Happy New Year! Bring on 2025

Happy 2025! Join us as we reflect back on 2024 and share exciting episode topics and podcast plans for 2025.

Transcript of this Episode

Sam Jones: Hi, Tiny Matters listeners. Sam here. Happy New Year. I cannot believe it's 2025. I'm here with Deboki, of course. Deboki, I feel like there's something about being a quarter of a way through a century that just feels wrong.

Deboki: No, yeah. Wasn't the year 2000 two days ago?

Sam: I still remember being with my family. I think I was 10, and I had these American Girl star silky pajama bottoms, and I was staying up to watch the ball drop and eating Chinese food. Really living my best life as a 10-year-old. And that doesn't feel like it was 25 years ago.

Deboki: Right, yeah. The people who were born that year, they'll be able to rent cars this year.

Sam: Wow. Congratulations to them. And also, I feel incredibly old. So we just wanted to pop in, do a quick episode today to say hi, to say Happy New Year, and then to reflect back on 2024 a bit, also to talk about this really cool new partnership that we've entered into with Multitude. I'm going to tell you about Multitude, and what joining them means, and then we're going to talk about what we're looking forward to in 2025. So where should we start? We'll talk about things that we liked in 2024, starting with a couple episodes that we really liked. I will also preface this by saying we didn't publish any episodes that we really didn't like because why would we publish them?

Deboki: That would've been a bit weird.

Sam: Yeah, like, "We're not even enjoying this. Hope you like it." But yeah, we don't do that. But yeah. Deboki, do you want to talk about an episode or two that you liked and then I'll do the same?

Deboki: Yeah, I mean, I guess one that really stood out for me this year that I worked on was the IVF episode, because it became a lot harder to work on. Originally it started out as a listener question, and I was just kind of like, "Yeah, I've always been curious how IVF works and how it even started, what the history of it is." And so when I started working on it, I was curious about all of that. But then there was the ruling in Alabama, which really made IVF into this big topic of conversation for both good and for bad, obviously, the bad is limiting reproductive rights. The good is I think people having hopefully a better understanding of IVF and its place in medicine and in people's lives today. And when working on that one, originally I was having a hard time getting anyone to interview, and then suddenly I got a lot of people to interview.

Obviously you want people to interview, but having a lot of people to talk to is challenging because you want to be able to bring in as many people as possible and you want to be able to, if I could have just had the podcast be the full uncut interviews with everyone, I would do it, but that's not necessarily the most effective way to use people's interviews. So it ended up being just, I guess in terms of writing, just I guess as a behind the scenes kind of thing, just a little bit more challenging than I expected, but it was also just really fascinating. I think learning, especially getting to talk to a historian about the history of IVF was really cool, and understanding more about the history of fertility technologies in general was really great. And then using that to have more context for the conversations I was having with doctors. It was one of those episodes where working on it taught me a lot.

Sam: Yeah, it was a great episode. It was really, really cool. I also learned a lot listening to and editing that episode. I think there were a number of, it's really hard for me to choose. There were a number of episodes that really stood out to me this year. I think one that I was really proud of that I know made an impact for a lot of people just based on the response we got was our episode that came out in May on Long COVID. First off, I was just so grateful to people who talked to me about their Long COVID or chronic illness, and were just so open about their experiences and how they were navigating their health, how they were navigating the US healthcare system. There are millions of people living with Long COVID, and I think it can look so different symptomatically from person to person that it's really hard to understand. And there are a lot of things that are very confusing about it where it's like, "Well, if they have Long COVID and maybe they still harbor some of the virus, why don't we just give them antivirals?"

And it's like, "No, that actually doesn't work because once it's integrated into different parts of your body, it's there. The antiviral is not going to do anything." So just kind of clarifying those kinds of questions that are great questions to ask because it's not obvious. That felt really good to help tease apart what we know, what we don't know, and hopefully bring some clarity to things like why doesn't this medication work, or why doesn't that medication work? And I think also being able to provide resources to listeners who might be suffering from Long COVID to think about what treatments might be available, what trials are going on, because it's so hard and it can be so isolating. But I think knowing that there are a lot of people who are experiencing this and are often finding some success and starting to feel more like themselves, hopefully brought some hope to listeners who might be experiencing Long COVID, that there will be a time where they feel much, much better. But it is a long and intense road, and I was just really grateful to be able to have those conversations.

Deboki: Yeah, I thought that was, on my end, one of the episodes that I probably learned the most from too, in terms of understanding just what Long COVID means and all of these details, like you were saying, there are these nuances to understanding what it means to refer to something as Long COVID versus COVID and the way that it then impacts people's lives I think. I learned a lot from that one too.

Sam: And on a more uplifting note, I guess, one of the episodes that I had so much fun working on was the sewage episode, which came out in July titled Sewage and the Seine: From Mesopotamia messes and the 1858 Great Stink to today's flush toilets and fatbergs. And the inspiration for this was people were talking about the Seine leading up to the Olympics in July. So this came out, I believe, the first week of the Olympics, and people were talking about the open water swimming event and would the Seine be clean enough? And it's funny because in the episode we were like, "Hopefully we know by now." And I think jury's still out on whether it was clean enough for people to swim.

But I really learned so much about waste, human waste and how across thousands of years we've had to deal with our waste. As soon as there were humans, there were humans pooping. So we had to deal with it. And the strategies, some I wouldn't call strategies, they're just like huck it into the street or throw it in the woods. But then some of the other strategies that people came up with were very inventive for the time, and there was also this sort of progression and then regression of what was available and cleanliness. And it also made me really, really happy to not have been born in mid-1800s London, because wow, the Great Stink sounds like I can't even go there. I'm way too sensitive to smell. I am someone who's always been very sensitive to smell, and just the thought I would've been like, "Send me to the countryside. I'm going to just go by myself. No one bother me. Keep your poop away from me."

Deboki: I thought you were going to say, "Send me to the future where there is none of this smell."

Sam: Oh, yeah, that would be, I mean, as a woman too, it would be a much better place to be.

Deboki: For sure.

Sam: I would take the future, for sure. But yeah, I just had a blast learning about the history, the history of human waste management, and some of the more recent developments in D.C. as well as in Paris with the Seine and how we're trying to make these rivers clean enough to swim in. And I'm hopeful. But yeah, I found that to be really interesting and fun, and I love gross stuff, so it was cool.

Deboki: Yeah, I guess another one of my episodes, it's kind of similar to yours, not in topic, but in that it's like this is my niche interest that I got to really explore. I assume yours is not sewage, but it is gross stuff. For me, it's clothes.

Sam: I wouldn't say my interest is sewage, but it is fascinating. Sorry, continue.

Deboki: No, no, no. Yeah. So my niche interest is clothes and fashion and also museums. I think it's really cool to understand how old things get displayed, uncovered, displayed, all of that. And so for me, it was really fun to work on this episode, how to preserve old clothes. And especially the theme of the Met this year was about kind of resurrecting fashions and stuff. And so talking to conservators about how they approach the challenges of dealing with these historical fabrics and different techniques and stuff was so, so fun for me because I love talking to scientists, but I'm so used to learning about science that's done in the lab or also in other cases in a medical setting. And this was so different for me. Obviously there's still a science to it and people have advanced degrees and go into this field, but it is also done in a setting that for me is so unfamiliar.

And it was really cool to understand how people approach that and what kind of techniques they have to use and the sort of investigation aspect to it that they really have to go through to understand this is the piece I'm looking at and what is it that we're trying to do with it? How do we make sure we don't ruin it? Especially there are artifacts of history, there's a lot of culture attached to them. Also, understanding how to be sensitive to other cultures and work with that. For me, that was so much fun to just do those interviews and get to hear these really cool stories about the pieces that people were working with and how they worked with them.

Sam: It also gave me anxiety, because I was like, "I would not want to be the person in charge of not accidentally destroying an artifact that's like 700 years old."

Deboki: Right. I know. You know that these things are so precious and so irreplaceable and you are now in charge.

Sam: But yeah, no, all four of those episodes I loved. But again, I'm really proud of our back catalog. I think we have just such a range of sciences that we cover, so many great stories incorporated.

Deboki: Yeah, and we should say part of that is also a function of you, the listeners, because we get such great ideas from questions that you have. So I think the IVF episode was based on a listener question and other episodes have also been based on listener questions. And some of you have called us out for our lack of plant episodes, so now we're doing more plants.

Sam: Yes, we are.

Deboki: So if you have more ideas, don't worry about whether or not you think we're interested in it, just send it to us because especially if it's something we haven't talked about or it doesn't seem like something we usually talk about, that might actually be the thing that we're both like, "Huh." That's kind of for me how the frostbite episode happened, because I saw, I think you had this headline in one of our docs sharing episode ideas that was just about the FDA approval for frostbite treatment. And I was like, "What does that mean? I don't know what that really means." And so that was how that one got started. So even though that's still kind of in our wheelhouse, it was also for me, very different. And I feel like our listeners probably have, I don't know, a wide range of experiences that they're curious about. Definitely send in your ideas.

Sam: Okay, so just a few more things from this year. So we introduced new bonus episodes that publish on weeks that our full-length narrative episodes do not. And we call them Tiny Show and Tell Us, which relates to the fact that at the end of our regular episodes, Deboki and I do a Tiny Show and Tell, where we each bring each other a piece of science news or something cool we read and talk about it for just a few minutes. So the Tiny Show and Tell Us is an expanded version of that. And it is responding to what you write in. So you write into us, we read your email, and then we take it deeper. We do a bunch of research, and we talk about it for 15, 20 minutes. So those have been really fun.

Deboki: Yeah, they're a lot of fun. And also this year, not to brag, but also to brag, we won some stuff.

Sam: Yeah. Yeah, we're going to toot our own horn for a second.

Deboki: Yes. We won a Gold Signal Award in the science podcast category. We also won a Silver Signal Award for our episode, Arsenic, radium, and a locked room cyanide mystery: Poisons and the rise of forensic toxicology in early 1900s United States. That came out April 17th, 2024. If you're like, "Oh, I want to listen to an award-winning episode."

Sam: There you go.

Deboki: Just go to April 17th, 2024, and you can find that one.

Sam: And I'm excited. I'm proud. I'm proud of us.

Deboki: Me too, me too. There was really stiff competition. So to get a Gold Signal Award in the science podcast category, the Signal Awards are a pretty big deal for podcasts. So that felt really good getting that recognition, for sure.

Sam: In 2024, we also started a newsletter. So the newsletter only comes out every other week when we have our full length episodes publish. And it reminds you that the episode's out, gives you a little extra info, links to some videos. I also include some science news things that I've seen and can't stop thinking about, as well as a sneak peek at future episodes. And it's been really fun working on the newsletter, and we've gotten a really good response. So if you're not subscribed, please do. We do not spam you. You will only be emailed once every other week when an episode drops, I promise.

Yeah, and then this year we gained a bunch of new listeners, which felt really good that people are finding us and also sticking around. So thank you. Please tell your friends, tell your family.

Deboki: Tell your favorite science teacher.

Sam: Email your favorite science teacher and send them an episode that you think they'd like. And then we also, very exciting at the end of last year in December, joined Multitude. So what is Multitude? What does joining Multitude mean? So Multitude is a podcast company that's based in New York City, and joining Multitude means a larger community, more opportunities to interact with our listeners, and additional support for the show, which Deboki and I are both really psyched about. So we are of course though still created by the American Chemical Society, and really you're not going to see any big differences in our episodes except for you'll hear an ad or two starting pretty soon. So yeah, we're just very excited to be part of Multitude and their podcast collective. There's a lot of great shows. We might have some of those hosts on Tiny Matters and vice versa, so we'll keep you all in the loop.

Deboki: Yeah, I'm really excited. I think it's really cool. I mean, one of the fun things about podcasting is there's such a community around it, and I think this is a fun part of the Tiny Matters world for us now, is getting to be part of the Multitude community.

Sam: Yeah.

Deboki: Yeah. So there's also 2025 happening. Like we said, it's 2025 today, and that means we have a whole new year to get excited about. So we have some really exciting episodes coming up. There's one coming up that I'm really excited about. I have no idea what's going to happen because Sam is writing this episode, but it's about the first contraceptives and I am so curious about where this is going to go.

Sam: It's very interesting, very dark.

Deboki: Yeah, I am excited to see what that means and also a little concerned, but I think it's going to be great. So I'm excited for these. So we're all going to be learning a lot in the new year.

Sam: And I will say one episode that I'm working on currently that's not coming out until a couple months into the New Year is one on hemophilia, which also I've always been really interested in. I've been able to talk with a few people who have hemophilia, talk with people who treat hemophilia, who are coming up with better treatments, resources, and it's fascinating. I won't spoil anything, but there's a lot of stuff in hemophilia's history that we don't talk about, I'll give you a tiny taste, but 90% of patients with severe hemophilia contracted HIV during the AIDS epidemic because they were getting blood transfusions. And people didn't know to test for HIV. And a huge number of people, I think of those 90%, almost every single one of those people died, thousands and thousands of people with hemophilia died. I had no idea. I had no idea. And there's a lot of other stuff like that too, where it's like it's a rare disease and it doesn't get enough attention. And I'm excited to be able to share all of the really fascinating, important stuff that I've learned.

And then in 2025, of course, we're going to continue to work with Multitude because that just started. So I'm excited to see where it goes. We're going to look for opportunities to be on other podcasts as well, which will be cool. And Deboki mentioned this earlier, but we always want to hear from you about what you want to learn, or if you see something really cool, kind of newsy, like some headline and you're like, "What is the history of this? I didn't even know this was a thing." That sounds like a perfect Tiny Matters episode to me. So send us an email tinymatters@acs.org.

Deboki: Thank you so much to our listeners. We had a great 2024, and we're really excited to see what 2025 is going to bring in terms of what we learn, what we get to talk about, the conversations we get to have with you all. So we will be back with a new full length episode next Wednesday. Yeah.

Sam: I think that's it Deboki. So if you're listening to this, when the episode drops on January 1st, I hope you have a stellar first day of the New Year, and I hope you have a great rest of 2025, and we'll see you next time.