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Send us a text Welcome to my third memoir about my unusual trajectory in the world of medicine. In my first memoir, “Medicine and Miracles in the High Desert,” I shared with readers my profoundly life-changing and eye-opening time on the Navajo Reservation as a young schoolteacher in the early 1970s. Many years later, I returned to the Navajo people to serve them as a medical doctor in Cuba, New Mexico. The second memoir, “From Mountains to Medicine,” takes the reader on a spellbinding, ten-year odyssey in search of my life’s purpose. This memoir begins with my wide-eyed excitement upon entering medical school. I had an unquenchable eagerness to learn information and skills that would help others. I held no pre-conceived ideas about the kind of education I would receive. Gradually, as time passed, I began suspecting that something wasn’t right about some of the information that the professors and mentors taught the medical students. Long after I completed my training, I discovered why some of the information I learned didn’t make sense, and the conflicts of interest involved in many of the studies that were done that influenced what the medical students were taught.  https:/natureandsciencepodcast.com

Send us a text Hello everyone, I'm your host of Nature and Science Podcast, Don Murphy.  In the episode I am interviewed by our producer, Anna Murphy to discuss, how my two time failure in chemistry ultimately led to the founding of Ky'Orda. The mission of Ky'Orda is to eliminate the fear and failure in learning complex subjects for everyone by creating an education app with a personal guide that uses behavioral science and adaptive technology.  I think many of you out there can identify with failing a subject and feeling like you didn't measure up or at the worse you were not smart.  You may have even abandoned a subject before you even got a chance to explore its adventures and discoveries.  The guided app I will talk about is creating an entirely new world and may ultimately change the way education in done worldwide.  So join us this next episode and be amazed. https:/natureandsciencepodcast.com

Send us a text Scientific research at Yellowstone and other National Park has yielded many useful discoveries benefiting humanity.  One of the most important was the discovery of the thermophilic bacterium, Thermus aquaticus.  Later an enzyme was purified by a team led by Dr. Henry Erlich, which led to the practical use of the PCR test in covid detection and many other uses. Science in parks is a crucial tool for the advancement of humanity. However, if it were not for the early efforts of George Menendez Wright, science may have never taken hold in our national parks.  Today, the George Wright Society continues that effort by supporting parks, protected/conserved areas, cultural sites, and other kinds of place-based conservation by encouraging communication among and convenings of researchers, managers, educators, practitioners, and the public to facilitate informed decisions and actions that embrace our values. Joining me to talk science in our national parks is Dave Harmon, executive director of the George Wright Society.  Dave is responsible for overseeing the George Wright Society’s operations, including co-editing Parks Stewardship Forum and helping plan workshops and other meetings. A member of the GWS since 1985, Dave began working for the organization in 1990 and served as executive director from 1998 to 2017 before returning that role in 2019. He is active in IUCN's World Commission on Protected Areas.  He also maintains a research interest in the relationship between biological and cultural diversity, having co-founded the NGO Terralingua, which is devoted to that subject. Dave has co-edited several volumes on protected area conservation, including The Antiquities Act: A Century of American Archaeology, Historic Preservation, and Nature Conservation (with Francis P. McManamon and Dwight T. Pitcaithley), The Full Value of Parks: From Economics to the Intangible (with Allen D. Putney), and A Thinking Person's Guide to America's National Parks (with Robert Manning, Rolf Diamant, and Nora Mitchell). https:/natureandsciencepodcast.com

Send us a text This episode explores the mystery of a cellular organelle known as the vault and how unlocking the secrets of nano vaults could revolutionize Disease Cures.  Though its structure is well know and its protein composition well established, its function remains a mystery.  Joining us to explain this mystery is its discoverer, Dr. Leonard Rome. Dr. Leonard H. Rome is a cell biologist, biochemist and part-time dean involved in research, teaching and administration at the University of California, Los Angeles. He earned his undergraduate degree (B.S. in Chemistry) and graduate degrees (M.S. and Ph.D. in Biological Chemistry) at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the National Institutes of Health, where he worked on lysosome biogenesis. Dr. Rome has been on the faculty of the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA since he joined the Department of Biological Chemistry in 1979. He became a full Professor in 1988 and has been Senior Associate Dean for Research in the School of Medicine since 1997. Since 2005 he has been the Associate Director of the California NanoSystems Institute. Dr. Rome has served as the elected Chair of the School of Medicine Faculty Executive Committee and he is actively involved in Graduate and Medical Education. In 1991 he received a UCLA School of Medicine Award for Excellence in Education. If you would like to learn more about vaults check out Dr. Rome's youtube channel or go to our website: https:/natureandsciencepodcast.com

Send us a text This episode is all about deep fakes.  It is getting more difficult everyday to tell what is real and what is fake, especially on social media and even on TV networks.  In this episode we will explore, the war thats raging between creation and detection of deep fakes.  So what exactly is a deep fake.  Joining us to answer that question is Dr. Ilke Demir.  She’s on the front lines of this battle. Dr. Demir is a curious research scientist, working on topics in 3D vision, computational geometry, generative models, remote sensing, and deep learning. She earned my Ph.D.  from Department of Computer Science at Purdue University, working under supervision of Daniel Aliaga. She later joined Facebook as a Postdoctoral Research Scientist to work with Ramesh Raskar. After some groundbreaking projects, she left to pursue a startup path, which ended with an acquisition. That next led her to find her research heaven in the world's largest volumetric capture stage at Intel Studios. https:/natureandsciencepodcast.com

Send us a text On this episode we speak with Dr. Zafra Lerman about how a love for science is fostering world peace. Zafra Lerman is an American chemist, educator, and humanitarian. She is the President of the Malta Conferences Foundation, which aims to promote peace by bringing together scientists from otherwise hostile countries to discuss science and foster international scientific and technical collaboration.  From 1986 to 2010, she chaired the American Chemical Society's Subcommittee on Scientific Freedom and Human Rights. She has been successful in preventing executions, releasing prisoners of conscience from jail and bringing dissidents to freedom.  She is the recipient of many awards for education and science diplomacy, including the 1999 Presidential Award from U.S. President Clinton, the 2005 Nyholm Prize for Education from the Royal Society of Chemistry (England), the 2015 Science Diplomacy Award from the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the 2016 Andrei Sakharov Award for human rights from the American Physical Society (APS), the 2016 United Nations NOVUS Award for the 16th Sustainable Development Goal: Peace and Justice, and the 2017 International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry Distinguished Women in Chemistry or Chemical Engineering Award. https:/natureandsciencepodcast.com

Send us a text On this episode we speak with Dr. Jesse Goodman about the spread of the H5N1 virus.  We will discuss what a virus is, how viruses migrate from animal populations to humans and assess the chances for a new pandemic. Jesse L. Goodman, M.D., M.P.H., directs Georgetown COMPASS, which focuses on science based policy and research to address unmet public health needs with an emphasis on product development and access and antimicrobial resistance and stewardship. Until February 2014 he served as the Chief Scientist of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), a position he assumed in 2009 along with Deputy Commissioner for Science and Public Health (2009-2012). As FDA's Chief Scientist he had broad responsibility for strategic leadership of crosscutting scientific and public health efforts, including developing and implementing FDA's Strategic Plan for Regulatory Science and FDA's public health preparedness and response and medical countermeasures efforts. A graduate of Harvard, Dr. Goodman received his M.D. from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and did residency and fellowship training in Medicine, Infectious Diseases and Oncology at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and at the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA), where he was also Chief Medical Resident.  https:/natureandsciencepodcast.com

Send us a text The next episode will explore how to avoid the devastating psychological impacts of disasters. A native of Long Island, New York, Dr. Katz attended Harvard College and went on to Columbia University where he obtained his medical degree, completed his psychiatric residency training and served as chief resident in psychiatry. He subsequently completed a fellowship in forensic psychiatry at NYU. Dr. Katz has a private practice in general and forensic psychiatry in Manhattan and is a former President of the New York County District Branch of the American Psychiatric Association as well as a Distinguished Fellow of the APA.  Dr. Katz is married to Linda, a pediatrician and a child psychiatrist who is herself Chair of the Disaster Committee of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and is the proud father of twenty-two-year-old Maya (whose travelled with him to Haiti and Japan and studies international relations) and eighteen-year-old Lev (whose travelled to Japan). https:/natureandsciencepodcast.com

Send us a text On this episode we speak with Dr. Jonathan Zehr.  He and his colleagues discovered an example of evolution in action.  Dr. Zehr will share with us how such a revolutionary discovery was made. Jonathan Zehr is the distinguished professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, Institute of Marine Sciences.  He and his colleagues have discovered the possibility of a complex cellular organism with a nitrogen-fixing organelle derived from endosymbiosis with a nitrogen fixing bacteria. This new organelle is called a nitroplast. Studying a marine alga with a cyanobacterial endosymbiont, Zehr and his colleagues  used soft x-ray tomography to visualize cell structure and division of the alga, revealing a coordinated cell cycle in which the endosymbiont divides and is split evenly, similar to the situation for plastids and mitochondria in these cells.  In other words instead of having a symbiotic relationship, the alga and bacteria integrated to form a newly evolved organism.  Dr. Zehr, welcome to the program.  We can’t wait to hear more about this revolutionary discovery. https:/natureandsciencepodcast.com

Send us a text Human beings have been breeding and cross-breeding plants for thousands of years.  We have done this to increase yield, taste, growth rate and in modern times shelf life in grocery stores.  With the discovery of the gene editing tool, CRISPR, plant breeding has risen to a whole new level; a level that has the potential to end world hunger, respond to the negative impacts of climate change, and even make it easier to eat black berries. Dr. Tom Adams co-founded gene editing company Pairwise and serves as Chief Executive Officer. Tom has over 25 years of leadership experience heading up biotechnology for global companies, serving most recently as Vice President of Global Biotechnology at Monsanto where he led the team developing a broad range of innovative products. Tom wanted to realize the possibilities of CRISPR and gene editing in plants, and co-founded Pairwise to realize this potential in a mission-based environment. Formerly a faculty member at Texas A&M University, Tom holds a PhD in microbiology and plant science from Michigan State University and a BS in botany and plant pathology from Oregon State University. Tom is a long-time distance runner and often competes in local events. https:/natureandsciencepodcast.com

Send us a text In this episode we will explore the truth and consequences of the firing of National Park Service seasonal employees.  Joining us is former national park seasonal ranger, Rosanne McHenry Rosanne has worked as a National Park Ranger and a California State Park Ranger in many different locations over the years, including the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, Mt. Rainier National Park, Auburn State Recreation Area, Marshall Gold Discovery State Historic Park, and Death Valley National Park, among others. “Serving as a park ranger gave her a unique opportunity to talk to people about our natural world, and to instill a deep sense of stewardship in each person she has met. This beautiful planet, our Earth, is our shared heritage, and we all play an important role in protecting it. https:/natureandsciencepodcast.com

Send us a text Moral bankruptcy threatens to destroy national parks under the guise of government efficiency.  The firing of many national park service employees is illegal.  Why illegal?  Not because some codified law is being violated, rather because a higher moral law is violated.  That law is rooted in the human responsibility of stewardship.   The care and love for our natural and cultural resources seeks to resolve what E.O. Wilson called the great paradox.  That is the natural proclivity of human beings to expand and develop while at the same time conserving and protecting the resources needed for development and expansion. This is the great challenge of stewardship and our National Parks represent humanity’s attempt to resolve this paradox. When we speak of the benefits of parks it is in these terms that we must speak.  It is dangerous to define the importance of parks and conservation only in terms of the monetary economic benefit.  We must not simply try and make the value of parks and conservation fit within the context of a market economy.   We must understand that the benefits of parks and conservation are more than a commodity in the marketplace, rather they are an important part of the creative processes of the universe. Franklin Roosevelt noted that: “There is nothing so American as our national parks. The scenery and the wildlife are native. The fundamental idea behind the parks is native. It is, in brief, that the country belongs to the people, that it is in process of making for the enrichment of the lives of all of us. The parks stand as the outward symbol of the great human principle. This episode gives an in depth argument for why we have a moral responsibility to protect our national parks. https:/natureandsciencepodcast.com

Send us a text Dr. Traill Dowie discusses how Early Childhood Attachments Can Influence Mental Health. He is an Associate Professor of Psychotherapy, Research Fellow, clinician, and clinical supervisor with dual PhDs in Psychiatry and Philosophy. As a respected voice in the field of trauma, attachment, and psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy, he bridges clinical practice with deep theoretical inquiry, bringing cutting-edge insights into the treatment of complex psychological conditions. https:/natureandsciencepodcast.com

Send us a text Are we alone in the Universe.  Are aliens or extraterrestrial beings already here on earth, or are they watching us from afar with technologically advanced probes? It has been decades since the search for aliens began in earnest with SETI, the Search For Extraterrestrial Intelligence.  So why haven't we made contact?  What is the Fermi paradox and the Drake Equation and what do they tell us about he existence of ET? Why does the former chairman of the board at SETI think extraterrestrial probes may be watching us?  We’re going to explore these and other questions with John Gertz. John Gertz has  been involved in the field of SETI for more than 20 years, having served three terms as chairman of the board of the SETI Institute (www.seti.org), He is also the president of a new organization that successfully campaigned to raise $100 million for SETI research, and he currently the only layman on the Breakthrough Listen board that advises on the use of that $100 million fund.  His forthcoming book, Reinventing SETI, will be released in Spring 2025 by Oxford University Press. https:/natureandsciencepodcast.com

Send us a text Joining me on this episode is Tom Shunenman to discuss climate change, the anthropocene, the ambitious 30X30 initiative that seeks to preserve 30% of the earth’s biodiversity by the year 2030.  Tom will also share what happened recently at the COP29 meeting, the 29th conference of the parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. We will take a deep dive into the question of whether human activity eventually destroy the earth.  We will also take about human caused climate change vs normal variations in the weather. https:/natureandsciencepodcast.com