Episodios

  • S1E8 - Terraforming Mars (Martian Science)

    S1E8 - Terraforming Mars (Martian Science)
    Sep 25 2024
    #Science #BoardGames #SciComm #Terraforming #Mars #Exobiology #Astrobiology #Regolith Introduction Today we talk about Terraforming Mars, with special guest Dr. Laura Fackrell of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. We cover how Mars lost its atmosphere, whether you really can survive off just potatoes, what makes regolith different from soil, the ethics of terraforming, reality TV, and why you should probably read Elon Musk's End-User License Agreement. Many thanks to Dr. Fackrell, and we hope you have fun journeying with us to the red planet! Timestamps 00:35 - Introductions01:40 - Martian potatoes02:52 - Game background10:06 - Martian atmosphere16:42 - How to grow stuff on Mars23:06 - Regolith versus Soil27:44 - Terraforming priorities & ethics39:08 - Final grades Find our socials at https://www.gamingwithscience.net Links Terraforming Mars official website (Fryx Games) Mars One (Wikipedia) Stars on Mars (IMDB) Terraforming Mars in Science Fiction (Wikipedia) Full Transcript Brian 0:06 Hello and welcome to the gaming with science podcast where we talk about the science behind some of your favorite games. Jason 0:12 Today we'll be talking about Terraforming Mars by FryxGames. Hey everyone. Jason here with a quick heads up about today's episode, we notice there's a few little audio hiccups and hangs throughout the episode, nothing huge, but it seems that the server we were using to record the audio was lagging a little bit in the process. We're sorry about that, and we're going to work to try to make sure it doesn't happen again. So with that, thank you, and on with the show. Brian 0:35 Hey, I'm Brian. Jason 0:36 This is Jason. Laura 0:37 This is Laura, Jason 0:38 and welcome back to gaming with science. We have another special guest star today. This is Dr Laura Fackrell from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Laura, can you give us a quick introduction to yourself? Please? Laura 0:48 Sure! I am Dr Laura Fakhrill, I am a geologist by training. So a lot of what I do, I'm familiar with a lot of things about rock and geology and place, tectonics and all sorts of things, but what I apply that to is really niche area called geomicrobiology, which looks at the interactions with microbes and rocks and also plants. Is something else. I've applied it to you. So my current work, I focus a lot on, how do you take the materials that are available on the moon, or that would be available on the moon if humans were there, and trying to turn that into something that can support agriculture. Brian 1:20 That's super cool. Jason 1:21 Yeah. And the reason why I asked Laura to be on this episode is because I knew her when she was a graduate student, when she was doing basically the same things, but for Martian soil, right, correct? Yes, or Martian regolith, I guess it's technically not soil. We can get into the difference of that a little bit later. So first off, the fun science fact, Brian, what fun science have you learned recently? Brian 1:40 Oh, well, I usually try to find something that I think is themed. So this was making the rounds a couple years ago, right around the release of The Martian. Maybe you saw this about, can you survive on a diet of nothing but potatoes? Did you see this making the rounds? I'm sure everybody did. Jason 1:54 I didn't actually, no. Brian 1:56 Oh, you didn't? So the short answer is, sort of, you actually can't get vitamin B12 from potatoes. You need to, at least not in the current form. Of course, in the movie The Martian, he get plenty of vitamins to take that presumably would have provided B12. The meme was that you could survive on a diet of potatoes and butter, the butter providing the vitamin B12. Can you survive for a long time on that diet? Yes. Would you be healthy on that diet? Almost certainly not. So those are different things. I suppose. I also saw a study recently where somebody tried to simulate, can you grow potatoes in simulated Martian regolith? And they said, sort of. So maybe it's not completely out of the question. Jason 2:36 Yeah, and I assume when you're marooned, if you're marooned an entire planetary orbit away from Earth. Survival is number one. You can worry about quality of life after that, Brian 2:44 Yeah, but you're not gonna get scurvy. Potatoes actually have a good amount of vitamin C in them. They provide a lot of calories. They are a good plant for that purpose. Jason 2:52 Okay, so everyone probably got from the show title we're talking today about Terraforming Mars by FryxGames. So little background about the game itself. First, FryxGames is a Swedish company. It's distributed by Stronghold games here in the US, FryxGames is actually a family business. You look on their website, they're all members of the Fryxelius family, which is just an awesome surname. It's like, I'm jealous of their surname. And Jacob Fryxelius is listed as the designer of the game with ...
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    45 m
  • S1E7 - Cytosis (Cell Biology)

    S1E7 - Cytosis (Cell Biology)
    Aug 28 2024
    Today we cover Cytosis, a worker-placement game about cell biology from Genius Games. This is one of our all-time high scorers, with both excellent science and excellent gameplay. Join us for a tour de cell as we go through the nucleus, endoplasmic reticulum, Golgi, mitochondria, and cell membrane, plus gush over how cute kinesins are and argue about whether bacteria have organelles. Find our socials at GamingWithScience.net #BoardGames #Science #CellBiology #GeniusGames #Cytosis #Protein #RNA #DNA #Hormones Timestamps: 00:51 - Protein sequencing03:54 - Intro to Genius Games06:50 - Intro to Cytosis12:48 - Cells & their parts16:06 - RNA & ribosomes20:22 - Endoplasmic reticulum, Golgi, & hormones24:48 - Mitochondria & glucose transport27:11 - Learning from the game28:40 - Bacteria30:58 - Inconsequential nitpicks36:11 - Final grades Links: Official Website (Genius Games)Reverse Translation (preprint)Video of John ConveyouOrganelles of a Euakaryotic cell (Wikipedia)Kinsesin motor proteins Full Transcript: Jason 0:00 Music. Hello and welcome to the gaming with science podcast where we talk about the science behind some of your favorite games. Brian 0:12 Today, we're going to discuss Cytosis by Genius Games. Hey, I'm Brian. Jason 0:21 This is Jason. Brian 0:23 Welcome back to Gaming with Science. Today, we're going to talk about Cytosis, a cell biology game. It was a game designed by John Coveyou by Genius Games. I don't know why it's taken us this long to do a Genius Games game, considering they are specialists in hard science games, and they seem to share the exact same core values as gaming with Science. I know this is our first. I'm sure it won't be our last. But anyway, before we get into that game, Jason, do you have anything for us to banter about? Jason 0:51 Well, I like the science topics, and you actually pointed me out to one that's related to this, which is a preprint. So you've got publications in final journals, but you also these things called Preprints, which is where you post your paper up before it's been peer-reviewed, so you can get the results out. You can kind of stake a claim to it. But according to their preprint, they've developed a way to do not quite reverse translation, but something similar. So we're going to talk about this more later today, where translation is where you take the genetic information from a cell and turn it into protein, and it's generally a one way street. You can't go back, but this group has developed a method to, not so much go backwards, but at least to take the proteins apart in such a way that it's encoded in DNA that they can then sequence and get back out. And this is really cool, because we're really good, like we as a field, science is very good at sequencing DNA right now. DNA sequencing in some form, has been around for 40, 50, years, but high throughput sequencing has been around for at least 20 years now. Ee're very, very good at it now. In fact, we're astonishingly good at how much DNA we can sequence. We suck at sequencing proteins. It can be done. It's like, don't get me wrong, there are methods to do it, but compared to what we can do with DNA, it's slow, it's expensive, it's hard, and I don't know that this method really solves all of those problems, but it potentially gets rid of some of them. And if we can find a way of turning proteins, protein information, into DNA information, and just hooking into the existing DNA sequencing infrastructure, that could open up whole new ways of looking at biology, looking at things, because most of the time, it's the protein that matters. We look at the DNA because the DNA is easy, but most of that, one way or another, ends up in a protein, either directly or by changing which proteins are around. And so being able to look at the proteins more directly gives us a lot more information about diseases, about things that in plant science we care about, like crop production or disease resistance. It's like there's a really cool thing that could open up there. And so even if this group doesn't work out, I hope someone manages to, like, build off of this and make it work. Brian 3:00 This is the first time I've seen a preprint, and be like, someone's going to get a Nobel Prize for this idea. Maybe not this group, but somebody's going to get this to work, and somebody's going to have a Nobel Prize for this. I mean, the whole idea about DNA. Why are we so good at doing DNA? Because DNA is set up to make copies of itself, right? You can take a very small amount of nucleic acid and using a process called the polymerase chain reaction, generate massive amounts of DNA. You can go from one molecule to a billion in a couple of hours. So you could start from a low amount of material and work up to a huge amount of material. But proteins don't do that right? It's one direction. So the only way to read the proteins out is you just make more and more and more sensitive instruments. It's ...
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    40 m
  • S1E6 - Evolution (Natural Selection)

    S1E6 - Evolution (Natural Selection)
    Jul 31 2024
    #Evolution #NaturalSelection #Darwin #Competition #BoardGames #Science Today we get down and dirty with Evolution, which is both a board game and that wonderful emergent property that happens when you have species competing for finite resources (including little food tokens on a game board). Joining us is a special evolutionary biologist guest, Dr. Thiago da Silva Moreira, who will help us walk through evolution, mutation, natural selection, sex, and other fun topics. Find our socials at www.GamingWithScience.net Timestamps 00:24 - Special guest host Thiago01:26 - Spider milk!03:34 - Basics of Evolution13:37 - Evolutionary science18:35 - Mutation24:24 - Competition and the Red Queen's Race29:38 - What is sex for?33:30 - Final Grades39:27 - Fun species names Links: Evolution website (North Star Games)Original game (Right Games RGB) Spider milk!Red Queen HypothesisLamarck Full Transcript Brian 0:06 Hello and welcome to the gaming with science podcast where we talk about the science behind some of your favorite games. Jason 0:11 Today, we will be talking about Evolution by North Star games. All right. Welcome back out everyone. This is Jason. Brian 0:22 This is Brian. Tiago 0:22 I am Thiago. Jason 0:24 Yes, we have another special guest star. So this is Thiago. Moreira Thiago, can you please introduce yourself to our audience? Tiago 0:29 Sure. I'm a, what I like to say, Brazilian by birth, American by choice. I'm a evolutionary biologist. I'm a professor here at the George Washington University. I have my graduation was back in Brazil in Rio. I got like a bachelor's in biology, a master's in zoology, and I have a PhD in evolutionary biology for the George Washington University too. Jason 0:49 All right. And then we met last year at Fear the Con, which is a gaming convention in St Louis, for a different podcast that we both listen to Fear the Boot if anyone is also a fellow Booter out there. We want to get Thiago on here, because he is an actual evolutionary biologist. And although Brian and I, we work with evolution a lot, you can't work in biology without learning a lot about evolution. It is the glue that holds our discipline together. But it's nice to have someone who actually studies evolution for their career to come on and talk to us about Evolution, which is a great game, by the way. I do really enjoy Evolution, the board game. So, but before we get into that, now, Thiago, you told us that you had a fun science fact to share for today, Tiago 1:26 Right! So the science fact that I found out, it was very interesting for me. So my specialty, what I do, my model organism, I use spiders to do my work on biology and evolution. One of the papers that I found recently that was not, it's not that recent, but was pretty stunning for me was one of 2018 when we found out, like Apparently, some spiders feed their younglings with milk. Jason 1:50 Oh the spider milk story! I remember that. Brian 1:54 That's awful. Jason 1:56 What do you mean that's awful? That's what humans do. Brian 2:00 No, no, actually, I pigeons use milk. Milk is more common than you'd think Tiago 2:04 It is, actually, though, when I was reading about it and I was telling this in class to my students, I was making the case. It's not exactly like mammalian milk, which is kind of something very unique for mammalians, but they use milk in and as a very like liberal in a very liberal way. It's not that uncommon, if you think of like, a lot of like different invertebrates do that. But the finding out this, and using this, the way was used, was pretty stunning to see. I never heard about that in spiders. Spiders are mainly predators, so I mean, they hunt, and even the young spiders, they hunt since pretty often. So that was a particular Jumping Spider, we actually mimics an ant and like to find out this was really I wasn't expecting, Jason 2:46 okay, so is the milk. I assume it's just some sort of liquid that's secreted from some gland on the spider that it feeds to its young. Is that right? Tiago 2:53 Right, so spiders, they have, like the structure in their in the the abdomen, called like the the big gastric fur, which is a cup here that has the openings, and like, in that particular spot, they have some glandular they'll actually secrete some, like a liquid which is apparently highly nutritious. And the young, the first things that they eat is that liquid. And at some point they have, like, an alternation between eating that and start to hunt. And then when they're weaned off. They only do hunting, Brian 3:22 Yeah, I guess it kind of makes sense. You think, like spiders are very good at secreting proteins. That is something they do. It's the raw material for evolution to then adapt into a new function, Tiago 3:33 yeah. Jason 3:34 And I think that gives us the perfect segueway to actually talk about this game Evolution. So ...
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    42 m
  • S1E5.1 - The Maize Genetics Meeting (Bonus)

    S1E5.1 - The Maize Genetics Meeting (Bonus)
    Jun 26 2024
    #Interview #Maize #Corn #Genetics #Scientists It's our mid-season break, so we've got a bonus episode talking to a handful of game-loving scientists at the 2024 Maize Genetics Meeting. We talk about science, games, perseverence, the winding path of becoming a scientist, and plenty more. Timestamps 01:35 - Introductions 02:25 - How did you get into science? 06:28 - What do you research? 09:38 - Favorite games? 12:29 - Turning your work into a game? 14:24 - Advice to aspiring scientists 17:44 - Closing remarks Find our socials at https://www.gamingwithscience.net Links 2024 Maize Genetics Meeting Full Transcript Brian 0:06 Hello, and welcome to the gaming with science podcast, where we talk about the science behind some of your favorite games. Jason 0:14 Welcome back to Gaming with Science. This is Jason and it's just me today. So right now we're technically in our mid season break. But to make sure y'all have something, I want to introduce you to a bunch of scientists I met at the Maize Genetics Meeting back in March. And that's maize as in corn, not maze as in puzzles. Although of course, you may have been to a corn maze, which is actually a maze maze. And yeah, anyway, one of my goals with this podcast was trying to show the human side of scientists, we see a bunch of things in Hollywood where scientists are all uber-nerdy or geeky or have no social life. And I want to show that scientists are human, we have interests, we play games, we have fun. And so when I was back at this conference, I wanted to show off what real scientists are like and so I grabbed a microphone and started grabbing some people and just talking with them and ask them questions about how they got into science, what games they like, how we could turn their research into a game, that sort of thing. So, many thanks to the people who let me interview them: Briana, Chip, Jacob, Kate, Kyle, Lauren, and Mohammed; I'll let them all introduce themselves in a little bit. To keep things from getting repetitive, I spliced all the interviews together. So you'll hear me asking one question, but then you'll hear a bunch of them in turn, even though they were recorded at different times in different places, you'll have different amounts of background noises depending on where we were and how much stuff was going on at the time. Also, you probably guessed that being a maize genetics conference, corn genetics, everyone here works on corn. If you'd like this, we'll try to do a few more we'll maybe get some other ones. So without further ado, I'm just gonna let everyone introduce themselves and I hope you enjoy this. Okay, so first off, can you please introduce yourself? Brianna 1:37 My name is Brianna Griffin. I'm originally from Florida, but I'm actually at Iowa State University where I study molecular plant pathology. Chip 1:44 Yeah, I'm Chip Hunter. I work for the USDA Agricultural Research Service in Gainesville, Florida. Jacob 1:51 I am Jacob Kelly. I am a PhD student at the University of Missouri. Kate 1:56 I'm Kate Eastman, and I'm a graduate student at Purdue and Jen Wisecavers lab. Kyle 2:01 Hi, my name is Kyle Swentowski. I'm a postdoctoral fellow in David Jackson's lab at Cold Spring Harbor. Lauren 2:07 I'm Lauren Whitt. I'm a postdoc at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, just recently graduated and I'm a plant genetic researcher. Mohammed 2:17 My name is Mohammed El-Walid. I'm a fourth year PhD candidate at Cornell University working in Ed Buckler's lab. Jason 2:25 So what got you into science in the first place? Brianna 2:27 I've always been interested in science but it was it's a kind of an interesting path though. I actually went to an art school for middle and high school, like science was definitely not the focus at our school, but I just always really enjoyed it. And as I continued to advance it, I actually started to see science as a type of art form. I just thought it was very interesting and very creative, but in a completely different way than like I was used to seeing with like the dancers and the painters and stuff like that. And so actually, when I started in undergrad, I actually thought I was gonna go to med school and I luckily joined a program called Women in math, science and engineering at Florida State University. And they're really big on getting people more involved in research like earlier on. So my sophomore year, I actually started working in a maize genetics lab. So corn corn lab, as I was doing that, at the same time as doing everything for pre med and working at the hospital and stuff, I realized that I really enjoyed science, a lot more than healthcare, nothing wrong with doctors, you know, we definitely need them. But at least for me, science just seems so much more interesting. It was a lot more creative a field, there was a lot more options like to do kind of what you wanted to and each day is very different. And so that was something ...
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    19 m
  • S1E5 - Compounded (Chemistry)

    S1E5 - Compounded (Chemistry)
    May 29 2024
    #Chemistry #Bonds #Scientists #LabWork #ScienceGames It's time to grab some atoms and make some bonds! In this episode we cover Compounded: The Peer-Reviewed Edition by Greater Than Games. We'll cover chemistry basics, how bonds work, a bit of what it's like in an actual research lab, and why sabotaging others is fun in games but not so much in real life. Timestamps 00:53 - Corn diversity for humans 05:05 - Basics of the game 11:30 - Basics of atoms & electrons 17:00 - Making bonds 22:17 - What makes things explode? 27:59 - Depiction of scientists 37:48 - Final grades Find our socials at GamingWithScience.net Game Results [Not recorded, but apparently Jason won by a lot] Links Compounded: The Peer-Reviewed EditionCrash Course Chemistry Full Transcript Jason 0:06 Hello, and welcome to the gaming with science podcast where we talk about the science behind some of the favorite games. Brian 0:13 In today's episode we're going to discuss compounded by Greater than Games. Hey, I'm Brian, this is Jason. And welcome back to the fifth episode of Gaming with Science. Today we're going to talk about Compounded: the Peer-Reviewed Edition, which is an interesting chemistry game created by Darrell Louder. But before we get into that, Jason, do you have any science topics for us to talk about today? Jason 0:39 So I do have one and this one is close to my heart. It has nothing to do with chemistry. Sorry. So I was again at a conference recently, actually, we're gonna have a bonus episode out probably next month, the maize genetics meeting. So the big meeting for all the corn geneticists, a lot of us based in the US, also some outside. But I was talking to one of the USDA researchers there, Sherry Flint-Garcia, who I've known for a few years. And I love her work, because she's got these projects that are looking at corn from a human consumption point of view. So basically, corn that people eat. This is one thing that comes up a lot, we grow a lot of corn here in the US, and almost none of it goes to humans. Most of it goes to animal feed, and a small amount goes to ethanol. And then some of it, a little tiny bit, gets made into like tortillas and chips and sweet corn and stuff. But she has all these projects that are looking at corn from the human perspective. So she's been working with local groups to do tortilla-making quality on corn for a while. I believe she's working with one group now on whiskey, and how to make that. And then the one that I'm really cool that she's doing a big evaluation of like 1000 traditional varieties of corn from the US just to evaluate, like how they perform, because people haven't looked at this information in decades. But there's things they're like, they have different flavor profiles, they have different use profiles. You know, for being one of the largest producers of corn in the world, the US, just, we don't appreciate it at all. I mean, you go down to Mexico, they appreciate their corn, I mean, corn is a big deal in Mexico, you don't mess with their corn, but here in the US, it's like we don't care. And that's kind of sad. So I'm glad that there's someone doing that now. And I hope they come up with some really cool stuff out of there. I hope they get some good evaluations, they can find some varieties that work well and that people can use for actual eating varieties. Brian 2:22 I really was hoping you were gonna say she was doing a big study of popcorn varieties. Jason 2:26 No, she doesn't do popcorn, although I think she has a collaborator who's actually specifically looking at all the popcorn varieties in there. Yeah, we, we're both plant people. We could go off on this for a full hour in terms of all the varieties and their adaptations and stuff. And I mean, I love genetic diversity among plants. And we could talk about that all day long. And that's not what this podcast is about. Brian 2:48 No, well, not this particular podcast, maybe we'll find a game that will give us a better excuse to talk about that. But for now, I think. Yeah, let's get back to talking about board games. Jason 2:56 Yeah, let's see. Is there any science in Agricolae? I actually haven't played it. Brian 3:00 I don't know. I know you put it on the list. I guess we could find out. Probably not. But we'll find out someday. So you want to talk about this game? Jason 3:08 Sure. Brian 3:09 Okay, so we're going to talk about Compounded, specifically Compounded: The Peer-Reviewed Edition. And this was released last year in 2023. Designer is Darrell Louder, at Greater Than Games, the original version of compounded was released 2013. So it was a 10 year span, there were a couple expansions in there, including like a radioactivity expansion, I didn't get a chance to look at those. Now, one of the things that I was trying to figure out that I have tried to figure out in the past, is what inspires a board game designer to want to make a science based game? So...
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    43 m
  • S1E4 - Stellar Horizons (Space Exploration)

    S1E4 - Stellar Horizons (Space Exploration)
    Apr 24 2024
    #SpaceExploration #StellarHorizons #Space #CompassGames Find our socials at GamingWithScience.net This month we head to the final frontier, with Stellar Horizons from Compass Games. We also have our very first guest host, Christoph Wagner from Kennedy Space Center. We talk about near-future space exploration, colonization, asteroids, launch failures, space pirates, and more. Timestamps 00:44 - Meet Christoph Wagner 03:19 - Science facts - Rusty Mars and poisonous oxygen 05:26 - Stellar Horizons game overview & mechanics 15:25 - Science overview 17:01 - Reusable rockets 18:47 - Space politics and game factions 23:50 - Astronomy in the game 26:00 - Space combat and space pirates! 29:25 - Getting to Mars & the Lagrange points 32:26 - Game tweaks wish list 39:41 - Final grades Game Results - Game 1: Earth destroyed by asteroid - Game 2: China and Russia save Earth from asteroid! Links Stellar Horizons official website (Note: Rules PDF *is* downloadable from here)Kennedy Space CenterThe Great Oxygenation Event Full Transcript Brian 0:06 Hello and welcome to the gaming with science podcast where we talked about the science behind some of your favorite games. Jason 0:11 Today, we'll be talking about Stellar Horizons by compass games. All right, welcome back to gaming with science. This is Jason. Brian 0:22 This is Brian. Christoph 0:23 This is Christoph Jason 0:24 So yes, we have our very first special guest host here. Christopher Wagner. Wagner or Wagner? Christoph 0:29 Wagner is the German way to say it and Wagner here in the States, that's fine. Jason 0:33 For those of you who know the game, this is a game about near Earth space exploration. Brian and I are plant biologists we have no expertise here. So we wanted to get someone on who actually knew what they were talking about. So Christoph, tell us about yourself. Christoph 0:44 Sure. So I am I have a degree in physics and master's degree in mechanical engineering and aerospace engineering. I'm originally come from Germany and did my mechanical engineering in physics in Germany, and then studied aerospace engineering at Purdue University with a major in astrodynamics control and guidance, navigation and control theory. Unfortunately, after I got done with that degree, I could not get a job in that field here in the US because of my German citizenship. And most of those jobs do require a higher levels of security clearances. And so I ended up working Caterpillar for 10 years, Jason 1:19 not involved in space exploration Christoph 1:21 not involved in space at all, unfortunately, but then through some, I got let go from Caterpillar in 2016 ended up in a company, a hydraulics company up in Minnesota, but that got way cold for me. So I only lasted two years. And I took a job at Walt Disney Imagineering down here in Orlando. So I designed or I was part of the ride team that designed the Guardians of the Galaxy cosmic rewind roller coaster at Epcot Center. Brian 1:49 I just rode that. That's so much fun. Christoph 1:51 Yes, yes, it is a lot of fun. And it was a lot of fun designing it too. But I was only a contractor. So when COVID hit, they let me go. And I was unemployed for a few months, and obviously started looking and I found this job that was essentially almost tailored for me at Kennedy Space Center, which is fluid design engineer. So I applied it took a while but in October 2020, I started my position as a fluid design engineer at Kennedy Space Center, I worked for a contractor for NASA contractor called Jacobs. And my main responsibility these days is that I'm the lead contract engineer for the hydraulic systems on the mobile launch tower ordinance. Brian 2:33 That's very cool. Christoph 2:34 It's very cool to say that I am actually part of the Artemis team. And I have my little pin to prove it right here. Brian 2:43 That's awesome. Christoph 2:43 So yeah, so my biggest dream was always working in the space related field. And it took a while. But now I'm finally here. And I've been I'm having a good time. Brian 2:52 It sounds like you are super overqualified to talk about this game. Christoph 2:59 Well, I'll try not to use any fancy language here. Because the game does the same thing. I thought they did a fantastic job with how they tried to relate progression and space development and space engineering to somebody who you know, like you guys have nothing to do with space. So I thought they did a wonderful job and I'll try and keep it at the same level. Jason 3:19 All right,sounds good. So before we dive into the game, I always like doing this fun science fact first and Christophe as our guest, you get first priority. Have you picked up any fun science facts lately? Christoph 3:29 Well, one fight since we're talking about space, do you guys know why the white Mars is red? Brian 3:35 Iron oxide? Jason 3:36 Yeah, rust...
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    44 m
  • S1E3 - Wingspan (Birds)

    S1E3 - Wingspan (Birds)
    Mar 27 2024
    Let's talk birds! In this episode we cover Wingspan, an amazing game by Elizabeth Hargrave and published by Stonemaier games. Also, Jason just got back from a conference and has tons of fun science facts to share. One note: we had an audio glitch that resulted in lower audio quality than normal, which we didn't realize until after the recording. Quality will be back to normal next episode. Timestamps 00:33 - Conference news about hemp, COVID evolution, and bird pangenomes 07:58 - Wingspan overview 12:50 - Making a bird sanctuary 21:04 - The power of corvids 23:40 - Assembling an ecosystem 26:47 - Actions, goals, and other ways to win 29:50 - Cornell Lab of Ornithology is awesome! 31:35 - Grades & wrap-up Find our socials at https://gamingwithscience.net Game Results Game 1: Brian 65, Jason 81Game 2: Brian 71, Jason 85 Links Official Wingspan websiteCannabis genebank - Zachary StansellBird pangenome - Scott EdwardsCOVID19 evolution - Lucy Van DorpCornell Lab of OrnithologyMacualay sound library Full Transcript Jason 0:06 Hello, and welcome to the Gaming with Science Podcast, where we talk about the science behind some of the favorite games. Brian 0:11 In today's episode, we're going to discuss wingspan from Stonemaier games. Hey, this is Brian. Jason 0:23 This is Jason. Brian 0:25 Welcome back to our third episode, we're going to talk about wingspan today. But before we get into that, Jason, do you have any science topics for us to talk about? Jason 0:33 So yeah, I am brimming with topics today because I just got back from a major conference. For those of you who don't know how science works, conferences are how academics exchange information and network and such. Yes, technically, we publish papers. And those are important. But everyone knows that most of the real work happens by in person meetings, being at a conference presenting things either in front of an audience or at a poster session or something. And there can be a mixed bag because scientists are not always the best communicators. But so sometimes, they're really good. And sometimes they're not. But the one I was just at is plant and animal genome, which is every year this time of year, and it is the biggest one in my area, which is agricultural genomics. So studying the genes and genomes of plants and animals. And there's just a ton of stuff. And so there was all sorts of cool things going on. There's someone in upstate New York, who works for USDA, who is assembling a collection of hemp to use as a germplasm resource. So basically, where people who are breeding hemp can ask for seeds, and they can use it to, to breed new varieties. You have to be affiliated with an actual company or research lab. So no, if you're just a private individual, sorry, you can't do that. They can't send it to just anyone who wants to grow some. I'm also pretty sure they're focusing on fiber varieties, not THC and the ones that give you actual highs Brian 1:57 Not yet anyway Jason 1:58 Not yet anyway. But yeah, as it continues to get legalized and assuming that trend continues, then yes, the USDA will eventually want to accumulate a large supply, because that's sort of the basis of what people used to breed. There was I can relate to today's topic, there was someone who has done a lot of what are called pan genomes of birds. This is where you don't just get one genome sequence, you get the genome sequences of a lot of individuals. And then you're able to compare a lot of differences among them, especially things that are there in one person's genome, or in this case, one birds genome and absent in another and how these can affect behavior and traits and stuff. The one I really liked, there was this woman from the UK, who really came onto the scene during COVID, because she studies viral evolution. So she's making use of all these 1000s upon 1000s of COVID sequences that were deposited during the pandemic, to study viral evolution in real time, where she can actually track down using mathematical models, how the virus was changing over time, how long it had been circulating, and based on her results confirms that, yes, it probably made the jump to humans sometime in September, October of 2019. And she really drove home just how much globalization is changing the way these viruses move around, because she studied the data from Britain, in terms of what the viruses were. And as far as her well, her and her lab, because she has a bunch of people working with her, as far as they can tell. By March 2020, so when everything really went to pot, there have been over 1000 independent introductions of the SARS- COV-19 virus to Britain by that point. It's not like there's a single patient zero who brought it in. I mean, this thing was just jumping plane after plane after plane and coming in and then just spreading like wildfire. Brian 3:46 Wow, that's interesting to hear about viruses. I know like in the agricultural context, you know...
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  • S1E2 - Robo Rally (Computation)

    S1E2 - Robo Rally (Computation)
    Feb 28 2024
    We dive into one of Jason's all-time favorite games: Robo Rally, where you program little robots to play capture the flag while shooting each other with lasers and avoiding deathtraps. Also, some stuff about remote-controlled bacteria and computers destroying the world with paperclips. Timestamps 0:04 - Remote-controlled bacteria 2:18 - Robo Rally background 7:54 - Game mechanics and updates 12:07 - CPUs, GPUs, and computing 17:32 - Machine learning 22:12 - Factory automation 25:38 - Grades and final thoughts Links Life-sized RoboRallyCPG Grey and AI (video 1)CPG Grey and AI (video 2) Full Transcript Brian 0:04 Hello, and welcome to the gaming with science podcast where we talk about the science behind some of your favorite games. Jason 0:10 Today we'll be talking about Robo rally by renegade game studios. Well, welcome to another episode of Gaming with science. I'm Jason. Brian 0:18 I'm Brian. Jason 0:19 And today we'll be talking about Robo Rally. Well, before we get into the main topic, though, fun science fact. So Brian, your turn this time? What fun science thing Have you learned in the past bit? Brian 0:28 So yes, what did I find for us this week, based on the inspiration of Robo Rally and expressing my very severe biology bias, I found an interesting story about remote control the bacteria, maybe were more remote activated than remote controlled, there's a particular strain of E. coli that's approved for medical use in humans. And it can preferentially be taken up by cancer cells, you inject the bacteria into the bloodstream, and they will colonize cancer cells, because they're pretty good at living with less oxygen and solid tumors will often have a lower oxygen environment inside of them. They carry a type of engineered gene that can be turned on by heat very specifically. And by getting them to turn on this gene, you can have the make anti-cancer drugs, for instance. Now how do you turn this on inside of a human being, you basically use a combination of soundwaves to raise temperature in a very specific location at the site of the tumor, which is now colonized by these bacteria. And you kind of like trigger them to maybe not detonate but just start pumping out things that will kill cancer cells. Jason 1:34 So you basically turn E. coli into a bunch of little suicide bombers. Brian 1:37 Well, a bunch of little Yeah, a bunch of little attack robots, but a little attack drones saboteur. Yes, saboteur is for sure. Under normal circumstances, you probably don't want E. Coli in your cells, but the enemy of my enemy, I suppose, Jason 1:49 as long as they don't cure the disease by killing the host. If they're approved for clinical trials, then I assume that little hurdle has been passed. Yeah, Brian 1:57 you're you're able to use this inside of people, there is a strain of E coli you can inject into someone's bloodstream, and that is an approved form of therapy. Jason 2:05 Okay... Well, on to the actual topic for today, which is Robo rally. I wanted to do this as soon as I thought about this podcast. Robo rally has been one of my favorite games, since I first played it way back in college. It actually has an interesting history. So it was first published back in 1994. It was first designed in 1985 by Richard Garfield, whose name you might recognize if you're in the gaming area, because he took it to a little gaming company called Wizards of the Coast, who told him that it looked like a great game, but it'd be too expensive for them to produce. So they wanted something that would be cheaper and easier for people to carry around. They could play at a convention. So he spent a few years and came up with this little like unknown card game called Magic the Gathering. And after that became a smash success was there said okay, maybe we can publish the robot game now. So interesting sidenote, Richard Garfield, he's not just some random game designer, I think, based on the time and it looks like he designed Robo rally while he was getting his Bachelor's in Computer mathematics. And he did Magic the Gathering while getting his PhD in combinatorial mathematics. So he has the actual like scientific computational chops behind this, and I think it shows in the game design. Anyway, it's gone through a few iterations. There's the original 1994 release. There's the 2005 rerelease under Avalon Hill, that's the one that I originally owned. Then it got released again in 2016, with a major rules upgrade. And then the one we're going to be talking about is the current edition, the 2023, one by Renegade Games Studios, which mostly builds off the 2016 edition with a few little tweaks in terms of like product quality and tiny little rules tweaks, as far as I can tell, Brian 3:42 oh, wow. So this is the third edition of this game at this point, basically. Jason 3:46 Basiicaly or 2.5, or something, there's only two really different editions, there's the original one...
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