Science Pioneers with Danni Washington

Welcome to StarTalk, your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide.

StarTalk begins right now.

This is StarTalk, Neil deGrasse Tyson here, your personal astrophysicist.

I got with me my co-host, Chuck, Chuck.

Always good to have you there, man.

Always a pleasure to be here, Neil.

You bring a force of levity to all content that has gravity on this program.

See, and listen, even when you talk comedy, you still do it in science terms.

I mean, the terms are still astrophysical when you’re talking about it.

Well, I think the universe is hilarious, so that’s why.

So today’s topic are science pioneers.

Science pioneers?

We don’t do this as often as we should.

Always a good topic.

Because all kinds of scientists out there that might not have made headlines, but they’re there and they’re getting the job done.

Let me ask you this as a scientist.

Do you think that it’s better to be on the cutting edge and risk being ahead of your time or to be in the sweet spot and perhaps either prove or make the big discovery?

Why you got to make everything binary, Chuck?

We live in a spectrum world.

We’ve got a guest today who has some expertise in finding scientists who are pioneers and are worth talking about.

And we’ve got Danni Washington.

Danni, welcome to StarTalk.

Thank you very much.

Hey, what’s up?

It’s so good to be here.

I’m really excited.

I’ve been looking forward to this for a very long time.

Excellent, and you reminded me, we had met several years ago.

You had attended a live recording of StarTalk at the American Museum of Natural History under the sphere of the Hayden Planetarium.

So it’s great to have you sort of back in the fold.

Yeah, totally full circle.

You’ve been busy the last few years.

And first, you’ve got a podcast called the Genius Generation Podcast.

And I’m guessing it’s not my generation who messed up here.

Well, no, not quite.

It’s definitely not your generation.

It’s not even my generation.

Well, thank God it’s not your generation.

That’s all that counts.

This podcast is awesome because it focuses on young people under the age of 18 who have either found a recent discovery or created new businesses that are changing the game in different realms of STEM.

And I had so much fun interviewing these young people.

They’re brilliant.

And it made me realize, what am I doing with my life?

These kids are 12 years old making incredible discoveries.

And you’re like, what?

Don’t worry, Danni, don’t worry.

They’re just peeking early.

Okay.

They’re gonna burn out later, is that what you’re saying?

By the time they’re 26, they’ll be washed up.

No, joking.

So Danni, you’re an ocean person.

And I don’t think we have enough of such people in this world.

The ocean is most of Earth’s surface and so much we don’t know.

And frankly, space kind of siphons off a lot of what could be attention also given to Earth’s surface.

By surface, I mean including the oceans, Earth, the planet.

And so you’re founder of an ocean conservation organization.

Who gets to say that, okay?

Yes, you are accomplishing things, Danni.

Stop using 12 year olds as a metric for whether you’ve succeeded.

So it’s called Big Blue and You.

So tell us about that.

Well, I received my Bachelor of Science degree in Marine Biology back in 08 at the University of Miami.

And that was my dream all throughout high school was to study marine science.

And then after undergrad, I realized, hey, there’s a gap.

There’s a gap in information between the science community, specifically the ocean science community and the general public.

I grew up in Miami and so I was constantly at the beach in the ocean.

I was certified as a scuba diver at 17.

And I just knew that I wanna spend as much time as possible in the ocean.

But I also wanted people around me, my family, my community, to truly fall in love with the ocean like I fell in love with the ocean because it’s such an important critical place for all humans on earth.

But Danni, is it really true that with scuba diving, all the instructions that you have to follow oats so that you don’t die rather than that you have fun?

Is that true?

Well, it’s semi true, yes.

It is a dangerous activity and you can, like.

Semi true.

No, it’s very true.

Also, we shouldn’t be surprised that, as a resident of Miami, people there have a front row seat in the behavior of the ocean.

I mean, not only with hurricanes, but you look at a map of the future, a sea level rise, and Florida’s gone, it’s just gone.

Gone, underwater.

So is that part of the baptism that you experienced growing up?

Yeah, excuse the term.

The baptism.

Oh yeah, baptism is water, it does involve water.

As we talk about the submersion of all of Florida underwater, tell us about your baptism.

Well, you know, to be honest, when I was younger in high school, I didn’t know as much as I know of, as we know now about climate change and the impacts of that.

And so, but I knew that things were not quite right.

I looked at different areas like mangrove forests, the seagrass beds, places where I loved to explore as a kid, and I saw them changing before my eyes.

Also, beach erosion happening around and different beaches that I love to visit.

So it became evident pretty quickly that I was like, okay, we’ve got some issues here and we need to start spreading the word about what’s going on out there.

Because with the ocean, it’s out of mind and out of sight for so many people, even people who live right there on the beach and they don’t recognize that under those waves, there’s a whole other universe.

I think of it as a universe, it’s inner space that we still have so much to talk about.

I like that term, whatever.

You need permission to use that word in that way.

Could you tell us, this is something I learned, I was like a full grown adult, and I said, what, is that what they’re called?

These trees that grow at the intersection of land and waterways?

Mangroves.

They’re called mangroves?

Yes.

Why?

What does that even mean?

And why so sexist?

You know, that’s a great question, I’ve never even thought about that, but I have no idea why they gain the name mangroves, but all I know is that they play an essential role in places like Florida and across the entire world around the tropical areas and regions because they serve as a buffer.

So whenever hurricanes come in, it’s protecting the land.

It’s also a nursery ground for so many different marine species, including sharks and reef fishes.

And it’s where the babies grow up and they’re able to swim out to the reef after they’ve grown up.

And so we need it desperately.

And a lot of times we see in developed coastal areas where people want to build huge condos and hotels, we’re seeing that-

They’ve got to cut down the mangroves.

They’ll cut down the mangroves.

Yeah, because it’s blocking the beach.

In fact, Miami Beach, the beach that I grew up going to, is not a real natural beach.

It’s actually filled in with sand every eight years and re-nourished.

And it was formally in the early 1900s, it was a mangrove forest along the coast, but it was removed to create the beach.

Okay, so Chuck, I think mangroves should be a new haircut at the barbershop.

The mangrove.

The mangrove going here, that’s the mangrove.

That’s the mangrove.

The mangrove, you’re grooming me with the mangrove.

You also have a lifestyle brand, who does this?

You have a lifestyle brand called the Mocha Mermaid, so what’s up with that?

Oh yeah.

I know, right?

Wait, you’re a marine biologist and a black mermaid?

That’s me, that’s me in a nutshell, yep.

That’s totally dope, okay.

Thank you, thank you.

I love it.

Well, I’ve always been fascinated by the idea of being half fish or half marine mammal and half human.

And you know, the kid-

No, that’s called mentally disturbed, right?

No, I don’t think it is.

I don’t think it is.

The reason is that I have always wanted to be able to spend as much time as possible underwater.

And being a mermaid or looking into that mythology, that’s been seen throughout history, human history.

Every culture around the world has had some type of ocean or water goddess, deity, whatever in their mythology.

And I think there’s something to that.

I love the story behind it.

It began in Africa with like Mami Wata and different ideas in the religious practices that talked about these half water beings.

Anyway, long story short, I like the idea of being someone who’s connected to the ocean, who’s constantly in the water.

And I wanted to create a space for community building and to find other people that look like me that have melanated skin who also love the ocean because we’ve been so underrepresented in this space throughout history.

And now it’s time, I think, for us to reconnect ourselves to water because I believe that water is a healing element.

It’s something that, you know, whenever I get in the water, I immediately feel at peace, at rest, and I feel rejuvenated afterward.

And I want other people to experience that, especially people of color.

Let’s get back to the subject of why we have her on the show.

And that’s to talk about science pioneers.

Because you’ve written a book on science pioneers, and you told us offline that you began this during COVID, and it got published just a few months ago, at the end of 2021.

So I’m glad you did something productive during COVID, which is more than most people can say.

Okay?

Instead of just binging on Rick and Morty, you actually wrote something.

So this is great.

Now, did you, but did you make sourdough?

I mean, because if you didn’t…

That was another one.

That was another one.

I’m not a baker.

I really don’t bake that much, though.

So who do you want to talk about first that you’ve written about?

Well, I’d like to start with Vera Rubin.

Oh, I know Vera Rubin.

I mean, she passed, but yeah, that’s my field.

Bring her on.

Yes.

Astronomy.

Yes.

She’s amazing.

She was born in 1928 and, you know, she did some pretty incredible things.

She helps prove the existence of dark matter.

She also used calculations to show that galaxies contain 10 times more dark matter than ordinary matter.

And, you know, it’s really considered one of the biggest and most important discoveries in astronomy.

All in, all in.

So Danni, if I could add that the implications of her discovery is that everything you see and know and love in a galaxy, the stars, the gas clouds, even the black holes and planets and moons and comets, all of that is froth on an ocean.

Maybe you’ll like this analogy, Danni, because I’m the reference in the ocean.

You said universe before.

I’m going to use ocean now, may I?

If actual matter is a small fraction of the total gravity in a galaxy, then everything we know and love is just froth on a wave that we cannot see.

That’s a beautiful analogy.

We can detect it gravitationally, but we don’t know what’s causing it.

So it’s really dark gravity.

And so that discovery lives with us to this day, and it remains an unsolved mystery.

And she was in the middle of it.

So I heard tell that because she was sort of, born in 1928 and in a scientific field, certainly dominated by men, to get access to telescopes requires, we have to apply and then they have to sort of, someone in charge has to allow it.

And you have stories about her trying to just use the same damn telescope everybody else was using.

So tell us about that.

Sure, well in 1965, she joined the Carnegie Institution for Science and that was the very first time that a woman was allowed to use the Hale Telescope at the Palomar Observatory.

And this was a major step because before that, women weren’t allowed to do that.

She, you know, she went.

But that’s the biggest telescope in the world at the time.

Yes, yes.

How dare her want to use the biggest telescope in the world?

Does she know her place?

Yeah, tell me about it.

Well, I hope she said, you know, clearly, you guys are overcompensating for something with this giant telescope, right?

OK, I feel that I feel that.

Well, she had to work really hard to get to that point.

Honestly, her career before even getting to that position was a was a journey.

At first, you know, she wanted to do her degree in astronomy, her bachelor of science degree.

Most schools wouldn’t accept her.

Finally, she got into an all girls school, Vassar College, and she graduated.

She was the only one from her class who graduated with a degree in astronomy.

And then she went to Cornell, and then most, again, most other universities wouldn’t accept her into their program because she was a woman.

And then finally, Cornell let her, you know, join the crew.

And then at age 23, she started pursuing her PhD, and she even had her first child while pursuing her PhD.

You know, that’s badass right there, you know.

They pop out a kid, wow, I’m discovering the universe.

Yeah, try that, Einstein, try that.

Exactly, and in fact, she ended up having four children successfully, you know, completing her PhD and all this research and all these discoveries happening within her career alongside her husband, you know, and they just lived an amazing life.

And it turns out that all four of her children ended up pursuing PhDs in STEM fields as well.

And so what’s this about bathrooms at the observatory?

I heard rumors about this, but you got the untold story.

What is that?

So the story about the bathroom issue with Vera was that there were no female bathrooms in the observatory.

So what she ended up doing was taking a piece of paper and placed it right over the men’s, you know, symbol and made her own bathroom.

And that, I think, was very significant in just the symbolism of it, where she made her place.

She paved her own way and made sure that she had what she needed to pursue her dreams.

So let me ask you something.

So to get, for her to get to where she was required some kind of tenacity, all right?

It’s not putting up with status quo, but not being bitter about it necessarily.

She just said, I’m doing this, try to stop me, right?

And I worry that sometimes people today, if it’s a force operating against them, and then they just kind of lose, they lose it, right?

And then they recede rather than continue to push to change the world, because it is not easy to change the world.

There’s always somebody who wants to prevent it.

So this seems like a character trait that was very important for her to succeed.

Definitely, tenacity is definitely the word that I would use to describe Vera, because she made a way when there was no way and figured out other alternatives for her to get to where she wanted to go.

And I just love that about her.

And again, she did it while raising a family, while doing everything that women quote unquote are traditionally known to do while being a badass astronomer.

Right, and in my field, we recognize, I mean, we do recognize discoveries, basically, no matter who it is.

And there’s some lapses that occasionally need correction, of course, but I mean, today, Vera Rubin has a telescope named after her.

Did you get to put that in?

Because that happened only recently.

No.

Did that get it into your book?

It didn’t make it in the book, but I did mention.

Oh my God, because it just happened.

It just happened, I wish.

Yeah, so the current most powerful telescope in the world is named the Vera Rubin Telescope.

And it’s this humongous telescope.

It has the largest digital camera ever built.

It’s the size of a human being, like the detector surface.

Wow.

And you just walk into this camera, and it’s designed to take snapshots of the sky continually, which you can then stitch together and basically make a movie of the night sky.

And the value of this is, just think about it.

Just think about it.

What have we been doing the whole, you know, ever since we’ve had telescopes?

Let’s get one image in this one moment that I happen to be looking.

But suppose something happens an hour after you shut off the telescope, or you’re in the bathroom, or suppose something happened.

Do you miss that?

Or suppose something happens only in 24-hour increments.

And so you see it and you think it’s natural, but it’s only doing something for you in this 24-hour increment, and you’re missing all the rest of the time.

You can be biased by how the data has been obtained.

So this telescope is called the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, and there was too many syllables.

I’m glad we renamed it, no matter who we renamed it to, but it got to be renamed for Vera Rubin.

And it’s the Rubin Telescope.

And when you’re in the name of a famous telescope, every discovery that comes out of it, your name is attached to it.

Well deserved.

That’s a fitting legacy.

Absolutely.

Especially because she never received a Nobel Prize, even though many of her colleagues did throughout her career.

Yeah, it’s wild.

Exactly.

You mentioned it, that she discovered dark matter in galaxies.

Today, that would have clearly won a Nobel Prize.

But it was sort of overlooked at the time by the Nobel Committee.

And are there other Nobel Prizes that had gone to astronomers in the day?

Yes.

One of them went to the discovery of pulsars to the man in charge of a project who didn’t actually make the discovery, a woman did.

Her name is Jocelyn Bell.

So Jocelyn Bell is another one of these people who doesn’t get…

Now you got to make another book and put her on.

I think we should do another one, part two.

Danni, what are you doing on this show?

Get the hell back to work.

Oh my gosh.

I have so much respect for authors after writing my first book.

Oh my gosh.

Yes.

And so that Nobel Prize for the discovery of pulsars was for discovery in the late 1960s.

Her discovery of dark matter was in the early 1970s.

It was around the same time.

But dark matter is still the longest unsolved problem in the universe.

Wow.

And we still don’t know what’s doing it.

And she was in the middle of it.

And we can thank Vera for helping us pave the way.

Yes.

Yes.

All right.

All right.

So, you did good by including her in your book.

When we come back, can you tell us more people in your book?

Absolutely.

I assume they’re not all from astrophysics, so I want to learn about other topics too.

Yeah, all over.

Excellent.

We’ve got Danni Washington, who’s recently written about pioneers in science.

This is on StarTalk.

We’ll learn more about it in the next segment.

Hi, I’m Chris Cohen from Haworth, New Jersey, and I support StarTalk on Patreon.

Please enjoy this episode of StarTalk Radio with your and my favorite personal astrophysicist, Neil deGrasse Tyson.

We’re back, StarTalk.

We’re talking about scientific pioneers over the last century, and I got someone who wrote a book on them, Danni Washington.

Hey.

And Danni, you did this, I mean, your background is in marine science, but you took on this project because you felt that there were some scientists who needed some attention, and somebody’s gotta do it.

Absolutely.

And so we just came off of a segment talking about a pioneer in my field, Vera Rubin, but you also, tell me some more.

You have someone from the field of medicine?

Yes.

Yeah, who do you have there?

Alice Ball.

Alice Ball is a chemist.

She was born in 1892, and she actually developed the first cure for leprosy, or also known as Hansen’s disease, back at the age of 23 years old.

Okay, that’s great, but if she’s born in 1897 and discovered cure for leprosy, that’s too late for everybody in the Bible.

They had Jesus.

Jesus was basically the whole entire health insurance policy for everybody of the entire biblical period.

You know what I mean?

It’s just like something.

Oh my God, my skin is falling off.

Put some Jesus on that, okay?

Put some Jesus on that, okay?

Oh, come on, here you go.

Put some Jesus on that.

Put some Jesus on that.

We good now, you good.

You good?

You good?

You can see?

You can walk, you can see, all right?

All right, so she’s born 1892?

Yeah, 1892 in Washington state.

And she did the same way she was 23.

Man, that’s badass right there.

So tell me about leprosy.

I mean, it sounds like we were saying, like a biblical disease, but what actually happens?

Does anyone get it anymore?

Well, people do get it, but they’re using more modern technology to help cure it.

So they don’t use what Alice Ball originally created.

They have new pharmaceutical products that are helping, but her initial discovery of this specialized treatment really helped those suffering not to have to be put away into like a camp and like taken away from society.

Now they can actually, they were able to function.

And what I loved about is that, you know, she did it through her own curiosity and figured out after researching kava root, she was at the University of Hawaii at the time.

She was playing with the kava root and then it moved on to this thing, a tree called the Chalmugra tree, which is in Hawaii.

And then she distilled it down and then figured out if I inject this into the skin of someone suffering from leprosy, it’ll actually heal the sores that end up coming up.

Wait, wait, wait, stop, stop, stop.

Who does this?

Exactly.

There’s a tree.

Let me extract this root, boil it down.

Do you want to be a test subject?

How does she, where does the thinking come from?

And who lets you do that?

And who lets you do that?

You know.

Well, like my arm’s falling off.

You can inject anything into me.

My arm’s gonna fall off.

You know what, you got a point there.

There you go.

Right, right.

And so they put lepers in, for a long while, they put lepers in leper colonies, which sounds really.

It’s depressing.

I don’t know what else you do in the day, but still.

Yeah.

You know, you don’t want to have to do that going forward.

No, and the island of Molokai in Hawaii is where there was a specific peninsula where this colony existed.

And it was sad because people would be taken away from their families and just living, you know, day to day, and it was just an awful existence.

And so her pursuing this cure was world changing because so many people around the world suffered from this contagious bacterial disease.

Was she finally recognized for this work?

Well, you know what ended up happening was she passed away at the age of 24, tragically.

What?

Oh my goodness.

What?

She just discovered the damn thing.

And I’m gonna tell you, if you tell me she died of leprosy, I’m…

Oh, thank God.

Thank God.

Go ahead.

She apparently accidentally inhaled chlorine gas in the lab.

So it was a lab accident that ended up happening.

And her advisor had to fight another of one of his colleagues who published a paper claiming that her cure was his method, the Dean method.

And it wasn’t until later in the 20th century that a librarian at the University of Hawaii saw that there was one Chalmugratree on the campus.

And she did some research, a little digging, figured out that Alice was the one who did all of this.

And then finally, many years later, she got some recognition.

The Lieutenant Governor of Hawaii declared February 29th Alice Ball Day in 2000.

Cool.

Pretty well.

Cool.

So, wait, wait, so is that, so that can’t be every year then?

Oh, yeah, cause it’s a leap year.

Not every year, it has to be February 29th.

Which is kind of random.

Yeah, I don’t know why they would choose that day.

I don’t know if it was her.

Yeah, that’s so, that’s so, somebody should have checked out the calendar on that one, cause I would have, yeah, yeah.

Okay, so every four years, we’ll celebrate.

We’ll celebrate Alice, yes.

Alice is like the World Cup of scientists.

That’s cool.

Okay, every four years.

It might make it even more special.

True that.

So Danni, I’ve got a geeky calendar thing, cause that’s one of my side avocations, is thinking about calendars and whose calendar is accurate and whose.

So in the year 2100, that would normally be a leap year, but in the current calendar rules, it’s not.

So.

Really?

Yeah, will not have a February 29th.

So we’ll go eight years without getting to celebrate her contribution.

So we should just go back to the lieutenant governor of Hawaii and.

Change a day, make it.

Yeah, if you go there, tell him to call me.

We’ll straighten that out.

Whatever happened to the Dean character, who sounds like such a dick.

I don’t know, I didn’t do much research about him.

One of the other doctors who stole her cure.

Oh yes.

Claimed that it was his discovery and it really was not.

Okay, well that’s all we need to know.

Yeah.

So Danni, who else do you have?

Well, another scientist that I absolutely adore.

She’s a botanist born in India named Janaki Amal.

So she’s known as India’s finest plant scientist and she pioneered in the field of cytogenetics and she even has two plants named after her.

Wait, wait, what is cytogenetics?

Don’t go, just go past that word and not explain it.

Act like we all know what the hell you’re talking about.

Listen, listen.

Cytogenetics, what is that?

Cytogenetics, well, you hear the word genetics in there, so it has to do with the study of chromosomes, but it also has to do with the role of chromosomes in heredity and things and traits that are passed down from different living organisms.

So in her case, she was studying heredity within plants, which is awesome.

Yeah, yeah, and she even developed a new strain, a new type of sugar cane in India that allowed more people to create more sugar products.

And when was she doing this now?

Lord, this was back in, she was born in 1897, so it was early 1900s.

Yes.

So she’s a 20th century scientist.

That’s pretty, I’ll say, aggressive, because right now, it’s a shame, if she were alive today, she would have the benefit of these supercomputers that we use now to map these things.

She would probably be on to some super cool discoveries when you think about it.

She would be a rock star.

Definitely.

With all the tech we have now.

Yeah, and it’s incredible what she did with what she had.

And she grew up in India.

She had 19 siblings.

So, let me ask, what’s this I heard that she stopped a dam?

I don’t even know what that means, but I heard this said of her.

Well, one of the most notable things she did in her career was she helped stop a hydroelectric dam at the Kuntipusa River, which is in her region where she grew up, because they were going to flood this area that was home to over a thousand endemic plants that were found nowhere else in the world.

And so, she demonstrated her science and her activism just to serve environmental conservation, which is so important.

It’s something that we’re still dealing with to this day, you know, trying to protect areas of this planet that are crucial for our health and stability in the future.

Or to even think that way, because most people, yeah, a dam will bring electricity.

You know, you’re not even thinking about the biodiversity of what you will end up flooding to make that happen.

So for her to be on that page, that’s very, that’s brave and early.

But at least we’ll have electricity that will allow us to see how badly we effed up.

There it goes.

We can turn the light on and see how badly we screwed things up.

Take a look at that, sir.

Chuck, that reminds me of a Gary Larson comic where there’s this man and his son and they just saw down this big, huge tree.

And you see the stump of the tree.

It says, look son, it says something like, this tree ring was when it survived a hurricane.

And this other one was when it survived.

Oh, that’s hilarious.

That’s great.

To all the things.

That it survived.

That it survived.

And that’s really.

Yep, and then you just cut it down, just like that.

I dig it.

Danni, I want on my business card to say I’ve stopped a dam.

That’s just.

Yeah.

Right?

A whole dam.

A whole dam.

She spoke up for nature when nature didn’t have a voice in our human experience, right?

And what I love about her is also she talked about how the biosphere in a lot of ways will go on with or without us.

And I think that’s something that’s important for all of us to recognize.

Maybe the environment will look different after we’ve altered it with our own selfish ways, but it’s going to go on.

Like, we’re just going to wipe ourselves out if we continue on this path of destruction.

But nature will come back.

One day you’ll see meerkats living in our condos.

All popping their heads out the windows.

Well, you get meerkats.

Of all the animals, meerkats.

Yeah, that’s a random choice.

Somebody’s seen Lion King too many times right there.

Got me.

Have you ever watched Meerkat Manor?

That’s like an awesome show, it’s very dramatic.

I have not, but now I’m going to check it out, because if you say check it out, I should check it out.

Meerkats, if there’s anything, they’re curious, right?

Hey, what’s that?

Uh-huh, like hey, hey, hey, hey.

So what is phytogeography?

I see that in my notes here.

Well, it’s really just the mapping of where plants are located, and so she also did that with that area and helped establish the Silent Valley National Park in Kerala, India, in that same area.

So the place where they were going to flood, she made it into, helped make it into a national park, which is incredible.

So let me just ask this about this.

Well, Neil, you did it on Cosmos, but for either one of you, there was this episode that you talked about, this kind of Noah’s Ark for seeds, where they take all the seeds from all over the world and put them someplace where they’d be safe, if I’m not mistaken.

Yeah, Noah’s Ark is.

No, I wanted live animals, not your seeds.

Right, so it’s kind of a broke ass Noah’s Ark.

So Danni, what is in Norway?

So there’s a seed bank that exists there where there are hundreds of thousands of seeds that we currently have on the planet being stored in case of an apocalypse.

So that’s basically if an asteroid hits, do we have something to work with?

And can we kind of replant the future?

If it hits someplace other than Norway.

Other than Norway, correct.

That part is very important.

It’s like the library in Alexandria.

Let’s put all the books in one library where they’re safe.

The library burns down, now you got nothing.

So maybe we need two seed banks at antipodal sides of the Earth.

That would make sense.

I like that idea.

As long as you keep them away from Vladimir Putin, we’re going to be fine.

Unless we had to just put it there, or put it next door, put it in Russia so that we know for sure nothing would happen.

I don’t know.

Okay, so you have the seeds, but you need…

So is a seed all you need to just restart civilization?

No, there is so much more.

We live in this beautiful biosphere that has so many different moving parts.

And just with plants alone, especially crop plants that we use for food, we need bees, we need pollinators, butterflies, to help spread the pollen and actually continue the cycle.

So we’ve got a lot of work to do, and it can’t just depend on us, merely on the seeds.

Well, I saw an episode of Black Mirror where they had a bee drone.

Yes.

I didn’t see that episode.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

It’s brilliant.

And because the show is called Black Mirror, things don’t end well.

But the idea was great.

You know, you’re running out of bees, just invent a new kind of bee drone, and then there you have it.

By the way, there’s a sequel coming out where every show ends happily.

It’s called White Privilege Mirror.

Whoa.

Instead of Black Mirror.

Here’s your seat at the table, sir.

Everything turns out great for you.

Everything’s got bee-bop bee-black with Chuck.

Oh, come on.

It’s only because I live in America.

Exactly.

All right, we’re going to take a break when we come back more from Danni Washington and we learn more about her and who she’s written about in her book on scientific pioneers on StarTalk.

We’re back, StarTalk.

We’ve got a really fun episode going here with Danni Washington, who’s an ocean…

Danni, what shall we call you, if we gave you a title?

If you gave me a title?

Marine biologist?

I have my marine biology degree, but I’m not a practical biologist.

You’re a marine biologist.

Researcher.

Gotcha, and you also have a lifestyle moniker, the mocha mermaid.

To put both of those on your business card, that’s all you need right there.

How do we find you on social media?

What are your biggest platforms there?

Oh, my personal platforms, you can find me at Danni Washington on all Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, all of it.

And Danni with an I, yes, Danni Washington.

Thank you for clarifying.

Yep, Danni with an I, two Ns, and Washington spelled like the state.

Oh, not two Ns in Washington, but two Ns in Danni.

Two Ns in Danni, exactly.

Two Ns in Washington would be even better.

Washington.

Washington.

So this is for, and that is your handle for which platforms?

All platforms.

So you can find me there.

You can also follow my organization, Big Blue and You.

It’s a nonprofit out of Miami where I’m from, and we teach young people about the ocean through art and science combined.

And we love it.

It’s called, it’s Big Blue and You on all platforms as well.

Wait, wait, and your podcast, which also reaches for younger audiences, you’re trying to, I know what it is, Chuck.

I figured this out.

I know where you’re going.

She’s gonna be queen of the universe because she’s training this whole next generation of people.

And then they will just follow her every command.

And then they take over the world and they get rid of us.

Admit it here on StarTalk, Danni.

This is your plan, your best plan.

We found out your world domination plan, Danni.

We caught you, we caught you.

We know what it is now.

Listen, I gave up on adults a long time ago.

Okay, kids realize that.

There you go, yeah.

They know what’s up.

I know this much, you’ve inspired me.

You are the mocha mermaid.

I am going to now be the Coco Comedian.

All right.

You’re hilarious.

So, we got time for like one more person.

Is there someone else who’s like special to you that you profiled in this book?

Yes, my favorite, absolute favorite.

And Chuck, I have to explain to Chuck.

Chuck, when I say she profiled it, it’s not a cop thing.

You know that’s where I was going, Neil.

I know, I’m just saying.

I just have to clear you.

I just got to preempt Chuck’s thing.

Okay.

So, profiled in your book.

Yes.

Who else you have?

Dr.

Sylvia Earle, who is my role model and mentor and someone that I respect.

She wrote.

I know me some Sylvia Earle.

She’s a friend of StarTalk.

She’s been on it a couple of times, but many years ago.

How’s she doing?

Tell me about her.

Oh my gosh, she’s wonderful.

Tell me what I don’t know about her.

Just keep going.

Bring it, bring it on.

You know, I met her when I was 17 years old in Florida.

I was at this National Geographic sleepover event at a museum, so random.

But she happened to come because she’s a resident explorer.

And that was the first time we interacted in person.

But just to be clear, Nachio has a title called Resident Explorer.

Correct, yes.

So that’s a great title to have, so keep going.

It really is.

I mean, that was kind of like the cherry on top of her career because she did so much in her younger years as well as now.

I mean, she travels more than 200 days out of the year to give talks and film a Netflix show.

She’s done all these different things.

But she was born in 1935 in Jersey, and then she moved to Florida when she was 12 with her family, and that’s where her love for the ocean began.

She used to explore the coast and dig through seaweed on the beach, we call it a rack line, and look for little invertebrates and things that were living in the seaweed.

Would you do that, Chuck?

Would you have joined Sylvia doing that?

I don’t like sand, Danni.

No sand?

Sorry, Chuck is still in New Jersey at this moment.

He just never left Jersey.

But Chuck, imagine what kind of a great scientist you could have been had you moved from New Jersey.

If only.

If only you had left.

If only, if only.

Again, that reminds me of the Gary Larson comic where Jimi Hendrix is ready to walk into an accordion store, and the store happens to be closed, but the guitar store next door is open, so then he goes into the guitar store.

And it’s titled Disaster Averted.

Okay, so I didn’t know.

So she moved to Florida and got ocean influence just the way you were.

This is a fascinating commonality.

So tell me more.

So she continued to follow that passion, and then she ended up going to Duke University for her master’s in phycology where she studied algae.

She collected over 20,000 algae samples, which I believe she donated.

Vycology?

No, phycology, like physics, phycology.

That’s the first I’ve ever heard that word.

P-H-Y-C-O-L-O-G-Y?

That’s it.

Is that profilum or something?

Phyto, yeah, I believe it’s phyto, but it’s the study of algae and seaweed in the ocean.

Algae, okay.

And algaeology doesn’t run off the tongue.

Algaeology, okay, go on.

Sorry I interrupted.

No worries.

So yeah, she continued with that path.

I think she donated her samples, I believe, to the Smithsonian, to the Museum of Natural History, that should be still there today.

And then she became the first woman appointed as the chief scientist at NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the government agency who handles all things ocean and atmospheric.

Indeed.

Yes.

So she’s a badass.

So she spends time, is she an underwater person or above water taking samples?

Well, we know her as her deepness.

That’s literally her title because she’s logged thousands of hours underwater.

In the 1960s, she led a team of all women aquanauts living underwater for two weeks, and that was the first time that ever happened.

And it was just them underwater living for 14 days, doing research, not coming up to the surface.

It was all self-contained.

And she also holds the world record for the deepest untethered dive in history.

So how do you come, if you’re not tethered, how do you like come back up?

Well, she was in this special dive suit called a gym suit, and it was all, again, self-contained, and she operated herself.

I have a gym suit.

I could do that.

You could do that too?

Not G-Y-M.

I have a gym suit.

G-I-M.

J-I-M, sorry.

Yes, yes, and so she womaned it.

I’m not going to say manned it, but she womaned it herself and went down 1,200 feet, to be more specific, 1,250 feet on her own.

In the Pacific Ocean.

Oh, by the way, NASA has addressed this issue of is it a manned crew?

So they just call it a crewed vehicle, C-R-E-W.

Crude, okay.

Crude vehicle.

Yeah, so she crewed a vessel or an outfit down to the…

Yeah, so that’s how NASA handles that.

So you don’t have to say woman.

There we go, she crewed it.

If you want to be gender neutral, yeah, sure.

Okay, sure.

It’s a good idea, yeah.

But she’s done so many incredible things in her life, you know, so far.

And I see her on the road.

Before COVID, I was going to a lot of summits and events related to ocean conservation, and she’s usually always there.

And I just love to hear her speak about her passion.

She always speaks from the heart, but then throws in her science.

And she’s really become an icon in our space, for sure.

And I just appreciate all the work that she’s done to, you know, not only for women in the space, but for everyone to recognize the importance of the ocean.

Now, we realize you like her, but has she accomplished anything?

Oh, we know.

You should check out her Netflix documentary called Mission Blue.

It’s really good.

Okay.

That’s interesting because I think Disney had a ride called Mission Space.

So, this is using that same concept that you are on a mission.

And now the mission is not only discover about the ocean, but do something about it because we are abusing it badly.

I mean, so tell me about your conservation efforts and how they resonate with Sylvia’s.

Are you carrying the torch that she first lit in this space?

Well, I’d like to think that I am contributing to that.

I know that there are a lot of other phenomenal female marine scientists out there and conservationists who are doing a lot of work.

So we’re in it together, you know.

But Sylvia…

How humble of you.

Just go ahead and take the credit.

Just take the credit, Danni.

You’re killing it.

You’re killing it.

It’s okay.

You already exposed that she’s going to be everybody’s overlord very soon.

The next generation will come up.

So what do you see as the most pressing issue right now when it comes to the care for our oceans?

Is it microplastics?

Is it the warming of the ocean itself?

The acidification?

Is it…

Wow.

Is it our…

He took the words out of my mouth.

He knows the vocabulary.

This is why I never get serious.

No, we love you, Chuck.

Again, as I mentioned earlier in the episode, I talked about the fact that the ocean is out of sight and out of mind for many, many people around the world.

But the ocean provides every other breath, the oxygen that’s in every other breath, every second breath comes from the ocean.

And it also helps stabilize our climate on this planet.

And so to answer your question, Chuck, I think the most pressing issue with the ocean is the warming of the ocean and the acidification.

So two really kind of in tandem.

Because without the oceans being in balance and stabilizing our climate, we’re going to experience some extreme weather, which we already have been, right?

We’ve seen it all over the world.

But also the fact that it’s acidifying where there’s too much carbon dioxide going in the ocean.

It’s messing up the balance, the chemical balance of the ocean, which causes things that build their shells underwater like crabs, shrimp, but also coral reefs.

They use the calcium carbonate out of the water to literally create their bodies.

They can’t do that when the water is acidic.

And so that’s one impact.

But we can actually change it.

And that’s what I love about the ocean so much.

It is extremely resilient.

And if we give it time and space, it can bounce back in certain ways.

It may not look the same as it looked maybe 20, 50, 100 years ago.

We see that now.

But I think the ocean can come back.

And one of the solutions that I really lean on is blue carbon and looking at how we can establish more marine plants in the water that actually absorb that carbon dioxide.

So I’m talking about kelp.

I’m talking about mangroves.

I’m also talking about sea grass beds.

These are ecosystems that absorb carbon dioxide out of the water and the atmosphere 50 times more effectively than trees on land.

It’s crazy.

Wow.

So it’s the equivalent of doubling forestry efforts, but you’re doing it in the ocean itself.

Plus the ocean is way bigger.

There’s a bigger tapestry on which to execute this.

Much, much bigger, yeah.

So not to put words in your mouth, but I think what you’re saying is if we cultivated an entire undersea forestry with whatever, I use forestry loosely there, because they do speak of kelp forest though, don’t they?

Yeah, yeah, definitely.

We call them sea trees.

Okay, excellent.

So if we develop an entire underwater plant ecosystem, as it takes carbon dioxide out of the water, doesn’t the ocean in response take carbon dioxide out of the air?

And that’s what it’s been doing forever, right?

That’s why…

Right, because it tries to always stay in equilibrium.

If there’s a little less in one place, it donates it back in.

So this can help fix the world that Chuck and I destroyed, that you and your future following, after you’ve rendered the rest of us extinct, can have a world that you…

Exactly, a livable world.

It’s just dawned on me what Neil just said, which of course is a clear path towards decarbonization and an effective one.

But the only motivation that could really accelerate that would be a commercial use for the byproduct.

So do you know of any…

Is there any kind of seaweed-based or kelp-based kind of product line that we could…

And not just for your skin or something.

You know, something that has to be…

I got this.

I’m done with kale, you know.

I’m ready for the next thing.

Right.

And maybe it’s kelp.

It’s kelp.

It is kelp.

Yes.

It’s so extremely nutritious.

Well, I’m just making that up.

Oh, it’s come nutritious.

It is.

Okay.

Look, look.

When we talk about…

Are you saying kelp is the new kale?

It is the new kale.

It needs to be the new kale.

Chuck, they’re just going down the alphabet, you know.

Yes.

It’s delicious.

And actually, a few years ago, I remember filming a segment on one of the TV shows I hosted called Nature Knows Best, where we were looking at biomimicry.

I interviewed a kelp farmer in Connecticut who was formerly a fisherman and was taking things out and now began growing and doing this 3D vertical farming model where he had mussels and clams, and then he grew seaweed at the top.

And so the kelp would grow toward the surface.

And it only took a small area of the water, and that was his main subsidence, right?

And people in New York City were ordering from him because they were making kelp pasta and all kinds of really cool dishes with kelp.

This is real.

So what is the show?

Oh, excuse me, one of your shows you hosted.

I can’t keep up with it.

I’m sorry.

Which show was that so we can find it?

Sure, it’s called Exploration Nature Knows Best, and it was back in…

We filmed in 2016 to 2018, and I interviewed tons of different people who were in biomimicry, in the space of biomimicry.

Cool, and where do we find that?

You can find it on Amazon Prime.

It used to air on Saturday mornings on Fox networks around the country.

It’s a series.

It’s a series, yeah.

There’s 27 episodes.

Oh, my gosh.

That’s great.

Okay, cool.

So you’re a host of that.

I’ve hosted several different productions.

Just while we’re there, what precisely is biomimicry?

Biomimicry is a study of how we can take notes from nature and apply them to modern technology and design.

And so there are inventors and scientists and engineers who are all doing that right now around the world where they’re looking at nature and looking at all the wonderful answers that have been, you know, the problems that have been solved within nature by nature.

Why aren’t we taking notes?

And why aren’t we mimicking what nature is already doing?

We did it with flight.

Exactly.

We did it with flight.

So you’re saying we’re not clever enough to do this on our own.

We need tips from nature who has been at it for four billion years.

Correct.

Yes.

I think it would be…

It’s due time that we start paying attention to the world around us, right?

What a concept.

Yeah, yeah.

Excellent.

So, well, I got to start landing this plane.

Let me just ask you some final questions here.

This is very cool.

Everyone you talked about was a woman.

What a surprise.

What’s the title of your book?

The title of my book is Bold Women in Science.

Well, that explains it.

There you go.

You found them in the ether.

Well, cool.

It’s 15 different biographies of women throughout history, including women that are still with us today, including, I’m sure she’s your friend.

Mae Jemison is in there.

I have her.

Yeah, Mae.

I mean, Mae go way back.

Mae Jemison, a pioneering astronaut.

Phenomenal.

A shuttle era astronaut.

Yeah.

So it’s a fun book for everyone.

It’s meant technically for 8 to 12 year olds, but listen, you could sit down and read this in an hour and like enjoy it and learn a little something new about some women who made some phenomenal contributions to science.

Well, every one of us knows an 8 to 12 year old somewhere in our family or a friendship.

And so that’s the age where, oh my gosh, where they’re not weirded out yet from middle school.

And the hormones haven’t kicked in.

The hormones aren’t interfering.

Oh my gosh.

I wish I had this book when I was a kid, literally.

And that’s the reason.

And the main reason that truly motivated me to write it was because I knew this is something that, if I had had this at 8 years old, like, ooh, it would be…

The world domination would be complete.

You might have studied oceanography.

No, but you already did.

It would be so complete.

It would be complete faster.

How about that?

Faster.

There you go.

There you go.

Yeah, we would have been having this interview, and you would be 18 years old instead of whatever you are today, right?

It would have been accelerated progress.

Absolutely.

In the arc of life.

Very, very cool.

All right.

So Danni, thanks for sharing your time and your expertise and your reflections on something that not enough people think about in this world.

And we need more of that.

And I hope this is not the last time you’ll be on StarTalk, because this topic comes up all the time.

Plus, we’ve got to have a whole conversation on just ocean conservation unto itself.

I’m game.

This one we focused mostly on your book, but there’s so much more out there.

And what do we do with our plastic?

That will hold you entirely accountable for that.

Okay?

For the solutions there.

Okay, you’re holding me accountable.

All right, I’ll bring some solutions.

I got it.

Listen.

I’ve got them.

I’ve got them.

I work with a lot of great people who do too.

So, yep.

Excellent.

Excellent.

All right, Danni, great to have you.

Chuck, always good to have you on StarTalk.

Always a pleasure.

Always.

Neil deGrasse Tyson here.

Your personal astrophysicist, as always.

Keep looking up.