Ashley and Cat discuss stem cells, gene editing, a future in which we can grow new organs, and explore the borders of creepy-exciting science!

Show Notes

Gene editing in the news

Gene editing incident described in the introduction:

https://www.science.org/content/article/exclusive-death-girl-chinese-gene-editing-trial-was-never-made-public

More recent coverage of this incident and others: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-02497-2

Proof-of-concept reports on gene editing in patient cells

Ashley underestimated how many proof-of-concepts there have been for gene editing in cells derived from patients themselves. There actually are some exciting clinical trials to treat various diseases (though nothing at a large scale as of yet):

• Sickle cell: https://www.nejm.org/doi/10.1056/NEJMoa2309676
• Type 1 Diabetes: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39326417/
• Parkinson’s: https://www.biospace.com/press-releases/aspen-neuroscience-announces-positive-12-month-data-from-its-aspiro-clinical-trial-in-a-late-breaking-oral-presentation-at-the-ad-pd-2026-international-conference-on-alzheimers-and-parkinsons-diseases

Core research papers

The original “Yamanaka” paper (actually Takahashi & Yamanaka, 2006): https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16904174/

Learn more about Ashley:

• https://ashleyjuavinett.com/
• https://mastodon.social/@analog_ashley
• ashleyjuavinett.bsky.social

Learn more about Cat:

• https://www.drcathicks.com/
• https://mastodon.social/@grimalkina
• grimalkina.bsky.social

Are we addicted to talking about dopamine? In this episode, we tackle dopamine hype with real science: what dopamine is doing in the brain, how we study it, and how it's been misunderstood.

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SHOW NOTES

two articles tackling dopamine nation:

• https://awjuliani.medium.com/beyond-dopamine-nation-towards-a-fuller-picture-of-addiction-and-recovery-97b37e17235e
• https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/13/opinion/addiction-dopamine-brain-chemistry.html?unlocked_article_code=1.yVA.uvbi.PVfFQMzMudvb&smid=url-share

other great takes on this topic:

• mark humphries "the crimes against dopamine" https://medium.com/the-spike/the-crimes-against-dopamine-b82b082d5f3d
• https://youtu.be/HZRGWPLeMIg?si=Ponb7AagEa4QN2BY

things that cause dopamine release, as studied with PET:

• video games https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9607763/
• music https://www.nature.com/articles/nn.2726
• yes, cocaine https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9331351/ (relatedly, nora volkow's work: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18617195/)
• not just reward in isolation https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053811922009521

more papers that fueled the sciency talk here:

• https://www.annualreviews.org/content/journals/10.1146/annurev.neuro.28.061604.135722
• https://www.pnas.org/doi/pdf/10.1073/pnas.1513619112
• https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1014269108
• https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32974872/

songs covered in the episode:

• "dopamine" by robyn https://youtu.be/vitil9qMN6A?si=mMu1FliQP4-6QSIE
• "dopamine" by madelline https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Upy4rB8V3T4

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Learn more about Ashley:

• https://ashleyjuavinett.com/
• https://mastodon.social/@analog_ashley
• ashleyjuavinett.bsky.social

Learn more about Cat:

• https://www.drcathicks.com/
• https://mastodon.social/@grimalkina
• grimalkina.bsky.social

You can find the talk Cat gave about learning and its citations here: https://github.com/DrCatHicks/tailscale_talk

On beliefs about humans being more genetically dissimilar than they are, work primarily done by Brian Donovan: Donovan et al. (2024). "Humane genomics education can reduce racism." Science, 383(6685), 818–822. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adi7895

Learn more about Ashley:

• https://ashleyjuavinett.com/
• https://mastodon.social/@analog_ashley
• ashleyjuavinett.bsky.social

Learn more about Cat:

• https://www.drcathicks.com/
• https://mastodon.social/@grimalkina
• grimalkina.bsky.social

📚 PREVIEW CAT'S BOOK, THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SOFTWARE TEAMS! Pre-orders will be available in June.

https://www.routledge.com/The-Psychology-of-Software-Teams/Hicks/p/book/9781032963389

📝 EPISODE NOTES

• Jeff Shreve's Substack that Ashley mentions in the beginning https://jeffshreve.substack.com/
• Ashley is not linking anything about the reiki on rats paper here because she doesn't want that paper to get more hits than warranted but she *does* you to see the figure from it and has put it here for your viewing: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WQGGjh2VT87XbbmaqdK2g7tyyknzwr6s/view?usp=sharing
• Cat read a couple of papers about creativity for this episode, including: Inspired by Distraction: Mind Wandering Facilitates Creative Incubation and Innovation Relies on the Obscure: A Key to Overcoming the Classic Problem of Functional Fixedness

Learn more about Ashley:

• https://ashleyjuavinett.com/
• https://mastodon.social/@analog_ashley
• ashleyjuavinett.bsky.social

Learn more about Cat:

• https://www.drcathicks.com/
• https://mastodon.social/@grimalkina
• grimalkina.bsky.social

Can people learn in the AI era? Ashley and Cat think so. We talk about Ashley's experiences teaching programming and co-designing WITH students (not against them) to create shared classroom norms around AI, and about the metacognitive skills that Cat is sharing with the software teams and developers she works with to bring a "dynamic textbook" approach to using AI to build understanding, not degrade it.

Cat's Learning Opportunities Claude Skill, with a scientific reference list to the effects we also talk about in this episode, can be found here:

https://github.com/DrCatHicks/learning-opportunities

Cat also wrote a recent piece about the complexity of measuring the impact of AI in Software Organizations: https://www.fightforthehuman.com/how-not-to-measure-the-roi-from-ai-in-your-software-organization/

Learn more about Ashley:

• https://ashleyjuavinett.com/
• https://mastodon.social/@analog_ashley
• ashleyjuavinett.bsky.social

Learn more about Cat:

• https://www.drcathicks.com/
• https://mastodon.social/@grimalkina
• grimalkina.bsky.social

This isn't the episode we planned, but it's what is on our minds right now. We talk about the power of knowing your neighbors and a few ways in which we've found solace and meaning in building our local community. Here's a glimpse into our playbook -- tell us about yours in the comments.

Learn more about Ashley:

• https://ashleyjuavinett.com/
• https://mastodon.social/@analog_ashley
• ashleyjuavinett.bsky.social

Learn more about Cat:

• https://www.drcathicks.com/
• https://mastodon.social/@grimalkina
• grimalkina.bsky.social

The story from Janet Hyde about her motivations to get a grant and "fight with data" can be found here:

https://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/janet-shibley-hyde-sinks-stereotypes-with-data

Cat summarizes a ton of research for this episode. Key citations, most of which contain large literature reviews themselves:

Adamecz-Völgyi, A., Jerrim, J., Pingault, J. B., & Shure, N. (2023). Overconfident boys: The gender gap in mathematics self-assessment.

Brescoll, V. L., Dawson, E., & Uhlmann, E. L. (2010). Hard won and easily lost: The fragile status of leaders in gender-stereotype-incongruent occupations. Psychological Science, 21(11), 1640-1642.

Carr, M., Jessup, D. L., & Fuller, D. (1999). Gender differences in first-grade mathematics strategy use: Parent and teacher contributions. Journal for research in mathematics education, 30(1), 20-46.

Del Toro, J., Legette, K., Christophe, N. K., Pasco, M., Miller-Cotto, D., & Wang, M. T. (2024). When ethnic–racial discrimination from math teachers spills over and predicts the math adjustment of nondiscriminated adolescents: The mediating role of math classroom climate perceptions. Developmental psychology.

Else-Quest, N. M., Hyde, J. S., & Linn, M. C. (2010). Cross-national patterns of gender differences in mathematics: a meta-analysis. Psychological bulletin, 136(1), 103.

Gesuelli, K. A., Miller-Cotto, D., & Barbieri, C. A. (2025). Variability in math achievement growth among students with early math learning difficulties and the role of school supports. Journal of Educational Psychology.

Hyde, J. S., & Linn, M. C. (2006). Gender similarities in mathematics and science. Science, 314(5799), 599-600.

Hyde, J. S., Lindberg, S. M., Linn, M. C., Ellis, A. B., & Williams, C. C. (2008). Gender similarities characterize math performance. Science, 321(5888), 494-495.

Hyde, J. S., & Mertz, J. E. (2009). Gender, culture, and mathematics performance. Proceedings of the national academy of sciences, 106(22), 8801-8807.

Hyde, J. S., & Mertz, J. E. (2009). Reply to Crespi: Gender similarities, culture, and mathematics performance. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 106(37), E103-E103.

Hyde, J. S., Bigler, R. S., Joel, D., Tate, C. C., & van Anders, S. M. (2019). The future of sex and gender in psychology: Five challenges to the gender binary. American Psychologist, 74(2), 171.

Kane, J. M., & Mertz, J. E. (2012). Debunking myths about gender and mathematics performance. Notices of the AMS, 59(1), 10-21.

Lindberg, S. M., Hyde, J. S., Petersen, J. L., & Linn, M. C. (2010). New trends in gender and mathematics performance: a meta-analysis. Psychological bulletin, 136(6), 1123.

Makowski, M. B., Lubienski, S. T., Ganley, C. M., Sianturi, I. A. J., & Hart, S. A. (2025). Gender differences in computation strategies: Evidence across adolescent and adult samples. British Journal of Educational Psychology.

Master, A., Meltzoff, A. N., & Cheryan, S. (2021). Gender stereotypes about interests start early and cause gender disparities in computer science and engineering. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 118(48), e2100030118.

Miller-

Learn more about Ashley:

• https://ashleyjuavinett.com/
• https://mastodon.social/@analog_ashley
• ashleyjuavinett.bsky.social

Learn more about Cat:

• https://www.drcathicks.com/
• https://mastodon.social/@grimalkina
• grimalkina.bsky.social

First of all, in this episode you'll learn why Ashley has shipped ONE THOUSAND COCKROACHES through the mail. Second of all, Ashley shares about getting scientists to tell stories, taking risks to share knowledge, and doing science communication in places that don't look like a university campus.

We talk about work with the following amazing organizations:

• Guerilla Science
• SASSY San Diego
• Caveat NYC

If you want more science storytelling in your life, please check out The Story Collider.

The recording kits we sent to students were made by Backyard Brains.

If you're curious about Ashley's neurobiology lab class, you can learn more about it here.

Ashley also wants to give a shout out to the amazing UC San Diego staff who made shipping cockroaches during a global pandemic possible, and who still maintain the ongoing roach colony, occasionally even feeding them donuts.

Learn more about Ashley:

• https://ashleyjuavinett.com/
• https://mastodon.social/@analog_ashley
• ashleyjuavinett.bsky.social

Learn more about Cat:

• https://www.drcathicks.com/
• https://mastodon.social/@grimalkina
• grimalkina.bsky.social