Income tax 2022-2023, rental property, special situation, condominiums, corporatives, and property changed to rental use. Let's do some wealth preservation with some tax preparation. Most of this information comes from publication 527 Residential Rental Property including rental of vacation homes tax year 2022 you can find on the IRS website irs.gov irs.gov looking at the income tax formula we're focused on line one income remembering the first half of the income tax formula is in essence an income statement but just an outline other forms and schedules flowing into these line items one of those the schedule E in essence an income statement in and of itself rental income minus rental expenses the net rental income flowing into line one income of the income tax formula with rental real estate income as with business income we typically want to keep it separate from our personal activities which helps us with our bookkeeping it helps us with our planning and budgeting into the future and of course it helps us with our tax preparation so in prior presentations we've been focusing in on scenarios where we have a separate piece of property used 100 support accounting instruction by clicking the link below giving you a free month membership to all of the content on our website broken out by category further broken out by course each course then organized in a logical reasonable fashion making it much more easy to find what you need then can be done on a YouTube page we also include added resources such as Excel practice problems PDF files and more like QuickBooks backup files when applicable so once again click the link below for a free month membership to our website and all the content on it 100% as a rental property now the concepts that we looked at in that type of scenario will typically apply even when things get a little bit more convoluted and then we've got to deal with the convolutedness such as situations where we have a personal use component for example if we use a property for rental property for part of the year and then we actually use it for personal use for part of the year like a vacation home kind of situation or if we have a situation where we live in a unit or live in a place but we rent part of it out now we have to be parsing out between business and personal we also could have situations where we have like common areas that we'll talk about okay so first let's take a look at the condominiums so a condominium is most often a dwelling unit and a multi-unit building but can also take take other forms such as Hound House or garden apartment so now you've got this unit that's in a building you own it you're not renting the unit but you own the unit in the building so if you own a condominium you also own a share of the common elements such as land lobbies elevator and service areas so obviously if you think about a building you own a nice place in the condominium but you have to get up there to get to the place you've got the elevator you've got all the common areas related to the condominium those are owned in part by the owners of the condominium so now you've got this kind of community kind of situation that is owning these common areas and then of course you own the unit exclusively so you and the other condominium owners may pay dues or assessments to a special corporation that is organized to take care of the common elements and now you've got this little political unit that's designed for the purpose of taking care of those common areas which everybody of course disagrees on how to do but in any case special rules apply if you rent your condominium to others so you can deduct as rental expenses all the expenses discussed in chapter 1 and 2 in addition you can deduct any dues or assessments paid for maintenance of the common elements which kind of makes sense right if you have the condominium you rent out the condominium well now you've got the expenses related to the condominium that are similar to other kinds of rental property but you also have these dues that are being paid which are basically required for the condominium so you would think you'd be able to deduct them as rental expenses you can't deduct special assessments you pay to a condominium management corporation for improvements however you may be able to recover your share of the cost of any improvement by taking depreciation corporatives if you live in a corporative you don't own your apartment instead a corporation owns the apartments and you are a tenant stockholder in the corporative housing corporation so it's a different structure of ownership which could have some benefits but has some complexities attached to it as well clearly it's a similar structure as we see in the business world with a corporation so we can compare like a partnership for example to a corporation if you have a partnership in a normal business setting the partners own the partnership directly their percentage ownership is determined by their capital accounts and the partnership agreement when we move to a corporation we think of the corporation as a separate legal entity which could lend some liability protection to the owners the shareholders of the corporation which is one reason to go to a corporation often times in a normal kind of business settings and then the ownership of the corporation is going to be broken out into fixed units of shares which make the shares easier to kind of transfer often times and then someone's ownership in the corporation will be dependent on the number of shares that are owned in it so you have a similar kind of structure here instead of valuing your particular unit or owning your particular unit and then having joint ownership of some kind to the common areas you would think you can imagine the whole thing as basically one corporation kind of situation and your ownership will be reflected by the number of tenant stockholders so once again if you live in a corporate you don't own your apartment directly instead a corporation owns the apartments corporations being a separate legal entity but it's just an entity and obviously you own part of the entity and you are a tenant stockholder in the corporate housing corporation so you own stocks that's going to be reflecting your value in the corporation ok so if you rent your apartment to others you can usually deduct as a rental expense all the maintenance fees you pay to the corporate housing corporation in addition to the maintenance fees paid to the corporate housing corporation you can deduct your direct payments for repairs, upkeep and other rental expenses including interest paid on a loan used by your stock in the corporation alright depreciation you will be depreciating your stock in the corporation rather than apartment itself this is where it gets kind of messy here it gets a little bit confusing because now you have the stocks that are representing which are in a corporation which are representing your property so you want to be able to get the depreciation clearly as an expense so you will be depreciating your stock in the corporation rather than the apartment itself figure your depreciation deduction as follows one figure the depreciation for all the depreciable real property owned by the corporation so we're going to think about it as a full unit first and then kind of think about our share of the depreciation right that would be based on our amount of ownership that we have okay so depreciation methods are discussed in chapter 2 so the corporative would be doing their depreciation thing if you bought your corporate stock after its first offering figure the depreciation basis of this property as follows a multiply your cost per share by the total number of outstanding shares b add to the amount figured in a any mortgage debt on the property on the on the date you bought the stock c subtract from the amount figured in b any mortgage debt that isn't for depreciable real property such as the part for the land because we can only depreciate the building to subtract from the amount figured in one any depreciation for space owned by the corporation that can be rented but can't be lived in by tenant stockholders three divide the number of your shares of stock by the total number of shares outstanding including any shares held by the corporation so now we're this is the ratio that we have now right because it's our number of shares compared to the total number of shares out there that's kind of our percent ownership you would think right so four multiply the result of two by the percent you figured in three this is your depreciation of the stock okay your depreciation deduction for the year can't be more than the part of your adjusted basis defined in chapter two so in the stock and your corporation that is applicable to your rental property payments added to capital account payments earmarked for a capital asset or improvement or others otherwise charged to the corporation's capital account are added to the basis of your stock in the corporation for example you can't deduct a payment used to pave a community parking lot install a new roof or pay the principal of the corporation's mortgage treat as a capital cost the amount you were assessed for capital items this can't be more than the amount by which your payments to the corporate corporation exceeded your share of the corporation's mortgage interest in real estate taxes so you can see where kind of the complexity comes into play because now you have to parse out the depreciation you have to kind of figure what that's going to be and then if there's improvements if you're paying for improvements in the building those again would usually be capitalized items that you would need to depreciate instead of expensing at the point in time that they happen so your share of interest in taxes and your share of interest in taxes is the amount the corporation elected to allocate to you if it be reasonable if it be reasonably reflects those expenses for your apartment otherwise figure your share in the following manner so now you've got the interest in taxes that the corporative itself might do a reasonable allocation to try to allocate the interest in taxes because now the corporation itself as the corporative like as a separate legal entity is going to be dealing with paying the interest in taxes for everything right and you get but you should be able to be deducting the part of the interest that's applicable to you and the taxes if you're renting your place in the corporative so now the question is well how do you figure out your portion well maybe the corporative itself will do that with some reasonable method if they do not then you got to calculate that one divide the number of your shares of stock by the total number of shares outstanding that gives us your percent interest in essence including any shares held by the corporation to multiply the corporations deductible interest by the number you figured in one this is your share of the interest so fairly straightforward calculation not too bad three multiply the corporations deductible taxes by the number you figured in one this is your share of taxes alright next situation we've got property that's changed to rental use so possibly it was personal in use and then we changed it to rental use so the so the issue there often becomes around the basis of the cost of the property because you bought it some time ago when you bought it you bought it at fair market value but now when you when you changed it to rental use then the fair market value could have changed for example and you got to deal with that depreciation situation again so if you change your home or other property or part of it to rental use at any time other than the beginning of your tax year you must divide yearly expenses such as taxes and insurance between rental use and personal use so now you've got this mid-year kind of problem because you changed from from personal to rental in the middle of the year so you can deduct as a rental expenses only the part of the expenses that is for the part of the year the property was used or held for rental purposes you can't deduct depreciation or insurance for the part of the year the property was held for personal use however you can include the home mortgage interest in real estate tax expenses for the part of the year the property was held for personal use when figuring the amount you can deduct on schedule A example so your tax year is the calendar year you moved from your home in May and started renting it out on June 1st you can deduct as rental expenses 712 of your yearly expenses such as taxes and insurance which makes sense because that's 712 is the ratio of 7 over 12 months right the year that you rented it starting with June you can deduct as rental expenses the amounts you pay for items generally build monthly such as utilities when figuring depreciation treat the property as placed in service on June 1st so now that would be like if we bought the property and placed it in service or something like that similar situation because that's when we put it into the rental side of things from personal side of things now we have the basis issue so it's like okay so now I know when to put it on the books what am I going to put it on the bookstore because I didn't just buy it basis of property changed to rental use when you change your property you held for personal use to rental use for example you rent your former home the basis for the depreciation will be the lesser of the fair market value or adjusted basis on the date of conversion now this makes sense if you think about it because let's say you bought the property a long time ago for $100,000 and now it's going up to $150,000 and you're converting it from personal property to rental property if you were able to just put it on the books at $150,000 the higher fair market value you would have gotten what we call a step up in basis which is a good thing usually you would like to be able to do that but notice what happens now is you didn't realize the gain of the $50,000 so usually if you sold the home for $150,000 and you cost $100,000 you'd have a $50,000 gain that might be exempted in that case if it was your personal residence but you have that gain situation and so you can't just wipe out the gain by saying well now I'm going to put it on the books at $150,000 and be able to depreciate and get $150,000 worth of depreciation or if I sell the rental property I've got this stepped up basis so the higher basis is usually good we want to have a higher basis and the IRS is going to be skeptical to step up the basis so that would kind of make sense. Okay fair market value FMV, this is the price at which the property would change hands between a willing buyer and a willing seller neither having to buy or sell and both having reasonable knowledge of all the relevant facts now this is a great idea in concept that we use all the time and it's quite difficult it's impossible to know because all property is unique this is real estate this isn't stocks that are the same so we can't really we don't know what that is that's the problem so if you allow fair market value to be adjusted all the time you end up with people making appraisals and stuff that are too high or too low depending on what they're trying to do so we have to use this in concept this idea of fair market value but it's not the easiest thing to come to when you're talking about real estate which is all unique so sale of similar property on or about the same date may be helpful to figuring the fair market value of the property figuring the debt the basis the basis for depreciation is the lesser of the fair market value of the property on the date you changed it to rental use or your adjusted basis on the date of the change that is your original cost or other basis of the property plus the cost of permanent additions or improvements since you acquire it minus deductions for any casualty or theft losses claimed on earlier years income tax returns and other decreases to debt so notice that thinking about the basis of personal property like a home can be a little bit complex because unlike with rental property we don't have to track the basis of the home as closely often times it would be good to do that because when we sell our personal home we might be subject to a gain and we have to deal with that at that point in time but with rental property obviously we depreciate the property so we track it pretty closely with a personal home then you've got to make sure that you get the whole basis in there right so the basis you would think would be once again the cost or basis of the property what you bought the property for plus the cost of permanent additions or improvements big things that you improved a new roof and that kind of stuff minus deductions for any casualty or theft losses claimed on earlier years income tax return so if you had a loss that you claimed because it went down in value or something like that which is less usual to happen and other decreases to the basis so for increase and decreases to basis you could see the basis in chapter 2 example you originally built a house for $140,000 on a lot that cost $14,000 which you used as your home for many years before changing the property to rental use this year you added $28,000 of permanent improvements to the house and claimed a $3,500 casualty loss deduction for the damage to the house so part of the improvements qualifies for a $500 residential energy credit which you claimed on a prior year tax return because land isn't depreciable you can only deduct the cost of the house when figuring the basis for depreciation so the adjusted basis for the house at the time of the change in its use was $164,000 so we're talking about the house here so $140,000 you built a house for $140,000 on a lot that cost $14,000 the lot the land isn't depreciable so we're talking about the building here so we're not adding the $14,000 as a depreciable component before changing the property to rental use you added $28,000 so $28,000 increase because you had permanent improvements to the house and claimed a $3,500 casualty loss so because we got a benefit from the casualty loss we're subtracting a benefit decreasing the basis part of the improvements qualified for a $500 residential energy credit so we're subtracting out the credit okay on the date of the change in use your property had a fair market value of $168,000 of which $21,000 was for land and $147,000 was for the house so the basis for depreciation in the house is the fair market value on the date of the change $167,000 because it is less than your adjusted basis of $164,000 so we have to take the lesser of the two so we had to figure out our adjusted basis and then we're going to figure the fair market value they didn't go into detail on how you figured the fair market value it's basically and you know you could do an assessment an appraisal I mean to try to get the fair market value of related properties and that kind of stuff and then we're taking the basis the property is the fair market value because it is less than the adjusted basis corporates if you change your corporative apartment to rental use figure your allowable depreciation as explained earlier depreciation methods are discussed in chapter 2 of this publication and publication 946 on the basis of all the depreciable real property owned by the corporative housing corporation is the smaller of the following amounts the fair market value of the property on the date you change your apartment to rental use this is considered to be the same as the corporations adjusted basis minus straight line depreciation unless this value is unrealistic the corporations adjusted basis in the property on that date don't subtract depreciation when figuring the corporations adjusted basis stock after its first offering the corporations adjusted basis in the property is the amount figured in one under depreciation earlier the fair market value of the property is considered to be the same as the corporations adjusted basis figured in this way minus straight line depreciation unless the value is unrealistic alright figuring the depreciation deduction to figure the deduction use the depreciation system in effect when you convert your residence to rental use so generally that will be makers for any conversion after 1986 so makers is going to be our general depreciation methods once we put the depreciable property on the books usually treat the property as placed in service on the conversion date example your converted residence see the previous example under figuring the basis earlier was available for rent on August 1st using table 22d see chapter 2 the percent for year one beginning in August is 1.364% and the depreciation deduction for year one is 2005 so in other words once we've determined what the amount is the adjusted basis to put the property on the books at and the date to put the property that was converted from personal use on the books then it's pretty straightforward and that we're doing the same kind of thing we did as though we bought the property right because the difference between purchasing the property and converting the property is the fact that when you purchase the property you know generally pretty well when you bought it and placed it in service and you know generally pretty well what the cost is because you just paid for it when you're converting the property you've got this basis situation that you have to deal with it because you bought it or inherited it or got it in some way in the past and you've got this situation with the partial year you know when you placed it in service or when the conversion happened once you have those two things then you're going to put it on the books and you use the similar method for depreciation for that time frame which is the maker's depreciation usually a straight line type of depreciation with a half month convention


Now, one of the biggest questions that you probably have about the class is how are you going to earn your grades? And the interesting thing about education is that really, my goal is that you master the content. All this information that you're going to get in this class through the video lectures, through the readings, through our activities in class, through labs, I want that information to become part of you. I want that information to be in your brain. I want you to be able to work with it. I want you to be able to think about it.  And somehow, I have to figure out if you've done that. And the only way for me to do that is to give you some sort of task and then to determine your performance on that task. And we do that through grades. My world would change in a very positive way if I had like a thermometer that I could stick under your tongue or rub across your forehead and it would report back how much you knew. I mean, seriously, if anybody wants to invent something like that, you would be rich because pretty much the way I think about my job is that I get paid to grade. Like, that's the part of my job that I really... I don't love it. I wish I did, but I just don't. I don't... Oh, holy cow, let's not talk about grading. It makes me sort of want to cry. But it's the only way for me to figure out what is in your head.  And I give you a lot of points for studying, for doing things that you should be doing anyway. And we'll talk specifically about the assignments in a separate section where I can talk about the Bio 1 assignments and I can talk about the physio assignments and the anatomy assignments. But before we get there, I just want to be sure that everybody's clear on how I look at the assignments, like what their purpose is. The purpose is to motivate you to learn the content and then to determine whether or not you actually did. And the only way to do that is through an assessment. You have to show me. I can't just know it. And that's why we set our courses up the way that we do. Okay. You care about your grade.  And hopefully your goal is high. A's are completely doable in a rig style class. But you have to learn the content. And there's a lot of content to learn. So you have to have the time and you need to figure out how you best can stick the information in there.  Because in a lot of classes, you're told, okay, you're going to get 10 points for doing this and you're going to get 100 points for doing this. And you, over the semester, you're going to earn 1,000 points. Dude, I don't even know how many points you're going to earn over the semester. I like to have flexibility so that I can decide, oh, let's have 10 points for this. And I'll give you 30 points for this. So I have no idea how many points we're going to have. I have a rough idea. And you will see that there's lots of points rolling around in this class. I do my grade calculations based on percentages, which means you can't just add up the points. Clickers, you show up to my class, every day you're going to get 10 clicker points and that in all of my classes is worth 5% of your grade. We'll talk about that in a little bit more detail, but all of your grades are calculated by percentages. The percent that your exams count for varies in the different classes, but there is a percentage that it is. That is why if you are curious about how you're doing, you can go to this tool and you can look in Canvas and say, okay, right now I'm getting a 75% on my exams and I'm getting all these other numbers in here. And wow, that gets me a B minus in the class. I need to do better on my exams. What would happen if I got an 80% on my exams? Wow, that bumps me up to a B. I'm going to work really hard to get an 80% on my exams. What can I do to fix that? This is handy. The other thing, I know there is something else that I wanted to tell you about grades. Oh, I have to go back to my syllabus statement. Let's see, because, and I've already said this once, but I'm going to say it again, whatever these percentages are for whatever class you are taking from me, this is important to me. Here are the percentage breakdowns. Look at the number of decimal points that I've got going on here. I don't round. I don't round your grade. There's eight trillion points. If you'd have done one more clicker or you'd done whatever, I don't round your grade. So the grade reported in Canvas is the grade that you're earning in the class. Don't ask for a grade bump. There's lots of resources so that you can figure out, am I doing what I want to be doing? I, one of the best parts about the flip is that I'm available for pep talks. And you, dude, holler at me. I need a pep talk, Griggs, I'm in. I'll give you a pep talk for what you need to do and how you should approach it. I have a billion ideas for how to study more efficiently, not necessarily putting in more time, which is important for a lot of you guys because you guys are busy, crazy people, which is awesome. And I would love to support you in that, but in all my classes, this is how the grades kick down. There are two things that I do in every class that I'm going to talk about next and that is clickers and the external brain. So let's talk about clickers first.


This is twist this week in science episode number 591 recorded on Friday November 4th 2016 live from the Maryland STEM Festival I'm dr. Kiki and today we are going to fill your heads with a tilted moon Cosmic pasta and some acoustic reverberations, but first Disclaimer disclaimer disclaimer the world is watching not the world series That's over with now not the election though That's coming soon, but the minds of science are watching Watching the skies our solar system our galaxy in the universe beyond watching our physical molecular atomic and subatomic composition Watching our climate our creatures our flora and our home and the science minds are watching us our health our Genes our microbial biome our mental makeup so many watchers yet So Another episode of this week in science coming up next I To everyone out there especially our live audience here at the National Aquarium in Baltimore, Maryland at the Maryland STEM Festival opening ceremonies This is my regular live in studio audience. I actually threw them all out here Yeah, well, you know, I got to get a few more patreon sponsors first Justin carries the show as usual Physically in his backpack I don't know. Oh Today we have a great show ahead welcome everyone to another episode of this week in science We are so happy to be out here in Maryland And we have very special thanks huge thanks to the people that have brought us out here to the aquarium for hosting us Thank you so much to all the people who have helped to put this production together and to Phil Rogosky The director of the Maryland STEM Festival for actually inviting us in the first place That started the whole ball rolling. That was very important Yes, so what are we gonna be doing here? We are going to be talking about science and in honor of being in Baltimore our special Baltimore show We're bringing Maryland to the center stage. So we've got science news and interviews that focus on the local area We're gonna be speaking with someone from NASA. We've also got someone from the aquarium to speak with us and a Baltimore musician and I've got a story about the moon Justin. What did you bring? I've got the cosmic pasta and A robot laser sniffing thing Oh, right, okay. Blair. What's in the animal corner? I brought confused fishes and if we have time we'll also talk about teeny tiny ocean teamwork and spiders for dinner Yeah, I mean, I know I know a spiders for dinner. It's accidental sometimes No, that's midnight sniff while you're sleeping, right? Ah Um, all right, everyone. Let's move it forward with With the first story for the day How about some research that brings the that crosses the country from UC Davis to the University of Maryland some really interesting research published in nature about our very own moon It's pretty exciting. So how many people have heard about the high the hypothesis of how the moon formed That there was right right raise your hands something formed the moon, right? Long time ago There was an approximately Mars sized body in the solar system that rammed into earth They called it thea and so thea wasn't very nice rammed into earth vaporizing everything and Setting everything into pebbles and bits of dust and lots of little bits that Eventually over time became the earth and the moon. Well, so we know that the earth is slightly canted in its orbit around the sun and The moon is also slightly canted in its orbit around the earth and the hypothesis of how Everything got going the physical forces that made this happen The the old idea is that you know that the moon just kind of was out there away from the earth and just Eventually Coagulated into its solid form that it is that we see today But it does that hypothesis never explained It's five degree tilt that's different from the earth if everything was spinning the same way Why aren't the earth and the moon both at the same tilt? Why why is that big mystery, right? Well, anyway these researchers from UC Davis and also from the University of Maryland and the researchers here in Maryland Doug Hamilton say that There was a debris ring that there was a giant impact that blasted off a huge amount of material to form the moon This material would have formed a ring of debris first and then the ring would have aggregated to form the moon and so The tilt is very unusual until now there hasn't been a good explanation says Hamilton But we can understand it if the earth had a more dramatic early history than previously suspected And so the idea that they're proposing is that the earth hasn't always been At the tilt that it is now with respect to the Sun that because of the moon It used to be that turns the that the impact with thea actually made the earth like off off send off axis by like 75 degrees There was massively massively off axis and that because of the moon and the moon Moving away spinning on its own and moving away from the earth that it actually pulled the earth To the tilt that it currently sits at and also the gravitational force between the moon and the earth and the moon has been also tilted the moon and so there's a dance Between the earth and the moon that has taken billions of years of them pulling on each other To make them sit in the sky the way that we currently experience it And so that's pretty awesome. Although. I don't know. I think I think maybe it's just because I'm sort of used to having a moon I think it would be it'd be kind of cool to have a ring instead a ring of debris like Look out into the sort of arching ring would sort of go from One one end of the horizon to the other. That'd be pretty awesome Well, maybe we would have had to have been a bigger planet a bigger impact But then our poles would have been in different places. Yeah, and then there's the tide That's a whole man Yeah All right, well that does it for my first story with that I would like to invite our first guest up to join us today We are joined by National Aquarium Director of Conservation Laura Banky and her favorite animal is any species of sea turtle Thank you very much So it's really great to have you here. Can you tell us a bit about what what is your role as director of conservation? Here at the aquarium. Absolutely. So first of all, welcome to the National Aquarium. We're so glad to have you here We are 35 years old this year. So we just celebrated our birthday in August and Our mission is to inspire the conservation of the world's aquatic treasures. So that started 35 years ago and It really starts with the 50 million people or so that we've brought into this building and we've shown Amazing habitats and amazing animals and shown them what it's really like to have a pristine blue planet But several years ago. We also decided that that was wonderful, but we'd like to take it a little bit further So we decided that really taking conservation outside of our our building, you know Going beyond education Inspiring the people that come into our building the people that touch us to do things in their own community as far as stewardship for this Blue planet is where we wanted to be we're continuing to grow those efforts But a lot of my work in particular revolves around getting folks interested in community conservation We do habitat restoration. We look at neighborhoods and cities and see where they can improve Their quality of life and this and create kind of a stewardship in their neighborhoods as well So coming from the the perspective of the aquarium as part of the community Do you do most of your work locally in Maryland or do you have a broader reach nationally? Internationally, I mean you talk about stewardship of the blue planet I mean is are you are you focused there or locally or both? It's a little bit of both obviously we are here and we're really part of the heart of the city of Baltimore It's an urban community and we're trying to be true to those urban roots. You look around Around us. We're surrounded by water, but we're also surrounded by a city so what it means to be a conservation organization in an urban area and really kind of Focus on the water aspect. So we are really focusing in the city and the neighborhoods and the people of this city that being said We are reaching out. We've you know that the Chesapeake Bay in this particular area is a very big focus for us But we're beginning to reach out even further. We have exhibits from all around the world We'd like to be able to do conservation action related to those exhibits Currently we have a project that's really trying to support and National Marine Sanctuary off the coast of the Mid-Atlantic in our Atlantic Ocean And there's there's lots of other things that we have planned. Yeah, and Locally in the Chesapeake Bay area, what kind of stuff are you are you focused on doing? So it ranges between habitat restoration if you're familiar with this area A lot of the important habitats the forests and the marshlands and the tidal wetlands Have been destroyed for various reasons over, you know, several hundred years where That we've lived in this area So we're trying to bring those back where they can be brought back But places like Baltimore City that is very urbanized, but it's also, you know No, we're not going to do that I was I was cautioned against swimming in the harbor or even touching the water. Is it really that? Well, so It is it's an urban area so it has the urban problems So after a rain anything that's landing on the city streets gets washed into the harbor So that's something that we're actually trying to focus on is it actually channeled it like the The city runoff goes to the harbor or is it just happens to run down the street kind of all runoff in this area goes to its closest stream Wow So eventually it does make it to the harbor or to the local river or the Chesapeake Bay Direct impact from a rainfall then absolutely so after a big rainfall We'll see all if there's debris on the streets that all gets washed into the nearest stream And we will see that in the harbor and that includes it includes dog waste It includes pesticides that we're putting on our lawns. It includes everything So that's part of our priority is to try to engage the public and in changing some of those behaviors But also trying to fix and measure and mitigate for some of that So the the new exhibit that we're working on really has to do with how do we clean up this harbor? How to restore some of the what we call ecosystem services that were here when it was a natural harbor but doing it in a way that's Not only beneficial to the community as far as you know, it's it's there's educational opportunities around that But it's also it will like literally clean up the harbor Seems like you have a beautiful physical representation of that because in most places most cities across the world really Your runoff goes somewhere It went down the drain now it's gone right out of sight out of mind and to be able to connect what's happening 10 blocks away to to the harbor itself That's a fantastic teaching tool on top of everything else. It is and we try to use it to our advantage and is the is the harbor a Fish nursery as I know so many of kind of estuary type locations are So one of the things that we're doing in the harbor Prior to this cleanup effort is really trying to measure what's here what the kind of baseline Data is so we're looking at all the animals that we see here in the harbor We're doing some studies with some partners at university maryland and some other universities in the area And we have this thing called a bio hut that's out there and it's basically a little kind of nursery area And we monitor that once a month Throughout the year when we're finding eels and pipe fish and things that there's so much life in this harbor people They you know they look at it and and they're scared and and they don't really understand the value and the Importance that this place has because there really is a lot of life here And if we clean it up just a little Um, though it has a tremendous opportunity to bring back even more And so we go out of the harbor and through the bay. Let's take it out We go out to the Atlantic and We see baltimore canyon. So this this is um an underwater canyon that do we know very much About this canyon at this point We know a little um, you were talking about kind of the history of the world literally the history of the world Um earlier So if you look at a map of the united states and then you kind of look at the underwater Portion of that map along the edge of most of the u.s. But particularly along the edge of the mid-atlantic There's a continental shelf. So it's a very shallow area um that kind of rims our coastline now Uh, you know millions of years ago that was actually above water when when the water level was lower than it is today That was above water. So when the rivers came through the landscape They did what they always do and they erode away parts of the the land And in the mid-atlantic what they've done is they've created a series of submarine canyons off our mid-atlantic coast um You know, we'll we have somebody from Goddard here Um as well that's going to you know talk about space but we and here at the aquarium We talk about deep sea ocean exploration as the next frontier There's very little bit of the ocean that's been studied very little bit has been understood We're just beginning to understand about the habitats and the animals that live down there and the importance that Those places have in kind of the larger ecology of the Atlantic and and in global oceans and how much of it I mean we're We're at this point where we're going to start mining We're going to start there's there's a movement now by a group to map the the entire Ocean floor of the earth It's going to take a very concerted effort over many years to be able to do it But I mean we still it's like you said it's an uncharted frontier for a canyon like um baltimore canyon and other deep sea canyons Um, what kind of life can we expect? Down in the down in those deep places um dark places So the answer will actually surprise you because what most of the important habitat in the canyon itself Relates to deep sea corals. So the corals that we think of when we think of the ocean they're in tropical areas They're in crystal clear water. It's warm lots of sunlight It's one of the requirements of those corals to grow, but these are 1500 meters deep There there's no sunlight getting to these but there's there are species of corals called deep sea corals So they live in very dark very deep places The corals that were used to have an algae that lives Yeah, do these do these corals not have that they have a bacteria that instead of obviously the algae and the corals we're used to Are photosynthetic so they take the sunlight and that's why corals need clear water That's that's one of their requirements, but the the bacteria that are living in Um symbiosis with the deep sea corals are chemo synthetic So they're taking the the chemistry of the water and creating nutrients for the coral animals out there um The only issue is that it's it's much less efficient. So they grow much slower Um, which is fine except that if they're damaged then it's it's a pretty important consequence right And so what is the national aquarium doing um with respect to research and conservation of these habitats? So in baltimore canyon in particular We are supporting an effort to nominate the baltimore canyon as the country's first urban national marine sanctuary So a marine a national marine sanctuary is a marine protected area under noa's national marine sanctuary's office We're considering it an urban national marine sanctuary because it is offshore It's not easy to visit and if you do you're in a ship and you see water So it's it's a little bit hard to kind of really relate to the canyon So what our vision is is we're going to use technology and you know, it grows by leafs and bounds every day To take the wonders of the canyon and bring it back to our urban audiences here in baltimore and then ultimately other places But we have a tremendous tech center center here in baltimore that has the ability to kind of dream big with us So being able to to take the wonders of the canyon and use it in the stem Fair is the perfect opportunity to talk about this. It's really engage our youth and particularly our urban youth in deep sea exploration and underwater research and You know just using technology for ocean exploration. Yeah, everybody's into drones right now. Yeah sub drones So I have kind of a sticky question with marine protection areas and national marine sanctuary So it's it works a lot better on land because things are very well separated, right? But in the oceans, there's a lot of exchange, right? Oh, so how do you how do you? Thoroughly protect an area protect this vital space When the waters around that space are not So when we say protected we don't mean nothing can happen in that sanctuary. In fact, it's it's almost the opposite We're suggesting that some activities Absolutely can remain Going on in that sanctuary is as long as they don't Harm the resource that we decide is the important resource to protect So for example the deep sea corals or these methane seeps, which are another interesting habitat down there If if you want to take your ship And you know sail over the top of the canyon, that's not going to harm the deep sea corals We're not we don't have a problem with that. So it's not like there's going to be a wall and you know, you have to go around A very lonely park ranger There's not going to be a line in the water There's a lot of activities are still going to be allowed in the sanctuary As long as they're consistent with the protection of the the habitat And so we're coming to the end of our time here. Can you tell us a bit about how How you're getting people involved how you want like how people can help to Get these the baltimore canyon preserved. Absolutely. What are we doing and how can people help? So we're we're working to put in a a nomination package for the national marine sanctuary status And that includes getting a lot of people interested and invested in the idea of kind of creating this urban national marine sanctuary So it's it's working with partners um out there that can bring educational resources or technology resources or research resources And we have um researchers that are studying corals and fish So bringing those people together to help develop a vision for what this place could be as a protected area But also getting just general support from the public. So we're we're doing outreach in a very targeted area, but we're also trying to just Let the let folks understand how important this place is and the value of it being protected So we have a a website if you go to aqua.org slash baltimore canyon You can learn more about that and there's an online petition. It'll be really great if everybody could sign that and that will allow us to kind of Add weight to the the nomination package. It says, you know, this has really gotten support by a large number of people And we consider this as a nationally significant place and worthy of protection So as long as you live in america, you can sign the petition. You can live anywhere. You can live anywhere There we go. It's one global ocean, right? That's fantastic. It's not being preserved just for the local area. It's being preserved for Humankind That is good. Thank you so much for your time today. Thank you. You do valuable work here. Thank you I can tell you I want to drive one of those underwater vehicles Can I have the remote control? That would be so good. All right, everybody if you just tuned in you are Watching or listening to this week in science. Justin, what you got? Oh, oh pop quiz pop quiz What do pasta parking garages endoplasmic reticulum and neutron stars have in common? Answer they're all in the universe. No, they have nothing in common These are all completely different things. However, that is until University of california sandbobber physicist greg hoober Stumbled upon the work of indiana university nuclear physicist charles orwitz according to the research They recently published together neutron stars and cell cytoplasm have something in common Structures that resemble multi-story parking garages So hoober and colleagues explored the biophysics of these shapes helices that connect stacks of evenly spaced sheets In a cellular organelle called the endoplasmic reticulum Hoober and his colleagues dubbed them terra sake ramps after their discover mark terra sake A cell biologist university of connecticut So he thought that these sort of structures that he was seeing in the cell were unique to organic life It's these little tears and when there's they kind of connect to tom bomb and then he sees the work Of horwitz, right and horwitz is studying the crust of a neutron star the inner crust What the physics that's taking place there and the images that he presented Looked very much like what he was seeing these parking garages It looked so similar that he contacted him and they started working in collaboration to see why and these two vastly different systems completely different Scales the ratio is over a million of different scales, right? Magnitudes, right? This is magnitudes of difference, but what's what's the really large thing in this? It's actually the cell Because what the physicists are studying is the what's going on with nutrient or neutron protons in the crust Of the the supernova, so it's actually what's taking place in the supernova is the super super tiny thing And the cell is actually this sort of massive structure in comparison Okay, so they're looking at neutrons and protons in the structure of the neutron star Which is tinier magnitudes of scale tinier than Yeah, it's smaller than the endoplasmic reticulum in the cell body But the structures they're finding and so and so I guess the uh wild The nuclear physicists have a terminology that they used already for this. They called them Nuclear pasta because the tubes are which were the terasaki ramps. They call spaghetti and in the parallel sheets They call lasagna This is how they've been referring to this for a while Yeah, so the in in the endoplasmic reticulum. It's been The molecular structure for years has been known to kind of be this Sheets and And strings kind of like you're talking about like you have The open the open space the cisternae and the sheets of the endoplasmic reticulum and then the little Support structures the struts Lasagna spaghetti, there we go. Lasagna spaghetti So so there is just one of these things that we've talked about everyone once in a while It's the human ability to see patterns and things Whether there's actually a there there they don't know but they say it's very very interesting And even though the the forces that work in both of these systems are completely different They're now looking into why it is Uh that they have such a similarity because that similarity itself seems Uh a mystery so they say this is just uh the beginning of something that they're looking into they're going to be Delving further into this as they go but it says uh They say that they something there may be something about the the the energy within a contained system that forces this shape to appear Uh and we may see it other places as well. Yeah, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say it has to do with physics Yeah, although other than the physics of these two systems being so completely different Uh, but not necessarily at some at some scale the interactions between the between the particles between the components between yeah Starts to start to have a familiar similar Cool It's uh, it's really a good reminder that across scientific disciplines. We should all be talking to each other Right. I'm not a biology person. You're not an astrophysics person We're all science people and the more we can collaborate. We see patterns. Yeah, it was this amazing He goes, uh Because I called chuck and asked of you's aware that we had seen these structures and cells and had come up with a model for them Said huber It was news to him. So I realized then that there could be some fruitful interaction It's all about contacting those collaborators, that's right Got something else. Yeah, this is a breakthrough bio indicator. Billy is best bet for next mars bound bot sensors Says brandamere blagojevich nasa technologist at goddard space flight center in greenbelt marlin Billy is also known as Bio indicator lidar instrument. It's a fluorescence based lidar. So it shoots the air with lasers And these are shortwave ultraviolet lasers and when they hit stuff in the air They emit a long wave in response and this long wave can tell you pretty much everything about what it is That's emitting the wave Based on that the the length of the wave and the frequencies that it's at So he he worked on this before joining Goddard space flight for the military using this to sort of use as a is a remote sensor detector for if there was say Something hazardous or chemical put out into the air Toxins in the air that sort of thing you could pick this up Just sort of monitoring air above a city or in an important area where they're doing work, right? But he realized this can actually be used to detect biological signatures So he's developing this now To be placed on the next mars rover And some of the things it can do is there's terrain that is kind of difficult for rovers to get to But you can shoot a laser anywhere you have line of sight So if there's if there's a ridge line that looks too tough to go across But there's plumes that you want to detect you don't have to run the rover all the way over there You just fire lasers in that direction And and going forward this might be something that they can actually then use In a probe in a satellite So you can send a probe around a planetary body and by using the same method From space without actually touching down discover whether or not there's organic material there Yeah, that's I mean it fluorescence is an interesting property So that the molecules get energized by the energy in the laser and then emit light And then that light can be detected and the difference light frequencies are They're different signatures for different chemical compounds And so then you can start really determining what's there. Is it good? Is it bad? And I really hope that if they do put this on a rover on mars, they do add a speaker that goes Somebody has to do that someday come on. I just assume that's what's going on in mission control when they're hitting the buttons Okay, fire the laser It's all good. Oh and on that note, I would like to bring in our Next guest from nasa dr. Robert gabbers He's the director of nasa goddard's office of education at goddard space flight center Welcome And I don't know I was going to ask you. Um, what is your favorite spacecraft?  We've uh been to rosetta. We've been to there's the rosetta mission to 67 p Garrison of charm manko, which I can't say all the russian names We've we've been what was the other japanese Hayabusa ita kawa ita kawa. That's right. We mean we've we've done this, but we've never had a return mission Right that that's that's a feat. I love these long shot missions. Let's do it Yes, so tell me about your job as director of the office of education At goddard. What do you do? So my job is um extremely exciting Because my background before I came to NASA was being the assistant state superintendent of schools For the state of maryland So I at that time I was responsible for all the accountability and the testing programs So anybody who graduated from a maryland high school had to take these tests as I was working on And so when we built that system then I Did a presentation at nasa and they talked to me about coming to work there And I thought it would really be interesting because when you work at the state department of ed You always talk about doing things by mandate Because you have to yeah You just go to the state board or somebody and they pass on the rule and you got to do it right When you go to nasa all of a sudden it's the idea That carries the weight And so it was kind of exciting to look at well if I go there What I'll have to do is figure out how to help science teachers Deliver the science that we put on all those tasks That we then created items for and how do you do that? The support system so we build support systems nasa by definition and education Is not like the u.s. Department of Education its responsibility is to take the nasa unique content that we're dealing with And translated into education uses So in fact students can be motivated In other words if you were looking at Like we have a total solar eclipse coming up next year We don't teach people about eclipses think go to books and get that the real question is What are we going to learn about eclipses because there's going to be a solar eclipse If we're talking about going to mars It's what are we intending to learn by going to mars? And that's what's used to excite students and teachers and so it's not textbook knowledge, but it's building So yeah for mars, we just want to know if we can live there, right? And we want to know if somebody was there before And actually on the topic you were just talking about goddard has a really part in the rover that's there now because What goddard built was in effect a chemistry lab That is inside the rover And so that rover when it's going around is actually drawing and pulling in materials That chemistry lab is not storing that in order for some to have one. It's actually Analyzing it in real time in real time and sending the results back Which is phenomenal Do you know what the chemistry lab does? Is it? Looking at it with light. Is it Burning it because I know a lot in chemistry a lot of a lot of times you want to know what a compound is You burn it up and you look at you look at what is emitted and how it's emitted It's actually looking for all those signatures That because that's what's going to tell them. It's probably more of a light kind of laser thing You got to end up looking at whether the components that are there by looking at their signatures because we know So it's a It's kind of an unknown piece, but it may be one of the most valuable things about the rover going around to answer the question Well, are we going to be able to live there? What what's there? Yeah, what could have been there before? and It's kind of like taking ice cores in the earth and you see The information's all stored in the core You could do the same thing as Mars. It's there. You just have to go there Yeah, we just have to create the create the vehicles to go to Mars to Drill the cores to be able to learn exactly what is there or to do those lasers that you're talking about Right or shoot the lasers Are we doing so so part of this is part of this trying are we are we talking about getting like lasers in the hands of school children So that they can so that they can sort of run some of these experiments in their local schools and see what's what's taking place on Mars. Yeah, actually what we do with school children particularly within the state of maryland because we're here We actually run programs Take high school kids for instance because Unlike when we were in school they now get out early schools over two o'clock We have programs for kids where they come to Goddard Four days a week three hours a day at the end of that high school day. I want to go back to high school in maryland I never actually went and picked up my phd I mean So when they do that Then we assign them Because it's three hours a day four days a week have to be what are they gonna do work? What are they working on for a semester or a year? So it's not dabbling And they are assigned to these missions So like working with a guy who's talking about lasers And they are working on that research Wow, and they don't move around. They're on a single project so that when we launch some satellites to those kids have been very instrumental In the fact that they're built and they're working. Yeah, they're working hand in glove with the mentors So so even you're right there. We get that I get their reaction all the time like from graduate students who say What are you wasting the night on high school kids? Actually my very first my very first job was during high school and they'd match me up with uh orthopedics department at uc davis And what they had me working on was something related to a project uh with nasa We had monkey bone and different types of plastics and we were breaking it to see With the impact strength of the different encasements work But it was it was for a for a kid that was amazing to me that I I went from Sort of failing my science class in eighth grade to now working on a a project with with uh for nasa with the orthopedics research Like it was fantastic. It was really inspiring. That's probably why i'm doing this show now Right. Yeah. Yeah, it's those multi-touch experiences that are so beneficial like one really great experience can spark curiosity But you need to foster that and really get people engaged and this is that sounds like an awesome opportunity So that's one of my biggest struggles. It's not when they come to nasa It's then you have to go back to the school And the question is when you get an advice on what to do next does anybody care that you did all that At nasa or anywhere and how to make sure that that experience we're giving them Is built into the students education program Not an extraneous thing because that's what turns along then they have to go back Yeah, and continuing to along this line Talking about mars other and projects like that. Have there been students involved in say the development of the james webb space telescope That has been under development for the decade, right every summer every summer. I have I have 400 50 to 525 Interns that got her every summer for 10 weeks. Yeah, and they're all working on major missions And the way we do that is is in order to make sure the student has an interest to begin with We don't have students apply for internships and let me take them grade one average all that stuff Go to this. We have a rabom and we actually ask the mentors and the projects to define the job That a student would do so when I say we have 500 interns it meant 500 mentors wrote job descriptions And those students applied for this and were selected for that That's exactly how I ended up at that orthopedics research It was through the high school and they had us do that same sort of thing They had us do a list of tasks and jobs that we'd be interested in right, you know, and and after compiling that That's how I ended up at that gig. Yeah, so for all the parents that are on listening Don't call me What we do is say that that kind of experience has to be arranged through the school And the reason for that is kind of one the personal one the two good education is to say Everything that a kid gets should be part of its education program And parents parcel with what the teachers with the teachers are working on and parents lobbying for experiences for their student When we're complaining about the state of public education and what kids are and are not learning we say Go to the school Get the school to arrange for the experience with us Because we know you know a lot of things that you would complain about the school for When your son or daughter has a great experience with us like we're talking about We want you to remember it was because of the school and because of the teachers that that happened Not in spite of them Yeah, that's a way to empower the school system and to empower the teachers. Yeah and not take that Not take the educational Pathway away from away from yeah Yeah So with the james webb telescope Um, is there a second one? Is there like the second secret james webb space telescope in case one blows up I don't know Rockets blow up all the time and I just want to know that now NASA has been working on the james webb space telescope Decades decades I went to goddard in I don't know two two thousand Six or I don't remember it was almost a decade ago Um or seven it was many many years ago I went to goddard for a science writers conference and we went and we saw all the james webb planning and they showed us pieces of the cooling Material and we all and they gave us information about the plans, but that was almost a decade ago This is a project that is long in planning It better not blow up on the launch pad or even in launch, right? Is there a plan b? The concern isn't that the concern is testing everything When you think of the number of moving parts first, you're going to take something that when it's in space when it gets there it's going to Be the size of a tennis court When it opens up Now think of the moving part Think of how you put that in a rocket And how you including all those Including all those the mirrors And you say so so and you don't want it to be like the Hubble where your mirror is warped or slightly broken when you get up there And you have to fix it through math because you keep telling I do So see this piece of paper The problem with the Hubble telescope Was an aberration That was 150th this 150th the width of the piece of paper That's a tiny aberration That's a tiny aberration So it wasn't like The detail is extremely important and that's why it's taking long because of the testing Now they were just It has to be perfect has to be it has to be perfect On every level the number of apertures are in hundreds of thousands of apertures in order to control Being able to look back in space, right? And and they all have to work You take your camera and it's got an aperture, right? And they're way for thin So Hubble has been an amazing teaching instrument Do you expect that the James Webb telescope when it When it gets up there and it takes over as the next big space telescope in our repertoire? Um, will it be as influential of a teaching instrument? Even even worse that I think because well for one It's gonna have more power and then Hubble. It's a different system because it's gonna It's looking in infrared rather than ultraviolet It it's I think six times larger telescope With one structure and It Hubble I think it's maybe a thousand requests a year for people to use I was just gonna say if you if you're just gonna toss it, maybe I I could I could have it So that's why we don't talk about JW being a replacement for Hubble because it's of a different And that's another interesting thing going on and Goddard now now we have this concept of satellite servicing So if you think of it obviously cost Billions to build like JW When you we're now looking at how to in effect create a super highway in space So you have all these satellites that are up there But the typical thing was they have a lifespan and then they burn up when they enter We're now looking at satellite servicing, which means that would not be true. You would actually bring them in Just just think of a super highway in space back here You'd bring them in to the equivalent of a space And you either refuel whatever you send it back out and and the reason It's got an interesting to talk about it in terms of the highway system because the complexity has to be I've on ramps off ramps you good But it's going to be in space instead And then that becomes important Like James Webb is actually hobo is I think 353 357 miles above the earth When JW goes out it's going to be placed a million miles out in space Yeah, the space station crew is not going to be able to help with that at all It goes out a million miles and then opens What does a million miles even look like? Well, it's only it's only 50 miles up to get weightless So a lot more than people think And I think so somebody was saying that somebody John Mather the Nobel laureate was saying that James James Webb telescope If you took the distance from the earth to the moon that that distance The Webb telescope could detect the heat of a bumblebee Love stuff like that somebody verify that So that's a pre-seed but that's like the hair Because if you get any aberration on the telescope Yeah, not gonna work. Yeah So anyway, yeah, but these are just such inspirational ideas and The James Webb telescope mean high school students and graduate students now are going to be the people Asking to use those telescopes to the James Webb telescope to to use it for time for observations to You know, there is a generation of kids coming into high schools Now who are going to start working on the next generation of space telescopes and observatories and so all of this Looking out into space looking deeper into our own planet all it's this The educational opportunities and the inspirational opportunities are vast Thank you so much for your for the other for the for the students you're talking about Anybody listening remember one of you it's probably going to be the first Martian And if you would like to be the first Martian please talk to your teacher about an internship at NASA It's the whole John Dewey way of training we are schooling where you get get active participation And and and the project yeah, thank you so much for your time Thank you All right, everybody This is this week in science and we are going to take a short break, but it's not really a break We're just going to play some music and then I'm going to tell people about how they can support twist So you want to play a little bit music? This is this week in science. We are going to be back with more Over to twist.org in order to pre-order a 2017 twist Blair's animal corner calendar Last year Blair produced a wonderful calendar with her original artwork and she is doing it again 12 individual unique hand drawn or um paper note Um, this is painted and cut painted and cut. There we go. We've got layers of art happening in this It's a mixed media mixed media. That's the terminology Art okay Blair features a different animal every month of the year and there are loads of science holidays For you to celebrate throughout the year. Don't forget twist.org you can head on over Click on the calendar link and pre-order yours today get it before the end of the year, right? You need a new calendar for 2017. 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Well, the first one's actually not very fun It's about one of my favorite things to talk about climate change So I've talked a lot about how climate change It's my favorite things to talk about because I feel like we need to get the message out there. All right It's not my favorite thing Okay, so the I've talked a lot about the impact of the changing climate in terms of Warming waters warming habitats and Things like that moving animals, but I haven't talked a whole lot about ocean acidification Which is when the carbon dioxide gets absorbed by water and so since we're at an aquarium today I thought it would be an awesome topic for us to talk about for a moment Recent research from University of Exeter shows that CO2 in waters actually causes some fish to swim towards predators Oh, that's awesome. If you're a predator, right? That's perfect.  They don't know the exact mechanism yet But most of this is from research in fish farms So this is a a good reminder that those fish farms that perhaps are sustainable Are good opportunities to research long-term effects of things like carbon dioxide being absorbed into the waters Right. So this was a kind of an accidental finding from fish farms, which were the perfect captive Population that they were able to look at over a long period of time with higher co2. Um, and so Does higher co2, um It's accidental. Did they find it because because they were using higher co2 for some reason? Does it help with growth of the fish like they faster fatter salmon? Yeah, that's that's a good question. I think that it was actually just Some research that they were doing at the fish farms since it doesn't affect the product. Yeah, right. So they were able to see in a long-term study that it was affecting these things and it's because they're looking at It's kind of a vested interest because certain fish farms want to show that there's a benefit to their existence, right? So this is kind of a double a double whammy. They get to provide food and they get to provide research From that food as it's raised. So as long as they're using sustainable practices and things aren't entering the waterways from these Fish farms that shouldn't be That is a great way to help kind of both sides of the coin is to not deplete the wild fisheries but also to use these fish farms as Research facilities. Yeah, and maybe those fish could be our fishy canaries to let us know exactly what's gonna happen Yeah, and they they did also so a lot of this research was based on the fact that for some fish That you're saying co2 is a stimulant for growth So they wanted to see what levels of co2 were kind of the sweet spot for farming But also this was to help Kind of predict impacts on wild fisheries And prediction also seems to be that we're going to need more fish farms in the future Yes, which again as long as they're sustainable use your seafood watch app everybody And be careful especially in these towns that have amazing Fish to eat that i'm looking forward to eating all of this evening All the fish all the fish and crustaceans. I will be I will be doing my best to eat sustainably Blair has as as taken up the challenge. She's gonna have every meal is gonna have some kind of seafood while she's here She's not gonna eat anything that's or Shellfish I said shellfish San Francisco is not almost to a body of water Anyway Next story I have one more story from the oceans I feel like a couple of you'll really appreciate this one So a study from duke university and smithsonian institution Found midwater high-period amphipods. So our good friends the amphipods. They uh, have like water fleas, right? Yes, they have an amazing way of being completely invisible in water So there are amphipods from very deep light deep down with very little reflection So they have anti-reflective surfaces But these ones are actually midwater and they have a special coating on their legs that dampen the reflection of light by 250 fold And this makes them basically invisible specifically to lantern fish which are their main predators and it appears This is not confirmed yet, but it is hypothesized that this coating on their legs is made out of living bacteria Whoa So they haven't confirmed this yet. So they looked in an electron microscope They looked at the coating and it is a uniform beaded structure smaller than the wavelength of light They reduced the reflection the same way putting a shag carpet on walls of recording studio softens echoes So I like the analogy. That's a great analogy. Yeah But they also are connected with a with a net of filaments that look like biofilm And each of the seven amphipod species that they looked at have their own species of symbiotic optical bacteria But they have not confirmed this with genetic testing which is how they're going to figure it out Symbiotic optical bacteria. So they have bacteria for seeing Yes, and they might have bacteria for not being seen correct So they have to perform in-depth sequencing to make sure That this is all bacteria related. Yeah, the bacteria just don't want to get eaten. Right.  Yeah, it's not working Yeah Yeah, so if the if it's if it's alive This means that there's something that originally brought this bacteria to these amphipods It's pretty easy to understand how the seeding would happen as throughout their life because even though they They shed their their shells Right. It's easy to To continue holding that bacteria because they're touching themselves the entire time they're shedding off that shell, right? So they could very easily keep the bacteria once they have it But how does each individual species or how did that symbiotic relationship originate? It's pretty interesting. And how did any symbiotic relationship originate? I mean, it's like It's a good question. It's like a rigid kippling tail, you know, they're like just so stories of Yeah, my favorite part of this is that some of these amphipods are up to six inches in length and the lead researcher said that Mostly you see them because you don't see them When you pull up a trawl bucket packed full of plankton, you see an empty spot in the bucket Why is nothing there?  I guess I'm gonna grab that spot That's so obviously there's lots of fascinating lots of ways we could apply these things Oh, I'm sure as soon as engineers get a hold of this light dampening reflectance dampening Method however, it's bacteria or whatever. How are how are the bacteria if it's bacteria? You know, it's nano scale. It's something the very tiny scale that is dampening reflectance and How does that work as soon as engineers get their minds wrapped around it? It's going to be put on some military device. So this sounds like the origin story of the invisible woman Right, build it. The invisible woman is coated in bacteria The invisible woman was raised by amphipods. No Oh dear, at least maybe her plane was built by amphipods All right, you guys this is this week in science. Now, there's this crazy story That's out uh That is out of hawaii that I think ties into our next guest very well It's been found that there is a previously unknown component to whale song You know whale song You know who saw finding dory, right? We all they've all heard whale songs But they are pressure waves where Under the water when they sing their songs There's pressure waves that move through the water actually physically move the water And it's like pressure waves through the air move the bones in the ears And allow hearing to take place and they for years have thought that over distance This is the sole component of whale song because they've been using hydrophones which can really only detect pressure waves Well, some researchers um in off the hawaiian island of maui used some different equipment and they discovered that there are also There's also particle motion. So there's actual physical motion.  The pressure wave is what is hurting your ears, but the particle motion is what's vibrating your seat And so they used a different recording device and they were able to determine that there's particle motion for As far away as like 200 meters from groups of whales and particle motion may in fact vibrate the bones In the whale's heads and so there could be low frequency communication over long distance due to this particle motion As well as the pressure waves of the actual song And so there's a whole new component to whale song and the movement of sound Through the through the water for whales to study like having bluetooth That's right, but it could be like additional information. It's like an additional information channel that we haven't even seen before and in the in the light of Talking about sound and acoustic waves. I'd like to invite our next guest on to the show show decay please join us show decay is a He's a baltimore musician vocal percussionist. He has um, I mean you might know the term beat boxer He's a beat boxer, but um a much more interesting A much more interesting style than what you would typically think of as a beat boxer So show decay, can you tell us a little bit about how you got into beat boxing and vocal percussion? How you moved it to your artistic style? Okay doing now This makes a little hot. Okay, so um I'm actually in my 30th year being able to do beat boxing and vocal percussion And I first started in about the year in 1986 or so So as a kid I was already doing sounds of No, my toys and my transformers and my cars and basically just um illuminating my world of imagination through sound, you know, like Stuff like that, you know, we all did that as kids, right? So I saw the um the classic hip-hop film from 1986 From 1985 actually the movie crush groove I saw it on cable the following year that summer And through that exposure, um through Buffy the human beatbox who appeared in a film with the fat boys I found that there is a musical language in which I could already apply Um what I was doing to a more musical Foundation, so that's when I started to uh bring in percussive sounds and Just exploring the world of imagination from a kid's standpoint of beat boxing So and just never stopped ever since so so you think you still have a kid's perspective? Oh, absolutely And so what are you doing now or what have you been doing? I mean you um you have founded a A music festival here in baltimore called the embody festival Yes, and then can you talk about that and also how that ties into what you're doing musically these days, right? Okay, so I have a voice in music series called embody Um which focuses specifically on the voice as an instrument no matter the genre the tradition or the scientific vocal technique So it serves as a Unifying platform for everything related to the voice. That's usually pretty musically segregated. So opera singers beatboxers whistlers throat singers Experimental vocalists and we give them One of two platforms one in which they can demonstrate what they already do on its own terms and then um A more fused platform or approach in which these different styles can get together and experiment in the moment and create something new. So That's fun. And so um Additionally, like what are you doing with your musical styles and experimenting and trying new things, right? Okay so boundaries of vocal percussion through that medium of embody and then Just again a kid's standpoint or viewpoint of exploring different ways the voice can be used as an instrument um, I've been incorporating more styles of Specifically to ven throat singing working very closely with the group of lash They performed there a few times over the years in Baltimore at the walters Uh, they're at the ted conference early this year over at morgan state Um, and so that's been really impacting my beatboxing also, um a musical company as the residents at the towson university department of dance and i'm starting to incorporate more dance into Uh, what i'm already doing beyond being an accompanist or a composer for dance um, so yeah, I most the most of what I do exists within this Head kinesphere right this this vocal kinesphere, but i'm starting to explore Um expanding what i'm doing as a beatboxer throughout my full kinesphere the full body space, you know right now I'm in my own kinesphere now Into your kinesphere a little bit back into my own kinesphere So most of my energy comes from the inner core of my kinesphere. I'm starting to explore through dance and movement while vocalizing a fuller, uh Reach into the outer limits of my kinesphere. So yeah, those are the two things that are impacting what i'm doing as a Voice scientist or musician and or musician right now. Yeah So can we get a um a demonstration and let's I know you have a video to show of some actual science It's observational science that you've been doing I'd love to get going on this side on this Bring the science and do it. Gotcha. So um the science has already that So i'm going to go over to that microphone to my left And basically i'm going to give you an external demonstration of the music science um and art of and some movement elements of beatboxing and then we're going to segue right into a uh endoscopic internal look at the Musical kinesiology vocal kinesiology of beatboxing and vocal percussion. So a quick Yeah, he he got a uh a laryngeoscope down his nose to look at his vocal cords. And so we're gonna look at that. Yeah So for the squeamish Prepare yourselves some of you already saw a little bit So a quick one or two minutes on our microphone on the left and then i'll come back around and we get We'll get into the video. Yeah, all right This is so much fun You guys didn't expect science of music today My god, yes, I can I can teach you all some basic elements of um vocal percussion because Um vocally speaking scientifically speaking language can't exist without elements of vocal percussion Right those core elements of vocal production that gives us access to language So we're using it all the time just not mostly in a musical sense. So um with that said now Are you ready for the real stuff? okay, so in 2008 I was at a Conference and all the conference called the music music in the brain over at the american visionary arts museum Um, this was during the exhibit of the marriage of art science and philosophy I was a panelist with dr. Charles limb. He used to be in residence at johns hopkins And um, he was conducting research on what occurs within the human brain Neurologically speaking when they're listening to improvised music and when they're playing improvised music jazz musicians mcs rappers Um, he brought me in as a beatboxer as that part of that research. So also beyond putting me in an MRI scanner, we also Conducted a endoscopic exploration into what occurs internally with the kinesiology beatbox and at johns hopkins hospital um, so yeah, I did this crazy thing for art and science and I do it again Oh, yeah You see all those hairs is where the squeamish people get to be squeamy Ha ha ha ha Are we still there? Yeah, kinesiological empathy I'm just gonna go down the list Uh, yeah, I don't know if you want me to pull this back a little bit right now. I'm gonna give you I think we're okay So epiglottis Sleigh bells larynx My name is shoda. Can I have an endoscope going through my nasal passage? Just wanted the weirdest sensations of it um I'm gonna go through this list of sounds here a little bit of a little bit of background out on what I do professional beatboxer Living and working in Baltimore working abroad as well um internal look at the Technology of bottle instrumentation specifically with beatbox and vocal percussion sleigh bells wind waves helicopter motorcycle The drill there Turn table Did we do Distorted guitar How are y'all doing? Are we okay? All right. We're good. We're good. Okay. We're all here So what's for lunch? I don't know That's what the inside of your vocal apparatus looks like when you're doing all these different sounds that it's The anatomy supports the sounds in very different ways. That's right. Yeah, there's this term that's used in dance and the movement It's called proprioception. Have you all heard of this term? A few okay. Um, it's basically the bodily sixth sense Where you are in space where you are in space as you travel through space and through time as well So this is a an example of what I refer to as vocal proprioception Um, it's I don't have a visual frame of reference So I really have to know and practice and study constantly all the time The music and the science behind everything that's doing here most of it's been um through access of intuition and Over the course of 30 years and then doing it professionally for 10 years Um, I've been able to find the scientific language That just reveals itself over constant practice and I think that stands for to be true for just by any Study or practice, but yeah Awesome. So can we get um now? I want to see all of it So at the end of this video or did you want to do some more demonstration? Yeah, okay, so this part's fun um And the one person here at the aquarium said it's really weird to see the actual person On the external and but then also see to see this internal. So to freak you all out a little more Um, what I'm going to do is actually perform in real time with this footage so you'll get to see me on the external and on the Internals like a uh a mirror into oneself from the movie hellraiser That's what we're about to do. So yeah, let's try that. I'm ready Part where the endoscopic tube extracted it was extracted from the nose Science is pretty awesome And it can be really gross sometimes interesting to watch you just now Try and follow yourself and capture the same beats and the same sound so that we can see that and that's got it How is that as an artist trying to I mean you're watching your vocal chords to give you cues, right? It's really it's It's very stimulating actually because I think that was my best time doing this I've had opportunities to screen this footage at other institutions the Salisbury global seminar johns hopkins towsy university I was just at the community college of Baltimore county. So I've done this a few times But I think that was my best one just from the memory of seeing it and watching it over time. Um, it's Yeah, I I think I'm still processing that experience. Ask me in the body But I just thought it'd be an interesting idea to um to flip um ideas of consciousness And self-reflection, you know, but this because this is eliminated. Um from an internal standpoint viewpoint. So It's it's fun. It's definitely Are you more aware of how you're constructing some of these sounds now having seen this like seeing what's going on in there? Or is it I mean because you can't you're not really that much in control Like mentally, okay, I'll move this part of my line next to the here Well, I think a lot of what we've seen here are sort of kinesiological responses not necessarily anatomical Techniques or kinesiological techniques. Some of them definitely are I think some of them are more responsive in nature Um, but then also you have to consider that there's so much muscle memory that I've acquired and continue to reinforce All the time because my instrument is with me all the time. So I get to practice All the time. So this isn't really not yet. It's not really enhancing More extensive techniques, but it is enhancing My capacity to speak to it extensively through science and through the language of of science And this sort of thing all this is it's inspiring me to use beatboxing as a tool for Science communication in general So it's definitely enhancing my capacity to engage with the audiences Rooted in science Thank you so much for oh, yeah, am I done we're running to the end Okay, we're done. I'll show some more later. Okay. Yeah Can we get maybe one last can we get can we get one last? Okay, so yeah a little a little fusion of the beatboxing and the overtone singing. Yes, the tube and throat singing inspired by a tube and throat singing This is basically multi phonic singing in which we all speak in multiple wavelengths all the time So basically with throat singing we're constricting so that you're hearing just a few And once maybe two three or four. It's basically like Seeing a rainbow after a storm. So here we go Yeah, this would be of interest to you too as well So I've had the chance to travel to Tuba the southern Siberia over the course of the last four years twice Once in the winter and once in the summer To work with a lash one of the best throat singing ensembles in the world right now traveling all over I'm a I've appeared on the most recent album entitled a chai I've had the chance to travel at the tube and cultural center that a lash is in residents and actually they have a It's called the international who may science center Which is dedicated to the language and the science of throat singing and overtone singing and the tune tradition So yeah, look that up the tube and cultural center a lash Their website is a lash ensemble.com and you can get You can have access to the third album that I have featured on three songs. I'm a featured on Thank you everybody. And how can people find you? Oh, right I have a music page on facebook. Um, you can find me on and uh, my name is spelled s h o d e k e h Um, and also you can find me through embody a festival in series of the vocal arts Also, we have our own music presence on facebook Nice. Thank you so much Listening shodokai just left in the helicopter This does bring our show to an end. I do want to give some shout outs to people our guests Thank you so much to laura banky to bob gabris to shodokai and to the maryland stem festival For bringing us here to the national aquarium for hosting us into our live audience today Thank you so much for coming and being here joining us today If you are around in town, we are having a meetup at 6 p.m. At zele's pizzeria If anyone's interested in joining us All right, also if you are in the maryland area Don't forget to check out the rest of the events taking place as part of the maryland stem festival The maryland stem festival is going on for the next 10 days and it is packed with amazing events We've talked about them before I had interviews on previous shows nasa nsa Robots libraries. It's all over the state and it's going on for the next 10 days go to maryland stem festival dot org To be able to find out more information find an event near you and go check it out All right time for the patreons thank you for your support on patreon and I would like to thank our Our patreon supporters chris clark. Who's here? Hello? 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