Point of Discovery

Physical punishment, or spanking, is widely practiced in the U.S. and around the world, although it appears to be decreasing. Parents, caregivers and school administrators who use it say the goal is to prevent unwanted behaviors and teach children to make better choices. But does it actually work? And what long term effects does it have on the physical and mental health of people who are punished this way? In today’s special episode, we’re teaming up with Ike Evans, producer of the Into the Fold podcast, to jointly interview one of the world’s experts on physical punishment, Liz Gershoff. She’s a professor in the University of Texas at Austin’s Department of Human Development and Family Sciences and the director of the Population Research Center. She’s been studying the effects of physical discipline on children for two decades and advocating for an end to the practice. If you’re interested in digging deeper, check out Into the Fold Episode 22: Restorative Discipline in Schools: https://hogg.utexas.edu/into-the-fold-episode-22-restorative-discipline-in-schools Listen to other great episodes of Into the Fold here: https://soundcloud.com/hoggfoundation Music for today’s show was produced by: Podington Bear - https://www.podingtonbear.com/ About Point of Discovery Point of Discovery is a production of the University of Texas at Austin's College of Natural Sciences and is a part of the Texas Podcast Network. The opinions expressed in this podcast represent the views of the hosts, and not of The University of Texas at Austin. You can listen to all our episodes at @point-of-discovery . Questions or comments about this episode, or our series in general? Email Marc Airhart at mairhart[AT]austin.utexas.edu

When we get sick, we change our social interactions—we keep away from others and we don’t share food. It turns out, humans aren’t the only species to do it. According to a new review in the journal Science, when highly social animals — such as ants, mice and bats — get sick, their social interactions change, too. For example, sick vampire bats groom each other less, move less and call out less, and this may help reduce the spread of disease. It’s not active social distancing, but rather more like the way we humans are less active when we’re feeling lousy. Ants on the other hand are more proactive: when sick, they will actively self-isolate in a way that helps protect the rest of the colony. By studying how social behavior changes in various animals, scientists are hoping to better understand the effectiveness of different strategies humans use, like social distancing, to combat the spread of diseases like COVID-19. Today on the show we’ll meet Sebastian Stockmaier, a recently minted PhD scientist at the University of Texas at Austin, who has spent seven years studying vampire bats and how their social behaviors change when they feel sick. Watch a video of a vampire bat tricked into feeling sick: https://youtu.be/lCr52sn76Wg Watch a video of vampire bats “contact calling”: https://youtu.be/p9NcOGy8kJY A collection of vampire bat videos: https://socialbat.org/videos/ Read the new review paper in the journal Science, “Infectious diseases and social distancing in nature”: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/371/6533/eabc8881 Music for today’s show was produced by: • Podington Bear - https://www.podingtonbear.com/ Photo credit: Josh Moore, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute.

Evolutionary biologists never have enough time. Some of the most mysterious behaviors in the animal kingdom—like parenting—evolved over thousands of years, if not longer. Human lifespans are just too short to sit and observe such complex behaviors evolve. But computer scientists are beginning to offer clues by using artificial intelligence to simulate the life and death of thousands of generations of animals in a matter of hours or days. It’s called computational evolution. One behavior that’s long baffled biologists is called mobbing, in which a gang of hyenas team up to steal prey from much more powerful lions. When UT Austin computer scientists Risto Miikkulainen and Padmini Rajagopalan simulated hyenas and lions on a virtual African savannah, they found something surprising. Watch a video of real-life hyenas mobbing (courtesy of Michigan State U.): https://youtu.be/Rs7AXFa4sN0 Read more: Evolution of Complex Coordinated Behavior (July 2020) https://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/ai-lab/downloadPublication.php?filename=http://nn.cs.utexas.edu/downloads/papers/rajagopalan.cec2020.pdf&pubid=127822 Music for today’s show was produced by: • Podington Bear - https://www.podingtonbear.com/ • Pogmothoin (a.k.a. Tom Griffin) - https://freesound.org/people/pogmothoin/ Photo credit: Stephanie Dloniak. About Point of Discovery Point of Discovery is a production of the University of Texas at Austin's College of Natural Sciences. You can listen to all our episodes at @point-of-discovery . Questions or comments about this episode, or our series in general? Email Marc Airhart at mairhart[AT]austin.utexas.edu

We asked you, dear listeners, to send us your most burning questions about COVID-19. And you didn’t disappoint. You asked: When will it be safe for my 12-week-old baby to meet her grandparents? Can you catch it twice? Is the virus mutating and will that make it harder to develop vaccines? In today’s episode, our three experts get to the bottom of these questions, and more. Meet our experts: Professor Lauren Ancel Meyers is an epidemiologist and leader of the UT COVID-19 Modeling Consortium. Her team recently found that the virus was circulating in China and in Seattle, Washington weeks earlier than previously thought. (Read more: https://cns.utexas.edu/news/early-spread-of-covid-19-appears-far-greater-than-initially-reported ) Greg Ippolito is a research assistant professor of molecular biosciences and an expert on how our immune systems respond to pathogens. He is working with doctors at Houston Methodist Hospital to test the efficacy of a potential COVID-19 treatment called convalescent plasma therapy. (Read more: https://cns.utexas.edu/news/covid-19-convalescent-plasma-therapy-is-safe-with-76-of-patients-improving ) Jason McLellan is an associate professor of molecular biosciences whose team created a critical component in several COVID-19 vaccines currently in clinical trials. (Read more: https://cns.utexas.edu/news/covid-19-vaccine-with-ut-ties-arrived-quickly-after-years-in-the-making ) He and his team is also developing a therapy for COVID-19 based on special antibodies from llamas. (Read more: https://cns.utexas.edu/news/antibodies-from-llamas-could-help-in-fight-against-covid-19 ) Music for today’s show was produced by: Podington Bear - https://www.podingtonbear.com/ About Point of Discovery Point of Discovery is a production of the University of Texas at Austin's College of Natural Sciences. You can listen to all our episodes at @point-of-discovery . Questions or comments about this episode, or our series in general? Email Marc Airhart at mairhart[AT]austin.utexas.edu

In these next few decades, will humans finally find life in space? We asked University of Texas at Austin astronomer Caroline Morley and her answer just might surprise you. Morley shares her vision for the future in this latest episode of our miniseries, The Next 50 Years. Check out more podcasts and essays in the Next 50 Years series: https://cns.utexas.edu/news/tags/the-next-50-years Scientists from across UT Austin are joining forces in the hunt for life on other planets. Astronomers, geoscientists, chemists, biologists and aerospace engineers have pooled resources to form the UT Center for Planetary Systems Habitability, a cross-campus, interdisciplinary research unit. Learn more: https://cns.utexas.edu/news/university-welcomes-new-center-for-planetary-habitability Have a question about COVID-19? We have experts on all aspects of the pandemic and the virus that causes it. Record your question and email it to us here: utexasscience@gmail.com Please keep your recordings to 20 seconds or less if you can. We’ll answer as many as we can on the next Point of Discovery podcast. Music for today’s show was produced by: Podington Bear - https://www.podingtonbear.com/ Chuzausen - https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Chuzausen About Point of Discovery Point of Discovery is a production of the University of Texas at Austin's College of Natural Sciences. You can listen to all our episodes at @point-of-discovery . Questions or comments about this episode, or our series in general? Email Marc Airhart at mairhart[AT]austin.utexas.edu

Can we simulate life — in all its messy complexity and at the scale of each individual atom — in a computer? Even the most powerful supercomputers today can only simulate a tiny portion of a single living cell for a few nanoseconds. Carlos Baiz is a biochemist at the University of Texas at Austin who says it might someday be possible to simulate an entire living cell for hours or longer. But he says there are two big catches. Baiz shares his vision for the future in this latest episode of our miniseries, The Next 50 Years. Check out more podcasts and essays in this series: https://cns.utexas.edu/news/tags/the-next-50-years Music for today’s show was produced by: Podington Bear - https://www.podingtonbear.com/ Chuzausen - https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Chuzausen About Point of Discovery Point of Discovery is a production of the University of Texas at Austin's College of Natural Sciences. You can listen to all our episodes at @point-of-discovery . Questions or comments about this episode, or our series in general? Email Marc Airhart at mairhart[AT]austin.utexas.edu

Daily life has changed for many of us due to the coronavirus pandemic. During this unusual time, when it’s harder to connect physically with important people in our lives, it can be helpful to step back and spend a little time thinking about the things that still bind us together, like the wonder of the natural world and the hope that scientists offer us as we take on societal challenges. We’ve put together a compilation from our previous episodes that we hope will help you find some solace right now: in rediscovering life, the people we're closest with and the universe. To listen to the full episodes that we drew these excerpts from, or to read the transcripts, visit the links below. Beauty and the Yeast: https://cns.utexas.edu/news/beauty-and-the-yeast The Science of Relationships: https://cns.utexas.edu/news/the-science-of-relationships Can Sound Save a Fish?: https://cns.utexas.edu/news/can-sound-save-a-fish Eyewitness to a Cosmic Car Wreck: https://cns.utexas.edu/news/eyewitness-to-a-cosmic-car-wreck A Love Letter from Texas Scientists to the Periodic Table: https://cns.utexas.edu/news/a-love-letter-from-texas-scientists-to-the-periodic-table Music for today’s show was produced by: Podington Bear - https://www.podingtonbear.com/ About Point of Discovery Point of Discovery is a production of the University of Texas at Austin's College of Natural Sciences. You can listen to all our episodes at @point-of-discovery . Questions or comments about this episode, or our series in general? Email Marc Airhart at mairhart[AT]austin.utexas.edu

Artificial intelligence is becoming more and more a part of our daily lives. But will AI have mostly positive or negative impacts on society? Some potential unintended consequences include home service robots that accidentally break your fine china, or systems that increase the gap between the haves and the have-nots. Peter Stone co-leads the Good Systems initiative at the University of Texas at Austin, which is trying to hash out guiding principles for building AI systems that are more likely to have a positive impact and fewer unintended consequences. He shares his team’s vision for the future in this latest episode of our miniseries, The Next 50 Years. Check out more podcasts and essays in this series: https://cns.utexas.edu/news/tags/the-next-50-years Learn about the Good Systems initiative: https://bridgingbarriers.utexas.edu/good-systems/ Peter Stone also chaired the first technical report of the AI100 Study: https://cns.utexas.edu/news/experts-forecast-the-changes-artificial-intelligence-could-bring-by-2030 Music for today’s show was produced by: Podington Bear - https://www.podingtonbear.com/ Chuzausen - https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Chuzausen About Point of Discovery Point of Discovery is a production of the University of Texas at Austin's College of Natural Sciences. You can listen to all our episodes at @point-of-discovery . Questions or comments about this episode, or our series in general? Email Marc Airhart at mairhart[AT]austin.utexas.edu

Have you ever wondered why some people seem to be able to follow a specific diet or exercise plan and others fail? The answer might have to do with factors unique to each person, like their microbiomes and genetics. Geneticist Molly Bray is working toward a future where each person gets a diet and exercise plan optimized just for them. She shares her vision for how this would work in this latest episode of our miniseries, The Next 50 Years. Check out more podcasts and essays in this series: https://cns.utexas.edu/news/tags/the-next-50-years Learn about the ongoing TIGER Study, which explores how genes may alter a person’s response to exercise and diet interventions: http://tigerstudy.org/ Read about a 2015 summary report on the genetics of weight loss by some of the leading experts in this field, including Molly Bray: https://cns.utexas.edu/news/weight-loss-programs-tailored-to-a-person-s-genome-may-be-coming-soon Music for today’s show was produced by: Podington Bear - https://www.podingtonbear.com/ Chuzausen - https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Chuzausen Have you heard our other news? Now you can listen to Point of Discovery on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4bWQkQ9jBV0cyKeyqeKwdA

We know absolutely nothing about roughly 80 percent of the different types of life on Earth. Biologist David Hillis aims to discover all those missing species—by some estimates 5 to 10 million—possibly in the next few decades. Sound impossible? He shares his vision for how this would work in this first episode of our new miniseries, The Next 50 Years. Check out more podcasts and essays in this series: https://cns.utexas.edu/news/tags/the-next-50-years Hillis, along with colleagues Derrick Zwickl and Robin Gutell, published a stunning new tree of life in 2003 based not just on the physical traits but also the genetics of 3,000 species from across all known groups of life. The unique circular layout which first appeared in the journal Science has come to be known as a Hillis plot. To download a printable version of the Hillis plot and see tattoos and other artistic renderings, visit: http://www.zo.utexas.edu/faculty/antisense/DownloadfilesToL.html Learn about the computational approaches that enabled this new type of tree of life: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/300/5626/1692.full and https://cns.utexas.edu/news/tree-of-life Music for today’s show was produced by: Podington Bear - https://www.podingtonbear.com/ Chuzausen - https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Chuzausen Have you heard our other news? Now you can listen to Point of Discovery on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4bWQkQ9jBV0cyKeyqeKwdA

If you've been listening to our podcast for a while, you probably have noticed that we haven't had a new episode for a few months. We’ve taken that time to step back and reflect on our show, both what has changed over the last few years (we’re now in our fifth year of production – yay!) and where we're going in the future. In this month’s episode, producer and host Marc Airhart chats with senior editor Christine Sinatra about the podcast. We also share some exciting news: we’re kicking off a new miniseries called The Next 50 Years. The first episode drops in January 2020. Stay tuned! Music for today’s show was produced by: Podington Bear - https://www.podingtonbear.com/ Have you heard our other news? Now you can listen to Point of Discovery on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4bWQkQ9jBV0cyKeyqeKwdA About Point of Discovery Point of Discovery is a production of the University of Texas at Austin's College of Natural Sciences. You can listen to all our episodes at @point-of-discovery . Questions or comments about this episode, or our series in general? Email Marc Airhart at mairhart[AT]austin.utexas.edu

Why do so many first-year students struggle in college? Who is most likely to fail? And what can professors and staff do to help them get over the hump? “I didn't know what was going on. And I just felt out of place as a whole,” said Ivonne Martinez, a first-year student at UT Austin who was in danger of failing Freshman Calculus. “I was like, What am I doing? And that kind of made me panic.” In today’s show, math professor Uri Treisman and chemistry professor David Laude describe ways they support students through this difficult time, and psychologist David Yeager explains why these tactics work. We’ll also talk about the University of Texas at Austin’s ambitious goal to boost the number of students graduating within four years from 52 percent several years ago to 70 percent, and how they did it. (Read more: https://news.utexas.edu/2018/09/27/ut-austin-records-its-highest-four-year-graduation-rate/ ) By the way, all of the people in today’s show are featured in a great new book by author Paul Tough. It’s called “The Years that Matter Most: How College Makes or Breaks Us.” For a deeper dive, be sure and check it out: https://www.paultough.com/books/years-that-matter-most/ Music for today’s show was produced by: Podington Bear - https://www.podingtonbear.com/ Finn’s Fandango Have you heard the news? Now you can listen to Point of Discovery on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4bWQkQ9jBV0cyKeyqeKwdA About Point of Discovery Point of Discovery is a production of the University of Texas at Austin's College of Natural Sciences. You can listen to all our episodes at @point-of-discovery . Questions or comments about this episode, or our series in general? Email Marc Airhart at mairhart[AT]austin.utexas.edu

Virtually everyone contracts RSV (respiratory syncytial virus) as a child, but few people have even heard of it. It’s actually one of the leading causes of infectious disease deaths in infants. Now a team of researchers, including molecular biologist Jason McLellan, are using a radically new way to develop a potential vaccine against RSV. This method, called structure-based vaccine design, is already changing the way many vaccines are now being developed. To see a cool image of the shape-shifting protein that holds the key to the new RSV vaccine, see the full story on our website at http://pointofdiscovery.org/ Read more about how this new vaccine’s design is revolutionizing vaccine design itself: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/342/6158/546.1 Music for today’s show was produced by: Podington Bear - https://www.podingtonbear.com/ Have you heard the news? Now you can listen to Point of Discovery on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4bWQkQ9jBV0cyKeyqeKwdA

Kristen Grauman, professor of computer science at the University of Texas at Austin, and her team have taught an artificial intelligence agent how to do something that usually only humans can do—take a few quick glimpses around and infer its whole environment. That will be a critical skill for search and rescue robots that can enter a dangerous situation—like a burning building—and relay information back to firefighters or other personnel. To see an animation of how the new AI agent creates a full view of the world from just a few glimpses, go to our press release at: https://cns.utexas.edu/news/new-ai-sees-like-a-human-filling-in-the-blanks Music for today’s show was produced by: Podington Bear - https://www.podingtonbear.com/ Have you heard the news? Now you can listen to Point of Discovery on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4bWQkQ9jBV0cyKeyqeKwdA About Point of Discovery Point of Discovery is a production of the University of Texas at Austin's College of Natural Sciences. You can listen to all our episodes at @point-of-discovery . Questions or comments about this episode, or our series in general? Email Marc Airhart at mairhart[AT]austin.utexas.edu

One thing that sets humans apart from even the smartest of artificially intelligent machines is the ability to understand, not just the definitions of words and phrases, but the deepest meanings in human speech. Alex Huth, a neuroscientist and computer scientist, is trying to build an intelligent computer system that can predict the patterns of brain activity in a human listening to someone speaking. If a computer could begin to extract the same kinds of meaning from a set of words as a human does, that might help explain how the human brain itself makes sense of language – and even pave the way for a speech aid for people who can’t speak. Experience an interactive 3D map of the human brain showing which areas respond to hearing different words: https://gallantlab.org/huth2016/ Music for today’s show was produced by: Podington Bear - https://www.podingtonbear.com/ Have you heard the news? Now you can listen to Point of Discovery on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4bWQkQ9jBV0cyKeyqeKwdA About Point of Discovery Point of Discovery is a production of the University of Texas at Austin's College of Natural Sciences. You can listen to all our episodes at @point-of-discovery . Questions or comments about this episode, or our series in general? Email Marc Airhart at mairhart[AT]austin.utexas.edu