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- [00:01]
Eugenio Derbes
Hi, it's Eugenio Derbes. Did you know that with Boost Mobile, you can cut your phone bill in half this tax season? Yes, half. Buy six months of service and get six months free. That's a full year of service. Paying half. That sounds good, doesn't it? And all on the boost network with 99% nationwide coverage. Don't wait. Visit your Boost store today.
- [00:24]
Dr. Samantha Amin
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- [00:26]
Dr. Robert Lillis
Extra terms and exclusions apply. Visit boostmobile.com for full terms.
- [00:34]
Dr. Samantha Amin
Hello. Hello, curious crew. I'm Dr. Samantha Amin, also known as Science Sam, your new host for Curiosity Weekly from Discovery. I am thrilled we'll be learning together every week. I'm a neuroscientist by training and I've spent the better part of the last decade being completely obsessed with cells. So I'm really excited about today's episode. But don't worry. Together on Curiosity Weekly, we're going to explore all different areas of science. Like today, we're also going to this season we have a little more time to dig beyond the headlines of the latest scientific discoveries and talk to experts all to understand this fascinating world we live in. Oh, and of course, we'll cover things out of this world, too.
- [01:15]
Dr. Robert Lillis
Speaking of, Mars is a planet that was once a very different place than it is today. It had rivers and lakes and possibly oceans and a much thicker atmosphere. Like if you were to pour out a glass of water on Mars today, it would just boil away immediately because the pressure is so low that it's just not stable. So there must have been a lot more atmospheric pressure in the past on Mars for the water to have existed. So where did all that atmosphere go?
- [01:43]
Dr. Samantha Amin
That's Dr. Robert Lillis, a planetary scientist and head of NASA's Escapade mission. They're using twin spacecraft buds to study the atmosphere on Mars. This will help us prepare for future space travel to the red planet and give us answers to big questions about our own planet Earth. And then we'll learn about a new idea to make growing crops more efficient and bypass photosynthesis. But first, let's learn about a groundbreaking step for restoring vision. Researchers in Japan have successfully restored vision in patients with severe corneal damage using lab grown stem cells trying to see the road through a shattered windshield. That's how hard it can be seeing with a damaged cornea. Now imagine replacing that with a pristine sheet of lab grown tissue meticulously cultivated in a lab from stem cells and transplanted onto the eye to restore clarity and vision. This is exactly what researchers in Japan have achieved this innovative approach could revolutionize treatment for limbal stem cell deficiency. Now, corneal surgeries, they're fairly routine, but typically the tissue is donor tissue. So creating a sheet of corneal tissue in the lab and transplanting those cells in humans, that's pretty major. Can we geek out on some eye anatomy real quick just so we can get situated? If you look at your own eyes, you probably notice there's a black pupil and then there's a scrunched up iris surrounding it. That gives your eyes their color. Mine are brown. What's harder to see is that there's a thin, clear bit of tissue sitting in front of the iris and pupil, kind of like a windshield for the front of your eye. And it's called the cornea. The cornea protects our sensitive eye tissue and helps focus light so we can see. It's so important for vision that it actually has its own reservoir of stem cells to replenish it in case of minor damage. If you've ever scratched your eye, you know, like when you get a piece of dust in there and it feels uncomfortable, well, your cornea can get damaged, and it takes a few days to heal. It's those limbal stem cells that regenerate the cornea, and that's what takes a few days. Thank goodness for those limbal cells. Now, there's a condition where this doesn't happen. It's called limbal stem cell deficiency. You start to lose vision because these stem cells can't maintain your cornea. It's like a cracked windshield that worsens without repair. It can become hard to see and even more so with the buildup of scar tissue. Limbal stem cell deficiency can happen because of trauma to the eye, like a chemical or heat burn. It can be genetic or even a side effect of treatments like chemotherapy or radiation. The researchers behind this study wanted to find a new way to treat this condition. So four patients with later stages of this condition received a transplant of new cells grown entirely from lab made stem cells. The typical treatment involves removing the scar tissue from the cornea and transplanting healthy corneal tissue. I had to watch videos of this type of surgery in grad school, and whew, it's a lot. But I digress. If the limbal stem cell deficiency is only in one eye, the ophthalmologist can harvest healthy tissue from the other eye, which is great, really easy, compatible, love it. But there is a challenge if the patient has the stem cell deficiency in both eyes. In that case, they'll need to transplant healthy tissue from a Donor. Whether it's a living relative or organ donor, this can be really hard to source. Plus, like any transplant, there are risks involved. There's the possibility of rejection, infection, or complications from the surgery itself. So the researchers needed to figure out a way to solve this problem without requiring a donor transplant. That's where the researchers turned to an innovative solution using lab made stem cells to grow the transplant tissue in the lab. The lab made stem cells, they're called IPS cells, are very cool, but those already won a Nobel Prize back in 2012. What's new here? These folks have a special method to use them to basically model eye development in a dish. It's so cool. They use that to regrow the missing sheets of corneal cells. For the transplant. The team worked with four patients. They removed the scar tissue from each patient's eye, placed a sheet of their fancy corneal cells over the top, and capped it off with a protective contact lens for good measure. IPS cells have been used in a small number of clinical trials before, but this marks the first time induced pluripotent stem cells have been used to successfully treat corneal damage in humans. The eye is one of the areas of the body where I'm really optimistic about leaps in treatments in our lifetime. But don't expect this procedure to be widely available just yet. In medical research, scientists have to first evaluate how safe a treatment is before moving on to test its effectiveness. In this study, the team was focusing on safety, and the results showed that, yes, the procedure is safe and promising enough to proceed in tests with more people, but they're gonna need to conduct more studies with larger groups of patients. These labmate stem cells are also notoriously costly to grow at scale. And so that's a continued area of important research too. This sequential and thorough research is exactly what you want to see. No pun intended. There. There are a lot of stem cell scams out there, so please stay cautious. And like, I could talk stem cells all day because, fun fact, there's a whole separate group of stem cells in the back of our eyes where all the light sensitive rods and cones are. And I gotta shout this out because the lab where I did my PhD actually discovered them in adults. So love this topic and really excited to see this progress.
- [07:36]
Captain
Race the rudders, Race the sails. Race the sails.
- [07:40]
Dr. Robert Lillis
Captain, an unidentified ship is approaching. Over.
- [07:43]
Captain
Roger, Wait, is that an enterprise sales solution?
- [07:47]
LinkedIn Representative
Reach sales professionals, not professional sailors. With LinkedIn ads, you can target the right people by industry, job title, and more. We'll even give you a $100 credit on your next campaign. Get started today@LinkedIn.com results, terms and conditions apply.
- [08:09]
Dr. Samantha Amin
We have just heard the news that Perseverance is alive on the surface of Mars. Congratulations to the mission and looks like we have some more news in it. Looks like we're getting the first image. In 2021, NASA's Perseverance rover landed on Mars. The Discovery documentary, called Mars Exploration, gave the public an exclusive glimpse into the excitement happening in the control room at NASA here. Take a look at the first image.
- [08:38]
Dr. Robert Lillis
Flight, this is OL3. I have the target point on the map. When you are ready. We are ready. OL3, go for it. Took these seconds after landing, so there's still dust in the air from our landing event. So this is happening. You know, this happened just seconds ago, just arrived, and this is really amazing.
- [09:03]
Dr. Samantha Amin
The rover's camera caught images of dusty landscapes, towering rock formations and craters. And it's still out there collecting information. It's honestly amazing. If you're like me, you've probably watched just a few Discovery shows about Mars. And with all the Mars fascination, there are plenty of fictional stories where astronauts try to colonize the planet. These books, movies and TV shows have definitely added to the Mars hype. But on this episode, we're diving into the real science behind it, from its dusty surface to the idea that it might have once hosted life. It all makes me wonder if we're going to call the Red Planet home in our lifetime. But what really happened to Mars? How did it go from a planet with water to the dry, cold world we see today? These are some of the big questions scientists are digging into. Dr. Lillis is a research scientist at UC Berkeley Space Sciences Laboratory. The escapade mission that Dr. Lillis is working on will use twin spacecraft to study how solar wind has stripped away Mars atmosphere over time. Rob, thank you for joining us.
- [10:14]
Dr. Robert Lillis
Nice to be with you, Sam.
- [10:15]
Dr. Samantha Amin
What drew you to studying the Martian ionosphere and magnetosphere? And how does this research help us understand the planet's evolution?
- [10:24]
Dr. Robert Lillis
Mars is a planet that was once a very different place than it is today. Mars in the past was a place that, at least for long periods of time in its early history was wet and warm. It had rivers and lakes and possibly oceans. And the presence of stable liquid water on the Martian surface requires there to have been a much thicker atmosphere. Like if you were to pour out a glass of water on Mars today, it would just boil away immediately. Not because it's hot, just because the pressure is so low that it's just not stable. So there must have been a lot more atmospheric pressure in the past on Mars for the water to have existed. So where did all that atmosphere go? One of the primary places that it would have gone would have been escaping out to space. And so the way it escapes out to space is through the upper atmosphere. And so the processes that happen in the upper atmosphere and the ways that the particles get energized and get enough energy to escape the planet's gravity, well, that's the kind of bread and butter of what, of what I've been studying a decent amount over the last decade or two.
- [11:27]
Dr. Samantha Amin
And the thought is that there have been a lot of changes in its upper atmosphere, and that's why we've seen changes on the surface of the planet.
- [11:35]
Dr. Robert Lillis
Yeah. When we look at how atmosphere is escaping from Mars today, we can identify several different channels through which that happens. And if we look at the strength of the sun and in the solar wind, or the solar ultraviolet brightness, when we do that math, we do get numbers that approximately match up with Mars having lost 90% plus of the atmosphere that it had 4 billion years ago. So it certainly can be enough to change a planet from a place that's at least episodically warm and wet to this arid desert. This cold, arid desert we have today.
- [12:10]
Dr. Samantha Amin
Exactly, because that's how I picture Mars. But then, of course, knowing the history, it's a pretty stark change. I have to ask if a lot of the changes have to do with solar activity. Is this unique to Mars? Is every planet's atmosphere changing so dramatically?
- [12:26]
Dr. Robert Lillis
That's a really good question. So one thing that, for example, really distinguishes Mars from, say, Venus is that that Venus has a lot stronger gravity. So some of the processes that cause atmosphere to escape from Mars don't actually apply to Venus because Venus is a bigger planet with stronger gravity. Mars is a little more geologically dead because it's smaller, older, colder inside, and it can't hold on to the atmosphere. So it was kind of doomed to not be habitable for too long because of its, you know, small size.
- [12:56]
Dr. Samantha Amin
Never had a hope. I could ask you a million questions, but I am very excited to talk to you about the Escapade mission. Could you walk us through the mission's objectives and what makes having these two twin spacecrafts that approach, so innovative in advancing our understanding of Mars?
- [13:14]
Dr. Robert Lillis
Sure, Sam. Yeah, so basically having two point measurements, having that kind of stereo perspective, is really, really powerful, and I'll tell you why. So when we measure things in space, such as, for example, the rates of Atmospheric escape, we have to be right there where it happens. Same thing with measuring the magnetic fields that help to guide the flows of this plasma. And if you only have one spacecraft orbiting the planet, you can't measure the two at the same time because you can't be in two places at once. And so if you only have one spacecraft that takes say four and a half hours to orbit the planet, you have to wait two hours between measuring the cause and the effect.
- [13:55]
Dr. Samantha Amin
I see.
- [13:56]
Dr. Robert Lillis
If you can be in two places at once with twin spacecraft with identical instrumentation, you can, you can actually measure that real time response to changes in the space weather environment. And the other big reason to have two spacecraft is that if you only have one spacecraft and you're going along orbiting a planet and you suddenly see a change in the conditions, you, you don't know whether you're just witnessing a global change that's happening everywhere or whether you've just entered a new region where those conditions are different. Now, of course, we'd love to have six spacecraft, I was gonna say, but there's a huge jump in knowledge from going from one spacecraft to two.
- [14:32]
Dr. Samantha Amin
That's so cool. And I hear that they have a pretty cool name.
- [14:36]
Dr. Robert Lillis
Yes, they are called Blue and Gold. Okay, couple of things about that one. We named it Blue and Gold because those are the colors of UC Berkeley.
- [14:44]
Dr. Samantha Amin
Okay, that's my guess.
- [14:46]
Dr. Robert Lillis
However, NASA makes it clear that these are not a official NASA designations because NASA only puts official names on spacecraft when there has been a lengthy process, often involving voting by the public, et cetera. So the NASA Deep Space Network does keep track of them as Blue and Gold. But in terms of official NASA names, those names are not official, but that's certainly how we refer to them.
- [15:09]
Dr. Samantha Amin
So we've been talking about how a big focus of your research is understanding again how Mars lost its atmosphere over billions of years. Can you explain the role of solar wind in this process and how escapade is going to provide new data to unravel this mystery?
- [15:26]
Dr. Robert Lillis
Right. The solar wind is this stream of particles about a million miles per hour on average. It's very thin, but it's very fast and it's constantly being emitted from the sun. It can be very steady and it can be very gusty as well. It can, it can sort of be, be quite violent. You can get a lot of particle acceleration. This is where you can actually get high fluxes of really dangerous high energy radiation that can happen there. So, for example, we're very lucky that when the Apollo astronauts were on the Moon. We didn't have any of these, at least none that were directed towards Earth because that could have been very hazardous for the astronauts. It's very easy for these, for these particles, if they're energetic enough to go right through a spacesuit. Also those same high energy particles can fry the electronics on spacecraft. There's a lot of reasons for, for NASA to try and try to understand the space weather environment. And it's actually not just space. If you get a big enough space weather storm, it can actually induce enormous currents within power grids on Earth and it can take down power grids. There was an event in 1989 that shut down the Canadian power grid for almost a whole day. So this is something that the government cares about knowing. And if we're going to be sending astronauts to Mars, we certainly want to know about the space weather conditions at Mars as well. But of course, the same solar wind plays a large role in causing the atmosphere to escape from Mars as well. Now, today, today the solar wind only accounts for maybe 10% of the atmosphere escaping from Mars. And so we think that understanding those processes today, even though the actual rates of escape are much lower now, will give us windows into what happened early in solar system history where, when we do think that that process was the dominant process for removing atmosphere from Mars.
- [17:22]
Dr. Samantha Amin
Oh, interesting. Now, the Escapade Mars mission, it's. We've talked about the innovative concept of its twin spacecraft working collaboratively. It seems like it can be a really big leap in Mars exploration. But I want to talk about the opportun because of course, OPPY captured the public's imagination with like, its longevity, the wealth of data and photos it sent back from Mars. It had a life of its own. So how do you see the Escapade mission building on the legacy of Oppy in terms of technology and scientific goals, and maybe more importantly, its mission for engaging people's interest in Mars in general and planetary science.
- [18:04]
Dr. Robert Lillis
That is a great question. Rovers do tend to have more personality than orbiters. Orbiters don't really get the kind of love that rovers do. And I get it because the rovers, they have these twin cameras that look like eyes and they can, and they can move around and they can explore. And you can think of a rover like a curious dog that is going around sniffing rocks. And also the social media teams at JPL that manned those social accounts really did a good job of anthropomorphizing those rovers and making us all care about them. And of course, given the incredible longevity that OPPY had It was meant to last three months and it lasted 15 years. Incredible. And so it's a testament to American engineering talent. We hope that our spacecraft will also last that long. And NASA has other Mars orbiters that have been going even longer than Opportunity. We will definitely have a social, social media presence and we'll be trying to engage the public with, with our discoveries. And one thing that's going to help a lot is that we are actually carrying cameras on escapade which is not, hasn't really been advertised. And so there is a two headed camera, one visible, one infrared on both spacecraft. And we are going to be taking pictures of Mars from orbit. We're going to be hoping to capture pictures of the Martian aurora, dust storms, the polar caps, all that stuff. And those pictures, along with the data that's going to be collected by our plasma instruments and our magnetometer, we will hopefully be able to engage the public effectively because ultimately we work for the taxpayer. You know, it's your money out there that funds us and so, and so we have to be stewards of that and to spend it well. And part of that is to just let you know what we're doing. I believe strongly that scientists have an obligation, it's part of the job to spread the word of what we do.
- [19:56]
Dr. Samantha Amin
I couldn't agree more and I'm excited to see those pictures. One of my lifelong bucket dreams was to see aurora here on Earth. And I recently was able to see it from a city no less. But I'm going to add to my list to see aurora on Mars through your pictures.
- [20:11]
Dr. Robert Lillis
Yes. And actually I should, I should mention that Aurora on Mars have been. They were discovered 19 years ago by European spacecraft called Mars Express. But they were finally seen from the surface for the first time in March of this year. Wow. The Perseverance rover was able to see it. Okay. That only happened because we on the Maven team. Okay, so I'm on the Maven team as well. That's another orbiter on the Maven team. We monitor the sun very closely for when we think a big space weather event is going to be arriving.
- [20:44]
Dr. Samantha Amin
That makes sense.
- [20:46]
Dr. Robert Lillis
There was a big eruption on the sun in March. Our models told us it was probably going to be going towards Mars. We immediately contacted the perseverance rover team or Percy, and we told them, hey, tonight, aim your camera up at the sky and stare for a few hours. And they said that they barely got the heads up from us in time, but they did that. And sure enough, I think two nights later they saw Aurora On Mars.
- [21:13]
Dr. Samantha Amin
Oh, that's awesome.
- [21:14]
Dr. Robert Lillis
From the surface of Mars for the first time ever. So that was really exciting. We're very much hoping that the Escapade spacecraft will be able to take pictures and maybe even movies of the Mars aurora. But it'll have to be bright enough.
- [21:29]
Dr. Samantha Amin
I'm adding it to my bucket list, Rob. Okay, I want to, I'll take anything. Doesn't even need to be high quality, doesn't need to be a video. But that, that's a new goal of mine. Now I gotta ask you. So in the Discovery Channel series Race to Mars, we see a fictionalized story of an international crew traveling to and living on Mars. Similarly, there are other Mars movies and tons of TV shows. They dive into the themes of survival on the red planet, of course, with varying degrees of scientific accuracy. And now that I know that a passion of yours is getting into YouTube comments, I gotta hear from your perspective. How do these types of pop culture portrayals compare to real challenges scientists face? And are there any big misconceptions you see often in sci fi that you would like to address? Like, what's the thing we gotta know that everyone gets wrong about living on Mars?
- [22:22]
Dr. Robert Lillis
Okay, I think probably the biggest one is that we could have these domes, you know, domed cities, you know, because there's obviously extremely low atmospheric pressure. So if you have a city inside a dome, then you can keep all the air on the inside. You can keep it, you know, warm and humid, et cetera. And the problem with that is that a dome will not protect you from the pervasive radiation on the surface of Mars. So Mars, because it has a much thinner atmosphere there is, it is, it is bathed in what's called galactic cosmic radiation. So this isn't coming from the sun. This is coming from all over the galaxy, from every single direction. It's just this constant shower of high energy particles. Now, on Earth, we have a thick atmosphere. Almost like only the very, very highest energy of these ones get to the surface of Earth. And it's pretty negligible for a radiation risk. But on Mars, it won't be on Mars. It's going to be a constant risk. And the only way to keep it out is to have walls that are at least 6ft thick. So 6ft of solid rock is what you need to protect yourself from these high energy cosmic rays. Which means that our habitats on Mars are either going to be mostly underground, or they'll have like small windows and like I said, six foot thick walls because it won't be safe to spend More than, I'm going to say, three, four hours a day, unprotected on the Martian surface. Your spacesuit is not going to protect you from, from that radiation.
- [23:58]
Dr. Samantha Amin
Your work has, I think, pretty big implications for future human exploration on Mars. How does the study of Mars's magnetosphere and atmospheric processes, how does that help us prepare for challenges like radiation exposure and sustaining human life on the Red Planet?
- [24:15]
Dr. Robert Lillis
Gotcha. Yeah. So, right. The work that NASA's doing today does have relevance for the human settlement of the planet a couple of ways directly. So the radiation. I've already just mentioned understanding the relationship between the space environment in Mars orbit, where you're going to have astronauts, but also then on the Martian surface, and how the radiation is modified by its passage through the Martian atmosphere. Also, one thing I haven't mentioned so far at all is that Mars has extremely strong magnetic fields, but not in the way the Earth does. Not coming from the core, not a global magnetic field. Mars has extremely strongly magnetized rocks in certain areas. There's places where we think the magnetic fields could be strong enough to actually provide partial shielding from that radiation environment. So there could be certain areas which are naturally shielded to some extent. I mean, probably only maybe 50% or something like that. The other major way in which our research is helping to prepare for exploration is that the astronauts are going to need to communicate via radio and they're going to need to know where they are. Exactly. So global positioning, such as GPS on Earth relies on very accurate knowledge of the passage of those radio waves from the satellites through the upper atmosphere, in particular through the ionosphere on Mars. We're going to need to understand the Mars atmosphere and especially on the Martian night side. The ionosphere is extremely variable, much more variable than it is on the Earth. Understanding the Mars ionosphere will help us to establish a more accurate Global positioning system.
- [25:57]
Dr. Samantha Amin
This has been fascinating. Thank you so much for entertaining all of my questions. I could ask a million more. It's really, really cool work. And I'm very much looking forward to following escapade when it launches.
- [26:08]
Dr. Robert Lillis
Yeah. So we're looking at dates in 2025 and 2026. And if we. Okay, so Mars and Earth only line up correctly for a, what's called a ballistic transfer about every 25 months.
- [26:22]
Dr. Samantha Amin
Okay.
- [26:23]
Dr. Robert Lillis
And so you have between a three and six week window every 25 months if you want to go direct to Mars. So impressed. If we wait until October 2026, then we just go direct to Mars. But we may well be launching earlier and going into a Kind of a long, lazy, kidney bean shaped orbit around the Earth, then heading out to Mars that way. So it's still TBD which of those approaches we're going to be taking.
- [26:46]
Dr. Samantha Amin
Okay, well, I'll be watching. I can't wait. And I'll be. I'll be following those pictures and images and crossing my fingers for an aurora. Thank you so much, Rob.
- [26:54]
Dr. Robert Lillis
Okay, thanks a million, Sam.
- [26:59]
Dr. Samantha Amin
There's a new development that could potentially change the way we grow our food by skipping over photosynthesis altogether. It's called electro agriculture. As you probably know, the way that food and plants grow is through the process of photosynthesis, where plants produce energy from water, carbon dioxide and sunlight. In simple terms, it's how plants make their food. And it's been old reliable. But scientists are trying to find ways to make that process more efficient and make it possible anywhere. First, think about industrial farming. Growing enough food to feed the 8 billion people on Earth produces a massive amount of greenhouse gas emissions. Industrial and factory farming methods use large amounts of land and water, contribute to greenhouse gas emissions, pollute water sources with agricultural runoff, and lead to soil degradation. Overall, industrial farming has a serious impact on the environment. One solution so far has been artificial light and vertical farming. It's pretty awesome, honestly, because it uses less land and reduces pollution from runoff. But there's a catch. It requires a massive amount of energy. Plus those lights get super hot. So there needs to be a big investment in cooling systems to keep the crops from getting scorched. Finally, we need to consider the efficiency of the plants themselves. In their natural state, plants have room for growth when it comes to harnessing their chemical energy. Sorry, I couldn't resist the plants plant fun there. Plants only use a small fraction of the light they absorb and a lot of energy goes to waste. On average, their photosynthesis efficiency is only around 1%. So a team of scientists from several universities, including the University of California, Riverside, wanted to find ways to grow food that doesn't rely solely on the sun. And with their idea of electro agriculture, these plants can grow anywhere, even in the dark. Here's the idea. Electroegg is an engineered version of photosynthesis that's efficient and controlled thanks to renewable energy. Their version starts with capturing carbon dioxide from the environment, which is great because we have way too much excess carbon dioxide. Then it undergoes carbon dioxide electrolysis, which is a fancy way of saying they turn it into another compound called acetate. This is really cool because acetate can then be used as food for the plant in the future. Scientists can tweak the plant's genes to help them metabolize the acetate better, so they grow faster and use energy even more efficiently. The team's proposed method builds on previous success using electroegg to grow yeast, fungi and green algae four times more efficiently than typical photosynthesis. Their new suggestions, published in 2024 in the journal Joule, could improve this even further. In fact, they want to turn today's 1% efficiency of energy from the sun into over 10% efficiency while REDUC land needed for food production. The potential here is major. It could lead to more efficient farming in challenging environments where traditional agriculture just isn't feasible, like cities, deserts or even space. The authors also say this method has the potential to reduce land needed for farming by up to 88%. It could enable year round food production and lower greenhouse gas emissions, all powered by renewable energy. Now this is all sounding a little bit too good to be true. And so I gotta say it's still early days. A lot of these calculations were theoretical, but the scientists are now focusing early tests trying to cultivate tomatoes, lettuce and even plant based meat alternatives. Using this method. They see a future where all sorts of crops are grown in these systems in structures up to seven stories high. While there's still a lot of work to do to get this up and running and then bring it to scale, it's still such an impressive fusion of technology and biogenetics that could help increase food production while mitigating climate change. Let's do a little roundup of what we learned today. We learned about promising results from a new procedure that tested stem cells to treat adults with a specific type of vision loss. In patients whose corneas, the front layer of the eye is unable to replenish itself, stem cells grown in a lab could replace the missing corneals cells. I got my mind absolutely blown chatting with Dr. Robert Lillis about his mission using twin spacecraft to collect next level data about solar winds on Mars and the loss of a magnetic field on the red planet. Last we learned about a new idea for electro agriculture. An engineering approach to growing crops that doesn't rely on sunlight. It's mostly theory for now, but it could reduce the amount of land we use for crops, help us grow food more efficiently and and in areas where you can't otherwise grow food. I'm totally in for Warner Bros. Discovery Curiosity Weekly is produced by the team at Wheelhouse DNA. The senior producer and editorial correspondent is Teresa Carey. Our producer is Chiara Noni. Our audio engineer is Nick Karisimi. And head of Production for Wheelhouse DNA is Cassie Berman. And I'm Dr. Samantha Mean. Thanks for listening.
- [32:13]
Captain
Race the rudders. Race the sails. Race the sails.
- [32:17]
Dr. Robert Lillis
Captain, an unidentified ship is approaching. Over.
- [32:20]
Captain
Roger, Wait. Is that an enterprise sales solution?
- [32:25]
LinkedIn Representative
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