Dr. Jonathan Stone traces his path from zoology and computational biology into astrobiology, where questions about tardigrades, the genetic code, and life beyond Earth bring biology together with physics, chemistry, and astronomy. He also shares how students can break into the field through curiosity, cross-disciplinary learning, networking, and hands-on research experience.
Transcript click a line to jump the video Hide Transcript▴ 00:10 Given What do you— what do you think it is? 00:12 Derek I think it's extraterrestrial, bro. 00:14 Given Really? I mean, do you know anybody we could call? 00:20 Derek I know who to call. I know just the right person. Hi, I need an astrobiologist here, please. 00:33 Jon Did somebody call for an astrobiologist? Doc Rock here. No worries, boys, it's just slime. 00:49 Derek Welcome everybody to the first episode of the So You Studied Bio podcast. 01:00 Derek We're your hosts, Derek, and behind the camera we have Given. 01:04 Derek And today, for the first episode, we're joined by Dr. 01:08 Derek Jonathan Stone, better known as Doc Rock. So you work in astrobiology, but you don't actually hold a degree in astrobiology. 01:19 Derek So what is your academic background and how did you end up here? 01:22 Jon Okay, I got a Bachelor of Science degree. It was a double major from the University of Toronto. 01:28 Jon One major was physics and biology, and the second major was zoology, and I have a minor in chemistry. So as you can see, I wasn't very— 01:36 Derek Yeah. 01:37 Jon Disciplined, or I was too disciplined, I suppose, in that sense. 01:40 Jon I couldn't really decide what program I wanted, and I do recall the registrar asking me to choose a program, and I said, whatever program my courses fit me best to, I'll take that program. 01:52 Jon So that's how I ended up with that degree. I did my master's and PhD at the University of Toronto at the Department of Zoology, which no longer exists. 02:01 Jon And then I did 3 postdoctoral research tenureships, one in New York at State University of New York Stony Brook, one in Sweden at the University of Uppsala, and one in Dalhousie in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and then came to McMaster in 2003. 02:19 Derek Okay, so you've been situated at McMaster since then? 02:22 Jon That's correct, yeah. 02:23 Derek Okay, so was astrobiology something you discovered gradually, or was there a specific moment when you realized that this was the direction you wanted to head in? 02:35 Jon A little bit of both. I was somewhat aware of astrobiology, but when we started Origins here at McMaster University, there was a group of us, probably about 30 faculty members from a variety of 02:50 Jon different departments. And we were looking for a language we could all speak. 02:54 Jon And astrobiology was suggested and provided a language that, say, the mathematicians and the biologists and the physicists and the chemists could all speak. 03:04 Jon And at that moment— so you're looking for a moment— I realized that that gave me, as a biologist, an opportunity to study some organisms I'd always wanted to study but never really had an excuse. 03:14 Jon And those are tardigrades or water bears. And so as organisms that can withstand extreme environments, I thought, here's my opportunity finally to study this group of animals that I've always wanted to. So it's a little bit of both. 03:26 Derek Wow, I find it cool that you can communicate with many different fields of science, like how you said the chemistry— people with chemistry, physics, and math as well. 03:36 Derek I like it how many different subdivisions can come together to complete one thing. 03:43 Derek So how would you personally define astrobiology, and what makes it different than just ordinary biology or astronomy? 03:52 Jon Okay, well, I'd say it's different in the sense that it is— I like to use the word transdisciplinary. 03:57 Jon So a lot of people use the word interdisciplinary, meaning between 2 disciplines, but really astrobiology brings together 2 disciplines or more. 04:08 Jon It's difficult to define, of course, like most things in science, but I kind of warp a NASA definition. 04:17 Jon So I would say that astrobiology is the study of the origin, evolution, and distribution of life in the universe and all the philosophical and ethical considerations that go along with it. 04:31 Derek Okay, I do like that definition. So could you please explain what the Origin Institute is and the roles that it plays? 04:41 Derek But not just what you work in, but also advancing research and more things to come in the future. 04:48 Jon Sure, yeah, the institute actually started as an initiative in 2004 looking at different themes, origins themes, so beginnings of And so we identified 6 themes at the beginning. 05:02 Jon So it was the origin of spacetime itself, the origin of elements, the origin of structures in the cosmos like stars, planets, and galaxies, the evolution of life, the evolution of species and 05:14 Jon biodiversity, and the evolution of humanity. We chose that word carefully so that it wasn't limited only to science, it could expand beyond science. 05:25 Jon And then Shortly thereafter, we identified astrobiology as kind of the mutual language. 05:31 Jon And so it became, I like to call it the prime directive of the institute, and we really focused in on astrobiology from that point on. 05:39 Derek Okay. So what about McMaster as an institution? What makes it particularly suited towards hosting a strong astrobiology program? 05:50 Jon I think a couple of factors. One of them, and I guess foremost, was the Faculty of Science that gave us the freedom and flexibility to organize ourselves without much— allowed us to guide ourselves, 06:05 Jon I said, essentially. That's one aspect. The size of the university also, I think, is very conducive. 06:11 Jon It's a big university, but it's not too big, especially in terms of physical space. The campus is still rather contained. 06:18 Derek Okay. 06:18 Jon I don't know if you felt that when you were walking on campus this morning, but most of the action takes place kind of in a an oval, a circular hub around which the buildings exist, and that's where 06:30 Jon students go to classes, and that's where the research primarily is done. 06:33 Jon There are some satellite campuses and things, but at least in terms of Origins activities, it's here on campus and it's in that area. 06:41 Jon So it really was the appropriate size, kind of like a Goldilocks size, not too big but not too small, and the fact that we had the freedom to organize ourselves along what we thought were the most interesting avenues for research. 07:00 Derek What is one major misconception that people often have about astrobiology, or what work do you do specifically? 07:09 Jon Misconceptions, I suppose, I suppose there's many because astrobiology involves some of the big questions that scientists like to entertain, like Where do we come from? 07:22 Given Yeah. 07:22 Jon How did life start? Where do all the stars in the sky come from? 07:26 Jon And things of that nature. I think that probably one misconception is that we have the answers to these questions, and— or at the other end, that we don't have the answers to these questions, because 07:39 Jon we have pieces of the answers to the questions. But I think all of these big questions are so big that we can, as scientists, at least to this point in time, we've tackled pieces of those problems, 07:53 Jon but there are many pieces still to discover and put into place. 07:58 Jon So I think that the misconception might be some people being overly optimistic, thinking that, oh, they've solved that problem, or at the other end being very pessimistic, saying, oh, they haven't 08:08 Jon even come close to that, whereas probably we're somewhere in the middle for most of these big problems. 08:12 Derek Oh wow. 08:13 Derek Yeah, I imagine that the bigger picture would like— there wouldn't be— we haven't really found much of the bigger picture, like the different puzzle pieces that you talked about. 08:24 Derek I thought that we haven't really found much about life, extraterrestrial life and stuff. 08:30 Jon Well, in terms of extraterrestrial life, that part is true. 08:33 Jon We've only really started just exploring beyond our planet, within our solar system, and certainly beyond our solar system to other solar systems. 08:42 Jon That part is true. Probably for only about a quarter of a century, 25 years, could we answer or start to answer questions like, is our solar system common among all solar systems? 08:56 Jon Do they have many planets with different sizes and rocky planets closer in to our star and gaseous giants further out? 09:08 Jon And questions like that. So in that sense, we are in our infancy, I would say. 09:12 Jon But with origins of life, for example, there's a rich history there of people asking questions about the origins of life and tackling little pieces at a time, some of which garnering Nobel Prizes 09:25 Jon along the way. So at least in some of the big questions, we have made big steps. 09:33 Jon When you zoom in and you look at them, they look like very big steps. 09:36 Derek Mm-hmm. 09:36 Jon But when you zoom out, you realize Well, the origin of life is a large puzzle, and that's only a small piece of it. 09:44 Jon So I think you're right in terms of some aspects of astrobiology, certainly the really large-scale aspects, we're still, I would say, in our discovery or exploratory phase. 09:57 Derek Uh-huh. 09:57 Jon Whereas in other areas, we've had access to experiments and results from experiments for a sufficient time that we can start to say, well, We know this part of the puzzle. 10:08 Jon Now, if we could only solve this part of the puzzle, we'd have a continuum, at least for that tract, and then we can add later on to the other parts that we know we don't know. 10:18 Jon It's important to know what you don't know in science as it is to know what you do know already, to borrow from some politicians. 10:27 Derek For viewers who may not have been familiar with your work specifically, Can you briefly describe what you research and what a typical day in the lab looks like for you? 10:37 Jon I'll start with the description of my research because that's more predictable, I think. 10:42 Jon So I'm trained as a computational biologist technically, which means I use a computer as my primary tool for answering questions or finding answers to questions. 10:53 Jon But along the way, I've picked up a lot of wet laboratory experience. 10:57 Jon So, I kind of divide my research into kind of wet and dry in the kind of physical sense, not the interesting sense. 11:03 Derek Yeah. 11:03 Jon So, the dry research is computational, involves modeling and analysis of things like the origin of menopause. 11:12 Jon Where does menopause come from? Which organisms have menopause and why is it there? 11:16 Jon It's a very anti-Darwinian trait to stop reproducing halfway through life. 11:21 Jon And another area I'm interested in terms of astrobiology, specifically is the origin of the genetic code. 11:27 Jon Where did the genetic code come from, and what are its properties? 11:30 Jon What makes it the code that we see today? Then in the wet lab, as I said, I have a degree in zoology, undergraduate degree as well as 2 graduate degrees. 11:41 Jon So I have a passion for animals, animal life. And so along the animal tree of life, there's 3 big branches, and I study one organism on each of those 3 branches. 11:52 Jon So, The tardigrades, which I already mentioned, came on late in my career— later in my career because I had the opportunity suddenly to study them when astrobiology was identified as our prime 12:05 Jon research directive. I started my career studying snails and their skeletons, their shells, as you can see. 12:14 Derek Yeah. 12:16 Jon And then in between, I picked up some research on sea urchins. 12:20 Jon And so sea urchins are on that branch of life that we occupy ourselves as humans. 12:25 Jon And so they have many similarities in their development, at least their very early development. 12:29 Jon There's some striking similarities between ourselves and sea urchins as an example. 12:34 Derek Wow. 12:35 Jon And then a day in the life in the lab is completely unpredictable. 12:41 Jon So usually I'll come in very early in the morning, usually 7:30 would be a late day, but by 7:30— 12:48 Derek 7:30 would be a late day? 12:50 Jon Yeah. 12:50 Given Wow. 12:51 Jon Yeah, I'm here pretty early and I usually stay till at least 6:30, depending on the time of year and my schedule teaching and so on. 13:03 Jon And the first thing I usually do would be to visit the lab just to make sure it's still here, nothing's burned down or exploded or anything of that nature. 13:13 Jon But also to check on what's going on with people's experiments, just to make sure the animals— because we do the wet research, involves live animals— make sure that they're comfortable and in tip-top 13:25 Jon shape. Tip-top shape's the right way to think about it, even though with the tardigrades we're trying to stress them. 13:29 Jon But making sure that our experiments are all in order, and then I'll go back to my office, usually prepare a lecture or 2. 13:39 Jon Typical day, I'll write a couple of reference letters, attend a few meetings, give another lecture or 2, have an office hour, talk to my students, usually in groups. 13:51 Jon So I do take on many students every year, undergraduate and graduate, and so I organize them into groups on the basis of research. 14:01 Jon So I'll meet with at least one or 2 of those groups a day. 14:05 Jon Work hopefully on some grants and/or some manuscripts. 14:09 Jon And by then it's usually 6:30 at the earliest. So yeah, then it's home and start up again the next day. 14:19 Jon But at home, it's always answering email messages and rehearsing lectures and things of that nature. Yeah. 14:27 Derek In your experience, how important is passion in pursuing biology? beyond academic performance or grades? 14:35 Jon I'd say passion is probably the primary ingredient in every scientist. 14:40 Jon You know, if we got paid by the hour, as you can see, I wouldn't be doing very well. 14:47 Jon So passion is what drives me and many of the people I've met through academia. 14:54 Jon So I'd say passion is the number one ingredient, and that will drive anybody in academia because, you know, the old adage, if you love your work, you'll never spend a day at work. 15:06 Jon Well, I think that's true in academic terms, that when you have the passion, your performance will follow. 15:12 Jon First of all, from an undergraduate student perspective, if you're passionate about a subject or course, you'll probably do well in that subject or course. 15:19 Jon I have had a few exemptions to that. One of my favorite courses in undergraduate, I didn't do that well, and it was a course in computational physiology, technically. 15:30 Jon So there are exceptions to that, but I would say generally speaking, if you're passionate about an area or a science or a course, you'll do well. 15:38 Jon From a natural biology perspective, there's an interesting analog with the way missions are organized by agencies like NASA. 15:48 Jon So we've had several astronauts through, and one of the things I'm curious about is how they organize their teams. 15:54 Jon One of the suggestions to me that was made by a former member of the team was that every person on the team should bring something, but at the same time, they should be well-versed in other areas. 16:07 Jon So that if you're a biologist on the team, that's what you're bringing to the table, a professional biologist. 16:13 Jon But you should also have a good working knowledge of, say, chemistry or biochemistry or Or if you're an engineer, you should have a working knowledge of science, so that the team is very strong in 16:25 Jon terms of expertise. Everyone has expertise, but also in terms of overlap in case somebody is unavailable for a particular task or something. 16:34 Derek Yeah. 16:35 Jon So I think that's true of astrobiology, that to excel at astrobiology, you should be good at something. 16:40 Jon So if you're good at biology and you're less good at another field, but you're proficient in that field, The more access you have to other fields, the more you can bring to the table, the better 16:53 Jon astrobiologist you become. So it's definitely not out of reason for a biologist who's concentrated on biology, really good at biology, but doesn't have too much strength in other areas to strengthen 17:07 Jon those other areas and then bring that to an astrobiology program. 17:11 Jon In fact, that's how we teach our astrobiology students. 17:15 Derek Are there any conferences, conventions, or other opportunities that students can attend so that they can get more exposure to astrobiology and connect with the community? 17:24 Jon Yeah, yeah. There's one in particular. It's abbreviated ABSCI-Con, A-B-S-C-I-C-O-N, and it's for the Astrobiology Science Conference, as you might have guessed. 17:40 Jon And that's organized every 2 years. And it tracks all people conducting astrobiology, faculty members, undergraduate students, graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, and so on. 17:56 Jon That's the number one conference. It's international. 17:59 Jon It's usually held in— so this year was in the United States. 18:04 Jon It's also been held in Europe. And so it's But it does bring together astrobiologists from all walks, all backgrounds, all levels of academia. 18:17 Jon So that's the number one. I'm glad to say that other scientific conferences are starting to build into their programs like an astrobiology session. 18:25 Jon So, you know, if you go to an astronomy meeting, it's likely that you'll find an astrobiology session at that meeting. 18:34 Derek Wow. 18:35 Derek So where do astrobiologists actually work? Is it mostly academia, or are there roles in government research, like agencies like NASA or the CSA, or even private industries? 18:48 Jon Yeah, certainly academia. It's a young field, so time is running short on that, but I still say to students in our graduate program that astrobiology technically as a funded field with that name is 19:05 Jon still younger than you are, but that's not— you know, now the field's getting older than the students we're teaching. 19:11 Jon I mean, its roots go back, if you want, to the 1950s, but astrobiology proper with funding and recognized by, say, the National Science Foundation in the United States is probably only about 25 to 30 19:23 Jon years old. But its roots go much further back. So I'd say that most right now, most people are in either academia or the major institutes, as you said, NASA or the Canadian Space Agency. 19:38 Derek Mm-hmm. 19:38 Jon Governments are starting to buy into that because astrobiologists are trained in several disciplines, or at least familiar with several disciplines. 19:48 Jon So they're very valuable as interdisciplinary or transdisciplinary scientists. 19:55 Jon But I'd say right now the majority are in the agencies like the CSA and NASA and academia. 20:02 Derek Okay. 20:03 Derek Yeah. 20:04 Derek So based on your experience as an educator, where do you see your students going in the job market? 20:12 Jon It's varied, I would say. Some students have gone on to become professors. 20:17 Derek Wow. 20:18 Jon Yeah, they're into— there are some from the teaching perspective, from the research perspective. 20:24 Jon Some have gone into higher levels of academia as well, like below professor, but like, so if they're doing a master's, they'll go to a PhD. 20:34 Jon Some have gone on to separate careers in health sciences, for example. 20:40 Jon There's been at least one student from my lab who's gone on to health sciences. 20:44 Jon Some have gone on to the medical field. So it's extremely varied because those students have with them a strength in a particular area, but they're diversified enough. 20:54 Jon So I think that the dream job of an astrobiologist would be at an agency like NASA or the Canadian Space Agency, being involved in some grand mission, maybe sending a probe to another planet, Mars, 21:08 Jon traveling to another planet. I think an astronaut would be the ideal job for an astrobiologist. 21:15 Jon Being able to conduct research in outer space on astrobiological principles would be absolutely the dream job of every astrobiologist. 21:26 Derek What sort of GPA is required to try to get into a master's or a PhD in astrobiology? 21:32 Jon I'd say in Canada at least, most graduate schools have a rather liberal entrance GPA of B+, A- as like an official cutoff. 21:45 Jon Finding a position is the trickier part. So positions are few and far between in Canada, just generally they're hard to find. 21:55 Jon So it's easy to get the marks to get in, or let me put that a different way, it's easier to get into the graduate school than to find a position as a— because issues like funding always come into 22:08 Jon play. So I'd say that GPA is— it should be strong, but it's not prohibitive in that sense. 22:15 Jon So, you know, to keep everyone's dreams alive. But really, the key is finding a position. 22:22 Jon And then most, as you said, I don't have a degree in astrobiology, and nobody here teaching astrobiology does because we're all too old now. 22:31 Jon So, I guess the challenge for a student right now in current day is to find a professor's lab that has a position in astrobiology that is available to them. 22:47 Jon Times are changing, so some of our graduates have gone on to become professors, as I mentioned earlier, and they would be able to offer positions in astrobiology because they have an astrobiology degree. 22:57 Derek That's true. 22:58 Jon And they continue their research. 23:01 Derek Okay, so what is available at McMaster though? Are there— what are the courses like, or are there programs for astrobiology here? 23:09 Jon Yeah, there's a graduate-level astrobiology program, and that involves 2 courses. 23:16 Jon One is a survey of astrobiology, lives up to its name, I think. 23:19 Jon And the other is an astrobiology research seminar and journal club. 23:25 Jon So it's a journal club that we run generally But we specify that students in our program have to attend that journal club, and it's catered toward astrobiology. 23:35 Jon And we invite speakers in to give talks from all over the world, usually concentrating on the local area just for, I guess, logistic reasons. 23:48 Jon People can visit in person. It's much better than if they visit online. 23:51 Jon But we have hosted people internationally online as well. 23:55 Jon But then they come, they give a talk, and then they attend— the speakers attend the journal club and speak to the students, and the students get to interact and network with them, which is very 24:04 Jon important. You mentioned a few moments ago how best to find a position in astrobiology. 24:10 Jon Networking is a very good way. And so when students meet these speakers, they form a node in their network. 24:18 Jon If they're young students, they probably have a very Small network, but at least they started with a node. 24:23 Jon And as they mature through the program, that network becomes more complicated. Okay. 24:29 Derek All right. So we're done with the first half of questions. 24:34 Derek We're gonna get into the second half of questions. 25:35 Given All right, Dr. Stone, so if you were starting over, from first-year biology once again as an undergraduate, what might you have done differently? 25:46 Jon I'd love to start over because it's been a fun ride. 25:49 Jon I don't think I'd do much differently. I've always followed a path that was most contenting, and so I don't think I would have done much differently, but I would have tempered some of my decisions 26:04 Jon with a little more practicality looking back. I think I think there's great worth in choosing contentment over, say, financial gain. 26:16 Jon So, I'm probably more biased toward the contentment side. 26:20 Jon And so, if I were giving advice to somebody else about if I were to start over again, here's what I would change. 26:26 Jon I'd say I might have, if you're following my template, I'd probably temper it with a little bit more practicality. 26:31 Jon But I don't have any regrets whatsoever. And I I don't think I personally would change anything. Awesome. 26:37 Given And what would you say to biology students who feel confined to the more traditional path of taking things like medicine or lab research and haven't considered that fields like astrobiology, for example, exist? 26:53 Jon I'd say, well, from one sense, it's never too late. 26:56 Jon When we first started astrobiology here at McMaster, we had Dave Williams, astronaut, Canadian astronaut at one time, probably still has the Canadian record for being out in outer space the longest 27:09 Jon amount of time because had to fix the shuttle at one point. 27:13 Jon And Dave gave some lectures on the ergonomics of space travel and showed some wonderful videos of astronauts falling down on the moon and not being able to stand back up because they hadn't thought 27:25 Jon about what happens if an astronaut trips when they're on the Moon. 27:28 Jon And they, you know, so Dave came to astrobiology, or to, through being an astronaut, obviously, but also had a medical career before that. 27:39 Jon And so it's never too late. As a medical person, as an example, you bring to an astrobiology team a certain set of skills. 27:48 Jon And so it's never too late. But if you're before your med and you're still thinking about what you want to do or what alternatives are out there, then astrobiology is a field that I would say any 28:02 Jon biologist who has that passion and is willing to do a little bit extra— so if you're just a, like, a classic core biologist and in your second last year of undergrad and thinking about what 28:14 Jon alternatives are there to the traditional fields, oh, astrobiology is available. 28:19 Jon What can I do? to make myself an attractive candidate, I'd say pick up an astronomy or geology or biochemistry or chemistry course or 2 beyond the norm, because biology students do take those 28:32 Jon courses, but, but only usually only what they're required to take. 28:37 Jon And then bring that to your— with your passion and apply, because I'd say all of the astrobiology programs that exist right now still are led by people without astrobiology degrees. 28:51 Jon And so they can appreciate, you know, that, oh, here's a passionate student. 28:56 Jon They don't have the physics that we would ideally, but they do have some physics and they've gone the extra mile in taking some extra physics. 29:03 Jon So let's accept them and bring them into our program and bring them into a cohort of students. 29:09 Jon There are some physicists that don't have enough biology and As a team, they can learn together very effectively, and that's essentially what we do here. 29:16 Given That kind of ties into what you were saying before about how you fit different, you know, experiences from other coursework that you've done, or just different people from different backgrounds 29:29 Given coming together. So would you say that in astrobiology, or kind of even newer, like, biological offshoots, they require like a merging of knowledge and a collective working together to figure it out. 29:45 Jon Yeah, yeah. And I think the field bears that out. 29:48 Jon When you think about missions that are run by NASA and CSA, it's always a huge team, right? 29:53 Jon Even, even the smallest project is a huge team. And it's also true of those problems that have been solved already. 30:02 Jon It's usually a team-based approach. So it's very rare that a a problem in the origin of life, to take that example again, has been solved by a single person, even one of the small pieces of that 30:12 Jon larger puzzle. It's very rare, and it's becoming more and more rare as science, modern science, matures and becomes more of a collective exploration of the world around us, much more so than it has been in the past. 30:28 Given So then I guess as a more pointed question for students who would be wondering, What concrete steps would you say, like you mentioned taking geology or taking physics, what kind of more solid advice 30:43 Given would you give to an undergraduate student maybe in their second or third year who's thinking, I don't know so much what I wanna do anymore. 30:51 Given What things could they do that could kind of position themselves to get into this? 30:57 Jon Yeah, I'd say read, read, read, read. And absorb as much as you can. 31:01 Jon So if there were 2 candidates applying to an astrobiology program and one has read widely on the subject and that passion comes through, and the other is identical on record, like in their 31:15 Jon transcripts and the courses they've taken and so on, but hasn't done that extra reading and doesn't bring to the application that mindset of an astrobiologist, I'd say that makes a big difference, 31:26 Jon especially in a a youngish field like astrobiology where the people who are doing the research, the, the front lines if you will, are kind of ignorant in some of the other areas. 31:40 Jon And, and frankly, the students that are coming through now have much richer interdisciplinary or transdisciplinary training than we did. 31:49 Given Yeah. 31:50 Jon At least some of us. I tried, but, but mine is still you know, like, I major in this, major in that. 31:56 Jon And so, but they can learn it all together. And that's a much richer way if you're thinking about the origin of life and you're learning the physics and the chemistry and the biochemistry and the 32:06 Jon geology that go with it at the same time. It's a much richer way of looking at that problem than learning the biology and then later learning the physics and so on and trying to integrate it later. 32:19 Given So outside of grades or academics, would you say that volunteering or any kind of extracurriculars could play a role in preparing for the program? 32:32 Jon Yeah, definitely. I, at least speaking for myself, I take lots of volunteers every year. 32:37 Jon I take lots of— I usually suggest to the volunteers that they get something back, compensated for their time. 32:44 Jon So There are ways to get course credit for doing activities in a lab. 32:49 Jon And so I usually suggest that, but I have taken volunteers as well. 32:53 Jon So any of those avenues are a good way of acquiring skills and more importantly, experience in, especially in a new field like astrobiology, because there aren't that many undergraduate courses that 33:05 Jon are available specifically in astrobiology. So to get the experience, students will need to volunteer in a lab that performs astrobiology. 33:15 Jon So that's probably the best way to get extra— I don't know, what would it be— cachet for the field. 33:24 Given Okay. And then what about the students who are in your lab? 33:27 Given Like, what sort of students do you take on? Because you mentioned you'll write reference letters, for example. 33:34 Given So I'm assuming that's pretty important to go on in your master's or PhD. 33:39 Jon Yes. 33:39 Given But the students that you take on in your lab, what sort of things do you look for in those students? 33:46 Jon It's pretty much the passion. I guess I'm somewhat proud to say that I rarely look at a transcript. 33:54 Jon I mean, if a student sends me a transcript and asks me to look at it, I will, but I rank that fairly low. 34:01 Jon Usually in an interview, you can tell if somebody has the passion and the interest in a particular area. 34:06 Jon So that's the primary thing I look for. And I think that once they get into the lab, I'm very hands-off in terms of the project. 34:18 Jon I usually say, here's an area and here is a project that exists. 34:23 Jon And if they want to take that project, great, because it's still there and it needs somebody to stand on the shoulders of the person previous. 34:31 Jon But if they say, well, that's interesting, but I'd really like to take the exploration this way, I usually say, within reason, I usually say, sure, sure, that'll be fine, and let them run with it. 34:43 Jon And I usually find that that's productive. It's not always the most economical way of running a lab, but I find it the most interesting and gratifying in the end. 34:54 Given Awesome. And for our more sciencey viewers, going back to your lab again, You mentioned you did some of your research with tardigrades and whatnot. 35:07 Given Do you have maybe like a fun story to kind of tell us about your research? 35:12 Given We can throw some stuff up on the screen for people to see. 35:16 Jon Sure. As you probably are familiar, or at least your viewers might be familiar, hopefully, water bears or tardigrades are infamous for— famous maybe— for being able to tolerate exposure to extreme 35:29 Jon conditions. And some of the research we've done, we've exposed them to very harsh conditions. 35:36 Jon One in particular is easy to manifest here on campus because we do have a nuclear reactor. 35:43 Jon So we can subject them to high doses of radiation. 35:47 Jon As a reference, 5 grays of radiation, that's the dose, will kill a human within 2 days. 35:54 Given Wow. 35:54 Jon after exposure. You know, that's the standard dose. 35:57 Jon People say, what dose will kill a human? Morbid thought, but a necessary reference, right? 36:04 Jon But so tardigrades, at least the species we study, will absorb up to 4,000 grays without dying. 36:10 Given Wow. 36:10 Jon So, you know, 800 times the dose that a human gets. 36:14 Jon So extreme dose. And in some cases, we've seen interesting effects, one of which being an increase in the number of eggs produced. 36:25 Given Oh. 36:25 Jon So normally, a female will carry, in her lifetime, at most 6 eggs at a time. 36:33 Jon Sometimes, they usually start at 1 or 2, carry about 6 at maximum, and then as they age, it falls off to about 4. 36:41 Jon We've seen upwards of 13 to 19, so a huge increase in the number of eggs. 36:49 Given What made you interested even in studying, like, menopause, for example? Where did that come from? 36:56 Jon That one's an interesting origin. There was a group of professors that would go for coffee every morning. 37:02 Jon I was one of them, and there were— there was another senior professor and then 2 emeritus professors. 37:08 Jon And as you can imagine, with that collection of people, arguments broke out all the time. 37:14 Jon And we once started an argument over the origin of menopause. 37:17 Jon One of the senior faculty members suggesting that it was a classic Mendelian trait, or they imagined it could be a classic Mendelian trait. 37:26 Jon And one of the emeritus professors, I'll say kindly, but it wasn't kindly, criticized that professor saying nonsense, that can't be the situation. 37:37 Jon And the other one was trying to maintain decorum, being a proper British gentleman. 37:44 Jon And so we decided to settle our argument by creating a model, a computational model. 37:51 Jon And so we built a model, and out of that model eventually came a paper. 37:58 Jon And so that paper has its roots in a coffee session with an argument. 38:03 Jon And ever since, I've been fascinated because the results of that showed that menopause could evolve as a consequence from mating behavior. 38:14 Jon Now, I don't think that's the only explanation, but the way that paper is pitched, it does show that that's sufficient, a sufficient explanation. 38:24 Jon It's a genetic explanation, has a mechanism involved. 38:27 Jon So, it's a very nice, quiet little paper, but it raised a little bit of a ruckus in the public domain for a variety of reasons. 38:35 Jon It was mischaracterized. I think, by the media especially. 38:39 Given Okay. 38:40 Jon But I think also some— the media interviewed some doctors, and clinicians don't think from an evolutionary perspective generally, and so understandably misconstrued the byline of the articles, which 38:56 Jon basically said that mating behavior now is what causes menopause in females now. 39:04 Jon And what we were saying is that it might have occurred over a long time frame, like hundreds of thousands of years. 39:12 Jon And that brought out a lot of controversy and acrimony, and so it got a lot of media attention, which one of my colleagues really loved. 39:21 Jon And so it became a big story. And so ever since then, I've been fascinated, partly because it became a big story, and I realized how little we actually know about a condition that affects our 39:34 Jon species. And, you know, half of our species undergo this, the other half experiences it indirectly in some form or another, and yet we know very little about it. 39:44 Jon So it's another example of a women's health issue that is probably deserving of much more funding and research. 39:53 Jon And so it's interesting evolutionary puzzle from the pure scientist in me, but it has large-reaching societal ramifications as well. 40:03 Jon So, it's a fun topic to study. And it's computational, which is a universe I love to live in because you have these populations living in a computer, reproducing, creating offspring, and changing the 40:17 Jon physical makeup of the population over time in this computer, which is a wonderful— way to spend an afternoon when, you know, when you read the news and you start getting depressed, or you look at 40:28 Jon the weather report and you think it's going to rain or something like that. 40:31 Jon It's nice to delve into the computational world and visit your evolving population. 40:38 Given That's really salient. I imagine when you're talking about it almost like The Sims, or there's this one show on Netflix called Black Mirror, and there's an episode where These little guys were in the computer. It's like a simulation. 40:53 Jon No, I haven't seen that one. 40:53 Given Yeah, definitely check it out. Watch that one. But I'm thinking just from the computational perspective, and this might be an important question for students who are wondering, how does artificial 41:07 Given intelligence play into what you do as like a computational biologist? 41:12 Jon Yeah, it's, it's obviously a useful tool in many respects. 41:17 Jon And, you know, it's a double-edged sword, as many tools are, that it can be used and misused. 41:23 Jon But it is a fascinating and rapidly changing tool. 41:29 Jon But it does have a lot of potential application. One area of astrobiology, just to remove for a second into the research realm, searching for planets outside of our solar system. 41:41 Jon And in particular, planets that revolve around their sun at the proper distance so that life as we know it could evolve there, meaning that water is prevalent on its surface. 41:57 Jon So it's in that habitable zone, not too close to the star so it's too hot or too far away so it's too cold, but in that Goldilocks habitable zone. 42:05 Jon And right now, We observe those candidates through a number of different techniques, each of which I think AI could be kind of implemented and enhanced, just as reading X-rays now can be done by AI 42:25 Jon and probably catch things that the human eye might miss, whether it's because of the acuity of our vision or because we're human and we come in on a Monday morning and we're just not at 100%. 42:37 Jon Whatever the reason, AI has an advantage in discovering these difficult-to-find patterns, and that could be applied to finding exoplanets. 42:48 Jon So from a student's perspective, I think AI is a tool— and an educator's perspective, I'll toss that in as well— it's a tool that we should teach students how to learn with, how to use it properly, 43:03 Jon And students should emerge from a university with the knowledge of how to use AI. 43:08 Jon The danger, of course, right now, at least in the way things are set up at the moment, is that it's such an attractive tool that it poses a threat to our— what's a good way to think about it— exercising our minds. 43:25 Given Oh, right. 43:26 Given Okay. 43:27 Jon Which I think is— 43:28 Given Shut off our brain. 43:29 Jon Yeah, yeah. It's a valid concern. It doesn't mean we throw out the tool. 43:34 Jon It just means we learn to live with the tool, however society ends up dictating. 43:39 Jon So I always tell the students to make sure when you input your prompts to a chatbot, be polite, because if we lose a battle with AI, ultimately it's going to remember who was nice and who wasn't nice. 43:53 Given Now, I'm curious because students may come away from this and decide, you know what, really excited to look into computational biology, really excited to look into astrobiology perhaps. 44:07 Given And you mentioned doing the research and looking into it and studying the field is important as a base to begin. 44:16 Given Where could a student start? For example, are there any, you know, famous science communicators or people who would be, or maybe even institutions that would be helpful for students to learn from? 44:31 Jon Yeah, I think so. For example, the AbSci conference, they post the keynote address that is delivered by a preeminent astrobiologist, and students can watch that. 44:45 Jon So I'd say an easy way to gain some knowledge and experience in astrobiology is to watch talks that are available online to get kind of the nuanced view from a particular perspective. 44:59 Jon So it might be an astrophysicist talking about astrobiology, but that at least gives them an idea of how the astrophysicists are viewing. 45:07 Jon So I think, and then the other way is to take supplementary courses. 45:11 Jon When I was graduating, well, sorry, when I was starting my master's, actually, in fact, I knew I was going to do some computational research, but I had very little computational So I took an extra 45:24 Jon course at the— I guess it's the mature students learning at University of Toronto in the summer just preceding my master's just to pick up the skills. 45:36 Jon At the time, computers were much simpler, so it's a lot easier to do back then. 45:40 Jon But still, picking up an extra course to kind of make up for what you're lacking is a very good way as well. 45:49 Jon And I recommend doing that on your own in a sense that If you just put it in with the rest of your courses, it won't get the attention that it needs. 45:58 Jon Because in that case, you're not fulfilling a requirement for a degree, you're fulfilling a requirement ideally for the rest of your life as an astrobiologist. 46:06 Jon So you really want to take the time, especially if it's an area that's outside of your current expertise. 46:12 Jon You want to have the time to invest greatly in developing that new tool that you'll bring to the table when you become an astrobiologist. 46:21 Jon So, I mean, it's It does require hard work, but that word's going to come up again, but with passion, that hard work becomes less hard. It becomes a pleasure to do. 46:32 Given Okay, so passion is the message. 46:34 Jon So passion is the message, I would say. Yeah. 46:37 Given Well, thank you so much, Dr. Stone. We really appreciate the opportunity to interview you. 46:43 Given With that being said, that is the conclusion of our episode. 46:47 Given Thank you guys for tuning in. And until next time, we look forward to catching you on the next episode of— 46:54 Jon So You Studied Biology. 47:54 Derek If there's one thing we took away from our conversation with Dr. 47:56 Derek Jonathan Stone, it's that there isn't just one way to build a career in biology. 48:01 Derek His path from zoology and computational biology to studying the origins of life shows how staying curious and exploring different interests can lead you to somewhere you never expected. 48:10 Derek One message that really stood out to us was the importance of passion. 48:14 Derek Grades matter, but genuine curiosity is what keeps you learning, asking questions, and pushing yourself further. 48:21 Derek A huge thank you to Dr. Jonathan Stone for sharing his story and advice with us. 48:25 Derek And thank you for watching the very first episode of the So You Study Bio podcast. We hope to see you in the next one. Take care.
