Search results

Now Playing | An experimental short film from Iran.

Now Playing | An experimental short film from Iran.

Now Playing | The Fabricated Wild explores the intersections between the natural and artificial within the Florida wilderness using personal film-making technology. Images strictly of the natural landscape are sequenced to break from traditional cinematic viewing techniques. Images foreground the natural Florida landscape in the frame and communicate how cinema fabricates the expansive wilderness. The Fabricated Wild frames the complex interaction between a frustrated filmmaker and the collective unconsciousness of the natural environment, a theory outlined by Carl Jung, considering the implications and discoveries along the way. The film frames the experience of interacting with and revealing the forest’s collective unconsciousness that is frequently hidden in cinema to call for an experimental way to engage with the natural landscape. 16mm, Super 8.

Now Playing | The experimental short film ANSAGE ENDE is an artistic reflection on being engaged with the world. Combining fiction and documentary, music and text, this hybrid film calls for a collective and activist approach to the climate crisis. The visually stunning ANSAGE ENDE opens with an imaginative journey through an empty landscape where water meets land. Two characters walk through the mud, away from the viewer, into an open yet unknown future. They fantasize about what our rapidly developing world might bring and question their personal participation in this possible future. Slowly the film moves away from the imaginary into the real. Climate destruction becomes ghastly visible: huge machines in a brown coal mine eat up the soil, searching for energy and profit. Policemen and women enable sawers to cut down the neighboring forest for the expansion of the mine. Young activists occupy the trees, trying to stop the destruction of this primeval forest.

Now Playing | The Carbon Chronicles: Who owns the air? The Carbon Chronicles is an experimental animated visualisation of the build-up of CO2 and other greenhouse gasses has radically altered the Earth’s atmosphere. It is a collaboration between artists from the Manifest Data Lab and scientists from the British Antarctic Survey. The animation maps from the industrial revolution to the present day the regions contributing most to the climate crisis, which can be traced through the stalagmite growths representing CO2 emissions growing out from the different countries. Beginning with the UK in the 1750s, emissions from coal start enveloping the planet, other regions soon follow. By the late 1800s through to the current period, growing industrial and extraction activity in the Global North is responsible for 92% of CO2 with 8% coming from the Global South. The spread of CO2 described in the animation mirrors the wider historic processes of power distribution visited on poorer countries and shows that the atmosphere is as contested a space as the territories beneath it. The work describes a living breathing planet, under the pressure of human produced exhalations of CO2. It attributes responsibility in ways that can inform the need for equitable solutions to the climate crisis that are mindful of the historic consequences of carbon exploitation and its impacts. The Carbon Chronicles informs the need for equitable solutions to the climate crisis that are mindful of the historic consequences of carbon exploitation to ask: Who Owns the Air?

Common causes have the potential to overturn previous understandings. Sand ripples are fascinating. They are symmetrical yet wind, which causes them, is very much not....

Now Playing | A narrative video poem that frames the destruction of the Rio Grande Valley through the Mexican ghost story of La Llorona.

Past Presentation | They want to build a road here! Music and images over a beautiful part of the world where the City People want to build a road, to expand the City into the Country.

Now Playing | Becoming Fossil invites viewers to become time travelers through kaleidoscopic sensations of touch and elemental change. Join in and travel backward and forward in time around our small precious planet. Ride the waves of climate emergencies, and experience both extinction and resiliency in human and more-than-human touches.

Now Playing | We follow a day in the life of Yosarian Bisbee, aka Yo, as he gathers “junk” from the local dump and unwanted food from the grocery store, all in an effort to minimize waste.

Now Playing | This film was made as a tribute to the wonders of our earth and the importance of protecting them. Follow a young woman, armed with her banjo and her spirit, as she enters a portal from a post-apocalyptic world into a realm of rhinoceroses, gorillas and ancient trees to recover magical seeds and make the world wild again!

Past Presentation | Journey to the seemingly idyllic Hawaii, where communities are surrounded by experimental test sites for genetically engineered seed corn and pesticides sprayed upwind of homes, schools, hospitals, and shorelines. Discover what’s at stake for Hawaii from local activists, scientific experts, and healthcare professionals who explain the effects of environmental injustice. Join the international debate about pesticides and the movement to hold corporations and governments accountable for poisoning planet Earth. Jane Goodall: “I hope that this film is shown around the world, that it wins every prize out there, that it wakes people up and generates anger.”

Now Playing | A personal dive into the world’s most impersonal substance: plastics. Amid the lockdown, a bereaved mother unfolds a surprising journey within and across oceans to understand the contemporary landscape of single-use synthetics. From the noble intentions behind its invention to scales of havoc it has wrought, this experimental documentary brings together art, history, science, and the everyday. Playfully crafted with hand-drawn illustrations and poetic interludes, this evocative “pause between deep time and no time” will change how you think about this ordinary “thing without thingness."

Now Playing | Water drops turning to the starry night. I found two words 'spontaneously' and 'simultaneously' alongside one another in a vocabulary notebook and thought it seemed to be wonderful that the meanings of the two words conjoined. I embody the idea by using a turntable with a running mirror under the photo panel, and it could imply how I and others relate across the media symbolically. Consequently water turns into the starry night, like howling dreams come true.

Past Presentation | After a sting operation in Bangkok for two trafficked orangutans leave those accountable with no consequence, Daniel Stiles, a detective in the illegal wildlife trade, thinks of new ways to combat illegal trafficking of great apes. For the last 8 years the focus of Sytsma’s work has been giving a platform to ordinary people who express a specific sociopolitical concern to strengthen community and inform us of actions and consequences at the ground level. Originally trained as an experimental storyteller and cinematographer at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee Peck School of the Arts, his work has been shown on national media like PBS and at film festivals around the world.

Now Playing | "Tellus" is a love letter for Mother Earth which celebrates our connection with her - from pure joy and love towards nature’s elements, to our collective fears and worries about the damage that humankind has done to our planet, to an inspiring call for action and a hope for a greener, more united future. "Tellus" is a sustainable, female-led community project that captures love, concern and hope for our planet from voices across the world.

Now Playing | "Alles hat Grenzen, NUR DER MONDFISCH NICHT" is an environmental film musical, in which nature acts and speaks in a diversity of voices. Surfacing evocatively from micro- and macrocosmic layers, she resonates with water as the source of life and resounds as exploited resource. She echoes from the trenches of an inverted world and speaks out as a human being. Reverberating through ecological-cultural depths, images, sounds and associations push to light, giving shape to a vision of humanity being in tune with nature.

Now Playing | Join us on an quiet trip into the woods and see all the sites, big and small, that you may not have noticed before. There are critters, birds, deer, trees, and great bodies of water that will capture your eye for you to gaze upon. But be forewarned, some day these great sites may disappear in place for something more modern. So enjoy what time you have to gaze on such sites, it may be your last.

Past Presentation | A story of Daniel Dembele’s journey growing the budding idea of solar panels into a viable company, and of the business’ impact on Daniel’s first customers in the tiny village of Banko. Taking controversial stances on climate change, poverty, and African self-sufficiency, the film explores what it means to grow up as a man, and what it takes to prosper as a nation. An Official Selection of IFP’s Documentary Rough Cut Lab and Independent Film Week/Spotlight on Docs, and supported by LEF Foundation, Brooklyn Arts Council, and Experimental Television Center.

An experiment on coral reefs provides the first evidence that predators use other animals for motion camouflage to approach their prey without detection. A new...

Past Presentation | A Mirror of the Cosmos is a sci-fi experimental documentary which explores the first ecosystem in Europe to gain legal rights: the Mar Menor lagoon. Opening with a conversation between the moon and the sea about environmental violence, the film explores how the unlikely relationships between paradise, invasive blue crabs, nitrates, and mining deposits in Mar Menor deeply intertwine to tell the larger story of capitalism’s extractive, cumulative effects on the environment over time, combined with record-setting temperatures and monsoon-like storms. The lagoon is a microcosm of the so-called Anthropocene, or ‘the Age of Man’. Ultimately, it asks what kinds of futures are possible, and can we adapt? A film by Isabelle Carbonell www.amirrorofthecosmos.com

Cinema Verde presents an interview with Nick Twardus, the director of "The Fabricated Wild" . "The Fabricated Wild" explores the intersections between the natural and artificial within the Florida wilderness using personal filmmaking technology. Images strictly of the natural landscape are sequenced to break from traditional cinematic viewing techniques. Images foreground the natural Florida landscape in the frame and communicate how cinema fabricates the expansive wilderness. The Fabricated Wild frames the complex interaction between a frustrated filmmaker and the collective unconsciousness of the natural environment, a theory outlined by Carl Jung, considering the implications and discoveries along the way. The film frames the experience of interacting with and revealing the forest’s collective unconsciousness that is frequently hidden in cinema to call for an experimental way to engage with the natural landscape. 16mm, Super 8. Our full catalog of video interviews and streaming films is available to members at cinemaverde.org.

Now Playing | Insects were here before humanity, but often we eliminate them as a nuisance. They are a fundamental element of this world. Without them, most of the plants would not be pollinated and birds would lose their food and become extinct. Despite their vital role, they are silently disappearing at a rapid rate.... without us noticing. ‘In Praise of Insects’ is a project to help us rethink the tiny subtle lives that are so entwined with our own. The common Bluebottle is one of the few butterflies that can be seen in central Tokyo. Even if you occasionally see the butterfly flying between buildings, you can see the miracle of life by closely observing its appearance and growth.

In a study recently published in Nature, researchers from the Max Born Institute in Berlin, Germany, and the Max-Planck Institute of Quantum Optics in Garching...

Now Playing | Since the 1950s deadly nuclear fallout has threatened millions of Americans from nuclear fallout carried east in the atmosphere across the United States, from the Nevada Test Site. “928 The Threat Continues...” tells the story of massive contamination from concentrated nuclear fallout that rained down during heavy storms, on communities and major cities for 40 years. Hundreds of thousands of cancer cases and deaths were the result. The Atomic Energy Commission and the Department of Energy knew the truth, but covered it up. Multiple generations may still face the long-term affects. Through current interviews with scientific experts and surviving victims across the country, plus footage from historic interviews with victims, whistle-blower scientists and journalists, we tell the devastating story of those affected by the deadly radioactive fallout. In Act 3, obscure government videos from US government websites reveal that the threat of cancer death to Americans from Nevada Test Site contamination continues even today! NTS has been renamed, the Nevada National Security Site or NNSS. Presidential administrations from Harry Truman to the present day have kept the highly contaminated former Nevada Test Site operating. Donald Trump while in office ordered the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy to start testing newly designed battlefield nuclear weapons at the NNSS despite the existence of The Non-Proliferation Treaty – 1970. Not withstanding the treaty, the extremely reckless aboveground testing area at the NNSS called Big Explosives Experimental Facility or B.E.E.F. tests non-nuclear bombs that send tons of highly contaminated nuclear dirt 10,000 feet into the atmosphere where the winds carry it east. It needs to be stopped now! The film asks viewers to inform their congressman and vote.

A new study shows preference for AI-created food imagery due to its optimized attractiveness, with potential implications for consumer health and environmental sustainability. With the...

NASA’s Zero-Boil-Off Tank experiments address the challenge of managing cryogenic propellants in space, crucial for future Moon and Mars missions, with potential Earth-bound benefits in...

Past Presentation | What if the greatest chemical disaster of our time did not involve oil spills or nuclear meltdowns? Instead, imagine much lower levels of exposure, inflicted over several generations and affecting every person on the planet. The result: rising rates of everything from cancer to autism to infertility. This is the shocking reality explored in The Human Experiment. The film follows a band of unlikely activists who are fighting back. Ranging from Howard, a conservative businessman, to Jessica, a teenage radical, they are stalking their reputation, career and future in this battle to protect our health. And their opposition is Goliath, the powerful chemical industry is heavily invested in maintaining the status quo, pulling unseen strings to create an aura of skepticism and confusion.

When astronauts return to the moon later this decade, they’ll bring along science experiments to study moonquakes, lunar water ice and extraterrestrial agriculture

A beleaguered solar geoengineering project failed to conduct field tests because of opposition from environmentalists and Indigenous residents

A collaboration between ACT and MIT.nano, the class 4.373/4.374 (Creating Art, Thinking Science) asks what it really takes to cultivate dialogue between disciplines.

March 25, 2024 After years of sustained resistance against Harvard University’s controversial Stratospheric Controlled Perturbation Experiment, known as SCoPEx, the Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN), Saami Council, and Tonatierra Nahuacalli welcome the news of Harvard University announcing its cancellation of SCoPEx.  SCoPEx, is a geoengineering technique called Stratospheric Aerosol Injection (SAI), that has consistently targeted Indigenous […] The post Indigenous Peoples Celebrate End of Harvard’s Geoengineering Experiment SCoPEx first appeared on Indigenous Environmental Network.

At the Green Propulsion Laboratory in Italy, scientists are trying to harness natural organisms to rehabilitate the environment. Photographer Luigi Avantaggiato explores

Low-income urban residents get rats and pigeons. But when the wealthy move in, they get species like rabbits and flying squirrels. As gentrification displaces lower-income people from American neighborhoods, the animal populations in the areas they're leaving behind are shifting toward local species less typically associated with city environments, a new study has found. The findings, published Monday...

NASA and the agency’s international partners are sending scientific investigations to the International Space Station on the 30th SpaceX commercial resupply services mission, including tests...

Apes used in animal testing often display symptoms of psychological trauma. Wildlife sanctuaries are helping them recover. The post The Challenges of Studying (and Treating) PTSD in Chimpanzees appeared first on The Revelator.

Four research articles in Nature follow the genetic traces and geographical origins of human diseases far back in time. The analyses provide detailed pictures of...

The Portland-born effort asks breweries to source environmentally responsible ingredients for a beer then donate to a local environmentally focused nonprofit. Also in this beer news roundup, North Portland's Mayfly throws a three-day party this weekend for its fifth anniversary.

Feedback is pleased to learn about innovative plans for the "considerable numbers of discarded teabags" in the world

A solar geoengineering experiment in San Francisco could lead to brighter clouds that reflect sunlight. The risks are numerous

Rural Latino communities are divided about the project, which would capture carbon from an oilfield and power plant — and allow an oil company to keep operating as the state struggles to slash greenhouse gases.

A fibrous adsorbent selectively recovers high-purity gold from waste. Dramatically reduces the cost and time of the recovery process and enables material to be mass-produced...

MIT Sea Grant students apply machine learning to support local aquaculture hatcheries.

Past Presentation | A meditation on urban green spaces and the post-industrial cityscape that explores a 1-acre rooftop organic farm in New York City. Connecting the built and natural environments, this film documents an imaginative experiment in green urban redevelopment attempting to transform the roof of a century-old former factory into a sustainable, pastoral haven.

Now Playing | In part one, filmed near Qingdao in 2015, Tang Guanhua and Xingzhen experiment with a self-sustainable lifestyle. They describe their rationale for pursuing such a life and introduce their dream of building an intentional community. Is this an important new direction for Chinese society, or a self-indulgent escape for a privileged few?

"Forever chemicals" are everywhere — but there are significant steps consumers can take to protect themselves against the toxic substances, leading environmental engineers said. “We are living in a mega-experiment,” Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) environmental engineer Mohamed Ateaia Ibrahim told attendees on Tuesday at SXSW. For decades, the government has implemented few regulations on per- and...

A new study from Oregon State University highlights how even minimal exposure to common pesticides can have significant harmful effects on fish, raising concerns about broader environmental and health implications.Courtney Flatt reports for OPB.In short:Recent research by Oregon State University indicates even minimal exposure to pyrethroid pesticides can harm fish by disrupting their endocrine systems.In experiments, fish exposed to low doses of pesticides exhibited altered behavior and reproductive issues in adulthood and their offspring.The study emphasizes the potential long-term effects of these chemicals on aquatic life and possibly human health, urging further investigation.Key quote: “You’re basically doing an uncontrolled experiment when you spray chemicals like this in your house. It affects other things besides insects.” — Susanne Brander, associate professor at OSU’s Hatfield Marine Science CenterWhy this matters: Pesticides often do not discriminate between target pests and non-target species, leading to unintended consequences for biodiversity and our ecosystems. Related: Lawmakers want the EPA to ignore impacts of pesticides on endangered speciesLawmakers want the EPA to ignore impacts of pesticides on endangered species

Past Presentation | Vegucated is a feature-length documentary that follows three meat- and cheese-loving New Yorkers who agree to adopt a vegan diet for six weeks. Part sociological experiment, part science class, and part adventure story, Vegucated showcases the rapid and at times comedic evolution of three people who share one journey and ultimately discover their own paths in creating a kinder, cleaner, greener world, one bite at a time.

Now Playing | A Simpler Way: Crisis as Opportunity is a feature-length documentary that follows a community in Australia who came together to explore and demonstrate a simpler way to live in response to global crises. Throughout the year the group built tiny houses, planted veggie gardens, practised simple living, and learned how to live in community. This film is the product of hours and hours of footage that I shot during that year-long experiment in simple living.

A nurse boarded the Bx18A bus, whose route circles between the Morris Heights and Highbridge neighborhoods of the Bronx. Having an anxious moment most New Yorkers will find relatable, she began hunting through her purse to look for her MetroCard to pay for her ride. When the driver pointed to a sign indicating that this was a “fare free” bus—part of an experiment in free public transit created by the state legislature last year—the nurse started dancing.I’d like to have what she’s having, please. I think we all would. “She cha-cha’d down the bus,” said Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani Thursday, telling the story in a speech on the New York Assembly floor. Mamdani was introducing his “Get Congestion Pricing Right” bill, which he said would “expand that feeling—of joy, of relief” by making 15 more bus routes free, across the city, as well as increasing bus frequency. Over the next couple weeks, the bill will be part of the always-harrowing negotiations with Governor Kathy Hochul and among the state legislators. Mamdani called his bill “Get Congestion Pricing Right” in part because, right now, New York risks getting it wrong: Few good ideas have been resisted as loudly as New York’s plan to charge a toll to drivers entering Manhattan ($15 for most) and use the money to improve public transit. The policy, set to take effect June 15, has been mocked, attacked, and misrepresented for years. Now that it’s finally happening, it’s crucial that it work well for the majority of New Yorkers. Otherwise, backlash could quickly sink the policy and discourage similar efforts in the future—in New York and elsewhere. For congestion pricing to work, as Mamdani clearly understands, public transit needs to be good enough to present a viable alternative to the $15 toll. Having fewer cars on the roads is demonstrably fantastic for the environment, public health, and quality of life. In Stockholm, congestion pricing has reduced carbon emissions by 20 percent. In London, it has reduced the nitrogen oxides and particulates in the air by 12 percent. Cleaner air will in turn improve health of New Yorkers: In Stockholm, congestion pricing cut the number of asthma-related hospital visits in half. Reducing traffic—the MTA estimates the plan will cut traffic by 17 percent—will also ease the stress of driving for anyone who has to do so, and make much of the city more pleasant for pedestrians, especially crucial since New Yorkers walk more than any other group of Americans. Reducing traffic will also save lives: Since emergency vehicles are among the few exempted from the toll, they will presumably be able to move more quickly to put out fires and get people to the hospital.  Congestion pricing will also raise $1 billion a year for the public transit system, allowing the MTA to make the kinds of improvements that will save New Yorkers money, time, and irritation. These improvements will also boost ridership; this will make the subway safer, which will, in turn, boost ridership further.Yet congestion pricing has received a great deal of pseudo-populist mockery and resistance. The New York Post has run negative articles on the topic on an almost daily basis (“Congestion Pricing Will Leave NYC in a Jam” and “Time for Congestion Pricing to Hit the Road”  are just two recent headlines). The policy has faced lawsuits from city workers’ unions, the governor of New Jersey, the mayor of Fort Lee, New Jersey, the Staten Island borough president, and a range of other injured parties. The gist of all the criticism is that the policy will hurt ordinary hardworking New Yorkers. Although New York’s policy does still have flaws that must be fixed—insufficient exemptions for low-income drivers, for instance—the populist argument against congestion pricing is mostly disingenuous. Only 4 percent of outer-borough New Yorkers drive to Manhattan to work; 57 percent take public transit. And only 2 percent of low-income outer-borough New Yorkers, specifically, would be asked to pay a congestion fee as part of their commute; 61 percent take public transit. As we’ve seen in France with the “gilet jaune” movement, in which motorists wore yellow vests and blocked highways to protest an unpopular gas tax in 2018, and the more recent farmer protests against the European Union’s effort to limit harmful pesticides, this kind of populist anti-environmental argument resonates when large numbers of ordinary people don’t feel their material needs have been considered by the elites in charge. Congestion pricing carries precisely this kind of baggage, even though it will improve our lives in many ways. That means the big question politically, the one that will determine congestion pricing’s longevity as a policy, is whether the vast majority of New Yorkers will experience its benefits and how quickly. We must see the positive results of congestion pricing in our own lives to balance out the rage induced by what behavioral economists call “the pain of paying” (research shows that we are far more bothered about small expenses that we pay frequently and can see, like milk or gas, than about bigger expenses we don’t pay often or that are simply deducted from our paychecks, like our health insurance premiums). Unfortunately, we can’t see or feel reductions in carbon emissions. Clean air is more ambiguous. We do notice pollution. We freak out about bad air quality warnings in the summer. And last year when the smoke from the Canadian wildfires turned New York City’s skies red and smoky, I saw children running out of school buildings to gape at it in terror. Some of us will undoubtedly feel, over time, that our asthma or headaches have improved, or that we are breathing more easily. But it’s possible that for many people, the clean air might be an invisible benefit, the kind that is politically troublesome because it doesn’t reward its architects. By contrast, New Yorkers have in recent years been complaining about the subway a lot and will notice if it gets better. Public transit is one of the least abstract political issues for New Yorkers, affecting where we can work, whether we can get there in time, and whether we can pick up our kids on time at the end of the day. Ridership has suffered since the pandemic. Sensationally reported crimes on the subway have contributed to anxiety about the system, which New York’s governor has idiotically played into by sending in the National Guard. Less dramatic but perhaps far more frustrating to most people, the service has deteriorated recently, with more delays and disruptions, and even derailments, which are quite scary. The political reception of congestion pricing, then, will be mostly determined by how tangibly it improves our transit system. Of course, there’s no evading the biggest problem with congestion pricing, which is that people hate being forced to change cherished habits. New York City is a great place to implement this policy, since it’s already a terrible city for motorists, the transit system goes almost everywhere, and many New Yorkers already avoid driving. But those who are attached to their cars will be vocal in their objections. Such gripes will resonate and spread like a contagion if people don’t see the positive effects of congestion pricing right away.That’s why immediate measures like Assemblyman Mamdani’s “Get Congestion Pricing Right” proposal—making more bus routes free and more frequent, before the revenue from congestion pricing even kicks in—are so crucial. Good environmental policy prods us to change our behavior while making our lives better at the same time. Congestion pricing will do this: It will obligate driving less by forcing cost-benefit analysis of our car trips, while also rewarding us by transforming urban life for the better—not just with cleaner air and better health, but by ensuring that we all waste less of our lives sitting in traffic. But the biggest benefit for most people will be the investments in our transit system, making a safer, more convenient, and joyful experience. If more of us start feeling anything close to the happiness that nurse felt on the Bx18A that day, congestion pricing will be a lasting political success.

In 2010, Noah Wilson-Rich was juggling several jobs while earning his PhD in biology at Tufts University: He taught classes at several nearby universities, and one day a week, tended bar at a cafe in the lobby of the Hult International Business School. On one of his shifts, he overheard customers discussing a competition for entrepreneurs. The next day, he entered, pitching a company that would gather insect health data at beehives. “They were like, ‘The bartender won?’ said Wilson-Rich. “Okay, you all need to respect your service workers.” Two thousand dollars in prize money helped Wilson-Rich launch The Best Bees Company. Now, more than a decade later, Best Bees offers corporate and residential beekeeping services near two dozen U.S. cities. The company also charges up to $450 for a “HoneyDNA” kit, which uses environmental DNA, or eDNA—genetic information deposited by a wide range of organisms in the surrounding environment—to test a hive’s health, or simply provide information about the “terroir” of the honey, said Wilson-Rich. The kit, which the company started selling in 2015, includes a sample bottle and a prepaid envelope; upon receipt, Best Bees sends honey samples out to a lab for sequencing to reveal what plant DNA is found in a hive’s product. The results can indicate whether the bees have been feeding on lavender, or how far they’re traveling from the hive; the company also provides corporate sustainability impact reporting. Best Bees is one of the many companies carving out a niche in a commercial landscape increasingly focused on advertising environmental responsibility, pushed by both customer demand and regulatory requirements. Testing environmental DNA, which allows data to be gathered from the tiny pieces of skin, scales, and slime that species shed as they move through the world, has been framed as a cheap and efficient way to understand a corporation’s impact. As supporters lobby for regulatory acceptance, a group of large consulting companies and eDNA specialists see the tool as a promising way to monitor corporate sustainability, like measuring the success of conservation efforts or the possible effects of a new bridge or parking lot. Experts say eDNA has limitations and drawbacks. So far, it appears that the tool is best used as one tool among a suite of monitoring methods, so it’s unlikely the technology will completely disrupt the environmental consulting industry, which according to The Insight Partners, a market research firm, was valued at more than $34 billion globally in 2020. But eDNA has undoubtedly created new opportunities to gather and monetize data. Meanwhile, both company representatives and researchers say it’s still early days in understanding all its possible capabilities and applications; some, like Wilson-Rich, are devising completely novel ways to sell eDNA services. “It’s not just science for science’s sake,” said Ryan Kelly, an ecologist and legal scholar at the University of Washington, who works with government agencies on ecosystem management. “We’re making tools that it seems pretty clear can answer questions that haven’t been asked before, or can help people do their jobs better, cheaper, and faster.” Often, before any huge infrastructure project can be constructed, governments and regulators require companies to prove they aren’t disturbing the natural landscape where the project would be built. The companies running those assessments, some of them large international corporations, have become an industry unto themselves: By 2028, the environmental consulting market is forecast to reach $50 billion in value, according to The Insight Partners. eDNA has the potential to make the work of those companies much easier, and much cheaper. Traditional environmental monitoring “can be quite a laborious process,” according to Nicole Fahner, executive director at CEGA, an eDNA research and development center, and eDNAtec, a Canadian eDNA company. Such monitoring can require teams of highly trained biologists and ecologists, at times dispersed across sweeping landscapes like deserts and dense forests to set up traps, cameras, and remote sensing equipment. In lakes, streams, or reservoirs, scientists sometimes stick an electrified rod into the water to stun fish, to identify and count them. Surveys may happen multiple times over a series of months. And based on when a species is likely to appear, surveys may be conducted under the cover of night. Surveys are even more challenging in parts of the deep ocean where some offshore wind and oil prospectors are eyeing projects, Fahner said, because the depths are difficult to reach and some are home to species that have never been identified and cataloged. To meet regulatory requirements, environmental monitoring consulting is “worth a lot of money as an industry,” said Kelly. “If they could do it in a way that was more efficient and more powerful, they would.” Purveyors of environmental DNA prize its efficiency. eDNA sampling requires fewer people collecting air, dirt, or water in cheap bottles or vials. Much of the work happens back at the lab, where companies extract DNA from samples, sequence it, and then enter the results in a database to identify species matches. eDNA tests can locate a specific species, like an endangered animal or an invasive plant, or provide a picture of an entire ecosystem. And researchers are deploying methods that allow for live sequencing in the field. Today, according to industry experts, the most well-established use of eDNA for species monitoring is tracking of the great crested newt, an amphibian native to Europe and legally protected in the United Kingdom. Traditional surveys to track the newt required four night missions—one in each season—to trap specimens under plastic bottles, with a return in the morning to count them. For the last several years, biodiversity monitoring companies have used environmental DNA instead. Surveyors can scoop up water at any time of day and the DNA isolated can signal if newts are present, saving both time and labor. “It all comes down to that value proposition: What is the advantage of using eDNA over other methods?” said Andrew Weeks, technical director at EnviroDNA, an Australian eDNA company that Weeks believes was the first to operate in the country. In 2008, Gregg Schumer was working at a highly secure Canadian microbiology lab. His days were spent harvesting animal tissue and testing it for viral DNA from pathogens like Ebola. At the time, a childhood friend was the principal scientist at a consulting company that was tracking the Delta smelt, an endangered fish usually less than three inches long, in California waterways. “We began talking,” said Schumer, “and realized that my searching for viruses in organ systems was not unlike trying to find a really small fish in a very big system, and that we could use the exact same technique.” Soon, the two started sampling water from the same California rivers they grew up fishing, analyzing the samples for smelt DNA. In 2009, that work gave rise to one of the earliest environmental DNA companies: Genidaqs. Genidaqs got its first grant soon after eDNA entered academic parlance. In 2008, researchers in France proposed a “novel approach” to detect species from aquatic samples, amplifying short sequences of DNA and matching it to a species of frog. That paper is recognized as the first to recommend eDNA to monitor species, but the general concept has been around for much longer, Schumer said. “The term eDNA, for use in ecological or pathogen-detection applications, in that context, is relatively new,” he said. “But people have been pulling DNA out of the environment ever since they knew that DNA existed.” The commercial eDNA landscape rose up soon after the French paper was published, with companies like Genidaqs, pronounced genetics, and SPYGEN, a French company that in 2011 rolled out of the lab that produced that original paper. Many eDNA companies have sprouted from academic labs or research settings, after biologists and geneticists familiar with DNA sequencing saw an opening to use the tool to pull more information from uncontrolled settings like rivers. Most companies are relatively young; only in the past few years, Schumer said, has there been enough interest for a company to exist on eDNA-related business alone. Large international consulting companies, including Jacobs and Stantec, now also offer environmental DNA services to clients, but sequencing is still largely carried out at a handful of corporate and academic labs. “There’s not very many commercial labs that do environmental DNA work out there, and there’s even fewer that are dedicated towards it,” said Fahner at eDNAtec, founded by a professor at Canada’s University of Guelph in 2015. Though eDNA services are becoming more in demand, regulations are most advanced in Europe, where England’s acceptance of eDNA tools to monitor great crested newts in 2014 “really changed things,” said Liz Allchin, global principal for biology and ecology at Jacobs. To date, Weeks and Kelly said, England appears to be the only country with a national, regulatory eDNA standard; in this case it provisions how eDNA can be used to monitor a specific species. Elsewhere, the legal landscape for eDNA methods remains a bit of a “wild west,” said Schumer. There is international interest, though. In Canada, eDNAtec has collaborated with the government on a few projects; the country’s Science Advisory Secretariat has also created a guidance document on using eDNA in decision-making. Finland has a national eDNA strategy and Australia developed a national eDNA reference center. Japan maintains a biodiversity monitoring network that uses eDNA and the Danish Environmental Protection Agency uses the tool to monitor for aquatic invasive species. Beginning in 2016, the U.S. government eDNA working group has convened researchers and officials at least six times to discuss the state of eDNA research and how to integrate the tool into governmental work in areas such as invasive species or pollinator monitoring. Some U.S. agencies, including the U.S. Geological Survey and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, have used eDNA testing. But no national strategy exists in the U.S., though some academics, including Kelly, have advocated for one. Wide-ranging governmental acceptance of eDNA would mean a windfall for companies selling these tools. Without it, some companies and researchers are hesitant to estimate the market’s future size. Meanwhile, companies like Best Bees are experimenting with applications outside of traditional environmental monitoring. Wilson-Rich has consulted on how certain honey producers can verify the origin of their product through the plant DNA it contains and sell it at a premium, similar to Manuka honey, a mainstay at health food stores. Sustainable fishery advocates have proposed monitoring for illegal fishing using eDNA. Biologists and engineers have deployed autonomous submersibles to trawl the ocean floor for eDNA that may lead to new drugs. And on farms, scientists have experimented with using eDNA to test soil health and identify pests. eDNA data could eventually generate value on its own. Last year, BeZero Carbon, an agency that rates the quality of carbon credits, began testing the use of eDNA as a proxy to gauge ecosystem health by looking for changes in the makeup of microbial communities in response to environmental stressors. Its use “as a tool for capturing ecosystem characteristics,” the agency notes on its website, “could be an important step in the development of nature-based credits.” Biodiversity credits could one day be available to companies that demonstrate an improvement to the natural landscape. That credit market is nascent—and it’s already received criticism—but international interest is growing. By 2030, the biodiversity offsets and credit market could be worth over $160 billion, according to BloombergNEF. Measuring biodiversity is more difficult than other voluntary credit systems, like carbon credits, said BeZero Carbon’s chief science officer Nick Atkinson, because biodiversity is not defined by a single measure. eDNA results can be collected over time, demonstrating how an environment changes. “We need the tools and the techniques to be able to measure biodiversity, and eDNA is one of them,” said Atkinson. “It’s very useful.” Along with excitement, though, there is skepticism. Atkinson is quick to point out that eDNA is no “magic bullet.” As with any set of data, it is open to bias, said Kelly at the University of Washington: “It could be analyzed in a responsible way, or an irresponsible way.” Bioethicists also worry that, without regulation, eDNA could lead to serious privacy concerns if companies are not restricted on how they can use it or whether they’re able to sell the data they collect. The tool has other limitations. Environmental DNA currently can’t be used to determine abundance of a species, for instance. And in certain circumstances, eDNA tests can lead to false positives and negatives—a winged creature may pick up plant or animal DNA in a field and drop it in an unexpected place, like a parking lot, or a fish may swim through an area and leave very little DNA behind. “Usually when you don’t detect something, you can’t say it was absent, you can say it wasn’t detected,” said Fahner. “All tests have a limit.” Instead, eDNA may work best if used as “an early warning system” to guide further research, said Weeks. eDNA can provide a snapshot of a landscape and offer information on a wide area; then, those tests may still need to be followed up with catch surveys or field surveys. “It’s like a hammer, you can pound a nail with it or you can smash your thumb. So, if it’s used correctly, in the right context, it does provide meaningful data that add value to what’s already being done,” said Schumer at Genidaqs. “That added value, that’s the business.” The challenge now, according to Weeks, is to prove that value without overpromising. “It’s like any new technology: It’ll go through that innovation adoption curve, where you’ll have early adopters, you’ll have this weight of expectation of what it can provide,” he said. “Eventually, there will be some, probably, level of disillusionment, because it can’t actually supply some of the things that people thought it could.” “The challenge for us, as people that provide the service in the industry,” he added, “is to make sure that weight of expectation never gets beyond what it really can do.” This story was originally published on Undark. Read the original article.

Gabriel Gadsden joins the Agents of Change in Environmental Justice podcast to discuss the intersection of rodent infestations and energy justice and how we can simultaneously tackle both issues.Gadsden, a current fellow and Ph.D. student of Environmental Sciences at Yale University’s School of the Environment, also talks about getting researchers to break out of siloed thinking, tips for science communicators and how his golf game is going. The Agents of Change in Environmental Justice podcast is a biweekly podcast featuring the stories and big ideas from past and present fellows, as well as others in the field. You can see all of the past episodes here.Listen below to our discussion with Gadsden, and subscribe to the podcast at iTunes, Spotify, or Stitcher.Agents of Change in Environmental Justice · Gabriel Gadsden on the rodent infestation and energy justice connectionTranscriptBrian Bienkowski Gabriel, how are you doing today?Gabriel Gadsden I'm doing great. It's very exciting to be on the podcast. Also, we've gotten some time to hang out with each other and learn a little bit about each other. And so to bridge that conversation further is exciting. And hopefully, you know, people listen to it and take something away from our conversation today.Brian Bienkowski Yes, hopefully people do listen to it. That's an important part of this. And I know that people will and are listening right now. So that's, that's good to know. And Gabriel, where are you today? Where are you talking to us from?Gabriel Gadsden I'm in New Haven, Connecticut. In the basement, in my office, my advisor said that doesn't look like I live in ... which I don't know if is a good thing or a bad thing, depending on your take on academia being a grad student. Funny or not even funny. But we just had our first snowstorm in New Haven. But it's already gone.Brian Bienkowski Came and went, heyGabriel Gadsden yeah, already gone, indeed.Brian Bienkowski When our snow comes here, it doesn't leave 'till May. So we just keep, we just keep stacking it, and stacking it on top of old snow, which I like it is a good, it is a good thing for us to have that. So speaking of place, if you've listened to the podcast, you know, I'd like to go back to the beginning, before we talk about the exciting stuff you're working on now. So tell me about Hayti. I hope I'm pronouncing that right. But historically Black community in Durham, North Carolina where you grew up.Gabriel Gadsden Yeah, no. So Hayti. And don't feel bad because I feel like everybody gets it wrong when they first read it. It does read like Haiti, but it's Hayti. It is the Black section of I would say more like center-southerner. There's actually a Hayti historic center, which kind of documents both a congregation space but also a area that documents the history of that area. So it kind of runs between Fable street and Highway 55, in North Carolina. The Center is around there. A lot of Black businesses, the North Carolina Mutual Insurance Company is kind of connected to the Hayti center, a lot of Black elementary and middle schools ... Shepherd Middle School is around there. So a hub of you know, Black entrepreneurs and academia educators kind of in that areas, putting roots down. And that's where a lot of my family grew up in North Carolina.Brian Bienkowski And I'm guessing that Hayti, since you grew up there as a child, you don't know any difference, right? I mean, when you're a child, wherever you grow up, that's what you know. But what can you pieced together from growing up there? maybe it is how it affected you now or in your youth?Gabriel Gadsden you know, but maybe not outside so much of Hayti in my family. I... my dad was always big on you know, understanding the history of where we're coming from, you know, ancestors and whatnot. Understand the history of Durham. He was there when he was a child while his mother was in grad school at UNC in public health while his dad was in law school as well. And so, you know, he got to see Durham and Hayti in a very different light. And so, you're just kind of understanding that, you know, by the time that I was being reared in North Carolina, North Carolina Mutual had closed down its doors. And so that's kind of, you know, you can see in a lot of black areas of cities, you know, there's this really steep incline of entrepreneurship and whatnot, and then there's a decline, for whatever reason, whether there's a highway being built, you know, just kind of distant disinvestment into an area, it still had a lot of the history and the roots was still there, but it wasn't maybe as bustling as, as it would have been in maybe the 50s, 60s.Brian Bienkowski And where and how did science enter your life?Gabriel Gadsden Yeah, you know, I was most excited about this question. And I kind of molded over it and thinking about it. I think that for me, science was always a part of my trajectory, as it was a part of my life. And so I'll say this: growing up, I was diagnosed with a speech impediment that was in part because I couldn't hear, and I still can't hear out of my right ear. And so, you know, not being able to talk to kids, and not really being able to hear anybody, I kind of stayed in my own head, stayed to myself, but, you know, when you're wandering, you know, devoid of interaction with other kids, you find other things to interact with. And so my first thing was rocks, loved them loved how they looked, clean them, you know, put them in buckets, and had this rock collection. So you know, first thing was geology for me. And then I got a little bit older, and then it became PBS. So I was watching Zoom. And learning about chemistry didn't know it was chemistry at the time. But they were adding baking soda and sodium chloride and making gases. And so I would go into my parents’ bathroom probably wasted about $200 worth of product throughout that time period. And I was mixing Vitalis, and Listerine, and alcohol and hoping that I was making and make a discovery of some new chemical, some new gas. My mom had a bachelor's degree from North Carolina Central University. That was her first degree from there. And, you know, she said to me, "don't mix ammonia and bleach." As you know, she saw what I was doing, but they kind of let me stay off for myself after that it was Zaboomafoo. And, you know, I won't sing the catchphrase. But you know, you know, who do you see? Can you identify this mystery? What was this animal? and loved Animal Planet, "Top 10 dangerous," and all of these other shows just really captivated me when I was younger. And so you know, taking that into the classroom, being generally curious, not really having the foundations. And I think we'll get into that a little bit more. But in the last thing, I'll say, and why I say that science was just kind of always the part of me, was that I grew up and still am religious. And so in Christianity, what is my religion that I identify with, but you know, whether it's Judaism, Buddhism, Muslim, you will find environmentalism, ecology in the roots of them. And that's something that I've kind of come back to now here at Yale School of the Environment, a lot of connections with the Divinity School, and recognizing the similarities and recognizing that our morality is tied to the environment. And obviously, with traditional ecological knowledge, TEK, I think kind of making a resurgence in people's psyche, and the paradigm shift that we need to really get back to, quote-unquote, "roots" is something that I've always carried with me. There's tons of verses in the Bible that a lot more knowledgeable people could spout off in terms of connecting those two. And so I was filled with wonder when I was a kid, and it carried me to here.Brian Bienkowski Excellent. And you just alluded to this; you said, I remember this in your application. You mentioned that your primary education left you woefully unprepared to conduct research, which I don't think is an uncommon thing. I know I hadn't seen a scientific paper until graduate school. I didn't know what they were. So I don't think you're alone. But can you talk about this obstacle? And how you overcame it to go on to, right now, one of the most prestigious universities in the country?Gabriel Gadsden Absolutely, I'll start with this. I don't want that statement. You know, people hear it to say that I had bad instructors or teachers. My elementary school was filled, filled with amazing educators. I could name them, and some of them are still friends with me now. These were incredible people. But when it came to specialists, we had computer PE, art, and music. There was no science special. It was, there was one teacher at the school at the time, Mrs. Daniels, who had a classroom filled with animals and that was probably the closest thing we got to true science education at that time. Then I went to middle school and so obviously I've been watching these shows and asking my own questions, reading my own books. But it's just another step up now you're just learning about tectonic plates and geology, you know, kind of periods and whatnot, the Paleocene or Jurassic, kind of understanding that. But that stuff there I had already read. It wasn't fascinating to me. It was nice to be able to raise my hand and know that, you know, the question that kind of kept my interest in science. But we weren't learning the scientific method, we weren't looking at two different species and asking, Why is this one different, and whether or not we could change in the laboratory, we weren't getting any kind of hands-on experience. Same thing in high school. I didn't see science shown to a younger audience until I was a TA, and teaching assistant for Duke TIP, which is a talent program run by Duke University. And there I saw, you know, true scientific method building, trying things, failing, going back, you know, iterative process, that's kind of part of the science experiments that you see in laboratories. You know, went to a high school college. And so, I did get some early science classroom experience before going off to the UNC. But when I got there, you know, understanding how to navigate those classrooms, but also recognizing that there was a world outside of chemistry and biology, which just was not something that clicked to me, I think about it now, and I probably should have should have been an environmental science major, I would have had an easier time. You know, it wasn't until sophomore year that I realized that I was taking classes that were for pre-med, you know, doctors, and that's not what I wanted to do. I knew that going in. But I didn't know of other majors. And so it's it's kind of a multi-tier thing, both from the kind of primary education getting students prepped for the many fields that are going to be available to you as a college student, but also colleges recognizing and you know, I've seen I have some friends now who are in like STEM education, at the kind of academic level, and are trying to write papers and trying to understand what fails when they make that jump from high school to college. I think that there's some really good progress going on. But I think it's kind of a two-fold issue. One, a lot of the primary education, particularly in Black communities, don't have the money to bring in science instructors to do specials, or science Fridays and stuff like that. But then two, when you get to the university level, universities just aren't understanding that students are coming in from very different standpoints, and maybe have very different interest and maybe only thinks that biology is the only way to get into science, which isn't the case.Brian Bienkowski It's a great point. And I like to think that this program, not only is... the point is to show that scientists themselves are from diverse backgrounds and can be diverse people. But also that science itself is diverse. I think I grew up thinking that science; maybe, I think you were saying this kind of too, I thought of chemists, chemistry, beakers, and you know, the lab experience experiments and didn't think of social scientists or, you know, even forestry and fisheries to a certain extent, were things that I think if I would have been exposed to at a younger age, I would have said, "Oh, my goodness, yes, I want to do that! That's excellent" So yeah, those are excellent points. And I hope I hope some of this program is opening people's eyes to different types of cool science. So before we get into that cool science that you are doing right now, what is the defining moment or event that shaped your identity?Gabriel Gadsden So from a science standpoint, when I was an intern with the Applied Wildlife Ecology Lab, with Dr. Harris, Sam Harris at the University of Michigan, at the time, was the first time going and doing kind of forested wildlife ecology fieldwork. And I remember going into the forest and kind of seeing the light beams, and hot and sweaty – and had just climbed a hill and gone through the thicket– and I kind of emerged into this field and felt a spiritual connection, a birthing. You know, it was, it was truly a moment of great pleasure for me to knowing that I had finally done that, what I felt like my life was supposed to be, like was going out and collecting data and trying to then come back and share that data with with people. From a more personal standpoint... Maybe, man, my parents would have a different story. I know the story my dad would tell. For me, it was maybe a bit of a devotional, I was actually dedicated to God when I was seven. And I felt like I was always a good kid, I felt like I always had this connection, you know, we talked about a little bit earlier. But for me, it was this recognition that... humbling experience to know that I am just a small dot in this great big world, and a lot of it that we don't understand and that we have faith in it. We have faith in science, right, that we'll learn some of our answers, and we have faith in our religions. We have faith in humanity and our people. I think that was a moment, you know, being very young and actually just realizing that I'm just a dot in this, you know, kind of vastness, but I could make a difference. Clearly, people felt like I was making a difference in their lives within that, that congregation. And so I think, "oh, I can make a difference in this world. And whatever capacity I am," I've tried to carry that with me.Brian Bienkowski Excellent. That's an excellent, excellent couple of moments. And let's get into some of the research you're doing now in making that difference. And so I've had the good fortune to not only talk to you when you applied for this program, but we met in Philadelphia and talked about your research. So some of this I know, but some I don't. And I find it fascinating. So as you put it, it's kind of at the intersection of human health, wildlife, and energy justice. So can you, just off the top, tell us how these three fields merge in your research?Gabriel Gadsden How does it merge? It started when I was back an intern, and walking through the forest with with my advisor, Dr. Harrison, starting to ask questions about society, and how all this what it really meant, when it boiled down to it. Again, my dad and mom had instilled in me, you know, we need to stand up for what we think is right. You know, being just and being fair, and morality. Science was the path that I was taking. It wasn't like I was gonna go to law school, though my dad might still think that's a possibility. And the questions in ecology just weren't there. At that time, I don't think ecology –this was, you know, back in 2016, 2017– I don't think that they had really kind of saw that ecology could really be tied to social justice or social equity. And at that point, I'm really grateful that Dr. Harris kind of saw that and wants people to be great. So it's like, well, you should probably go into environmental science, try to find Dr. Tony Reams, who was at the time taking on students who does energy justice work. And I kind of made that pivot and knew at the time that it was a hard pivot. But it worked out. And I just had a text message kind of chat with Tony and just, you know, still believes in me, He still thinks that the ideas are great, and going to continue to do good things. But there, I was able to actually collect data that was directly tied or more visceral for people doing air quality data in an efficient housing. And so environmental justice is, you know, public health, public health is epidemiology, and you know, all these things kind of merge and mix together. And so recognizing that people were living in inefficient housing, and then had bad health, having this background in ecology with wildlife, and you know, how as a story goes, I was reading energy justice papers, and I was reading wildlife papers. And I thought to myself, "Oh, foxes, and other things like raccoons and bats live in people's homes. How do they get into those homes, though?" And then, you know, I just, you know, the literature, you know, they talk about these gaps in the foundation and inefficient walls. And so there's no insolation. So it becomes, basically just a nesting place for wildlife. And I thought, "Oh, wow, this is, it's pretty interesting." And, you know, lo and behold, there wasn't a lot of data on it. Now, I can certainly talk more about the literature that is there. But at the time, and still to a large degree, there is not any hard data about housing quality and wildlife and health and putting those two together, even though you know, wildlife, they carry zoonotic diseases that can be, you know, obviously transmissible to humans, that make us sick. And so, you know, it's kind of becomes this double jeopardy of if you have wildlife that are in your house carrying diseases and you're already in poor health because of your inefficient housing, what that could mean for public health crises? and kind of being cost effective. If there's a solution to multiple things, we should probably champion that solution. And I have to thank Dr. Grove for that, in the urban ecology class that I just was a teaching fellow for, understanding this complex nature of problems. And if we don't think complex, you know that they are complex problems, and there's multiple ways of entering the issue, then we're not going to get very far.Brian Bienkowski And just on the ground level, what does this research look like? How do you conduct a study that examines both energy inefficiency and rodents?Gabriel Gadsden Yeah, so, as a first year, as then, last year, first-year Ph.D. student or someone trying to get into grad school, I thought I was going to save the world and then realized, no, it wasn't realistic. But you know, we have an unlimited supply of plunder, right? Um, I thought I was going to talk to some people in Philadelphia; they were going to let me into the house, we were going to get all this money and do home interview scores. ATS is, and then we're going to trap inside. And then we were going to retrofit with another $15,000. And then do a before-and-after controlled trial. None of that happened or didn't happen yet. We were still optimistic that some of those things would happen in time. And hopefully, you know, the funders who are listening to this will recognize the importance of this. But the reality is that we're starting outside, you know, Philadelphia. While they do have vector control, Philadelphia has not kind of systematically kept ties with, you know, what the pathogens are, and where the rodents are in the city outside of 311 calls. And so hopefully working with them to get them just kind of more data, where the rodents in the city, I think it's kind of the first question and what environmental variables, you know, both, you know, trash receptacles, Park size, you know, trash on the street, housing, type of housing stock, is attributing rodent populations, or is increasing or decreasing rodent populations, excuse me. I think that’s, so that's the first step. And then the second step is to then, you know, ask for in these neighborhoods, collecting rodents making contacts, hopefully, we have a meeting tomorrow with 57 Blocks, which is a gun violence advocacy kind of research group out at the DA office in Philadelphia, recognizing that some of these issues with what is attracting rodents in cities, also could mitigate or increased gun violence. And so I say that to say, you, you work with people who are already doing great work in the city on different issues – Philly Thrive and other folks that are doing EJ work – And hopefully, by those connections and those collaborations, then they will say, "Oh, yes, this person, it would love to talk to you about this research." And that's how we're going to get into homes.Brian Bienkowski So to zoom out, we're talking about cracks in the foundation are problems in the home that are first leading to energy inefficiency. So maybe your bills are higher, your house isn't as warm, your house isn't as cool. And then the second part of that is rodents are able to get in. And what kinds of diseases or health problems are we talking about when we think about rodents getting into people's homes?Gabriel Gadsden So first is childhood asthma, allergens that are already so if you're in a low income area, you likely maybe have some type of power plant or some type of industry that's near you. So you already have those pollutants getting into your home more because it's inefficient, or for whatever reason, you have higher rates of asthma, and now you add on allergen load from mice and rats, so that's going to be exacerbated. So, you know, more ER trips, more money spent on inhalers and other types of treatments. There's also the issue of leptospirosis, which, and hantavirus, s more in the west right now. And I'm not going to get into kind of the debacle of funding that research in cities or in other areas outside of the West. But but certainly those are kind of the two main ones. There's also typhus –plague is still in Detroit.Brian Bienkowski and I have to imagine that there's a mental health, stress component to this. There's social stress, I mean, the idea of maybe you don't want to invite people into your home when you know you have an infestation. So I can see this kind of spider webbing outside of the very acute, physical, physical illnesses into mental and social struggles. So I don't want to place blame here and I know this is probably a large issue with some historical roots. But who's to blame? What is the... why is this historically been a blind spot for regulators, housing officials and others?Gabriel Gadsden 1950s was a really big time. I don't know the researcher's first name but Davies, I believe it's his last name, did a lot of work in Baltimore. There's a lot of really great case studies in Budapest and some other cities of like kind of rat-proof towns that brought population levels of rats down to less than 1% of their historic numbers. Even in Philadelphia in the 1940s, they have their first really big campaign about getting rid of rodents. And then in the 1960s, the mayor kind of created the rat control group, and that rat control group, you know, said, you know, that we will not take the job, if you do not seal up all the cracks in any, you know, in your home, you know, essentially, you know, back then maybe they didn't think about is energy efficiency of sealing up your envelope and the energy inside it, you know, get that, but it makes sense. But life happens, policy change, you know, turnover, it's a lot easier to say, you know, put out bait blocks, and rodent trapping, than to actually do systemic change. We see that time and time again. Actually, solving an issue takes coordinated efforts between many different factors from public health, to housing and development, to parks and rec, all coming together at that table. And cities are not willing to make that choice, at least in America right now, major cities, I'm not going to bash on any politician. But if you follow New York politics, you would have received like a rat czar job posting recently. And the reality is, you know, all the memes where, you know, Charlie Day from Always Sunny Philadelphia, kind of what's his kind of mace-bat-like situation that's gonna go, get rid of all the rodents. And that's not going to work. You know, it’s, and it's not just sanitation, is not just sealing up the home. And it's not just getting rid of vacant lots. It's all of those things at once, across a large scale in a city. And so until we're ready to put up that money, allow natural predators into our cities and kind of coexist with nature in a healthy way. And I don't think that you know, so, you know, really, really comes down to is political will and resource allocation. I mean, most researchers will say, you know, that's a lot of the issues. And if you throw money out enough, it'll fix itself, and you get the right people in the room. But right now, we just, there's really great researchers. Jason Munchie. I'm drawing a blank. But even Merkin Rosenbaum. These are people who are doing rodent research right now. And certainly know more than I do. But I think would advocate the same thing that is a, you know, you have to have this team of teams. To quote Dr. Grove, Morton Grove, if you don't have this team of teams, you're not going to solve the issue. And so cities have to really be ready to sit down and bring people together and spend the money.Brian Bienkowski What makes you hopeful about this? you mentioned some researchers who are doing very good work. Are you seeing any on-the-ground movement in Philadelphia or beyond? What makes you hopeful and optimistic?Gabriel Gadsden Yeah, I mean, Matt Fryer, another researcher, just trying to create like this really handy, simple rodent tool you can kind of put into cracks and understand whether, you know, it is susceptible to being infested by rodents. So you have this, you know, research-entrepreneurship, kind of burgeoning space, you also have new sensors, with Rat Mo, there are different technologies that are trying to get up, you know, making sure that we spend money in an efficient manner. As much as I don't think the idea of a rat czar going to work, the fact that, that that is a possibility that, you know, maybe the right person that's in that position could really make a change if they're kind of advocating for all of these different methods and allocating funds in the right spaces. I also think that there's maybe a little bit of a change in public perception... I kind of write and so I'm working on, you know, Environmental Health News with you and Maria, that, you know, it's time that people stop accepting this as the normal and I'm seeing that more and more maybe that's because I'm in this space. But I certainly think that as it gets out of hand again, I think COVID-19, and this kind of increase in route and sightings people at home are recognizing that, you know, they're out during the daytime, they're out during the night time, they're, you know that the squeaky wheel is going to get squeakier. And so I think I'm seeing a little bit more of that. I certainly know all of my friends know about it more. And so they send me a lot of papers and different articles from different fields, kind of hinting at this as well. And so I think that does make me optimistic. You know, I certainly have gotten some great responses for my work and so recognizing that people see this as a, as a serious issue, I think it will only get easier to advocate for true rodent exclusion or reduction of populations in an impactful way.Brian Bienkowski Yeah, sometimes a big first step for any of these kinds of wicked issues is just awareness. It's a good, it's a good first step. And speaking of that, so I know after I talked to you about your research, it seemed very intuitive, that these problems would be linked, but it is different and intersectional. And I'm sure you've had to explain it to folks, I'm wondering if you just have any tips for scientists interested in learning to better communicate.Gabriel Gadsden After just giving two presentations, two final presentations, I should have practiced more and everybody in my lab as a practice, you know? giving a talk to very different fields also helps. You know, most people don't study rodents, particularly in ecology, or at least well, urban ecology, just because they're not considered wildlife. And so you have to talk to the epidemiologists who are in a very public health, atmosphere or medical research. And so you have to link these things, even this idea of, you know, retrofitting versus, you know, sealing up the envelope, what word you use? those choice words, getting rid of the jargon, paring it down writing different grants, and then writing research talks, and then writing an academic article about it, you're putting it in very different ways. And you find out what works and what clicks with people. Just keep harping on it, if you believe in it, you know, the right words are going to come. And, you know, the same thing as you're reading widely talk to as many different groups. Because they know, someone in social science may say, "this is a word that would really clicked with people."Brian Bienkowski I also think starting off, as you as I've heard you do, with just kind of how this affects people is a very tangible way to make these issues click with people. I mean, we've all, most of us – I had a mouse in the house the other day – I mean, this is, this is common, this is a common thing that a lot of people have dealt with, maybe not on the scale that you're researching. But I think starting with, how does this impact people and their health is a really good starting point. And I've seen you do that. So of course, you can't be out there chasing rodents and looking at foundations all of the time. I happen to know you're a golfer. So what is... I don't know if it's golf weather out there if you're getting a bunch of snow, but when you are able to golf, do you get out much, and what's your handicap these days?Gabriel Gadsden I do get, I get out as much as I can. Yale is really generous and allows students to play at a discounted rate after turn hours. And so I'll go over there, it's a great golf course. And handicap, you know, I'll say this, there are no pictures on a scorecard. And that can work in a good way or a bad way. What I'll say is that I can get some pars most of the time. I'm shooting bogey, every now and again. I'll get a double bogey or triple bogey more often than I'd like. But if I were doing like a two-man scramble, I wouldn't hold you down as badly as you would think.Brian Bienkowski Before we get you out of here today, I have three rapid-fire questions that are supposed to be fun. Hopefully they are fun, where you can just answer with one word or a phrase. So the first one is, what was the highlight of the past year for youGabriel Gadsden was able to go to... see my family. You know, I don't get to see them often. And so in spending any time with my dad and playing golf with my brother. It's always a treat seeing my nieces and my nephews is always fun; being with themBrian Bienkowski For sure. The best concert I've ever been to was Gabriel Gadsden Oh, two. So Mick Jenkins not maybe a conscious rapper but a little bit less conscious. Really fun and authentic feeling, and then Jidenna, the '85 to Africa tour was really great. I'm a small concert like... I'm huge I love going to concerts. I like going to the smaller ones. I don't think I'll ever go see Beyonce or Drake. But the 30,000 people do It doesn't seem fun.Brian Bienkowski That makes, that makes two of us this, the more intimate concerts are, well, they're more intimate. You get to see and feel things in a much different way. I totally agree. And last question every day I look forward to blank.Gabriel Gadsden Being a good person, trying to be a genuine and caring person, I think, sometimes can throw people off. Like, what's up with this guy? But I hope that I hope that people who know me and or will meet me now this is just as genuine as I can to be nice.Brian Bienkowski But I sure hope being kind doesn't spark too much skepticism among people in your life or beyond. Because it's, it's something I felt from you, and I think it's it's a good thing. We should all be kind and genuine. So last question. I've been asking everybody, what is the last book that you read for fun?Gabriel Gadsden Cool. The last book I read for fun. I have to I pulled them off-site, so I won’t butcher their name. So the one I actually just finished was The Age disaster, the failure of organizations in New York and the nation. Great book, quite old, at this point. 1990 was published, but still is very salient, particularly because of the COVID-19, the climate disaster, I mean, you name it, there's a lack of, of coordination and whatnot. So yeah, go go get that. And that was like a free book lying around that I had just picked up from the department. And then, the other book is Fighting the good fight: The militarization of the civil rights movement. And so I'm currently reading that, and I've had some really good conversations because there's something to be said about whether or not we should be using this language. Is it helpful? Is it actually more harmful because of traumatic kind of imagery that comes with militarization? I'm still debating that myself, but I certainly find it a thought-provoking book, if not a bit challenging for a person to kind of wrap their heads around. So I've been asking people, you know, that's my question now at talks. Hey, should we be using this language? Is that hopeful to take that militarization of civil rights to the militarization of climate justice, and whether or not these campaigns and precision and training and communications, those types of things that make campaigns go well, should be co-opted?Brian Bienkowski Excellent. Sounds like a thought-provoking book. And speaking of thought-provoking, you can find Gabriel's essay soon out on ehn.org, where you can learn more about his research. And we'll be sure to get that in front of readers and listeners, Gabriel, thank you so much. We're doing this today. It's a pleasure having you in the program.Gabriel Gadsden Thank you so much. Have a wonderful day. And thank you to everybody who's listening.