Today, you’ll learn about how doctors may have accidentally confirmed that our lives do flash before our eyes just before death, the scientists aiming to legitimize art and music therapy as treatment for mental trauma and how scientists are pulling diamonds out of thin air! ... Essentially.
Today, you’ll learn about how doctors may have accidentally confirmed that our lives do flash before our eyes just before death, the scientists aiming to legitimize art and music therapy as treatment for mental trauma and how scientists are pulling diamonds out of thin air! ... Essentially.
Your life flashing before your eyes isn’t just a thing in movies. It’s real.
We don’t understand it yet, but art and music therapy work wonders.
NPR’s audio and written stories on the matter
Stop mining for diamonds! Just pull them out of thin air.
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Find episode transcripts here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/fading-into-memories-music-for-the-mind-air-diamonds
TITLE:
FADING INTO MEMORIES, MUSIC FOR THE MIND, AIR DIAMONDS
Follow Curiosity Daily on your favorite podcast app to get smarter with Calli and Nate — for free! Still curious? Get exclusive science shows, nature documentaries, and more real-life entertainment on discovery+! Go to https://discoveryplus.com/curiosity to start your 7-day free trial. discovery+ is currently only available for US subscribers.
NATE: Hi! You’re about to get smarter in just a few minutes with Curiosity Daily from Discovery. Time flies when you’re learnin’ super cool stuff. I’m Nate.
CALLI: And I’m Calli. If you’re dropping in for the first time, welcome to Curiosity, where we aim to blow your mind by helping you to grow your mind. If you’re a loyal listener, welcome back!
NATE: Today, you’ll learn about how doctors may have accidentally confirmed that our lives do flash before our eyes just before death, the scientists aiming to legitimize art and music therapy as treatment for mental trauma and how scientists are pulling diamonds out of thin air! ... Essentially.
CALLI: Without further adieu, let’s satisfy some curiosity!
[SFX: WHOOSH]
NATE: Ah that light is bright!
CALLI: Don’t walk towards it Nate!
NATE: Calli I’m not dying, you’re just shining a flashlight in my face.
CALLI: Well what if I told you scientists might have an idea of what you would see if you were dying?
NATE: We have an answer to the greatest unknown question?
CALLI: We’re getting closer. Doctors recently captured the first images of a dying brain when a patient suffered a heart attack during an EEG. What they saw is raising questions about what it means to die, and could give us insights into what our final living moments will feel like.
NATE: Ok Calli, that's cool, if not a tad dark. But how do you get an EEG of a dying patient? We can't exactly predict death, can we?
CALLI: Let me set the stage: An 87-year-old male went to a Vancouver hospital after getting a brain bleed from a fall. Doctors operated to deal with the bleed, but two days later the patient started having seizures. To get a better sense of what was going on in the brain, doctors administered an EEG.
NATE: An EEG, or electroencephalogram, is when they put tiny metal disks connected to wires all over your head to pick up your brain waves.
CALLI: I’d love to get a look inside that knowledgeable head of yours Nate. Unfortunately, the man had a heart attack during the procedure, and had signed a DNR, or do-not-resuscitate, which asked doctors to not intervene in such an event. The doctors didn’t, and the man died shortly thereafter.
NATE: If they didn’t interfere, that means the EEG was running…
CALLI: During the entire end-of-life episode.
NATE: Oh wow. You usually have to give Charon a couple coins for that view.
CALLI: What they found raises some real questions about when exactly life ends, as the brain continued to function even thirty seconds after the heart stopped.
NATE: That's fascinating.
CALLI: In the final moments, the doctors observed brainwaves, including high frequency gamma oscillations that we usually see in healthy patients as they do intense cognitive tasks, like concentrating, dreaming, or even….recalling memories.
NATE: Memories…like, parts of his life coming back to the surface?
CALLI: Maybe. But it's hard to tell with this patient. He had epilepsy, which can alter gamma waves, was on medication to help with the seizures, and we had no baseline of his healthy brain. It's a laundry list of things that could alter his brain activity in those last few seconds.
NATE: But if this image of a dying brain was so….let’s say blurry… can we rely on what they saw?
CALLI: Doctors had the same concern, so they held off on publishing anything about this event until they could find a similar case. But…we rarely have this sort of “dark luck” to study a brain as it dies. In fact, we still have just one.
NATE: Without other proof it feels more like Ghost Hunters than science, right?
CALLI: Well, the doctors did finally find a parallel study. It just didn't happen in humans, it happened in…rats.
NATE: Was this from the lab of Dr. Charles E. Cheese?
CALLI: (Laughs) No, this study didn't come with a ball pit and cheese pizza. Researchers looked at the brains of healthy rats as they died. They reported seeing brainwaves until 30 seconds after the heartbeat stopped, strikingly similar to what happened to the Vancouver patient.
NATE: So, we might have the same dying process as rats? I guess we all are the same in death.
CALLI: The findings have led some researchers to think that this sort of memory recall might be a universal experience for dying mammals.
NATE: Our lives, and those of dying cats, dogs, and even dolphins could flash before our eyes in the final moments. I find that oddly comforting.
CALLI: Me too. Once they found this similar study, the doctors published their information on the dying man’s EEG in the hopes that this might be the impetus for further research.
NATE: While we can’t predict death, if I knew I was getting close, I’d love for them to study my brain, try to capture the final moment.
CALLI: Me too. Still, scientists aren't sure what exactly the brain is doing, but something powerful seems to be happening. In the last moments of our life, our brain is working hard, and it seems to be associated with memory.
NATE: I hope they’re good memories.
CALLI: Many of the doctors involved say that's what they’re choosing to believe.
NATE: Belief and science, living and dying. It's kind of like seeing the spiritual and scientific meet.
CALLI: It's why so many of us got into science, to study those unknowns. And for the first time in history, answering this question might not be the last discovery we make.
[SFX: WHOOSH]
CALLI: Nate, I want to talk to you about something near and dear to my heart.
NATE: Oh, wow. Hit me with it.
CALLI: Well, before you get too excited, it’s important to say that this is emerging stuff. There aren’t many studies to back it up, and that’s actually kinda what the story is about: an initiative that hopes to apply scientific rigor to promising anecdotal evidence that arts therapy can help with serious brain conditions.
NATE: Arts therapy. Now I see why you were so excited!
CALLI: Yes, it’s at the cross section of neuroscience and arts. In my sweet spot. Obviously, we host this science podcast, but what our listeners might not know is we are also both sculptors.
NATE: Yes!
CALLI: So, this has really piqued my interest. The folks at this initiative even think that maybe there’s an entire field of neuroscience emerging here, studying how the brain and art interact.
NATE: I could absolutely see that. Arts are a part of every culture ever discovered. But, wait, what’s the initiative?
CALLI: It’s kind of incredible. So, using art in therapy sessions has yielded quite a bit of success for people. But, it’s a little mysterious as to why it’s working. What’s going on in the brain? How can we guarantee repeatable results? As you know, in the sciences, we have to be rigorous.
NATE: Yes, the scientific method should always be applied, otherwise all sorts of human biases and errors can make their way in and muddy the outcomes.
CALLI: Yes, precisely. So, I was reading a story from NPR, and they were talking about an initiative called NeuroArts Blueprint.
NATE: NeuroArts. Like, neurology, plus arts.
CALLI: Not the biggest mystery, but thank you for solving it. Yes, and the founders of NeuroArts Blueprint hope that by pushing for more scientific research into arts therapies, that they can bring relief to patients who are struggling to find solutions to their PTSD, stroke-like symptoms, Alzheimer’s, dementia, Parkinson’s, depression, and all the other brain baddies.
NATE: That would be wonderful.
CALLI: A pretty striking example of the potential for arts therapy, specifically music therapy, for people with serious brain conditions comes from a man named Michael Schneider. Schneider suffered multiple brain injuries during his long tenure in the Marines. He had stroke-like symptoms after one incident and was unable to feel the entire right side of his body.
NATE: Oh, wow.
CALLI: Eventually, that got better, and he had years where the issues had subsided almost entirely. But then, they caught up to him again in the form of PTSD, and seizures. Sometimes, up to forty a day.
NATE: Forty seizures a day! That’s terrible!
CALLI: No kidding. Sadly, his doctors weren’t able to help him, until one day, they referred him to a program called Creative Forces, which is an arts therapy initiative for military service members and veterans, and he was able to make some progress.
NATE: How so?
CALLI: A music therapist there, named Rebecca Vaudreuil was able to tease out Schneider’s history with music and theater. In particular, she saw that he could sing, and found out he had dabbled in opera singing.
NATE: An operatic marine??
(Calli sings a couple bars of Con Te Patirò?)
NATE: Wow, very nice.
CALLI: Thank you, thank you. Eventually, Vaudreuil and Schneider landed on him toying around on the ukulele as a way to bring his stress down.
NATE: And that worked?
CALLI: He said it undid some of the intense training that had him in fight-or-flight mode when he didn’t need to be. Since bringing music back into his life, the seizures have become way less frequent. His anxiety is down. He’s been able to connect better with his family.
NATE: That’s incredible!
CALLI: I know. It’s wonderful. From a science perspective, though, it’s just a story, so NeuroArts is going to look deeper into it. There is, however, already some science behind this.
NATE: Like what?
CALLI: Well, we know for example that multiple parts of the brain light up when you hear music, when you play music, or even when you’re imagining playing music. And they think that the activation of so many parts of the brain at once, which reinforces, creates, and re-awakens connections in the brain ... that that can help with brain recovery.
NATE: Incredible. Man, I don’t even know how you begin to study something like that.
CALLI: Advanced brain imaging. Thanks to things like fMRIs, which help show which parts of your brain are working in a given moment, they should be able to get a concrete picture of the changes in the brain before, after, and even during arts therapy.
NATE: Right, right, right. Brain imaging provides hard data. Do some areas of the brain function or connect better? Are more areas lighting up over time? Maybe brain waves get involved.
CALLI: Maybe! This is exactly why they need those studies. What’s happening? How can we replicate it?
NATE: So, one day, if I’m in the unfortunate position of needing to recover from a traumatic brain injury, I might find myself in an arts therapy center where I’m sculpting toward recovery.
CALLI: Absolutely. If the people at NeuroArts Blueprint have their way, and the science they’re looking for is actually there, then yes. Until then, maybe avoid traumatic brain injury.
NATE: Oh absolutely. Just until then though. After that, all bets are off.
CALLI: Hey, maybe you can finally learn to play the drums.
NATE: A silver lining if I’ve ever heard one.
[SFX: WHOOSH]
CALLI: I’m starting this segment off with a question. Nate, how do you make a diamond that fights climate change?
NATE: Give it a great mind for political policy?
CALLI: Wow, that’s a better answer than I expected from you.
NATE: Thank you?
CALLI: The answer lies in how you get the carbon to make the diamond.
NATE: Make a diamond? I thought you get diamonds from the ground, like in caves.
CALLI: Yes, that has historically been the most common way we get diamonds, but due to human rights concerns around diamond mining, lots of places have been popping up, making what are called “lab-grown” diamonds. They make those by ...
NATE: Nah, I know. They pay Superman to crush lumps of coal into diamonds.
CALLI: Nate, do you think Superman is real? Wait, don’t answer that. Of course he’s real, sweetie. But, that’s now how.
NATE: I get it. ... He’s busy saving the citizens of Metropolis.
CALLI: Yes, yes of course. So, since they don’t have Superman, sometimes they mimic the real heat and pressure that makes a natural diamond. Or they use a process that involves breaking down carbon gasses, like methane. Broken down enough, and they can manipulate the carbon so it attaches in thin layers to a tiny pre-existing diamond seed.
NATE: Would be easier to have Superman do it.
CALLI: Obviously.
NATE: So, how does any of this fight climate change?
CALLI: Great question. The answer is multifold.
NATE: Of course, because we’re talking about diamonds, you must mean multi-faceted.
CALLI: I can’t believe I missed that one!
NATE: To quote famous co-host Hoda Kotb: A co-host’s job is to pick up the other co-host when they fall while co-hosting.
CALLI: I dunno if she said that, but I’m sure she felt that way. Okay, so the first big step to making a diamond that fights climate change is all about the energy you use in the diamond making process. That needs to be clean. Solar, nuclear, wind, whatever.
NATE: This is a given.
CALLI: It should be! Then the next piece is about the carbon you’re using for the diamond itself.
NATE: Right. Like you were talking about at the beginning. You really distracted me when you brought up Superman.
CALLI: Nate, you brought up Superman.
NATE: There you go again! Okay, so, diamonds are made out of carbon, which means you could make them from fossil fuels, right?
CALLI: And some diamond labs do that! But, there’s one diamond startup called Aether Diamonds that had an idea to do something different. In 2018, they founded their company on the mission of using atmospheric carbon to create sustainable diamonds. The first of their kind.
NATE: Oh, wow. So, they pull carbon from the atmosphere and make it into diamonds?
CALLI: Exactly. Well, basically. They actually buy their carbon from a company called Climeworks, and Climeworks pulls the carbon out of the air and sells or stores it. Sometimes they’ll do it for companies who want to reduce their overall carbon footprint. But, Aether makes diamonds. Plus, they have some interesting secondary goals. Namely, they hope that by selling a high-end product that’s made from carbon, that they can support carbon negative technologies like “direct air capture,” which is what Climeworks does.
NATE: Wait, how does that support the technology?
CALLI: Well, the hard truth is that money is the driver of a lot of innovation. If not explicitly enforced by policy, these new technologies need to be profitable for them to survive. So, while removing carbon from the air is a good thing for humanity, the development of the processes to do so could die, without significant investment. And a profitable business model that includes the technology will keep those methods alive and developing for years to come.
NATE: So, it’s kind of a combo profit and non-profit business.
CALLI: Yes. Now, I’m not quick to give out that kind of praise or pat the back of a company for nothing, but Aether is one of only four-thousand companies in the last decade that has received B Corp status.
NATE: B-Corp status? Whuzzat?
CALLI: B Corp Certification is given to companies who exhibit a high standard of care for social and environmental concerns. Plus, they are required to be exceptionally transparent in their business practices for the sake of accountability.
NATE: You said they’re one of four-thousand B-Corp certified companies from the last decade. That’s not a small number.
CALLI: It is when you consider over one-hundred-thousand applied in that time period.
NATE: Oh, wow, sure. Hey, good for them.
CALLI: Good for them, indeed! In 2021, Aether produced hundreds of carats and began shipping the diamonds. In 2022, they’re aiming to produce thousands. And every carat sold represents twenty metric tons of carbon dioxide pulled out of the atmosphere. So, Aether is able to do all this and be net carbon negative.
NATE: Wow. That’s impressive. Okay, I have an idea for a company.
CALLI: Hit me.
NATE: Exhalation diamonds. It’s home kits for making diamonds from the air you breathe out.
CALLI: Great idea! You might if I do a little math at you?
NATE: Do it.
CALLI: Twenty metric tons of carbon dioxide per diamond. Twenty-two hundred pounds per metric ton. How much carbon dioxide does a human expel from their breath per day?
NATE: Look, it’s just an idea ...
CALLI: How much?
NATE: I have no clue.
CALLI: A little over two pounds. So, forty-four thousand pounds, divided by two pounds a day ... Every sixty years you’d make enough carbon for a single carat diamond.
NATE: Maybe that’s what they mean by “diamonds are forever.”
CALLI: More like diamonds take forever.
[SFX: WHOOSH]
NATE: Let’s recap what we learned today to wrap up. Doctors recently got a rare look into the final moments of a dying brain. An EEG in the last moments of life showed our brains work hard until the very end, and our final thoughts may actually be our memories flashing before our very eyes.
CALLI: A new initiative has been launched with the goal of studying how art therapy can help people with serious brain conditions. Anecdotal evidence has been promising, but NeuroArts Blueprint hopes to measure how the brain changes during art therapy, to bring scientific legitimacy to this emerging field.
NATE: A diamond startup is combining luxury diamond sales with nonprofit climate action. Aether Diamonds is the first diamond seller to make their diamonds entirely from carbon sucked out of the air. Their business model may provide crucial investment capital to young technologies seeking to help climate change.
CALLI: Join us every Monday, Wednesday and Friday to learn something new in just a few minutes.
NATE: And until then, stay curious!