Mind & Matter

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit mindandmatter.substack.com Wide release date: November 26, 2025. Topics Discussed: * Brain energy efficiency: Brains are much more energy-efficient than computers for similar processing, relying on adaptive metabolic strategies evolved under energy scarcity. * Metabolism vs. information processing: Core metabolites like glutamate bridge...

Wide release date: November 18, 2025. Episode Summary: Dr. Sara Nowinski explains how mitochondria not only burn fuels to make ATP but also synthesize their own fatty acids inside the matrix; this conserved pathway produces lipoic acid (an essential enzyme cofactor) and longer-chain fats required for proper assembly of the electron transport chain, and disrupting it impairs respiration, glucose ha...

Wide release date: November 7, 2025. Episode Summary: Dr. Johannes Kohl explains instinctive behaviors in mammals, emphasizing how states like hunger and hormonal cycles modulate actions such as parental care; they discuss hypothalamic circuits, hormone integration, and pregnancy-induced brain changes, highlighting the balance between motivations like feeding and nurturing offspring. About the gue...

Wide release date: November 2, 2025. Episode Summary: Dr. Jon Brestoff talks about mitochondrial dynamics inside cells, their transfer between unrelated cells (distinct from inheritance during division), and its roles in adipose tissue communication, macrophage cleanup, and systemic metabolic signaling; they explore how high-fat diets disrupt this process, potential hormetic benefits, therapeutic...

Wide release date: October 28, 2025. Episode Summary: A reframe of biology as energy flow through resistance rather than mere molecular machinery, introducing the Energy Resistance Principle (ERP): life requires a Goldilocks balance of electron flow from food to oxygen via mitochondria; too much or too little resistance drives aging, disease, and death. Explain mitochondria as energy transformers,...

Wide release date: October 20, 2025. Episode Summary: Dr. Förster talks about how biological clocks, including circadian, tidal, lunar, and annual cycles, regulate behaviors in various species, with a focus on lunar cycle effects on human menstrual cycles. They explore historical and modern data suggesting that menstrual cycles may synchronize with lunar phases, a phenomenon potentially disrupted...

Wide release date: October 15, 2025. Episode Summary: Dr. Terence Capellini talks about the evolution of bipedalism in humans, exploring when and why it emerged, the anatomical changes required, and the genetic mechanisms behind these adaptations. They discuss how environmental shifts, like shrinking forests, drove the need for upright walking, the gradual skeletal changes in the pelvis and limbs,...

Wide release date: October 10, 2025. Episode Summary: Dr. Gero Miesenböck discusses the evolutionary and metabolic basis of sleep, exploring how mitochondrial energy production in neurons, particularly in fruit flies, drives the need for sleep to manage harmful byproducts like reactive oxygen species and lipid peroxides. They discuss how sleep-inducing neurons sense these byproducts, the role of m...

Wide release date: October 6, 2025. Episode Summary: Dr. Pekka Karhunen explains the connection between oral bacteria, cholesterol, and cardiovascular disease, discussing how oxidized LDL cholesterol triggers inflammation in arteries, how bacteria from the mouth can infiltrate arterial plaques to form biofilms, and the implications for heart disease prevention through lifestyle changes like better...

Wide release date: October 1, 2025. Episode Summary: Dr. Chris Masterjohn talks about the intricate relationships between nutrition, prescription drugs, and mitochondrial health, discussing how molecules like acetaminophen and SSRIs affect the body beyond their intended purposes, particularly impacting inflammation and energy metabolism. The discussion gets into the broader implications of seroton...

Wide release date: September 26, 2025. Note: technical difficulties affected the audio quality of this recording somewhat. Episode Summary: Dr. Jacob Raber explains how apolipoproteins, particularly ApoE, influence brain health and disease risk; their role in cholesterol metabolism, Alzheimer’s disease, and responses to environmental stressors like radiation and viral infections; interplay between...

Wide release date: September 21, 2025 Episode Summary: Dr. Elvira Mass talks about macrophages, specialized immune cells that vary by tissue and play crucial roles beyond fighting infections, such as supporting organ function; Kupffer cells (liver macrophages) and how maternal obesity during pregnancy reprograms these cells in offspring, leading to fatty liver disease, fibrosis, and even cancer la...

Wide release date: September 16, 2025 Episode Summary: Dr. Louise Hecker discusses her research on tissue repair and regeneration, explaining how fibroblasts drive wound healing by forming scar tissue but fail to resolve properly with age, leading to fibrotic diseases like pulmonary fibrosis and liver cirrhosis; they discuss aging hallmarks such as oxidative stress and telomere shortening, and hig...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit mindandmatter.substack.com Wide release date: September 12, 2025 Episode Summary: Dr. Christopher Morrison talks about how animals sense and prioritize nutrients like protein, discussing defense mechanisms for essentials such as oxygen, water, sodium, and energy; the brain's role in detecting protein deprivation via signals like FGF21;...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit mindandmatter.substack.com Wide release date: September 7, 2025 Episode Summary: Dr. Michael Levin talks about cognition manifesting at scales beyond brains, including in cells and tissues via bioelectric networks; analog vs. digital coding in biology; how bioelectric patterns guide development and regeneration (e.g., in planarians); cr...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit mindandmatter.substack.com Wide release date: September 3, 2025 Episode Summary: Dr. Justin Perry talks about the body's constant cellular turnover—about 3 million cells die per second in adults (double in children and women)—handled by phagocytes like macrophages that engulf and digest debris to prevent diseases like lupus. They explor...

Wide release date: August 29, 2025 Episode Summary: Dr. William Parker talks about autism spectrum disorder (ASD), its rising prevalence since the 1980s, and the controversial hypothesis that acetaminophen exposure in susceptible infants and children triggers most cases via oxidative stress. They discuss ASD's clinical definition; historical misconceptions like the "refrigerator mother" theory; ge...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit mindandmatter.substack.com Wide release date: August 25, 2025 Episode Summary: Dr. Uffe Ravnskov talks about his decades-long career challenging the idea that high cholesterol causes heart disease, discussing LDL's protective role in the immune system by binding to bacteria, the harms and biases in statin research influenced by pharmace...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit mindandmatter.substack.com Wide release date: August 18, 2025 Episode Summary: Dr. William Parker discusses gut anatomy, the appendix's role in harboring beneficial bacterial biofilms and immune tissue, and how modern hygiene depletes helminths (intestinal worms), causing immune overreactions like allergies, autoimmunity, and psychiatri...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit mindandmatter.substack.com Wide release date: August 13, 2025 Episode Summary: Dr. Giovanni Marsicano is a neuroscientist based in Bordeaux, France, where he leads a research group at INSERM focusing on the endocannabinoid system. About the guest: Giovanni Marsicano, PhD discusses the endocannabinoid system, starting with its core compo...

Wide release date: August 7, 2025 Episode Summary: Tucker Goodrich is an engineer by training who has become a prominent independent researcher and blogger on nutrition and metabolic health, focusing on the harms of seed oils and polyunsaturated fats. About the guest: Nick Jikomes and Tucker Goodrich explore atherosclerosis and heart disease, critiquing the standard model that blames high LDL chol...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit mindandmatter.substack.com Wide release date: August 1, 2025 Episode Summary: Anthropologist Dr. Herman Pontzer discusses human evolution and metabolism, comparing humans to primates like chimps and gorillas to explain our higher energy use, bigger brains, and longer lives despite trade-offs in reproduction and activity; they discuss di...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit mindandmatter.substack.com Wide release date: July 27, 2025 Episode Summary: Astrophysicist Dr. Robert Fosbury discusses the sun's characteristics as a star, its analogies to living systems via entropy and complexity, and Erwin Schrödinger's insights on life as order-maintaining entities; he explores how near-infrared (NIR) light from t...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit mindandmatter.substack.com Wide release date: July 23, 2025 Episode Summary: Dr. Timothy Ryan talks about the high energy costs of synapses, the role of mitochondria and glycolysis, and challenge the long-held view that the brain relies solely on glucose by discussing new evidence that neurons burn fats from lipid droplets for fuel, esp...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit mindandmatter.substack.com Wide release date: July 18, 2025 Episode Summary: Dr. Eugene Chang talks about the microbiome’s role as a vital organ, the impacts of antibiotics and Western diets on microbial health, and strategies for restoring a damaged microbiome through diet and fecal microbial transplants. They delve into microbiome dys...