Inside the Breakthrough - How Science Comes to Life

Dan Riskin invites you to listen to season 2 of Inside the Breakthrough - How Science Comes to Life. This innovative series combines stories of the distant past with modern updates to get a better understanding of how science works.

In season two we will explore the connections behind naming a new hormone, ridding a city of snakes, and battling Napoleon on the high seas.

Along the way we will learn how a professor at Stanford turned mild mannered young men into cruel vicious prison guards, and how the Irish Potato Famine really had nothing to do with potatoes.

We will ask questions such as: “Did we learn the wrong lesson from the sinking of the Titanic?” “Who pays for NASA’s rockets?” and “What can you learn from a man with no memory?” It’s a fun filled ride that also checks in with George Eastman, Dr James Lind, Marie Antoinette, Henry Ford, and some Australian guy that intentionally gave himself an ulcer.

The host Dan Riskin comes from Discovery Channel where he hosted the science news show “Daily Planet,” and wrote the book, “Mother Nature is Trying to Kill You.”

The show is produced by SciMar, a research group exploring a paradigm shift in the way we treat Type 2 Diabetes. www.SciMar.ca

SciMar does more than produce a podcast. They are a real medical research company doing really amazing work in the field of type 2 diabetes. This episode tells the story of how they got here. ‘Here’ being: on the verge of a transformational breakthrough in metabolic health. It starts with a Eureka moment in a lab… travels to a biological science conference in Minnesota… and then spends a quiet week relaxing beside the lake in Jasper, Alberta. How does all that lead to a breakthrough in the way we diagnose and treat type 2 diabetes, AND an award-winning podcast? This is their story.

www.scimar.ca

We made it! This is the final episode in season one… and it is a huge day for the medical research group SciMar. Some scientific discoveries are exciting because they reveal something that was previously unknown. But a lot of ‘discoveries’ are actually visual confirmation of a proven fact. Roald Amundsen already knew the South Pole was in the middle of Antarctica. He already knew it was covered in ice and would be very, very cold. But he still risked his life to go see it. Oceanographers already knew that colossal squids were prowling the dark recesses of the seas, but it was still a landmark day when one was captured alive. And for SciMar, they already knew that the HISS hormone could make people more insulin sensitive and healthier, but the day they can demonstrate conclusively that it does what they always believed it could do will still be one for the ages. These science stories from history shed light on the modern research being done on type 2 diabetes. Specifically we highlight the work of SciMar as they examine the hormone HISS - hepatic insulin-sensitizing substance - and the effect it has on glucose levels in people who are insulin resistant. www.SciMar.ca

Starting a story at the beginning makes sense… but what if there is a mistake in that first sentence? Does it invalidate the rest of the story? What if your experiment is based on an assumption that later turns out to be false? And how can you protect your tower of discoveries from tumbling down? We start with an unbelievable story about New York City being buried in horse manure, and discover the solution is in Detroit. Then we witness how British doctors thought they had solved polio, but actually hadn’t. Finally Dr Wayne Lautt explains Looping Theory… and how that can mistake proof your experimental results. These science stories from history shed light on the modern research being done on Type 2 Diabetes. Specifically, we highlight the work of SciMar as they examine the hormone HISS - Hepatic Insulin Sensitizing Substance - and the effect it has on glucose levels in people who are insulin resistant. www.SciMar.ca

You’ve probably heard that Banting and Best gave away the patent for Insulin for one dollar. But why did they do that? And did it achieve what they wanted? We often associate being successful with being profitable. And for a lot of enterprises that is true. But what if your goal is to win the second world war, and you do, but you go bankrupt in the process… is that a ‘success?’ What if your goal is to save a lot of people’s lives, and the only way to do that is to also make a lot of money? Does that sound like a contradiction? The truth is the relationship between ‘social good,’ and ‘good business’ is messy. We dig deep into this idea of morality, profits and what it really means to ‘do the right thing.’ These science stories from history shed light on the modern research being done on Type 2 Diabetes. Specifically, we highlight the work of SciMar as they examine the hormone HISS - Hepatic Insulin Sensitizing Substance - and the effect it has on glucose levels in people who are insulin resistant. www.SciMar.ca

How many astronomers does it take to discover a planet that doesn’t exist? The Answer: Generations. Depending on where you live, (and a thousand other variables) your life expectancy is probably between 75 and 85 years. Even at the high end, that’s not enough to solve all the world’s problems. That’s why most big questions can only be answered by multiple generations. We follow the story of a Roman temple that became an British Castle, and then an English jail. Then we follow the story of Neptune and Vulcan… two planets that were discovered by a dozen people over the course of two hundred years. Dr Wayne Lautt joins the show to share who his mentors and heroes are. These science stories from history shed light on the modern research being done on Type 2 Diabetes. Specifically we highlight the work of SciMar as they examine the hormone HISS - Hepatic Insulin Sensitizing Substance - and the effect it has on glucose levels in people who are insulin resistant. www.SciMar.ca

What do you think of when you hear the term Snake Oil? Do you think of miracle vitamins with outlandish claims? Do you think of sneaky sales people trying to separate you from your money? Or do you think of actual snakes? The truth is, those are all true. Snake Oil is a complicated concept that includes shiffy profiteers, and an audience that is, if not ‘gullible,’ at least ‘susceptible.’ Joseph Sledge spent three decades in prison because of bad forensics, and when you learn how it played out in the courtroom… you’ll see that what he really fell victim to, was “Snake Oil.” The best defence against snake oil is science. These science stories from history shed light on the modern research being done on Type 2 Diabetes. Specifically, we highlight the work of SciMar as they examine the hormone HISS - Hepatic Insulin Sensitizing Substance - and the effect it has on glucose levels in people who are insulin resistant. www.SciMar.ca

The answers to life’s biggest questions will vary widely based on one simple variable: who you ask. If you do an experiment on men, you might get a different result than when you do it on women. Rich, poor, black, white, young, old… people are diverse and you learn more when you ask your questions of a diverse audience. Joseph Henrich figured out that a lot of experiments were being done on a very homogeneous group of people… he calls those people “WEIRD.” You’ll have to listen to find out why. Something else you might learn if you study a diverse group is that leaded gasoline leads to violent crime. There are a lot of steps in between those two ideas so buckle in for that ride. And lastly Dr Lautt of SciMar explains why so many researchers only use men as test subjects, and what the consequence of that is. These science stories from history shed light on the modern research being done on Type 2 Diabetes. Specifically, we highlight the work of SciMar as they examine the hormone HISS - Hepatic Insulin Sensitizing Substance - and the effect it has on glucose levels in people who are insulin resistant. www.SciMar.ca

When someone tells you “that is a stupid idea,” how do you react? Do you reconsider your position? Do you dig your heels in and get defensive? Do you quit, or work harder? Being unpopular is a regular state of affairs for scientists. The nature of the work requires you to disrupt paradigms and make people uncomfortable. How a scientist reacts to that criticism is crucial to their success. Galileo got told he was wrong by the Pope himself. Seriously, the entire Catholic Church told him his idea that the Earth went around the Sun was flawed. But he stood his ground, and ended up in jail. Ignaz Semmelweis had a simpler idea -- that doctors should wash their hands. But that idea was met with opposition as well. He stood his ground and ended up in an asylum. Dr Wayne Lautt of SciMar has spent 30 years being told his ideas are unfounded. How should he react? What are the consequences of pushing back? These science stories from history shed light on the modern research being done on Type 2 Diabetes. Specifically we highlight the work of SciMar as they examine the hormone HISS - Hepatic Insulin Sensitizing Substance - and the effect it has on glucose levels in people who are insulin resistant. www.SciMar.ca

The TV show Friends was king of primetime for a decade and while all six characters were ‘friends’ one of them was not like the others: Ross. We look at why he was such a poor fit with this group and what that means for real life scientists. Marie Curie studied at the Sorbonne. She discovered Polonium and Radium. Eventually she became the first woman to win a Nobel Prize. All that makes her a unique character. We go to Poland to discover what else made her an outsider. Host Dan Riskin confronts his own reality as an Outsider while also drawing comfort from the realization that that distinction puts him in some esteemed company. And we visit with Dr Wayne Lautt from SciMar. He is disrupting a paradigm, changing the way we think about type 2 diabetes. Specifically, he is looking at the liver and hormone that comes from there, as something that can improve our sensitivity to insulin. www.SciMar.ca