Hello friends called Open this week to let you know that we have updated our tier three perk on Patreon. For $5 a month, patrons can receive a monthly postcard with a cute scientific doodle and a whimsical character biography. We have a sample postcard on our Facebook page link in the show notes. The front of the postcard has this cute little teddy bear that has an exclamation of Thank you very much. And the back of the postcard has a hand drawn doodle by yours truly featuring an adorable virion saying I want to replicate. And the description of the postcard reads Vivian The virion is a cheery, fun loving virion with one passion in life replication. She is a sneaky but lovable particle and is found her way into the hearts, brown Chi and lungs of everyone around her. If you want your heart warmed with a similar adorable postcard on a monthly basis, or any of our other wholesome benefits, you can head on over to patreon.com slash so you got a lifestyle degree. This way you'll help support the podcast and also receive great perks. Hello, and welcome back to so you got a lifestyle degree. We're your hosts for Rita and Lisa to lifestyle undergrad students trying to navigate our future careers. This is Episode 12. And we're talking to Dr. Jonathan stone, also known as doc rock about University professorship are you doing today, Lisa? I'm doing okay. I started school on Monday, which is I mean, it's winter semesters. So it's not like in the fall. You're like exciting. And yeah. Winter, I feel like winter I just I never left school mode. So I'm just like, Oh, here we go again. Yeah, but I also I received my new laptop. Yeah, it's so I had to switch because I use dictation because I have like a condition which makes my hands hurt. And so I like talk to this programme, and it turns into text. And they did this like not so great thing where they're like, Oh, yeah, this service that you spent hundreds of dollars on and we said that you could use for the rest like the rest of your life, we're actually just gonna, like discontinue support for the like Mac version. So all the Mac users just don't get to use it anymore. And so because of this, I've been kind of like trying to just like push along with the Mac as long as I can. But it's really starting to go now. And so I finally I'm switching back to Windows back to the oj and I got a Dell XPS 13. So yeah, fancy. I haven't finished fully setting it up. But yeah, I'm really not like a very techie person. But it is like it's so interesting. Because next to the MacBook Pro, like it almost makes the MacBook Pro look like kind of archaic and like ancient and clunky which is so crazy, because I don't know I'll be laptops now are just like, so tiny and skinny. And yeah, yeah, I really feel like we're walking into the age of sci fi movies or Yeah, everything's new and cool. How are you doing? I'm doing pretty good. I am. Yeah, transitioning back into school. Not super excited about winter semester, but it's okay. I started watching Parks and Rec over winter break. Oh, yeah. I just finished like yesterday. Oh, wait, how many seasons? There's seven seasons. There's a lot of overlap with the office and therefore also a lot of disagreement about which one is the better show. But yeah, I actually really liked it. I like the main character way more than I like Michael Scott. No. Is it Leslie? Leslie? No, Leslie. Nope. Yeah. Yeah. And I feel like between those two shows, and like community and Brooklyn nine, nine, the same actors are in pretty much like all of the guest appearances and all of them. Yeah, it was pretty fun. I would recommend watching it. It's pretty good. Yeah. I watched one episode of Modern Family the other day. Yeah, just because someone wanted me to and so I did. Yeah, also very similar feeling except for the main I would say like the equivalent of Michael Scott. He's like Michael Scott, but he's way less offensive. So I like yeah, also, like the creators of Parks and Rec and the office are the same people. Great. Yeah, sure. And also, did you know that Michael Shermer is the person who plays most on the office? Yeah, huge like writer and producer and he's just running through cornfields Yeah, I like cannot for the life of me reconcile those two like roles, like him in real life versus his character on the you know, how to have authors come onto shows and do like little cameos?
Yeah,
I think they had this is very random, but they had john green tried to do one of those for one of his most recent movies, but the scene ended up getting cut because he was such a bad actor. Which I find hilarious. Yeah, yeah. I'm also very tired due to some insomnia recently. But hey, it's like it's dark rock. I'm sure that all perk me right up also. I just realised this is your first I'm officially meeting doc rock. It is yes. Yeah, super interesting because this person has been featured in my stories for many a story. So, yeah, yeah, on the mini Cause if you listeners want to go Yeah, that's Yeah. Yeah, I mean, this seems like one of your favourite prompts. I'm pretty excited to talk to him. Dr. Jonathan stone, aka doc rock is an associate professor in the Department of Biology at McMaster University. He's also the acting director of the McMaster origins Institute. His research involves computational, developmental and evolutionary biology with a smattering of ecology and physiology. He especially enjoys poking at sea urchins and tardigrades. He completed his Bachelor of Science in biology and physics, followed by a Master's and PhD in zoology all at the University of Toronto. He has since found his way into the hearts of many undergraduate students via his whimsical teachings and plentiful treats. Thank you so much for joining us today. Doc rock. That's my pleasure to be here. Just to start us off. Could you give us a brief overview of the topics that you research?
Like you said, I'm interested in sea urchins and water bears or tardigrades also have an interest in snails as well. And I like to think of those three organisms as representing different branches on the animal branch in the tree of life. And I'm interested in the animals themselves, but within each animal, there's some interesting aspects that have come out of research. So with sea urchins, it's the metamorphosis the point in time which juveniles are which larva becomes a juvenile. And with water bears or tardigrades, it's their resilience to extreme conditions. And extreme in this sense means anything from radiation, temperature, desiccation, Ph changes and so on. And from the Snell perspective, it's really their shells. And one curious fact about their shells is that in most, almost all snails species are coiled in what we call the right handed direction, a small number are coiled into left handed direction, and then some populations in some species exist with both righties and lefties. But I've also become interested in some aspects of human research, human menopause, for example, being one case, and I've had a little bit of fascination with the topic of fomites, which are objects that can transmit pathogens between humans and I should just sprinkle on top of all that since you were describing my research as having smatterings of things that this is all situated. Some of its wet laboratory, we get our hands wet and dirty, but also for those among my students who like to keep their hands dry. All of this is contextualised within a computational framework because I'm a computational biologist as well.
Yeah, you mentioned how you studied tardigrades because they're super resilient to extreme conditions. So we were wondering if you could just tell us a bit about what tardigrades are, some of the listeners might not know and some things about why they're so cool.
Sure. tardigrades are invertebrate animals. And their body form is characterised by having eight. We refer to them as Lobel. POTUS legs, which means they're kind of cylindrical kind of look like puffy, inflated balloons a little bit. And they're rather interesting, as you mentioned, because they're resilient to a number of extreme environmental conditions. But of course, I just want to point out at the outset, they're often described as the toughest animals on earth. And when one reads a media report about tardigrades, one walks away from it or crawls away from it as thinking that they're indestructible, but of course, when they're active, if they're not eating, for example, they can die. So I just want to straighten that out that they are very resilient, but they're not absolutely indestructible or super, in any sense that way. But, however, if you do put them in, say, a nuclear reactor, which we've done several occasions at McMaster University, they can absorb more radiation than 100 humans magnified. And if you freeze some species, they can be put into liquid nitrogen and survive. Some species have been exposed to the extreme conditions of outer space in low Earth orbit and survived. So they are extremely resilient. I don't want to say that they're not resilient, but I just wanted to set the record straight that you you can kill them.
Oh, I definitely know you can kill them. One of my friends is working in your lab and she said that she just didn't put enough water in a dish and she came back after the break and all her tardigrades died or a lot of them die. And I find that so funny because they can go to outer space. They can like be frozen, but you just don't give them enough water and they're like, Oh,
well, one species. The one species that we're working on at the moment, actually is a little bit of an issue. harrassment I suppose to the rest of the Divine, it absorbs a lot of radiation. So it's very impressive radiation wise. So it's a freshwater species in many freshwater species do not desiccate, very, let's say effectively, I like to call them zero phobic. So they're not very good at desiccating. And that's the case with the species that we're studying. So it is embarrassing a little bit to have a species where if you put some specimens under the microscope to look at them, and then you walk away, and you come back a few minutes later, and they're no longer crawling, that's the end.
You're like, I did it.
I'm amazing.
I killed the tardigrade.
Which is, which is very ironic, like you said, these same tardigrades might have been put in the nuclear reactor and have received 4000 grades of radiation and five grades will kill a human and yet they die from desiccation. So yeah, it's unfortunate.
We're much better at desiccation. Oh, yeah.
But there are some species. So again, to set the record straight, there are some tardigrade species that can lose 99.9% of their water, and remain in that state for decades, and then be restored. So so I don't want to underplay the abilities of the phylum as a whole. But, you know, there are some embarrassment just like having relatives that you're embarrassed.
Yeah, that went over there can't tolerate justification at all. And being the only non lawyer in my family, I suppose I'm in embarrassment. I almost went into law. So that's funny. I won't hold that against you. You've alluded to this a little bit. But what are some projects or a project that your lab has recently completed,
most recent publication we put out was a life history data paper on an on an recognised recognised species is a species that has been it's known by this life history was completely unknown. And it was a very important laboratory species. But just before that, working on the same species, we published a rather interesting paper where we cool them down a little bit, not that this is, again, the same species that is embarrassing to the phylum, so it doesn't, doesn't freeze very well. But but it can cool down. So by cool, I mean, we kept the animals at about zero degrees Celsius, so just just around freezing. And that seemed to slow their development down, we noticed and so we decided to take some eggs and put them in a in an incubator at zero degrees. And we did that for initially just pretend days to see what would happen. And normally, in the egg phase, individuals morphogenesis undergoes for about four days. So the eggs are involved in many embryo illogical reactions, chemical physical reactions, and then emerging from that egg is a little juvenile after four days, but the ones that were cooled, it seemed when we took them out of the incubator, and then put them at room temperature, we thought, oh, now we'll wait four days, because they might have been in high yield kind of suspended animation for the 10 days that they were in. But when we took them out, it only took them three days to develop. And we thought that was rather curious. So we decided, well, let's put them in for a longer period. So we set up an experiment, where we put some individuals in for 10 days, and then 20 days, and then 40 days, so a continual doubling. And it worked out that when we brought them out of the incubator, the ones that had been in for 10 days, again, they only took three days, the ones that had been in 20 days only took two days, and the ones that had been doing for 40 days only took one day. So it was almost like while they were cooled down, they slowed their morphogenesis it seemed. Every time we doubled the length of time in the incubator, it removed one day from their incubation or their embryo logical time, which was rather your what were what we were saying when we saw the data was really bizarre. So I called that our Olympic podium paper. Because when you look at the bar graphs, there was like a, it looked like an Olympic podium with a high bar than another bar. And then we cleverly stuck in the word quantum development into the title. It's a fancy it up a little, I just didn't see it up a little bit of an experiment that we did with science that As you may be aware, science is more and more invading the mainstream media. Yeah. And so there seems to be a little bit of competition, let's say for what I like to call attractive science. And so we initially had submitted that paper to a very good journal, but a very straightforward journal, and it got rejected from that submission on interesting grounds. And so I kind of made a bet with my postdoc at the time that well, maybe if we jazz it up a little bit, we could get a little bit more out of it. And so we really changed the title and a little bit of the presentation, but not all that much. And it ended up getting published in a much more impactful journal. So can you
buy Any chance tell us the title of this publication so we can give it to our listeners.
I can give you the exact title a little bit later on, if you like.
Yes, that's, that's all right. That'll be in the show notes friends.
Yeah, that's also like relatives, you don't want to get too close to them and memorise anything about them, you just
you just want to like get really close for like one year and then just forget about
exactly like, that's the one that peed in my bed when he slept over when he was five. This is kind of like the, I call it the quantum paper. But I couldn't get it to fall, I couldn't give you the full title of the paper at
what crazy lawyer relatives Do you have who are like peeing your bed? Well, though, just when they were little, I mean, I see when you hit their, you know, 40s or 50s? Of course, of course, since you were kind of already talking about your process with this paper, we are wondering how do you decide what research questions you're going to work on? Or like what questions your lab is going to work on in like the short term as well as in the long term?
Well, with my lab, I often have some ideas where I want the research to go. But then I often interact with the students directly and let them help guide it because sometimes their interests are well, they're, they're interested in more novel than mine. And so I have a loose idea of where I want the research to go. So it's hard to grades. For instance, if I'm interested in their resilience, I know that they're resilient to a number of different factors. But oftentimes, I'll ask students, well, what what do you think, has not been tried yet with tardigrades. And so by doing that, you open up new avenues. It's this idea that many brains thinking together can come up with a greater amount of ideas than the sum of their individual brain parts. And so oftentimes, I like with snails, for instance, I'm always interested in their shells, but I had a student come into the lab one year who was interested in reproduction, and also toxicology. And so she suggested that we look at how pollutants or chemicals affect their reproductive capacity. And so we start started working on a very different species of snails that I never worked on before, but reproduces constantly in the laboratory, they're hermaphrodites, and they just constantly produce fertilised eggs, non stop. And so after performing an experiment for about while I was an undergraduate research thesis, I was eight months, we submitted a paper on the effects of chemicals on the reproductive capacity of snails. And that's something I never would have done. It's not something I'm interested in, but I'm interested in snails and the student had an interest in toxicology and reproduction. And so it was easy to put them together to make a story and a paper and rather interesting scientific research study.
Yeah, also, that's crazy to get a paper out of a senior thesis is that common?
I'm not sure how common it is. In science, it's probably relatively uncommon, and when my lab is fairly common, so it's it's very common that students come into my lab for fourth year undergraduate Senior Research thesis. And they, they generate sufficient data, or sometimes I'll carry a project over multiple years and add on to data that already been produced the previous year or two years previous, and so on. And so it's not uncommon in my lab for students to publish their undergraduate research theses. Yeah, that's
really good for them as well. Something else you wanted to ask you. I mean, I feel like you've touched them up about it, because you've talked about each of the main three species that you work with and kind of what you're looking into. But we were wondering if you had like a favourite fact or like a favourite story about like each of the three species like tardigrades, sea urchins and snails, or just about one of them in
particular? Oh, sure.
All three. Yeah, there's lots and lots of stories. But I guess one of the ones that I often mentioned in a developmental biology class in talking about Cirrus and they're often used as model organisms for Developmental Biology. And one of the stories I talk about is, as a person I knew when I was a graduate student actually in she had gone on vacation, and it to a tropical area. And she always came to our lab for coffee. And so she knew a lot about sea urchins, even though she herself didn't study sea urchins. And she was on a resort and was a private beach and it was turned out to be a nude beach. And she said, it's not relevant to the tardigrades relevant to the story. According to her, she'd prepared herself appropriately and which means she had gone to the bathroom and everything and then went to proceed to swim in the ocean. And on her way in she stepped on a surgeon. Yeah, the pain was excruciating. But she said, she said she remembered from our coffee sessions that the antidote for the pain was human urine.
No, that is that true or is that a myth?
No, that that is well so this i thought was a myth until she told me this and she said, but because she prepared herself appropriately she was unable to. I just said at that moment, a Greek god walked out of the water But some some other mail at the same mail at the resort and walked over to him in pain and said Sir, please urinate on my foot. Apparently he said anything to oblige the lady and proceeded to urinate on her foot and she said the pain disappeared immediately. Absolutely.
That is really wow, that's Mmm hmm. I do actually we asked her other guests for stories and they're like, Oh, yeah, like, I don't know if I can really but you're like, Oh, yeah, you know, like peeing on floats, you know, nude beaches.
And then with with snails. I had a student who is interested in venomous snails, and it's a little known but the one of the most potent toxins on the planet actually is produced by snails. And so if you've read the book, Jurassic Park, have you seen the movies? The tranquilliser that is used to subdue the dinosaurs is actually described as the toxin from the snail and it kills probably 20 people a year. Yeah, I've heard it's like super dangerous to be one of the people extracting that from snails. Absolutely, absolutely. And, and the interesting part about that, aside from the fact that the toxin is so potent, is that the snail species actually delivers the toxin through a harpoon. I described it in human terms, but it's actually in that species or in that group of species that's the genus is known as conus, c o n us and in that particular genus, the teeth in this in snails, they're usually occur on a ribbon with hundreds and hundreds of teeth are arranged very neatly in rows, and there might be five or six teeth per row typically, and it's a whole belt. It's like a conveyor belt of teeth. But in this this genus, the teeth have been reduced to a single harpoon like structures so it's like one tooth that gets fired out and carries it's hollow and inside it is filled with toxic and so that's what the liver so it's a rather unique apparatus, I guess in the animal kingdom for subduing and large prey. Obviously, if it can kill a human,
I was just gonna ask why are we extracting this toxin? It's to tranquillise Okay, that makes sense.
Or to find antidotes because 20 do die from died every year. So So it seems like both stories have had in common the idea that you can get hit in the foot with some sharp object by a marine invertebrate. tardigrades are much more friendly than that. No bloody stories about tardigrades. You know, of course, they've been sent on on missions, not tardigrade missions, human missions. tardigrades were passengers. And last, was it two years ago now that Israel crashed a lander on the moon and that supposedly was carrying tardigrades. Oh, there might be some tardigrades still, so
I think it's more so the other way around when it comes? That's probably true. Yeah, I think it's a good thing that like the closest to indestructible animal is friendly to humans.
No, have you seen that man and watch the movie? The movie? I have? I have not there was a there was a cameo appearance by a tardigrade in that movie. It's really when what scene there's a scene where the main characters of course are miniaturised. And, and oh, yes, yes,
I know what you're talking about. Yes, yes. I pointed out the screen. I was like that's a tardigrade. And the person I was watching with was like, What?
You got the same reaction? I think the whole theatre just looked at me like I was. in IMAX, there was a tardigrade about, you know, three stories high.
I was like, I'm in love.
So I'm transitioning away from your research subjects? What are some of the main responsibilities that you have as a professor? And do you have an approximation for the proportion of time that you spend on each?
I'm laughing because time is the precious commodity? Yeah, so of course, there's delivering lectures. And so when, when you become a professor, at a in a Faculty of Science in Ontario, a typical contract that you would sign when you start has a prescription of 40% 40% and 20%, relating to teaching research. And then what I like to call community service, I think it's just called service but I call so you're supposed to spend 40% of your time lecturing and preparing and delivering lectures 40%, preparing grants and conducting research, supervising students, and then 20% on committees, writing reference letters, and things of that nature. I include reference letters in that I'm not sure everybody in academia, but that occupies a lot of my time. But well, not just that, but but that is a large component of the community services, student committees, dealing with unforeseen circumstances. Participating in organising meetings, I'm organising two meetings later this year. This year, it also involves acting as the associate as the director of the origins since
I feel like it's more like a 40 4040.
It's actually 100 100 100. But as we all know, that work expands to fill whatever time is available. So I could gas. Yeah, so so there's no getting away from it. But the lecturing component is under the most control, because you know, you have typically 30, some odd lectures to deliver for a course and you know, that each of them should be about 15 minutes, and you know, that it takes this long to prepare and, and so that's much more definable in terms of the time spent, whereas research sometimes can take on, when you're writing a grant, it can be all consuming both time and effort. And so that really tends to expand. And then as I said, the community service, it's those unforeseeable items, like if a student who's conducting some research, suddenly can't come to the laboratory anymore. This is a prime example. COVID-19 pandemic really has far reaching effects on research, both in terms of the individuals conducting it, of course, but the research itself. And so all of the components take time, but it's much easier to budget the lecture than it is the research. And the community service is lesser, but it's less predictable as well.
You mentioned at the beginning that there's like a somewhat consistent proportion you're supposed to abide by, for Ontario university professors. Is this different between universities? Or is it just like all universities in Ontario?
Why do I think that 40 4020 is typical, but is by no means universal? And that's probably just for the Faculty of Science. So, but that is very typical, at least here at McMaster University as a faculty member in science, that's a typical formula, but some people are hired for for their research abilities, some exclusively for teaching. And so there's different contracts in different proportions of the waiting. And so that's by no means universal, so but it is, I would say, probably typical. Yeah, just yeah.
And I mean, like speaking about, like the responsibilities of a prof it's pretty common, or like pretty common knowledge that profs have like very long work hours, or work a lot every day. And so you're wondering what an average day of work looks like to us, like what time do you get out of bed? What time do you respond to your when am emails? What time do you like to work like that kind of thing? Do you take a lunch break at Taco,
as you hinted, any given day starts the morning before or the evening. But if you're giving a lecture the next day, then a typical day would start the evening before reviewing some of the textbook material, perhaps looking at the slides that you're going to deliver, it depends really on how long you've offered a course. Because the more often you've offered a course, the more expertise you have. And the more experience you have, you can afford somewhat to be a little more spontaneous. And that's always good, because I find spontaneity in a lecture really increases the dynamics of the lecture. And so I like to be as spontaneous as possible. But there's a there's a fine balance there. Of course, this year, I taught the biology one mo three, the first year of biology course. And it was rather large. And so I felt in a sense obliged to stay very close to the textbook because you have 1700 students and their you want to give them they've spent money on a resource. And you can't be there 24 seven, I found that out personally, you cannot came pretty close, I think. But there you want to stay very close to the lecture material that the slides should be similar to the textbook, I find that that's a more effective way of providing the material for a first year core, especially a very large first year course where there's no way you can interact with all the students even over the entire term. But as you go higher years, I think it's incumbent on professors to convey some of their experience with the field. After all, you're chosen to choose to teach a course because of your expertise. And so there you can afford to be a little bit more spontaneous and give them a little give the students a little bit more the benefit of your experience and your wisdom in the field. And so the planning of that really depends on what level you're you're doing but a typical course you start planning the night before and then the day of you might even rehearse I've rehearsed some lectures in my office and
oh, you know that people walking by seeing me talk to myself. There he goes again. And so and then, typically I'll get up rather early. So when we're are on campus, I'm usually there by 7am or so? Oh, goodness. And that gives me the opportunity to open up the lab and check all the organisms make sure the Alp still growing and do you sleep. I'm one of those people that fortunately doesn't need much sleep. Know why that is I think it's because I used to have a dog and the dog used to get up early and go to bed pretty late. And so just I kind of followed the same schedule and better, but it proves very effective, because then I can open up the lab, I can be the first one in and usually, if not the last one out one last ones out, I like to be the last one out to make sure everything's off and the lights are down and everything. And so typically, the day starts at around seven, I usually will try to catch light breakfast with colleagues. So we used to have a coffee club at the department. And yeah, comprised mainly emeritus professor. So it was always very interesting to get their historical perspectives on current events, as well as events at the university. And that was extremely enjoyable. We haven't met Of course, for a long time. And then throughout the day, there's offering lectures, of course, interacting with students, both these are students, postdocs, graduate students, undergraduate students, as well as through office hours. And then usually I'll try to catch a lunch with either a colleague or sometimes a student in one of the local cafes or on campus, sometimes I'll bring a lunch and eat alone in my office, if if it's a really rushed day. So if I have like back to back to back lectures or something like that then tends to be foreshortened. And then any moments during the day when I'm in my office, if I can work on a manuscript or work on a grant work on next day's lecture, I work on some of the community service like committee work, committee work involving committees for the university, as well as committees for students research like masters or PhD students, they have committees, which supervise them. And so even if it's not my student directly, I'm on a committee as a co supervisor, we meet right well, we meet on average, probably once a year with each student, but I might be on 15 or 20 of those committees. So so it's routine that I'm reading reports or theses or committee reports, or organising meetings that will happen in the spring. And so there's rarely a moment where I don't have something to do, which is great, because I love the activity. And I love keeping busy and so it really does I The reason I kind of laughed at gave a smattering of chuckles when you mentioned time earlier was because I think really, the the main objective is time management. And I try to convey that to students as well, time management seems to be the greatest skill that one can develop in career where you're multitasking.
That sounds like a very hectic and busy day slash week.
It is but you know, the best part about it is the unpredictability because it's usually pleasantly unpredictable. There are some unpleasant, unforeseeable circumstances, but usually the you know, sometimes a student comes to visit campus and they haven't been back for five years and they just pop into your office doorway and and they always they're very pleasant surprise. And then you find out that they've either become a doctor or had a child or, you know, and so it's very gratifying to see people when they depart the university, you're you're not sure you think, Oh, this one's extremely talented, and they're gonna do this, and they're gonna do that, but you're never sure what's gonna actually happen. And then, lo and behold, they visit you and they done all these wonderful things. And so yeah, so it's very nice to to have those prizes. And of course, with research, there's always unforeseeable surprises, often not as pleasant, but often they are very pleasant. And so you know, you get a surprises like, Oh my goodness, we didn't expect. So, you know, tardigrades are champions at that. They never surprise me. So I've learned over the years, never ever, ever throw away any data, especially the more strange the data Look, the more likely there's something interesting there. And we've seen that again and again and again, in all of the research.
If for some reason, I fully expected you to say I've learned to never trust a tardigrade. Well give you that too. Well, never third data. So flipping the script to back when you started your schooling journey, can you walk us through how you went from your undergraduate field of study why you chose biology and physics and how you journey through your role now, basically, I want to hear about all your troubles including
what To be frank and honest. The reason I I double majored in physics and biology and so on at at the University of Toronto, and the reason really was because I couldn't make up my mind. So in in second year, the registrar actually contacted me, I think they can California that shows you how long ago was, and they, you know, you're supposed to choose a programme. And I said, Well, I can't, you know. And so they said, Well, you have to at least choose one for administrative purposes, we need to link you to a programme because you're if you're going to go for a four year programme, you need to have at least one degree if not to. And so I looked through the calendar, I looked at the courses I had already taken, because I think I was a little bit naughty. I went beyond the deadlines. I think it was third year, but by the time I declared my, my majors, and I just looked at which course I taken and which programmes they suited, so that you know, what am I and turned out to be a physics and biology major. And then as zoology majors, is that okay, that's what I'll do. And so I put that down. But I taken so many chemistry courses that I felt like I was doing a disservice to the chemical community. And so, so I got a chemistry minor as well. So it shows you how that was not really a directed decision. It was how undirected I was at the time. But just before I graduated, so my my fourth year, I remember I was walking in the hallway in one of the buildings, and I saw professor there and he stopped me he asked me, I remember taking this for I didn't do an undergraduate thesis. But I remember taking his course I wrote an essay. And he said, that essay he wrote was really interesting. I'm retiring in about five years, but I have enough money to take on at least one more student, would you want to get involved in some do a master's and I, I naively said, Yes, I had no idea. And I figured I'd had a job already lined up. It was a retail job. But I'd been working that throughout my undergraduate career. And so I wasn't too keen necessarily on finding a job immediately, I had enough money saved away. And so I just said, Yeah, sure. And I figured, well, I could keep working full time and do the Masters on the side kind of thing. And, of course, completely naive and foolish. And I learned that quickly. And it was very easy to change the balance. And so the Masters became my full time occupation, and retail became part time, which was great. And then when I graduated, when I finished my master's, the same supervisor said, Well, I do have funding for four more years, and I'll be
65 years old. And so I get a sign on the dotted line with the university that I will retire in four years. Do you want to be my last student? And I felt that was such an honour? Yeah. So um, so I couldn't say no. And I didn't want to say no, I really enjoyed it. So I and then, in my last year of my PhD, I wrote a grant. Most students do they apply to within national funding agency and circ, the National natural sciences and Research Council, Engineering Research Council of Canada, and I got a postdoctoral position. And so that gave me You have to list at least I think at the time, you had to list three places where you would tenure, that particular postdoctoral fellowship. And so I went to State University of New York and worked in a developmental genetics lab. And that was an area I had no business being because all of my graduate work was computational. But I recognised that all the questions I was interested in involve mechanisms and mechanisms that I was most interested in were developmental and genetic. And so I figured, well, I'll go to a developmental genetics lab and pick up some of the skills and the skills themselves. were easy enough to pick up, right. It wasn't as sort of like somebody, somebody learning to play a musical instrument, they could learn the notes and how to play them, but there wasn't really a great match. And so I generated a lot of data. But then I think halfway through my postdoc, my supervisor called me and he said, I'm used to do a lot of modelling, didn't you? And I think, I don't think he was sending me any subliminal messages, I think, but I took it that way. And I thought, well, maybe my forte is computational. And I shouldn't try to run away from it. And so I spent the rest of that postdoc still sticking my nose in the lab where it didn't belong for, I'd get there. I also got there very early in the morning, and I would do all my research then. And then the rest of it, I'd spend it the computer writing computer programmes about developmental genetics. And we got a really nice paper out of that involving binding sites for transcription factors. And so while I was there, I thought, well, why run away from something that seems to come natural and so there was a position advertised by a Swedish University who Uppsala University and I applied for that position while I was still in New York. And I remember the supervisor call sent an email saying, well, you have all the skills that the reason I was interested in the position it was described to me to a tee it had all everything I was good at, listed as the qualification so I thought, oh, let's just try it and see what happens. And the supervisor emailed me saying that you have all the qualifications you seem tailor made for the positions. I'm trying desperately at the moment to sleep 24 hours a day, because it's summer here, and it's daylight all day long. So if you're interested in the position, just send me an email. And I'll read it in about a month. And I thought that was such a such a peculiar response. I said, Oh, and we really didn't communicate much more than that until I got off the plane in Sweden Later that year, when, when I visited, and I didn't know what he looked like. And he had never seen a picture of me, but he picked me out of the crowd. And he said, john, the way you pronounce he said, Young, and I said, Yes. He was mean. And he said, Well, you look like a biologist. And I wasn't sure.
That's a compliment or an insult. To this day, I'm
still not sure. But anyway, that's the most important thing to me is that if you can get along with the person you're conducting research with, that, to me is the most important thing. Anyway, so I was there for two years, I saw I was in New York for two years. I was in Sweden for two years. And then they were both, both of them were glorious years. But as I've heard, it described many times when I'm abroad, that Canadians have a homing device. And we all tend to want to go back home to work, and I was no different. And the funny thing about postdoc ends, they usually last two years, now they're a little longer, they're typically three years, but back then they were only two years, I think they're forever expanding. But But you know, that means as soon as you get there, you're one year in, you have to apply for your next one, which is a little bit awkward, right? Because you're just in the middle of your first. And I remember, just as an aside, mentioning two months at the time, when I arrived in Sweden to start my postdoc, I said, you know, the rate at which computers are progressing in terms of their memory capacity and the RAM. And it might be more beneficial for me not to start for a year just to goof off and travel around Sweden, and then wait to the new computers come out, because they'll be more than more than twice as fast. And so he didn't buy it. But anyway, after about a year in Sweden, I applied to come back to Canada. And you're only allowed to apply once for an answer grant. And so I applied for a CIA HR grant, back then it was the Medical Research Council, and you no longer can apply for both I understand. But back in those days, you could so I had a way to get back in. And I applied. And here's a good lesson for the listeners who are currently in like undergraduate or graduate. When I was a graduate student, I was on the executive and I was responsible for all the activities of the executive. I was the president in my last year. And one of the things we were charged with was taking out to lunch, some of the speakers that were interviewing for positions in our department, as well as guest speakers. And so we had this one guest speaker coming up pretty well renowned developmental biologist. And so I was automatically going to go for lunch, but I thought, well, this person is relatively well known. So maybe I should give everyone else a chance. So I advertised it and only three people took up the invitation. And so there was a fourth spine, I figure, okay, I'll I guess I'll go I really didn't have much in common. So I went for lunch. And sure enough, when I was in Sweden several years later, and I was trying to apply to get back into Canada for a CIA HR grant, there was the perfect match. For me, it was a person who did health related research in developmental biology. And by then I'd become very interested in developmental biology. And so I, I wrote an email saying, I don't know if you remember me from that lunch, and sure enough, the professor did. And we wrote a grant and I got it. And that was my way back in and I spent two more years in Halifax. So it's a lesson No, never, never shy away from an opportunity. You never know how it will pay back in the end. And I spent two years in Halifax and then all throughout the six years of postdoc, I was interviewing, I was applying for positions at various universities and interviewing at them. And by the time I got to Halifax, I guess I'd had enough experience, both as a researcher and as an applicant, because that's very important. And as an interviewee that I landed a position at McMaster University,
and then the rest is history, as they say, just about Yeah. Yeah, that's nice. How long have you been at math? I've been at Mac 18 years. Wow. Yeah.
That's cool.
That's a long time. So I'm officially hired as a sharp net chair in computational biology as a member of the Department of Biology and, and then I think I was at McMaster less than a year when the origins Institute started. And so I was appointed as the first Associate Director of the Institute in 2004, I suppose maybe 2003, but 2004 or three ish? Yeah.
So can you actually tell us a bit about what the origins Institute is what it does and kind of your involvement with it over the year? Yeah, the
institute was founded in 2000, I think officially was 2004. And its original mandate was to address fundamental questions in six main areas and they all had to do with the beginnings of things. So origins, hence the name of the Institute and it was a very wide A variety of topics I was origins of space, time itself, origin of elements, origin of structures in the cosmos, things like stars and planets and galaxies, origin of life, Origin of Species and biodiversity and origins of humanity originally, and that later evolved into origins of consciousness. So I'd like to put them together and say, origin of consciousness and humanity. So they're big questions, but I think I like to think of it as any thing that humans ancestrally did, like ancient humans, we stared at the stars. And we wondered, where did you look at your hands? And where did we come from? Where did this this stuff we call it humans come from? And it's, I think these are all natural questions to ask. And so it's a testament, the original director of portraits had the idea insight to suggest that those fundamental questions could formulate a context within which Research and Education could kind of be conducted. And so hence, was born the origins Institute, which has evolved over the years, of course, so I guess I should mention that now that the, over the years, I think our first major meeting was titled, astrobiology and the origin of life. And that really solidified our prime research directives as astrobiology, because it's the one area that we could identify that the astronomers and the biologists and chemists and the bio chemists and physicists all could convey the same ideas, perhaps initially with different languages, but ultimately with the same language. And so it was a area that was really fertile ground for interdisciplinary or as I like to say, transdisciplinary research.
Very interesting and heavy stuff. Since you became a professor 18 years ago, how do you feel like the role of a professor has changed?
It's changed a number of ways. Mostly, I think, in terms of the or the rules that universities play in society, I think I think enrollment has enlarged over the years has increased. And so I think university professors have a role to play. It's kind of like a multi tier role. One is just in terms of the courses and delivering information. And ideally, I mean, in my mind, I picture us as people come in to the university and they leave better citizens in the sense that they can read media reports are understand why the government makes some decisions that it makes and understand why they should follow those decisions, or be sceptical of those decisions, whatever the case may be. These are well informed individuals. So that's one level. I think university professors are one role university professors play. Of course, some for some students, the undergraduate education is a stepping stone to something higher, something else could be a professional school, it could be graduate school, continued research. Okay, I'll say law school as well. I've had I've had at least one student emerge, each of the last, I think, on average, at least one student into law school over the last five years from my lab. So
Oh, like, each year, there's been one student,
yeah, well, on average, so something more than one, but and when you're there? God forbid, no. So I'm as guilty as creating my own problems, I guess, as but um, but you know, that's a good example. These are students that probably came into university, maybe not knowing that they wanted to be lawyers, but then they're now equipped with some scientific knowledge and realise that there's some issues in society that have to be advocated for, and from a scientific perspective. And so now they will have two tools that still have their scientific tool set, and they'll have their lawmaker or lawyer, barrister, solicitor, whatever might be mouthpiece toolset, which they can combine and hopefully make the world a little bit better place. Most of the students that I have seen go on to law are interested in environmental issues, for example. All right,
before we wrap up, is there anything else you want to add? Um,
I've always tried to have fun. And being a professor is one occupation that allows me to do that, even within the context, even within the strict context of my contract, or my, what my expectations are from university administration, or my chair, or whatever it is. There's always enough flexibility. They're all wonderful people that I work with. I assume that's the case everywhere, all universities in Canada, if not elsewhere, but and so you're able to follow your passions and enjoy life and still get paid for it at the end of the day. And as you said earlier, the per hourly wage is not all that extravagant. Choose your but the satisfaction level is extremely high. And I think that that's, to me, that's the most important metric.
Yeah, well, that's sweet, and it's good to know that there are products out there who like what they do and like Uh, bothering students the way you do. That's really great. And thank you so much for interviewing with us. I know that as a podcast co host, you know, it's like how parents don't pick favourites amongst children. And I really enjoyed this interview, and I'm usually pretty tired after interviews, but I'm just I'm ready to go. Like, I'm just I really like this. Oh, thank you for coming and chatting. And yeah, we hope that this we think this is this episode is gonna get good engagement. Yeah, thank you so much.
And you can all kind of run along a beach without any worry now because you know. Yeah, I
mean, because my bladder probably.
That can be very useful to others who step on sea urchins don't know.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. But it's a service. This episode is sponsored by study buddy. Study Bunny is a free focus timer app available on Android and iOS. With the help of an adorable studious bunny. By your side, you can set your study time, earn in game coins and use them to buy items to customise your bunny. They also have other helpful in app study tools like flashcards, and a to do list. We've actually mentioned study buddy on the podcast before in our mini cast to be specific even before they decided to sponsor us. Personally, I use it to track what kinds of work I'm doing throughout the week and for how long. I love seeing my steady metrics visualise in a colourful schedule at the end of each week. Meanwhile, Lisa uses the app to set timers when studying to ensure she won't fall into the among us rabbit hole. Pun intended. Download the app today on Google Play or the App Store. You can also follow them on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter at the links in the show notes for updates and periodic cuteness. So that's the origin story, huh? I don't know if I regret saying like, especially with my bladder. But he knows I'm a lightweight with alcohol. He knows that a small bladder like it's all good. Yeah, yeah. thoroughly enjoyable interview. I'm very happy with how that turned out. Yeah, I was talking to my friend A while ago about how I like to use humour in my writing, even when it's like serious, like research papers or essays and stuff like that do. Yeah, I try to make it as humorous within the confines of science. Right? That's a bold statement to make, because what you're saying there is you're saying, I think my writing is funny. Okay, I try. I'm not saying it's funny thing I tried. Yeah, but every time I read a research paper that's written with a lot of humour in it, yeah, I'm just like, Okay, this gives me permission to push it a little bit further. Make it a bit more funny. And I feel like that's what doc Kroc did with speaking when are you doing research, but he's also just so funny. Yeah, I think now until now, if we didn't fully believe that, like, Doc rock was like as Docker rocket ish, or as you say, rock dock. So for the listeners a little job is because one time when we were prepping for he called him rock Doc, Doc rock. Also, if you've gotten this far, and still haven't realised why his name is doc rock, like, we're not going to tell you. It'll be like a shower. Like lightbulb goes off. Oh, yeah, no. 100% also, we finally uncovered like, the reality, the time behind the 1am emails. I often get like, 1am 2am 11pm emails from from this man. And, like me and my girlfriend, we've always just thought like, Okay, I guess he just sleeps really late, like, which is unusual for unit university professor because they're usually up at you know, 7am 6am I, when we were talking about that, we were like, Okay, well, the alternative is that he just stays up late and also gets up early. But we said that it's a joke, because of course people need to sleep. Right. Right. And so now we know. I feel like that was a thing. That was some people do genuinely need less sleep than others. Yeah. But apparently it's like a way smaller part of Yeah, yes. Yeah. Yeah, like people hear that. That's the thing. So they're like, Oh, yeah, I'm one of those. Yeah, I don't need a sleep. I think I'm pretty average in terms of the amount of sleep I need. I think one interesting thing about being sleep deprived is that you hit a point at which you can't tell that you're not functioning properly. I mean, as a chronic, Insomniac, I feel like you are functioning properly all the time.
No, I just,
you realise you're like playing right into,
like, one of those Kafka traps. Like Yeah, like, okay, so a Kafka trap is, I think, a mental thought experiment. Or it's like the concept of when you're in a situation where if you argue your position, you just further solidify the arguments as being thrown against you. So if someone says, You don't know how spoiled you are, and you're like, I know exactly how spoiled I am. That's kind of a coffee shop. But for some reason, whenever I think of the word coffee trap, I picture a Chinese finger trap, which is not the same thing. It kind of makes sense or it's like, the more you try to pull away from oil. Oh my god, it's perfect. Yeah. Oh my goodness. Wow, my brain just made that connection. And I just I have no idea. Yeah. I actually don't know if this is actually like, I can't confirm that. This is what a Kafka trap is, but I'll take your word for it. Oh, I mean, I feel like I heard it mentioned on a podcast and so I'm gonna make that my sources. Sure. And also don't ask me how to spell cough go because I have no idea. Oh, k f. k. Okay, nerd. I'm pretty sure it's like a famous author as well. Okay. educated. Who doesn't know what the actual concept? I guess. Yeah. I guess a last thought I kind of have is that even on doc rocks path there. It's not like he really planned out everything far in advance. And oftentimes not even close. So yeah, just more evidence. This is more me speaking to myself more evidence, so just chill out a little. Yeah, I mean, I feel like I'm pretty chill, like. So yeah, just Yeah, you're pretty chill until it comes to like planning the next week and then, like, into your calendar. How dare you? Oh, yes, for the listeners. We are learning to navigate each other's organisational strategies. And yes, sometimes I accidentally put play cards of grandma on the podcast calendar and we don't need to talk about it. And by the way, I did play cards of my grandmother that day, so I don't know what point I'm trying to make. But I made it. We learned about the conus. snail in some of our classes. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And they basically have to like, almost like, attack the snail a little bit to get the venom of mode. Whatever that person is getting paid double it. Yeah, no, it's seriously dangerous. Like it's, it's wild. Can we synthesise that stuff? I don't think they actually gotten to a point where they can like there's no like we definitely can we could synthesise I'm sure we'd be doing a Nikolai instead of Yeah, I think there's like it's a mixture of like, over 100 different Oh, okay, that that muscles that are poisonous to us. And I think they've paralyses its prey. Oh, and I'm assuming they just use like kind of smaller doses to tranquillise animals. Yeah, I'm actually not sure about how it's applied. How did they even discover that it could be used as a tranquilliser though like, I'm not sure how much it is used as a tranquilliser. Oh, okay, but then but then back to my main question. Why are we extracting this poison if it's not tranquilliser? Well, Doc was saying like people do actually die from these cones nails. So like, Oh, yeah. Okay, yeah. Yeah, also, just like kind of cool.
This has been another episode of so you got to live side degree with Docker off about University professorship. We want to give special thanks to our crew of lovely patrons, including our little leaf patrons named Daniel trophy and shamima and our fantastic foliage patrons Stephanie. If you would like to become a supporter of this podcast, you can visit our patreon@patreon.com slash so you got Alexa degree. You can also rate us on Apple podcasts using the link in the show notes. The music you're hearing is no regrets from audio hub.com Thanks for listening and see you next time.