Today you’ll learn about why social media could help us solve the global climate crisis, a possible cure for sickle cell disease that uses gene therapy, and a Hansel and Gretel-style system that could find places on other planets where humans could take shelter.
Today you’ll learn about why social media could help us solve the global climate crisis, a possible cure for sickle cell disease that uses gene therapy, and a Hansel and Gretel-style system that could find places on other planets where humans could take shelter.
Find episode transcripts here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/social-media-saves-sickle-cell-cure-breadcrumbs-on-mars
Social Media Saves
Sickle Cell Cure
Breadcrumbs on Mars
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[SFX: INTRO MUSIC/WHOOSH]
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 why social media could help us solve the global climate crisis, a possible cure for sickle cell disease that uses gene therapy, and a Hansel and Gretel-style system that could find places on other planets where humans could take shelter.
CALLI: Without further ado, let’s satisfy some curiosity!
[SFX: WHOOSH]
CALLI: Social media has been around for a hot minute now, but a new study is looking at the possible power of using social media in the fight against climate change.
NATE: Okay, it’s tough to turn your brain around from understanding the negatives of social media to talking about the positives.
CALLI: Oh absolutely. I feel so much guilt about being on social media and we’ve talked about the unhealthy side effects of social media use. But the authors of the new study say there is potential here to make a huge difference in the fight against climate change. But of course …there are some problems.
NATE: Ah, there it is.
CALLI: Before we get to the problems, though, let me tell you about the research. The study is called “Social media data for environmental sustainability: A critical review of opportunities, threats, and ethical use.” The study saw that over half of everyone on Earth is active on social media, and that means loads and loads of the thing researchers love the most: data.
NATE: So who takes part in these studies?
CALLI: That’s the thing: everyone. Let’s say you wanted to study the Hawaiian monk seal…
NATE: Sure…who wouldn’t?
CALLI: …you want to understand its changing habitat. That would mean knowing if its population is increasing or on the decline. You’d want to know about human interactions with the animals, and see conditions in the spots where they like to hang out. If you’re a small team, you’ll have trouble monitoring the monk seal’s entire habitat. It’s probably a massive range.
NATE: …but if you use social media, your team of observers is just huge.
CALLI: Right, exactly. You can monitor social media for location observations, comments and posts about monk seal run-ins, even pictures of the animals.
NATE: Monk seal selfies!
CALLI: Something like that. But studies like this can use social media input to get a clearer picture of what’s going on in the environment, and - maybe more importantly - how people feel about what’s going on in the environment.
NATE: Why would that be important though? Isn’t science about looking at cold, hard facts, rather than people’s feelings about the cold, hard facts?
CALLI: Absolutely, but social media, as you’ve probably heard, is the place where people go to vent. We post our feelings more than just about anything. Even pictures that we post represent our values. And public perception will make or break policies that are meant to fight climate change. Scientists need to know what messages are getting across, and what messages just aren’t landing.
NATE: That makes sense.
CALLI: The study’s authors say that social media allows researchers to understand huge trends in human interactions with nature, and how our view of climate change and of the environment changes over time. That will help drive new policy and messaging campaigns to make even bigger changes that actually improve people’s lives.
NATE: Okay but, circling back a bit. Is data on social media even reliable?
CALLI: That’s one of the problems they ran into, obviously. Mis- and disinformation, unfounded conspiracy theories, and just plain old fake news is rife on social media. But they also found that if the data was gathered carefully, and was targeted for specific research questions, it is an irreplaceable part of hitting UN Sustainable Development Goals.
NATE: Who knew Twitter would save us after all?
CALLI: Well…you nailed another one of the potential problems…
NATE: Twitter?
CALLI: Partly. It’s the fact that social media outlets are privately owned, which means the data available to researchers can be closed off at the whims of the people who run it. Plus, trust in social media isn’t exactly great, so researchers have to deal with that.
NATE: Right. How do you break through the fake news avalanche?
CALLI: The study’s authors say that researchers need to be inclusive, transparent in their research, and dedicated to privacy protection. If they can overcome these obstacles, they’ll have some of the largest datasets in the history of the world. And that could be a game changer.
[SFX: WHOOSH]
NATE: I’ve got some great news. A cure for sickle cell anemia could be right around the corner.
CALLI: I mean a cure for anything is usually cause for celebration. But what exactly is sickle cell anemia?
NATE: Yeah - it’s one of those things you hear a lot about, but not everyone knows just how bad it can be. It affects about 100,000 people in the United States alone, and it is pretty brutal. It’s a genetic disorder that affects mostly those with African ancestry, but also South and Central Americans, and those with Middle Eastern, Asian, Indian, and Mediterranean genes.
CALLI: That’s a lot of people.
NATE: Globally it’s…billions. It affects the red blood cells, which are these round, smooth cells that move through our veins carrying oxygen to every part of our body. In someone with sickle cell disease, those red blood cells are shaped like…well…a sickle.
CALLI: Like a little crescent moon?
NATE: I guess crescent moon cell disease could have been another option but it doesn’t flow quite as nice. Yeah, that shape hurts their ability to flow freely throughout the body. Sickle-shaped red blood cells will clump together, blocking blood flow, which can trigger what are known as pain-crises…which are as bad as they sound.
CALLI: Do these pain-crises affect a specific part of the body?
NATE: No. They can strike any part of the body and last for hours - or even weeks.
CALLI: Dude, weeks?
NATE: Weeks. You can imagine this is incredibly debilitating. But it’s not just the pain. People with sickle cell are often exhausted because their red blood cells don’t last long, and their bodies are oxygen starved. They often miss work and school, and the disease will eventually damage internal organs and could lead to strokes. 50 years ago, it was pretty rare for those with this disease to make it out of childhood. And even now the average life expectancy with sickle cell is around 54 years.
CALLI: That’s decades shorter than most people.
NATE: So you can see why this treatment is such a huge deal.
CALLI: Yeah, absolutely, so how did they do it?
NATE: That’s one of the coolest things: in these treatments, the cure comes from the patient.
CALLI: Sounds like gene therapy.
NATE: Exactly. Sickle cell comes from a mutation in the HBB gene - don’t worry, no quiz coming - but the fact that it’s a mutation is important. These two experimental treatments - one from a company called Bluebird Bio and another from Crispr Therapeutics & Vertex Pharmaceuticals - essentially take stem cells from the patient, modify that HBB gene, and then reinsert it back into the patient. The modified genes, in theory, are supposed to start creating healthy red blood cells. And…in several patients…it’s worked.
CALLI: So this is a cure?
NATE: There’s a lot more research to be done. All of the patients began producing healthy red blood cells, and most of them reported becoming free from pain-crises.
CALLI: I don’t want to be that person but this is usually the part of the story where we learn it’s too good to be true.
NATE: Well…while the results are pretty astonishing, the treatment isn’t as simple as just getting a shot and being cured. In fact, the decision to get this kind of gene therapy could be a hard one, even for those who know the suffering of the disease all too well. First, patients have to go through chemotherapy to get rid of the remaining stem cells so the modified ones have space to operate. And chemotherapy, as we all know, is no picnic. It can even lead to infertility, which gives parents of kids with sickle cell a lot to consider before putting their children through therapy.
CALLI: That’s a lot to think about.
NATE: It’s not much better after the infusion, either. While the body begins to produce new blood cells, the patient has to stay in the hospital for a month or so. All told, it’s a months-long process that not everyone will have time or resources to handle.
CALLI: Right - it’s not easy to take a few months off work.
NATE: And that’s the other thing. It will probably be expensive. Another gene therapy that treats hemophilia B costs around $3-and-a-half million dollars for a single treatment.
CALLI: Holy crap.
NATE: But because there are several groups working on the treatments for sickle cell, competition could drive down prices. And despite these obstacles - those with sickle cell disease aren’t the only ones excited about the success of these treatments. These results will undoubtedly drive research into gene therapy to treat all kinds of other genetic disorders.
CALLI: I guess I’ll stay tuned!
[SFX: WHOOSH]
CALLI: Remember the story of Hansel and Gretel?
NATE: Of course. Two little kids set off into the forest, they leave breadcrumbs behind them so they can find their way back, etc etc etc.
CALLI: Well…researchers are pulling a page from that fairytale in order to explore the surfaces of other planets.
NATE: Breadcrumbs?
CALLI: Digital breadcrumbs. Theoretical physicist Wolfgang Fink and his team from the University of Arizona, built a prototype of a system that would use small rovers and a series of sensors that communicate via wifi to explore really hard to reach areas of other worlds.
NATE: Kind of like a mesh network for Mars.
CALLI: That’s not a bad analogy. And this could be a real game changer.
NATE: Wait, didn’t Hansel and Gretel get cooked by a witch or something?
CALLI: No! The witch was trying to fatten up Hansel so she could eat him, but Gretel shoved her into the oven and they escaped.
NATE: These German fairytales are so dark and depressing.
CALLI: So are the surfaces of other planets! And that’s the main problem the team was trying to overcome. We’ve sent rovers to Mars, obviously - and the data they’ve sent back has been incredible. But it’s their ability to send back that data that is one of their main limitations.
NATE: What do you mean?
CALLI: If they get lost, then their data is also lost, right? That means that scientists are afraid to send them into dangerous, or dark, or deep places that could jeopardize the whole mission. But here’s the thing: those places could be the best places to explore!
NATE: You want to send these rovers into the witch’s oven!
CALLI: You’re more right than you even know. Scientists are pretty desperate to see into lava tubes.
NATE: That sounds pretty cool. But why lava tubes?
CALLI: Because lava tubes or other spaces below the surface could actually be safe spaces for human explorers. But we’ll never know unless we can get a glimpse inside, and we’ll never get a glimpse inside with our current rovers.
NATE: Imagine living in a cave on Mars.
CALLI: Exactly. It starts with a kind of nesting doll rover situation. A primary rover - or a mother rover - carries a smaller rover that can venture into unknown spaces and explore and report back.
NATE: But what if the baby rover gets lost? Won’t we be in the same boat?
CALLI: That’s where the breadcrumbs come in. The smaller rover will deploy a series of sensors about the size of AirPods that will build up that mesh network connecting the two rovers.
NATE: It’s so simple!
CALLI: That’s the beauty of this idea. It can be used in lava tubes or even to explore subsurface oceans like the one on Jupiter’s moon, Europa.
NATE: This feels like maybe there could be applications closer to home, too.
CALLI: Absolutely. Imagine search-and-rescue operations after an earthquake, where the rubble is too dangerous for humans to operate. A system like this could quickly and safely locate victims and send the location to rescuers, along with a route they can safely navigate.
NATE: Or, let’s say your brother is being fattened up by a witch…
CALLI: …I’m guessing scientists will stick with lava tubes and earthquakes.
NATE: I don’t know many fairytales that have to do with lava tubes and earthquakes.
CALLI: You’re really set on the whole fairytale thing, aren’t you?
[SFX: WHOOSH]
NATE: Let’s recap what we learned today to wrap up.
CALLI: Researchers have found that social media could hold the key to advancing the science and policies that will help us solve the climate crisis. Over half the world’s population is active on social media platforms, which means researchers could have access to huge datasets that will help them study human behavior in nature, and social media users’ attitudes toward the policies that could save us from the worst effects of global climate change.
NATE: An experimental gene therapy has found what could be a cure for sickle cell anemia, a debilitating disease affecting over 100,000 Americans. The treatment edits patients’ genes and reinserts them into the bloodstream. Tests reveal a high success rate, but the treatment is difficult, painful, and very expensive.
CALLI: Scientists wanting to explore hard-to-reach places on other worlds have turned to Hansel and Gretel for help. Using a system of rovers and digital breadcrumbs, space scientists think they have figured out a way to explore lava tubes, underground caves, and even subsurface oceans like the one on Jupiter’s moon, Europa.