chose
(08:41):
this study, but here goes, ready, chris.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
I'm ready.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
Yeah, so I have a colleague.
She's the biology expert in ourschool, jackie Shukin, very
awesome teacher, and she wasextremely sporty when she was
young, I believe she was, like,really good at hockey and one of
the she loves dogs.
She's got a dog named Murphy.
Murphy and Bunsen are buddiesand when she was young she
(09:07):
wanted a dog.
So the story goes.
I'm sorry if I'm throwingJackie's parents under the bus,
but Jackie's parents said thatthey couldn't get a dog because
they were so busy with sportsand it wouldn't be fair to the
dog and the dog would have arough life.
And it wouldn't necessarily begood for the family either,
because they wouldn't get to seethe dog and the dog would have
a rough life and it wouldn'tnecessarily be good for the
family either, because theywouldn't get to see the dog a
(09:27):
lot.
And then the study popped upabout how adolescents could be
influenced or not by companionanimals.
So that's a long way to getthere, but we're here right now.
Did you have pets when you werea teen, chris?
Speaker 1 (09:44):
Yeah, we did, but I wasn't in sports.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
Were you doing any clubs or anything like that, or
working?
Speaker 1 (09:50):
I worked, but I wasn't involved in any clubs.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
no, I was, I played basketball for sure.
Basketball was my big sport inhigh school A little bit of
volleyball, track and field.
I threw the heavy things.
That was my job throw the stufffar.
And I don't know if that was anexcuse my parents made, but it
took a while for us to get afamily dog.
We did eventually get one namedGwyn.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
I know, but Gwyn was a gift to you at Christmas.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
That's true, that's true.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
And then how can you say no to a gift?
Speaker 2 (10:25):
You can't.
So that's how we got a dog.
That is how you got a dog.
I seem to remember a catsneaking into our house under
similar circumstances.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
That is absolutely not true.
That is absolutely not true youlike to embellish the ginger
story.
I said, adam, we need to getthis cat, we are going to get it
.
We need to cook up a plan that,in case dad is allergic to the
(10:58):
cat, that Papa can take care ofher until you move out and we'll
start her on the food.
And I said you.
I said jason, we have found acat, we love this cat.
This is our plan.
Would you be willing?
to and if and if you had said no, then we would have gone with
plan b.
But I really think we weregetting ginger, regardless if
(11:19):
she was going to come live withus or she was going to live with
papa and just like a dog thatyou get as a gift at Christmas
time.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
The person can't say no to that kind of logic.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
And it was in February, so it was the month of
love.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
There you go.
Anyways, it all worked out.
Ginger is awesome.
We all love this cat to death.
She's cute.
All right, let's get back tothe study, the data from this
participation in sports effecton companion animals.
They need to have a differenttitle for this.
It's a long title.
Anyways, the data comes fromthe Adolescent Brain Cognitive
(11:53):
Development Study.
Guys, your acronyms are crazylong.
That's five words in the datathat they got it from and in the
title too.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
They're calling it the ABCD study.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
I know I saw that that's cute.
I love that that is cute.
But the sample size was prettybig.
We're like 8,500 adolescents,so that's decent for science.
And, as I mentioned in the lead, they were going to determine
the extent to which the type ofcompanion animal influences
family engagement in sports orother activities.
So I believe the framework herewas so.
(12:28):
I believe the idea of the studymaybe not so much was should
you get a pet?
But does the pet have aninfluence on kids if they're in
sports or not?
It'd be interesting.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
And drum roll.
The key findings were nosignificant relationship was
identified.
So they controlled for severalrelevant variables and they
found that no meaningfulconnection was between the
companion animal type and familyinvolvement in sports or other
activities.
Also, the companion animal typeand adolescent physical
(13:04):
activity levels.
And, lastly, no significantrelationship identified between
the companion animal type andscreen time so it's both a good
and bad thing.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
The companion animal isn't taking kids away from
sports due to cost or or howmuch time you have to have for a
companion animal.
But then on the flip side, Iwas a little surprised about the
physical activity levels that adog wouldn't necessarily
increase the activity levels ofthe adolescent.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
But I guess that that surprised me too.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
You usually would be like I'm gonna take care of the
dog, I'm gonna feed the dog, I'mgonna give the dog water and
I'm gonna take the dog for walks.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
That's typically the argument that the child or
adolescent would give to theparent in order to potentially
get a dog but then, as thing asthey do, those rules always fall
to the parents, because, unlessyou're very militant about
waking up the kid at six to feedthe dogs and we don't do that
with adam heck we don't even dothat with him and his cat.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
No, we feed the cat.
We're up with her and with thewriting was on the wall jason
like.
Right away.
I'm like did you feed your cat?
No, oh, so then I just movedall her stuff upstairs yeah yeah
but also, adam was super busyin school.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
He was had a full course load and he also was in
band and he was in a millionother things.
And if we had forced the issueI think it could have been
different.
But how long does it take tofeed a cat Like 20 seconds, when
you're already up anyways?
And oh boy, are we up anyways,aren't we Chris?
Speaker 1 (14:42):
We are up anyways.
Today we were up at 5 ambecause Bernoulli, for some
reason, thought it would be agreat idea to be awake.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
Thanks, Bernoulli, I think he was saying mean words
to Beaker because she was losingher mind on him.
He would bark a couple times,or maybe she was like shut up,
go back to sleep.
What's the matter with you?
Maybe she was saying that shewas like shut up, go back to
sleep, what's the matter withyou?
Maybe she was saying that, butthat just I guess it highlights
the importance of the doingresearch on human animal
interactions and notgeneralizing without data.
(15:14):
I would have generalized withthat getting a dog would be
better for the physical activityof a person in your, your house
, like a adolescent in yourhouse, and it might pull them
away from their screens.
But it doesn't show that thisis the case.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
No, and so that's right.
There's cautions againstdrawing those conclusions, and
future studies should maybeincorporate detailed information
about the human-animalrelationship, which could
include factors such asattachment levels and time spent
with the animal, and also theanimal's role within the family.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
Yeah, that's right.
I think if you got a fish andyou're classifying that as a
companion animal, that might bevastly different than a dog and
even a cat, because cats willsleep.
Cats go through life like ateenager, like when Adam was a
teen.
They worry about themselves andsleep all the time and use a
(16:10):
litter box as opposed to thedogs that have to go outside.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
Although Adam did not use a litter box, he definitely
knows how to go to the bathroom.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
Did you hear Adam grumbling that next semester
he's got a biology's got a biobiology class at eight in the
morning?
He's like I'm gonna, my life isover.
He was complaining about his 8am class.
So rough life for Adam comingup here.
He might be up in time toginger Chris he'll be up in time
to feed ginger.
(16:58):
That's pet science for this weekcontent there, and we have live
streams every Sunday with ourcommunity.
It's tons of fun.
Also, think about checking outour merch store.
We've got the Bunsen stuffy,the beaker 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
(17:20):
a lab coat.
And number three, if you'relistening to the podcast on any
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family and friends to listen too.
Okay, on with the show.
Back to the interviews.
It's time for Ask an Expert onthe Science Podcast, and I have
Program Director for Medical LabStudents and Scientists, mara
(17:41):
Williams with us today.
Mara, how are you doing?
Speaker 3 (17:44):
I am well.
Thank you so much, Jason.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
Yay, where are you in the world?
Where are you calling into theshow from?
Speaker 3 (17:50):
I'm calling from Pennsylvania, so I'm that kind
of rectangular state that'sadjacent to the East Coast.
First capital of the UnitedStates before Washington DC is
in Philadelphia.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
Is Scranton in Pennsylvania.
Speaker 3 (18:05):
It is, it's just up north of where I am right now.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
So, aside from it being in the news for Canadians,
because it's important in anupcoming election for you guys,
many Canadians would knowPennsylvania from Scranton
because of the office.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
Oh, that's interesting, See, and I thought
you guys would know it, becauseit's the birthplace of Joe Biden
, but then that's a littleobscure too.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
I did know he was born there, which is ironic
because I have no idea whereJustin Trudeau was born.
I have no idea right now.
I'm going to have to Googlethat later.
Mara, I introduced you as aprogram director for medical lab
scientists.
Would you mind just talking tous a little bit about your
background and training inscience?
Speaker 3 (18:51):
Sure.
So I tell people I was born intoit, because my mom is a
pathologist, so she's one of thedoctors that oversees a
clinical laboratory, and then mydad is an engineer, so I grew
up in a house that was full ofmicroscopes and electronics and
because I loved all of thosethings.
(19:13):
When I went to college there wasa job where you could work with
really complicated machineryand use that to do really cool
hands-on science tests and itlet you also help people every
day but you didn't have to bepart of the body fluids flying
(19:34):
around, part of medicine, whichmakes for good TV but isn't
actually really very much funfor me personally.
So I ended up in my collegeselecting courses that would
prepare me for that career andthen I trained for a year at a
hospital in California doinghands-on training in an
(19:56):
accredited program.
It had a special applicationprocess and we got lectures, but
then when we did our actualwork we were hands-on in the lab
working with patient specimens,and I did that for a year and
graduated and then worked in aclinical lab for a short time
(20:17):
and I went back to grad schooland got a master's in biology
because I thought I wanted toteach and then I ended up at San
Jose State University actuallyteaching people how to do
medical lab science.
So that's where that part of mycareer started.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
Hey, can I ask you about your time in a clinical
pathology lab?
Sure, Just for I have maybe ahazy idea about what goes on
there.
Could you walk us through whatthat would entail in your
position then?
Speaker 3 (20:49):
Yeah, so there are different kinds of labs and
depending on how large they are,they can be really simple or
really complicated.
So sometimes doctors have smalllabs in their offices, so
sometimes you'll go in andthey'll draw blood and give you
results right there when you'resitting there, and that's
because they have a few of thoseinstruments in a back room,
(21:11):
usually in the United Statesoperated by a trained person
like me, and I'm afraid I don'tknow what the rules are in
Canada, but they often will have.
Sometimes if the tests aresimple enough, like a pregnancy
test, they'll have a nurse or amedical assistant do the testing
.
But if it's something morecomplicated, where they're
looking at counting all thecells in your blood or looking
(21:32):
at your urine for an infection,you really sometimes have to
look under the microscope forthat and that is considered a
more complicated test or ahighly complex test, and so
those kinds of things you need atrained person to do.
So you've got your doctor'soffices that do sort of bread
and butter things, really smallthings.
And then there's places, likethe hospital that I work at now,
(21:54):
which are academic medicalcenters where we do the majority
of our testing in-house andsome of it's very specialized
testing for cancer and otherdiseases.
That are tests that wedeveloped ourself with research
that we did on site.
But basically any test that aphysician or another provider
(22:15):
would order is done by a trainedperson in a specially inspected
laboratory.
So you can't just whatever.
When someone orders a bloodtest it has to be done by a
trained person in an environmentthat's controlled, sort of the
same way like manufacturing ofaspirin and Tylenol and other
things that we consume iscontrolled, there's rules.
(22:37):
There's kind of two sides of thehouse in the pathology lab.
So I live on the liquid side,if you will, where we're working
with a lot of body fluids andactually doing a lot of what you
think of as hands-on sciencemixing chemicals and making
slides.
Yes, exactly, we also are thegardeners of the lab.
(22:59):
So we take all the microbiologyand grow stuff up and do
biochemical testing and see whatis there.
And then the other side of thehouse that is a supposed to take
(23:22):
and that it is actually thething that's causing the problem
, because if it's the wrongthing, they need to go back and
get the right thing, and if it'shealthy they need to go back
and find some other reason forwhy you're sick.
And that is a whole separategroup of people who deal with
the tissue surgical kind ofstuff.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
So we're talking like your blood and urine side, and
the other side is like thingsthat have been cut out of people
.
Speaker 3 (23:52):
Yes, okay, yes, because I am trained to
recognize like maybe 50 or 60different kinds of cells that
you can see in different bodyfluids.
But people who work in theanatomic side, they are trained
to recognize every tissue in thehuman body and what it looks
(24:15):
like when it's normal and whatit looks like when it has a
disease and how those differentdiseases change the way it looks
.
So it's like patternrecognition times a million, wow
.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
It's literally what we teach.
I taught this in science 10,like it's the hierarchy of
systems in the body.
Right you have cells, tissueorgans.
So you're on the cell side,where they're on the tissue side
.
Speaker 3 (24:37):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
Oh, I love that.
Yes, okay, I got one morequestion, mara.
All right, somebody sends youblood for a test.
Actually, I've got so manyquestions.
Okay, somebody sends you blood.
Do you slap it on a microscopefirst?
Does it go through a machine?
Does it depend on what you'relooking for?
Speaker 3 (24:59):
Okay, so in the US I can't just do tests on you.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (25:04):
A doctor or a nurse or someone who's a healthcare
provider has to say I'm askingthis question and I need you to
do test X and that test islinked back to a diagnosis.
So there are labs in somestates the United States where
you can get what are calledunregulated tests, basically
where you can just order arecalled unregulated tests,
basically where you can justorder a test for yourself.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
But most of the time you just bring your blood in and
say please test my blood.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
Yeah, so there are actually places a lot of the
lifestyle medicine things wherethey're saying, oh, give us a
blood sample and we'll tell youhow you can eat for the
appropriate way for your bloodtype.
That's right.
Speaker 2 (25:43):
Which, by the way, is Are you a caveman type?
Exactly Thing will check yourblood.
Speaker 3 (25:48):
So some of the labs that do that testing are
actually unregulated and theydon't have trained people doing
the work they just do on the job.
But they don't have untrainedpeople.
They do on the job traininginstead of the kind of formal
training that most peopleworking in a clinical setting
get, and kind of formal trainingthat most people working in a
clinical setting get, and sothat's like a whole separate
(26:08):
kind of thing.
But when I get a tube of blood,the most important thing that
I'm checking it for, honestly,is just to make sure that I know
who it came from and what I'msupposed to do with it.
So always comes with a piece ofpaper or an electronic order
that has a list of all thethings that I'm supposed to do
and that's where my job starts.
(26:29):
So the first, the absolutefirst thing I always have to do
is look at the tube and look atthe paper and make sure they
match, because that's reallyimportant, right?
Because you don't want toreport out results that belong
to someone else.
That causes all kinds ofproblems.
Speaker 2 (26:45):
Right, it's the person and the blood is two
different things.
And you're like, oh man,something's wrong with your
blood, but it's not the rightperson.
Speaker 3 (26:52):
Yeah, and that can get really confusing because
sometimes you'll have a parentand a child that have the same
name, that come in to get theirblood drawn on the same day, and
then when you're labeling thetubes and putting all the
paperwork together, you have tobe really careful that the right
stuff gets with the rightperson.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
I never even thought of that, yeah.
Speaker 3 (27:10):
So huge number one, most important thing to get
right.
Thing number two I look at isthis the right thing to ask the
question that I'm supposed to beasking?
So, for example, sometimes weneed a liquid blood sample
because of the instrument that Ineed to use to test it, and
sometimes I need a clotted bloodsample because when blood goes
(27:31):
through the process of forming aclot, a lot of the protein gets
pulled together into a mass andI can spin the blood down and
pull out a lot of that protein.
Spin the blood down and pullout a lot of that protein, and
then what's left behind isn't amuch cleaner, clearer fluid and
I can do tests on that where Ishine light through that fluid
and it is a little bit easier Ifall that protein is still in
(27:54):
the fluid.
Sometimes shining the lightthrough it doesn't work as well.
It's more cloudy and I don'thave as much discrimination in
terms of what I can see in termsof differences.
Does that make sense?
Yeah, I need to make sure Ihave the right kind of blood and
I need to make sure that, ifit's liquid blood, that they
kept it liquid with the rightthing.
I'll give you an example as towhy.
(28:15):
You know that calcium is reallyimportant for our muscles to
move right.
So if you don't have enoughcalcium, your heart will stop
beating.
You can't move your arms andlegs.
It's a bad situation.
It's also a neurotransmitter.
It does a lot of importantthings.
Speaker 2 (28:29):
Go calcium.
Speaker 3 (28:31):
Yes, so sometimes to keep blood liquid we put in a
chemical that binds the ball ofcalcium because it stops blood
clotting all the calcium becauseit stops blood clotting.
But then if you want to measurecalcium it's zero.
And we know that can't be truebecause you're not dead right.
(28:53):
So sometimes I'll look at asample and I'll be like I can't
do that test on this thing, I'mso sorry, so I have to get past
that.
And then, once I know all ofthat is done, I'll then get my
sample and process it sometimesspin it down, sometimes not and
choose whatever method my labhas validated for that
particular question and thenperform what test needs to get
(29:18):
done.
And that can be anything fromsticking it on one end of an
automated track and getting anelectronic answer, or it can
mean actually pipetting drops ofblood out into a cartridge or a
test tube or whatever reagentsI need to work with and doing a
(29:38):
fairly extensive workup.
That's all manual, so it justdepends on what question I'm
asking.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
I'm so thankful you took some time to paint a
picture because it seemsmysterious Like I've had my
blood drawn and they have totest some stuff and it goes away
.
I don't know where it goes.
It goes to somebody like you, Iguess.
I have one more question beforethe next one.
Is there like a type of testyou love doing because it's rare
(30:05):
or fun to do?
Speaker 3 (30:08):
Oh, that's an interesting question.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
Like you never get to do it and you're like woohoo,
it's the thing, it's the I don'tknow.
I don't know what your job does.
Speaker 3 (30:18):
I think not exactly that.
So again, this is more of acommercial thing.
But to make somethingcommercially viable you have to
do a certain amount of it,Otherwise it's not worth it
financially.
So there's very rarely a thingwhere we don't do it very often
because they're not going tokeep that in house.
If it's something, that's quiterare and got you.
(30:41):
But and this becomes a bitmacabre, but stay with me, I
promise it won't it'll seemmaybe less weird if I explain a
little.
If we find something reallyunusual or strange, we're, then
that's really exciting.
So, for example, where I live,it's very unusual to find that
someone has malaria, becauseactually we have the mosquitoes
(31:03):
that can carry malaria parasiteswe have the anopheles
mosquitoes but what we don'thave is people who are
chronically infected withmalaria that live in our
community and so because of thatand we have cold winters so we
have time to treat people ifthey come here with malaria
there was actually a case offelsiper malaria that was
transmitted last year inMaryland, which I find
(31:24):
fascinating.
But it's like a little weird toget excited when you find out
someone has a horrible disease,but that's kind of part of the
job.
So every once in a while you'llfind something and you'll just
tell everyone around you oh mygosh, you have to come see this
because it's rare and unusualand it might be something you
(31:46):
would see once a year or twice ayear.
So malaria is like that.
There's a little what they callNorth American malaria Babesia,
which actually is not just inNorth America but we have it in
the Ixodes ticks.
I don't know if it goes up asfar north as you guys are, but
it goes up pretty far north intothe center of the US, like
(32:09):
Wisconsin, michigan and all upand down the Eastern seaboard,
and sometimes there's a littleparasite called Trichomonas
vaginalis that we'll find in aurine and it moves in a very
particular way called dartingleaf motility.
So if you find one that's alivebecause it doesn't stay alive
(32:29):
very long you will always calleveryone to come and look.
You have to come see this thing.
I think those are the mainthings.
Sometimes there'll beinteresting cases too, so it's
not necessarily doing somethingunusual that you'll find I don't
know, but there'll be storieslike that.
I live in the Hershey area,which has a lot of dairy cattle
(32:52):
and dairy farms, and we had acase of a kid who was anemic and
when they did the investigationthey discovered the child was
drinking two gallons of milkevery day.
And it turns out there'sproteins in milk that bind to
iron and so that kid was justdrinking so much milk that even
(33:14):
though there was iron in some ofthe food they were eating, it
was not sufficient, it was justtoo much milk.
Speaker 2 (33:22):
They must have lived on a dairy farm, getting
straight from the cow.
Speaker 3 (33:25):
Yeah, no, seriously, that is exactly that's a lot of
milk.
I mean, I couldn't drink twogallons of milk a day even if I
really tried.
So yeah, that was a commitmentto milk, so just stuff like that
.
It's interesting.
Speaker 2 (33:39):
Yeah, like malaria, is a weirdo parasite.
So when you do, you see thelittle parasite yeah, is it.
Would it be dead or alive?
I can see how shocking thatwould be.
You're like checking blood andyou're like what did I just look
at?
Speaker 3 (33:55):
Yeah, so when you actually look at it on the slide
, it's been fixed to the slidesurface and it's been stained,
so it's definitely dead.
It's super dead yeah, yeah butsometimes, like with the
trichomonas example, that's wetmount and that's just a little
guy swimming around.
It's so freaky yeah it reallyis it really is, but it's also
(34:17):
cool.
I don't want to like.
Speaker 2 (34:20):
Oh, I'm, if you've been following, if people have
been following Bunsen.
We're all in on parasites now.
Speaker 3 (34:25):
So I know, when I saw that was so interesting because
we actually do sometimes seethose kinds of cysts, or
sometimes you'll see them inpeople's brains, and that was
huge, like literally andfiguratively, it was wild.
Speaker 2 (34:40):
We were so unprepared .
When the surgeons okay, this iswhat it is, and it took my
brain like 10 seconds to trackwhat he actually told us, I was
just glad, we're just glad itwasn't cancer.
Speaker 3 (34:52):
I'm just glad they didn't try to needle biopsy or
something, because that has hadadded sand can be incredibly.
I don't know how it works indogs, but I know that in people
it can spark an incredibleimmune reaction.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
Yeah, they said, if it bursts or they biopsied it,
bunsen would have diedimmediately.
Speaker 3 (35:11):
Yeah, okay, so similar physiology there.
Speaker 2 (35:14):
Yeah, he went into, yeah, like an immune shock there
.
Yeah, he went into, yeah, likean immune shock.
Yeah yeah, anaphylaxis,basically.
Yeah, sorry to just uhsidetrack to bunsen, but our
lives are all about parasitesnow.
So without with the the hugestory about bunsen there, I
appreciate you giving us alittle background about the job.
I have a little bit offascination of the macabre so I
(35:36):
totally get it.
But healthcare is all aboutkeeping people from an untimely
death and finding those odd bitsin people's bloods and urine it
just helps the diagnosis andtreatment later on.
Speaker 3 (35:55):
So it's all for good, yeah, hmm, and I think one
thing people don't appreciateand maybe this is scary and
that's why we don't think aboutit is doctors often have no idea
what's going on with a patient.
If you have something likestrep throat or something run of
the mill, they know how totreat you and get you better,
but they're not like scientists.
(36:16):
They don't actually always knowthey don't.
They're not like scientists.
They don't actually always knowall the whole story like cause
and effect and things like that.
They just know what's going tokeep you alive and maybe how to
get you better.
If they have information thatis framed a certain way, it's
one of those jobs that's more ofan art than a science, and so I
(36:37):
like what I do because I knowthat if I put out a test result,
it means what it means.
There is no gray area.
It's black or white, this orthat, and I think that's very
satisfying to me.
And I think that when you gointo medicine sometimes you
(36:58):
actually don't get to have thatas much.
Speaker 2 (37:00):
One second.
Yeah, sorry, just give me about20 minutes, okay, okay.
Oh sorry, mara, I'm still at myschool.
The janitor's trying to come into clean my room.
Speaker 3 (37:13):
Oh.
Speaker 2 (37:13):
That's okay, my apologies there, I can cut.
My audio will cut out, so yourend answer will be fine, don't
worry about it, okay, yeah, doyou feel when I said that it cut
off anything you were saying orwere you done your thought?
No, I'm fine thing I was justgonna add on, I guess is uh, I
(37:37):
feel I've heard that before that, um, like medicine, doctors,
it's, it's like an art, um, butyou have a better paintbrush
with people like you, givingthem information I think that,
um, another way to think aboutit is, a doctor is somebody who
takes a lot of pieces ofinformation a lot of and weaves
(38:00):
them together into a story.
Speaker 3 (38:02):
And they're trying to tell a story where they can't
read the book and they're tryingto figure out if it's a book
they read before or maybe it's adifferent book and they don't
have all the chapters.
It's just very complicated.
So they rely on the lab forsomewhere around 70% of the
(38:23):
information they use to makedecisions.
Imaging is hugely important fora lot of diseases.
I don't want to leave out myanatomic path folks, because
often when you read case studies, it's the pathologist that's
actually able to tell the wholestory because they have all the
pieces to put together.
So it's group work, it's not anindividual person.
(38:45):
Again, doesn't make for greatTV, but I think it's wonderful
because I think students inparticular will often think if I
don't want to be a doctor or anurse, I can't do medicine, and
that's so untrue, yeah.
Speaker 2 (38:59):
We were literally looking at with microscopes
today the first time my mylittle grade nine honors kids
got to use microscopes and theywere so excited.
And then one of the kids waslooking at a blood slide Cause
we have prepared slides for thekids and he's like I'm Dexter,
I'm like that's one path you cantake with a microscope.
Who's from that TV show?
Speaker 3 (39:20):
Oh yeah, and I think if people like forensics, they
will love lab medicine, becauseforensics is what you do after a
crime has been committed andsomething bad has happened, but
(39:44):
lab medicine is something thatyou do to figure out how to
prevent something bad fromhappening.
And if you eat a bunch ofpepperoni pizza for dinner and
then you have chest pain or anuncomfortable feeling in your
stomach, you can do a handful oflab tests and know if that's a
heart attack or if it's justindigestion.
I can tell you that answer.
And if it is a heart attack, Ican tell you how, to a certain
extent, how bad it is, and then,with my EKG friends, we can
(40:04):
talk about what part of yourheart is broken.
And so we can prevent a lot ofstuff from going south, and I
like being in that position.
I don't want to clean up themess after something bad has
happened.
That's not for me.
Speaker 2 (40:17):
I like that framing.
We do need the reactivescientists, but you're
definitely on the proactive side.
Speaker 3 (40:25):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (40:26):
Love it Mara.
Right now you are this programdirector.
Could you talk to us a littlebit about what's going on there?
Speaker 3 (40:35):
Sure, whenever you have a program like mine where
you're training people to workin a laboratory, you have to
make sure that the training isdone in a way that meets a
national standard, because inthe US and in Canada actually
there is a national exam thatyou have to take in order to be
(40:55):
certified to do this work.
And the only way to qualify forthat exam in the US is either
to do a very specific kind ofon-the-job training or to go
through an accredited program.
And if your program isaccredited, it means you have
lectures, you have labs, youhave like an educational plan
(41:18):
and objectives, and then thoseare evaluated on a periodic
basis for how effective they are, and you have to answer to
another group of professionalslike yourself who basically set
a standard that you have to meetfor the education that you're
providing.
So my job is making sure thatwe meet those standards.
That is the program director'sjob.
(41:39):
Secondarily, my job is to makesure that my students have all
the training and informationthat they need to go out and
practice in the profession.
I have two instructors that workwith me who do a lot of
hands-on training with thestudents before they go to the
lab so that they know how topipette and they know how to
(42:01):
streak a plate with bacteria andthey know how to look through
the microscope.
And we train them on some of thesimpler blood smears and other
things that we can do outside ofthe clinical setting so that
when they arrive for theirhands-on training in the
hospital they can look at reallycomplicated, tricky things and
they're very quickly going to beable to learn how to recognize
(42:24):
normal or not normal.
And so I do a lot of paperworkdocumenting that we're doing all
these things.
I'm responsible for organizingthe curriculum.
I work with my instructors tomake sure that we're executing
on what we've said we're goingto do.
I assess the students to see ifthey've learned what they need
to learn, and then at the end Imeet with my instructors and
(42:48):
with former students and currentstudents and people that work
at my hospital that work withthem, people that work at other
labs that work with my graduates, and I get feedback from them
how well prepared were thesepeople?
What's something we could havedone better?
And then I have to take all ofthat feedback and come up with a
development plan or a way ofchanging the program or
(43:10):
improving the program to keepgetting better at what we do.
Speaker 2 (43:15):
I love it.
So you're more at the top.
Do you do teaching or are youmore organizing, delegating,
planning what the teachers willteach?
Both, okay, all right.
Everything all at once,everywhere.
Speaker 3 (43:28):
Of course, of course.
So my program has 10 studentsin it and I am what's called a
hospital-based program, so I amliterally located in the medical
center and I do have my greatinstructors and actually a lot
of my pathologists and fellowsand staff who work in the lab
(43:49):
who are able to lecture for me,but whenever there's a lecture
that's not covered by one ofthose people, it's me, so I fill
in all the little gaps thereare, and the one thing I don't
do is I don't do hands-ontraining in the laboratory.
Right now, I've mostly beendoing lecturing and things like
(44:10):
that, but that's okay, we'resuper busy.
The other thing that I'mmanaging right now is admissions
to the program, because Because, believe it or not, for
students that start in June,we're already doing interviews,
which it's like hard for me towrap my brain around, but I get
it Some of our students are intheir senior year of college,
(44:31):
and so they want to know wherethey're going to school next
year.
I understand the urgency ofthat.
Speaker 2 (44:37):
Oh Okay, Love it.
I guess my other question isrelated to your job as being
program director.
Do you said that this these thejobs of being a medical lab
scientist.
They're in demand.
Is that true across the boardor just in your area?
Speaker 3 (44:56):
There's a national shortage of laboratory
scientists in the United States.
I would be surprised if thatwere not true in Canada as well,
and the reason for that isagain this is where I'll speak
to the US problem.
I don't know how it works inCanada.
To be honest with you.
You have a national registry.
(45:17):
The way things work in the US,each state has its own rules
about registry and licensure.
So, depending on what stateyou're in like in a state like
Texas, which doesn't reallyregulate very much, you can
train on the job and you can dowork in the lab and it's
relatively easy to get into theprofession.
(45:38):
But because of that, they arenot as well paid as people who
work in pharmaceutical companiesor biomedical research or other
areas that would require asimilar educational background.
So when people are choosing, doI want to work at a fancy
biotech company or do I want towork at this hospital where I
have to do weekends or workdifferent shifts and I'm not
(46:01):
going to make as much money I?
They choose more money and noweekend work.
Speaker 2 (46:07):
It's like Mr Krabs money.
Speaker 3 (46:09):
Yeah, exactly, and there are states like California
that really limit who can dotraining, which isn't
necessarily a bad thing, becausethis is the sort of thing where
you do want to do it.
Speaker 2 (46:23):
You can't screw this up.
People will die.
Speaker 3 (46:25):
Yeah, that does put a certain cast on things up that
people could die.
Well, yeah, that does put acertain cast on things.
But California has gottenitself in this position where it
takes so much work to trainsomeone to do the job that most
labs can't afford to spend thetime to do it.
And so over time what'shappened is they've had more
(46:45):
people retire than are cominginto the country.
And then another thing thathappened in California which
happened because of 9-11 of allthings is people used to do this
thing where California had itsown exam, and because people in
this profession were in suchdemand, there was a special
visas that you could get to comework in the US if you were able
(47:07):
to qualify for a license incertain states.
So people would come over frommostly the Philippines, but
other countries where they metthe standard for California
licensure.
They'd take the test, they'dget a California license and
then they'd apply for a visa andcome work in that state.
When 9-11 hit, they stoppedallowing people to come to the
(47:30):
US just to take licensing exams.
They refused to give the visasanymore and allow that to happen
, and so the number of peoplecoming from outside the US to do
the work went down a lot, whichas an aside.
People talk about immigrationand I always get a little
twitchy because when I look atmy laboratory workforce,
especially in certain placeslike California, most of the
(47:53):
people there came from outsidethe US, because we don't have
much training capacity here andwhat's happened over time and
what continues to happen now ispeople.
It's very hard to find a wayinto the profession and then,
once you're there, there's a lotof exits, which is great.
(48:13):
If you have the training, youcould go work at a pharma
company, you could go work doingbiotech research, you could go
work in sales.
There are a million things thatyou could do, but all of those
take you out of the hospitalsetting, which means I now have
to train another person atHershey Medical Center, which is
not great.
So in terms of staff turnoverand things like that, that is
something that can pull peopleout of the profession.
(48:34):
So there's huge demand for thisand I would say it's worth
looking at what's happening inyour local area and see if
there's big demand, because ifthere is, it's interesting work.
Speaker 2 (48:45):
There you go.
Yeah, I'm always as a teacher.
As kids are leaving my highschool classroom, I love to tell
them okay, here's somethingyou've maybe never thought of
that you could do in science,right?
Yeah, this is just one moreavenue, and I love that, yeah.
Speaker 3 (49:01):
Yeah, and I think when you hit university, people
encourage you to do research.
If you're good at science and Imarried a researcher, so
there's nothing wrong with them.
They're great people but itrequires a certain personality
and mindset, like you have towant to stand on the edge of a
cliff with your toes hanging offand build the next step in
front of you.
(49:22):
And I like to know that my stuffis going to work when I walk in
the lab.
I know that 95% of the timewhen I set up an instrument and
I'm doing my tests, it's goingto work.
And if it doesn't work, I havea guy on the phone I can call
who's going to help me figureout why.
And you have to just love thatlike living on the edge, and I
(49:46):
do not.
Speaker 2 (49:47):
Yeah, oh, nothing worked today.
That was like yesterday.
Maybe tomorrow.
Speaker 3 (49:51):
Yes, yes, deeply dissatisfying for me.
I love being able to go homeand say, oh my gosh, today there
were 14 babies born in thehospital.
They all are healthy and we'resending them home.
It was so boring and I love it.
Speaker 2 (50:07):
That's cool.
That's good advice for folksmaybe who are younger listening
to the show.
Yeah, we have a couple standardquestions we ask all our guests
about on the Science Podcast,and the first one is to share a
story with us about pets fromtheir life.
Do you have a pet story for us?
Speaker 3 (50:26):
I have a pet that we have.
We are a cat family and weusually have two cats and we've
been trying for 25 years to havetwo cats that like each other
and so far have beenunsuccessful.
Speaker 2 (50:43):
Oh no.
Speaker 3 (50:44):
Yeah, but one of our cats is a wonderful, sweet, we
don't know what kind of cat.
We got him from the shelter cat, who's a little calico kitty,
and basically spent COVIDsitting next to my oldest child
letting them pet her and petthem through.
(51:07):
Covid, so my oldest child'sfreshman year of high school was
sitting in their room at theirdesk with their cat next to them
petting their cat while theywent to school.
online the are.
We call her s'mores, causeshe's white and graham cracker
Brown and a little bit ofsplotches of chocolate here and
there and she is the emotionalsupport kitty for my oldest.
(51:32):
So very good cat, and she does.
She tolerates the rest of us,but it's definitely my oldest
child that she likes the most.
Speaker 2 (51:40):
That is so sweet.
Speaker 3 (51:41):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (51:42):
That was a tough time for kids.
I can't imagine, Like I taughtthrough COVID and I would be hey
guys, let's go, and I'd have 30blank screens I don't even know
if the kids are there or ifthey're listening or if they're
sleeping and to be isolated likethat was rough.
I'm glad that your daughter hada friend during that time.
Yeah, Our youngest son, Adam,was still in high school when
(52:07):
that happened.
Our youngest son Adam was stillin high school when that
happened and he became reallyclose with Bunsen and Beaker
because he was home all the timeand they were so happy, of
course, so happy.
That was.
The greatest time for dogs wasCOVID.
Speaker 3 (52:21):
Yes, yes, our cat too .
My oldest now has gone off tocollege this year and our cat
misses them so much.
Yeah, so they come home on theweekends and play with the kitty
.
Speaker 2 (52:34):
That's a sweet story.
Thank you for sharing, sure.
As we close, we challenge allof our guests to share a super
fact with us.
It's something that you knowthat when you tell people, it
blows their mind a bit.
Do you have a super fact for us?
Speaker 3 (52:50):
Yeah, but it's not so much a science one, it's just
more of a how things work thing.
Speaker 2 (52:55):
That's cool.
Speaker 3 (52:57):
Whenever the American president flies somewhere on a
plane, one of the things thatthe Secret Service does to
prepare for the presidentialvisit is they call the trauma
center that's nearest towhatever venue the president's
going to be in, they tell themthe blood type of the president
and they say put some bloodaside for the president while
(53:20):
they're here.
They're going to be here fromthis time to this time?
No way.
So this happened while I was astudent, and so for a day we had
a unit of blood with a post-iton it that said for the
president sitting in ourrefrigerator, and he didn't get
shot or anything, no, so it wasfine, but I just thought this is
(53:43):
wild and I wonder if it's aprank call.
Could this not be real?
But it was true, the presidentwas coming that day and we were
the closest trauma center.
So which?
Speaker 2 (53:53):
president, was it or can you tell me Clinton?
Speaker 3 (53:56):
I can't tell you the blood type because of
confidentiality, that was what Iwas going to ask.
Speaker 2 (54:01):
That's fascinating.
You would know the blood typeof the president.
Isn't that wild?
And the thing that's so funnyabout that is we're a trauma
center we have like 75, probablyhave unlimited amount of all
the blood exactly.
Speaker 3 (54:15):
We're not gonna give him type specific if he shows up
, because it takes us about anhour to establish the type
anyway.
Speaker 2 (54:21):
So it's, the whole thing was just hilarious to me I
wonder if the prime minister ofcanada, they call ahead and
they're like, I don't know ifthey're that important, they're
like.
They probably just like getsome Tim Hortons coffee and
poutine ready for them.
They're going not blood, isn't?
Speaker 3 (54:41):
that crazy.
Speaker 2 (54:42):
Yeah, that's wild.
I love that.
That is a super fact that is.
I love that that.
Thank you so much, mara Sure, Iwant to thank you so much for
being a guest today.
This has been so much fun.
I've learned a lot of a veryimportant role in our healthcare
system.
Mara, are you on social mediaat all yourself?
Can people follow you orconnect with you?
Speaker 3 (55:04):
Not me, but if they want to learn more about this.
I think there's a couple ofAmerican societies that have a
lot of information.
The best stories coming out ofthe lab are usually from the
microbiology side, so I wouldsay the American Society for
Microbiology, ASM.
They're a great resource if youjust want to read about weird
case studies and things likethat, Because they have a lot of
(55:24):
the ooey-gooey's going on there.
They're a great resource if youjust want to read about weird
case studies and things likethat.
Speaker 2 (55:28):
Ooh.
Speaker 3 (55:29):
Because they have a lot of the ooey-gooey's going on
there.
You can look at Hershey MedicalCenter in Pennsylvania if you
want to look at what an academicmedical center works on,
because there's a lot ofinteresting things going on at
our medical center.
Because the Hershey Companywanted to partner with
(55:51):
Pennsylvania State University toput a medical center in a rural
area and because of that webecame this giant.
All things to all people place.
So lots of interesting research.
We've got a cancer center.
There's tons of stuff to seethere.
And then if you go out andsearch for the American Society
for Clinical Lab Science, theyhave contests every year for
(56:14):
cell identification and somemore kind of nerdy medical lab
things.
Speaker 2 (56:19):
Oh, thank you so much for being a guest today.
I so appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (56:25):
Oh, you're very welcome.
It was a pleasure to talk aboutmy job.
I hope somebody hears this andthinks that sounds like it would
be interesting.
Speaker 1 (56:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (56:33):
We're looking for recruits, you're looking for
people.
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2 (56:37):
That's it for this week's show.
Thanks for coming back weekafter week to listen to our show
.
Special thanks to our top tiersupporters on the Paw Pack.
If you want to support us,check out the link in the show
notes.
And, as always, we would loveto tell Burge, Brenda Clark,
Anne Uchida, Peggy McKeel.
Speaker 1 (57:12):
Terry Adam, debbie Anderson, sandy Breimer, tracy
Leinbaugh, marianne McNally FunLisa, shelly Smith, julie Smith,
diane Allen, brianne Haas,linda Sherry, carol McDonald,
catherine For science, empathyand cuteness.
Hello science enthusiasts.
My name is Jason Zukoski.
I'm a high school chemistryteacher and a science
communicator, but I'm also thedog dad of Bunsen and Beaker,
the science dogs on social media.
If you love science and youlove pets, you've come to the
right place.
Put on your lab coat, put onyour safety glasses and hold on
(00:28):
to your tail.
This is the Science Podcast.
Hello everybody, welcome backto the Science Podcast.
We hope you're happy andhealthy out there.
This is episode 39 of season 6.
It is so close to Christmas youcan almost taste it.
Well, I can taste Christmasbecause we've had a lot of
chocolate in our house from thewonderful gifts our students
(00:49):
give us on the last day.
You know it's a good idea topace yourself, but I can never
do that If I get those littleball chocolates I forget the
name of them.
Chris would be able to tell me.
You know what I'm talking aboutthose little ball chocolates.
Oh, they're so good.
Tastes like happiness anddiabetes.
We won't have a family sectiontoday.
Adam has been doing finals thislast week and he is working and
(01:10):
it's just time to get thepodcast out.
But just a fun little aside.
Beaker and Bernoulli came to myschool on Friday for the whole
day the last day of classes andit was truly amazing and the
kids loved those dogs so muchand the dogs loved the kids back
.
It was wow.
It's just so cool to see.
Dogs are magic, All right.
(01:32):
Well, what's on the show thisweek In science news?
Chris and I break down the headshapes of beluga whales.
It's a really fun study and inpet science we look to see if
there's any correlation betweenhaving a companion animal and a
bunch of factors that mayinfluence adolescence.
Very cool.
Our guest and ask an expert isprogram director for medical lab
(01:56):
students, Mara Williams, and weget into some really
interesting discussions aboutwhat that job entails and what
medical lab students would doand why would.
You would need people who workin a medical lab.
Okay, bad joke, this one'sterrible.
What do whales need to stayhealthy?
Uh, vitamin c.
Okay, on with the show, becausethere's no time like science
(02:19):
time.
This week in science news we'regonna go under the sea, but
instead of a rather news, we'regoing to go under the sea, but
instead of a rather tropicalarea, we're going to cold water
and we're looking at belugawhale noggins.
Is that correct, Chris?
Beluga whale heads they'recalled melons.
(02:40):
They're called melons.
That's their head.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
Yeah, it's their head , it's their melon, it's the
bulbous melon on their forehead.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
So, like the Gen X put down, for somebody who was
smart, you'd call them a melonhead.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
I'm not familiar with that term.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
I did see a viral video of this gentleman and a
person I'm assuming thegirlfriend were in the aquarium
and they were standing in frontof the beluga whale exhibit and
the whale was just swimmingthere looking at them and then
he got down on one knee and theface, the facial expression of
(03:23):
the beluga went into this bigsmile, like what it was like, so
cute, and I saw that on socialmedia.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Now I know you like dolphins.
Dolphins are probably yourfavorite aquatic mammal.
Mine for sure, is the belugawhale.
I think they're just so smileyand cute.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Now a study has come out that maybe sheds light into
their communication, which issuper cool.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
And we are going to be looking at their melon.
As you said, it's their squishyfat-filled structure on top of
their forehead.
Previous research seems to showthat melon aids in echolocation
by directing sound waves, buttoday's study looks at how it
creates visible expressions.
So maybe that melon is cute toother belugas, chris.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
Maybe it is, I'm sure it is.
The study focused on developinga visual encyclopedia which
documented various beluga melonexpressions while they were
observed in captivity, and theyidentified five distinct melon
shapes.
I'll list them flat lift, press, push and shake.
(04:38):
So that reminds me of DanceRevolution, when you would go up
, left down up and you were ableto do all of those moves in an
incredibly swift and excellentmanner.
I didn't know how you did it.
I don't even know how you playvideo games Left to left up,
toggle, all that.
That just reminds me of that.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
I'm not as good as I used to be, but I do remember
playing a lot of DanceRevolution on this mat that we
had in our house.
That's good exercise, by theway.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
The melon movement capabilities.
They did something like aforward extension where the
melon jut over their lips like acap's brim, or they did a
flattening motion where themelon compressed against their
skull.
Another movement was thevertical lift, so the melon
rises like a fleshy top hat.
(05:30):
That'd be interesting to see.
I know so funny.
And then jiggling, so the melonshakes which resembles jello.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Some lucky researchers, though it's a lot
of work.
They took these observationsover a one-year period, from
2014 to 2015 at the MysticAquarium, and these observations
involved four belugas.
They took video footage oftheir social interactions and
analyzed it to identify andclassify these melon shapes.
Surprisingly, the belugasproduced an average of two melon
(06:03):
shapes per minute during theirsocial interactions.
So they're talking away,looking at each other and
changing the shape of the melonon their head.
It's like raising eyebrows atsomebody.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
It is or giving side eye.
So because 93% of the melonexpressions occurred within
another beluga's line of sight,that suggests that the shapes
may serve as deliberate signalsrather than involuntary
responses.
So it's purposefulcommunication between the
belugas and we are a G-ratedpodcast.
(06:40):
But the shaken press was linkedto courtship and attracting a
mate.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
And they weren't sure .
Shaken press, that's likeshaking your booty.
You said it not me no you saidit, not me.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
No, and they weren't sure what flat meant.
That was less clear and thatmight require further study or
looking for subtle changes, andthat those subtle changes might
be just difficult for us tounderstand or interpret.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
The study suggests that these documented shapes
might be just the tip of theiceberg, or tip of the melon,
for understanding beluga melonuse in the wild during when
groups are foraging for food andwhen mothers are talking to
their babies or interacting withtheir babies.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
Because that would be further future research and
implications.
Right, how are these belugascommunicating in the wild?
Speaker 2 (07:38):
Another thing they're hoping to look at in the future
is if there's a relationshipbetween these melon expressions
and how the belugas have such anextensive vocalization.
They whistle, they chirp andthey click.
Their vocal abilities haveearned them the nickname
canaries of the sea, that's cute, that's so cute yeah there you
(07:59):
go, everybody.
Next time you see a belugawhale and it's pressing and
shaking its melon at you, yeah,it really likes you.
It really likes you a lot, sowatch out.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
Watch out Swim away, swim away.
You can't.
They're probably swimming wayfaster than you.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
Yeah, that's science news for this week.
This week in pet science astudy came out that piqued my
interest, chris, about companionanimals and how they may or may
not affect adolescentparticipation in sports.
Now, I don't think I'vementioned to you why I chose
(08:41):
this study, but here goes, ready, chris.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
I'm ready.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
Yeah, so I have a colleague.
She's the biology expert in ourschool, jackie Shukin, very
awesome teacher, and she wasextremely sporty when she was
young, I believe she was, like,really good at hockey and one of
the she loves dogs.
She's got a dog named Murphy.
Murphy and Bunsen are buddiesand when she was young she
(09:07):
wanted a dog.
So the story goes.
I'm sorry if I'm throwingJackie's parents under the bus,
but Jackie's parents said thatthey couldn't get a dog because
they were so busy with sportsand it wouldn't be fair to the
dog and the dog would have arough life.
And it wouldn't necessarily begood for the family either,
because they wouldn't get to seethe dog and the dog would have
a rough life and it wouldn'tnecessarily be good for the
family either, because theywouldn't get to see the dog a
(09:27):
lot.
And then the study popped upabout how adolescents could be
influenced or not by companionanimals.
So that's a long way to getthere, but we're here right now.
Did you have pets when you werea teen, chris?
Speaker 1 (09:44):
Yeah, we did, but I wasn't in sports.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
Were you doing any clubs or anything like that, or
working?
Speaker 1 (09:50):
I worked, but I wasn't involved in any clubs.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
no, I was, I played basketball for sure.
Basketball was my big sport inhigh school A little bit of
volleyball, track and field.
I threw the heavy things.
That was my job throw the stufffar.
And I don't know if that was anexcuse my parents made, but it
took a while for us to get afamily dog.
We did eventually get one namedGwyn.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
I know, but Gwyn was a gift to you at Christmas.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
That's true, that's true.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
And then how can you say no to a gift?
Speaker 2 (10:25):
You can't.
So that's how we got a dog.
That is how you got a dog.
I seem to remember a catsneaking into our house under
similar circumstances.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
That is absolutely not true.
That is absolutely not true youlike to embellish the ginger
story.
I said, adam, we need to getthis cat, we are going to get it
.
We need to cook up a plan that,in case dad is allergic to the
(10:58):
cat, that Papa can take care ofher until you move out and we'll
start her on the food.
And I said you.
I said jason, we have found acat, we love this cat.
This is our plan.
Would you be willing?
to and if and if you had said no, then we would have gone with
plan b.
But I really think we weregetting ginger, regardless if
(11:19):
she was going to come live withus or she was going to live with
papa and just like a dog thatyou get as a gift at Christmas
time.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
The person can't say no to that kind of logic.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
And it was in February, so it was the month of
love.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
There you go.
Anyways, it all worked out.
Ginger is awesome.
We all love this cat to death.
She's cute.
All right, let's get back tothe study, the data from this
participation in sports effecton companion animals.
They need to have a differenttitle for this.
It's a long title.
Anyways, the data comes fromthe Adolescent Brain Cognitive
(11:53):
Development Study.
Guys, your acronyms are crazylong.
That's five words in the datathat they got it from and in the
title too.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
They're calling it the ABCD study.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
I know I saw that that's cute.
I love that that is cute.
But the sample size was prettybig.
We're like 8,500 adolescents,so that's decent for science.
And, as I mentioned in the lead, they were going to determine
the extent to which the type ofcompanion animal influences
family engagement in sports orother activities.
So I believe the framework herewas so.
(12:28):
I believe the idea of the studymaybe not so much was should
you get a pet?
But does the pet have aninfluence on kids if they're in
sports or not?
It'd be interesting.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
And drum roll.
The key findings were nosignificant relationship was
identified.
So they controlled for severalrelevant variables and they
found that no meaningfulconnection was between the
companion animal type and familyinvolvement in sports or other
activities.
Also, the companion animal typeand adolescent physical
(13:04):
activity levels.
And, lastly, no significantrelationship identified between
the companion animal type andscreen time so it's both a good
and bad thing.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
The companion animal isn't taking kids away from
sports due to cost or or howmuch time you have to have for a
companion animal.
But then on the flip side, Iwas a little surprised about the
physical activity levels that adog wouldn't necessarily
increase the activity levels ofthe adolescent.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
But I guess that that surprised me too.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
You usually would be like I'm gonna take care of the
dog, I'm gonna feed the dog, I'mgonna give the dog water and
I'm gonna take the dog for walks.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
That's typically the argument that the child or
adolescent would give to theparent in order to potentially
get a dog but then, as thing asthey do, those rules always fall
to the parents, because, unlessyou're very militant about
waking up the kid at six to feedthe dogs and we don't do that
with adam heck we don't even dothat with him and his cat.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
No, we feed the cat.
We're up with her and with thewriting was on the wall jason
like.
Right away.
I'm like did you feed your cat?
No, oh, so then I just movedall her stuff upstairs yeah yeah
but also, adam was super busyin school.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
He was had a full course load and he also was in
band and he was in a millionother things.
And if we had forced the issueI think it could have been
different.
But how long does it take tofeed a cat Like 20 seconds, when
you're already up anyways?
And oh boy, are we up anyways,aren't we Chris?
Speaker 1 (14:42):
We are up anyways.
Today we were up at 5 ambecause Bernoulli, for some
reason, thought it would be agreat idea to be awake.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
Thanks, Bernoulli, I think he was saying mean words
to Beaker because she was losingher mind on him.
He would bark a couple times,or maybe she was like shut up,
go back to sleep.
What's the matter with you?
Maybe she was saying that shewas like shut up, go back to
sleep, what's the matter withyou?
Maybe she was saying that, butthat just I guess it highlights
the importance of the doingresearch on human animal
interactions and notgeneralizing without data.
(15:14):
I would have generalized withthat getting a dog would be
better for the physical activityof a person in your, your house
, like a adolescent in yourhouse, and it might pull them
away from their screens.
But it doesn't show that thisis the case.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
No, and so that's right.
There's cautions againstdrawing those conclusions, and
future studies should maybeincorporate detailed information
about the human-animalrelationship, which could
include factors such asattachment levels and time spent
with the animal, and also theanimal's role within the family.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
Yeah, that's right.
I think if you got a fish andyou're classifying that as a
companion animal, that might bevastly different than a dog and
even a cat, because cats willsleep.
Cats go through life like ateenager, like when Adam was a
teen.
They worry about themselves andsleep all the time and use a
(16:10):
litter box as opposed to thedogs that have to go outside.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
Although Adam did not use a litter box, he definitely
knows how to go to the bathroom.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
Did you hear Adam grumbling that next semester
he's got a biology's got a biobiology class at eight in the
morning?
He's like I'm gonna, my life isover.
He was complaining about his 8am class.
So rough life for Adam comingup here.
He might be up in time toginger Chris he'll be up in time
to feed ginger.
(16:58):
That's pet science for this weekcontent there, and we have live
streams every Sunday with ourcommunity.
It's tons of fun.
Also, think about checking outour merch store.
We've got the Bunsen stuffy,the beaker 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
(17:20):
a lab coat.
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 too.
Okay, on with the show.
Back to the interviews.
It's time for Ask an Expert onthe Science Podcast, and I have
Program Director for Medical LabStudents and Scientists, mara
(17:41):
Williams with us today.
Mara, how are you doing?
Speaker 3 (17:44):
I am well.
Thank you so much, Jason.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
Yay, where are you in the world?
Where are you calling into theshow from?
Speaker 3 (17:50):
I'm calling from Pennsylvania, so I'm that kind
of rectangular state that'sadjacent to the East Coast.
First capital of the UnitedStates before Washington DC is
in Philadelphia.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
Is Scranton in Pennsylvania.
Speaker 3 (18:05):
It is, it's just up north of where I am right now.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
So, aside from it being in the news for Canadians,
because it's important in anupcoming election for you guys,
many Canadians would knowPennsylvania from Scranton
because of the office.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
Oh, that's interesting, See, and I thought
you guys would know it, becauseit's the birthplace of Joe Biden
, but then that's a littleobscure too.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
I did know he was born there, which is ironic
because I have no idea whereJustin Trudeau was born.
I have no idea right now.
I'm going to have to Googlethat later.
Mara, I introduced you as aprogram director for medical lab
scientists.
Would you mind just talking tous a little bit about your
background and training inscience?
Speaker 3 (18:51):
Sure.
So I tell people I was born intoit, because my mom is a
pathologist, so she's one of thedoctors that oversees a
clinical laboratory, and then mydad is an engineer, so I grew
up in a house that was full ofmicroscopes and electronics and
because I loved all of thosethings.
(19:13):
When I went to college there wasa job where you could work with
really complicated machineryand use that to do really cool
hands-on science tests and itlet you also help people every
day but you didn't have to bepart of the body fluids flying
(19:34):
around, part of medicine, whichmakes for good TV but isn't
actually really very much funfor me personally.
So I ended up in my collegeselecting courses that would
prepare me for that career andthen I trained for a year at a
hospital in California doinghands-on training in an
(19:56):
accredited program.
It had a special applicationprocess and we got lectures, but
then when we did our actualwork we were hands-on in the lab
working with patient specimens,and I did that for a year and
graduated and then worked in aclinical lab for a short time
(20:17):
and I went back to grad schooland got a master's in biology
because I thought I wanted toteach and then I ended up at San
Jose State University actuallyteaching people how to do
medical lab science.
So that's where that part of mycareer started.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
Hey, can I ask you about your time in a clinical
pathology lab?
Sure, Just for I have maybe ahazy idea about what goes on
there.
Could you walk us through whatthat would entail in your
position then?
Speaker 3 (20:49):
Yeah, so there are different kinds of labs and
depending on how large they are,they can be really simple or
really complicated.
So sometimes doctors have smalllabs in their offices, so
sometimes you'll go in andthey'll draw blood and give you
results right there when you'resitting there, and that's
because they have a few of thoseinstruments in a back room,
(21:11):
usually in the United Statesoperated by a trained person
like me, and I'm afraid I don'tknow what the rules are in
Canada, but they often will have.
Sometimes if the tests aresimple enough, like a pregnancy
test, they'll have a nurse or amedical assistant do the testing
.
But if it's something morecomplicated, where they're
looking at counting all thecells in your blood or looking
(21:32):
at your urine for an infection,you really sometimes have to
look under the microscope forthat and that is considered a
more complicated test or ahighly complex test, and so
those kinds of things you need atrained person to do.
So you've got your doctor'soffices that do sort of bread
and butter things, really smallthings.
And then there's places, likethe hospital that I work at now,
(21:54):
which are academic medicalcenters where we do the majority
of our testing in-house andsome of it's very specialized
testing for cancer and otherdiseases.
That are tests that wedeveloped ourself with research
that we did on site.
But basically any test that aphysician or another provider
(22:15):
would order is done by a trainedperson in a specially inspected
laboratory.
So you can't just whatever.
When someone orders a bloodtest it has to be done by a
trained person in an environmentthat's controlled, sort of the
same way like manufacturing ofaspirin and Tylenol and other
things that we consume iscontrolled, there's rules.
(22:37):
There's kind of two sides of thehouse in the pathology lab.
So I live on the liquid side,if you will, where we're working
with a lot of body fluids andactually doing a lot of what you
think of as hands-on sciencemixing chemicals and making
slides.
Yes, exactly, we also are thegardeners of the lab.
(22:59):
So we take all the microbiologyand grow stuff up and do
biochemical testing and see whatis there.
And then the other side of thehouse that is a supposed to take
(23:22):
and that it is actually thething that's causing the problem
, because if it's the wrongthing, they need to go back and
get the right thing, and if it'shealthy they need to go back
and find some other reason forwhy you're sick.
And that is a whole separategroup of people who deal with
the tissue surgical kind ofstuff.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
So we're talking like your blood and urine side, and
the other side is like thingsthat have been cut out of people
.
Speaker 3 (23:52):
Yes, okay, yes, because I am trained to
recognize like maybe 50 or 60different kinds of cells that
you can see in different bodyfluids.
But people who work in theanatomic side, they are trained
to recognize every tissue in thehuman body and what it looks
(24:15):
like when it's normal and whatit looks like when it has a
disease and how those differentdiseases change the way it looks
.
So it's like patternrecognition times a million, wow
.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
It's literally what we teach.
I taught this in science 10,like it's the hierarchy of
systems in the body.
Right you have cells, tissueorgans.
So you're on the cell side,where they're on the tissue side
.
Speaker 3 (24:37):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
Oh, I love that.
Yes, okay, I got one morequestion, mara.
All right, somebody sends youblood for a test.
Actually, I've got so manyquestions.
Okay, somebody sends you blood.
Do you slap it on a microscopefirst?
Does it go through a machine?
Does it depend on what you'relooking for?
Speaker 3 (24:59):
Okay, so in the US I can't just do tests on you.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (25:04):
A doctor or a nurse or someone who's a healthcare
provider has to say I'm askingthis question and I need you to
do test X and that test islinked back to a diagnosis.
So there are labs in somestates the United States where
you can get what are calledunregulated tests, basically
where you can just order arecalled unregulated tests,
basically where you can justorder a test for yourself.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
But most of the time you just bring your blood in and
say please test my blood.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
Yeah, so there are actually places a lot of the
lifestyle medicine things wherethey're saying, oh, give us a
blood sample and we'll tell youhow you can eat for the
appropriate way for your bloodtype.
That's right.
Speaker 2 (25:43):
Which, by the way, is Are you a caveman type?
Exactly Thing will check yourblood.
Speaker 3 (25:48):
So some of the labs that do that testing are
actually unregulated and theydon't have trained people doing
the work they just do on the job.
But they don't have untrainedpeople.
They do on the job traininginstead of the kind of formal
training that most peopleworking in a clinical setting
get, and kind of formal trainingthat most people working in a
clinical setting get, and sothat's like a whole separate
(26:08):
kind of thing.
But when I get a tube of blood,the most important thing that
I'm checking it for, honestly,is just to make sure that I know
who it came from and what I'msupposed to do with it.
So always comes with a piece ofpaper or an electronic order
that has a list of all thethings that I'm supposed to do
and that's where my job starts.
(26:29):
So the first, the absolutefirst thing I always have to do
is look at the tube and look atthe paper and make sure they
match, because that's reallyimportant, right?
Because you don't want toreport out results that belong
to someone else.
That causes all kinds ofproblems.
Speaker 2 (26:45):
Right, it's the person and the blood is two
different things.
And you're like, oh man,something's wrong with your
blood, but it's not the rightperson.
Speaker 3 (26:52):
Yeah, and that can get really confusing because
sometimes you'll have a parentand a child that have the same
name, that come in to get theirblood drawn on the same day, and
then when you're labeling thetubes and putting all the
paperwork together, you have tobe really careful that the right
stuff gets with the rightperson.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
I never even thought of that, yeah.
Speaker 3 (27:10):
So huge number one, most important thing to get
right.
Thing number two I look at isthis the right thing to ask the
question that I'm supposed to beasking?
So, for example, sometimes weneed a liquid blood sample
because of the instrument that Ineed to use to test it, and
sometimes I need a clotted bloodsample because when blood goes
(27:31):
through the process of forming aclot, a lot of the protein gets
pulled together into a mass andI can spin the blood down and
pull out a lot of that protein.
Spin the blood down and pullout a lot of that protein, and
then what's left behind isn't amuch cleaner, clearer fluid and
I can do tests on that where Ishine light through that fluid
and it is a little bit easier Ifall that protein is still in
(27:54):
the fluid.
Sometimes shining the lightthrough it doesn't work as well.
It's more cloudy and I don'thave as much discrimination in
terms of what I can see in termsof differences.
Does that make sense?
Yeah, I need to make sure Ihave the right kind of blood and
I need to make sure that, ifit's liquid blood, that they
kept it liquid with the rightthing.
I'll give you an example as towhy.
(28:15):
You know that calcium is reallyimportant for our muscles to
move right.
So if you don't have enoughcalcium, your heart will stop
beating.
You can't move your arms andlegs.
It's a bad situation.
It's also a neurotransmitter.
It does a lot of importantthings.
Speaker 2 (28:29):
Go calcium.
Speaker 3 (28:31):
Yes, so sometimes to keep blood liquid we put in a
chemical that binds the ball ofcalcium because it stops blood
clotting all the calcium becauseit stops blood clotting.
But then if you want to measurecalcium it's zero.
And we know that can't be truebecause you're not dead right.
(28:53):
So sometimes I'll look at asample and I'll be like I can't
do that test on this thing, I'mso sorry, so I have to get past
that.
And then, once I know all ofthat is done, I'll then get my
sample and process it sometimesspin it down, sometimes not and
choose whatever method my labhas validated for that
particular question and thenperform what test needs to get
(29:18):
done.
And that can be anything fromsticking it on one end of an
automated track and getting anelectronic answer, or it can
mean actually pipetting drops ofblood out into a cartridge or a
test tube or whatever reagentsI need to work with and doing a
(29:38):
fairly extensive workup.
That's all manual, so it justdepends on what question I'm
asking.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
I'm so thankful you took some time to paint a
picture because it seemsmysterious Like I've had my
blood drawn and they have totest some stuff and it goes away
.
I don't know where it goes.
It goes to somebody like you, Iguess.
I have one more question beforethe next one.
Is there like a type of testyou love doing because it's rare
(30:05):
or fun to do?
Speaker 3 (30:08):
Oh, that's an interesting question.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
Like you never get to do it and you're like woohoo,
it's the thing, it's the I don'tknow.
I don't know what your job does.
Speaker 3 (30:18):
I think not exactly that.
So again, this is more of acommercial thing.
But to make somethingcommercially viable you have to
do a certain amount of it,Otherwise it's not worth it
financially.
So there's very rarely a thingwhere we don't do it very often
because they're not going tokeep that in house.
If it's something, that's quiterare and got you.
(30:41):
But and this becomes a bitmacabre, but stay with me, I
promise it won't it'll seemmaybe less weird if I explain a
little.
If we find something reallyunusual or strange, we're, then
that's really exciting.
So, for example, where I live,it's very unusual to find that
someone has malaria, becauseactually we have the mosquitoes
(31:03):
that can carry malaria parasiteswe have the anopheles
mosquitoes but what we don'thave is people who are
chronically infected withmalaria that live in our
community and so because of thatand we have cold winters so we
have time to treat people ifthey come here with malaria
there was actually a case offelsiper malaria that was
transmitted last year inMaryland, which I find
(31:24):
fascinating.
But it's like a little weird toget excited when you find out
someone has a horrible disease,but that's kind of part of the
job.
So every once in a while you'llfind something and you'll just
tell everyone around you oh mygosh, you have to come see this
because it's rare and unusualand it might be something you
(31:46):
would see once a year or twice ayear.
So malaria is like that.
There's a little what they callNorth American malaria Babesia,
which actually is not just inNorth America but we have it in
the Ixodes ticks.
I don't know if it goes up asfar north as you guys are, but
it goes up pretty far north intothe center of the US, like
(32:09):
Wisconsin, michigan and all upand down the Eastern seaboard,
and sometimes there's a littleparasite called Trichomonas
vaginalis that we'll find in aurine and it moves in a very
particular way called dartingleaf motility.
So if you find one that's alivebecause it doesn't stay alive
(32:29):
very long you will always calleveryone to come and look.
You have to come see this thing.
I think those are the mainthings.
Sometimes there'll beinteresting cases too, so it's
not necessarily doing somethingunusual that you'll find I don't
know, but there'll be storieslike that.
I live in the Hershey area,which has a lot of dairy cattle
(32:52):
and dairy farms, and we had acase of a kid who was anemic and
when they did the investigationthey discovered the child was
drinking two gallons of milkevery day.
And it turns out there'sproteins in milk that bind to
iron and so that kid was justdrinking so much milk that even
(33:14):
though there was iron in some ofthe food they were eating, it
was not sufficient, it was justtoo much milk.
Speaker 2 (33:22):
They must have lived on a dairy farm, getting
straight from the cow.
Speaker 3 (33:25):
Yeah, no, seriously, that is exactly that's a lot of
milk.
I mean, I couldn't drink twogallons of milk a day even if I
really tried.
So yeah, that was a commitmentto milk, so just stuff like that
.
It's interesting.
Speaker 2 (33:39):
Yeah, like malaria, is a weirdo parasite.
So when you do, you see thelittle parasite yeah, is it.
Would it be dead or alive?
I can see how shocking thatwould be.
You're like checking blood andyou're like what did I just look
at?
Speaker 3 (33:55):
Yeah, so when you actually look at it on the slide
, it's been fixed to the slidesurface and it's been stained,
so it's definitely dead.
It's super dead yeah, yeah butsometimes, like with the
trichomonas example, that's wetmount and that's just a little
guy swimming around.
It's so freaky yeah it reallyis it really is, but it's also
(34:17):
cool.
I don't want to like.
Speaker 2 (34:20):
Oh, I'm, if you've been following, if people have
been following Bunsen.
We're all in on parasites now.
Speaker 3 (34:25):
So I know, when I saw that was so interesting because
we actually do sometimes seethose kinds of cysts, or
sometimes you'll see them inpeople's brains, and that was
huge, like literally andfiguratively, it was wild.
Speaker 2 (34:40):
We were so unprepared .
When the surgeons okay, this iswhat it is, and it took my
brain like 10 seconds to trackwhat he actually told us, I was
just glad, we're just glad itwasn't cancer.
Speaker 3 (34:52):
I'm just glad they didn't try to needle biopsy or
something, because that has hadadded sand can be incredibly.
I don't know how it works indogs, but I know that in people
it can spark an incredibleimmune reaction.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
Yeah, they said, if it bursts or they biopsied it,
bunsen would have diedimmediately.
Speaker 3 (35:11):
Yeah, okay, so similar physiology there.
Speaker 2 (35:14):
Yeah, he went into, yeah, like an immune shock there
.
Yeah, he went into, yeah, likean immune shock.
Yeah yeah, anaphylaxis,basically.
Yeah, sorry to just uhsidetrack to bunsen, but our
lives are all about parasitesnow.
So without with the the hugestory about bunsen there, I
appreciate you giving us alittle background about the job.
I have a little bit offascination of the macabre so I
(35:36):
totally get it.
But healthcare is all aboutkeeping people from an untimely
death and finding those odd bitsin people's bloods and urine it
just helps the diagnosis andtreatment later on.
Speaker 3 (35:55):
So it's all for good, yeah, hmm, and I think one
thing people don't appreciateand maybe this is scary and
that's why we don't think aboutit is doctors often have no idea
what's going on with a patient.
If you have something likestrep throat or something run of
the mill, they know how totreat you and get you better,
but they're not like scientists.
(36:16):
They don't actually always knowthey don't.
They're not like scientists.
They don't actually always knowall the whole story like cause
and effect and things like that.
They just know what's going tokeep you alive and maybe how to
get you better.
If they have information thatis framed a certain way, it's
one of those jobs that's more ofan art than a science, and so I
(36:37):
like what I do because I knowthat if I put out a test result,
it means what it means.
There is no gray area.
It's black or white, this orthat, and I think that's very
satisfying to me.
And I think that when you gointo medicine sometimes you
(36:58):
actually don't get to have thatas much.
Speaker 2 (37:00):
One second.
Yeah, sorry, just give me about20 minutes, okay, okay.
Oh sorry, mara, I'm still at myschool.
The janitor's trying to come into clean my room.
Speaker 3 (37:13):
Oh.
Speaker 2 (37:13):
That's okay, my apologies there, I can cut.
My audio will cut out, so yourend answer will be fine, don't
worry about it, okay, yeah, doyou feel when I said that it cut
off anything you were saying orwere you done your thought?
No, I'm fine thing I was justgonna add on, I guess is uh, I
(37:37):
feel I've heard that before that, um, like medicine, doctors,
it's, it's like an art, um, butyou have a better paintbrush
with people like you, givingthem information I think that,
um, another way to think aboutit is, a doctor is somebody who
takes a lot of pieces ofinformation a lot of and weaves
(38:00):
them together into a story.
Speaker 3 (38:02):
And they're trying to tell a story where they can't
read the book and they're tryingto figure out if it's a book
they read before or maybe it's adifferent book and they don't
have all the chapters.
It's just very complicated.
So they rely on the lab forsomewhere around 70% of the
(38:23):
information they use to makedecisions.
Imaging is hugely important fora lot of diseases.
I don't want to leave out myanatomic path folks, because
often when you read case studies, it's the pathologist that's
actually able to tell the wholestory because they have all the
pieces to put together.
So it's group work, it's not anindividual person.
(38:45):
Again, doesn't make for greatTV, but I think it's wonderful
because I think students inparticular will often think if I
don't want to be a doctor or anurse, I can't do medicine, and
that's so untrue, yeah.
Speaker 2 (38:59):
We were literally looking at with microscopes
today the first time my mylittle grade nine honors kids
got to use microscopes and theywere so excited.
And then one of the kids waslooking at a blood slide Cause
we have prepared slides for thekids and he's like I'm Dexter,
I'm like that's one path you cantake with a microscope.
Who's from that TV show?
Speaker 3 (39:20):
Oh yeah, and I think if people like forensics, they
will love lab medicine, becauseforensics is what you do after a
crime has been committed andsomething bad has happened, but
(39:44):
lab medicine is something thatyou do to figure out how to
prevent something bad fromhappening.
And if you eat a bunch ofpepperoni pizza for dinner and
then you have chest pain or anuncomfortable feeling in your
stomach, you can do a handful oflab tests and know if that's a
heart attack or if it's justindigestion.
I can tell you that answer.
And if it is a heart attack, Ican tell you how, to a certain
extent, how bad it is, and then,with my EKG friends, we can
(40:04):
talk about what part of yourheart is broken.
And so we can prevent a lot ofstuff from going south, and I
like being in that position.
I don't want to clean up themess after something bad has
happened.
That's not for me.
Speaker 2 (40:17):
I like that framing.
We do need the reactivescientists, but you're
definitely on the proactive side.
Speaker 3 (40:25):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (40:26):
Love it Mara.
Right now you are this programdirector.
Could you talk to us a littlebit about what's going on there?
Speaker 3 (40:35):
Sure, whenever you have a program like mine where
you're training people to workin a laboratory, you have to
make sure that the training isdone in a way that meets a
national standard, because inthe US and in Canada actually
there is a national exam thatyou have to take in order to be
(40:55):
certified to do this work.
And the only way to qualify forthat exam in the US is either
to do a very specific kind ofon-the-job training or to go
through an accredited program.
And if your program isaccredited, it means you have
lectures, you have labs, youhave like an educational plan
(41:18):
and objectives, and then thoseare evaluated on a periodic
basis for how effective they are, and you have to answer to
another group of professionalslike yourself who basically set
a standard that you have to meetfor the education that you're
providing.
So my job is making sure thatwe meet those standards.
That is the program director'sjob.
(41:39):
Secondarily, my job is to makesure that my students have all
the training and informationthat they need to go out and
practice in the profession.
I have two instructors that workwith me who do a lot of
hands-on training with thestudents before they go to the
lab so that they know how topipette and they know how to
(42:01):
streak a plate with bacteria andthey know how to look through
the microscope.
And we train them on some of thesimpler blood smears and other
things that we can do outside ofthe clinical setting so that
when they arrive for theirhands-on training in the
hospital they can look at reallycomplicated, tricky things and
they're very quickly going to beable to learn how to recognize
(42:24):
normal or not normal.
And so I do a lot of paperworkdocumenting that we're doing all
these things.
I'm responsible for organizingthe curriculum.
I work with my instructors tomake sure that we're executing
on what we've said we're goingto do.
I assess the students to see ifthey've learned what they need
to learn, and then at the end Imeet with my instructors and
(42:48):
with former students and currentstudents and people that work
at my hospital that work withthem, people that work at other
labs that work with my graduates, and I get feedback from them
how well prepared were thesepeople?
What's something we could havedone better?
And then I have to take all ofthat feedback and come up with a
development plan or a way ofchanging the program or
(43:10):
improving the program to keepgetting better at what we do.
Speaker 2 (43:15):
I love it.
So you're more at the top.
Do you do teaching or are youmore organizing, delegating,
planning what the teachers willteach?
Both, okay, all right.
Everything all at once,everywhere.
Speaker 3 (43:28):
Of course, of course.
So my program has 10 studentsin it and I am what's called a
hospital-based program, so I amliterally located in the medical
center and I do have my greatinstructors and actually a lot
of my pathologists and fellowsand staff who work in the lab
(43:49):
who are able to lecture for me,but whenever there's a lecture
that's not covered by one ofthose people, it's me, so I fill
in all the little gaps thereare, and the one thing I don't
do is I don't do hands-ontraining in the laboratory.
Right now, I've mostly beendoing lecturing and things like
(44:10):
that, but that's okay, we'resuper busy.
The other thing that I'mmanaging right now is admissions
to the program, because Because, believe it or not, for
students that start in June,we're already doing interviews,
which it's like hard for me towrap my brain around, but I get
it Some of our students are intheir senior year of college,
(44:31):
and so they want to know wherethey're going to school next
year.
I understand the urgency ofthat.
Speaker 2 (44:37):
Oh Okay, Love it.
I guess my other question isrelated to your job as being
program director.
Do you said that this these thejobs of being a medical lab
scientist.
They're in demand.
Is that true across the boardor just in your area?
Speaker 3 (44:56):
There's a national shortage of laboratory
scientists in the United States.
I would be surprised if thatwere not true in Canada as well,
and the reason for that isagain this is where I'll speak
to the US problem.
I don't know how it works inCanada.
To be honest with you.
You have a national registry.
(45:17):
The way things work in the US,each state has its own rules
about registry and licensure.
So, depending on what stateyou're in like in a state like
Texas, which doesn't reallyregulate very much, you can
train on the job and you can dowork in the lab and it's
relatively easy to get into theprofession.
(45:38):
But because of that, they arenot as well paid as people who
work in pharmaceutical companiesor biomedical research or other
areas that would require asimilar educational background.
So when people are choosing, doI want to work at a fancy
biotech company or do I want towork at this hospital where I
have to do weekends or workdifferent shifts and I'm not
(46:01):
going to make as much money I?
They choose more money and noweekend work.
Speaker 2 (46:07):
It's like Mr Krabs money.
Speaker 3 (46:09):
Yeah, exactly, and there are states like California
that really limit who can dotraining, which isn't
necessarily a bad thing, becausethis is the sort of thing where
you do want to do it.
Speaker 2 (46:23):
You can't screw this up.
People will die.
Speaker 3 (46:25):
Yeah, that does put a certain cast on things up that
people could die.
Well, yeah, that does put acertain cast on things.
But California has gottenitself in this position where it
takes so much work to trainsomeone to do the job that most
labs can't afford to spend thetime to do it.
And so over time what'shappened is they've had more
(46:45):
people retire than are cominginto the country.
And then another thing thathappened in California which
happened because of 9-11 of allthings is people used to do this
thing where California had itsown exam, and because people in
this profession were in suchdemand, there was a special
visas that you could get to comework in the US if you were able
(47:07):
to qualify for a license incertain states.
So people would come over frommostly the Philippines, but
other countries where they metthe standard for California
licensure.
They'd take the test, they'dget a California license and
then they'd apply for a visa andcome work in that state.
When 9-11 hit, they stoppedallowing people to come to the
(47:30):
US just to take licensing exams.
They refused to give the visasanymore and allow that to happen
, and so the number of peoplecoming from outside the US to do
the work went down a lot, whichas an aside.
People talk about immigrationand I always get a little
twitchy because when I look atmy laboratory workforce,
especially in certain placeslike California, most of the
(47:53):
people there came from outsidethe US, because we don't have
much training capacity here andwhat's happened over time and
what continues to happen now ispeople.
It's very hard to find a wayinto the profession and then,
once you're there, there's a lotof exits, which is great.
(48:13):
If you have the training, youcould go work at a pharma
company, you could go work doingbiotech research, you could go
work in sales.
There are a million things thatyou could do, but all of those
take you out of the hospitalsetting, which means I now have
to train another person atHershey Medical Center, which is
not great.
So in terms of staff turnoverand things like that, that is
something that can pull peopleout of the profession.
(48:34):
So there's huge demand for thisand I would say it's worth
looking at what's happening inyour local area and see if
there's big demand, because ifthere is, it's interesting work.
Speaker 2 (48:45):
There you go.
Yeah, I'm always as a teacher.
As kids are leaving my highschool classroom, I love to tell
them okay, here's somethingyou've maybe never thought of
that you could do in science,right?
Yeah, this is just one moreavenue, and I love that, yeah.
Speaker 3 (49:01):
Yeah, and I think when you hit university, people
encourage you to do research.
If you're good at science and Imarried a researcher, so
there's nothing wrong with them.
They're great people but itrequires a certain personality
and mindset, like you have towant to stand on the edge of a
cliff with your toes hanging offand build the next step in
front of you.
(49:22):
And I like to know that my stuffis going to work when I walk in
the lab.
I know that 95% of the timewhen I set up an instrument and
I'm doing my tests, it's goingto work.
And if it doesn't work, I havea guy on the phone I can call
who's going to help me figureout why.
And you have to just love thatlike living on the edge, and I
(49:46):
do not.
Speaker 2 (49:47):
Yeah, oh, nothing worked today.
That was like yesterday.
Maybe tomorrow.
Speaker 3 (49:51):
Yes, yes, deeply dissatisfying for me.
I love being able to go homeand say, oh my gosh, today there
were 14 babies born in thehospital.
They all are healthy and we'resending them home.
It was so boring and I love it.
Speaker 2 (50:07):
That's cool.
That's good advice for folksmaybe who are younger listening
to the show.
Yeah, we have a couple standardquestions we ask all our guests
about on the Science Podcast,and the first one is to share a
story with us about pets fromtheir life.
Do you have a pet story for us?
Speaker 3 (50:26):
I have a pet that we have.
We are a cat family and weusually have two cats and we've
been trying for 25 years to havetwo cats that like each other
and so far have beenunsuccessful.
Speaker 2 (50:43):
Oh no.
Speaker 3 (50:44):
Yeah, but one of our cats is a wonderful, sweet, we
don't know what kind of cat.
We got him from the shelter cat, who's a little calico kitty,
and basically spent COVIDsitting next to my oldest child
letting them pet her and petthem through.
(51:07):
Covid, so my oldest child'sfreshman year of high school was
sitting in their room at theirdesk with their cat next to them
petting their cat while theywent to school.
online the are.
We call her s'mores, causeshe's white and graham cracker
Brown and a little bit ofsplotches of chocolate here and
there and she is the emotionalsupport kitty for my oldest.
(51:32):
So very good cat, and she does.
She tolerates the rest of us,but it's definitely my oldest
child that she likes the most.
Speaker 2 (51:40):
That is so sweet.
Speaker 3 (51:41):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (51:42):
That was a tough time for kids.
I can't imagine, Like I taughtthrough COVID and I would be hey
guys, let's go, and I'd have 30blank screens I don't even know
if the kids are there or ifthey're listening or if they're
sleeping and to be isolated likethat was rough.
I'm glad that your daughter hada friend during that time.
Yeah, Our youngest son, Adam,was still in high school when
(52:07):
that happened.
Our youngest son Adam was stillin high school when that
happened and he became reallyclose with Bunsen and Beaker
because he was home all the timeand they were so happy, of
course, so happy.
That was.
The greatest time for dogs wasCOVID.
Speaker 3 (52:21):
Yes, yes, our cat too .
My oldest now has gone off tocollege this year and our cat
misses them so much.
Yeah, so they come home on theweekends and play with the kitty
.
Speaker 2 (52:34):
That's a sweet story.
Thank you for sharing, sure.
As we close, we challenge allof our guests to share a super
fact with us.
It's something that you knowthat when you tell people, it
blows their mind a bit.
Do you have a super fact for us?
Speaker 3 (52:50):
Yeah, but it's not so much a science one, it's just
more of a how things work thing.
Speaker 2 (52:55):
That's cool.
Speaker 3 (52:57):
Whenever the American president flies somewhere on a
plane, one of the things thatthe Secret Service does to
prepare for the presidentialvisit is they call the trauma
center that's nearest towhatever venue the president's
going to be in, they tell themthe blood type of the president
and they say put some bloodaside for the president while
(53:20):
they're here.
They're going to be here fromthis time to this time?
No way.
So this happened while I was astudent, and so for a day we had
a unit of blood with a post-iton it that said for the
president sitting in ourrefrigerator, and he didn't get
shot or anything, no, so it wasfine, but I just thought this is
(53:43):
wild and I wonder if it's aprank call.
Could this not be real?
But it was true, the presidentwas coming that day and we were
the closest trauma center.
So which?
Speaker 2 (53:53):
president, was it or can you tell me Clinton?
Speaker 3 (53:56):
I can't tell you the blood type because of
confidentiality, that was what Iwas going to ask.
Speaker 2 (54:01):
That's fascinating.
You would know the blood typeof the president.
Isn't that wild?
And the thing that's so funnyabout that is we're a trauma
center we have like 75, probablyhave unlimited amount of all
the blood exactly.
Speaker 3 (54:15):
We're not gonna give him type specific if he shows up
, because it takes us about anhour to establish the type
anyway.
Speaker 2 (54:21):
So it's, the whole thing was just hilarious to me I
wonder if the prime minister ofcanada, they call ahead and
they're like, I don't know ifthey're that important, they're
like.
They probably just like getsome Tim Hortons coffee and
poutine ready for them.
They're going not blood, isn't?
Speaker 3 (54:41):
that crazy.
Speaker 2 (54:42):
Yeah, that's wild.
I love that.
That is a super fact that is.
I love that that.
Thank you so much, mara Sure, Iwant to thank you so much for
being a guest today.
This has been so much fun.
I've learned a lot of a veryimportant role in our healthcare
system.
Mara, are you on social mediaat all yourself?
Can people follow you orconnect with you?
Speaker 3 (55:04):
Not me, but if they want to learn more about this.
I think there's a couple ofAmerican societies that have a
lot of information.
The best stories coming out ofthe lab are usually from the
microbiology side, so I wouldsay the American Society for
Microbiology, ASM.
They're a great resource if youjust want to read about weird
case studies and things likethat, Because they have a lot of
(55:24):
the ooey-gooey's going on there.
They're a great resource if youjust want to read about weird
case studies and things likethat.
Speaker 2 (55:28):
Ooh.
Speaker 3 (55:29):
Because they have a lot of the ooey-gooey's going on
there.
You can look at Hershey MedicalCenter in Pennsylvania if you
want to look at what an academicmedical center works on,
because there's a lot ofinteresting things going on at
our medical center.
Because the Hershey Companywanted to partner with
(55:51):
Pennsylvania State University toput a medical center in a rural
area and because of that webecame this giant.
All things to all people place.
So lots of interesting research.
We've got a cancer center.
There's tons of stuff to seethere.
And then if you go out andsearch for the American Society
for Clinical Lab Science, theyhave contests every year for
(56:14):
cell identification and somemore kind of nerdy medical lab
things.
Speaker 2 (56:19):
Oh, thank you so much for being a guest today.
I so appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (56:25):
Oh, you're very welcome.
It was a pleasure to talk aboutmy job.
I hope somebody hears this andthinks that sounds like it would
be interesting.
Speaker 1 (56:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (56:33):
We're looking for recruits, you're looking for
people.
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2 (56:37):
That's it for this week's show.
Thanks for coming back weekafter week to listen to our show
.
Special thanks to our top tiersupporters on the Paw Pack.
If you want to support us,check out the link in the show
notes.
And, as always, we would loveto tell Burge, Brenda Clark,
Anne Uchida, Peggy McKeel.
Speaker 1 (57:12):
Terry Adam, debbie Anderson, sandy Breimer, tracy
Leinbaugh, marianne McNally FunLisa, shelly Smith, julie Smith,
diane Allen, brianne Haas,linda Sherry, carol McDonald,
catherine For science, empathyand cuteness.
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