[00:00:00] Carl Lanore: [00:00:00] Repair the experience radio allowable

[00:00:04] Prof. Robyn Leigh Tanguay: [00:00:04] Bible.

[00:00:07] Carl Lanore: [00:00:07] Miss duty on you am wearing. Never look why it's super human radio with your host.

[00:00:31] Welcome back episode of superhuman radio. Today is August 27th. The month is coming to a close. We have a great show plan today. We're going to talk about two important things. We're gonna talk about five G, which is on a lot of people's minds today, and there's a lot of misinformation about five G out there.

[00:00:45] We're going to talk about that. And then later in the show, we're going to talk about a study that was just published out of Australia that showed that there was significant amounts of plastic and just about every type of fish that they tested. And this is worrisome. Uh, because plastic has the ability to [00:01:00] bioaccumulate in the body.

[00:01:01] So we're going to talk about that a little bit later in the show. Uh, but first we have to thank our title sponsor, legendary foods, eat legendary.com is the website. The code is actually SHR 10. Save 10% off everything at their website, they have new flavors of the tasty pastry coming. I've gotten a glimpse of some of them.

[00:01:18] They're insane. Uh, the tasty pastry is basically a pop taut that's been cleaned up. So if you're a low carb, uh, kedo kind of person or a high protein person, uh, this will help you stay in your dietary lane because, uh, the tasty pastry has nine grams of high quality, high leucine protein, less than one gram of sugar.

[00:01:37] Uh, so it's really, uh, a good snack and it's even good for your kids. When they start going back to school, check it out, go to eat legendary.com. Use the code SHR 10 for 10% off your entire order. And now without further delay, I will bring my guests on. And that is Robin Tang, Tang Wei. I'm sorry. I, I want to pronounce it rice.

[00:01:57] How are you doing Robin? I'm good.

[00:01:59] Prof. Robyn Leigh Tanguay: [00:01:59] How [00:02:00] are you? Calm.

[00:02:00] Carl Lanore: [00:02:00] Wonderful. Wonderful. Okay, so this is a very interesting study. I'm sure that you have to be somewhat frustrated. About all the misinformation out there today, uh, about five G everything from it's a it's designed to be a sinister, a way to control the population it's causing COVID-19 and all the other silliness that surrounds it.

[00:02:22] Why, why would you feel compelled to do this study? What, what preceded this research that you felt compelled at this time?

[00:02:28] Prof. Robyn Leigh Tanguay: [00:02:28] It's a great question. So we, we work a lot with, um, Companies that are developing new technologies. And so we don't work with the companies. We really want to evaluate for the public, whether or not there might be a health risks from adoption of new technology.

[00:02:43] We work heavily, for example, at nanomaterials. And there's a lot of concern with nano. So we try to really do sound science. To investigate these new technologies. So, so certainly I read the literature and the newspapers like you do, and, and, and all the studies associating. You know, if you look at a [00:03:00] headline, strongly associating this technology with a, an array of, um, adverse health effects.

[00:03:05] And when I read the literature, it's just, there were, there were challenges and maybe biases in, in some of the reports. And it seemed obvious to me that what's missing is a, a systematic platform. To evaluate in an unbiased way, whether or not this, this technology, these frequencies interact with biology to produce harm.

[00:03:26] And, um, and so we have a lot of experience of using the system that we developed, uh, to ask those types of questions. So, um, so we weren't trying to disprove any one person's study or group of studies are supported. We really want to go very unbiased. To really sound science that we're known for. And, and, and let's see what, see what the data tells us.

[00:03:47] So, so that was our motivation.

[00:03:50] Carl Lanore: [00:03:50] So w Y now this, this study was done on zebra fish. What's the significance of using zebra fish. And if I'm correct, these were kind of like zebra, fresh fish embryos, right. [00:04:00] It wasn't, they weren't adult zebrafish, right?

[00:04:02] Prof. Robyn Leigh Tanguay: [00:04:02] Yeah, exactly. That's intentional. So, um, so I kind of started this field about 20 years ago as a postdoc and, um, You know, when you want to identify whether a chemical or an agent is, um, active and able to affect biology, uh, you need to test in a system where all the potential, uh, components of biology are present and active, and the only time in human life or in, in, in zebrafish or elephants or giraffes, the only time where the entire genome, everything that drives biology is present and active.

[00:04:38] It's during early development. Right? And so, so I coined this phrase that using steeper fish as a biosensor. So what happens if, if a chemical or, or in this case, a frequency can interact with specific activities or targets during development it'll disrupt them. And the car consequences of disruption is, is evident in, in, [00:05:00] um, performance of the animal developments of the animal.

[00:05:03] So, so it's the

[00:05:04] Carl Lanore: [00:05:04] most, absolutely

[00:05:05] Prof. Robyn Leigh Tanguay: [00:05:05] the most sensitive period to detect. Um, exposures from the environment, including radio frequencies and, and, and observing an effect is during development. And so I would say that would be the case for rodents as well. That would be the best time, but it's so challenging to do these studies in rodents because, you know, they're, they're, they're mammals like humans and no development occurs within the mother.

[00:05:29] So you have that other parameter for maternal impact on the embryo zebrafish. You can, you can completely control the study. You can do the, your exposures and in a, in a very small volume, very shallow water in this case. And, and you can observe them in real time. Noninvasively, Lisa, you can tell whether or not the heart is forming.

[00:05:50] The brain is forming, uh, the rest of the cardiovascular system, the spleen, the kidney. You can see all of this with your, uh, with, with a microscope with your naked eye. So, um, so [00:06:00] it really gives you a window into looking at. Developmental consequences of any exposure. So it's really a powerful system.

[00:06:09] Carl Lanore: [00:06:09] Now what now?

[00:06:10] Water attenuates. RF. Right? So, so there is obviously you have to compensate too, you know, you want to deliver a certain amount of energy to these, uh, these embryos. You, you have to compensate for the water, right?

[00:06:23] Prof. Robyn Leigh Tanguay: [00:06:23] That's correct. And we thought of that. Of course. And so, and one, we can, these embryos are really small.

[00:06:29] They're less than a millimeter in diameter, early in life. So they're really, really tiny and you can put a large number of them, very small area, and then you can control the depth of the water. I mean, just barely covering, covering the surface. So there's just enough water to maintain that the viability, the embryos.

[00:06:47] Um, but yeah, there should be very little attain and we actually calculated the attenuation is, is minuscule with the depth. And that's some of the challenges with some of the other studies. Not to mention the differences in wavelength, but [00:07:00] the depth of the water wasn't controlled. And, um, so, so really we wanted to absolutely nail down all the experimental variables we could.

[00:07:09] So we're just investigating, uh, frequencies, interacting with very well conserved, complex biology.

[00:07:16] Carl Lanore: [00:07:16] Interesting. Now there are studies out there that have been done in situ with rodents, such as the one that was done by the United Arab Emirates. I want to say about. Um, maybe eight or nine years ago where they took a 900 megahertz, uh, cell phones in the standby mode and exposed the male rodents to them for eight hours a day.

[00:07:37] And it actually, uh, damaged sperm motility. Um, there is a study. We talked about a year and a half ago on the show, excuse me, that looked at the effects of, uh, RF. On cilia of the heart that is implicated in a idiopathic mitral valve [00:08:00] prolapse. So we know RF has the ability to do things to tissue, right?

[00:08:04] That's not what you're that you, you weren't looking to validate or invalidate that, right?

[00:08:11] Prof. Robyn Leigh Tanguay: [00:08:11] That's correct. And I would say even in those cases, I think what's still missing is the. Is the biological mechanism, even for those effects that you've talked about, and you could also bring up the national toxicology program with the, you know, the cancer outcomes are 2018 and, um, some of these observations, I'm not discounting they happen.

[00:08:33] Uh, but, uh, but I, I'm not, it's more comfortable when I can explain the phenomenon. So I like to tell my group here is we don't there. No magic. There is no magic in biology. There's no magic and interactions of 5g with biology. You know, there is an explanation and we just have to figure it out. And you're right.

[00:08:53] I was just trying to, we did to create a study where we could, if we observe an effect, we have [00:09:00] a whole toolbox of ways to explain the mechanism by which it happens. And those systems as you describe, they really don't. And so then they become, and I don't want to dismiss them. They become kind of phenomenological and you can't

[00:09:14] Carl Lanore: [00:09:14] do much with phenomenon.

[00:09:16] Right. Right. If you can't identify the pathway, the mechanism of action, then, then there, there's no real tie to that. It's corollary at that point in

[00:09:26] Prof. Robyn Leigh Tanguay: [00:09:26] time. That's correct. And you imagine if we could understand the mechanism, maybe there are subtleties and there's some suggestions in the literature that, um, there are certain patterns of wavelengths or, or durations of the exposures that it's kind of the sweet spot that, that produces adverse effects from those interactions.

[00:09:45] If we could really understand that, then maybe we could in the deployment of the technology, we can either, you know, shield against those one example or, or create the waves in a way that are still functional for the performance, but, but [00:10:00] are maximally protect biology. So, so there's a lot of value of understanding why things

[00:10:04] Carl Lanore: [00:10:04] happen.

[00:10:05] Now, and, and that, and, and you close your study with saying that the most exciting thing about this study is we have now created this environment that we can manipulate and we can control, and we can test other frequencies. All these different frequencies seem to have their own unique characteristics all the way up to ionizing, radiation and below.

[00:10:24] Um, now you looked at five G, but you looked at, um, a type of thing, five G that's more proper popular here in the United States and say in China, Right. The frequency was lower. It's like 3.5 gigs, right? Correct. So talk about, talk about that. I mean, w you know, five G is a technology specific term. It speaks specifically to telephony.

[00:10:49] You know what I mean? Uh, and RF, we just call this, you know, five, we would call it six gigahertz. So 3.5 gigahertz, but you know, um, five G has a lot of [00:11:00] meanings, right? It could be anything from 3.5 all the way up to 60 gigahertz.

[00:11:03] Prof. Robyn Leigh Tanguay: [00:11:03] That's correct. That's correct. Yeah, exactly. That's why that even reinforces why we need to have a system that could in the same biological platform.

[00:11:13] Evaluate just the consequence of changing the frequency or the pattern or the sickling. So it has to be able to be done efficiently, directly at those wavelengths that you determined that you just suggested. Um, and again, that's going to become prohibitively expensive to really do these studies, um, in these larger, in these higher organisms.

[00:11:34] To really get at the impact of, of modulating the frequencies. So, so yeah, we, so we're working with dr. Lou here in our, um, engineering department and, and he works in a microwave laboratory so that we have FCC license here. We can stay in all of that, so we can spend that in a continuous or pulsing. And, um, so we now have the capability with this collaboration to deploy all of those potential, uh, [00:12:00] frequencies, um, in the system.

[00:12:01] And then, and then being able to directly say, well, you know, when we're in the 3.5, we don't see much, but maybe when we're at eight or 12 or 22.4, we see something different and we can do these studies in, in honestly in days. So we could test one experimental frequency set up and measure the impact literally in five days.

[00:12:23] And, and so it's, it's just re and it's, again, it's a vertebrate that has the complexity, that parallels humans. So, so that's what we're both excited. I think we're going to be able to fill in a massive data gap in this field.

[00:12:36] Carl Lanore: [00:12:36] So talk about the study. So what exactly did you do and what were you looking for specifically and what did you learn?

[00:12:44] Yep.

[00:12:44] Prof. Robyn Leigh Tanguay: [00:12:44] Is that great question? So what we do. But we were looking for it. So we know, and from human development and certainly our work in zebrafish that, uh, in zebrafish, the first two days of life from zero to 48 hours, um, all of the [00:13:00] organs it's called Organa Genesis. So all the organs are formed. So from a single cell, just like in human development, after fertilization, you start with one cell and the cells divide and they.

[00:13:09] They change into different cell types. So all those initial organs, all of the really amazing complex, there are trillions of interactions that happen in order to go from a single cell to this animal that has every organ, heart, spleen, kidney, like I said earlier. Um, so we wanted to probe specifically believe those processes again, they're well conserved.

[00:13:30] So, so that's why we stopped our study. When we did, we wanted to, to maximally expose these at a continuous, um, Uh, frequency when they're most sensitive to any insults. Okay. So that was the study, right. Design. And then what we look at, and then we stop. So yeah, there's some complexity. We have to do these in this FCC approved building on campus.

[00:13:53] So we do the exposures there and then we bring it back to my laboratory where we do all the assessments. And the short [00:14:00] answer is we look for anything. We look for anything that's different. From our, our control animals that were not exposed to any of these RF, uh, exposures at all. So, so we look for things like do the animal to develop the heart.

[00:14:18] At the same time, does it look okay? Does it animal have a touch response? Does the animal have a heart rate? Does the animal, uh, able to, uh, swim, does the animal be able to use it skills like the lungs? So we measure, we measure everything and we've, we've automated all of that in my lab about a decade ago.

[00:14:35] So we have very high confidence that if we saw any adverse effects that we would see them and you know, so we've evaluated tens of thousands of chemicals. For example, you think about dioxins and I mentioned manual materials and, uh, no, that incredibly low concentrations of some of these really toxic chemicals.

[00:14:56] Our zebrafish tell us with [00:15:00] unequivocally, these compounds are highly toxic and we create all of these effects that we measure are impacted. So we know the window of susceptibility is correct. So now the question is, do we see anything. Um, so, and so that, that was the main study design and we also added some assessments of behavior.

[00:15:19] So again, the study designed is what is the impact, but this exposure, when all these structures are being formed, and then we take away the frequencies, and then we observe the consequence it's different than some studies like you described where the exposures might be continuous and in an adult, for example.

[00:15:36] So there is no development really when an adult. So now you're asking questions and those studies, what are the impacts of these frequencies? When these structures are, your organs are just doing everyday function.

[00:15:46] Carl Lanore: [00:15:46] Right? Right.

[00:15:48] Prof. Robyn Leigh Tanguay: [00:15:48] And those are less sensitive generally than development.

[00:15:52] Carl Lanore: [00:15:52] So the study about 10 years ago, and you may recall this, I'm sure you are familiar with it.

[00:15:57] That looked at mirror neurons in the brains of [00:16:00] rodents that were exposed to RF. And mirror neurons are attributed to their, their early stage neurons. Yeah. If the birth that allow a child to look up at its mother it's, mother's smile, failing at it. And the child proprioceptively puts together a smile and smiles back and literally knows that what it feels on its face is mimicking what it's mother was doing.

[00:16:21] And those mirror neurons go away. Uh, as the child ages, I have a theory about people who can do, um, uh, impressions of other people really well. I think that they have mirror neurons that stick around, but them, yeah, but, but I remember that study was, uh, showed that the fetal exposure to back then was just 900 megahertz, uh, seem to disrupt the formation of these mirror neurons.

[00:16:47] And they were postulating that this could be part of the whole spectrum that we see with children.

[00:16:53] Prof. Robyn Leigh Tanguay: [00:16:53] Yeah. Yeah. Perhaps and it's, again, it's so hard. That's another example, right? Yeah. We, we can't explain. [00:17:00] And so, so when folks do those studies, if they need an additional studies to understand, how does that happen and more carefully dissecting the initial interaction of those frequencies on those populations themselves and what do they do?

[00:17:14] And typically there there's gotta be a molecular, which that explains it. And I think they, and we need to figure that out.

[00:17:23] Carl Lanore: [00:17:23] Interesting. Interesting. So what did you learn? Uh, we have 11 minutes before we take a break. What did you learn? What did you see in these zebra fish that you could conclusively point to the exposure to the RF as being a component of?

[00:17:37] Prof. Robyn Leigh Tanguay: [00:17:37] Yeah. So first I would say that we had no, um, no preconceived ideas of what we were going to see. So we, we knew that biology was a great platform to investigate this and we had really good. Um, we, we built a really nice testing lab. So what we found was maybe surprising is we saw no evidence. We looked at [00:18:00] 22 separate measures in these offspring.

[00:18:02] We saw no evidence of effect on, on eye development or. Or brain development or the body access formation. We saw literally nothing in these 22 end points that we typically measure in our system. And then when we looked at two different behavioral assessments, where we look at the similar to what you described with those neurons in people, um, there's neurons that are formed really early in life.

[00:18:28] And zebrafish and they drive this behavior that we call the larval photo motor response. It's actually, we have no time to talk about that, but it's really fascinating that these neurons, they drive the spontaneous motion early in life. Right? Then within two days, the nones that drive that go away. So humans don't have those neurons, but, but zebrafish do so we've and colleagues of mine have shown that, uh, lots of chemicals that affect human behavior affect those, that.

[00:18:57] Particular behavior, even those neurons die in [00:19:00] zebrafish. So that tells you that the fundamental molecules, that the genes that are driving those behaviors are the same genes that do something else in humans. So we looked at that activity and that was not affected, and that's a really sensitive endpoint form, a chemical perturbations.

[00:19:15] And we also looked at behaviors that respond to a transition of light and dark. And when they're five days of old age, so the animals look at the light and if it's really bright, they tend not to move. Okay. And then when you turn the lights off, they swim a lot for the motor response. So we use that routinely, we millions of animals a year in that area.

[00:19:35] And, um, and that was completely normal. Uh, so that was. Good to see, I guess. And then finally we had another essay too, to see whether or not the animals, um, responded to an acoustic startle. So say when you're going fishing and you go across the bank and the fish here, your fear vibrations, and they run away and you can't catch the fish.

[00:19:54] It's kind of the same thing. We, we can start all the fish. And so now they'll remove they'll, [00:20:00] they'll respond by moving quickly, kind of a safety mechanism. And so they, they use their ears and they have the lateral lines along their body. So they, they, they move and do we measure how far they move as a consequence?

[00:20:12] So that rules out a possible ability that, you know, animals can't see, right. They don't need to see that they feel it. And we saw a very subtle effects. We did observe a statistics well effect on the startle response. From that two day continuous exposure to 3.5 gigahertz. And so, so my postdoc, uh, the lead author, uh, dr.

[00:20:32] Shu bombed Desco death. He's focusing heavily on that right now. And in fact, there are a bunch of additional studies that we maybe we could talk about later that we plan to do, even with these fish, not to mention what we said earlier, when

[00:20:46] Carl Lanore: [00:20:46] you say these fishermen, these fish that already went through this phase of exposure.

[00:20:49] Oh, how interesting. Yeah, that's going to be interesting.

[00:20:53] Prof. Robyn Leigh Tanguay: [00:20:53] Yeah. So, so we're able to, um, after the exponents, if we run into our, our battery of, of evaluations and then [00:21:00] we can raise them, I'm up to adults it, no. Then we built a number of instruments in our laboratory that actually can probe really complex behaviors.

[00:21:11] That you'd be surprised. Many people don't realize that fish, um, can show, uh, anxiety like behaviors. They can show antisocial behaviors. You think of the autism type spectrum. Into before we can measure those phenotypes in this lab. Uh, we can look at effects on learning memory in a, in an automated way.

[00:21:30] And, um, so, so we're, we're going to be evaluating these fish for these very subtle effects from developmental exposure producing these long lasting.

[00:21:39] Carl Lanore: [00:21:39] Very interesting. So those studies

[00:21:42] Prof. Robyn Leigh Tanguay: [00:21:42] will be done in a couple of months.

[00:21:43] Carl Lanore: [00:21:43] So the exposure level to these fish is it somehow correlate to real world exposure that we have on a day in and day out basis with our cell phones.

[00:21:53] Yeah.

[00:21:53] Prof. Robyn Leigh Tanguay: [00:21:53] You know, that's a great, I don't think you can really define what that is. Right. So we're all different. And that's, I think there's [00:22:00] a spectrum of exposures that individuals are exposed to. So as you know, certainly, so, you know, if you happen to be really near a tower over, you know, high intensity antenna, certainly the energy is there.

[00:22:13] The frequencies, the power is going to be a lot higher and that drops off precipitously when you're farther away. Um, Maybe we'll have time later to talk about this is why dr. Lou and I talked briefly, why he's got together is in addition to this particular wavelength range, um, we certainly are exposed simultaneously to lots of other frequencies and nobody.

[00:22:39] Hm nobody's. In a position to evaluate the  effect. Of all those frequencies, but we, I think we can do it. So we have a fantastic laboratory. So say you start intertwining, um, you know, these five G rate frequencies with the low more frequent speeds and, um, and modulate them. We're kind of a, almost like a

[00:22:58] Carl Lanore: [00:22:58] mixtures of that.

[00:22:59] It's, it's, [00:23:00] it's, it's called constructive interference in the RF industry. And so I've actually, I've actually, I own a spectrum analyzer specifically because I wanted to show my listeners one day, the soup of RF that we existed. And what happens is you have a, you have generally an odd, uh, odd numbers. You know, you have third, fifth, seventh harmonics where you'll have these three frequencies collide and they create a residual frequency that is different than the three input frequencies.

[00:23:28] And so you're right. We are being exposed to frequencies that we aren't even using yet. And, and, and telephony just because they are being manufactured. When these, all these frequencies collide in, in, in our environment.

[00:23:41] Prof. Robyn Leigh Tanguay: [00:23:41] That's right. And the end see the challenge of assessing the potential adverse effect is depending on our environment and our density of population and cities versus rural, it varies for everybody.

[00:23:56] So getting back to that idea of, we need a way to [00:24:00] systematically evaluate those inner, you know, from a spectrum point of view, the interactions of the ways, but then the consequences of those interactions on biological system. So that's what we're really building,

[00:24:10] Carl Lanore: [00:24:10] you know, it's, it's scary to me, you know, like my first career was in RF.

[00:24:16] I own the mobile telephone paging company in Las Vegas, Nevada. And I learned a lot back then. Cause we, we had to do well environmental impact studies for the Bureau of land management back then. Cause we were developing sites on mountain tops, like Mount potency and so on and so forth. And um, we had to hire, um, RF engineers to generate these reports to show that with the current TV broadcast channels that were up there and the current repeaters from different commercial applications.

[00:24:49] And now the, the transmitter we wanted to put in what the residual effect would be. And it's, it's crazy. It's like you have 16 transmitters on a, on a mountaintop and you got [00:25:00] 3,640 residual frequencies that are happening depending on which one's key up at the same time. I mean it's and you know, and now looking at it today, you know, when I was a young man, I didn't care about that stuff right now.

[00:25:12] All of a sudden I'm like, wow, you know, I carry my own personal RF transmitter with me everywhere I go. And then I have my, my wifi, I have my cordless phone, I've got all this other stuff. We literally live in a soup of RF and we really don't know what impact it's having on us.

[00:25:32] Prof. Robyn Leigh Tanguay: [00:25:32] Exactly. Yeah. I mean, I always not that it would be really nice to have a visualization tool.

[00:25:38] Like they do it, we do it in atmospheric chemistry and, you know, there's, they're, um, remote sensing stations, like similar to what you described on mountain tops and on big buildings and you can actually measure certain contaminants and then you model those around the world. If we could do that and visualize it for a person's located in like, um, [00:26:00] I think if people would be surprised at how much they're swimming in, in various variable frequency.

[00:26:06] Carl Lanore: [00:26:06] Yeah, it is it's soup because especially if you look at it on a spectrum analyzer, it's this blue cloud, you know, and it pips here and then it dips there and it PIP and it's like, and it's all around you, you being bathed in a day in and day out. And we really, and we really have no idea what. What the impact on, on us is I want to take a quick commercial break.

[00:26:28] When we come back, I want to talk about a couple things. I want to get your feet. Now. I understand that this initial study. Was more a test, a test of the concept of evaluating these types of things in a real world setting. But there are a lot of frequencies that you're yet to embark upon and look at. And so that's an exciting thing I want to talk about.

[00:26:51] The other thing I want to talk about is. You know, what's your first blush feeling about all this? Like I know that these zebra zebrafish, like, Hey, this was inconsequential. There really weren't [00:27:00] anything. Was there anything at all that you thought, wow, if this was, if this gets worse with different frequencies, we could have a problem on our hands.

[00:27:06] I want to, I want to save that for when we come back. Okay. Sounds good. I stay tuned. We'll be right back back with more, uh, of superhuman radio. This is a fascinating discussion. They with us.

[00:27:20] This is the superhuman channel where we use oxygen for the power of good.

[00:27:30] welcome back to super radio. We're talking with Robin Tang Wei Robin you're with the university of Oregon, right. I'm at Oregon state, Oregon state. I'm sorry. I want to give the appropriate credit

[00:27:40] Prof. Robyn Leigh Tanguay: [00:27:40] are enemies of the North

[00:27:42] Carl Lanore: [00:27:42] on the really? Yeah, there's a little rivalry there.

[00:27:46] Prof. Robyn Leigh Tanguay: [00:27:46] Very

[00:27:46] Carl Lanore: [00:27:46] good. So, um, this is really exciting because what you've really done is created a platform to, uh, analyze [00:28:00] with specific metrics, uh, the effects of RF.

[00:28:04] In general, so that this isn't just confined to just five G, right? This is con you can do any frequencies you want and see what the outcomes are, because I predict that there's going to be frequencies that go wonky on things and some that don't. Yeah,

[00:28:18] Prof. Robyn Leigh Tanguay: [00:28:18] exactly. And, and so talking to dr. Lou, we talked about that our initial conversations is, um, We wanted to start one study just as a proof of that demonstration concept.

[00:28:29] That's I think that's what you're referring to and that's what we've done here. So we took the new exposure control of engineering and plugged it into our release long track record of doing assessment. So, so that, that worked beautifully. So now we can, um, I think our next step is, is going to be, we're going to now go to the other extreme, like a continuous exposure at a high frequency, and then they compare the results.

[00:28:55] And then, and then we're going to then work depending on what we see, we'll work with different [00:29:00] combinations of, um, of, uh, frequency and see whether or not, if we step up from 3.5 in steps of, you know, five gigahertz for as an example, two weeks D a sweet

[00:29:11] Carl Lanore: [00:29:11] spot,

[00:29:12] Prof. Robyn Leigh Tanguay: [00:29:12] and that's going to be really valuable for folks.

[00:29:14] And again, one thing that we didn't talk about in the study design is, you know, we can separate out the, the thermal effects.

[00:29:22] Carl Lanore: [00:29:22] That's important. That's important.

[00:29:26] Prof. Robyn Leigh Tanguay: [00:29:26] Yeah. Particularly when you get these higher frequencies where the ticks and penetrance will be very low, but the energy at the surface might be very high.

[00:29:35] And that's not an issue with CBRE fish. Right. You know that we, we control the, the environment temperature for syslog. Within 0.5 degrees Celsius. So there is no heating of these animals. It's all

[00:29:52] Carl Lanore: [00:29:52] handled. Yeah. That's a big, that's a big issue. That really is, you know, when I was, uh, talking about that, that mountain, top site, we had a mountain top site [00:30:00] on black mountain in Nevada, and this is where the inception of, uh, uh, MCI used to be MCI air signal.

[00:30:09] They became MCI long distance. Remember them, they, whenever, when they were, when they would put up. A new parabolic dish and not put that bongo drum skin on it to birds would land on the, the transmitter arm and when they would get right in that focal point, literally within like 30 seconds, they just fall dead.

[00:30:29] Boom. So, you know, and that was from the thermal effect because they were literally getting cooked like you would in a microwave when they were in that sweet spot of the focal point. Um, are you seeing anything at all? I hate to even ask you this question because. I know that as a scientist, you are opposed to guessing anything.

[00:30:51] Everything has to fit the rigors of science and proven, and not just once, but twice and three times reproducibility, are you expecting to [00:31:00] coast through this over the next, let's say five, six, seven years. You start going into 60 gigs, you know, cause that's, that's the end point of five G um, are you worried at all about what you're going to find?

[00:31:13] Prof. Robyn Leigh Tanguay: [00:31:13] Yeah, you're absolutely right. I don't like to guess, but I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm going to go into each experiment with an open mind and, and that's, you know, it's interesting. Some of the feedback I was getting when the paper came out is, and you know, you hear this too. I'm sure that skepticism, there's so much skepticism of who do you trust.

[00:31:29] And, um, so I don't want to ever weigh into this. No guessing game at all. Um, I'm going to define exactly how we do the studies and interpret them with the best available tools. Um, that being said, the fact that we saw some evidence, you know, the startle response, um, I definitely excited to take a peek at these additional frequencies.

[00:31:53] Um, it suggests to me that there is, there is an interaction that had a consequence at this. Is, [00:32:00] is it going to be worse? Or is it going to disappear the higher wavelengths? I don't know. But, um, it tells me that in a non-thermal, uh, dependent manner, our exposures that we did in the system did produce a mild effect.

[00:32:15] Um, but it is an effect that we, we definitely believe. So, um, So I think, I think honestly, our, our more of our molecular biology experiments that we're doing right now, um, are really exciting for me. Cause we're going to be able to try to explore those mechanisms I talked about earlier. Um, it, what is the evidence that say the genome is responding to these exposures

[00:32:36] Carl Lanore: [00:32:36] and, and that, and that, and that leads me to this question.

[00:32:40] At some point in time, you're going to have to start looking at trend generational effects. So, you know, we, we exposed these little zebra fish to this, but now let's track their next three offspring lines and see if this continues on.

[00:32:54] Prof. Robyn Leigh Tanguay: [00:32:54] Yup. Yup. We're on it already. So that's exactly the tool we do that routinely in the lab for chemical exposures and [00:33:00] price.

[00:33:00] And again, the advantages of this system, um, You know, you can get to the next generation and the next generation pretty readily large numbers of animals in a very controlled way. And then the assessments that we read are, again, they're the ones that I mentioned earlier, you know, learning memory, anxiety, social behavior, Mmm.

[00:33:20] Respiration, cardiovascular function. We can test these in generations of animals, the offspring, the grandchildren of the exposed, um, subjects. So, uh, Yeah, that's that's, that's what we can do. And, um, so we have, we have a huge laboratory here, so we can, we can do those types of studies, uh, routinely,

[00:33:39] Carl Lanore: [00:33:39] you know, um, is anyone else doing what you're doing?

[00:33:42] Robin?

[00:33:44] Prof. Robyn Leigh Tanguay: [00:33:44] There, there were a couple others superficial papers, um, overseas. And, um, and you know, I'm not criticizing any one day, often. They were done a while ago and they were at these lower frequencies that you described. So in fact, they're a little less, they're less relevant for [00:34:00] current deployment, but that's, so I'm not sure if they're still working in this area.

[00:34:04] Um, you know, they didn't, there were certain, some control issues and some of those studies that, that I'm sure they could correct if they did them again. Uh, as far as we know, um, No, nobody else is doing this. And in fact, I, you know, I do a lot of work with the national institutes of health and, uh, there's a lot of research, honestly, across the NIH institutes investigating this.

[00:34:26] And it's, it's interesting. So we, you know, we didn't have any funding for this. I have a kind of seed money that I develop in my own group here, uh, through these studies and I, we are going to seek funding to do these more comprehensive and longer, uh, longer term studies. And. And maybe we'll get some enthusiasm from NIH in those

[00:34:46] Carl Lanore: [00:34:46] directions that you're not going to get enthusiasm.

[00:34:49] I'm worried that you're going to get pushed into a corner. And here's why all the really previous to this discussion. And I'm really excited about what you're working on, because it's really a way to [00:35:00] test and, and, and, and take it the guesswork out of what is really happening here with exposure. But. When you look at all the really good research done on RF exposure, it's coming out of Sweden and Norway.

[00:35:14] It's coming out of Scandinavia because they've been exposed to cell phones way, way before anybody else. Right. Nokia started there. Um, but also, uh, uh, countries like Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, they're doing this research. And when I see those studies, cause you know, we try to get them on the show, but the time difference is hard.

[00:35:34] Like my next guest is in Australia. I believe like it, you know, it's in the middle of the night there, God bless her for wanting to be on the show today, but it's hard to get these people on the show. And when I look for American publishers, because of these kinds of papers, I just don't see it. And it scares me because it's like, why, why?

[00:35:50] Like these damn things are so ubiquitous now, why isn't anybody going, Hey, shouldn't we know, you know, shouldn't, we know it's, I,

[00:35:58] Prof. Robyn Leigh Tanguay: [00:35:58] I, you know, and that you touched on [00:36:00] something that this, again, I worked in it, I still work in the nano area and I think there's a lot of parallels, honestly. Um, and see if you agree with this, you know, certainly that the impact of this particular technology is irrefutable.

[00:36:16] Right. In terms of seeding the, um, you know, the, the technical, uh, revolution, the new industrial revolution, which is gonna, you know, the jobs of the future and mini economy. So we certainly see the benefit. And I think oftentimes that you probably agree, um, you know, that's all you really focus on.

[00:36:34] Carl Lanore: [00:36:34] Right.

[00:36:34] Prof. Robyn Leigh Tanguay: [00:36:34] You know, what would we do if we had to stop it, for example, um, I don't want to play that game, but I, but I do think that influences, um, some of the investments in, in exploratory research, if there's a potential threat on technology from discovering adverse health effects.

[00:36:54] So it says ying and yang of regulatory versus, uh, product development. That C [00:37:00] will always be there. Healthily. It's good for the economy, but, um, I don't know that there's an active force, that's diminishing investigations, but, um, you know, often the public drives it, the public drives the interest. Right. Um, and then eventually, you know, funding agencies can come around.

[00:37:20] I would say that happened with the bisphenol. A, if you were into that,

[00:37:24] Carl Lanore: [00:37:24] Yeah, she's been replaced with another bisphenol is that that's just as bad for your, your, your endocrine system.

[00:37:31] Prof. Robyn Leigh Tanguay: [00:37:31] But we worked in, we worked in that area as well. And, um, so, but, but that's an example where the public concern, which is much more effective as you suggested in Europe, you know, the precautionary principle in Europe is so much stronger that, uh, citizens would like the companies and, or the government to prove something is safe before it's used.

[00:37:53] And we have the flip side in the

[00:37:55] Carl Lanore: [00:37:55] us. Right, right.

[00:37:57] Prof. Robyn Leigh Tanguay: [00:37:57] Such great technology. Let's get it out there and see [00:38:00] what happens. Yeah. And then, and then the agencies have to prove that these technologies are or hazardous and then you're chasing, like you said, the replacements. Oh, well I guess I found out that was bad.

[00:38:11] Let's try this. And then. Wait 10 years to get the data and say, Oh, that one was bad. So

[00:38:16] Carl Lanore: [00:38:16] what's even worse is when they find out something's bad, they don't just shut the spigot off. They, they, they have years to replace it with something else. So we continue to be exposed to it for years. Anyway, you know, and it's, it's, it's really sad.

[00:38:30] I mean, You know, like the show I'm going to do after, after your interview, we're going to talk about the presence of plastic and fish. I love fish, but you know, there's this level of angst we live with. Like I never put my phone to my head. I had an experience. We were putting up a quarter kilo transmitter on Mount potency and to attend DB folded dipole antenna.

[00:38:56] And I accidentally grabbed one of the dipoles when the transmitter [00:39:00] keyed. I didn't feel anything. I didn't feel anything. But later that evening, my hand split wide open, like a ballpark, Frank on a grill and it literally cooked from the inside out. And I re I knew where it came from. Cause I remembered holding that thing.

[00:39:14] And Jack Crowley, my technician was key in it and he goes, Oh, we got full power coming through when he said that, I thought, Oh, I better not hold that. But you know, so, you know, we, we don't see RF. So w we don't care about it. We don't care about it, but

[00:39:29] Prof. Robyn Leigh Tanguay: [00:39:29] honestly, I agree with you, but think about the chemical universe, you know, we talked about what's the soup of, I mean, the chemical universe is far greater and we also see that and we tend to ignore or that as well.

[00:39:42] And, um, yeah, we. Yeah, we're a strange species, right? We only worry about the things that we can see when the things that you can't see are often quite fascinating.

[00:39:52] Carl Lanore: [00:39:52] Well, you know what it is, where we are. We are selfish. We don't want to give up anything. We don't want to give up anything. It's like P [00:40:00] I don't want to give up my phone.

[00:40:01] It makes my life easier. But at the same time, I'm cautious. I don't put it against my head. When I take calls, I'm always on speakerphone. You know, I don't carry it when I put it in my pocket. I put it on airplane mode. I mean, I'm probably unique to the population, but that's because I spent a decade in RF, mobile telephone paging and cellular phone.

[00:40:20] You know, I was at the first cellular telephone conference in Las Vegas, Nevada at the land mobile radio show. When Motorola came in to show their new cellular system, what year was that? That was 1985, 86. I had seen, uh, we, we already had, uh, 800 and 900 megahertz trunking radios that preceded cellular. And, and, and I remember when the first Motorola 8,000 came out, it looked like a pocket fishermen.

[00:40:50] It had a coaxial mass of 12 inches long, and then had this little antenna on the top. And I remember talking to one of the engineers from Motorola and I said, what's with [00:41:00] this antenna. And he goes, well, some of our early research showed that in rodents. The direct, uh, um, radiation into the eye could cause premature cataracts.

[00:41:10] So we want to get the RF away from your head. And I remember thinking what, you know, wait, what are you serious? Like th like, Oh my God. So, you know, it's been in the back of my mind for a long time about RF, but you're right. We are probably more assaulted. By the chemicals that we willingly put in our mouth to enjoy our vegetables.

[00:41:33] You're absolutely right. It's really sad. Isn't it? Do you cringe? Like you have an angst, like, Oh my God, like what, what can I do? What can I do that? Yeah,

[00:41:42] Prof. Robyn Leigh Tanguay: [00:41:42] I try not to get paralyzed, but, but by that, right, some of it is, you know, it's going to come with a modern society and we can't, we can't doubt that some of these chemicals in our, in our, our lives, like you said, the phone has massively improved, uh, human.

[00:41:57] Very, um, [00:42:00] you know, lifespan has actually increased, although it's decreased in the U S but that's for different reasons. Yeah. So, um, certainly chemicals are really made life. Possible for modern humans. Um, but that doesn't mean all chemicals should be assumed to be equally positive. And, um, and I do think there are a lot of forces in the U S which are really trying to get more, um, on top of this and don't let people just be driven by, Oh, look what this technology does and just, you know, forget about the adverse effects.

[00:42:32] It's it's going to be minor right now. I think, I think the new generation of, uh, Uh, young people are more demanding of safety, which is great. Um, and I do honestly think going away from, you know, industrial work to more tech, technological is actually going to, could lead to much safer environment. So not to mention the clean up of water and air and assisted by some of the same technology.

[00:42:56] So, so I don't want to throw the baby out with the bath water, right. That doesn't [00:43:00] mean I assume everything is safe.

[00:43:02] Carl Lanore: [00:43:02] We're going to take our last commercial break, uh, with Robin Tanguay and, uh, we will wrap it up with her and just second stay tuned. We'll be right back with more superhuman radio, listening to the superhuman channel.

[00:43:13] Don't hate us because we feel good.

[00:43:18] Welcome back. We're talking with Robin Tanguay Oregon state. This is. I'm really excited about what you're working on. And I hope you enjoyed being on the show because I definitely want to have you back. I'm very excited about your work. I'm very excited about what it will bring into focus here. And I'm worried for you.

[00:43:37] I'm worried for you because this is, this is a big, big, big, big thing. And you're going, people are going to want to squelch you. Good word to use in the radio business. They're going to want to squelch you. If you're research starts coming out and going no bueno, no one else thinks that we need to think about this.

[00:43:59] Prof. Robyn Leigh Tanguay: [00:43:59] Yeah. [00:44:00] We're, we're prepared for that. And again, we've worked with lots of controversial areas and, um, and that's why we're, if we stay with true to the science. Um, I can't completely control what other people do with it. Right. That's, that's unfortunate aspect of openness of science, but, um, yeah, you're right.

[00:44:18] We're, we're, we're concerned. And some of the comments, the gospel, um, through various blogs, et cetera, and social media, um, I see some of that it's coming already, but we can handle it. Um,

[00:44:31] Carl Lanore: [00:44:31] Yeah, because, because you know, your early analysis and I have to be honest, I'm guilty of that as well. Your early analysis showed, you know, like, Hey, there's really not a whole lot to worry about.

[00:44:41] And, and I was like, Oh, come on. Because you know, I understand RF, there's gotta be more to this, but, but the reality is that you're, you're not really, you haven't put your stamp on this and said, Hey, this is nothing to worry about it. Yeah, I'm

[00:44:57] Prof. Robyn Leigh Tanguay: [00:44:57] glad you got that. And we were very, if [00:45:00] people read it, that's the danger of

[00:45:02] Carl Lanore: [00:45:02] the press release.

[00:45:03] And this study, you know how many times I've had authors of studies on this show based on a press release. And they were like, no, that's not what we found like, yeah. Yeah. And we were,

[00:45:14] Prof. Robyn Leigh Tanguay: [00:45:14] I mean, it's a, it's a short article and we were very clear to say, under these conditions, this frequency, this is what we found.

[00:45:22] And, uh, and we, and we even, we even highlighted. And hinted at what we're doing now. Right. Um, with these animals, I alluded to the fact that we're looking at the effects in the adults. We're looking at the effects at the, at the gene level, we're looking at next generation effects. So, um, and we're going to be doing that again without the frequency.

[00:45:39] So, um, I think what people just, um, try to stay objective. And that and point out it was like, you know, that's a great, like you've said, uh, Carl, it's like, this is a good first step. Now. Now I'd like to see you do this. I think that's the type of dialogue we'd like to have with other scientists, the industry and the public.

[00:45:58] And, um, you know, [00:46:00] if there, we will defend our science. But that doesn't mean it's comprehensive

[00:46:05] Carl Lanore: [00:46:05] yet. So, so one of the things that you may or may not be interested in looking at, but I really do believe it. It has a PR pronounced and profound effect on human health. And that is it's pretty evident that, uh, being exposed to RF there's numerous studies.

[00:46:22] One of them was if you take a cell phone call a half hour before you go to bed, it pushes back deep sleep. Deep sleep latency is prolonged by about an hour and sleep is a huge contributor to just about every disease of modernity today. Can you look at it? Can you look at the effects of RF on the brain of the.

[00:46:50] Zebra fish, not for longterm outcomes by in-situ like, wow, they don't sleep good when we have these. Yeah.

[00:47:00] [00:47:00] Prof. Robyn Leigh Tanguay: [00:47:00] Even better than that, I think. Um, and we're working on, um, was another company on a technology that we think we'll be able to image, uh, neuronal brain activity in real time. So imagine the capability if we could.

[00:47:14] Um, and it's done through some, um, White light indicators basically. So you can actually look very closely at the brain. And if certain regions of the brain show differential activity from the exposure, you can detect it in the live animal. It's kind of like the high, high end. Yeah. You mentioned you do in, in, in humans.

[00:47:32] Um, you can't really do studies effectively, so it's possible that again, that was a beat in the adults. I think I would do that in adults to capture some of that.

[00:47:41] Carl Lanore: [00:47:41] I'm not

[00:47:41] Prof. Robyn Leigh Tanguay: [00:47:41] talking to her, you know, you get the animals, you mobilize them, and then you. Image the neuronal activity while they're being exposed to various frequencies.

[00:47:50] And yeah, it's, it's a good idea. We can, we can model those

[00:47:54] Carl Lanore: [00:47:54] types of things. I just came up with another one. We're all. We're all. So into the [00:48:00] microbiome today, there are early studies that show that exposure to certain frequencies can shift the, the, the, uh, the diversity of bacteria DDS to. To Firmicutes and vice versa.

[00:48:12] And we know that these microbiomes, that our microbiome has a role role in health, it even has a role. Does it even has a role in hormone production? We know that people with higher levels of, um, of a nutshell plant term of, uh, L rotator dairy produce more oxytocin, oxytocin is the bonding hormone makes you less.

[00:48:33] Threatening and so on. So we, I would love to see you start to look at it. Do, do, do zebrafish have microbiome?

[00:48:41] Prof. Robyn Leigh Tanguay: [00:48:41] Yeah. Yeah, we can. We have another collaborator here that we worked with the influence of, uh, various exposures on microbiome development in zebrafish and the impact on, on behavior and other health outcomes.

[00:48:53] So we were already working in that area and my postdoc is very interested in pursuing that. We have, [00:49:00] again, the advantages of this model because the mechanisms we think are the same. We can explore those types of observations as well. And we've actually, we have a few papers out, dr. Tom Sharpton is my collaborator.

[00:49:12] And, uh, and he's demonstrated that the compositional changes in that occur from certain diets in humans, safety all through the zinc, I'll go in diets, but you know, the microbiomes in human and zebrafish shift in very similar ways. So, so there's truly strong evidence that what we learned in zebrafish would be relevant to.

[00:49:32] So humans as well.

[00:49:34] Carl Lanore: [00:49:34] This is so exciting. I'm so excited. I know you're going to be back on the show. Uh, w so when is your next leg of research scheduled for you already working on some things? Yeah, we're

[00:49:45] Prof. Robyn Leigh Tanguay: [00:49:45] already working on, you know, bringing out these animals from this study to adulthood that those should be complete within a month or two.

[00:49:52] And then the additional exposures Kobe kind of slowed down the campus. Cause we can't get into some of these laboratories, but it's starting to open up. [00:50:00] So, um, so we'll be, we'll be investigating the other frequencies that we discussed earlier. Very, very soon.

[00:50:05] Carl Lanore: [00:50:05] I want to help champion your work Robin. Okay.

[00:50:09] I really want to have you back on the show. So will you stay in touch with Elisa so we can be right on it when you're ready to release something? No. Yup. Sounds great. Thanks for being here. You have a great weekend weekend, right upon us now. So have a great weekend. Okay.

[00:50:22] Prof. Robyn Leigh Tanguay: [00:50:22] Yeah. Enjoy the conversation. Take

[00:50:24] Carl Lanore: [00:50:24] care.

[00:50:25] We're going to take one quick commercial break. When we come back, we're going to talk about something equally important. We all love fish. I love fish. I try to eat as much fish as possible. Um, but how much plastic am I getting? If I'm eating a lot of fish, we're going to talk about that with my next guest.

[00:50:40] So stay tuned. We'll be right back with more superhuman radio.

[00:50:47] This is the superhuman channel, doing reps with the weight of the world.

[00:50:55] Welcome back to superhuman radio. My next guest is [00:51:00] Francisca Ribeiro. She is a PhD candidate at the university of Queensland in Australia, but it doesn't look like you're in Australia. That looks like daylight behind you.

[00:51:10] Francisca Ribeiro PhD Candidate: [00:51:10] Yeah, it is. Hi. I'm actually booked to go lots of moments.

[00:51:14] Carl Lanore: [00:51:14] Oh, nice. Cause if it was, if this was Australia, this is like three o'clock in the morning.

[00:51:18] So I figured it was gonna be dark there. We actually have a listener. Who's. Who's actually watching from Australia, a good friend of the show, Walter Edmond. And he goes Wally in Australia. Sorry, Walter. She's not in Australia. I lied. Anyway. Welcome to the show. Welcome to the show. This is a really important topic.

[00:51:38] I love fish. I'm Italian. I love to eat fish. And now I'm afraid to eat fish. What, what, what prompted this research? Uh, Francisco. Why, why did you do this study? What pointed in this direction? First of all, Okay.

[00:51:55] Francisca Ribeiro PhD Candidate: [00:51:55] So first of all, the problematic of microplasty [00:52:00] that we hear on the news every day. So they are in nearly every ecosystem on earth.

[00:52:06] So we were absolutely sure that we would find it in seafood. Um, but the major reason was really because, um, the mythology that we have nowadays to find microplastic in seafood samples, um, is not the best one in terms of concentration. So what I mean by this is that we would have to, um, isolate the particles one by one.

[00:52:35] Uh, in a fish, for example. Right. And it takes too long. It's very time consuming and it doesn't really need, uh, gives 'em a concentration at the end. So it doesn't give us a result in milligrams or something like that. It just gives you the number of particles. Yeah. So that was the major reason trying to develop and a technique.

[00:52:57] Yeah. Especially on seafood that would [00:53:00] allow us to quantify.

[00:53:02] Carl Lanore: [00:53:02] So, where is this? Where are these microparticles coming from? Francisco? Is this just plastic? You know, we throw away plastic every day in our garbage cans and people don't realize, but a lot of times it ends up in the ocean. It ends up in land Phil's.

[00:53:16] Does it break down into these microparticles and then get picked up into the water?

[00:53:23] Francisca Ribeiro PhD Candidate: [00:53:23] Yeah, exactly. So this plastic can reach the ocean. Let's put it that way, uh, by several ways. So it can be either from plastic waste. So people don't dispose the plastic as they should by recycling. And so. Or they leave the plastic at the beach.

[00:53:42] Let's put this scenario. And then once the plastic is there by the action of what we call weathering agents. So it can be either sunlight. So UV, UV lights, um, wave action.

[00:53:58] Carl Lanore: [00:53:58] The sand, just rubbing [00:54:00] against the saints. It's like sandpaper.

[00:54:01] Francisca Ribeiro PhD Candidate: [00:54:01] Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So all of that contributes that in time, this plastic break into smaller and smaller pieces,

[00:54:11] Carl Lanore: [00:54:11] we talking about microns in size.

[00:54:14] Francisca Ribeiro PhD Candidate: [00:54:14] Exactly. So by definition, we, a microplastic is a particle with less than five millimeters. So everything that is below that size and teal. A hundred

[00:54:26] Carl Lanore: [00:54:26] nanometers, big five millimeters is pretty big. I mean, that's something you can hold in your hand and see.

[00:54:34] Francisca Ribeiro PhD Candidate: [00:54:34] Yeah. Yeah. So that's something you can see, but then it can go up to 20 microns, 10 microns, five micrograms.

[00:54:41] Yeah. And then it can get to the nanoscience. So now we are talking about nanometers insights.

[00:54:49] Carl Lanore: [00:54:49] Yeah. So how are fish. Absorbing this is it going through their gills when they're breathing and they're, they're absorbing it passively. Are they eating it? How, how [00:55:00] do the fish incorporate it into their flesh?

[00:55:03] Francisca Ribeiro PhD Candidate: [00:55:03] Yeah. So if we're talking about face specifically, they can uptake it through the gills. For instance, I breathing in the water or, uh, through the mouth by, um, Drinking sea water. But if we are talking about a Marina vertebrates, for instance, like clams or muscles, they do it in a passive way. So, uh, they uptake it as well to the gills or ingested through the mouth.

[00:55:33] But because they are filter feeders most commonly yes. The particles are taking a passive way. Yeah. If we are talking about larger animals, like whales, for instance, um, the biggest problem is not the microplastics, but the particle, but okay. Plastic itself.

[00:55:49] Carl Lanore: [00:55:49] So it'd be plus

[00:55:50] Francisca Ribeiro PhD Candidate: [00:55:50] States. Yeah. And, and they uptake it because they eat it because they are in the water column.

[00:55:57] Yeah.

[00:55:57] Carl Lanore: [00:55:57] So now this is all [00:56:00] ocean fish. You looked at, you looked at oysters, you looked at prawns, you looked at squid, crabs and sardines. Uh, and these were all from Australian markets, right? These were, these were already caught fish. So these would be fish that people would buy and bring home and cook for their families.

[00:56:16] Right.

[00:56:17] Francisca Ribeiro PhD Candidate: [00:56:17] That's right.

[00:56:18] Carl Lanore: [00:56:18] Yeah. Did you look at the Lake? Did you look at different other waterways at all? Like, cause I have to believe. That catfish in rivers because they eat all the poop that the other fish make and eat the dirt. And they have to have a lot of plastic in them, too. Do you look at the, the more closed waterways, the rivers and streams and stuff like that?

[00:56:42] Francisca Ribeiro PhD Candidate: [00:56:42] No. So we haven't looked at that, but there are other studies on a reverse species and other animals, a lot of studies actually worldwide, and yeah, they are also found in, um, Face from rivers or from [00:57:00] lakes, especially the cap face. I can tell if there's any study on that, but I am absolutely sure they should have plastic in them.

[00:57:08] Um, yeah, absolutely. By, uh, um, other studies, specially we buy evolves from fresh water sediments. Um, they all have plastic in them. Yeah. But we only looked at, um, species from the ocean.

[00:57:23] Carl Lanore: [00:57:23] So, uh, talk about the, uh, and tractions of plastic. You found into different diversity of, of fish here. You found plastic anywhere from 0.4 milligrams all the way up to 2.9 milligrams.

[00:57:36] And that was in sardines, which everybody eats sardines because they don't get mercury because they're young and they're small, but meanwhile, they have more plastic in them.

[00:57:46] Francisca Ribeiro PhD Candidate: [00:57:46] Yeah, that's right. So these was the most recent pricing results of this study. We weren't expecting this at all. Um, our guests here is because, uh, we only process the edible portion of [00:58:00] each seafood species.

[00:58:01] So in the case of sardines, it was the muscle, but we, the skin on. Um, and because we didn't know. So we, until the point we got the result is when we realized that this was the species with the biggest concentration. Um, and so our guests in the studies that these plastic is probably coming from the packaging materials, um, that we use to transport to face, or even on the boats.

[00:58:32] Yeah. So that's how our guests, because now we will have to test the sardines without a scheme, for instance, and taking, yeah. Taking all the measures that we can to avoid the contamination,

[00:58:45] Carl Lanore: [00:58:45] but could it be, could it be, but could it be that the skin bioaccumulates at a higher rate, we know the skin bioaccumulate to mercury.

[00:58:53] At a higher rate than the, than the flesh. Could it just be that it wasn't from the content, the passive contact in the [00:59:00] packaging, but in fact, sardines, bioaccumulate more plastics in the skin. Maybe the body's trying to push it out and get it out.

[00:59:08] Francisca Ribeiro PhD Candidate: [00:59:08] Yeah. I mean, it's an idea. We really haven't tested that because one of the things that hasn't been proven in the scientific community is whether or not the fish can actually uptake the particles through the, through the blood and then to the muscles.

[00:59:25] So we really don't know if they actually can first bio accumulate into the muscle and then into the skin. Um, that's why at the moment we can really, uh, guess if it's happening or not. Uh, but if we look at the other species in this study, the levels were much lower in, uh, oysters or prongs where we were expecting it to be much higher because, uh, We the oysters, we eat them whole and we analyzed the entire animal and the concentration is actually very low compared to the sardines.

[00:59:57] So it must be some kind [01:00:00] of external factor that is contaminating the samples. Um, Yeah, one way that we could do this in the future would be catching a fish straight from the sea to our labs. So without using any packaging materials, metals, plastic, uh, but that's what we are aiming to do.

[01:00:21] Carl Lanore: [01:00:21] Could it also be, could it also be that plastic stratifies in water?

[01:00:25] So maybe the bivalves and the things that lived in the sand. They just don't get as exposed to it because it floats a little bit up higher. And these are the fish that are moving through the water that tend to be exposed to it more.

[01:00:37] Francisca Ribeiro PhD Candidate: [01:00:37] Yeah, exactly. Can be so different plastics have different densities, some floats others don't so, yeah, that's a possibility.

[01:00:45] Yeah. Um, the difference in water column, we actually, I put the size that the value that we find in squeeze that was actually very low is because of that, because squid leaving deeper areas of the ocean. So we assume [01:01:00] that most of the plastic stays in the first a hundred meters and then less as you go.

[01:01:06] Low, but yeah. Um, we really don't know.

[01:01:10] Carl Lanore: [01:01:10] Do we see, do we see any anomalies with fish that we can attribute to the plastic that they are now incorporating into their physiology? Whether it's their skin or their muscle or their blood or whatever. Do we see things happening to fish that we can say, well, this makes sense because fish Fisher loaded with plastic and they have these problems now.

[01:01:32] Francisca Ribeiro PhD Candidate: [01:01:32] Yeah. So. There are more studies on Marine invertebrates and the effects of microplastics to these animals, because it's easier to assess those effects in these species, but in face, um, it has caused some. Mortality, in some cases where the concentration is very high and one of the biggest problems is because feasts eat plastic and then they get very full.

[01:01:59] And so [01:02:00] they can't eat

[01:02:00] Carl Lanore: [01:02:00] anymore because the plastic, it doesn't break down. It doesn't break down. Right,

[01:02:05] Francisca Ribeiro PhD Candidate: [01:02:05] exactly. So it stays in the stomach and then it just causes a block of the digestive system. So that's what has been that, I think that's the. Bigger effects that we have seen so far in face. Yeah. If we are talking about, um, organisms yeah.

[01:02:24] At the base of the traffic, uh, Shane, uh, like oysters, for instance, you see, um, Bigger effects in terms of, uh, once again, mortality, but then in terms of neuro toxicity or oxidative damage or that kind of, um, cell based effects, um, compared to face

[01:02:49] Carl Lanore: [01:02:49] sardines, eating a serving of sardines could potentially deliver 30 milligrams of plastic.

[01:02:56] To the person eating them. That's that's star that's startling to [01:03:00] me. We're not talking about Michael Graham's here. We're talking about milligram.

[01:03:04] Francisca Ribeiro PhD Candidate: [01:03:04] Milligrams. Yeah. So 30 milligrams is a part, a grain of rice. So you have an idea. Um, here we have considered, uh, serving, um, three sardines and medium sardines, uh, based on the Australian guidelines.

[01:03:22] Um, Yeah about, and this is just calculated based on a average person, an average seafood eater. There can be a lot of factors that can influence this result, but should be about that based on what we found in our samples. Yes.

[01:03:38] Carl Lanore: [01:03:38] And I know that humans bioaccumulate plastic. We don't have a good way to get rid of it.

[01:03:42] I mean, if it's in our digestive track, we will eliminate it with other things, but if it finds its way into tissue, We don't have a system to deal with plastic. And so it's going to stay with us for a long time.

[01:03:58] Francisca Ribeiro PhD Candidate: [01:03:58] Well, it's probably [01:04:00] the us. Um, once again, there are no studies on humans, uh, yet. Uh, so we really don't know what is going on with us at the moment.

[01:04:09] We don't know where if we are ingesting. So where does it go? Um, But there are some preliminary studies on additives of the plastic, for instance, and that we know that it's found in our blood urine

[01:04:23] Carl Lanore: [01:04:23] samples. Right.

[01:04:24] Francisca Ribeiro PhD Candidate: [01:04:24] So it's slightly that's can happen with a plastic as well.

[01:04:28] Carl Lanore: [01:04:28] Yeah. When we talk about plastics, right?

[01:04:31] We use this word and it's this it's this ubiquitous term. And it really doesn't mean all plastic plates, but plasticizers. The chemicals that they use to make plastic. One in particular, uh, failure rates, uh, was identified almost 15 years ago as an anti androgen. It, it has an affinity for the androgen receptor [01:05:00] and then it blocks DHT, testosterone, and DHT from actually binding with the androgen receptor.

[01:05:06] And it's been, uh, associated. In communities where there's high Fe late exposure because of a chemical waste. And so on, young boys are born with testicles that don't drop. Uh, we see, we see a young woman. More prone to, uh, uh, uh PCLs uh, so when we say this word plastic, it's like, Oh, plastic. And I swallowed a piece of plastic when I was a kid, I was chewing on my car toy and, you know, but the plasticizers in plastic act like hormones in our body.

[01:05:41] They have been linked to, you know, they call Xeno, estrogens and Xeno androgens for a reason they're synthetic. Mimickers of, of sex hormone. So this is really a big deal. This is not something just go. Ah, so you eat a little plastic. It's not a good thing.

[01:05:58] Francisca Ribeiro PhD Candidate: [01:05:58] No. I absolutely agree [01:06:00] with you. I don't think people have realized yet the issue, uh, and what kind of effects it can actually.

[01:06:06] Cause, and I'm, I'm not even talking about the environment because, um, That we can already see our beaches full of plastic for instance, but in terms of human health, yeah, it can actually be big impact in the future. And if we don't stop it now, or if we don't find alternatives as the bioplastic that some companies are producing at the moment, it will become a bigger.

[01:06:30] Problem in the future. And I think we have to do everything we can to least reduce and manage our waste the best way as possible as we can.

[01:06:41] Carl Lanore: [01:06:41] Yeah. Do you think that there's higher exposure to fish? Uh, in other regions of the globe, if we look at countries like China, which are some of the worst offenders for polluting their water, we would expect to see their fish has more plastic and incorporated into it.

[01:06:57] Would that be a fair assessment?

[01:07:00] [01:07:00] Francisca Ribeiro PhD Candidate: [01:07:00] Oh, yeah, absolutely. I would say so, specially because, uh, although we don't have comparative studies with our own because, uh, the methods we use this difference, uh, we can actually see that the concentration that we found in Australian species is lower than other studies from other species.

[01:07:20] Uh, From other countries of the globe. So yeah, I would definitely say yes. We can say that there is a directly relation between what you find in the, in the water for instance, and what you find in a face, but it's definitely a proxy for environmental contamination of the urea where you sample.

[01:07:41] Carl Lanore: [01:07:41] Yeah. Is this, is this, um, does this give us more reason to, um, to improve.

[01:07:51] Uh, fish farming. So, you know, right now, a lot of fish farms, they put a nets up in the ocean and [01:08:00] they raised the fish in the ocean in these, and that's where the water is coming and going from the ocean. And this is to be better than the static, stagnant pool of water inside buildings and so on and so forth.

[01:08:13] But I'm starting to wonder if it is better. I'm starting to think that maybe. Fish farming. It needs to be reinvestigated and improve the pond so that the quality of fish grown in fish farms is better. And we have control on the exposure to plastic. What do you think.

[01:08:29] Francisca Ribeiro PhD Candidate: [01:08:29] Yeah, absolutely. So agriculture is one of the biggest sources of plastic to the, to the fish as well, because they, as you said, they grow in ponds and then they use fish nets to catch the face.

[01:08:43] Um, Well, I totally understand why plastic is used because it's very resistant and it has a high durability, and it's very difficult to find a material that can compete with that. So I totally understand why it's used, but like I said, investing [01:09:00] in research in all the plastic related materials, but that's our.

[01:09:06] Both for the environment or for our own health would be a solution. Definitely. Yeah.

[01:09:12] Carl Lanore: [01:09:12] That's good. Do you eat

[01:09:13] Prof. Robyn Leigh Tanguay: [01:09:13] fish?

[01:09:16] Francisca Ribeiro PhD Candidate: [01:09:16] I ate fish.

[01:09:18] Carl Lanore: [01:09:18] I used to eat fish or you still eat fish. I

[01:09:22] Francisca Ribeiro PhD Candidate: [01:09:22] still it's fish. Um, but I think it has to be, um, W at least we need to know what is in there. And I never say to people to panic now, because we need more studies to confirm this and to understand where the contamination is coming from to start.

[01:09:44] But as a suggestion, I would recommend to you, uh, all by then the plastic materials in your kitchen, for instance, uh, try to wash your face as much as you can with water and. Don't eat the [01:10:00] skin. That would be my advice, but the most important that is don't use plastic bags and choose any Ethan seals in our kitchen that can actually, um, contaminate and increase the concentration of plastic that might already being there.

[01:10:14] Um, but don't panic just now that would be my advice.

[01:10:18] Carl Lanore: [01:10:18] And there's a, there's another aspect that we haven't even discussed. And that is the changes that plastic undergoes when heated. And so, you know, we're talking about fish, we're talking about plastic and we're talking about it in this pristine environment where the fish is raw and we're counting how much plastic is in there.

[01:10:35] But then we take that fish and we put it on a grill and we heat it up. And the three milligrams of plastic in there melts and turns into other chemicals. Oh, some of them we know are known carcinogens and I'm starting to wonder if there's Japanese have a right. Maybe we should just be eating the fish raw, right.

[01:10:53] Cooking it. Maybe that's one less, you know, one less bad step with the fish.

[01:11:01] [01:11:00] Francisca Ribeiro PhD Candidate: [01:11:01] Yeah, that's right. But actually once the plastic is in the environment and obviously stays there for many, many years, it's actually suffers a chemical modification in your environment as well. So the plastic is no longer pristine wants to get to the fish.

[01:11:18] So the weathering happens in the environment. Um, So I couldn't tell about if it's safer not to cook it. Um, especially because I don't know if you've ever tried to melt plastic, but it's actually very difficult to do that. It's highly resistant to temperatures, uh, pressure. Um, for hours we have to use 180 degrees and a huge pressure to actually fragment that part of plastic and melted.

[01:11:50] Yeah,

[01:11:53] Carl Lanore: [01:11:53] sitting and stuff, but it's also worrisome because you know, people nowadays there they walk down the. [01:12:00] Aisle at the grocery store. And they're told, well, no, shop the perimeter, the meat, the fish, the fresh vegetables, but now we're learning more and more about the meat and the fish and the fresh vegetables.

[01:12:10] That's really not that good. And people are thinking to themselves, what do I eat? What can I eat? That's not going to hurt me. And it's becoming harder and harder to find those answers today.

[01:12:21] Francisca Ribeiro PhD Candidate: [01:12:21] Yeah, I agree. Uh, yeah, everything is contaminated. Really. That's a moment. So that's ha that's why I say if you can avoid extra contamination by blastic, that's the better solution that we can give at the moment.

[01:12:37] Yeah.

[01:12:37] Carl Lanore: [01:12:37] This is fascinating stuff, Francisco. I think this is good work that you're doing because it opens people's eyes. Uh, and maybe we need to start thinking about ways to take additional precautions when buying fish. When preparing fish and when eating fish, because, you know, if there's a, there was a period of my life where I ate a pound [01:13:00] of salmon every single day.

[01:13:02] For years, I ate a pound, the beef. I had a pound of salmon every single day for years. And, you know, and you think about that. I don't know. Maybe salmon has less plastic than sardines, maybe more, but when you eat a pound, maybe I'm getting 30, 40 milligrams of plastic a day, every day for years. And who knows what, what impact that has on my health.

[01:13:24] I have no idea because you know, it's such a small thing over the course of time. You don't notice. The changes that if it was something acute that you get it and you go, Oh my God, I don't feel good. You know, it's just small nagging erosion to your health. That happens over time. And it's, it's, it's very worrisome to me.

[01:13:44] I, you know, I've actually been talking to a good friend of mine about something very absurd. So I have, I am getting ready to, to write a document. My first serious document, uh, Aubrey de grey came up with the [01:14:00] mitochondrial theory of aging. Uh, lots of people have theories of aging. The newest one is the senescent cells.

[01:14:07] We accumulate senescent cells of that leads to aging. Maybe you've heard of this before. I'm convinced, convinced that something completely different. I'm convinced that it's the bio accumulation of metabolic waste products in tissue. That's that? Get deposited and muscle tissue and organ tissue year after year after year.

[01:14:29] And then the organs become less functional because the tissue is less functional. The mitochondria actually stopped working properly because they're congested with garbage muscles. Don't muscles become stiff because they're not appliable because you have all this metabolic debris being stored in muscle tissue.

[01:14:48] We know that this happens with iron. We know that we accumulate iron and it leads to all sorts of problems later on in life. And so I'm convinced now that, and I know from research that I've, [01:15:00] I've done years ago, that everything we eat, everything we eat has a. A metabolic consequence, uh, carbohydrates, a cellular carbohydrates like flours and sugars.

[01:15:14] They create instant inflammation in the body, fats and proteins, not as bad, but they do so everything. We eat sustains life, but everything we eat, it takes a little bit of life away from us at the same time. And I was talking to a friend of mine a couple of weeks ago, and I said, how, how could we get nutrition without eating?

[01:15:37] We did it in our mother's wounds. It's called the umbilical cord. It's called the, the, the, the, the belly button. Wait, what, what is it for the umbilicus? And I said, man, wouldn't it be fascinating if we learned that we could remember the movie avatar. The movie avatar. Remember they had the tail that plugged in and they got their life force from it.

[01:15:55] Maybe we're gonna figure out that we can tap back into the umbilicus and start giving [01:16:00] ourselves nutrition and removing waste products without eating it someday. Wouldn't that be fascinating?

[01:16:07] Francisca Ribeiro PhD Candidate: [01:16:07] Uh, yeah. In a way. Yeah. But then you wouldn't have the pleasure of 18 and that's an important factor as well.

[01:16:14] Carl Lanore: [01:16:14] Isn't it? You can, you can eat once in a while still, you know, you could still lead a little bit. Yeah. You're unplugged you unplug and you go to a restaurant that night. But anyway, listen, this is fascinating. I really want to thank you for taking time to come on the show today.

[01:16:28] Francisca Ribeiro PhD Candidate: [01:16:28] No problem. Thanks for having me

[01:16:29] Carl Lanore: [01:16:29] take care.

[01:16:32] And that's it for today. Tomorrow we have a special show. We have a return of the pep talk. We have dr. Elizabeth yert coming on tomorrow to talk about an exciting mitochondrial peptide. That may be the answer for those of you who suffer from chronic fatigue. And it's called . It's an injectable peptide.

[01:16:50] I'll tell you where you can get it. I'll tell you how to dose it and tell you what it can do for you. Uh, so that's tomorrow and that's at a special time. That's gotta be a two 30 Eastern [01:17:00] instead of one o'clock Eastern, dr. York will be making a return to superhuman radio, and we will have an exciting pep-talk tomorrow.

[01:17:07] So tune in for that, of course, share the show. If you learned anything today, even if what you learned is that I'm a dummy, especially that. Eating through the umbilical cord discussion, right? That's pretty far fetched. Now you're thinking to yourself, Oh, I'll call called gone. He went off the edge just now.

[01:17:23] Um, but these are the thoughts I have. What can I say? I'm letting you peek into my brain. It's a scary place. I will see you tomorrow. Share the show, please. And thank you for being here today. [01:18:00]