Episode 13: Some MI5 S**t

Episode 13 is here with another science guest for some fascinating psychology!

We’re back and we are getting Psychological this week as we welcome our next science guest! Check us out try to convince him to admit he works for national intelligence. If that doesn’t tickle your fancy Curie explains why she is the Smith of Korea and Alice tells a really interesting story about her morning commute. NOT TO BE MISSED!!

We would love to hear from you with any suggestions, requests or comments. You can find us on Twitter and Instagram @layitoutpodcast. Finally, you can e-mail us at layitoutpodcast@gmail.com.

Episode 09: Feat. Wilehm And His Water Buffalo

Our 9th episode is ready for your audio consumption! Find it on iTunes, Podbean or search for us!

This episode we are joined by not 1, not 2 but 4 totally real guests!!!! (We take no responsibility for the accuracy of any accents portrayed in this episode)

Callum and boyfriend of the podcast, Dan, have joined us for our fortnightly science chat. Alice introduces us to a very different type of paper and we discuss whether a big breakfast could potentially be the answer to obesity. We’re just waiting for the claims that bacon will save your life.

Curie then takes it back to her own comfort zone and explains how nuclear bomb testing helped a major scientific discovery.

As always we would love to hear from you. You can find us on instagram or twitter @layitoutpodcast. Or you can drop us an e-mail at layitoutpodcast@gmail.com.

Monkeys that work together, think together

A new brain recording technique has allowed researchers to simultaneously monitor brain activity in two monkeys during a collaborative task. Read on to learn more or take a listen to Curie on the podcast.

It has long been known that when humans or other animals watch another do a task, their brain fires as if they were doing that same task. For example, watching someone open a door will activate the same neurons as if you were opening that door. The term “mirror neurons” has been coined for these mimicking brain cells.

As with many discoveries in neuroscience, not all scientists are convinced that mirror neurons exist or agree on their exact purpose. Nevertheless, mirror neurons are thought to be important for learning through observation of other members of your species. It could be used to learn social dynamics within the group, potential threats or allies and even learn new skills.

Up until now, mirror neurons have only been monitored in one animal at a time. From this, scientists could tell that these mirror neurons were firing, but not how similar this firing was between the two animals.

How do you simultaneously monitor two monkey’s brains?

Episode 06: Gargle With Red Wine Kids

And we’re back with episode 06!

Curie gets down and dirty with some molecular biology and debunks yet ANOTHER sensationalised headline while Alice is back on her favourite topic – alcohol!

And if that’s not enough for you, check out our brand new tag line.

Take a listen on Podbean or  iTunes.

And if you want to watch the super cool TED talk featuring Curie’s supervisor you can find it here! 2 million hits and counting…

As always we would love to hear from you! Get in touch on Twitter and Instagram @layitoutpodcast. You can also e-mail us on layitoutpodcast@gmail.com.

Wang et al. (2018). Gain of toxic apolipoprotein E4 effects in human iPSC-derived neurons is ameliorated by a small-molecule structure corrector. Nature Medicine https://rdcu.be/NPrD

Fan et al. (2018). Drinking alcohol is associated with variation in the human oral microbiome in a large study of American adults. Microbiome https://doi.org/10.1186/s40168-018-0448-x

Episode 04: Daal Makes Me Farty

Welcome to episode number 4!

Join us this week as we return to Curie’s favourite topic: POO! We learn that vegans and omnivores may have more in common than you think and how monkey brains synchronise when they work together.

Have a listen over at Podbean or iTunes.

We would love to hear from you! Get in touch on Twitter  and Instagram  You can also e-mail us on layitoutpodcast@gmail.com. or

Curie’s conspiracy corner

Curie loves a conspiracy theory. This week she tells us a story about a mysterious man who turns up at Tokyo airport claiming to be from a country called Taured, complete with passport from this unknown country. Following questioning about his true whereabouts he disappears, never to be seen again!

Unfortunately, it’s probably not true. The original source of the story was Colin Wilson’s book, The Directory of Possibilities:

“And in 1954 a passport check in Japan is alleged to have produced a man with papers issued by the nation of Taured.“

The story has been seriously embellished since then, with no sources for these added details. Read more about it here.

Losasso et al. (2018). Assessing the Influence of Vegan, Vegetarian and Omnivore Oriented Westernized Dietary Styles on Human Gut Microbiota: A Cross Sectional Study. Frontiers in Microbiology https://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2018.00317

Tseng et al. (2018). Interbrain cortical synchronization encodes multiple aspects of social interactions in monkey pairs. Scientific Reports https://rdcu.be/LC0K

Episode 03: Voldemort’s Sludge Blood

Episode 3 is here! (A full episode this time!)

We start with yet another rant about a particularly problematic article from Science about women and science communication on Instagram.

Then we jump into some creepy vampire-esque neuroscience using mice to see if young blood had improve their memory. In honour of St Patrick’s Day, we also learn about the effects of one of our favourite things: Alcohol! WOO! But we’re mostly focused on the worst bit: hangovers. Boooo. And it’s links with… alcoholism…?

Read about studying hangovers in the lab here and blood transplants in ageing research here.

EPISODE CORRECTIONS

1. St Patrick’s Day is the most celebrated national festival, not the most celebrated of all festivals.
2. Neil Armstrong was (probably) the first astronaut on the moon, although there is a new-ish conspiracy theory that Russia managed it first, but unfortunately the trip was fatal.

We would love to hear from you! Get in touch on Twitter and Instagram @layitoutpodcast. You can also e-mail us on layitoutpodcast@gmail.com.

Villeda et al. (2011). The aging systemic milieu negatively regulates neurogenesis and cognitive function. Nature http://rdcu.be/JWWC

Vatsalya et al. (2018). Characterization of hangover following intravenous alcohol exposure in social drinkers: methodological and clinical implications. Addiction Biology https://doi.org/10.1111/adb.12469

Can we predict if bipolar disorder patients will respond to their medication?

This paper from a group in San Diego suggests that yes, we can!

Listen here or read on….

Lithium is a common treatment for bipolar disorder but only ~30% of patients get better following the treatment (responders). For the other 70% they must complete a whole course of treatment before finding this out, not ideal for the patient.

This group of researchers wanted to see what differences there were between the brain cells or neurons of healthy people, responders and non-responders, and whether these were substantial enough to predict which group a person belongs to.

Now obviously we can’t just take neurons from someone’s brain to do this. So instead the researchers used induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs).

What are iPSCs?

Induced = have been pushed into this state

Pluripotent = have the potential to become (nearly) all human cell types

Cells = the building blocks of living organisms

Episode 01: The Whorehouse Study

It’s finally here, episode 1 of Lay It Out!

In this episode Curie and Alice try to explain how induced pluripotent stem cells may be able to predict lithium response in bipolar disorder and the influence of ultra-processed food on cancer risk. Find the links to these papers at the bottom of this post.

This week we’re joined by Natalie and Dan from the DANalysis podcast. Find them on iTunes or Twitter for all the Fantasy Football fun you could ever ask for.

Stay tuned for some serious discussions about bowel movements, pluriwhat?? cells, the scourge of Instagram nutritionists, gut soldiers and a particular story about a very unethical scientist. Listen here or if you prefer reading you can do it here and here, but Alice and Curie will miss you 😦

EPISODE CORRECTIONS

1. Lithium is rarely used to treat depression, but is a common medication for schizophrenia.
2. iPSCs are not made from hair, but they’re sometimes made from the hair follicle at the end of the hair.

Fiolet et al. (2018). Consumption of ultra-processed foods and cancer risk: results from NutriNet-Santé prospective cohort. British Medical Journal. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.k322

Stern et al. (2017). Neurons derived from patients with bipolar disorder divide into intrinsically different sub-populations of neurons, predicting the patients’ responsiveness to lithium. Molecular Psychiatry. http://rdcu.be/HYHu (Sorry to everyone that doesn’t have access to Molecular Psychiatry papers)