Ep 99: Creativity and passion in science communication (with Itai Yanai and Martin Lercher)
Itai Yanai
Martin Lercher
On this episode, we take a break from the regular format to talk with Itai Yanai and Martin Lercher of The Night Science Podcast, a show that explores the creative side of science with guests from across the globe. Itai is a professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmacology at the NYU School of Medicine, and Martin is a professor in both the Institute for Computer Science and the Department of Biology at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf. We had a great time chatting with them about our respective podcast experiences, trading tips and reflecting on our passion for science communication and the ways that it has impacted our own research.
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Art Woods 0:00
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Art Woods 0:46
Thanks for listening and here's today's show.
Marty Martin 0:55
So Art, what's the opposite of day science?
Art Woods 0:57
Night science, but that's two things right? One is Francois Jacob's name for the creative dimensions of doing science. The other is an awesome new podcast hosted by Itai Yanai and Martin Lercher.
Marty Martin 1:10
Correct on both fronts. Jacob, who shared the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1965, with Jacques Monod and Ande Lwoff for genetic regulation set up night science in his autobiography, "Night science wanders blind, it hesitates, stumbles, recoils, sweats, wakes with a start doubting, everything it is forever trying to find itself question itself pull itself back together. Night science is a sort of workshop of the possible where what will become the building material of science is worked out."
Art Woods 1:38
Ah beautiful stuff. I wish we saw more of that in science writing.
Marty Martin 1:41
Yeah and our guests on today's show agree. Itai and Martin, the hosts of the Night Science Podcast. We're so inspired by Jacob's message that they started a series of articles in the journal Genome Biology to talk about it.
Art Woods 1:52
A few years into the exercise, Itai realized that a podcast might be an even greater help to their cause.
Marty Martin 1:58
And
Art Woods 1:59
After twisting Martin's arm,
Marty Martin 2:00
The Night Science podcast was born.
Art Woods 2:02
Today on Big Biology, we joined with Martin and Itai to talk about our respective origin stories.
Marty Martin 2:07
And how we aspire to do more creative research and communicate science better.
Art Woods 2:11
I'm Art woods
Marty Martin 2:12
And I'm Marty Martin
Art Woods 2:12
And you're listening to big biology.
Itai Yanai 2:25
Well, who goes first? Let's do some introductions.
Art Woods 2:28
You you go
Itai Yanai 2:29
I'll go first. Okay, so my name is Itai Yanai. Let's see, I live in New York City. And I'm originally from Israel. And that's me. I'm a professor at NYU, where we study cancer biology and also host pathogen interactions, all from the point of view of gene expression.
Martin Lercher 2:50
I'm Martin, Martin Lercher. Or Lercher, I'm never quite sure how I should pronounce that when I talk in English.
Itai Yanai 2:57
Lercher is like the American pronunciation.
Martin Lercher 2:59
Yeah, kind of. Yeah. So I'm actually in Germany, in Cologne. But I work at the University of Dusseldorf. And what we do there is, mostly these days, making models to understand the organization of individual cells, bacteria specifically, but also complete organisms. And specifically, we're interested in plants, because that's something that a lot of people around us are working on, and we think that you can really understand a lot about them by making models based on just physics and chemistry, essentially. So that's me.
Marty Martin 3:37
How did you guys come to know each other? You seem to have different expertise. I mean, what's the origin story of your relationship and podcast?
Martin Lercher 3:44
Well, actually, we met a long time ago, when we were
Itai Yanai 3:47
20 years ago
Martin Lercher 3:48
20 years ago. And we were both postdocs at the time, I think. Right. So you,
Itai Yanai 3:53
I think you're more advanced as a postdoc
Martin Lercher 3:56
Yeah, I actually had a fellowship that I was on, so it was independent, at the European Molecular Biology Lab in Berlin, Heidelberg. And I was there for a couple of years. And then Itai came for a visit to do a research project with Peer Bork. And yeah, we did some science together. And we enjoyed it very much.
Itai Yanai 4:14
Yeah, we, it was a crazy project. We got so excited about something. And we actually published a paper where Martin is last author, and I'm first author and a bunch of the Heidelberg crew is in the middle there. And that was our only science project. Like day science, we would call it.
Martin Lercher 4:19
Well it was the only one that was published.
Itai Yanai 4:35
Oh, that's true, that's true. There was a failed project there too. There was, so after we published that paper I mentioned, we wanted to do a follow up. And we got together for one week in Heidelberg, where we were unaffiliated with anything you know, we didn't work in any lab, we just would meet in coffee shops, and code together.
Martin Lercher 4:57
And it was great fun, like, you know, we were sitting next to each other, and Itai with his laptop, he was analyzing the data in MATLAB. And I with my laptop was analyzing the data in R. So we decided, okay, this is what we're going to test now, right? And then he implemented it, I implemented it, and we compared the results. And of course, they were different, every time.
Itai Yanai 5:17
It was always different. And then we would check, and then we would find out that we were both wrong.
Martin Lercher 5:21
No, but it was great, because at some point, we always converged on the same answer, and then we were sure, okay, this, this has to be correct now. So that was cool.
Itai Yanai 5:33
It was actually a really interesting way of doing it that I always wanted to replicate in like other projects, and I've never done, because in making sure we both got the same thing, we realized we had been making different assumptions, or there were bugs. And it was actually, it sounds inefficient, you know, two people doing the exact same thing. But it was actually super efficient, because we could do things really fast and not get hung up on bugs.
Martin Lercher 5:54
Yeah, we got a lot done in that one week, even if it wasn't published in the end.
Art Woods 5:58
That's super interesting.
Martin Lercher 5:59
Yeah, it was really interesting, because it kind of was our, no actually, there was a lot of what we call Night Science in the first published project, right, but this one was at least 50%, probably more night science, like we didn't really know what we were doing. But we felt that there was something interesting hiding in that data, right? We knew there was something in there, we just didn't know how to figure out what it was. And that's what we tried to do that week. And so it was great fun, even if we never figured it out in the end.
Art Woods 6:29
I think you guys should revisit it and figured out now, you know, with 10 or 15 years of hindsight.
Martin Lercher 6:34
Yeah, it's a good idea. But we wouldn't be using the same dataset. I think it was early microarray data for transcriptomics. So there's, there's better ways now. Yes.
Art Woods 6:46
I see the field has moved on. Well, maybe Marty and I introduce ourselves.
Itai Yanai 6:51
Yeah.
Art Woods 6:52
Okay. So I'm Art woods. I'm a professor of biology at the University of Montana, which is in Missoula, Montana. If you can see me, literally cool. If you could see me sitting here, I've got the HVAC off in my house, and it's quite cold out. So I have a hat and a coat on just to stay warm while we talk.
Itai Yanai 7:14
Oh because that would make too much noise. That's yeah, exactly. Oh the things we do for podcasts.
Art Woods 7:19
I know, I know, the sacrifices. I do insect ecophysiology mostly. I'm interested in insect plant interactions and the effects of climate change on those interactions. So it's kind of thinking about, especially how changes in climate project into the small spaces where insects live.
Martin Lercher 7:40
And weren't you doing fieldwork a couple of months ago, when we tried to schedule this?
Art Woods 7:44
Uh Marty has been the programmatic guy for field work. So yeah, Marty, you introduce yourself and tell them about your round the world trip.
Marty Martin 7:52
Well, come on now. I mean, this is coming from the guy who spent a substantial portion of last year in Australia and South Africa. So you, you do get around, man.
Art Woods 8:00
Yeah that's that's true. That's true, but not as much as you I believe.
Marty Martin 8:03
Not as much, no I think it's got to end I've been traveling far too much. Yeah, I was in New Zealand and Australia until about two weeks ago, and I leave on next Saturday for a week in Brazil. But this is a global project.
Marty Martin 8:16
So let me do the broader thing. I'm Marty Martin, a biologist, but I'm actually a professor in the College of Public Health at the University of South Florida. And that's partly because my flavor of biology is half of the time disease ecology. So we do work with West Nile virus, we do work with Lyme disease, a lot of different things, most mostly zoonotic diseases focused on the vertebrate side of those interactions.
Marty Martin 8:41
But then the other major project we do, and part of the reason we're doing all this traveling, is to work on the house sparrow, which is one of the most broadly distributed species in the world. And so the project is to see if we can figure out at the sort of molecular level, especially with regard to DNA methylation, how that might be influencing its ability to turn up and down and off and on genes and give you the kind of plasticity that a lot of invaders have when they succeed in new places. So that's what the travel is about. We were in Senegal, in Vietnam, and Australia, New Zealand, Spain, we're going in the Netherlands. I mean, the species is literally everywhere. And this NSF grant we've had it for a few years is taking us around the world to do sampling and such.
Martin Lercher 9:20
Okay, which just shows it was a mistake of me to do computational work. Now I have no excuse.
Marty Martin 9:27
It depends on how much you like airplanes. But yeah, that
Art Woods 9:30
I think Marty needs some field help. So
Itai Yanai 9:34
Yeah you can really see the world doing science, right? Even if you don't do field work is going to conferences. I think it's one of the great privileges of being a scientist is that you, you're all over.
Martin Lercher 9:44
Yeah. Although in Germany at least, there's a lot of discussions these days about intercontinental flights and CO2 and stuff like that.
Itai Yanai 9:52
That's true. That's true.
Art Woods 9:53
Yeah, I was just thinking about that. Yeah, our carbon footprints are not anything to be proud of
Martin Lercher 9:59
No exactly, exactly
Art Woods 10:01
So have you guys stopped going to distant conferences? Because of this? Are you trying to do science more locally?
Martin Lercher 10:08
Maybe I cut down a little bit on that, but not totally stopped.
Itai Yanai 10:12
You know, I remember when the world shut down in March, April 2020. We were all reflecting and we were all talking. Oh, you know, that was so crazy how we did things, we would just go to like LA for one night and then come back. That was crazy. You know, if we ever do get back to normal, I'm gonna really do things right. I'm gonna if I go to a conference, like would it kill me to go for the entire conference instead of like, just a one hour window when I'm speaking, would like kill me to just like really settle and get to know a place and make the travel at least worth the carbon footprint? And then now it's back to normal, and I'm doing the same old things I did before.
Art Woods 10:52
Yeah, yeah.
Itai Yanai 10:53
But there are more Zooms.
Marty Martin 10:55
Yeah. So what's your experience of that? Because, you know, I love when we got a little bit of your podcast, I love what you guys are trying to do. And I especially love the you know, the emphasis on where does the creativity come from? In the context of what we're talking about? Do you feel that the Zoom flavor of conferences provides the same thing as the in person version? I get so much inspiration and so many ideas, not necessarily from seeing the talks, to me. Now, you know how this goes, the longer you do science, the more value comes from just being in the places and having those hallway or bar conversations with colleagues. I mean, that dimension of creativity, or how much creativity comes from those experiences is really fantastic and hard to replace.
Martin Lercher 11:37
Yeah, no, I totally agree. I've, I've tried a few online conferences, and they're not for me, they're not for me, I can't, I can't really focus. And like you're saying the most important interactions you have at the coffee break, or when you go out to have dinner with colleagues in the evening. And these online things, they try to replicate that in some way, to emulate that in some way. And I tried that. And I was in this meeting place. And there was just one other random person and we didn't have anything to say to each other. It was so sad.
Itai Yanai 12:10
I think it's so interesting to ponder what is really the difference between virtual versus in-person. And I think it's that the in-person gives you this kind of constraint, where there's nowhere to hide, you're sitting in a talk. And if you are not paying attention, then you know, you're effectively being rude. And other people see that you're being rude. And so you don't want to come across as being rude. So, you know, that constrains you to pay attention. And then it turns out, it's good for you to pay attention. Or when you're at the coffee break. Like it feels socially awkward to just stand by yourself, so you're like, Okay, let's, let's, let's see, who are you You know, and you talk to someone, you have this constraint that you have to talk to someone. Whereas in the virtual, you just tune out, right? It's very easy to tune out.
Marty Martin 12:54
Yeah.
Art Woods 12:54
So have you guys done very many live interviews of guests? And I say this because Marty and I at some conferences over the past few years have just lined people up. And we, you know, we sit down in a hotel room or a hotel lobby and talk for an hour or two and record the conversation. And honestly, those have been some of my most favorite conversations, because they're free flowing in a way that doing this over the web is not and like, you know, there's nothing wrong with this, right? We're doing it right now, and it's great. And there's no other way we could possibly do this. But there's just something about the flow of the conversation in person that's really, really lovely.
Martin Lercher 13:28
Maybe we haven't tried that actually.
Itai Yanai 13:30
We should. Yeah, we should try. I heard the episode you guys did with Joel Brown at a conference. And I love Joel. So I really appreciate that episode. Thank you for that.
Art Woods 13:40
Yeah, that was an early one, too.
Marty Martin 13:42
You're being generous too that we did that at a conference that was at a bar here in Tampa.
Martin Lercher 13:47
Even better.
Marty Martin 13:47
Yeah, it was fantastic. Just sitting and talking squirrel ecology and cancer with a beer, it was a unique thing. I don't know that I'll ever do that. Again, it was a lot of fun.
Itai Yanai 13:57
I think one advantage of doing it this way, the way we are recording this in different places. And only using audio is that we actually, you know, it's not ideal for something that there's definitely not as much energy. You know, as you mentioned Art, but there is an advantage where we don't have to worry about our looks, you know, we don't have to worry about any kind of like silly things I may be wearing or, you know, we could actually concentrate on the content. So there's, there's advantages in there.
Marty Martin 14:27
That's true. That's true.
Art Woods 14:28
Yeah, we typically use video and audio when we interview our guests, but we don't publish the video, but I kind of liked this like not being able to see each other and just just paying attention to the words.
Martin Lercher 14:39
I was actually thinking the exact opposite, that maybe Itai and I, that maybe we should try out how it works with video. So like you say, so we can see body language.
Itai Yanai 14:50
Well, you know, let me tell you a secret about how we do things. And it might explain why we do
Martin Lercher 14:56
No no don't. Don't spill it
Itai Yanai 14:59
No, why not? The reason why we don't do video is because as we're talking to our guests, Martin and I are actually communicating quite intensely on a Google Doc, where we're really trying to figure out what we know where to take this, like, what kind of driving it, without the guests seeing this. But we found that we need to do this because before we did that, we would always jump in and we couldn't coordinate and is it was my turn to do a question? Well, you know, what's happening now? And, and so this allowed us to coordinate? How do you guys do it?
Marty Martin 15:32
Yeah, that's funny. All right. Do you want to tell him?
Art Woods 15:36
We do exactly the same thing, but with video.
Itai Yanai 15:38
With videos?
Art Woods 15:40
Well, so we always. No, I mean, we have a Google doc open. And, you know, we've written out what we think is the sequence of things that we're going to ask our guests. And then, of course, theory meets reality, and the conversation goes in some direction we don't expect, but we use the Google doc to sort of sequence like, who's going to jump in next, or what topic we're going to go to, but we just pre warn our guests that, you know, you may see us typing or you know, our eyes glaze over. And that's because we're trying to figure out what to do next. You know, don't worry about it. But maybe it's better not. Maybe it's better to hide that. I don't know.
Martin Lercher 16:13
I don't know. Yeah, because I think I thought it would be distracting for them.
Itai Yanai 16:18
Yeah it could be. Yeah, we're even careful to try for them not to hear us type.
Art Woods 16:23
Right? Yeah, you don't want them to think you're like, like just responding to emails while you're talking to them.
Itai Yanai 16:28
Right right
Art Woods 16:31
Which I don't have the multitasking capability to do anyway, but I think some people may try. And
Marty Martin 16:36
And I think it helps to have two of us doing this. Because you know, there's always diluted concentration, because one of them is paying attention to what the other person is writing. But presumably the other person at that time is leaving the conversation. There's only been one time in the past, we're getting close to 100 episodes, and there's only been once in the past that we've done a solo episode. Art, I don't remember what the history was, but Eric Jarvis, if you guys know him, he's a neuroscientist. So you could make that one. And it was like a last minute thing we'd already postponed with Eric wants, and so I just decided to do it. But even though I didn't have to type to anybody, it was so much more difficult to just progress the show because I, you know, didn't really have that bandwidth, to be able to think about where I was going. I just had to sort of live in the moment and, you know, hopefully keep things going with Eric. So it actually I don't know, I think it kind of helps to distribute that attention. in strange ways. Sometimes.
Martin Lercher 17:24
Yeah. I think that there probably is a reason why a lot of podcasts have two hosts.
Itai Yanai 17:29
Interesting. Art and Marty, you guys didn't tell us how you two met.
Marty Martin 17:34
Do you remember when that first was, Art? I'm not sure.
Art Woods 17:36
I mean, we've known each other for probably 20 years because we work in sort of vaguely the same field. And we've been going to one of the same meetings for a long time. But you tell him the origin story, Marty for the podcast.
Marty Martin 17:50
Yeah, the origin story for the podcast. I mean, that was a little bit more straightforward. Art and I had let's see, we had edited a book together. I don't remember like he said how we first got together. But we edited a book together sort of like an expanded special issue of a journal. And we got to know each other's thinking there. I was asked by the society he was talking about to be editor of their journal, and I recruited Art and our a new host that you guys may have seen. A mutual friend named Cameron Ghalambor. Anyway, so those guys were editors on the journals. We did that for a little while. And then I invited our down here to give a seminar and took him out for a beer. I had been listening to a lot of podcasts and started to get very excited about them. And after two or three beers, he was convincible that we should start our own, I think.
Art Woods 18:35
Definitely not after one beer, it took three.
Marty Martin 18:38
You hadn't at that point, even listened to a lot of podcasts, right?
Art Woods 18:42
No, yeah, no.
Marty Martin 18:43
So you just jumped right in such a friendly guy.
Art Woods 18:45
You know, frankly, the ideas seemed just crazy. And we also got lucky because so I came back to Montana, and there just happened to be a student journalist that was attending my lab meetings and interfacing with people in my lab. And I mentioned to him this idea of maybe trying to do a podcast and he said, Oh, that sounds awesome. I'd be happy to maybe produce a couple of shows for you guys, just to just to see how it goes. So we had somebody just in-house right away who had the technical expertise to be able to do the audio parts of it, which is great.
Martin Lercher 19:19
Yeah, that's really cool. It's interesting to me that it just took like two or three beers to convince each other to do the podcast together, because in our case, it it took Itai quite a bit more than two or three beers to convince me I have to say
Itai Yanai 19:37
It took like six months.
Art Woods 19:40
Wow. Wow.
Martin Lercher 19:42
Like he had this crazy idea. He had this crazy idea to do a podcast and I said "Oh no, Come on, come on. We have too many other things. "But I have to say I find it a lot easier to just record audio because the original idea was that we would also record video and also put that out on YouTube.
Itai Yanai 19:59
Oh yeah it might have been at that's how I convinced you, Martin, I said it's just audio.
Martin Lercher 20:04
And that just seemed too stressful to me like, just to always be focused and you know, look at the camera and then think
Itai Yanai 20:10
To have your game face on.
Martin Lercher 20:12
Yeah. Too much multitasking from my tastes.
Marty Martin 20:16
So Itai, how did it come to be? What was the series of arguments that you gave to Martin? And what was your original inspiration?
Itai Yanai 20:24
So for us, the podcast is really an extension of the whole night science concept that we're trying to promote. For us. This kind of like this, this notion that in graduate training, and in the way we become scientists, we're never actually taught how to do science, you know, what we're taught is just this fantasy by the scientific method.
Martin Lercher 20:48
No, no, come on, come on, I wouldn't say it's a fantasy. It's only half of the story, right? We're taught half of the story. And the other half is, you know, just doesn't exist. Like nobody talks about it. It's this big secret.
Itai Yanai 21:00
Yeah and we each have to pick it up on our own, we each have to learn the tricks of the trade on our own. And there has to be a more efficient way of teaching people how science has actually done. So that's, that was our goal with the whole night science project is, is that in the same way that there is a scientific method, okay, it's not a fantasy, but it all assumes that you already have the hypothesis, right? Well, we wanted to do is to talk about what is the process of how you get to the hypothesis. And so we managed to convince the editor of genome biology at the time, Barbara Schaffer, to allow us to get a series of editorials. And we just were amazed at how, like, we could just do whatever we wanted with those pieces. We, we published a dialogue between the two of us, we published, we talked about Bob Dylan, we published New Yorker cartoons one time, we did crazy things. And, and it was going well, but I realized that like, there was one problem that was just glaring, which it's just the two of us. And we really wanted to bring in more people to ask them, like, what's their process? And the idea was, the podcast is our research. The podcast is the research we're doing for what is the creative process? It's not just what works for us, but what works for others. And so we thought we would do like a hundred episodes and right now, what are we up to Martin, like 30?
Martin Lercher 22:30
Yeah, something on that order? Yes, but Itai, that's how it started out, I think in some way, right, that we thought, you know, it's not enough. If we just think about our own experiences, we need to talk to a lot of other really creative scientists, and the podcast seemed to be the right frame for that. But I think by now, it's developed into much more than just a resource for writing more pieces for a journal. Because, you know, what we didn't, what at least I didn't realize at the time, is that a lot of especially the young people, like people who do PhDs right now, they're much more likely to listen to podcasts and to read editorials in some journal, right? So, so we felt that we could transport that message, right, that you know how important creativity is, and that they're really tools for doing that for being creative, that we could transport that message much better, with a podcast, at least to some people, than with just writing about it.
Marty Martin 23:27
So has that, was that or has that become your target audience? Are you mostly appealing to graduate students and postdocs? Or do you have a very different target in mind?
Itai Yanai 23:37
Well, that's a good question for you guys. Like how do you how do you guys know who your audience is? I mean, we just put something into the stratosphere or the interweb. We just put it there. How do you guys know who consumes it?
Art Woods 23:50
Age old question.
Marty Martin 23:52
There are a bunch of places that claim to compile meaningful statistics of that sort. It's questionable, we continue to worry that we're finding meaningful data. But we started with the hope that, you know, we would attract the people that listen to Richard Dawkins and Neil deGrasse Tyson and watch Attenborough specials, you know, but wanted to know, more of the biology that wouldn't show up on those shows or deeper biology that, you know, hasn't typically been covered. But I think the truth has become that graduate students and postdocs, I mean, are something on the order of what would you say, Art, 70 to 75% of our listeners, and in the last few years, in sort of, you know, trying to look at meaningful statistics, we sort of just embraced that and adjusted the guests that we host, the topics that we cover, our style, to really, you know, lean into the people that that seem to be paying the most attention.
Art Woods 24:44
There was a moment a couple of years ago when we were having some existential angst about this and trying to think of ways to grow the audience and the total listenership and it felt like it was almost a fork in the road between making it less nerdy and less deep and sort of more approachable to a broader swath of potential listeners, or to lean in to this going and doing deep dives into particular biological topics. And we just decided that we had to do the deep dives, even though we want, you know, we want more listeners, obviously, the reality is we're pretty nerdy. And our guests are pretty nerdy. And we have nerdy conversations and like that has a niche appeal at some level.
Marty Martin 25:22
Well, one of the surprising things too, and I'd love to hear if this is similar for you guys, you know, you're talking to people from different backgrounds, and so the way that they're going to just pitch their approach to creativity is going to vary. It's almost always been the case that the conceptually hairiest, often jargon full conversations are our most popular.
Martin Lercher 25:45
Really?
Art Woods 25:45
Yeah, I know, strange, right?
Marty Martin 25:48
This producer that art was telling you about a little while ago, this is Matt boys. Yeah, Matt was sure that people wouldn't love to listen to this. And after six months of getting the data over and over and over again, the episodes that you know, art, and I would spend so long preparing for and you know, we would have to talk to each other about what is this mean? And, you know, here's what I think it is, so we should probably tackle it this way. I'm not sure we're going to be able to convey that to an audience, how are we going to tackle that maybe we just get, like all this planning, and then all of this sort of, you know, going through the conversation to A pull out the parts that are, you know, we perceive to be the most exciting, but we always try to, and especially when Matt was was part of the show, we always tried to distill down, what is the core message? Or what are the main things that with all of this complexity, and all this, you know, potentially novel things to so many listeners, what's a few things that we can get through? And so these little introductions we do, and sometimes they can take enormously long times to prepare. And so the ones that we had to invest all that time into invariably end up being the most popular.
Martin Lercher 26:47
So do you think that's, because you've invested so much time? So there were just better because of that? Or do you think it's because your audience is such that they just enjoy hearing about complex things?
Marty Martin 27:00
Yeah, I think it's both. I mean, it must be the case, we've been talking about this a little bit recently about, you know, our production scheme. But I do it does seem to be that the audience likes it, we tend to get more engagement, you know, through Twitter, or whatever it might be about theses same episodes. So people asking questions, following up, downloading the show notes, that kind of thing.
Art Woods 27:21
Here's a third hypothesis, which is that maybe we get above average numbers of listeners for those episodes, because people recognize that what these guests are doing is important. It's complicated, it's hard to understand. It's hard to sit down and read a set of their papers. And maybe, you know, here's a podcast episode that provides an entré into that world. I mean, it could be something about that, too.
Itai Yanai 27:47
I think also, a fourth hypothesis, if you will, is that, as you're doing these episodes, where you feel, maybe it's a bit more nerdy, you're perhaps like at your most genuine.
Marty Martin 28:02
Yeah, that's good.
Itai Yanai 28:04
And you know, I think I think the audience, you know, we're all equipped with, like a natural bullshit detector. And we all know when someone is talking, and they don't really mean it. They don't, they're not really into it. But perhaps with these episodes that are maybe becoming more popular. It's just that you're really tapping into what you guys really care about what you really want. And it doesn't matter that it's nerdy that people could just feel that it's genuine, and it's engaging to them, they'll recommend it to their friends.
Art Woods 28:31
Yeah
Marty Martin 28:31
Yeah there's been a few episodes that we've done that Art and I, as soon as the topic is chosen, and the guest is identified, we'll talk to each other like, oh, my gosh, what are we going to do here? Neither one of us knows anything about this area. Those again, those end up being the best ones, because like you say, we're approaching it with a curiosity and the conversation isn't as scripted, right? It's just sort of responding to things almost in real time. I think we both had Uri Alon on and you know, his emphasis on improv. Yeah. I had until he articulated I never appreciated how valuable that is for all sorts of things in the science context, but definitely for podcasts, just that putting yourself in the place of getting to be curious makes a big difference.
Martin Lercher 29:13
Yes absolutely. And this is something that several people who were on our podcast have mentioned, how fascinating and often very successful it can be to move into a field where you really start with knowing nothing, like not sticking with what you've done for the last 20 years, but, you know, taking something that you know, like some technique or whatever, it's taking something that you know, and bring it into a new field, and the curiosity, like you were saying, right, and the fascination with all these novel things that you hadn't heard of before. That's a great driver for not only for a good podcast, but also for doing good science.
Marty Martin 29:54
Yeah. Was it Tufte that you guys had on not too long ago, you had him on? Correct and he mentioned, Art, I don't think you've heard this before, but
Martin Lercher 30:02
The vacation eyes?
Marty Martin 30:03
The vacation eyes. Oh my goodness. I so much love that. Have you heard that one, Art? I don't think I mentioned that to you.
Art Woods 30:09
No, no, tell me.
Marty Martin 30:10
It's so brilliant. Well, you guys you hosted in, maybe Itai do you want to explain? Yeah.
Itai Yanai 30:15
So Tufte, he talks about this concept of vacation eyes in his latest book, where it's, you know, when you travel somewhere, I don't know, let's say you get to Tampa Bay. And you're just, you know, you're from New York City, so everything is new for you. And like, you just look at everything and you're like, Oh, my God, you know, you could pick up on all these details, where anyone else who's just living there, they don't see that anymore. It's all invisible to them. But because you're not from there, it sticks out for you. So he says that when you approach a problem, try to come at it with vacation eyes and observe everything.
Martin Lercher 30:51
Yeah, and even if you I mean, don't let people explain to you what everything means, at first, just look at everything. And then afterwards, you can get the explanations, but first just get an impression of what's going on.
Art Woods 31:03
Yeah that's great. I was gonna say just one other thing about differences among guests that seemed to make a big difference to the way the podcast feels in the end. And that is how conversational the guests are, versus you know, I'm sure you guys have had some guests on where you ask them a question, and they switch into professor mode and give you a lecture for five or 10 minutes. And
Martin Lercher 31:25
Absolutely
Art Woods 31:26
It's just so funny. We really, really love the ones where it's just conversational, like, exactly like we're doing right now. Right? We're trading things back and forth, people are saying their thing, and then they're being quiet or talking over each other as sometimes happens. But like that has a much more fluid feel to it than just listening to the little mini lectures. And it is funny, like we always try to prep our guests like, hey, we really want this to be a conversation. But some people hear that and can't actually do it. So how do you deal with those different types of guests?
Martin Lercher 31:54
Well, I mean, we have exactly the same experience, of course. We also, you know, like, we sent them an email ahead of time with some sample questions, and we say we really want this to be a conversation and, you know, sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't work so well. But, you know, honestly, I don't really feel that we have a good solution for that like, you know, sometimes people just go on and on. And you would like to, you know, to ask a question like about what they just said, but yes, don't give you space as much. It happens. Right, so.
Itai Yanai 32:28
Well, I think it stems from the awkwardness of the situation for the guests, you know, think about it from their perspective, it's super hard. They don't have a Google Doc, or like a secret communication, you know, they're just out there on their own. And I think it's kind of like an adaptive response on the part of the guest to just fall into professor mode.
Art Woods 32:49
Revert to what they know. Yeah.
Martin Lercher 32:51
So how do you deal with that situation?
Art Woods 32:54
Well, I mean, honestly, not that well.
Marty Martin 32:58
It's true
Art Woods 32:58
We always, we always say, Okay, this time, we're not going to let them do that, you know, we're going to, we're going to break in, we're going to, like, really make sure that we do some warm up questions at the beginning, where we try to force it to be conversational, but that only works to an extent. And, you know, I think you're right, I think some people just feel more comfortable like talking about the things that they know, and when they're on stage, and they feel stressed. And they know this is being recorded, so for all time. Andbthey want to just keep talking about the things that they know about instead of relaxing into the conversation.
Martin Lercher 33:33
Do you guys edit? Or not so much?
Marty Martin 33:37
Yeah, quite a bit. Yeah. I mean, a lot of it these days tends to be sound production, just blips and, you know, sirens and things in the background, that kind of stuff. For the most part, it's what 90% of the conversation? Does that seem reasonable, Art?
Art Woods 33:51
Yeah, it's hard to edit a conversation so that it sounds conversational, when it wasn't in real time.
Marty Martin 33:57
Right.
Art Woods 33:57
You know,
Marty Martin 33:58
And I think the lesson that we've learned on this, you know, sort of how do you get someone who's, as you say, stressed and concerned and aware that this is a performance, but try not to make it one. We try to do that as much as we can upstream. In terms of the invitations, there's no limit to the biology universe and the topics that we can cover, so before we put out an invitation, we checked YouTube and we check other things to see how people do those kinds of things. And you know, Art and I've been doing this long enough that oftentimes we're inviting people that we know or have seen, you know, firsthand, so that works a lot of times but then there's some, you know, hot topic that we know we need to cover and we really don't know that area, we will go ahead and take the chance and try and make the best of it.
Itai Yanai 34:42
I want to ask you guys a question actually about the length of your podcast because yours is a little bit longer than hours probably like to fold. You know, we tend to be about 30 minutes, 40 minutes and yours is like an hour or 20 but both of us are dwarfed by other podcasts like, you know, Lex Fridman. Or like Huberman, right? What do you guys think about that? Did it ever occur to you to do a three hour interview?
Marty Martin 35:12
No.
Art Woods 35:12
Sounds so exhausting.
Marty Martin 35:14
By 90 minutes art and I are writing to each other like please make this stop. We aren't that capable.
Itai Yanai 35:21
Yeah it's hard to sustain that.
Marty Martin 35:23
It really is. But there's a casualness in what Lex does I mean, I respect that a lot. I was listening to one a couple of weeks ago, and it must have taken over an hour before they even first mentioned, whatever the title, whatever the summary of the podcast was supposed to be. So you know, ours is scripted in a sense that we have an idea of what we want to cover, we try not to, you know, walk right through all the bullet points or anything, but we kind of set it up from the start that it can't really go any longer than 70 minutes. And then if the conversation is going really well, or particularly topic, we love them, we will push it.
Marty Martin 35:27
I was gonna ask how much editing you guys do and how much compression?
Martin Lercher 36:01
Well, I think we do slightly more than you. But one reason could be that we feel that we can't really script a lot ahead of time, because, you know, we're talking with our guests about things that are totally unpublished, right, that probably they've never talked about before in public. Like where did they get their ideas? Like, what do they do, if they have a problem that they don't know how to solve, like, who do they talk to? And how do they talk to people? You know, and it's different for every person, right? So it's very hard for us to know ahead of time for a specific guest what kind of questions we should ask them. And so it's a lot more exploration, it's a lot more improvisation, what we do in our podcast, I feel. And you know, of course, there's always dead ends that we get into. And then, you know, we might cut out like a whole paragraph or a couple of questions that we think are not leading anywhere in the end. Because it's so unpredictable.
Itai Yanai 36:55
Yeah, it's really like that we like to open it up with what we call, between ourselves, the opening monologue, where we ask the person, you know, overall, what's your approach to creativity. And then we really just take notes in our Google Doc. And like Martin is saying, from that point on, we're just trying to figure out what they just said, we're just exploring, or, we really don't know where it's gonna go. And it's actually I think, by the end of the hour, we're exhausted.
Art Woods 37:24
It takes intense concentration. But that sounds really, really exciting and fresh to do it that way. You know, without too much pre-planning.
Martin Lercher 37:30
Yeah, it's a lot of fun.
Marty Martin 37:31
So guys, how do you how do you pick the guests that come on your show? I mean, you can also draw from a vast universe, how do you make the choices of how your invites go out?
Martin Lercher 37:40
Well, I was actually thinking about that, when you were describing how you, you know, look at, I don't know, things people will do on YouTube or somewhere else to get an idea of how it would be to talk to them. This is something that we don't really do. For us, how we select guests is we think about, you know, who do we think is really interesting in terms of their creativity, like whose science do we think is exciting and new and, and fresh. And so we try to really select those people where we think they might have something to say about creativity, because they have shown that they are creative. But I also appreciate your approach. So, you know, this is something that we could use to complement how we select people. We also look for people who can talk about this.
Marty Martin 38:27
And to be clear, Martin, I mean, the first thing that we'll do is we pick topics. So Art and I do have fairly broad interests, and the topic is always the priority. So if we can't find a guest that perfectly matches, especially if it's a narrow topic, the pool is going to be small. We'll sort of go that way. But if it's something that we know that we want to cover, and there's someone that has done TED talks or something on that, then you know, that'll be the first person that we approach just because, not only do they have an aptitude for it, presumably they have an interest in science communication, because we've done that kind of thing before.
Itai Yanai 38:58
One thing I really love about having a podcast is you could talk to your heroes, right? Like you have this platform where it's like, you can pretend oh, it's not me. It's not for me that I want to talk to Daniel Kahneman. It's for the listeners. I'm doing it for the listeners
Marty Martin 39:15
Have you managed to get on most of your heroes?
Itai Yanai 39:18
We're getting there. I think we've had so many so far. It was a dream to talk to Tufte, because he was I read all his books and Uri is an old friend. It was great to have him because he's, you know, like Martin said, he's thought so much about creativity. Steven Strogatz, that was so much fun.
Marty Martin 39:36
Yeah that was a great episode.
Itai Yanai 39:38
Oh thank you
Art Woods 39:39
I had a question for you guys about dynamics of how you have changed as hosts over the course of doing, you know, your thirty plus episodes. So what's changed for you?
Martin Lercher 39:50
I think we just got into some kind of routine like at the beginning, you know, the conversations are still improvised in the sense that we don't really know ahead of time what we're going to talk about with our guest. But initially, it was also very much improvised in how we interacted with each other and with a guest. And you know, who was going to ask, when, what question and, and that sort of has become, I wouldn't even say a bit more professional, right. So now like we communicate much more systematically on the Google Doc, and you know, we pretty much know who's going to ask the next question, or if one of us thinks of, you know, I would like to ask a follow up question here, and then we communicate that. So I think in terms of how we do it, it's become a lot more smooth. But that's sort of the only difference that I notice. And how was it for you? I mean, you've been doing it for quite a bit longer than us now.
Art Woods 40:46
I would say it's somewhat excruciating to go back and listen to old episodes, because I can hear that we were unpracticed. And it's hard to put a finger on what that is exactly. But it's a, you know, it's a kind of stiffness to the way we were asking questions or interacting with our guests. And I would say, for me, personally, it feels like I've just kind of relaxed into the role in the sense that I know we can deal with whatever happens in the conversation, and I've become a lot more comfortable just asking what I perceive to be the next obvious question. And sometimes those are like, really, really dumb questions like I feel like I'm much more comfortable being the dumb guy.
Marty Martin 41:26
You are the master of that. Let me just say, I'll happily give you that compliment.
Art Woods 41:30
Oh yeah, being the dumb guy. I've really excelled at being the dumb guy. But what I mean by that is, like, you know, just just ask the next, the next obvious thing, and that, I don't know that that's made the whole thing a lot more fun, because even when we're talking to people that are, you know, really at the top of their game are really intimidating in some ways, just like, yeah, we're just having a conversation, and I'm asking things that are of interest to me. But even if they're basic and obvious, they're probably also questions that are occurring to our listeners, and so just ask them.
Martin Lercher 42:00
Yeah that makes a lot of sense.
Marty Martin 42:02
What has the podcast done for your science? Has it changed your science as well?
Itai Yanai 42:07
I think it has been strange to observe that people actually listen to it. It's interesting, because, you know, Martin and I, we put so much thought into our editorials, we just for months, months on end, so much effort. And then you know, you're like, for one hour, we'll talk to a Aviv Regev, and just the disparity between how much effort goes into it's so but then everybody listens to the Aviv Regev podcast, and we're just we're so amused by kind of like what Martin was saying before that the the youth, they love the podcast, and it's just so accessible to them. So that I think maybe it hasn't, you know, changed anything about the content of my science, but in terms of communications, you know, communicating ideas to people, it does force you to become better at it, you think about what's the idea you're trying to communicate and. And then, you know, just as an aside, it's also interesting to think that when Martin and I are doing it together, there was an interesting dynamic, where we also do workshops, where we talk about the creative process, and we do like, we just a couple months ago, we did a two day workshop at Princeton, that was a lot of fun. And one thing that works about it is our dynamic of I say something, and then Martin says something, it's a conversation. It's not a boring monologue. And so I think that that aspect has also now been integrated into the way I give talks, where it's more conversational, and I feel more comfortable in having a discussion with the question answer period. So I think in terms of science communication, it's helped me a little bit.
Martin Lercher 43:52
Yeah, I would agree with that also, from my side. It hasn't really changed what topics I do in my research, for example, but it has changed the way I communicate science, I think. And it has also sharpened my eye for the creative process. You know, like Itai was like, we were saying, we've been writing these editorials for quite a while. And we did that before we started with the podcast. So of course, that also increased my focus, increased my understanding of this creative process. But hearing all those people in the podcast talk about their personal style of doing the creative process of science, that's really not only interesting, but I think it also influences how I have discussions with my students, for example. How was that for you like the podcast, did it change anything about your research?
Marty Martin 44:44
Well, definitely in the scicomm dimension. I mean, the same thing, I just gave a seminar last week, and I, you know, in the middle of it, I realized, wow, I'm being a podcaster. I'm not doing the same scientific talk that I usually would. I'm talking in science voice. It's an actual conversation with the audience. But I think the science for me, it actually has changed, and I wonder if that's because Itai you said it in one of our email exchanges. Our podcast is about the results, and yours is about the process. And that's very true. I think the breadth of things that I'm willing to take the risks to work on, has changed. I mean, there's a bit of a downside there, because I find myself being more collaborative than sometimes I'm comfortable with I, you know, can't know and can't progress parts of the research, because I don't control it in the same kind of way, but but it does give me an ability to sort of, I don't know, just think more broadly. And I guess the kind of research that Art and I do, and you guys can definitely relate is Integrative Biology, right. And so talking to people about the kinds of work that they do, that's way out on the margins of what my expertise is supposed to be. It really does always pull me in that direction. I always sort of find myself thinking back to like, we just talked about one of my favorite episodes with Karl Friston, about a year and a half ago or so. That conversation has profoundly changed the projects that my lab are doing right now.
Itai Yanai 46:03
Oh, yeah. Yeah. You know, that really resonates with me, Marty, what you just said, because for Martin and I, in each episode we do, I feel like we really learned so much from it. And we refer back constantly to what did Aviv say, what did Barabasi say? And because it's all about the same topic of the creative process, we look at them as kind of like prophets that are coming to us. And each one has like a central message, like a gift that they impart. And I remember that what Barbarsi said to us, I was thinking about it for days later, about how there's this fallacy of experts, that you may tell your idea to an expert, and they'll see everything that's wrong about it, because they're too close to it. They can't see what potential it has. They're just too close to it, so don't be discouraged if the expert doesn't like your idea. And that was just profound for me.
Martin Lercher 46:53
Yeah. So one question that Itai likes to ask a lot lately is, you know, what do we really want? What do we really want? Like so? So we're curious, what do you really want with your podcast? I know you're doing this, you've been doing it for a while.
Itai Yanai 47:11
Yeah, what do you really want? You have to do it in that voice.
Martin Lercher 47:14
Yeah.
Marty Martin 47:15
Art, you wanted to be a model, right? Didn't you want to be a sponsor? For some kind of perfume? I think you were maybe supported by Coke? I think that's what you talked about in the past.
Art Woods 47:26
I think you misheard, Marty.
Marty Martin 47:27
Oh sorry
Art Woods 47:31
You know, I mean, I'd be interested to hear what Marty says about this, because I feel like this is really an ongoing question for us. And I think for me, personally, the answer has evolved over the last few years into I'd say, I'll give you the current answer, which is, we want to just have fun talking to, you know, the broadest set of people that we can talk to in the most interesting way. And simultaneously to make the podcast sustainable, which, which means. Yeah, and those are not necessarily aligned. I mean, they are obviously at least partially aligned. But you know, we want to have a sort of big enough audience that we can keep this sustained and keep going for multiple years, while also sort of very selfishly talking about the exact topics and to the exact people that we want to talk to. And I'd say, you know, the other interesting idea that we've kicked around a lot, but really haven't successfully implemented yet is this idea of making the podcast a platform for actually hashing out modern controversies that we're interested in. So you know, trying to get guests on with opposing points of view or panels to discuss some big topic. That's controversial, and to actually make some progress on that topic in real time during the conversation. And honestly, we haven't really succeeded at that, I would say, Marty, it's just hard to get, you know, even one guest on it's much harder to coordinate multiple guests. And I think, especially if there's the possibility for some, you know, conflict and contention on the show, but I love that idea. We haven't done it.
Marty Martin 49:09
Yeah, I mean, I think we try really hard not to host debates. We don't want a competition. We don't want that sort of grandstanding. We don't want that posturing. And it's just, it's really hard to do in this medium, even if we have video and those kinds of things. But I would say that, that the second part of what Art said sustainability, that's an important one he reminds me about all the time. But yeah, using the podcast as this mechanism for people that devote so much effort and years and attention into these things. The sort of professional side of doing science has become, I don't know, unappealing in so many different ways, it feels like a podcast, could be a platform, and especially for students, it's a way maybe to make progress in the discipline while also appealing to the people that are going to carry that torch later.
Martin Lercher 49:56
Oh my god. Yeah, yeah, you put your finger on something that really, really speaks to me. I think, you know, if you look at Twitter and beyond, there's just so much negativity about academia right now. And it's like it's getting to everybody it's getting to students. And I do think that our two podcasts are helping. I agree with you that a debate may not work, because for what we do with these podcasts is you really want the people to be open and genuine. And with a the debate. Yeah, they would kind of, you know, they would feel threatened. And all of that would come out. But I think, what aspect of the Night Science podcast that I really like, because so much of it feels like it's kind of therapy for us, you know, that, like, science is so hard. And when you listen to I don't know, Science Hour on the BBC, or like the Science Magazine podcast, or the Nature podcast, it's all just like, so flashy, like, Oh, my God, you know, all these results, and everything is so amazing. And no one talks about the real aspect of doing science, which is such a struggle, you know, there's so much failure. It's psychologically so difficult. And so I really think our podcast just tries to be genuine and real. Like, this is the real process, and it's fine to talk about it could be helpful.
Marty Martin 51:19
Yeah. In the list of questions. I know, we're probably getting close to the end of our time, guys. But I want to just steal one of your questions, Itai, from the list that you sent us. What podcasts do you guys listen to? Or have the specific version of question I'd like to know the answer to: were there any podcasts that were inspirational to you? I mean, that you sort of emulate or was there one that inspired you to just go for this?
Itai Yanai 51:42
For me, it has to be Radiolab. I love Radiolab. There's no way I shouldn't say no way. But, you know, the night science podcast is not like that. I wish it could be more like Radiolab like so produced. And there's all the music and the different sides. It's an amazing podcast. And I love to just tell people about the stuff I heard on Radiolab. So I think one thing that inspired me was wouldn't it be cool that if someone would listen to the Night Science podcast, and they would want to just like run out and find someone they could talk to you like, "Oh, did you hear what did you hear what what Ellen Rothenburg said, Oh, my God, it blew my mind."
Martin Lercher 52:17
Yeah, I have to say for myself, before we started with a podcast, I wasn't actually a strong listener to podcasts at all. Maybe that was one of the reasons why it took Itai so long to convince me. So it was not that, that I listened to something that inspired me. And, you know, what we're doing on our podcast is, I think, quite different from what most people are doing, with our focus on the process. So I think more than a podcast actually, what's inspirational for me, is a book I read, which is called Songwriters On Songwriting, actually, so it's totally.
Itai Yanai 52:56
Martin is always going on and on about this book.
Martin Lercher 52:58
Yes yes. And they're actually doing for music or for songwriting, what we're trying to do for science, right, so there's this guy who did all these interviews with amazing songwriters, like you know, you name it, they're in there.
Itai Yanai 53:13
Yeah Leonard Cohen, Paul Simon
Martin Lercher 53:15
Yeah. So they're all there. And it doesn't ask them about their love life, or you know, how it is to be famous and successful. He's really only interested in the process, you know, like, how do they do it? Like, where do they get their ideas? And, you know, like, what are the techniques they use? And I found that so fascinating. And so I think that's more inspirational than any podcast for what we're trying to do. For me.
Art Woods 53:42
Yeah super cool. Have you guys listened to the Song Exploder podcast?
Marty Martin 53:45
I knew you were going to bring that up, Art.
Art Woods 53:47
Yeah I really like that.
Itai Yanai 53:51
How about you guys?
Marty Martin 53:52
Yeah, I mean, I think I'm the podcast nut of the pair of us. You know, in everything we're talking about, I think this sums up what my why I had the batch of podcasts that I always listen to. There's an emphasis on the people, right? It's not just the results, it's not just the process, it's the individuals that are doing that. And I think I'd love Radiolab as well, don't get me wrong, and they do some of that. But then a lot of the other, you know, sort of results oriented Nature, Science podcasts that you were talking about, they they often will leave out that dimension and not just the you know, what was your trajectory through to being a professor, but the details by which they came to produce, you know, whatever the data are, that's a topic for the show. I think that, you know, Sam Harris does that incredibly well. His podcast is probably the one that has been most inspirational, got me going, got me interested in doing this in first place. And then the way that he approaches, a lot of things, not everything, but a lot of things that sort of sits in the back of my head. But Sean Carroll does a great job with Mindscape. Art and I've recently become big fans of Bari Weiss and honestly, I mean, it's not science at all, but, but she's quite good at doing that. But yeah, it's just in general, the sort of bringing on people, talking about their individual steps to whatever kind of thing is the subject of what they're doing. I just like that conversational style.
Marty Martin 54:10
And you could probably tell, but I think I had maybe more of Martin's trajectory of not being a serious podcast listener. Until more recently, I, you know, I think like, the longer we do our own podcast, the more other podcasts that I'm listening to, and of course, I'm heavily influenced slash biased by Marty. And I like many of the same things that he listens to, you know, there's a few others that I also listened to, like Hidden Brain, I don't know, if you guys listen to that one. It's highly produced in the same way that Radiolab, maybe not quite to the level of Radiolab, but they're just super interesting conversations about the way the human brain works. And I really like that.
Itai Yanai 55:54
Actually have a question for you guys, with your colleagues, you know, your other faculty and other scientists in your field? Do you think it is perceived that the fact that you guys have a podcast makes you less serious as scientists? Is it a liability? Or does it help? How does that influence the way you are perceived in your field?
Art Woods 56:17
That's an interesting question. And I guess I don't know the answer to it. I think there's a chance of maybe being perceived as less serious. But we also, I think, tend to only hear from people who are enthusiastic about the podcast, right? And so there's maybe an element of self selection there in the sorts of feedback, right, nobody's gonna say, you know, that's just super stupid that you do a podcast we hear from people who are like, really honestly enthusiastic about just the overall idea of the podcast or particular episodes they've listened to. So it's almost entirely positive feedback. But I guess I don't totally trust that. I don't know. What do you think, Marty?
Marty Martin 56:54
No, I think you're exactly right. I mean, the one thing that I would say where I can trust it, because their dollars involved. The Dean of my college supports our podcast to an amazing degree. So and I told you guys, I'm going to College of Public Health. So a podcast about biology, that's sort of you know, we're only occasionally touching things that are relevant to the college. And yet, she really strongly supports the podcast. The University of Montana has been very supportive. Most of what we do to pay our producers and interns is on NSF grants as part of their broader impacts. But USF in particular, almost since the start, has been incredibly generous. I'm not sure that this would have been possible without this, this Dean's backing. I should Donna Petersen is her name. I should I should thank her for that.
Marty Martin 56:56
What about you guys? What's your perception?
Marty Martin 57:00
Well, you know what you said about the dean, we're not financially supported by my university, but I know that they really appreciate any kind of science communication. So they're very happy that we're doing this podcast. But that's sort of the administration or the management of the university. The colleagues, I don't know Itai, what your experience has been, but you know, when I'm at a conference, and somebody comes up to me and says, "By the way, I'm listening to your podcast, I think it's really cool." You know, the kind of positive feedback that you were talking about. It's usually students or young postdocs, right? It's rarely other professors that say that. You know, maybe because they don't have time to listen to podcasts, but I also suspect that, you know, it might be bit more suspicious to these people, you know, like, you know. I mean, how can you be a serious scientist, if you waste your time on stupid stuff like that?
Art Woods 58:32
Yeah. But I've also, I think, I've gotten over that. And, you know, going back to something I think you said earlier, it has such a broader reach than most of the papers that I write, right, like, you know, I'm happy if a hundred people or a couple hundred cite some paper of mine. But like, regularly, multiple thousands of people download our episodes. And so what, what has a broader reach? And what really matters more in the end? And, you know, I mean, there's different strengths to these things, right? They matter in different ways. But it's just nice to be able to talk to a broader audience in my very small field.
Martin Lercher 59:04
I think you're absolutely right. I mean, and that's also one of the driving forces for us. I think that, you know, we do our science, and we love our science. We think it's really exciting. It's really cool what we do in terms of our science, but, you know, there's a relatively small number of people who agree with that notion, right, who also find it fascinating. And in terms of the impact that we can have on science as a whole or in society as a whole, what we do with the podcast, I think, you know, has the potential to do much more and to last much longer than our specific research, right? Like there we really have an agenda like really, really want to change the world, right? Not just, you know, add something to the building of knowledge, but really change the way that graduate students are taught how to do science, right? So we have the ability here to do something that's much bigger than what we can do with our individual projects.
Itai Yanai 1:00:04
Yeah. And, you know, I always thought about it as a hobby. You know, I have my day job, I'm a scientist. And then I have, I have this night science hobby. It's cute. And that's what I keep telling myself. But actually, just yesterday, as a matter of fact, I said that to someone and they said, but, you know, Itai, it's not really a hobby. Like you, you really care about this, it's more than a hobby. And yeah, I think if I'm being honest, it's more than a hobby. It really, and I have to, I have to think about like, you know, to what degree should we go more into it?
Art Woods 1:00:37
Yeah. Could it grow to displace your day job?
Itai Yanai 1:00:40
Yeah, it might, you know, it's so funny to say that, because I've been in science for so long, right? It's been like 25 years since I started grad school. So you know science has been everything for me for as long as I can remember. And now to think about like, a new job, it's like, it's scary, but also interesting. Yeah.
Martin Lercher 1:01:01
How about you? Do you think you're gonna do science communication full time at some point?
Marty Martin 1:01:07
Art?
Art Woods 1:01:08
Marty?
Marty Martin 1:01:10
Drumroll. This is the point where Art says, I'm done with Big Biology. I'm walking away.
Art Woods 1:01:19
I mean, honestly, it's hard to imagine, you know, it's got a lot of appeal, right? I mean, it's super fun. And yet, it feels like it would be impossible to step away from the sort of more academic aspects of what I do. But I don't know. What do you think Marty?
Marty Martin 1:01:32
Yeah, we have joked for, I think, since the beginning of getting an independent donor, Leonardo DiCaprio supporting Big Biology. And then we have a research institute that's, you know, half the time during the day, we're doing our science and at night, we're making the podcast. I don't think that at this point in my career, I can walk away from the science. I really liked this stuff that I'm doing now. And I guess I don't see that excitement dissipating for, you know, at least seven to ten years. But at the same time, I couldn't envision giving this up, either. I mean, I'm just I think what I'm trying to do is interweave them, to the extent that they can be. So yeah, I don't know. I don't think I could give up either one of them at this point.
Itai Yanai 1:02:18
This has been super interesting.
Art Woods 1:02:19
Yeah
Marty Martin 1:02:20
Yeah this has been great guys.
Martin Lercher 1:02:21
Yeah
Art Woods 1:02:22
You guys are really fun to talk to.
Marty Martin 1:02:33
Thanks for listening to the episode. If you like what you hear, let us know on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or just leave a review wherever you get your podcasts. And if you don't tell us that too. All feedback is good feedback.
Art Woods 1:02:44
Thanks to Steve Lane, who manages the website and Ruth Demree for producing the episode.
Marty Martin 1:02:48
Thank you as well two interns Dayna De La Cruz and Kyle Smith for helping produce the episode. Keating Shahmehri produces the fantastic cover art.
Art Woods 1:02:55
Thanks also to the College of Public Health at the University of South Florida, the College of Humanities and Sciences at the University of Montana and the National Science Foundation for support.
Marty Martin 1:03:05
Music on the episode is from Podington Bear and Tieren Costello.