[♪ Blackalicious rapping Chemical Calisthenics ♪]

♪ Neutron, proton, mass defect, lyrical oxidation, yo irrelevant
♪ Mass spectrograph, pure electron volt, atomic energy erupting
♪ As I get all open on betatron, gamma rays thermo cracking
♪ Cyclotron and any and every mic
♪ You’re on trans iridium, if you’re always uranium
♪ Molecules, spontaneous combustion, pow

♪ Law of de-fi-nite pro-por-tion, gain-ing weight
♪ I’m every element around

(Dr. Regina) Welcome to Spark Science where we explore stories of human curiosity. I’m Regina Barber DeGraff and today’s show was recorded at Geek Girl Con 2017 in the Seattle Convention Center. We hope you enjoy the show.

We are at Girl Con and I ran into one of my favorite people. We actually plan the march for science together in Bellingham with other women. We had a great time. That was in April. April 20th, 21st or something like that.

(Astrid) I’m Astrid Amara.

(Regina) you’re going to have to figure out who I’m talking about. We have a past show where Natalie was there doing interviews for the march for science.

(Astrid) That’s right.

(Regina) You are not a scientist but you are a science enthusiast. A lot of your work is related to science because you write science fiction, you take care of animals and deal with a lot of their diseases which is very science like. Let’s talk about the animals first. Then we will get into Astrid’s writing career.

(Astrid) I help run a goat rescue. It’s called Newman Farm Goat Rescue and Sanctuary. We are a 501C3 non-profit organization dedicated to finding new homes animals that have been either neglected or have been surrendered by animal control or by owners. A lot of people like most animals will get animals and not realize what the responsibility will be long term.

(Regina) like, this goat is going to eat my hedge.

(Astrid) Baby goats are probably the cutest things ever. Everybody loves to get a couple of baby goats. Then the baby goats turn into adult goats and the novelty wears off. Then we have people who have to get rid of their goats for the other legitimate reasons like they have to move. Goats are a herd animal and can get depressed. You can never have one goat. If one goat dies the second goat is brought to the rescue because they need to find a companion. That’s what we do from that aspect. We do a lot in terms of parasite management. There is not really a big field of research on Caprines. Caprines are goats basically. Caprines are any of the goat family. Caprine science and veterinary care is a relatively new field. A lot of it is based on livestock management. We are looking at it from the perspective of animal care as pets. It’s a very different form of veterinary care. Our focus really is on the health and longevity of the animal. Not so much the byproduct of the animal which is what the majority of the scientific care has focused on like the quality of milk or the quality of meat.

(Regina) You were telling me, I remember, when we were planning the march for science you were telling me about the different kinds of ways that goats get sick. You and your mom were learning about diseases, parasites, all of the kind of things that can go horribly wrong. Tell me about that.

(Astrid). One of the things is basic parasite management. We started getting really excited because finally got microscopes at the rescue so we can do our own fecal samples.

(Regina) That’s what you were talking about and I was giggling all of the time.

(Astrid). Up until now, and at the moment because our herd is either parasite free or we have two members of the herd right now that are being treated, because now our herd is parasite free we haven’t had to do this. We have the equipment now so when we get a large number of new goats in we can do our own fecal samples. This means taking poop samples from goats, it’s pretty easy, then we analyze them using basic text books. We can see what they have and then choose the right wormer for them.

(Regina) so we’re talking about worms.

(Astrid) Yes. Predominantly worms. We have lice as well and there are a couple other parasites. The worms are the worst ones.

(Regina) what happens when they have these worms. How bad is it for these goats?

(Astrid) a lot of goats can have a worm load or parasite load that is pretty basic and will not be a big problem for them. Of course like any creature, once the parasite load is too great it will impact their digestive systems. They will not be able to absorb nutrients in a quite the same way. They will get sick pretty easily and then it’s hard to turn them around. The problem is really young and older animals that we see. If the babies come in and they have Coccidia, and we’re finding that a lot of the de-wormers that we have are not very effective. We would have to get more and more advanced medicine in order to save the babies from dehydration and dying from malnutrition because of the worms. It’s exciting stuff. Studying goat poop. [Laughing]

(Regina) I knew from the grapevine that sheep are very fragile. Sheep are hard to take care of. They get sick. They die. Is that similar to goats?

(Astrid) I think they’re pretty hardy. One of the things I will say about them as a breed is, unlike your dogs and cats, they need really minimal care. I’m not saying to get a goat and put it in the back field and just leave it there forever. They need shelter, clean water, food, etc. Generally speaking, they’re pretty hardy animals. They were one of the first domesticated animals just after dogs. We’ve had goats for a really long time and we have learned to breed them in such a way that they are not susceptible to most of the diseases out there.

(Regina) haven’t we had sheep for a long time? What happened with that?

(Astrid) Sheep too. Sheep can be hardy but the thing is, I’ll be honest, I don’t know that much about sheep. We get sheep at the rescue occasionally. Sheep care is a little bit different. There is similarities in terms of hoof care and their diet, those needs are really similar to the goats. They do have more of a propensity to have certain parasites than the goats do.

(Regina) we’re going to go to your authorship. I did not know this about you when we were planning the march for science that you are also an author. We saw you upstairs in the exhibitor booth here at Geek Girl Con. First of all, have you ever been to Geek Girl Con?

(Astrid) This is my fourth year at Girl Con.

(Regina) How have I not seen you?

(Astrid) I don’t know and I’ve been on panels for the last 3 years. That’s usually why. I’m usually in panels. This is only the second time that I have been part of an exhibitors working with Blind Eye Books which is a publisher of LGBTQ+ science fiction fantasy. Then they have a separate press called One Block Empire that does LGBT mysteries.

(Regina) Tell us about your first novel ever and then tell us about your other stories.

(Astrid) The first book I wrote is called the archer’s heart. It was a fantasy novel based off of the Mahabharata which is an Indian epic. With that story, the Indian epic of the Mahabharata is an amazing story. It’s got magic, it’s got horses, it’s got battles, it’s got class war fair, you have religion in there, you have so many different elements and it just seemed to lend itself naturally to writing a fantasy story.

For me, I’m really interested in the stories of minorities and groups that are typically not represented in science fiction fantasy which is not true anymore but go back 15 years ago and there wasn’t that much. It would be hard to find a good gay fantasy novel. Now there’s a lot of them. That was sort of the impotence for writing The Archer’s Heart which was a story that I really loved and I wanted to tell it as a romance. It’s a romance between an archer and his second cousin who is sort of a magician of sorts. It was a semi-finalist for the Lambda Literacy Award in the year that it was published in 2008. It did really great.

(Regina) that’s awesome! So that was your first sci-fi, sorry that was your first fantasy novel. What about sci-fi? What made you want to get into something that is more-sciencey?

(Astrid) I love reading science fiction. I think science fiction allows you to explore the boundaries of not only the real world but it gives you a chance from a storytelling point of view to take things to extremes. Rather than say, “oh I had this bad day because I failed this test” you can say “oh I had this bad day because the planet Exploded!” It’s way more dramatic and more fun. The most recent pure science fiction story I wrote, Song of the Navigator, which has to do with space travel and colonization and has a lot to do with minorities in colonies and being sort of controlled by corporate enterprises. So a lot of politics get into that story. Then I also wrote a science fiction story about sort of brain washed assassins in a satellite colony. So, lots of fun stuff there. All with a romantic twist because ultimately I like all of my stories to have some sort of love interest in it. It’s typically two soldiers or two guys of some sort falling in love.

(Regina) Is it always guys?

(Astrid) For me yes. [Laughing] I write what I like to read and I think that it’s interesting so there’s a whole genera of writing that’s called MM Romance. It’s basically the LGBTQ fiction. A lot of it is written for straight women. It’s an interesting offshoot of gay fiction and has really kind of grown in terms of the market.

(Regina) There’s anime for that too right?

(Astrid) Absolutely. It’s an offshoot. That’s how I got involved in this also. I was a Yawe lover and consumer long before I ever started writing gay romance. It was
Yawe that woke me up to that world and how much I love it.

(Regina) Do you have any advisors or do you research the science in any of your sci-fi novels? How do you go about that?

(Astrid) I typically do as much research as I can. If there’s something that I can’t figure out through inquiries of asking, I use forums a lot on line and do a lot of book reading research. That’s kind of the fun of doing something in realty or in history. If I can’t figure it out that way I will make it up. That’s the beauty also of science fiction and fantasy.

I can’t make up the science if it’s going to be science fiction but I can change the perimeters of the world that I’m in to basically make it work. I had this one problem where I had a planet in Song of the Navigator, it’s a carbon dioxide planet. Everyone who lives there has been genetically modified to be able to breathe carbon dioxide so they have a sort of a plant lining in their lungs. I had this real problem because I was like, what kind of vehicles are they going to be using. It’s not going to be a combustible engine. So, this was a real challenge for me to have to ask scientists and be like, if you were going to create a vehicle that was going to run on a carbon dioxide planet, how would that work for you?

(Regina) Solar, done.

(Astrid) Hey, that would’ve worked. I didn’t know you then but in now I do. I have a source. Like the main character he’s an oxygen breather. He’s not from the planet.

(Regina) It’s like Romeo and Juliette.

(Astrid) He has to wear a mouth piece in order to live there.

(Regina) How do you make out with a mouth piece?

(Astrid) It’s a nose piece. It goes from the corner of the mouth and it doesn’t interfere with the necking. That was by design.

(Regina) It’s a romance novel!

(Astrid) That’s the first thing to figure out. I was also thinking, how would things taste? If you were breathing in a carbon– would it add a sour taste to the earth? What would water taste like if you’re drinking water in a carbon dioxide environment?

(Regina) I don’t know.

(Astrid) That’s kind fun to think about. What would that be like?

(Regina) Do you have any science, I ask this to my guests, is there a type of science that you’re really geeky about? I know that’s not what you do for your living but is there something that you really like?

(Astrid) I’m a big fan of weird biology. I think that things like molds are really fascinating. Slime molds that move, I think that sort of weird half biological elements of the world, even things like lichen are really fascinating to me. That’s kind of the scientific stories I’m most intrigued by are discovering really weird parasites and strange life forms that don’t really fit in the boxes we have. Things that you couldn’t really describe by saying animal, vegetable, or mineral. Those kind of outside of the box parts of the world are the most fascinating to be.

(Regina) Thank you for talking to us.

(Astrid) Have fun at Geek Girl Con. It’s such a fun crowd.

(Regina) it is! Thank you so much.

[♪ Janelle Monae singing Wondaland ♪]

(Regina) We’re here at Geek Girl Con for the third year in a row and we’re interviewing other scientists. We’re talking about what they do, what they’re doing here at Geek Girl Con, how do they make science accessible, and I’m here with, I’m going to let you say your whole name yourself.

(Dr. Nicole) I am Dr. Nicole Gugliuccu. I’m on twitter as noisy astronomer. I’m an astronomer and physics professor in New Hampshire at Saint Anselm College. We were just discussing the long flight length to here. I drove down to Boston to fly out here. My background is in radio astronomy. I helped build radio telescopes looking at, for hydrogen in the early universe.

(Regina) Awesome!

(Nicole) In my post doc I actually did education stuff. I worked with a citizen science project called Cosmo Quest. You’ve heard of this?

(Regina) I’ve heard of all of the citizen’s science. That’s a lot of astronomy. On like Z Universe and stuff.

(Nicole) Yes. Galaxy zoo is one of the first ones. Astronomy is a good one to take lots and lots and lots of data, images, spectra, things that have to be looked at often still by humans because the computers don’t do a terribly good job of seeing things like faint old eroded craters on the moon for example. That’s one project that we had. I worked with that. I’m still finishing up a paper of what motivates citizens scientists spend hours of their free time to help us do science. It’s about what motivates them and what keeps them going. Now I’m a professor and I’m teaching full time. I have an intro to astronomy class. We’re building a new astronomy minor, hoping to have an astronomy major coming soon with the physics department.

(Regina) Is there anyone who does citizen science, I would say any citizen science that you know of in the Northwest?

(Nicole) There’s a professional organization, The Citizen Science Association. So, lots of scientists that run projects who are part of that group. It’s a good way to find people.

(Regina). For our listeners, if you want to do some science and you’re not necessarily a science major or not a post doc or a PhD scientist you can do that.

(Nicole) Go to SciStarter. You can pick out, there are things you can do by grade level if you want to include your children, things you can do outdoors, things you can do indoors with your computer, there’s just a whole wide range. There’s a lot of data out there still to be processed and collected which people can help with. What’s really nice, not necessarily for astronomy but for some other projects, you get local knowledge. You get people who are knowledgeable about their local natural environment. We don’t have any Martians necessarily helping us in citizen’s astronomy but we do have enthusiasts that are familiar with looking at galaxies and stuff that can help out.

(Regina). So you’re talking more about the environmental science. There’s a lot of water testing, observations of certain animals that are around. That kind of stuff. I think there’s one that’s called dolphin watch. It’s in Australia. It says, if you’re in a river and you see a dolphin let us know. [Laughing.] I wanted to talk to you also about, you have a humongous twitter following. You have like 17.8 thousand followers. [Laughing.] Our listeners can’t see you but you’re fairly young. When did you get your PhD and how did that happen where you became this science communicator? Our show would like to know.

(Nicole) Part of it was procrastinating in grad school. Maybe don’t do that. [Laughing.] I did finish. I actually started twitter in grad school. It was a newish thing. I was trying to do some science blogging for fun on the side. Since I was a grad student at astronomy university of Virginia, I got to hang out with Phil Plait the Bad Astronomer. He has a huge following. We met and reminisced over, is this professor there, is that professor there? So we became friends. When Phil starts to follow you, you get a lot of flowers.

(Regina) So, make famous friends.

(Nicole) yes. Make famous friends. [Laughing] After a while, just some blogging on the side and then I worked for a few years doing as a freelance blogger for the discovery Chanel. Again, somebody I met, we still have not met in person, I’ve worked for him for four years but we have not met in person. O’Neil, who is also a PhD astronomer was running the blogging site at the time and hired me on for a little bit as a freelance writer. I discovered in grad school because we all had do to a little bit of outreach as part of our program in addition to our research. I loved doing outreach and I wanted to get better at it. I love teaching and my outreach made my teaching better. I have kind of looked for opportunities whenever they come up to do that.

(Regina) My question is what is your favorite thing to write about? You’re saying that you do these science write and this blogging but for our listeners, what is actually your favorite thing but also what actually gets the most traction?

(Nicole) What gets the most traction is not what I like to write about exactly. One of my favorite things is black holes. You can talk about black holes, that’s always good. Black holes, exoplanets, looking for planets around other stars, looking for stars, those always get big hits. Gravitational waves is a hot one right now. I think they have discovered the third gravitational wave source. They now have enough for a catalogue, you have to have three.

(Regina) Three is a lot.

(Nicole) Three is a lot when we had zero just a few years ago. My favorite things to write about though are, I haven’t had time to do this in the last few years, when I was in grad school I would pick out papers that I thought were interesting that had come up like scientific papers that didn’t have any press release for them.

My favorite topic is always radio astronomy. We’re going to be launching a blog soon with help from the national radio astronomy observatory. A very large array which is why this isn’t working on audio. I’m waving my arms in a V-funnel shape. Like YMCA. I’m YMCA-ing a wide shape of antennas in New Mexico. They just started a new sky survey.

We are planning a series of blog posts about the survey from scientists working on the survey, working on the data but also again making sure that it’s not so jargon heavy that someone with just an interest can read it and understand what’s going on? I like the behind the scenes, how stuff gets done stories.

(Regina) so what’s your field in radio astronomy that you want to look at. There are many things you can look at in the universe with a radio telescope but what do you like to look at?

(Nicole) My favorite thing to do, which I haven’t done in a while, is using an array of telescopes called the very long baseline array. Its ten identical telescopes spread across North America and using them to look at regions that are super close to super massive black holes. These little tiny, well not tiny, these huge radio jets, even the huge ones have tiny versions of themselves. That was something I did a few years ago, was looking at these tiny ones. It’s possible that they just turned on in the last few thousand years. That’s a very short time astronomically.

What I shifted to working on now, because something I want my students to get more involved in, there’s a radio telescope just 40 minutes from us run by MIT. They do more Astrochemistry, so looking at molecules in gas clouds in star forming regions, places where stars are dying, etc. Because you can really get hands on experience with that telescope, I’m getting a little bit more into that because I had a student last year that worked with me. A chemistry major that wanted to do astronomy too.

(Regina) There’s a lot of things they can do.

(Nicole) Yeah.

(Regina) What about Arecibo and stuff? Have you ever been there?

(Nicole) I have not been to Arecibo that is on my bucket list. I have a good friend that is a post doc there named Kristin Joan. We’ve been keeping track of them thanks to ham radio operators. They were the first people to get messages off the island about who was where.

(Regina) This is in Puerto Rico.

(Nicole) Yes.

(Regina) This may not air super soon so remember when there was a hurricane and horrible devastation. I actually just heard an NPR story about a ham radio operator. He’s sitting there and suddenly gets messages and starts calling people on the main land for people in Puerto Rico because all of the lines were down.

(Nicole). That’s where we first heard about a guy in Pennsylvania who’s a ham radio operator, got Kristin’s mom’s number and called the mom and the mom posted on Facebook to tell everybody.

(Regina) It might be the same guy. I heard he was in Pennsylvania.

(Nicole) Yeah. That might be him! Oh my gosh. We’ve been getting messages back and forth. They are doing OK. It sounds like they’re doing well on the site but, yeah. That’s an issue under development. Now that I have a friend that works there, I may need to visit but time is always money. I’m on the east coast so not too far but time and money are tight.

(Regina) Definitely. As a science communicator you are trying to go out there and then the less sexy part of astronomy, radio astronomy.

(Nicole) [Laughing] Right!

(Regina). I see that you’re at dragon con, you’re at Geek Girl Con. What’s the reason you want to do that? What’s the drive that you want to come to these cons as a scientist? What’s the benefit?

(Nicole) part of it is I’m a big nerd and I like going to cons anyway. You’re actually into cosplay, I’m not really into cosplay.

(Regina) I’m like, what do you mean nerds? I don’t understand this. [Laughing.]

(Nicole) I started going to Dragon Con just as a nerd and then they were doing all this science and space programming. I was like, “oh my goodness.” Science fiction fantasy fans aren’t necessarily like into science but they’re really easy to hook into science if they have an interest in science fiction like space battles right?

(Regina) I feel like there’s a part of their brain that’s like, “I love science.” Then it’s like caged by fear and intimidation. If you can just open that cage, that’s what I would like to do.

(Nicole). Yeah. When I was working with CosmoQuest, we used to set up a booth where people could come out and try the Citizen’s Science website so we would like steal people who were waiting in line for autographs from celebrities. Actually I was into science before I was into science fiction. I had a very since fiction deprived childhood. [Laughing]

(Regina). I had friends like you. That’s OK.

(Nicole) It took me a long time to realize all that was out there. Now I’m a total geek. So, it’s hard, I see it as I’m one of the people at the con too. These are my people too. You know? I’m a big dork but if I can bring that extra, here’s some cool science stuff that you haven’t heard of before, that’s like super bonus.

(Regina) You’re down at the DIY zone. Last year and the year before we came here and we spent a lot of time just like, my daughter, she’s 8 almost 9, she’s around here with my friend and her friend. They spent almost all day at the DIY zone. Basically there’s, I would say, I don’t know how big in area, I don’t know, basically it’s a lot bigger than when we started. Two giant classrooms of just tables of people doing science and kids getting to take home knowledge in their brains but also physical things. It’s amazing. What is your booth?

(Nicole) We’re making solar system bracelets. I simplified it as much as possible. We have these pony beads. We use the black ones as spacers and basically the ones, the gas giants Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, they’re all spaced out. I even have Pluto. I like Pluto and I like their series because dwarf planets are cool too. So, we have kids making solar system bracelets. The one that is the sun reacts under ultraviolet light, changes color, glows in the dark, so that’s pretty cool. I was super excited that they had those on hand. I was like, “oh yes I want those! That’s the sun, that’s the sun.” Since these are not an accurate scale model I do accurate scale model of the sun and earth. So the sun is a three inch stress ball and the earth is like a tip of a match stick that’s painted blue and there 26 feet apart. That actual size and distance of things in the solar system. It’s just to give you an idea of how much empty space is in space.

(Regina) Did you ever do the double AS ambassadors? I did.

(Nicole) Really? We did that here a couple of years ago.

(Regina) I did the one that was in Seattle. The Seattle Double Ambassadors. It was 2014, 13, something like that. We had done the strips of paper and then they told us the joke where you have the strips of paper and you ask them what planet do you think, if Pluto is on one side of the piece of paper, and the piece of paper is the height of you, the sun is at the top of your head and Pluto is at your feet, what plant do you think is going to be right in the middle? People will say, “I don’t know, Mars or Jupiter?” I’ll let you tell the punch line.

(Nicole) It’s Uranus because it’s right in the middle. Right where your butt is. I will never forget that.

(Regina) I was laughing harder than any other adult. And they were like, it’s not that funny. I thought it was funny.

(Nicole) We were not in the same group then because I also lost it when they did that. I was so excited.

(Regina) People were chuckling. I was like, this is the best thing I’ve ever heard! I’m a child.

(Nicole) We did that one here a few years ago, we had little stickers for the planets. They went home with those pocket solar systems.

(Regina) Kids love it. Kids love it. Accept the serious ones that say, ” That’s not funny.” Then obviously you don’t have a sense of humor. I want to ask, you were saying that you became a geek later in life. I was very much like, Batman animated series, Star Trek Next Generation as a tween but I’m wondering, what is your favorite geekdom? It doesn’t have to be science related.

(Nicole) It was the X-Files. That was the first science fiction thing I discovered and that’s what got me hooked. It literally wasn’t until I was in grad school that I caught onto Star Trek and the things that my friends grew up on.

(Regina) What about context since you’re a writer?

(Nicole) Oh that? That’s what got me into astronomy.

(Regina) Are there representations of astronomy and astronomers in pop culture that you don’t like? Or ones that you do like? That’s one of the last questions I will ask people. How are we represented in pop culture? Is it good? Is it bad? How can we change? What can we build on?

(Nicole) I have mixed feelings about Big Bang Theory. At first I was like, yay it’s us! But then I was like, OK this is a little old. It’s the same old jokes and there were no characters until later on that reflected woman around me or people of color or accounts. They all have accounts. [Laughing] sometimes I can reference things in there because Ruether Pauley will be doing something that is relevant to something that I have done as an astronomer.

(Regina) Shooting the moon was really cool.

(Nicole). That’s right. And none of them teach either. Teaching is one of my big responsibility and they are not teaching professors. I think Ellie Arroway might be my favorite representation of an astronomer and was written by Carl Sagan who was an astronomer.

(Regina) What about Thor’s girlfriend, Natalie Portman?

(Nicole) I don’t see her doing a lot of astronomy though.

(Regina) Yeah but she’s chasing down storms because that’s what astronomers do?

(Nicole) We run away from storms. [Laughing] I run away from storms.

(Regina) Like Twister, like meteorology.

(Nicole) I see her more as a theoretical physicist. I am crap at that kind of stuff so I don’t identify with that as much. I did dress up as her. I still did the costume like the one boob dress with armor. My friend Ryan Console who is an engineer in Canada made me some nice armor.

(Regina) I want to say thank you so much.

(Nicole) Thank you!

[♪ Janelle Monae singing Wondaland ♪]

♪ Dance in the trees
♪ Paint mysteries
♪ The magnificent droid plays there
♪ Your magic mind
♪ Makes love to mine
♪ I think I’m in love, angel

(Kristy) My name is Kristi Riddick.

(Jessica) And I’m Jessica Honecker. We are the bug chicks. We are entomologists who teach about insects and spiders in really fun and interesting ways.

(Regina) What did you guys do today at your booth?

(Kristy) The first set up we had was with our live animals. It was interactive hands on. Kids could hold and pet and touch different animals that we brought. Then we had a microscope set up kind of like an old school lab. We had these old digital microscopes from Celestron we had some dead specimens up on pins and we had some of our computers hooked up to the microscopes so you could see them on a larger screen. When you asked what we did here today, what I really wanted to say was, we changed lives, we changed minds, and we changed hearts. What we really do with insects and spiders is we teach people to be brave.

It’s not just about being brave about holding a caterpillar or looking at a tarantula, it’s about having a unique bravery for yourself and how you interact with the world.

[♪ Janelle Monae singing Wondaland ♪]

♪ This is your land
♪ This is my land
♪ We belong here
♪ Stay the night
♪ I am so inspired
♪ You touched my wires
♪ My supernova shining bright

(Regina) I’m here with Dr. Raychelle Burks. She is the creator of the DIY science zone which is amazing. Every single year we’ve been here it’s been phenomenal. It’s gotten bigger and bigger and closer and closer to the registration.

(Dr. Burks) It has gotten more and more Lasers.

(Regina) I just want to say it’s been amazing. Welcome to our show.

(Dr. Burks) Thank you!

(Regina) I’m so excited to start a conversation.

(Dr. Burks) Awesome!

(Regina) First of all you are a chemist. We start our interviews with origin stories. Since we’re at a comic con, what is your origin story to become the great scientist that you are? The great science communicator as well!

(Dr. Burks) I never wanted to be a scientist. When I was little I wanted to be a lawyer. I was the Alex picking kid, I had a little brief case and I went to the law library on the weekend. I was reading law books learning about collateral estoppel. I was a delight. Then I went to a junior high, I went to a trip to DC which of course if you want to be a lawyer that’s an awesome trip.

(Regina) That’s the mother ship.

(Dr. Burks) when I was there, we had a chance to tour the FBI office.

(Regina) Mulder and Scully!

(Dr. Burks) At the time they had a couple of scientists, forensic scientist, and that was so cool. That’s what got me into science. Before that I literally didn’t care. We can go to space, nothings in space, who cares.

(Regina) For our listeners she is wearing a Hidden Figures shirt.

(Dr. Burks) right? I just didn’t see the usefulness of it. I didn’t see what the application was. I didn’t see scientists that looked like me. They were all old white guys with crazy hair. I just didn’t see the point. I was like, why are we spending all of this money to go to space when we had problems on earth. Like I said, I was a delight as a child.

(Regina) You wanted to be a lawyer to help people.

(Dr. Burks) Yes. So then once you get into science and you have a better perspective of what it is and what you can do and the power of it, that totally changed my world view. It changed what I wanted to do for a career. It all happened because of a school trip in the 7th grade.

(Dr. Burks) 8th grade, sorry, 8th grade

(Regina) I like how you’re like, I didn’t want to be a scientist, it changed later in life. You meant in 8th grade.

(Dr. Burks) Yeah. Well you know, sometimes scientists are like, I knew I wanted be a scientist since I was in a crib. That’s not me.

(Regina) I will actually let the listeners let you feel better, know that I have interviewed over 100 scientists now and the majority do not know as they were babies. The majority are like, I found this in college even. You were one of the earlier ones.

(Dr. Burks) I think I’m hanging out with some real dorks then. [Laughing]

(Regina) You are. I think media and sometimes our academia is skewed.

(Dr. Burks) I think people do a little bit of revisionist history. They get younger every time a person asks. They change, they shave off 5 years each time their asked. For me it was junior high. So I did that and I worked in a crime lab for a couple of years.

(Regina) Where?

(Dr. Burks) Actually in Oregon. I did that and I decided that I missed research and teaching so I decided to go back into academia and now I’m a professor.

(Regina) Where did you get your PhD? What was that path like? You were in 8th grade wanting to be a scientist and then there was a whole trip to get to that.

(Dr. Burks) It’s a lot of work. I have a bachelors in chemistry, a masters in forensic science and a PhD in chemistry. I got my PhD from the University of Nebraska Lincoln. Go big Red! [Laughing]

(Regina) They have a really amazing interactive astronomy website with all the simultaneous. You can play with them and take quizzes.

(Dr. Burks) It’s a great chemistry department. They have great physics and they have a great observatory. That too was in grad school when I started doing a lot of science writing. When I was in grad school I did an internship with Chemical Engineering News. It’s a magazine for the American Chemical Society. Then I wrote a couple pieces for the local paper, I started doing blogging, etc. That’s where I got my start doing writing. Then, going on and doing more blog posts. I’ve always been a nerd. Everyone in my family is a nerd you know, they’re Trekies for the most part.

(Regina) Do they like the original?

(Dr. Burks) We’re talking hard core Trekies, all the Treks.

(Regina) All the Treks.

(Dr. Burks) We’re very excited about discovery. We are always big pop culture people. We love zombies and Red Claw sci-fi horror like giant lobsters from space. That’s really like the love of trying to explain it. It wouldn’t work but its super funny. You can’t get lobsters that big. [Laughing]

(Regina) As a kid chemist, you’re a biologist but you also understand that realm. The idea of zombies in nature, like the infectious thing that goes into ants and shoots out of their heads.

(Dr. Burks) It’s funny because I did this Sci Pop Talk at U and L five years ago. When I went back into academia I did a post document at Crete Nebraska, a half hour from Lincoln. Then we started a talk series called Sci Pop Talk that connects science and pop culture. I did a chemistry of the zombie apocalypse. There are many problems obviously with zombies and vampires. Numerous problems.

(Regina) People don’t like to combine zombies and vampires. That in itself is going to get yelled at.

(Dr. Burks) We had a debate. Another professor and I did a debate of zombies versus vampires. Neither one of them is feasible as written. But what are some ways we can come close? Actually rabies would do the trick for both. If you had a combination of leprosy and say Necrotizing Fasciitis which is the flesh eating disease, you’re not going to be around for very long. [Laughing.]

(Regina) There’s a cultural thing too. I remember as a science major, because we’re giant geeks, we would argue about the idea of zombies and vampires but regional and cultural and how it’s different in each culture.

(Dr. Burks) It is.

(Regina) We talked about mummies versus zombies versus vampires. In China and Asia they are more like zombies. There are Chinese vampires that wear all yellow and they hop. They hop and their arms are out. Their arms are horizontal not up and out. They are forward and out. They don’t suck blood, they suck your breath. They are blind and they can’t see you. They can hear you breath. Natalie, the chief engineer is making faces. She’s like, this is terrifying. When I was a kid, my mom was from Taiwan, she would say that if a Chinese vampire is coming at you, they’d be hopping towards you very fast. She said to hold your breath and run. I was like, oh my god that’s terrifying. As you run, how are you going to hold your breath? It’s not a blood thing it’s a chi, like sucking your soul or essence.

There are these things called trip blocks in China. If you go over a house there is a raised area where you could trip over it. That’s so ghosts and spirits and zombies and vampires would fall over that. They could hop over it I guess but I don’t think they are that coordinated.

(Dr. Burks) I think the interesting part too is that mummies tend to be more mystical magical. But depending on where you are talking about vampirism or even zombieism could be tied to some kind of mystical religion or something in that way. Mainly though, zombies, there is something about a visceral reaction for people. The camera shoot thing I wrote was about the Walking Dead. They kind of used zombies, because how do zombies know you’re not . . . they have no upper brain function, how do they know you’re not a zombie. There is a good scene in the show where the writer’s crowd sourced a solution.

They decided that the people didn’t smell dead or walk like they were dead. Basically we came up with zombie camouflage. This is when they go out, get a corpse, and cover themselves. As a chemist that’s not scalable. So I made a synthetic, like a thought experiment about it, so, what chemicals do I need to put together to make a sprayable mass produced cologne. So, a couple chemicals and we made a little video about it. It was really popular. Its putrescine, cadaverine, and also sulfhydryl. They stink. They smell like their names.

(Regina) So you’re saying it wouldn’t be scalable like you wouldn’t be enough on you to make a zombie believe that you are another zombie.

(Dr. Burks) When I say scalable, if you need a corpse each time, that’s not scalable in the idea of, if everyone is needing to have their own bottle or their own repellent. First of all it’s a biological hazard. More importantly, whatever other diseases the person had, on the other hand, horde of zombies, potentially help C. Let’s just do it. It’s fine. However, you can just do a Cologne. It’s synthetic and you can make as much as you want. There is actually a great paper but you can modify E.coli so they can produce putrescine and cadaverine and sulfhydryl and they’re gasses. They basically fart them out.

(Regina) E.coli farts this out?

(Dr. Burks) In big tanks. You just put them in a big tank and collect it all in a gas. You can make whole bottles of this stuff.

(Regina) This is amazing. Sorry I cut you off when I said science. I was thinking you were going to say that depending on what culture you are in the thing is more mystical than not. If you’re talking about zombie apocalyptic movies that have come out recently in the last 20 years rather than in England.

(Dr. Burks) Their definitely science based. Something is wrong. There is some potential contaminant.

(Regina) If you look at our zombie movies from the 20s, or whenever movies came out. Sorry listeners.

(Dr. Burks) It’s either nuclear — sci-fi also mimics sociopolitical things. There’s a lot of classes of movies where everything is a nuclear accident. Nuclear accident zombies. Nuclear accident giant lobsters. Nuclear accident 50 foot woman or Godzilla. Something happens and a horrible monster thing happens along with it. When you look at a sci-fi channel movie, which I love because they are so awful, they’re so awful that they have swung back around to be awesome again, a polt of that is always, at least 85% of the time, a scientist was trying to invent or solve something. Of course it goes horribly wrong and either a giant shark or Python/squid hybrid or something is let loose. It could be a tarantula that spews lava. I think that’s actually a real one. I think its Lava Tarantula. That’s it! That’s what it’s actually called!

(Regina) As soon as you said that, an image came into my head that I’ve seen before. I think you’re right.

(Dr. Burks) Lava tarantula! I think there’s a sequel. What I love too about these sci-fi movies, no matter how good or how bad, it always gives you a way to talk about science. Either it’s because it’s completely impossible or sometimes the science is actually true in some way. To me it’s a fun way that you can bring up a lot of topics and talk about science in a more fun way than just like, look at this text book, awesome.

(Regina) You need to shake up the lecture a little bit. So you teach now, where do you teach?

(Dr. Burks) I’m at St. Edward’s University in Austin Texas.

(Regina) I wanted to say that we actually had a whole bunch of cultural and medical anthropologists on this show. We started talking about disaster movies and what does that say about humans and how humans interact in those movies? Who’s the good guy, who’s the bad guy? Who do you save, who do you not save in those disaster movies and what that says about society.

(Dr. Burks) I think the thing with zombie movies or any monster movie, especially zombies, is that you could have it not be zombies and have it be say, Hurricane Catarina or Hurricane Harvey or Irma.

(Regina) Or Maria now.

(Dr. Burks) Or Maria. The thing is, what’s more interesting than the zombies? Quite honestly we’ve seen fast zombies, we’ve seen slow zombies and every incarnation between. The most interesting thing is how quickly humans turn on each other. Or, how quickly they don’t and in what ways they form new communities.

(Regina) We’re reading a study about someone who is unemployed for more than a year. This was during the recession and everything. If you’re unemployed for more than a year, that uncertainty and what it does to you is the same kind of depression, the same kind of mental stress, that a death in the family, it was like up to two years, that’s what that kind of stress and depression will do to you. If people can read that article and they relate to it and think, yeah I can see that, not having a job, not knowing how you’re going to pay your bills without stability.

Consider being a person in this country dealing with that stress. Be it economic, racial, profiling, gender, be it any kind of discrimination that you have to deal with on a day to day basis, that’s your whole life that is based in uncertainty. How do I relate that to people? Death in the family after two years versus 30 years of having to deal with stuff like that.

(Dr. Burks) It’s a conversation piece. In my house growing up, sci-fi and horror movies were good, you could have whole conversations and it was fun and in a way that you’re talking about the movie but you’re not. Everybody agreed, we were talking about aliens, sure.

(Regina) I want to thank you for talking to me. Please check out Spark Science if you ever have time for a spark science film. I’ll probably see you again at DIY or at AAAS. Thank you so much.

(Dr. Burks) Thank you!

Music take me back to wonderland
Underpants grass grows inside
My music floats you gently
I’ll be your secret..

(Regina) This is Geek Girl Con and we’re here for the third year in a row. I’m here with Jen. We met her at the exhibit hall. I want you to tell us a little more about the booth you’re at, the company you work for and the kind of, why are you at Geek Girl Con.

(Jen) Totally. I run a company, FoxBot industries. It is me, myself and I at the moment.

(Regina) Are you the CEO?

(Jen) I am the CEO, founder and owner which is excellent. And CTO and all of those wonderful things.

(Regina) Give us your full name and title then.

(Jen) Absolutely. My full name is Jennifer Fox but my online handle/what most people know me as is Jen FoxBot. I’ve been working on building this company for a couple of years. My goal is to empower woman and girls in STEM. Also, to show folks that science and technology are accessible, practical, fun, and it doesn’t only have to be in that very strict realm of, “we’re going to do a really rigid experiment.” Sometimes it can be silly little things like you can make a hover craft out of a leaf blower and some wood.

(Regina) Let me take a step back. When did you have the idea to start this company and what does this company actually do?

(Jen) Absolutely. I started my education in physics. I wanted to be a cosmologist for a while. I worked for a dark matter lab when I was an under grad.

(Regina) Where was this dark matter lab?

(Jen) Occidental college. The adrift directional recoil indemnification from track experiment. It’s fantastic. It’s amazing. I learned so much and I had a great time but the BP oil spill happened when I was in that lab. I realized that I really cared about the environment and I really cared about people, humanity and our impact on the environment. Let’s be real, climate change, the earth is not going anywhere, it’s us that are going to go somewhere. I felt like because I cared, I should contribute to solving some of those problems.

Even though I really love physics and it’s still a passion of mine, I switched engineering for grad school. I went to UCLA and did mechanical engineering. Within that, I designed and built a soil moisture sensor that controls an irrigation system for urban farms. I can conserve more water and also save time dealing with the plants. That’s kind of what opened Pandora’s Box for me. I was like, wait, you mean I can actually, there are tools and technologies available that I can afford that I can actually solve problems. I wrote that up as a tutorial at an office job at an engineering firm for about a year. Then I got a gig with a consulting company so that I could really focus my time on building this company.

(Regina) You thought about this company while you were at the engineering firm just working.

(Jen) I really started with the soil moisture sensor. I wanted to turn that into a commercial product. I spent about a year doing that applying to grants. I got in the top three for this $250,000 grant. They came back and said, “You know, we really like you and we really like your idea but what we’re really looking for is for someone to do this for the rest of their life.” I was like yes! That is not me! I was thinking like 5 years and then I would move on to the next thing.

Actually, that was really beneficial. Because of that I decided, you know what, I’m going to show people how to do these types of things. I took that project, wrote it up and published it under an open source license on instructables. It is still by far my most popular tutorial even above the hovercraft. Who would have thought?

It’s practical. A lot of people want a garden, a lot of people want to do urban farming which I think is super awesome. A lot of folks can look at that tutorial and learn how I did it and actually implement it in their garden or their urban farm. After I started doing the tutorials, I realized, oh, this is what I’m really good at, making things and showing other people how to make things. I sort of pivoted after that time and reached out to Spark Fund Electronics. I said hey, I do these things, would you want to pay me to do these things? They were like, yes! So, I became a hacker in residence for Spark Fund Electronics and they were my biggest client.

Since then I have had a few smaller clients here and there kind of like small scale one on one tutoring type stuff. Then I also got a contracting gig with the Lavin Computers Museum. I do a curriculum development for them and help teach really cool workshops. That’s pretty much where I’m at.

(Regina) I did your workshop upstairs. You’re messing around with bread boards and stuff. Sadly my students do not get to have the same experience I had. We went to the same institution but over 15 years ago there was an electronics lab and we got to make our own bread bowls. Like, drill the holes. There was a copper cover and then you made the lines and then you put it in acid and it ate everything away that wasn’t under Sharpie. It was amazing. Looking at your thing made me think about that class.

(Jen) That’s the goal, right? It’s to show people practical, useful tools. Then they can go home and actually implement.

(Regina) Basically you’re telling me you’re this kind of consultant that goes around and does tutorials in various forms be it work shops or actually going into a company and saying, “let’s do this.” What’s your next step and how do you want your company to grow?

(Jen) I’ve got big dreams.

(Regina) It’s good to have big dreams.

(Jen) There’s a lot of work to do to get to where I want to go. What I really envision myself doing is doing more of training teachers. So, teaching teachers to teach the way I do. I was fortunate enough to be involved with the Maker Education Initiative. I learned a lot from them about how we can teach people without giving them step by step instruction. Maker education based learning, that type of thing. That’s really what I want to do. I envision having like minions of teachers going around the country and teaching these types of project based learning workshops, showing folks how to teach themselves complicated subjects like science and technology, how to read technical documents, how to think critically, how to problem solve, even just beyond stem, teaching folks super important life skills. Failure is OK. Mistakes are good as long as you acknowledge them and learn from them. That’s really important. I think that helps develop you as a person and gives you a more open view of the world.

(Regina) Everything you do is, I know you said it’s not just science-y but it seems that there is a lot of science involved too. When we are here at the Geek Girl Con, what’s one thing you fall back on to get kids really interested in science?

(Jen) One thing that I have really noticed with kids and adults alike, there tends to be this inherent fear that they will do something wrong. That’s what I’m really trying to eliminate. One of my approaches is to gamify science and tech. I say that I like to trick people into learning. That’s kind of the whole concept behind the bread boarding game. You come in because it’s a fun, kind of cartoony game that you’re like, “what’s this it looks fun?” because it is fun.

Then all of the sudden you’re building circuits and you’re like, “oh! I see!” You’re using the actual tools and components that engineers use to build circuits. All of the sudden, because instead of being this academic, you must build this circuit exactly as it is on the schematic, it’s giving you more power and more control over the situation so it kind of opens it up.

I like project based learning because I’m not grading them. I remind students of that all the time. I tell them, “Hey, I’m not grading you. It’s OK if it doesn’t work. This is your project. It should be something that you have control over. You need to build it so that you feel empowered by it and that you like it. It’s your project.” I’m empowering them to take control and ownership over their work.

(Regina) It’s so beautiful what you said. I grade my students.

(Jen) It’s the system. And honestly with physics and with science and tech there’s a certain right answer and there’s a certain wrong answer. Also, if you’re going to go and work for Boeing or NASA, yes, I would like those engineers to know what they’re doing because I don’t want to fly in a plane that is going to fall apart.

(Regina) Thank you so much for talking to us.

(Jen) Thank you very much.

[♪ Janelle Monae singing Wondaland ♪]
♪ Early late at night
♪ I wander off into a land
♪ You can go, but you mustn’t tell a soul
♪ There’s a world inside
♪ Where dreamers meet each other

(Regina) Thanks for listening to Spark Science. If you missed any of our show go to sparksciencenow.com or KMRE.org and click on the podcast link. Spark Science is produced in collaboration with KMRE, Spark Radio and Western Washington University. If there’s a science idea you’re curious about, send us a message on twitter or Facebook @sparksciencenow. Today’s episode was recorded on location in Seattle, Washington. Our producer today is Natalie Moore. The engineers for today’s show are Andra Nordin and Tory Highley [sp?] Our theme music is chemical Calisthenics by Blackalicious and Wondaland by Janelle Monea.

[♪Blackalicious rapping Chemical Calisthenics ♪]
♪ Lead, gold, tin, iron, platinum, zinc, when I rap you think
♪ Iodine nitrate activate
♪ Red geranium, the only difference is I transmit sound
♪ Balance was unbalanced then you add a little talent in
♪ Careful, careful with those ingredients
♪ They could explode and blow up if you drop them
♪ And they hit the ground
[End of podcast.]