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Logan Scott
Ready to order?
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Dr. Samantha Amin
Yes.
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Logan Scott
Everything.
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Logan Scott
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Adam Grant
Terms apply. See capitalone.com for details. What's up? Adam Grant from Work Life. A TED podcast here. And I want to tell you about something exciting. You're watching every dollar and Walmart Business helps you stretch each one. From office supplies to snacks and cleaning gear. You'll get everyday low prices plus easy bulk ordering and fast delivery. And with tools like spend tracking and multi user accounts, staying organized is simple. Save time, money and hassle. @business.walmart.com it's free to sign up.
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Ryan Reynolds
Mint is still $15 a month for premium wireless. And if you haven't made the switch yet, here are 15 reasons why you should. One, it's $15 a month.
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Logan Scott
Two.
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Ryan Reynolds
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Podcast Host / Narrator
$15 per month equivalent required. New customer offer first three months only, then full price plan options available, taxes and fees extra. See Mintmo.
- [01:30]
Dr. Samantha Amin
Finally, there's a glimmer of hope against one of the cruelest diseases we know. Huntington's. For the first time, this condition, long thought untreatable, has been slowed in patients through a groundbreaking gene therapy. The clinical trial isn't fully complete or peer reviewed yet, but the early results are remarkable. People, once expected to decline, are now regaining parts of their lives. And speaking of pushing boundaries, nature itself is breaking the rules. A common European ant whose queen can do something biologists thought was impossible, produce males of a completely different species. These ants bend the rules of biology with some wild genetics, sleight of hand, a living example of evolution's unpredictability. Meanwhile, something we want to stay predictable and reliable. Satellite navigation, gps and the Internet, which we use for nearly everything. So we have to ask how resilient is the infrastructure that supports these essential systems? We'll hear from Logan Scott, a GPS and timing expert to learn more. I'm Dr. Samantha Amin. Welcome to Curiosity Weekly. Time to update the biology textbooks because what was thought to be a fundamental rule of biology has been broken. A common type of ant in Europe, the queen Iberian harvester ant, can produce male offspring from a whole other species. The queen ant in question is from the species M. Abericus. These queens can clone males of another species M. Structor. Remember, the queen is Ebericus, or I be the queen. Cause I don't know if that helps you remember. And the males they clone are the species M. Structor. The queen Americus mates with those clones to produce the workers that are a hybrid of the two species. The team from the University of Montpellier in France figured this out using a combination of genetic analyses, fieldwork observing these ants in the wild, and lab experiments where they observed colonies simply doing their thing. Now I know emstructor Emma Baricus. How different are those really? Well, the researchers estimate they split into separate species about 5 million years ago. To give some perspective, they have the same kind of relationship as zebras and horses, potatoes and eggplants, lions and tigers. Oh my. Same broader lineage, but definitely not interchangeable. It turns out all the worker ants are hybrids of the two different species. The Iberian queens actually can't make worker ants on their own. Instead, they use a genetic trick. Sometimes they'll mate with males from a related species like Amstractor. But if no structure male is around, the queens can actually clone those males and use the clones for their sperm. The result is a colony full of hybrid workers. But they aren't hybrids from generations long ago. Like a fourth generation labradoodle that's been mixed and remixed over time, the worker hybrids are first generation hybrids. They confirm this with a parental test. On the worker ants, the genomes were a nearly 5050 split, matching the two species with the exception of the mitochondrial DNA, which all comes from the female, by the way, including in humans, that consistent 5050 split screams first generation hybrid. Their work is published in the journal Nature. Now, hybrids themselves aren't unheard of in insects or otherwise. Think of mules and ligers, to name a few. But here's where the researchers started scratching their heads. There are a lot of places in Europe where these two ant species don't overlap. For example, worker ants in Sicily that are clearly first generation hybrids are more than 1,000 kilometers away from the closest known M structure population. Like imagine you're doing a year abroad and your partner back home says they're having your baby. Nice try, but that's not how biology works, right? Wrong. Iberian harvester queens found a way to reproduce hybrid workers without needing there to be wild colonies with M structure males to mate with. This is the first known case of females cloning another species as part of their life cycle. By making their own mates, these queens blur the lines of biology and teach us that nature's playbook is far more flexible than we imagined.
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- [06:16]
Adam Grant
Terms apply. Lounge access is subject to change. See capital1.com for details. What's up Adam Grant from Work Life A TED podcast here and I want to tell you about something exciting. You're watching Every dollar and Walmart Business helps you stretch each one from office supplies to snacks and cleaning gear. You'll get everyday low prices plus easy bulk ordering and fast delivery. And with tools like spend tracking and multi user accounts, staying organized is simple. Save time, money and hassle. @business.walmart.com it's free to sign up.
- [06:45]
Ryan Reynolds
Hey, Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile. Now I don't know if you've heard, but Mint's Premium Wireless is $15 a month. But I'd like to offer one other perk. We have no stores. That means no small talk. Crazy weather we're having. No, it's not. It's just weather. It is an introvert's dream. Give it a try@mintmobile.com Switch upfront payment.
- [07:09]
Podcast Host / Narrator
Of $45 per three month plan $15 per month equivalent required. New customer offer first three months only, then full price plan options available, taxes and fees extra. See mintmobile.com welcome to Decoding Women's Health. I'm Dr. Elizabeth Poynter, chair of Women's Health and Gynecology at the Atria Health Institute in New York City.
- [07:25]
Interviewer
I'll be talking to top researchers and.
- [07:27]
Podcast Host / Narrator
Clinicians and bringing vital information about midlife.
- [07:31]
Interviewer
Women'S health directly to you. 100% of women go through menopause. Even if it's natural, why should we suffer through it?
- [07:39]
Podcast Host / Narrator
Listen to Decoding Women's Health with Dr. Elizabeth Poynter wherever you get your podcasts.
- [07:49]
Dr. Samantha Amin
We live in a world that depends on satellite navigation, GPS and The Internet for just about everything from connecting with friends and finding our way to powering national security. If those systems go dark, it reveals just how fragile our infrastructure really is. You might remember the New York City blackout, part of a massive power outage known as the northeast blackout of 2003, which affected 50 million people. And it was all because of a systems glitch. But that blackout showed us what's possible. Logan Scott, a GPS expert honored with prestigious awards like the 2018 Signals Leadership Award and the 2022 Captain PVH Weems Award, has spent over 40 years making timing and navigation systems more reliable and secure. He's worked with major companies like Texas Instruments and played a key role in shaping national GPS security policies. It's all about the tech and the tools we rely on every day. Curiosity senior producer Teresa Carey and Logan dive into the details.
- [08:47]
Interviewer
I would like to break this down and start with the fundamentals. So, gps, it provides what's called positioning, navigation, and timing. And it's everywhere. Not just for directions on our phone, but for other things as well. But I want to talk about specifically that signal that comes from space. I've heard it's not any stronger than a light bulb in my living room. So can you help us understand, like, how that signal that's so faint can still manage to guide us all the time and. Yeah, how does that work?
- [09:16]
Logan Scott
Okay, so the signal is a 25 watt. So think of a 25 watt light bulb, but put it 12,500 miles away. That's how far away the satellites are. Satellites are actually up pretty high. And so your job in the receiver is to listen for this signal, which is actually about 100 times weaker than galactic noise. Yeah. So just the background noise from the big bang is about 100 times stronger. So your job in the receiver, again, is to listen to that signal. So basically, you're trying to. You've got a pattern. You know what the pattern looks like? You match that to what's coming out of the satellite. And based on the time that you receive that, you subtract off the time that it was sent. And that basically allows you to figure out the range to a satellite, more formally pseudorange. And based on that, you can figure out four variables.
- [10:09]
Interviewer
When did you first start to realize how much of modern life relies on gps? Because GPS is really more than just maps, right?
- [10:17]
Logan Scott
Absolutely. Yeah. In fact, maps is not really part of gps. GPS just tells you four things. It tells you your latitude, your longitude, your altitude, and what time it is. And it tells you what time it is very accurately. But coming back to your question, I've been involved with GPS since 1978, so I'm actually one of the old dogs in the field. I realized it was a problem for the military early on, and then I started realizing the dependencies that we had on GPS and more generally gnss in the civil sector, and started talking about that about 25 years ago and proposed methods for authenticating signals. And what that really means is like when you look at a dollar bill, $100 bill, you look for the stripe and you look for the, the picture of Benjamin, you make sure it really looks like Benjamin, or at least the artist's conception of them. And so there's all these watermarks that are associated with a hundred dollar bill that you look at to establish that it's a true and verifiable real hundred dollar bill. And so working on ways to do that with the signals that are in gps. But there is a satellite that went up in August of this year which is actually going to transmit some of those ideas. So it's been a long, tough road to hoe, but we are getting there to the point where you can tell a real signal from a fake signal. You might ask, well, why am I concerned about a real signal versus a fake signal? Well, a lot of what you're seeing over in the Middle east and the Ukraine is what is called spoofing. And spoofing is where you have a signal generator which basically puts out a bunch of signals that look a lot like gps, but they're not gps. And they can convince you, if you're not aware of this, that you're at a particular airport even though you're not, you're flying along happily and your receiver says you're at Lebanon International Airport and all sorts of weird things start happening. Your ground proximity warning system, the thing that tells you you're too close to the ground, says pull up, pull up. Or another kind of weird effect that happens is in some of the business jets, they have interlocks which basically prevent the toilets from flushing whenever you're at the airport. And so the toilets might not work. And so that's your first indication that you're being spoofed. So it's typically very weird things start happening. And the consequence of that is that if you lose gps, cellular systems can start getting into trouble. In fact, there was an incident in San Diego almost 20 years ago where there was some accidental GPS jamming and all sorts of weird things started happening. Cell phones couldn't hand off and so, you know, you basically have dropped calls. The trapeze act wouldn't work. In other words, one guy, let's go at the wrong time. And if it's off by a microsecond, bad things happen.
- [13:16]
Interviewer
The next guy can't catch you. Next guy can't Cat, I wonder if you could just describe like the cascade of what could go wrong if some of these signals were intercepted or blocked or spoofed. Is it really, you know, as. As bad as we see in the movies? Is it really as chaotic like that? What could really happen if you're unaware?
- [13:34]
Logan Scott
Yeah, it can be very chaotic because what happens is the. You know, your question did trigger a thought. There's a lot of autonomous systems that are becoming important. Okay, so we're talking about things like self driving trucks, self driving cars, drones, in other words, any of the autonom systems. And there, I think that there is a greater concern because you as a human, you can recognize, well, that's screwy. You know, I don't want to follow on with that. Whereas an AI system, oftentimes they believe anything they see. You know, and I'm thinking about what happened to Microsoft when they connected Tay to the Internet. And it believed everything. It hurt. And you could just imagine what a disaster that was. Another thing that could happen potentially is what can happen there is if somebody turns on a spoofer and all of the police cruisers and emergency vehicles are suddenly indicating that they're at Randy's Donuts. Okay. So delayed emergency responses, I guess, is ultimately what I'm trying to say.
- [14:34]
Interviewer
Okay, so we could see some impacts in first responders, some impacts in, obviously our cell phones in the grid. Things like that could become interrupted or feel a little chaotic at times.
- [14:47]
Logan Scott
Right. But you know, I don't think we should go running around with our heads cut off and say, you know, the sky is falling. It's not. The sky is not falling. The systems are pretty good, but they could be better. This is one of the things about jamming and spoofing that's really critical to understand is that it's very confusing, especially the first time that you experience it. In 2017, there was a big navigation conference and you had the world's leading experts, experts on spoofing and jamming and GPS all there. And there was a signal generator that was improperly terminated and it was leaking out some GPS looking signals. And so what happened was people's cell phones decided, well, it's not 2017, it's 2014. And so the symptoms were not navigation Errors, the symptoms were things like you're getting texts from three years ago. Okay. You can't log into your email system because you've got the wrong time. Okay, so again, time is extremely important. That's one of the things that I really want to emphasize to you, is that there's four things you solve for, but that time one is a really critical one.
- [16:01]
Interviewer
Let's talk more about that clock and that we rely on this GPS system that requires nanosecond level accuracy. Synchronizing power grids, coordinating financial transactions, maybe managing wireless networks is also a part of that and different, like maybe environmental monitoring, seismic activity. So can you explain how GPS satellites produce that timing signal in such an accurate way to a billionth of a second? And why even these, why even the smallest timing errors, like such a fraction of a second that we wouldn't even notice how this can cause like a cascading failure in these complex systems? I really liked your example of the trapeze artists trying to catch each other. But really, a nanosecond, how does that matter that much?
- [16:50]
Logan Scott
Okay, so a nanosecond corresponds to roughly one foot in terms of propagation at the speed of light. So if you're trying to provide navigation accuracy down to the foot level, then ultimately you need to be able to figure out what time it is to the nanosecond level as well. So with regards to the GPS system, there's three major components. There's the user segment, which is you and me, the receivers. There's the satellite or space segment, which is the 31 satellites that are up. And more generally, I should say that with GNSS, there's about 130 satellites that are navigation capable up there. And the third part, which is kind of hidden, is what's called the control segment. And the control segment basically listens to the satellites and it has some just incredible clocks. And then the satellites themselves, they all carry multiple atomic clocks on them. So you've got all these atomic clocks that you're averaging together, and that's how you know what time it is at the GPS satellite. And so ultimately to figure out where you are, what you're computing is the time you receive the signal minus the time the signal was sent. You multiply that by the speed of light and that's your range to the satellite. And then there's an error in the receiver that you also measure. That's the fourth variable. And so you're solving for that timing the receiver as well.
- [18:16]
Interviewer
And all of this timing that you're describing and These precise measurements remind me of very basic navigation, like old school, when you're out hiking and whatnot. That would be triangulation or dead reckoning.
- [18:30]
Logan Scott
It's basically triangulation. The other component that you see in a lot of navigation systems is something called an inertial navigation system. That's sort of like the dead reckoning part. And so what the GPS does is it corrects the dead reckoning thing, gets that all calibrated, and then when the GPS goes away, perhaps due to jamming, then you ride on the inertial. So that's why a lot of pilots, what they do when they fly into conflict zones, particularly commercial pilots, is they turn off the GPS so it doesn't corrupt the inertial navigation system, the dead reckoning aspect. And so they use the dead reckoning as they're flying in there. But the problem with dead reckoning is you well know as a hiker, is eventually it goes, there's more error, there's.
- [19:13]
Interviewer
More room for error. With every minute that passes, the error grows.
- [19:17]
Logan Scott
Unless you go take a look at a mountain and triangulate on those things and reset your dead reckoning.
- [19:23]
Interviewer
Your dead reckoning kind of resets at that point.
- [19:24]
Logan Scott
Exactly. Okay, so that's a very common configuration in particularly commercial aircraft.
- [19:31]
Interviewer
So let's talk about the jammers and spoofers for a second because these things are curiosity to me. They're these low cost devices. They're, from what I understand, kind of easy and cheap to get, real simple. And they can disrupt these incredibly complex satellite signals and send or maybe interrupt them or maybe send fake signals to trick receivers. And so from a technical standpoint, can you explain why these GPS signals are so vulnerable to this kind of interference? What is it about the nature of the signals or the receiver?
- [20:04]
Logan Scott
So GPS, the signal was designed in 1973. Okay, so, you know, just to give you an idea of 1973, you know, you could buy a car for $3,700. Your modem that you connected to the network was, went at 50 bits per second. Okay, so that's sort of the generation of these signals.
- [20:26]
Interviewer
Okay, I'm pretty sure I could still buy a car for $3,700.
- [20:29]
Logan Scott
I'm talking a new car and an ice car.
- [20:31]
Interviewer
You don't know what I'm driving.
- [20:34]
Logan Scott
Anyhow, the signal is that old. Okay, so it's over 50 years old. And back then, and we still use this signal, and we still use the signal. It's the same signal as 1973. And so the problem is the Signal has no features in it to allow you to establish that it's real or fake. And if you want to know how to generate it, what you do is you go find something called ICD GPS 200, okay. Which is available on the Internet anywhere that tells you exactly how to build the signal. And to make matters worse, you can get the software off of the Internet that does this so you don't have to actually build this yourself. And so we've had a massive proliferation because it is so easy to do this. And remember, what you're competing with is basically this 25 watt transmitter that's 12,500 miles away.
- [21:25]
Interviewer
Let's talk about Eloran. I know you've been deeply involved in this, but Eloran is a system that evolved from the legacy Loran C, which is something our listeners might remember from the 1980s. It's a low frequency, ground based radio navigation and timing system. The first thought that might sound like, if we're trying to do this again, it might sound like taking a step backwards. But I think in reality, it offers a stronger signal that might be resistant to these jamming and spoofing. And there are countries out there, the uk, China, South Korea, maybe more, that are interesting in Eliran. Okay, and so how does land based Eliran work compared to gps? Can you explain, like, the science behind why Eliran signals might be better?
- [22:11]
Logan Scott
Eliran operates at 100 kilohertz, so it's a very low frequency signal. GPS is around 1500 megahertz, so much higher frequency. So the Eloran signal is a very good timing signal where they have atomic clocks at each one of the stations there. And if you have four or five, you can cover the entire United States, not for navigation, but for timing. And this sort of gets into a distinction between the two. There's a lot of other systems that can replace positioning, but timing is really hard to replace. So with that many stations, about five, you could provide timing over the United.
- [22:51]
Interviewer
States and our cell towers actually replace, can replace positioning to an extent.
- [22:57]
Logan Scott
Absolutely.
- [22:58]
Interviewer
Right. Aren't they doing the same thing? Absolutely.
- [22:59]
Logan Scott
When we talk about Loran, it can act as a backbone network. If you want to do just timing, you need about around five stations to cover the United States. But if you want to do positioning now, you're getting into the 40 stations to cover the United States. So it takes a lot more stations.
- [23:17]
Interviewer
And in terms of timing, though, how might those Eliran signals be better than the GPS satellite?
- [23:22]
Logan Scott
Well, for one thing, they're very hard to jam. Loran puts out signals at megawatt kind of powers. Okay. In other words, it's a very strong signal, it's a very low frequency, so it's hard to generate spoofing signals for it. The big drawback with Loran is, well, there's two of them. One is it's not as accurate as gps, so you're not going to be operating precision farming on Loran. And the other thing is that the antennas are physically kind of large and heavy, maybe 2, 3 inches in diameter. And it's not the kind of thing you're going to put in a cell phone.
- [23:57]
Interviewer
Right.
- [23:58]
Logan Scott
But for stationary timing applications, if you're not needing tremendous accuracy, but you're needing really strong resilience and robustness, Loran is spectacular.
- [24:09]
Interviewer
And so besides Eloran, there are also some other perhaps exciting new technologies emerging in the position navigation and timing field. I've heard of things like quantum clocks and fiber optic timing networks.
- [24:21]
Logan Scott
Right.
- [24:21]
Interviewer
What are some of the most significant advances in this field that you've seen and how do they work?
- [24:26]
Logan Scott
Okay, so one that's interesting is called Broadcast Positioning System, which is TV stations. And basically the national association of Broadcasters has a program where they're going to add timing discipline to the TV transmitters so that if you know where you are, you can figure out what time it is. And there's about 1600 of those transmitters already in existence. So that is one very good timing system. In fact, there's a really nice synergism between Loran and the TV stations.
- [25:01]
Interviewer
Okay, do you see maybe them playing a part in a multi layered, resilient system in the future?
- [25:07]
Logan Scott
Oh, absolutely. You know, that's the thing is that when you talk about navigation belts and suspenders and a rope are probably, you know, three good. You know, you don't want to just trust one system. So that's a really good one. Another one that's really interesting you mentioned quantum is what's called magnetic navigation or MagnaV. The world has been carefully mapped out and it's not uniform. In other words, there's variations in magnets depending on where you are. And so with these quantum systems, they can make exquisitely fine measurements of the magnetic field. And as you fly along, think of it like going over bumps. In other words, you see a bump and then you go some distance, you see another bump. And by measuring those bumps in the magnetic field, you can figure out where you are. And the accuracy that is 50 to 200 meter kind of numbers, which is a lot better than nothing. And it's a lot better than your Inertial navigation system, which has been dead reckoning. And if it's been doing that for any period of time, it's off by miles. So this is a nice bounded area. So that's pretty exciting.
- [26:15]
Interviewer
And how about private satellites? Could private satellite constellations like Starlink help as backups?
- [26:21]
Logan Scott
Oh, absolutely. In fact, there's two purpose built systems. One is called Zona, the other one is TrustPoint. Okay, these are building, you know, they're building purpose built navigation satellites that operate in low earth orbit and others. They're up about maybe 550km. Sorry, I'm an engineer, I have to have to say kilometers. I can't. Okay. But anyway, they're talking about putting up 200, 300 satellites. And it basically does essentially the same thing as gps, but the satellites are lower and potentially can be more precise. So it's hard to beat gps, particularly if you're getting into high precision. GPS can get into the centimeter kind of region. It's hard to beat that. But if you're just trying to get into the 5 to 10 meter kind of range, there are a lot of other systems that can support and for safety of life, you know, if you're flying this airplane, trying to land it 5 meters is oftentimes plenty good. You know, if you can see the Runway, you're happy. As a pilot, you know, you know what to do, or at least you should know what to do.
- [27:27]
Interviewer
It sounds like building a resilient navigation system is this huge technical challenge. So what gives you hope that the technology and the infrastructure will keep improving? Are there any recent breakthroughs or developments that our listeners might find reassuring?
- [27:45]
Logan Scott
Things are improving. We're learning to use the backups, we're learning to use the tools at hand because very oftentimes the tools are there. It's just a question of using the right tool. And GPS and GNSS has been trusted too much.
- [28:00]
Interviewer
And so, looking ahead, how will these innovations in navigation and timing technology improve the everyday experience? I mean, beyond not getting lost or not having things like bank transactions and other applications kind of crash and go wild on us, are there any exciting new applications that we can look forward to in the next five to 10 years?
- [28:21]
Logan Scott
In a sense there is. It's an old application, but it's being made available to the public. There's something called controlled reception pattern antennas, which is basically an adaptive array. And what these things do is they recognize which direction the jamming is coming from and they make the gain of the antenna be very, very low in that direction. Okay. You know, they basically create a null in that direction. There's a lot of good options out there, and I don't think we need to totally freak out about this. It's a serious situation, but there are mechanisms for dealing with this. Systems are pretty good, but they could be better.
- [29:00]
Interviewer
Okay, well, thank you you so much for talking with me. Okay.
- [29:03]
Logan Scott
It was fun talking with you. Ready to order?
- [29:10]
Dr. Samantha Amin
Yes.
- [29:11]
Podcast Host / Narrator
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Interviewer
Everything.
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Logan Scott
Yes, chef.
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Podcast Host / Narrator
This is so nice.
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Podcast Host / Narrator
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- [29:37]
Adam Grant
Terms apply. See capital1.com for details. What's up? Adam Grant from Work Life. A TED podcast here. And I want to tell you about something exciting. You're watching every dollar and Walmart Business helps you stretch each one from office supplies to snacks and cleaning gear. You'll get everyday low prices plus easy bulk ordering and and fast delivery. And with tools like spend tracking and multi user accounts, staying organized is simple. Save time, money and hassle. @business.walmart.com it's free to sign up.
- [30:04]
Ryan Reynolds
Mint is still $15 a month for premium wireless. And if you haven't made the switch yet, here are 15 reasons why you should. One, it's $15 a month. Two, seriously, it's $15 a month. Three, no big contracts. Four, I use it. Five, my mom uses it. Are you, Are you playing me off? That's what's happening, right? Okay, give it a try.
- [30:24]
Podcast Host / Narrator
@Mintmobile.Com Switch upfront payment of $45 for three month plan. $15 per month equivalent required. New customer offer first three months only, then full price plan options available, taxes and fees extra. See mintmobile.com.
- [30:38]
Dr. Samantha Amin
Huntington's disease is a devastating neurodegenerative disease and there's currently no cure. But a new gene therapy treatment is showing early signs of progress towards a solution. Researchers at a biotech company called Unicure recently announced the preliminary results of a phase 12 gene therapy clinical trial where they saw a 75% slower progression of disease in patients with Huntington's. That's huge. We all have a gene in our DNA called htt and it instructs the body to make the Huntington protein that Encourages the healthy development of neurons in our brain. But in Huntington's disease, that gene has extra repetitive bits in it. The mutation causes the Huntington protein to become toxic, aggregating in neurons, damaging and destroying them. This leads to uncontrollable movements, psychiatric symptoms, cognitive decline, and ultimately death. It's like a combination of Parkinson's, dementia and ALS all in one. And all it takes is just one faulty gene copy to inherit the disease. Each child of an affected parent has a 50% chance of inheriting the gene. So Huntington's impacts not only those diagnosed, but also family members living with the genetic risk. But the team at Unicure wanted to rewrite the rulebook for that mutated gene. What they did was alter a benign virus so it can deliver a particular sequence of genetic information to cells. Those are the new rules. And the virus isn't the type that makes you sick, but one that we use in research and therapies. It's called a viral vector. It's like a carrier pigeon that delivers the gene therapy to, in this case, specific parts of the brain. And to do that, it took 12 to 18 hour brain surgery where doctors drilled small holes in the skull and using Mr. Imaging to guide them, delivered the gene therapy into one of the most affected parts of the brain. Once in the brain cells, the gene therapy blocks the instructions that tell the cells to make the harmful protein. So by doing that, it stops that protein from building up and damaging the brain cells. It's a type of gene silencing technology that our cells naturally use in other ways. Scientists are just using it here for gene therapy. The study's been going on for a few years now. It started with a total of 26 patients with early onset Huntington's. Six received a low dose, 10 received a high dose, and 10 were in the control group. So these are early results. But given the promising signs, they're enrolling more patients across the US and the EU and will continue to monitor long term safety and improvements if it does get approved for use. More broadly, a big hurdle is going to be ensuring that patients can access facilities that can perform this surgical procedure, plus insurance coverage to pay for the costly gene therapy. In the US Federal law protects against health insurance discrimination based on genetics, but not for life, disability or long term care insurance where people at risk can still face denial. Also, Medicare often delays coverage for Huntington's disease by up to two years. These are big hurdles that sometimes lead people to avoid genetic testing out of fear. And then when the treatment is needed, access can be delayed, making it harder for people to receive their breakthrough care. Scientists first identified the gene responsible for Huntington's in 1993. Since then, they've been working tirelessly, searching for a treatment. Now, with this promising gene therapy showing early signs of altering the course of the disease, this is a huge deal. An exciting glimpse at what's possible when science and perseverance come together for Warner Brothers 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 Youmeen. Thanks for listening.
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On his first day back in the White House, Donald Trump signed a controversial executive order stating that there are only two genders, male and female, and that those genders are tied to biological sex. This statement was simple and devastating, and it signaled that the gender backlash had reached a boiling point. I'm Julie Koehler, the host of White Picket Fence. This season we're to going examining the many faces of this gender backlash, how it's showing up in our politics and culture. It's a scary time, but it's also a moment for imagination. What becomes possible when we imagine a better future? Subscribe to White Picket Fence Wherever you listen to podcasts.
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Dr. Samantha Amin
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