Mind & Matter

Nick talks to cognitive psychopharmacologist Dr. Manoj Doss about the effects of psychoactive drugs on memory, including sedatives, stimulants, psychedelics, cannabinoids, and MDMA. They also talk about recent research on the effects of psilocybin on the human brain. * Click here to download audio, watch video, or read show notes & transcripts. * If you enjoy my content and want to further support...

Nick talks to neuroscientist Dr. Joseph LeDoux, who runs a research lab at New York University. His research focuses on the neurobiology of emotion, memory, and behavior. He has written several popular science books including, "The Deep History of Ourselves." They discuss: brain evolution; what is behavior? what are emotion and cognition, and how are they intertwined; consciousness, language, and...

Dr. Maayan Levy is an assistant professor of microbiology at the University of Pennsylvania, where her lab studies the communication between the microbiome and its host, with a focus on the gut microbiome and its relationship to diet, immune system function, and disease. We discuss: her recent study linking the ketogenic diet to lower risk of colon cancer; what the ketogenic diet is and what the m...

Nick talks to chemist & patent attorney Dr. Andrew Chadeayne, who is the CEO of the psychedelic startup CaaMTech. They discussed: the chemistry of magic mushrooms, including compounds beyond psilocybin, found in many species of psilocybin-containing mushrooms; the so-called entourage effect, the idea that multiple compounds found in plants and fungi might work together in a synergistic fashion to...

Nick talks to Dr. Martin Picard, a biologist at Columbia University whose lab studies mitochondrial psychobiology, linking together molecular processes within mitochondria with human experience. They discussed; what mitochondria are and where they came from: their role in energy & metabolism; the mitochondrial genome; the importance of mitochondria in stress & aging; how exercise, diet, and geneti...

Nick talks to biologist Dr. Leonard Guarente about the biology of aging, life extension, health supplements, and related topics. Dr. Guarente is a Professor of Biology at MIT, where his lab has studied the molecular and cellular mechanisms of aging for many years. He is also the co-founder and Chief Scientist of Elysium Health, which uses the science of aging to develop health supplements to comba...

Nick talks to cell & developmental biologist Dr. Blanche Capel. They discussed the nature of sexual reproduction and sexual dimorphism, including when these these things evolved, the evolutionary reasons for sexual reproduction, and the amazing diversity of mechanisms that determine the development of sexual traits across the animal kingdom; the contribution of genetic vs. environmental factors in...

* Download .wav audio version * Watch video version * Show notes & episode transcripts Nick talks to neuroscientist & clinical researcher Dr. Rachel Yehuda, who is a professor of psychiatry & neuroscience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, in New York. They discuss the biology and neuroscience of stress, PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder), why people can be sensitive or resilient t...

Nick speaks to writer Robert Greene, who is the author of several books exploring different, and sometimes dark, aspects of human psychology. The discussion focuses on the subject of his first book, " The 48 Laws of Power ."They discuss what power is and how it's used. Different psychological traits that people who successfully acquire power tend to have. Strategies that have been useful throughou...

Nick talks to cognitive scientist Dr. Donald Hoffman, who is professor emeritus of cognitive sciences at UC-Irvine and the author of many scientific papers and books, including "The Case Against Reality: Why Evolution Hid the Truth from Our Eyes.” They discussed a variety of topics related to consciousness, the nature of perception, and evolution, including: how perception works; whether our consc...

Nick talks to biochemist Jospeh Baur, PhD, whose lab at the University of Pennsylvania studies the molecular mechanisms of aging and metabolism. These discuss: aging as a passive vs. regulated process; mechanisms of aging (DNA mutations, oxidative stress, etc.); NAD and its role in normal physiology; the biology of sirtuins; rapamycin as an immunosuppressant & modulator of aging; the effects of di...

Nick talks to Dr. John Cryan, a Professor of Anatomy & Neuroscience at University College-Cork in Ireland whose lab studies the microbiota-gut-brain axis in health & disease. They touch on a range of topics related to how our gut microbiome affects the brain and body, including: how the microbiome affects aging and immunity; how it affects social behavior, including potential links to autism; how...

Nick talks to Dr. Gül Dölen, a professor of neuroscience at Johns Hopkins University. Her lab studies the circuit and synaptic mechanisms of social cognition in health and disease. Nick and Dr. Dölen discussed her research on critical periods for social reward learning in rodents, the role of oxytocin in social behavior and learning, and how MDMA ("ecstasy") promotes prosocial behavior in animals...

Martin Kulldorff, PhD is an epidemiologist & biostatistician who has been studying infectious diseases for over two decades. He was a professor at Harvard Medical School for many years, a member of the FDA’s Drug Safety & Risk Management Advisory Committee, and a former consultant for the Centers for Disease Control. In 2020, Dr. Kulldorff co-authored the Great Barrington Declaration, a document c...

Nick talks to computer scientist and philosopher Bernardo Kastrup about various topics related to consciousness and the nature of reality. They discuss: psychological dissociation; the scientific study of 'neural correlates of consciousness'; the nature of perception and the influence of language on the mind; why the 'Hard Problem' of consciousness is so difficult; Bernardo's philosophy of analyti...

Nick talks to cancer biologist Dr. Marsha Rosner, who is a Professor of Cancer Research at the University of Chicago. Her lab focuses largely on understanding the biochemical signaling mechanisms that lead to the generation of tumor cells, as well as how and why cancer cells metastasize, which is when they travel from one part of the body to another. Nick and Dr. Rosner and discuss mainly a recent...

Kevin McKernan is a renowned leader in DNA sequencing technology. He led a research team part of the original Human Genome Project and is the founder and Chief Science Officer of Medicinal Genomics, a life sciences company that distributes genetics-based platforms for quality and safety testing of legal cannabis. Nick and Kevin discussed the Cannabis genome, the genome of Psilocybe cubensis (magic...

Nick talks to Alexandra Elbakyan, the founder of Sci-hub, a shadow library website that provides free access to millions of research papers and books, without regard to copyright, by bypassing publishers' paywalls in various ways. Sci-hub is used by millions of people around the world each month, granting them free and easy access to scientific research findings. Nick spoke to Alexandra about how...

[ Download .wav audio version ] [ Watch video version ] Nick talks to Dr. Suzanne Devkota, a microbiologist whose lab studies the gut microbiome in health and disease. They discuss a variety of topics related to the gut microbiome: how it is influenced by diet; how antibiotics and probiotics affect it; different disease states and metabolic disorders, such as IBS and obesity; how gut microbes can...

Nick talks to Dr. Amy Reichelt, a neuroscientist and expert on the effects of diet and nutrition on the brain. They discussed how the brain is wired to help us learn about food, how what we eat influences the function of circuits within the brain, how certain diets can actually cause damage to the brain and negatively impact learning, obesity, and other topics related to nutrition and feeding beha...

* Download .WAV audio version * Watch video version * Show notes & episode transcripts Nick talks to Dr. Paul Barrett, a paleontologist at the Natural History Museum in London, UK. Paul has spent nearly 30 years as a paleontologist studying the evolution and biology of dinosaurs and other extinct reptiles. He has authored over 200 scientific papers, and his speciality is in non-avian dinosaurs. Ni...

[ Download .wav audio version ] [ Watch video version ] Nick talks to Dr. Reggie Gaudino, a molecular geneticist and expert in the phytochemistry, biochemistry, genomics, and breeding of commercial Cannabis . He is the former Chief Science Officer of Steep Hill, one of the first cannabis testing labs in the US, and is currently VP of Research & Development at Frontrange Biosciences. Nick & Reggie...

Nick Jikomes talks to Dr. David Roberson, a neuroscientist and co-founder of three ongoing biotech companies: Nocion Therapeutics, Blue Therapeutics, and Blackbox Bio. David is an expert in the neuroscience of pain and the conversation focuses mainly on pain: how does our brain sense and perceive pain? Why does pain sometimes become chronic, and last for a long-time? How do various classes of pain...

[ Download audio-only .wav version ] [ Watch video version ] Nick talks to Alexandros Marinos, PhD, founder & CEO of the edge computing technology startup, Balena. They discuss the internal organization of complex human systems. Alex talked about how he thinks about the organizational structure of his own company and how organizational structures impact group dynamics, growth, conflicts of interes...

[ Download audio-only .wav version ] [ Watch video version ] Nick Jikomes talks to materials scientist Dr. Chris Weikart, who  is currently chief scientist at SiO2 , an advanced materials science company that combines chemistry and engineering to create containers and surfaces for use by biotechnology, genomics, diagnostics, and consumer products companies.  They discuss how SiO2 created a new kin...