Everything Is Interesting -With Keera & Kira

Happy International Women’s Day, 2021! Keera Lindenberg introduces you to some of the female scientists, both living and dead, that have paved the way for women in STEM, and changed the course of history along the way. 

  Trust me, every single available photo of a placenta is horrifying. Here’s an adorable newborn baby instead. Human pregnancy. A sweet symbiotic relationship between 2 beings? Or a BODILY INVASION?? Depends on which of your cells you ask. In this episode, K+K explore the role of the Placenta, the temporary organ that develops in the mother’s body alongside the fetus. Sure, it procures nutrients and keeps the baby alive… but if mom’s not vigilant, the placenta will gladly TAKE OVER THE WORLD! Or at least her body. Find out how the Placenta executes its military attack, what happens if the body can’t defend itself, and then as a bonus, why this topic is timely and relevant to an upcoming break in the production of Everything is Interesting episodes.

Although we’ve had great breakthroughs in pharmaceutical treatments for HIV, the virus remains one of the scariest diseases out there, because as of yet, there is no surefire cure. But as of this month,we have found a cure… for exactly 2 people in the history of the world. Can the experimental treatment used on the 2 patients who have had the virus wiped from their system be used to help the 37 million people living with the disease today? Should it be? In Part 1, K+K discussed how HIV infiltrates your body, and why its so hard to get rid of. In today’s episode, K+K examine the London Patient, and how doctors used the patient’s immune system against itself to eradicate the virus. They also look at the recent birth of the first person to be genetically modified with an immunity to HIV, and discuss if this will be and should be the future of medicine. Disclaimer: the Human Immunodeficiency Virus is not actually a cartoon. 

Although we’ve had great breakthroughs in pharmaceutical treatments for HIV, the virus remains one of the scariest diseases out there, because as of yet, there is no surefire cure. But as of this month,we have found a cure… for exactly 2 people in the history of the world. Can the experimental treatment used on the 2 patients who have had the virus wiped from their system be used to help the 37 million people living with the disease today? Should it be? In Part 1, K+K discuss why an HIV infection is such a big deal for your body, how it goes about infiltrating your cells, and the diabolical ways it makes itself so hard to get rid of. This knowledge will set you up to understand the next episode, when K+K examine the London Patient, and how doctors used the patient’s immune system against itself to eradicate the virus. For such a formidable foe, he sure is a tiny guy.  

If you’re a nature documentary fan like we are, you’re probably already familiar with Ophiocordyeps, the species of fungus that turns ants into zombies, using mind control to coerce the ant to attach itself to a treetop, just before a mushroom bursts Alien-like out of its head. K+K looked into the research that’s been occurring over the last few years to determine just how the fungus pulls this off, and it turns out… not only is everything we thought we knew about this parasitic species wrong, its also way more disturbing that we could have previously guessed. Don’t say we didn’t warn you.

How many times has the universe exploded in a great Big Bang? And if the answer is ‘more than once’ then that poses an even more important question: does Time stop and start over with every Bang? To answer this, we have to go back to the very  beginning of the universe (if indeed there was a beginning…) to a “time” before mass, matter, and possibly Time even existed at all.

What is time? A line? A loop? A figment of our imaginations? Spoiler alert… no one knows. But we can use what we know about physics, biology, and Einstein’s ideas about Relativity to take our best guess. Join K+K on this 2-part journey into the center (if there is such a place) of time (if there is such a thing)!  In this show: How does the human brain keep track of time? Why is syncing up our biological rhythms with the sun’s cycles so important? If someone kidnapped you and you woke up in a sensory deprivation tank, would you ever know what time it was again? Are you the glucose monster or the melatonin fairy? Be honest.           [photo courtesy of https://www.sciencenews.org/article/origin-biological-clocks]

The kids from Mrs. Pace’s 6th grade class at Pleasant Valley Middle school in Vancouver, Washington sent us so many excellent science questions, we had to take 2 whole episodes to answer them all! This week K+K tackle: -How the Earth was formed -Why the Earth’s axis is tilted -Where Earth’s first water came from -What the Earth’s first plant was and weirdly, -The temperature on the moons of Neptune

In a special “Listener Question” episode of Everything is Interesting, K+K answer some excellent inquisitions, sent in by the kids from Mrs. Pace’s 6th grade class at Pleasant Valley Middle school in Vancouver, Washington. The science ladies tackle: -The physics of flying in a V-formation -Why there’s droughts when the world is covered in water -The magic behind Magnetic Levitation -The strange & wondrous ways mosses reproduces

Its a new year! That means its time to make some resolutions about picking up new, healthy, shiny habits! Habits that will definitely become part of your routine right away and you’ll do them every day and you’ll never break them even when you get super stressed out at work because of that one lady that always comes in and gets on your last nerve and the next thing you know you’re eating chocolate chip cookies… right? Why are bad habits so hard to break, even when we rationally know better? Why do we replay the same thoughts over and over again in our minds, even when we don’t want to? Is it possible to rewire our neural pathways in order to break the old, bad habits in favor of some healthier, more conscious decisions? (Spoiler: yes, yes it is.) Join K+K and guest David Zimelis to find out!