0:00

I'm Anna Sale, host of Death, Sex,

0:02

and Money. And I'm hosting Hold On, a

0:04

series of national live call-in specials from

0:06

WNYC about our mental

0:08

health.

0:09

Join me as we talk together. Listen

0:12

wherever you get podcasts.

0:30

And it's quite like Star Trek.

0:38

Space, a final frontier.

0:45

Is there a more

0:46

recognizable opening line

0:48

on television? More iconic

0:50

than that one, the Star Trek series

0:53

released in 1966. Starring

0:57

William Shatner as Captain Kirk, Leonard

0:59

Nimoy as Spock. And since

1:01

then there have been a dozen shows

1:04

exploring the Star Trek universe. Some

1:06

have been live-action, some animated,

1:09

but all explore concepts in

1:11

astrophysics. And when I watch these shows,

1:14

you know, I love them. I always think, how

1:16

accurate is the science in this

1:18

franchise? It's an apt question

1:21

for our next guest who's going to tell me all

1:23

about it. Dr. Erin McDonald, scientific

1:26

consultant for the Star Trek franchise.

1:28

She has a PhD in astrophysics

1:31

and she joins us from Los Angeles. Welcome to

1:33

Science Friday.

1:35

Hi, Ira. I'm really honored to be here. Thanks

1:37

for having me. I'm so happy to have you.

1:39

Tell me a bit about your history as a science

1:42

consultant for Star Trek. When did that all

1:44

start? How did you get involved?

1:45

Yeah, it's been going back to season

1:48

three of Star Trek Discovery was when

1:50

I came on, when they jumped forward to

1:52

the future. My background, as you

1:54

mentioned, is in astrophysics, particularly

1:56

in gravitational waves. I've always used science fiction

1:58

to help me.

1:59

to teach science and when I left academia,

2:02

I started giving talks at pop culture conventions,

2:05

which sort of led me into the entertainment industry.

2:09

That's terrific. We wanna get our listeners in on

2:11

this because I know we're gonna melt the phone lines

2:13

when I give out the phone number. Our

2:15

number is 844-724-8255, 844-724-8255, to

2:22

talk about the science that's in Star Trek,

2:24

or tweet us at Sci-Fry.

2:27

Were you always a big trekker? Did

2:30

you become a Star Trek fan?

2:31

Yeah, I mean, I wasn't really exposed

2:33

to it until I was in college. I was doing my

2:36

undergraduate degrees in physics and

2:38

math. And in the Venn diagram

2:40

of Star Trek fans and physics majors,

2:42

there's a big overlap in

2:44

the middle there. And so at our sort

2:47

of college parties, we would watch Next Generation,

2:49

and that was kind of my first exposure to it, and

2:51

I fell absolutely in love with it.

2:54

The big moment for me was when the 2009 Kelvin film

2:58

came out, that was the night

3:00

we all graduated. And so we did our

3:02

big graduation, and then we went to the

3:04

midnight premiere, back when those were actually

3:06

at midnight, and surrounded by Star

3:08

Trek fans, I realized like, these are

3:11

my people, this is where it's at.

3:12

And how many Star Trek shows

3:14

are airing at the same time these days?

3:17

Now, I think we've had five going.

3:20

So there's a lot different flavors, as you

3:22

mentioned, some are live action, some are animated,

3:25

some are targeted at kids. And

3:27

what's great is that they all kind of have different

3:30

flavors of science, and they all approach their

3:32

storytelling differently, as Star Trek always

3:34

has. Yeah, so give you an idea of what

3:36

a day in the life of a science consultant

3:38

looks like. What kinds of things are you actually

3:40

doing?

3:41

Yeah, a lot of it is working directly

3:43

with the writers and showrunners, and so they'll

3:45

reach out to me if they have specific questions.

3:48

And then I sometimes try to sit about once

3:50

a week in the writer's room itself, helping

3:53

them break ideas, if they have questions in

3:55

the moment, or come up with story

3:58

concepts. You know, I work as a writer. writer, I'm

4:00

a big fan of science fiction anyway, so being

4:02

able to help with that process. And

4:05

then a big part of my job is literally just editing

4:07

scripts, going through them and at the very

4:09

minimum, making sure we don't say anything

4:12

wrong. That's the big job. What

4:14

do you mean say anything wrong? For example?

4:17

For example, like refer to

4:20

our solar system or a star system

4:22

as a galaxy. That's a common mistake

4:24

that happens in science fiction all the time

4:27

and getting those things inflated, making

4:29

sure we talk about planets the right way, making sure we

4:31

talk about nebulas the right way and

4:34

that they're just dust and gas and all of those

4:36

little nuances that can sometimes slip by.

4:39

One of the central tenets of

4:41

watching a film, a fiction film,

4:44

is the willful suspension of your belief,

4:46

right? Absolutely. How does that

4:48

play into what you do and in Star

4:51

Trek in general?

4:52

Well, I think sometimes a lot

4:54

of what I do when I say I don't want them to say anything

4:56

wrong sometimes will have great fun

4:59

fantastical storylines that isn't

5:01

really rooted in science. And

5:03

the advice is to just not try to

5:05

explain it because I think that's when that

5:08

suspension of disbelief when you're talking about a giant

5:10

energy being that's grabbing

5:12

a hold of the ship. Right. As

5:15

soon as you start to apply science to it, that's when you're going

5:17

to start to lose people when if you

5:19

just let it be, you could just ride the story.

5:22

But you know, sometimes over the years,

5:24

if you wait around long enough, some

5:26

of the things that you may think are

5:28

you need to suspend your belief actually come

5:31

true. And I'm thinking about all the

5:33

times we used to watch Captain

5:35

Kirk or Jean-Luc Picard talk

5:38

to the computer, right? Like verbally

5:40

speak to like, really? It understands what you're saying.

5:42

But now we can do that.

5:44

We have that indeed. In fact, my own little

5:47

in-home listening system responds to computer

5:49

as well. Can't be a Star Trek fan

5:51

without that. And yeah, I mean,

5:54

our this long legacy, even I remember

5:56

the original series, you know, Kirkwood

5:58

video call down to.

5:59

the medical bay and that seemed

6:02

so fantastical and now that's almost how we

6:04

live our lives.

6:04

Or Uhura would have a little thing in her

6:06

ear. You can't have a tiny little receiver

6:08

in your ear, right? Right, right. A

6:10

little wireless receptor, who'd have thought? Do

6:13

you have a favorite science pot line you've consulted

6:15

on?

6:16

Uh, yeah, I mean, there's been a few. My

6:18

first one was to do the big story arc

6:20

for season three, which was called The Burn.

6:23

And what I was brought on for was to really

6:25

apply some science to the dilithium,

6:28

which is a fictional Star Trek element

6:30

that's been around since the 60s and,

6:33

you know, plays a role in the technology

6:35

of these starships. And I was able to

6:37

kind of add on some canonical explanations

6:40

to it. Uh, that was really exciting

6:42

and really special. And then in

6:45

that same season, I also consulted on

6:47

episode five, I believe, where

6:49

they encounter a coronal mass ejection.

6:51

And that was the first

6:52

time that we've had one of those in Star Trek

6:54

before. So that was fun. That is dilithium

6:56

crystals, really? Where did it come from? Where

6:59

did it come from? Do we have a history

7:00

on that? Well, yeah, the first

7:03

thing I had to establish was, is it dilithium

7:05

or is it dilithium? Because

7:07

as many Star Trek fans who are also chemistry

7:10

majors will point out that

7:12

lithium does not allow itself to be

7:14

combined in such a way. And so we established,

7:17

nope, it is just called dilithium. And

7:19

it's its own thing. I came up

7:21

with these subatomic particles that

7:23

tap into subspace to

7:26

make the story work that way. You know,

7:28

you talked about not just having

7:30

to accept things when something big

7:32

happens, you don't want to explain it. And I think

7:35

one of those things that I've always wondered about, and

7:37

we have gotten calls about in the past, is

7:40

warp speed.

7:41

Right? How do you survive

7:43

going to warp speed? The human body

7:46

can't really take that kind of acceleration.

7:48

No, this is true. I mean, the ships

7:50

do have inertial dampeners which

7:52

is kind of the equivalent of

7:54

seat belts. Yep, because inertia

7:57

is the thing that's going to get you, right? Right. But when you

7:59

go to warp, the whole concept of warp drive

8:02

mathematically is

8:03

really interesting and it is actually possible.

8:05

The concept is that you're building a bubble

8:08

of space time around your ship. So

8:10

on the ship itself, you're still traveling, I mean, at the

8:12

speeds they are much faster than we can conceive

8:15

of now. But even then, they're not quite

8:17

at the speed of light. And then the bubble

8:20

of space time just carries the ship faster

8:22

than light. Because in our rules of

8:24

general relativity, nothing says that

8:27

space time itself can't go faster

8:29

than the speed of light. It's just

8:30

stuff on the surface of it. I love

8:32

that explanation. Let's go to, I'm gonna hit, there

8:34

are a couple of harder ones on the phone. I'm gonna get them

8:36

to ask you. Marty in Ellenberg,

8:39

Washington. Hi, welcome to Science Friday.

8:41

Hi, thanks. I'm

8:43

just wondering, especially

8:46

since I just got a new me, are

8:48

the Borg really possible?

8:50

Oh, the Borg. Yeah.

8:53

Tell us what the Borg are, if you will,

8:55

first. Absolutely. So the Borg is probably

8:57

something a lot of young Star Trek fans remember is the

8:59

first thing that gave them nightmares. But it's essentially

9:01

a sort of cybernetic species

9:04

that goes around assimilating different cultures

9:06

and they incorporate a lot of technology

9:09

into their beings. But

9:12

the big thing that the Borg have that

9:14

was kind of established in Star Trek Voyager in more

9:16

detail is these nanoprobes. So

9:19

these little itty bitty mechanical

9:21

devices that swim throughout your bloodstream

9:24

and coordinate all of these cybernetic

9:27

implants that you've got. So I don't think we're

9:29

quite there yet. I don't know if you have to worry about that with

9:31

your knee.

9:34

But it's certainly interesting. And I think this idea

9:37

of integrating, it's really biotechnology,

9:39

right? Integrating robotics with our

9:41

bodies. We are not far

9:43

away from. Do you ever go in the opposite

9:45

direction? Do you ever suggest something that

9:47

they could incorporate into the script that you're

9:49

thinking about?

9:51

Yeah, quite a few times.

9:53

I mean, I don't want to take too much credit because these

9:55

writers, you know, they come up with really, really cool

9:57

stories, but like the CME, the coronal

9:59

mass eject.

9:59

that I mentioned, you know, that was a

10:02

big one where it was like, let's

10:04

just have a space disaster. We just want

10:06

a cool space disaster that's going to interrupt

10:08

the transporter. What would be a fun

10:10

one that we could use with that? And so then we kind

10:12

of built the story around it being a coronal mass

10:14

ejection, which is for people who aren't aware, it's

10:17

like a solar flare plus.

10:19

It carries a lot of massive radiation

10:21

particles in addition to the

10:23

kind of normal solar flares that we see. Yeah,

10:26

a lot of people want to talk to you. Let's go to

10:29

Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin. We don't

10:32

think we've ever been there. Jeff, welcome to Science Friday.

10:36

Hi, yes, I'm reading a series

10:39

of books now. And

10:41

they use something called an Alcubierre

10:44

drive. Supposedly, it's a real theoretical

10:47

thing. Now, I was just wondering, is that

10:49

the same thing as the warp drive?

10:53

Yeah, absolutely. So the Alcubierre

10:55

drive is, was kind of the first

10:57

major warp drive that was

11:00

mathematically laid out. And so

11:02

as I talked about where warp

11:04

is about building a bubble of space time around

11:07

your ship, the Alcubierre drive takes that concept.

11:10

And the key with it, so mathematically,

11:13

this warp drive, the

11:15

Alcubierre drive could work. The

11:17

issue is the amount of energy required

11:20

to do it because mass spends space

11:22

time, that's the

11:23

bowling ball on the trampoline analogy. If

11:25

you don't have that mass to build a warp

11:28

bubble, you need an equivalent amount of energy,

11:30

which is times the speed

11:32

of light squared. So that's

11:35

a level of energy we don't know how to harness

11:37

yet. So that's the barrier that's keeping us

11:39

from getting there.

11:39

You have to keep up with all

11:41

these things, don't you?

11:43

Yeah. And

11:45

sometimes the writers get to it before I do.

11:47

A lot of the writers love science, they're really

11:49

interested in it. And so I'll pop into a writers

11:52

room and they'll be like, Hey, Aaron, tell us about this new

11:54

black hole finding and I've got to go look it up.

11:56

And, you know, it's really cool. It's great

11:58

to have a team that's

11:59

so invested

12:00

in science as well. All right, we're talking with Erin

12:03

McDonald. She's Science Consultant for Star

12:05

Trek. She's based in Los Angeles. If

12:07

you'd like to join us, please. You

12:10

can tweet us. Some more

12:12

tweets coming in at Sci-Fry, or you

12:15

can call us 844-724-8255. We

12:18

have to take a break. We'll be right back. Stay with

12:20

us.

12:21

Support for Science Friday also comes

12:23

from Schmidt Futures, a philanthropic

12:26

initiative founded by Eric and Wendy Schmidt.

12:29

Americans seem to have

12:31

made up their minds about the Supreme Court.

12:33

It's either restoring justice... I still

12:36

believe in the Constitution.

12:38

...or destroying America. The Supreme

12:40

Court's not going to save us. I'm Julia Longoria,

12:43

and in the new season of More Perfect,

12:46

we're making sense of the Supreme Court today.

12:48

Listen to More Perfect from WNYC

12:50

Studios

12:51

wherever you get podcasts.

12:59

This is Science Friday. I'm Ira Flatow.

13:01

I'm talking with Dr. Erin McDonald, Science

13:04

Consultant for the Star Trek franchise.

13:06

She's based out in Los Angeles,

13:09

of course. Our number 844-724-8255, if you'd like to talk to

13:11

us and

13:14

ask a question, 844-SciTalk. Dr.

13:17

McDonald, do you ever view this

13:19

as more than just a science fiction

13:21

thingy,

13:22

but maybe a teaching experience?

13:25

Oh, absolutely. I think it's hard

13:28

to undersell how influential

13:32

Star Trek has been on science.

13:34

You know, it's been around for, gosh,

13:37

60-plus years at this point, and

13:40

it has influenced and inspired

13:42

people to become scientists. And

13:45

so there is some responsibility

13:47

to uphold that legacy of inspiring

13:50

people and getting the science correct. And particularly

13:53

with the new show, Star Trek Prodigy,

13:55

which is targeted at kids. You

13:58

know, a lot of that is actually more of a... teaching

14:00

job and leaning on my teaching background to

14:02

try to explain difficult concepts to

14:05

kids and hopefully inspire them to become scientists.

14:07

Yeah, because it can inspire a lot of

14:09

people to think about the laws of physics. I

14:12

mean, and seriously, let me go to, for example, my

14:14

next caller. Let's

14:16

go to Nicholas in New Bedford, Mass. Hi, Nicholas.

14:19

Hi. Go ahead. So

14:23

in the latest season of Star Trek Discovery,

14:25

we see the ship go past

14:27

the edge of our galaxy

14:30

into another galaxy where the laws of physics

14:32

seem to differ very greatly. Now,

14:35

is this some way, is something

14:37

theoretical? Is there actually evidence

14:40

that suggests that in another galaxy, but still

14:42

in our same universe, there could be very different

14:45

laws of physics?

14:47

Understood. Yeah, no, I really appreciate that question.

14:49

So yeah, in season four of Star Trek Discovery,

14:53

the crew go past the galactic

14:55

barrier, which was inspired from all

14:58

the way back to the original series, and then

15:00

they enter what's actually a star

15:02

system where species 10c lives,

15:04

and what the species 10c has done is

15:07

they create a bubble

15:09

that's almost like a Dyson Sphere Plus

15:11

that surrounds the entire star system

15:13

and is protecting them from the outside. So

15:17

that was more on the science

15:19

fiction side. It's always a bit of a spectrum, but

15:22

was fun about exploring the galactic

15:24

barrier because that was more on

15:26

the legacy of Star Trek. We

15:28

did actually try to look up if there was any science

15:31

based on that, and just really quickly,

15:33

you know, we do have this thing called the heliopause

15:35

at the edge of our solar system where

15:38

radiation particles from the Sun kind of get

15:40

stopped because they don't have enough escape velocity

15:42

to fully escape our solar system and

15:44

the gravity well of the star. And I was thinking

15:47

like, well, what if there's something similar at the edge

15:49

of our galaxy, like Galactopause,

15:52

if you will. And actually,

15:54

since we kind of were coming up with that idea, I did

15:56

actually see a paper hit the preprint

15:58

archive on

15:59

on the idea of a galactopause.

16:02

And so this idea that there is radiation

16:05

particles. Now, it's not so much that the

16:07

laws of physics in the species

16:09

10c star system had changed, but

16:12

more that they had created an environment

16:14

in which they could live and be protected from

16:17

the exterior intergalactic

16:19

space.

16:20

Very well put. That's like

16:22

a master's thesis right there.

16:25

Sorry, there's a lot of science in one sitting,

16:28

I know. I wanna talk about

16:30

data because data is, I think one

16:32

of the unique things about the Star Trek.

16:35

You know, data for both of you who've been

16:37

in a cave for decades, data

16:40

is an android, he's

16:42

a key star in Star Trek, and

16:44

his desire to become more human all

16:46

the time. Is giving him a

16:48

personality now less science

16:51

fiction-like and more science present, do

16:53

you think? I do think

16:55

so. And you know, for

16:57

people who might not be aware, I

17:00

could recommend it's in my top five episodes

17:02

of Star Trek to watch

17:03

as a measure of a man from an original series

17:05

or from the next generation, excuse me, that

17:08

explores the rights of data.

17:10

And I think watching that with a context

17:13

now that we have with artificial intelligence

17:15

and these great strides that are happening faster

17:18

than we can keep up with is even

17:20

more interesting than it even was back in the day

17:22

because it really forces you to think about

17:25

the rights of artificial intelligence.

17:28

And I do think this is a conversation that we're gonna be

17:30

having for a long

17:31

time and it's gonna dominate our culture in the next

17:33

decade. Kurt in Fort Dodge, Iowa,

17:36

hi Kurt. Yeah, hello.

17:38

Hi there, go ahead. Oh,

17:41

well, I was just wondering, through

17:43

all the different shows and the exploration

17:46

that they represent and everything that they do

17:48

in the universe,

17:49

I was just wondering,

17:51

how come you don't really see a whole lot of

17:54

exploration or explanation around

17:56

trying to understand black holes?

17:59

You do, but you can't see it. No,

18:01

that was a bad joke. I'm sorry. Yeah,

18:04

I mean, we do try to incorporate

18:06

some of that. I mean, thinking about the history

18:08

of

18:09

sort of science, I talked about how science has

18:11

integrated with Star Trek for so long. One of the cool

18:14

things is that in the original

18:16

series, back in the 60s, we still hadn't

18:19

detected a black hole. It hadn't

18:21

even been coined in the literature. And

18:23

I think Captain Kirk at one point says that

18:25

there was like a void of blackness

18:27

in space. And within a year,

18:30

the term black hole had been coined

18:32

in publications, which is about chicken

18:34

and the egg. We don't really know which came first with that

18:36

one. But we have tried

18:38

to integrate some. And even with

18:41

things that we've discovered through gravitational

18:43

waves, we're starting to build out our pictures

18:45

of black holes even just better than we

18:47

knew 10, 15 years ago. And

18:50

so those start to fold into our stories

18:52

a little bit more, this idea of roaming

18:55

black holes. And yeah, obviously,

18:57

you have to have some visual imagery that's going

18:59

to be fun to go with it. In the recent

19:01

season, season one of Strange New Worlds, they

19:04

actually escape an

19:06

enemy. I won't spoil it too much. They escape an

19:08

enemy by utilizing gravitational

19:10

time dilation and slingshotting around

19:13

a black hole. So it's all about just

19:15

trying to find the right scientific

19:17

phenomena that fits the story. You're never

19:19

fearful of going through your wormholes, though, right?

19:21

Oh, no. Star Trek goes through wormholes a

19:24

lot. Exactly. In fact, Deep Space Nine was pretty

19:26

much set at a wormhole. Here

19:28

you go. Jerry in Hebrew Spring, Arkansas,

19:30

welcome to Science Friday.

19:33

Hey, how you doing? Hey there, go ahead. Hey,

19:36

so I got just kind of an off-the-wall question. It's

19:38

more in personality than

19:40

technology. But for your guests there,

19:42

has there ever been anything that was presented by

19:45

a writer or the staff where you just went,

19:47

ah, yeah, and no, that's not going to work?

19:51

I appreciate that question. Do

19:53

you have that power, as you can hear?

19:56

I will say, you know, I do

19:58

think it's important.

19:59

as a science advisor to

20:02

be a positive force in the room

20:04

and to not squash people's dreams

20:06

and ideas. And so I try to

20:08

take a yes and approach

20:11

to story ideas that are presented

20:13

to me. And, you know, sometimes

20:15

it's more important to just say like, that's a really

20:17

cool idea. Let's not explain

20:19

it. Let's just let that be. And

20:23

try to adjust as

20:25

necessary to what we do know

20:26

in science. Yeah, because

20:29

Rich in the, was it your Belinda, California

20:32

is gonna ask about something like that. Go ahead, Rich.

20:35

Yeah, thanks.

20:37

My question was

20:39

how legitimate is

20:41

the transporter and

20:45

the replicator?

20:46

What kind of science do

20:48

you justify

20:50

that whole concept?

20:53

I love

20:55

the transporter. Okay, I'll make this really brief.

20:57

So the transporter with our

20:59

physics knowledge we have now could never

21:02

work because you break

21:04

down all of the particles of the body

21:06

down to almost a subatomic particles and

21:08

you have to know exactly where

21:10

they are to put them back together. And

21:13

Heisenberg's uncertainty principle,

21:16

which is a physics concept, doesn't

21:18

allow that. The more you know about

21:20

where a particle is, the less you know about the speed

21:22

it's going and then there's an ultimate Heisenberg

21:25

like limit that you can't reach. But

21:27

in Star Trek, the next generation, they're repairing

21:30

the transporter at one point and there's a Heisenberg

21:33

compensator.

21:33

Oh, wow. And that

21:35

compensates for Heisenberg's uncertainty principle.

21:38

And how does the Heisenberg compensator work?

21:41

It works very well,

21:42

thank you. You know what I wanna see in Star

21:44

Trek? I wanna see you bring in spooky

21:46

action at a distance somehow. That

21:48

would be really fun. One thing happening

21:51

on one side of the universe is being reflected

21:53

on the other side

21:54

of the universe in the same way. That

21:57

would be awesome. That, yeah. Yeah,

22:00

have you had moments where you've actually had to change

22:03

the science because it's not working for the story,

22:05

you know?

22:06

Yeah, actually we did with in

22:09

Discovery, there was one time where they were trying

22:11

to escape what we had the dark matter anomaly

22:14

and they were writing the gravitational waves out of

22:16

it, which is my technical scientific background.

22:20

And gravitational waves don't exactly work

22:22

the way we were visualizing it. The visuals

22:24

as they're all standing around the table, you

22:26

know, in the ready room, trying to plan this,

22:29

were looking like ocean waves. And

22:32

gravitational waves really look more

22:34

like sound waves, like compression waves that are happening

22:37

in multiple dimensions. And so they

22:39

tried, to their credit, they tried to

22:41

image it correctly like gravitational

22:44

waves look, and it immediately pulled

22:46

people out because you hear wave

22:48

and you expect to see something. And

22:50

so we decided to just leave it looking

22:52

like an ocean wave because it wasn't

22:55

worth the time and explanation it would take

22:58

to explain to people why it looked that way.

23:00

They're just trying to say they're going to ride the waves out.

23:03

Yeah, one concept that we're getting closer

23:05

to with virtual reality is the

23:07

holodeck. Yes. Right?

23:10

Yeah. Oh my gosh. Was

23:12

that

23:13

one of the original ideas in Star Trek? Did

23:15

someone in the early years come up

23:17

with that or did that trickle down later on? I

23:19

think it was really more in the next generation

23:22

is when they explored the holodeck. And

23:25

I will say, I mean, I have a virtual reality

23:27

device and it does throw

23:29

you like it is a weird experience and it

23:31

does feel like the holodeck sometimes. And

23:33

I do think, yeah, we are going to get

23:36

close to that technology soon. Jeffrey

23:39

in Pittsburgh, welcome to Science Friday.

23:43

Hi there.

23:44

Jeffrey, are you there? Hello. Yeah,

23:47

I'm sorry. I just had a break in the signal

23:49

and then your voice. Ira,

23:52

Dr. McDonald, thank you for the very entertaining

23:54

and interesting conversation. Mine

23:57

is a comment and then a quick question. As

23:59

in one. a pharmacy physician and somebody

24:01

that's old enough to be a fan of the original

24:04

Star Trek, a medical tricorder

24:07

was fascinating to me. And as I see

24:09

patients today in my practice,

24:12

it occurred to me that with the micronization

24:14

of sensors as well as

24:17

artificial intelligence machine

24:20

learning, which I'm getting into and interested

24:22

in, we're getting

24:24

close, faster than I think most

24:26

people realize to an

24:28

early medical tricorder. And Dr.

24:30

McDonald, with your access to the scientists

24:34

that you talk to, what are

24:36

your thoughts on that? Yeah,

24:38

good question. Thanks, doc.

24:40

Yeah, I mean, you know, what's interesting

24:42

is I do think necessity drives invention.

24:44

And in the last couple years, we've

24:47

tried to, we've been at a place

24:50

where we've had to have more remote

24:52

medical diagnostic capabilities, where

24:55

you're able to diagnose people from a distance

24:57

or without touching them. And then also technologies.

24:59

I mean, I'm wearing a device on my wrist that's measuring

25:02

my heart rate, you know, is measuring my pacing

25:04

and all of those. And so yeah, certainly

25:06

our technology is getting us there. And I think even

25:08

a few years ago, it's probably

25:10

close to a decade now, there was

25:13

an X prize to try to develop

25:15

a device that could diagnose, I think,

25:17

was like five vital signs and

25:20

diagnose 12 diseases. And

25:22

someone did win that it's just at

25:24

the time prohibitively large and expensive.

25:27

But the technology does exist. And I do

25:29

think, you know, as you mentioned, the

25:31

miniaturization of technology will get us there

25:33

as well, as well as machine learning.

25:35

You know, I kind of think that you

25:37

touched on this before a little bit about

25:39

science education. But I think, you know, speaking

25:42

and talking about these things actually

25:44

makes some of them happen. I'm thinking of the first

25:46

flip phone, right, that Motorola flip phone

25:49

was based on Star Trek, wasn't it?

25:51

Yeah, absolutely. Someone

25:53

wanted to pop open that phone and call the enterprise.

25:57

And it drives that. And I also

25:59

the one I think of too.

25:59

is when we all started getting e-readers,

26:02

those were the exact shape and size

26:04

of the data pads in the next generation.

26:07

And you can't avoid the fact that people

26:09

are watching this on Star Trek or any science

26:11

fiction and think, I really want

26:14

that. And then they work toward

26:16

it and they end up inventing

26:17

these things. Cool. This is Science Friday

26:19

from WNYC Studios.

26:22

Comment from Dan on Twitter who says,

26:24

I teach a first year college course called

26:26

Science Fiction Science Fact. And we

26:28

watched some episodes of Star Trek The Next Generation

26:31

to discuss the importance of science fiction

26:33

in understanding science.

26:35

Which episodes would you recommend

26:38

for teaching science? I love

26:40

Measure of a Man on Data.

26:43

Oh, that's a great question.

26:47

You know, I think one of the best things, oh,

26:49

there's so many good ones, is like

26:52

the science is so embedded

26:54

in

26:55

the DNA of Star Trek

26:58

that, you know, my personal favorite episode

27:01

of Star Trek ever is

27:03

Voyager's Counterpoint. And

27:06

that's where Janeway is

27:08

trying to discover where

27:10

a wormhole is going to appear. And

27:13

it's not so much about educating like what

27:15

a wormhole is, but I think seeing

27:18

scientists science and

27:21

Star Trek does have a lot of that where there

27:23

is a scientific problem the crew is faced

27:25

with and they approach it as scientists.

27:27

And that's something, a role I play as well

27:29

as a science advisor is to advise on

27:32

what information you need and how you approach

27:34

problems.

27:34

You know, I see the evolution, so to speak,

27:36

of Star Trek from the Kirk days where

27:39

they would, they would settle things by fighting out

27:41

in the back lot someplace on a cheap set.

27:44

That's how they settled things. And then they got more cerebral

27:46

later,

27:47

right? But Picard

27:50

solved everything with his brain. He outsmarted

27:53

you.

27:53

He out-fought you, right? Yeah,

27:56

absolutely. They all have their own little approaches.

27:58

And you mentioned the, you know, fighting on the planet

28:01

with fisticuffs. But in that episode

28:03

in arena, Spock and McCoy are up

28:05

watching this fight going and be like, he's not gonna figure

28:07

it out. He's gotta do the chemistry. He's gotta

28:09

do the science. He eventually

28:12

figures it out. If you could move Star

28:14

Trek in some generation, some direction,

28:16

I mean, where would you like to see it go?

28:19

I've really enjoyed

28:22

prodigy and reframing

28:24

these classic Star Trek ethos. Like

28:26

you said, the philosophical, as well

28:28

as the problem solving and the scientific to

28:31

be targeted at kids. And

28:33

seeing more of that, having these more

28:35

hard sci-fi shows that

28:38

are accessible and available to kids, I

28:40

think really can influence

28:42

an entire generation in how they decide

28:45

to pursue their careers.

28:46

Is there a teaching

28:48

material? I mean, do they make teaching materials

28:51

out of Star Trek episodes that they could use

28:53

in schools? Maybe they should be doing that.

28:55

I mean, I've heard, I've certainly heard a lot

28:57

of teachers as the

29:00

commenter mentioned who use science

29:02

fiction. In fact, I did as well. And for

29:05

Star Trek Prodigy, we also did a series

29:08

of webisodes that people can watch that was

29:10

the science of Star Trek Prodigy, where we did

29:12

short five, 10 minute explainers

29:15

of the science in these episodes. So people can

29:17

go and find them there, where you watch Prodigy

29:20

and they're also available streaming online because

29:23

we do wanna find ways to teach through

29:25

Star Trek.

29:26

I think it is so effective. Yeah, it is. And

29:28

I guess once you get hooked on Star Trek, you're

29:30

hooked. You're hooked. You're hooked.

29:33

So if you get hooked on, because kids

29:35

are natural born scientists, they wanna

29:37

know how everything works. They

29:40

wanna take it all apart, they'll make mistakes.

29:43

And you kinda get that vibe from Star Trek.

29:46

Absolutely. Yeah, I agree. We're

29:48

all scientists at heart starting

29:50

out. We problem solve. Dr. McDonald,

29:53

good luck. You have an enviable

29:55

job, I think. Thank you. Dr.

29:57

Aaron McDonald, science consultant for the Star Trek

29:59

Prodigy.

31:37

Lance

32:00

Odett, Executive Director of the nonprofit

32:03

Friends of Pando, which is dedicated

32:05

to preserving the tree. It's based

32:07

in Ridgefield, Utah. Welcome to Science

32:09

Friday. Thanks

32:10

for having us. Thanks for having us, Ira. Huge

32:12

fans. Thank you. You know, I described

32:15

the picture of this tree when I look at the picture

32:17

of Pando. It does look like a forest, Lance,

32:19

and not a single tree. What's going on here? Well,

32:22

Pando is a tree

32:24

of one.

32:25

We haven't known about it very long, but basically

32:28

it's one seed. And that

32:31

has split and sort of like a

32:33

giant algorithm. It's spread out

32:35

over time towards us in history. So all

32:37

those trees are actually, as I said before, they're

32:40

branches. Yeah, so they're

32:42

genetically identical branches. They

32:44

look like tree trunks to us. The botanical

32:47

term is stems, technically, but most

32:50

people think stems is like a weed

32:52

in their yard or maybe something coming off

32:54

a rosebush. These are fully sized parts

32:57

of one tree that's all connected by this

32:59

massive root system. Yeah,

33:00

I know I've experienced that when I try

33:02

to dig a hole for my plants and there are all these roots

33:04

under there. You got it. Or branches. Yeah.

33:07

Are all aspens like this, Lance?

33:10

No, but all aspen have

33:13

the ability to self propagate.

33:16

The self-replication is actually a

33:18

reproductive strategy.

33:20

Often we see what are called

33:23

aspen clones, typically in

33:25

response to some stress event. The tree will

33:27

kind of,

33:28

in human terms, of course, it's a tree. Make

33:30

a decision. Am I going to just try to

33:32

do the pollen thing or am I going

33:34

to just self-propagate?

33:36

And so Pando has been self-propagating

33:38

towards us in history for about 9,000 years. 9,000 years.

33:42

What does Pando mean? Why is it called

33:44

Pando?

33:46

Boy, there's a lot of interesting history there around

33:48

that. Typically, the people who discover

33:50

something in the botanical world or

33:52

in biology,

33:54

they get to name it. Basically, they

33:56

nickname the tree Pando and that's Latin

33:58

for eyes spread. They called

34:00

it that because of how it

34:03

spreads out over its land mass. It dominates

34:05

the land that it calls home. It's a

34:07

stable aspen. Wow. Okay, Jeff,

34:10

let's talk about recording Pando. You

34:12

hold out your microphones next

34:15

to Pando. Why are you attracted

34:17

to this? What did you do actually?

34:20

Well, I've been recording sounds in the West for

34:22

more than 20 years, and I've always loved

34:25

the sound of aspen trees. I mean, it's really

34:27

a defining sound of the West for me, of

34:30

the delicate, trembling

34:33

sound of it. That's

34:35

the first thing that attracted me, and I always

34:37

like recording aspen, but

34:39

just the chance to record the

34:41

largest organism on Earth is

34:43

just such an incredible opportunity. I

34:47

was interested in the challenges that that posed.

34:49

What does that mean to record such

34:51

a large organism? I

34:54

set about trying to record it from all different angles,

34:57

from the leaves to the roots. So

35:00

you actually stuck your microphone into

35:02

the trunks of the trees and down to

35:04

the roots? Yeah, I started recording

35:08

traditional recordings,

35:09

like ambisonic recordings

35:11

of the soundscapes, the birds

35:13

and the leaves and the weather.

35:16

But there's a great story about

35:18

how we started recording the roots.

35:21

I wanted to find

35:22

another way of listening to Pando,

35:25

and I'd heard that trees

35:27

make vibrations and that people have recorded

35:29

those vibrations, and I thought, wouldn't it be interesting

35:32

to record the roots of Pando?

35:34

And I really didn't know what that meant, but

35:37

I asked Lance if he could

35:40

show me where I could find some roots that

35:42

I might be able to hook a microphone to. Lance

35:45

knows everything about Pando. He's been photographing

35:48

the

35:48

forest for years,

35:50

making one of the greatest photographic

35:52

surveys of any tree.

35:55

So he was able to show me some

35:57

places where I could put my microphone.

36:00

And we found a hole

36:02

in one of the branches, essentially, at the

36:05

base. And we were

36:07

able to access the roots at that point and

36:10

plug the hydrophone in, sort of like plugging

36:12

into a socket, really.

36:14

All right, let's take a listen. We have a recording of

36:16

that. Let's hear that now. Wow.

36:28

It sounds like we New Yorkers are

36:30

subway train going by. What

36:35

are we listening to? So

36:37

that's the sound of

36:40

the leaves, I think, rattling

36:42

on the tree in a thunderstorm. A thunderstorm

36:45

rolled in and it created a lot of wind

36:48

that then blew the leaves that trembled.

36:51

And the vibration of those leaves

36:53

passed all the way through the tree right into

36:55

the ground where we had the hydrophone.

36:58

And it's this delicate,

37:00

trembling sound is strong enough

37:02

that it actually vibrates the earth, in a

37:05

sense. The story of that day,

37:07

I mean, it's still exhilarating just to think about it. And

37:09

it's great to be here with Jeff talking about that moment

37:11

because we were just both like,

37:14

wow, for the first time we're hearing

37:16

kind of the like we put a submarine in

37:18

the ground and we're hearing Pando's

37:21

subterranean soundscape for the first time.

37:23

And I already knew there's a lot of applications for

37:25

this, but hearing it after spending

37:28

what, seven years in the tree was just

37:30

I was literally jumping up and down for joy, Ira.

37:33

Amazing. Lance, I assume that you know

37:35

every inch of Pando. So what was it like

37:38

hearing the sounds from underground?

37:40

Did you hear anything new? It was exciting.

37:42

And yes, we heard a lot of new things.

37:45

We heard the sound of the storm traveling

37:47

through one of these branches that can reach 80 feet

37:50

into the sky. And I think, as I remind you, Pando's

37:52

homeland is already at about 9,200 feet. It moves

37:54

between about 8,900 and 9,200 feet.

37:59

of the sounds themselves, Ira

38:02

learned a lot.

38:04

But when we first recorded it, me

38:06

and Jeff were in the field. He's like,

38:08

come here. And it reminds me of that quote

38:11

about what's exciting about science. It's

38:13

not, oh, well, this

38:15

is true or not true. It's, what's

38:17

that? And so we're

38:19

out in the field. And this happened to be a sunny

38:22

day. And I'd scouted some locations for Jeff.

38:25

And Montju, Pandora's root system is so dense

38:27

that the trees don't tend to break off at

38:29

the foot or uproot, like you

38:31

see a lot in the Pacific Northwest or other parts

38:33

of the world. They just literally kind of break

38:36

off at the ground like a matchstick. And so it's

38:38

hard to get into the root system. And

38:40

Jeff's like,

38:42

what's that? It was exactly that. It

38:44

was what's that? And that was exhilarating.

38:47

Well, I can bet. And I have a picture

38:49

of Jeff walking around, shaking

38:52

a lot of branches, figuring

38:55

out what to record. Was it something like

38:57

that?

38:58

Yeah, it was very organic. I

39:00

mean, it was an exploration really of

39:02

Pando. And I didn't always

39:05

know what I was going to find. And it was a

39:07

real surprise that

39:08

the second that I

39:10

put on my headphones and started listening to

39:13

the hydrophone, I heard a signal that

39:16

I wasn't sure what it was. And yeah,

39:18

we started exploring

39:20

and actually wondering, well, are

39:22

we connected to the root system? And are

39:24

these branches connected to each other by sound?

39:28

And we started banging on trees in

39:31

different parts of the forest away from

39:33

the hydrophone. I think Lance walked about 100 feet

39:35

away from where

39:37

we were set up with the microphone

39:40

and started banging on a tree. And you could hear the sound

39:43

passing through the ground into the hydrophone.

39:45

Whoa, whoa, wow. Let me stop you there,

39:47

because I know you recorded this. Let's play

39:49

a clip of this to hear what that sounded like.

40:02

The thumps, they are subtle,

40:04

but they are there. So the sounds

40:07

are traveling almost 100 feet

40:09

through the ground from tree to tree.

40:11

When we were doing the banging on the tree, we

40:14

don't know for sure that that was, that

40:16

banging was passing through the roots. You know, it could have

40:18

been passing through the soil.

40:20

And there need to be some, you know, real scientific

40:23

studies to determine that.

40:25

This wasn't a scientific expedition.

40:27

It was an exploration of

40:29

discovery. But, you know, it certainly

40:31

shows that the branches and

40:34

the sound from the branches, it's all interconnected.

40:37

And I think that's the takeaway, you know, whether

40:39

it's passing through the roots, they're going to have to do some

40:42

special studies to really determine that. But

40:45

it doesn't take away from the fact that it's

40:47

interesting and that it's, you know, that it shows

40:49

an interconnectedness. Yeah. All the more reason

40:51

to go out and study Pandos some more. Yeah.

40:54

We've been doing some research on the background based

40:56

off just work to talk about how

40:59

we can use sound. And there's a lot of really exciting

41:01

developments there that tell us, tell

41:03

us. Well,

41:04

we have a few. It's early, but

41:07

I'll give you an example. Pandos

41:09

homeland is in a grave and that's

41:11

the place where there's a like a fault line

41:14

and it's spreading apart because there's hot magma

41:16

below. So Pandos landmass is

41:18

littered with volcanic boulders

41:21

and lava fields. So it's really hard

41:23

to get a subterranean picture of the tree. So

41:25

imagine then, you know, based on

41:28

Jeff's work and some other work we're doing with other

41:30

researchers that we could use

41:32

sound to literally trace the

41:34

root system of Pando and identify

41:37

how all that works to better take care of the

41:39

tree. And so would you learn about the

41:41

soil and water flow and things like

41:43

that? And maybe even the wildlife

41:45

living there underground? Absolutely. So

41:47

yes, we can definitely look at soil

41:49

quality. We can look at water

41:51

as far as wildlife. Jeff did record

41:53

wildlife and we have plans to set

41:56

up audio conservation systems

41:58

or bioacoustic stations.

41:59

in the tree this year to help us with

42:02

wildlife. Then when you're looking at water,

42:04

nutrient transposition, disease, things

42:07

like that,

42:08

it's reasonable to assume

42:10

that trees that aren't doing so well may

42:12

have different frequencies because aspen

42:14

or water-hungry trees. And so basically

42:16

each of these trunks is acting like a transducer.

42:19

We may be able to use sound in a way. So beyond

42:21

the subterranean, there's a lot of work that

42:23

this could help us with above ground as well, interesting.

42:26

Jeff, one of my favorite recordings you made

42:28

is a little mystery critter that

42:31

your hydrophone picked up.

42:33

Let me play that clip for us now.

42:46

Like a buzzing. What is that?

42:48

That was the question I asked when I first

42:50

heard it. You know, these recordings,

42:53

typically I make them in the field and I don't

42:55

get to hear them until I get back to the studio.

42:57

And I was just

42:59

listening in the studio

43:01

to the underground recording

43:04

and suddenly I heard this

43:06

little voice and I just

43:09

was stopped in my tracks. I thought, what

43:11

is that? Again, that question, what is that?

43:14

And I think it's just, it

43:16

might be a beetle or something. You're

43:19

always discovering new sounds

43:21

when you're, when you make recordings and there's

43:24

a lot to the underground soundscape.

43:26

Lance, do you have any guesses of what that might be?

43:28

So I feel somewhat confident to say

43:31

that that was the sound of foxes

43:33

and burrows. Our field crews are trained

43:36

specifically to watch out for

43:38

those because they'll dig them under giant juniper

43:40

bushes and they are very deep. So

43:43

my assumption is it could have been a

43:45

burr call, but most likely

43:47

it was foxes underground because Jeff,

43:49

correct me if I'm wrong, wasn't that recorded during

43:52

the storm? It was recorded during

43:54

this thunderstorm, although

43:56

I would disagree that it's a fox. This is the kind

43:58

of thing that we go back and forth. forth on Ira,

44:01

but yeah. I imagine. It's pure speculation

44:03

as to what it is, but somebody has

44:06

told me that it would they thought it was a beetle and that's

44:08

what it sounds like to me,

44:09

but whatever it is, it's

44:12

I call it the mystery creature and it's just

44:14

an indication that there is a mystery

44:17

world beneath the

44:19

tree and in the underground substrate.

44:23

This is Science Friday, I'm Ira Playdough.

44:27

In case you're just joining us, I'm talking

44:29

with Jeff Rice, a sound artist

44:31

and co-founder of the Acoustic

44:34

Atlas that's at Montana State University

44:36

Library, and Lance Oded,

44:39

executive director of the nonprofit

44:41

Friends of Pando, and together

44:44

they created an acoustic portrait

44:46

of the largest tree on earth

44:49

named Pando.

44:51

What is the health of Pando? Is it

44:53

flourishing? Is it being threatened? There

44:55

is some research that has

44:58

suggested that it's dying, but

45:00

what people have to remember is that Pando

45:03

regenerates itself and that's a hormone

45:06

cycle and so the hormone cycle

45:08

that sends regeneration has not ended.

45:12

Well, we know that it's still doing the hormone

45:14

cycle that basically when a branch

45:16

falls, a bunch of that hormone material

45:18

goes back into the root, the root goes, hey, send another

45:20

one up, I got a balanced energy production,

45:23

regeneration, and defense. In

45:25

terms of like collapse and things like that, Ira,

45:28

there's been some data that suggests that

45:30

we're heading in that direction and there

45:32

are models to abate that and

45:35

we are official partners with Fish Lake National

45:37

Forest dealing

45:38

with those issues, but

45:41

again there are models

45:43

for what is called Aspen Collapse and

45:45

Pando is nowhere near that by the best

45:48

models or estimates, so while there

45:50

is a lot of headlines to that effect, we

45:52

just need to know more. It's early, Ira, it's

45:54

only been 14-15 years

45:57

since we just really said, oh my

45:59

gosh, this thing

45:59

thing is really here. It's the largest

46:02

tree in the world. It's

46:05

a tree that redefines tree, what

46:07

a tree can be, what a tree can mean. Incredible.

46:10

Jeff, obviously,

46:11

as a radio person, I love sound.

46:14

I've dealt with it most of my life. But

46:16

what do you as a sound recordist, what

46:18

do you take away from all of this? Why

46:21

do you take such care to

46:23

record the sounds of our world?

46:25

Partly just fascination, but I

46:28

always learn so much when I turn on my

46:30

microphone. And the more

46:32

I recorded Pando,

46:34

the more I learned about it. And my goal

46:36

was to really figure out what's the sound

46:39

of one of the world's largest

46:41

organisms. And what I came

46:43

away with understanding was that

46:46

sound is lots of different

46:48

things. It's the birds

46:50

that live in the tree. It's the

46:52

foxes and the insects underneath the

46:54

ground, and it's the leaves and the earth

46:57

shaking in the storm. It's the weather.

47:00

It's all connected. And so I

47:03

think that's the true voice of Pando.

47:05

And that's what excites me about recording

47:08

is just

47:09

getting a sense of that interconnectedness

47:12

of the soundscape.

47:15

Well, you know, there's that old Clint

47:17

Eastwood song, I Talk to the Trees.

47:20

And I guess now we could say the trees are talking back

47:22

to us. So thank you both

47:24

for taking time to be with us today. Fascinating

47:26

stuff. Thank you. Thank you, Ira.

47:29

Jeff Rice, a sound artist and co-founder

47:31

of the Acoustic Atlas at Montana

47:33

State University Library. He's based

47:36

in Seattle. And Lance Oded, executive

47:38

director of the nonprofit Friends

47:40

of Pando, based in Ridgefield, Utah.

47:44

And that's about all the time we have for today.

47:46

If you missed any part of the program or you'd like to hear

47:48

it again, subscribe to our podcasts or

47:51

ask your smart speaker to play Science

47:53

Friday. And of course, you can say hi to us all

47:55

week, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram,

47:58

on social media, or email us. SciFri

48:00

at ScienceFriday.com. Have

48:03

a great weekend. We'll see you next week. I'm

48:05

Ira Flatow.