The Science Basement Podcast The Science Basement

Sweet, sweet sleep... We all love a good nap. That moment when we switch off the lights, get cozy in our beds, close our eyes and fall in the blissful arms of Morph... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...
...zzzz...
Sorry! I'm awake! Where were we?
Sleep! Right!
So, we all love it, but what is it exactly? What do our brain actually do when we sleep? Do they shut down or something?
To try to answer these questions, Tomás and Eleanna interviewed Sarah Steffens, PhD student from the University of Helsinki, studying sleep and the involvement of a specific type of brain cells called M... you know what? Listen to the interview to find out! ;)

Sarah has studied Biology in Bonn and Neurobiology in Freiburg, Germany. She is now at the Helsinki University working at her PhD project, which focuses on the relationship between sleep and immune cells (microglia) in the brain.
How does insufficient sleep affect microglia? And do they play a role in sleep homeostasis?

Your hosts this week are Tomás Garnier Artiñano & Eleanna Asvestari.
Editing by Tomás Garnier Artiñano.
Episode cover by Katja Kaurinkoski & Giuliano Didio.
TSB Podcast logo by Tomás Garnier Artiñano.
Jingle by Havelocke. thisishavelocke.bandcamp.com

Follow The Science Basement:

Homepage: www.thesciencebasement.org

Facebook: www.facebook.com/ScienceBasement

Instagram: @sciencebasement

Twitter: @ScienceBasement

Email: podcast@thesciencebasement.org

Did you ever wonder how solar eruptions affect the space, as they travel away from the Sun? In this episode Eleanna Asvestari and Guliano Didio are interviewing Dr. Matti Ala-Lahti about plasma in space, solar eruptions, and the "sheath region" that is formed when mass ejected during a solar eruption travels in space.

Dr. Matti Ala-Lahti is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Helsinki where he recently defended his doctoral thesis. He received a grant to start working in autumn 2021 as a postdoctoral research at the University of Michigan. Matti's research focuses on space plasma environments driven by solar eruptions, i.e. sheath regions driven by interplanetary coronal mass ejections (ICMEs). His love for space might one day take Matti to space LITERALLY as he applied for the astronaut program in Europe!

Dr. Matti Ala-Lahti's email address: matti.ala-lahti@helsinki.fi

References bees fun-fact:
Bees can count:
Howard, Scarlett R., et al. "Numerical ordering of zero in honey bees." Science 360.6393 (2018): 1124-1126.

Bees might have been cheating:
MaBouDi HaDi, Barron Andrew B., Li Sun, Honkanen Maria, Loukola Olli J., Peng Fei, Li Wenfeng, Marshall James A. R., Cope Alex, Vasilaki Eleni and Solvi Cwyn 2021Non-numerical strategies used by bees to solve numerical cognition tasksProc. R. Soc. B.28820202711


Your hosts this week are Eleanna Asvestari & Giuliano Didio.
Editing by Cecilia Cannarozzo.
Episode cover by Katja Kaurinkoski & Giuliano Didio.
TSB Podcast logo by Tomás Garnier Artiñano.
Jingle by Havelocke. thisishavelocke.bandcamp.com

Follow The Science Basement:

Homepage: www.thesciencebasement.org

Facebook: www.facebook.com/ScienceBasement

Instagram: @sciencebasement

Twitter: @ScienceBasement

Email: podcast@thesciencebasement.org

How does the eye work?
Well... Ehm... You have the eye of course, than the light goes inside the eye, through the pupil... and then the light hits the RETINA.
Wait... the what now?!
"A carpet of neurons"! That's how our interviewee, Laura, describes the retina, the sheet of cells in our eyes, that detects light, and allows us to... well, to see!
In today's episode, Giuliano & Cecilia have a lovely conversation with the PhD student Laura Celotto about the eye, the retina, and... FISH! (I know... AGAIN!)

Laura is a scientist and an actress. She studied Neuroscience in Trieste, where she found out that neurons can wire up in beautiful architectures like the retina. Currently, she is a PhD student in Dresden, where she studies the retina regeneration in the zebrafish, a tiny little fish from South Asia.
Apart from being a nerdy scientist, she is also a passionate reader: “Three men in a boat” – which is her favourite book – describes her life better than this bio ;-)

References for catnip fun-fact: https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/7/4/eabd9135

Your hosts this week are Giuliano Didio & Cecilia Cannarozzo.
Editing by Cecilia Cannarozzo.
Episode cover by Katja Kaurinkoski & Giuliano Didio.
TSB Podcast logo by Tomás Garnier Artiñano.
Jingle by Havelocke. thisishavelocke.bandcamp.com

Follow The Science Basement:

Homepage: www.thesciencebasement.org

Facebook: www.facebook.com/ScienceBasement

Instagram: @sciencebasement

Twitter: @ScienceBasement

Email: podcast@thesciencebasement.org

Ever wanted to know more about the magical landscape that covers the Scottish Highlands‽ In this episode Tomás and Katja talk with Liam Godwin about the importance of Peatlands, their role in carbon storage and Salmon spawning.

Liam is a PhD researcher at the Environmental Research Institute in the United Kingdom. He is researching how the effects of land-use change across the Flow Country impacts stream and river ecosystems. Primarily, looking at how peatland dominated catchments respond to restoration by drainblocking and plantation removal.

Your hosts this week are Tomás Garnier Artiñano & Katja Kaurinkoski.
Editing by Tomás Garnier Artiñano.
Episode cover by Katja Kaurinkoski & Giuliano Didio.
TSB Podcast logo by Tomás Garnier Artiñano.
Jingle by Havelocke. thisishavelocke.bandcamp.com

Follow The Science Basement:

Homepage: www.thesciencebasement.org

Facebook: www.facebook.com/ScienceBasement

Instagram: @sciencebasement

Twitter: @ScienceBasement

Email: podcast@thesciencebasement.org

Welcome back, you wonderful insightful creatures!
Guess what! Here is another VERY SPECIAL episode! The third and last of our 3-episode miniseries made in collaboration with Cochrane, the international charitable organization promoting evidence-informed health decision-making, by producing top quality systematic reviews.
They have an official collaboration with Wikipedia, the NIH, the World Health Organization
…and now they are working with The Science Basement!

Found out more about Cochrane here:
https://www.cochrane.org/

In this episode Eleanna and Katja discuss with Jack Nunn on the importance of making science accessible and how to assess critically all the information around us.

Jack Nunn is the founder and Director of the non-for-profit education organisation ‘Science for All’, and co-creator of ‘Standardised Data on Initiatives (STARDIT), a PhD researcher at the Department of Public Health at La Trobe University, and recently appointed Consumer Network Executive for Cochrane.


Your hosts this week are Eleanna Asvestari & Katja Kaurinkoski.
Editing by Elmo Saarentaus.
Episode cover by Katja Kaurinkoski.
TSB Podcast logo by Tomás Garnier Artiñano.
Jingle by Havelocke. thisishavelocke.bandcamp.com

Follow The Science Basement:

Homepage: www.thesciencebasement.org

Facebook: www.facebook.com/ScienceBasement

Instagram: @sciencebasement

Twitter: @ScienceBasement

Email: podcast@thesciencebasement.org

Welcome back, you sciency science-lovers!
This is another VERY SPECIAL episode! The seconf of out 3-episode miniseries made in collaboration with Cochrane, the international charitable organization promoting evidence-informed health decision-making, by producing top quality systematic reviews.
They have an official collaboration with Wikipedia, the NIH, the World Health Organization
…and now they are working with The Science Basement!

Found out more about Cochrane here:
https://www.cochrane.org/

In this episode Giuliano and Elmo discuss with the Cochrane Reveiwer Fiona Stewart about what is a systematic review and... how to make one.
I mean... where do you even start, right?

Fiona is a Network Support Fellow for Cochrane, an international not-for-profit organisation for independent health care research. She has over ten years of experience working in health services research and has published several systematic reviews on topics ranging from pregnancy to urinary incontinence to obesity


Your hosts this week are Giuliano Didio & Elmo Saarentaus.
Editing by Cecilia Cannarozzo & Tomás Garnier Artiñano.
Episode cover by Katja Kaurinkoski & Giuliano Didio.
TSB Podcast logo by Tomás Garnier Artiñano.
Jingle by Havelocke. thisishavelocke.bandcamp.com

Follow The Science Basement:

Homepage: www.thesciencebasement.org

Facebook: www.facebook.com/ScienceBasement

Instagram: @sciencebasement

Twitter: @ScienceBasement

Email: podcast@thesciencebasement.org