What does your brain have in common with water, earthquakes, and maybe even society itself? Join expert Leandro Fosque and guests Alejandro Gonzales and Peter Thatcher to learn about the theory of criticality, an idea from physics that could help explain how the brain is able to take in so much information, why we need sleep, and what goes wrong when someone has epilepsy or dementia.

Want to be a guest on In Plain English? Send us a message at the Become a Guest page!

In Plain English now has a Discord server! Join ⁠⁠here ⁠⁠to chat with other listeners, past experts, and guests about science, suggest new episode topics, and more!

Remember to follow In Plain English on ⁠⁠Facebook ⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Twitter⁠⁠, Bluesky, and ⁠⁠Instagram ⁠⁠to keep up with the latest announcements! If you are able, please consider ⁠⁠becoming a Patron⁠⁠ to help support In Plain English!

And check out our ⁠⁠Where to Listen⁠⁠ page to subscribe to our podcast on your favorite platform!

Intro/Outro music credit: Sam Brunwasser (⁠⁠https://soundcloud.com/visualsnowbeats⁠⁠)

Logo credit: Biographics (Jessica Higginbotham, Tania Lintz, and Yolanda Campos Jurado)

In this episode, In Plain English joins the discourse on the All of Us Genomics project and their use of UMAP, an algorithm that reduces complex data to 2 dimensions. Join guests Konrad Kording, William Lima, and Jake Walker to learn why this mathematical model made such a splash on Twitter, and how scientists can analyze and communicate large data sets more rigorously. See how UMAP works on randomly generated data: https://koerding.github.io/umap-web-app/

See the papers and other resources discussed in this article: https://inplainenglishpod.org/2024/12/10/season-4-episode-3-the-umap-algorithm-look-pretty-and-do-as-little-as-possible/

In Plain English now has a Discord server! Join ⁠⁠here ⁠⁠to chat with other listeners, past experts, and guests about science, suggest new episode topics, and more!

Remember to follow In Plain English on ⁠⁠Facebook ⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Twitter⁠⁠, Bluesky, and ⁠⁠Instagram ⁠⁠to keep up with the latest announcements! If you are able, please consider ⁠⁠becoming a Patron⁠⁠ to help support In Plain English!

And check out our ⁠⁠Where to Listen⁠⁠ page to subscribe to our podcast on your favorite platform!

Intro/Outro music credit: Sam Brunwasser (⁠⁠https://soundcloud.com/visualsnowbeats⁠⁠)

Logo credit: Biographics (Jessica Higginbotham, Tania Lintz, and Yolanda Campos Jurado)

In this special episode, my friend Dr. Sharon Abada shares the story of her grandfather, Dr. Marshall Klaus, and how he helped discover a lifesaving treatment for premature infants called surfactant. This story weaves together family, scientific curiosity, failure, and collaboration to tell the story of a treatment that has saved countless lives.

You can read Dr. Klaus's paper on the website: https://inplainenglishpod.org/2024/11/12/season-4-episode-2-lifesaving-treatment-for-premature-infants-an-interview-with-dr-sharon-abada/

More information about the other characters in this story:

Dr. Mary Ellen Avery: You can read her paper here: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/article-abstract/499174#google_vignette, and find more information about her here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Ellen_Avery.

Dr. John Clements: You can learn more about him here: https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2024/09/428391/john-clements-whose-science-transformed-newborn-care-dies-101.

All comments made by Sharon are made in her individual capacity and not on behalf of UCSF, and are not reviewed or approved by UCSF.

Erratum: Dr. John Clements's industry partner was Burroughs Wellcome, not Burroughs Williams as stated in the podcast.

In Plain English now has a Discord server! Join ⁠⁠here ⁠⁠to chat with other listeners, past experts, and guests about science, suggest new episode topics, and more!

Remember to follow In Plain English on ⁠⁠Facebook ⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Twitter⁠⁠, and ⁠⁠Instagram ⁠⁠to keep up with the latest announcements! If you are able, please consider ⁠⁠becoming a Patron⁠⁠ to help support In Plain English!

And check out our ⁠⁠Where to Listen⁠⁠ page to subscribe to our podcast on your favorite platform!

Intro/Outro music credit: Sam Brunwasser (⁠⁠https://soundcloud.com/visualsnowbeats⁠⁠)

Logo credit: Biographics (Jessica Higginbotham, Tania Lintz, and Yolanda Campos Jurado)