“We’re interested in understanding what we already know about how our engagement with music is shaped by our genomics and environment,” shares host Kaylee Byers of the upcoming live recording.

The event will feature special guest, Lara Boyd, neuroscientist and professor at the University of British Columbia (UBC). It will also feature audio producer and musician Martin Zaltz Austwick. Now in its fifth season, the podcast explores how genomics interacts with the world.

“The space centre is just a beautiful space for something like this, and it gives you a little bit of an immersive experience,” Byers shares.

For her, the live event is a chance to engage the audience in bidirectional and interactive discussions.

“In a podcast, you’re really doing one-directional communication,” Byers says. “We’re going to be doing some of that in real time, but it’s also going to be bidirectional with the audience.”

Genome in daily life

Genome BC officially launched the Nice Genes! podcast on June 7, 2022. According to Byers, the organization had a previous podcast, one that was “a little bit more academic in scope.”

“They looked at that and said, ‘we really want to reach a broader audience,’” she shares. “We try to think of what are really interesting questions, pressing issues in genomics.”

The team includes creative director Jen Moss, producer Jenny Cunningham and audio engineer Patrick Emile. Their goal is to highlight how genomics is more than just examining DNA structure: it can also tell stories about the world.

“What are new discoveries that people are interested in that are shaping society or raising ethical questions?” Byers shares of their production process. “And what are some really fundamental questions with genomics that we should be revising?”

The podcast’s current season adopts a health detective theme – exploring how genomic research contributes to knowledge of the human body and health.

“Could we use our genomics to understand when that menopause timeline could be for me versus someone else?” Byers says. “We look at naked mole rats who don’t experience menopause like we do – why does our body age this way?”

One of Byers’ favourite episodes is “Cosmetic Clarity,” which dispels misinformation about skincare products. The episode from the fourth season explores the toxicity of skincare using the scientific framework of “dose makes the poison.”

“What does that mean in skincare?” Byers says. “That work [of researching toxic exposures] is really interesting because it often focuses on people who are working in the cosmetic industry and exposed to quite a bit more cosmetics, like nail technicians.”

Leveraging curiosity

Byers first became interested in science communication during her early 20s. Her father is a chemist who sat on the board of the Edmonton Science Outreach Network (ESON), a program that placed scientists in schools.

“He thought science communication was really important, and I loved it,” she says. “But I was much more interested in adult forms of science communication.”

She then gave a talk on how parasites manipulate their hosts at Nerd Nite Edmonton, an event where three speakers share their expertise to people in a bar. In 2013, Byers moved to Vancouver for her doctoral studies. She partnered with Michael Unger, director of programming at the H.R. MacMillan Space Centre, to start Nerd Nite Vancouver.

“We’ve really built a science community here, a really dedicated one,” Byers says, adding the event isn’t just limited to science topics. “We had so many different topics which is what I think brings people together.”

Topics in the recent past included Dracula translations, Coast Salish art traditions and sea otter diets.

“Science is artistic, it’s creative; art also leans on scientific contexts,” she adds. “We try to bring those things together.”

Byers recognizes that science has harmed communities, leading to mistrust in the discipline. She sees timely, risk-based responsiveness as a sign of good science communication.

“Some of the best science communicators I know will come out and say, ‘A new study found this, but it was done in this one population with only 20 people, and that’s not enough to draw a universal truth about the world,’” she adds.

For Byers, science communication should also be fun; it shouldn’t “take itself too seriously.”

“Ultimately, when we think about our shared identity, curiosity is a very unifying human characteristic,” she shares. “If we can tap into that, it is very powerful.”

For more information on the upcoming event, see www.spacecentre.ca/events

For more information on the Nice Genes! podcast, see www.genomebc.ca/home-podcast