Powering Artificial Photosynthesis: How Molecular Cages Mimic Life's Charge Transfer

WEBVTT
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lost in the fog of a cosmic storm floating on
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whimsical wavelengths is the norm dancing through
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the stars chasing spectrums of light riding the
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waves that are just out It's time again for Whimsical
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Wavelengths. Yes, it has been two weeks, and
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I'm your host, Dr. Jeffrey Zurek, volcanologist
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and geophysicist. Last episode, it was about
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rocks and debris going downhill. Today is very
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different, other than it is still fundamentally
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about energy. When it comes to converting energy
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and moving it around for animals and plants to
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use, we all rely on things like... iron sulfide
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molecules or other sulfide molecules with other
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metals because they're used for moving electrons
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around for use in the fundamental driving force
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of existence across all kingdoms of life whether
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you're the towering douglas fir capturing sunlight
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or the human sprinting across a field your cells
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are quietly orchestrating a microscopic ballet
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of charge transfer The part that makes all of
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this work is these metal sulfur clusters. Today,
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we're specifically talking about iron sulfur.
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Nature uses these complex atomic -scale engines,
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batteries, wires. Let's go with energy transporters
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to handle and transport all the energy of our
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cells, muscles, and, well, everything. If we
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know they exist and their function, We should
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be able to use them for... things? I'll have
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a guest in a moment who can break this down better
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than I. However, there is a catch. These compounds
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or molecules are fragile. Stripped away out of
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the body from the protected protein environment
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of a living cell, these synthetic clusters tend
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to degrade rapidly. So we haven't yet... crack
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the nut unlocking this mechanism into our own
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technology. Today we'll be talking with Dr. Gwen
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Bailey, an assistant professor in the Department
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of Chemistry at the University of Minnesota,
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and one of her recent papers where they may have
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cracked open a new way to mimic this behavior
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of biological proteins for iron sulfur molecules
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and provide shielding. Why does this matter outside
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of chemistry? Because cracking this code opens
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the door to robust, bio -inspired energy transfers
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that can operate outside of biology. By giving
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fragile iron -sulfur clusters a synthetic home,
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we can move one step closer to engineering artificial
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photosynthesis systems that can capture energy
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and convert waste molecules like carbon dioxide
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straight into clean, perhaps even storable fuels.
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It bridges the gap between ancient biological
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wiring and the future of green technology. So
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to put this into a bit of a stark contrast, today
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we can turn elements from our air into hydrocarbons.
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We can make rocket fuel from air, but... It is
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extremely energy intensive. So in the best case,
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today, if we put 25 kilowatt hours in, we will
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only get maybe 10 kilowatt hours of fuel out.
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That energy gap, that's not sustainable. Being
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able to make use of artificial photosynthesis
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to pull carbon out of the air, now we're getting
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somewhere. So without further ado, let's get
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to today's guest after this possible ad. So it's
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my great pleasure to welcome to Whimsical Wavelengths,
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Dr. Gwen Bailey. Thank you so much, Jeff. I'm
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super happy to be here. So before we get into
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introducing the science, I'd really like to get
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into how us humans jump into this endeavor of
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science and the scientific method. I mean, we
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both grew up in similar necks of the woods. in
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British Columbia, small little towns, in the
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Kootenays, which is in the province of British
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Columbia for those that are international, in
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Canada. There are some local colleges, but no
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universities. To really get into science and
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progress requires travel. I ask this because
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in my own journey, I knew that meant not coming
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back, much beyond the next summer, perhaps. So
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did you have a similar self -conversation about
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that? Yeah, definitely. For my undergraduate
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degree, I did actually choose to stay close to
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home by studying for two years at a local college
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and then transferring to the University of British
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Columbia in Vancouver. For context, that's about
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a 10 -hour drive from my hometown, so not too
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bad. But after that, to pursue the kind of research...
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Not too bad in a Canadian context, though, right?
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Like, 10 -hour drive from anywhere else is kind
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of like, what? I mean, I could travel halfway
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across Europe in 10 hours, right? Yeah, that's
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true. That's true. Actually, this is a Canadian
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context. But anyway, so yeah, so from our perspective,
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not too bad. So after that, though, to pursue
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the kind of research that I wanted, I moved to
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Ottawa, to the University of Ottawa to pursue
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my PhD in chemistry. And then after that, to
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follow my research interests further, I actually
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did a postdoctoral stint, which is just kind
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of like your postgraduate degree studies. at
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the California Institute of Technology or Caltech
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in Los Angeles, California. So this is actually
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quite typical of academic career paths. Typically,
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especially in Canada, it would be expected that
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you do research either for your PhD or postdoc
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or both in the United States or abroad before
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applying to jobs as a professor. So that was
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really just part of the expectation. So after
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that, when I was finished those studies, I applied
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broadly in the United States and Canada for assistant
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professor positions, and they're quite... few
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of these, especially if you're looking in a particular
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area. And that's how I ended up at the University
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of Minnesota in Minneapolis, where I'm currently
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doing research and leading a fantastic team of
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undergrads, grads, and postdocs. Yeah, it's funny.
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I also stayed behind at Selkirk College for one
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year to transfer. Although I tried to stay away
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from UBC because Vancouver seemed really scary
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to me coming from a small little town. I went
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to UVic instead. But that's pretty much pretty
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much mirrors at least the beginning part. But
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now on to the paper. Outer sphere tuning of synthetic
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iron sulfur clusters within nanoscale cage frameworks.
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I love this. Every episode I dig in to learn
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new things I never knew. So perhaps to start,
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let's introduce the subject. What are iron sulfur
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clusters and what do they mean to us humans or
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living things in general? I actually love talking
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about iron sulfur clusters because I think they're
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absolutely fascinating and I want to tell everyone
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I know about them. Basically, they're everywhere
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and most people don't even know about it. They're
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like kind of life's invisible engines. So they're
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found in living organisms from all living kingdoms.
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And there are many, many that operate inside
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of our bodies, in fact, which many people don't
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know. So there are actually more than 200 known
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distinct iron sulfur proteins in humans. And
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they play a wide range of essential roles from
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cellular respiration, so using oxygen and energy
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in our bodies to cellular signaling. sensing
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things like iron and oxygen, and metabolism,
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so like digesting our food. And what they are
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is these discrete atomic assemblies that are
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composed of iron, sulfur, and sometimes other
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elements like molybdenum, vanadium, or nickel.
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And we're talking between about 4 and 18 atoms
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in an assembly. So nature assembles these clusters
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and puts them inside proteins where they can
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do their work. So what we're really interested
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in is iron sulfur proteins found in bacteria.
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These are of interest to us because they promote
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transformations like the conversion of carbon
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dioxide from the air to carbon monoxide, which
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is an important chemical feedstock, or hydrocarbons
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that we can use as fuels. Or the conversion of
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water to hydrogen, an energy carrier. Or finally,
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the conversion of nitrogen from the atmosphere
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to ammonia, which is widely used as fertilizers
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or fuels. So a quick side path, a side quest.
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I don't know how I should say this. A fun fact
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about ammonia. Ammonia is currently made by our
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society using a temperature and pressure intensive
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process that we call the Haber -Bosch process,
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which supplies nitrogen we need to fertilize
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our crops. And to illustrate to you how important
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this is, we know that roughly 50 % of the nitrogen
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in our bodies comes from the Haber -Bosch process,
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not from natural processes, bacteria that fix
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nitrogen for us. It's kind of wild to think about,
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actually. We can do a lot of these transformations
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in our society already, but like I mentioned,
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they're generally temperature and pressure intensive.
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Or they might use feedstocks like hydrogen that
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are derived from fossil fuels. So what we really
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want to be able to do is use more renewable feedstocks
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like water and energy from renewable electricity
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sources like wind or solar to create our fuels.
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And then that way, ideally, we could make them
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cleanly without emitting any greenhouse gases
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like carbon dioxide. All right. I think it's
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time for a proper deviation now. okay there's
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two different things uh let's start with the
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basics and then i'll get to the question that
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i came to my head um so as my understanding of
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these things are is that we we use them to transfer
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energy so essentially transfer electrons right
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yeah i would say so yep so it's just about moving
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electrons around to make certain chemical reactions
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easier in both the body and other living organisms
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That's right. Okay. So in other words, what we
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really interested as far as using and utilizing
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these cages for synthetic purposes is to mimic
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what the body already does to create reactions
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that are easier to get at. Exactly. Right. Because
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to do it synthetically, it just costs, like I
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think in the introduction, I gave an example
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of fuel out of the air that NASA uses. And it's
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just, you get so little for how much energy you
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have to put in. And this would make it, all you
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need is sunlight, for instance. That's right.
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Yeah. So the protein you can think of as actually
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kind of tuning the cluster inside to help it
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perform the function that we want. Interesting.
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So when this is going to go back, because I don't
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know much about biology, I tried really hard
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to skip that as part of high school and so on
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and such forth. But there was always that thing
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is like poisons in its dose, right? So even arsenic
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is used by the body and certain other heavy metals.
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Is that part of the process? Is that sometimes
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those are used in these cages to do a certain
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specific thing within the body? Yeah, that's
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super interesting. So arsenic is used in the
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body for sure and other elements. And yeah, normally
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they would need a protein to function inside
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of the body. But so they could, I mean, obviously
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different heavy metals or metals in general that
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we may not normally think of being used by the
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body may be used in these sorts of cages to move
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energy around within the system. Obviously, we
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don't need very much of them. obviously we get
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too much of them we get sick but this is one
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avenue that they may get used that's absolutely
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right cool like how much energy are we talking
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about here it it must run the gambit because
00:12:53.879 --> 00:12:56.480
there's different chemical reactions that we're
00:12:56.480 --> 00:13:00.320
talking about using different uh elements so
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are we talking many volts or like give us some
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kind of a scale that like from where to where
00:13:07.299 --> 00:13:10.919
does these different cages work from Yeah, yeah,
00:13:11.539 --> 00:13:15.460
yeah. So it can vary a lot depending on the chemical
00:13:15.460 --> 00:13:19.779
process that you want or that the cluster is
00:13:19.779 --> 00:13:23.460
performing. And so one way to think about it
00:13:23.460 --> 00:13:27.419
is just in terms of the kinds of processes that
00:13:27.419 --> 00:13:30.940
these clusters perform. Like I mentioned, cellular
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respiration, that's the process where we take
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in the energy from our food and use oxygen and
00:13:38.139 --> 00:13:41.049
burn these as fuel. And these iron -sulfur clusters
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are very intimately involved in these reactions.
00:13:43.870 --> 00:13:46.490
So you can kind of think of them as powering
00:13:46.490 --> 00:13:50.009
the energy that we use in our body. Okay. So
00:13:50.009 --> 00:13:52.509
as we've already described, the goal is to create
00:13:52.509 --> 00:13:54.629
a synthetic version of what mimics biological
00:13:54.629 --> 00:13:59.009
use. So in the science portion of this, are you
00:13:59.009 --> 00:14:01.830
creating synthetic proteins? Are you using something
00:14:01.830 --> 00:14:05.789
that's protein -like? How are we trying to harness
00:14:05.789 --> 00:14:09.480
this in the lab? Yeah, that's such a great question
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because actually people study synthetic proteins
00:14:12.259 --> 00:14:16.399
a lot. So you can... either design a completely
00:14:16.399 --> 00:14:19.879
new protein or you can use a protein that has
00:14:19.879 --> 00:14:23.879
already been developed by biology. And so you
00:14:23.879 --> 00:14:27.039
can express these in host organisms. This would
00:14:27.039 --> 00:14:30.519
just be like, for example, a bacterium that would
00:14:30.519 --> 00:14:33.059
be able to produce the protein that you want
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and you can purify it and you can use it in a
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lot of different applications like treating diseases,
00:14:39.100 --> 00:14:42.259
developing vaccines. or in commercial products
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like laundry detergents. And so, you know, we
00:14:45.919 --> 00:14:48.559
could actually, and we do use these proteins
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for promoting chemical reactions like the ones
00:14:52.879 --> 00:14:56.909
that we are studying. But with iron sulfur proteins,
00:14:57.169 --> 00:14:59.789
it becomes a lot more challenging. This is because
00:14:59.789 --> 00:15:02.649
oftentimes they're a lot more structurally complex
00:15:02.649 --> 00:15:06.149
and they're often more sensitive than your typical
00:15:06.149 --> 00:15:09.789
protein. So actually being able to express them
00:15:09.789 --> 00:15:12.289
in host organisms can be really challenging.
00:15:12.870 --> 00:15:18.299
So basically... you know proteins are used generally
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um and and we can use them for a variety of applications
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but doing this with iron sulfur proteins can
00:15:25.419 --> 00:15:28.299
be challenging all right well then let's dig
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into those challenges a little bit because as
00:15:31.200 --> 00:15:33.519
any case in science the previous work you're
00:15:33.519 --> 00:15:35.899
standing on the shoulders of giants so what are
00:15:35.899 --> 00:15:39.059
the problems with the previous attempts at mimicking
00:15:39.059 --> 00:15:43.720
these sulfur or iron sulfur cages yeah so there's
00:15:43.720 --> 00:15:46.860
actually been a ton of work on this topic and
00:15:46.860 --> 00:15:50.240
in science generally we start small right and
00:15:50.240 --> 00:15:53.419
so the first step to this research was really
00:15:53.419 --> 00:15:56.320
synthesizing the iron sulfur clusters themselves
00:15:56.320 --> 00:15:59.759
because normally biology makes them through complicated
00:15:59.759 --> 00:16:02.299
cellular processes but we really want to actually
00:16:02.299 --> 00:16:04.480
make them in the lab if we're going to apply
00:16:04.480 --> 00:16:08.360
them so we know how to do this very well actually
00:16:09.100 --> 00:16:13.000
The first cluster was synthesized in 1858. It
00:16:13.000 --> 00:16:16.039
was called Rousset's black anion. And this was
00:16:16.039 --> 00:16:19.039
an iron three sulfur four cluster. And it did
00:16:19.039 --> 00:16:22.039
not have any practical applications. It was simply
00:16:22.039 --> 00:16:24.879
used in research. So we've had a ton of years
00:16:24.879 --> 00:16:28.379
to refine our synthetic methods to produce these
00:16:28.379 --> 00:16:31.259
clusters. But unfortunately, like we mentioned
00:16:31.259 --> 00:16:34.440
before, what these clusters really lack is the
00:16:34.440 --> 00:16:36.679
surrounding protein scaffold, which is essential
00:16:36.679 --> 00:16:40.950
for its function. And so scientists have been
00:16:40.950 --> 00:16:44.409
working on appending many elaborate groups. So
00:16:44.409 --> 00:16:46.789
these would be groups that are made with carbon,
00:16:46.889 --> 00:16:49.830
hydrogen and nitrogen that would bind to these
00:16:49.830 --> 00:16:52.330
clusters and perform some of the functions of
00:16:52.330 --> 00:16:54.610
the protein scaffolds. Like it would stabilize
00:16:54.610 --> 00:16:57.409
the clusters, making sure that they don't decompose
00:16:57.409 --> 00:17:01.690
and also to some extent tune their reactivity
00:17:01.690 --> 00:17:06.029
as well and their properties. So the proteins
00:17:06.029 --> 00:17:10.500
themselves. help make that sulfur iron cluster
00:17:10.500 --> 00:17:15.339
stable so it doesn't fall apart as well as dictate
00:17:15.339 --> 00:17:19.299
how much energy or what shape that energy has
00:17:19.299 --> 00:17:21.940
to be to transfer it so the protein the different
00:17:21.940 --> 00:17:25.579
proteins are doing all of that work yes exactly
00:17:25.579 --> 00:17:29.640
yeah the reason why we can't use them is because
00:17:29.640 --> 00:17:33.039
the proteins themselves degrade out where we
00:17:33.039 --> 00:17:35.480
don't have a human body or a body themselves
00:17:35.480 --> 00:17:39.460
to house them Yeah, that's right to some extent.
00:17:39.640 --> 00:17:43.000
So some of these proteins are very sensitive.
00:17:43.079 --> 00:17:46.500
If we try to express them and isolate them, they
00:17:46.500 --> 00:17:50.000
may degrade. And some of them are just very hard
00:17:50.000 --> 00:17:54.160
to actually express and purify so that we can
00:17:54.160 --> 00:17:57.779
get access to these proteins in the first place.
00:17:58.980 --> 00:18:01.640
Right. And if you can't make them at a scale,
00:18:01.839 --> 00:18:04.240
then you can't use them at scale either, I would
00:18:04.240 --> 00:18:09.269
imagine. Exactly. Okay, so now moving on to closer
00:18:09.269 --> 00:18:11.750
to the paper, there must have been a pivot, as
00:18:11.750 --> 00:18:14.430
you were about to explain, to go away from proteins
00:18:14.430 --> 00:18:17.609
to something that's a bit more synthetic. That's
00:18:17.609 --> 00:18:22.559
right. Yeah, so... What we envisioned was perhaps
00:18:22.559 --> 00:18:27.640
we can make a simplified molecular protein, essentially.
00:18:28.019 --> 00:18:31.240
So what if we could make a molecule that would
00:18:31.240 --> 00:18:34.759
surround the cluster and that we could modify
00:18:34.759 --> 00:18:38.539
synthetically so that you could tune the cluster's
00:18:38.539 --> 00:18:44.000
property and ultimately reactivity? We hypothesize
00:18:44.000 --> 00:18:46.599
that we might be able to use what's called a
00:18:46.599 --> 00:18:49.640
molecular cage. So this is a pretty incredible
00:18:49.640 --> 00:18:52.220
molecule that I love to explain to people because
00:18:52.220 --> 00:18:55.539
it's absolutely fascinating and just mind blowing
00:18:55.539 --> 00:18:59.000
that we can even make these. So what these are,
00:18:59.000 --> 00:19:03.440
are they're built from organic, so carbon, hydrogen
00:19:03.440 --> 00:19:06.660
and nitrogen based groups, and sometimes metal
00:19:06.660 --> 00:19:09.880
ions as well. And when you mix the components
00:19:09.880 --> 00:19:14.779
together, appropriately in a solution, then it
00:19:14.779 --> 00:19:18.400
will form a porous cage -like structure that
00:19:18.400 --> 00:19:23.269
you can put molecules inside. think about how
00:19:23.269 --> 00:19:26.369
this works but you can imagine for example putting
00:19:26.369 --> 00:19:30.029
magnets inside a bag and shaking it up really
00:19:30.029 --> 00:19:32.549
vigorously and what you'll expect to happen is
00:19:32.549 --> 00:19:35.910
that all of the magnets stick together so that
00:19:35.910 --> 00:19:39.750
the magnetic poles align right so it's kind of
00:19:39.750 --> 00:19:42.809
a similar situation with these cages when you
00:19:42.809 --> 00:19:45.609
mix up the components they kind of stick together
00:19:45.609 --> 00:19:48.890
to form an organized structure like a cube or
00:19:48.890 --> 00:19:52.170
a tetrahedron and we call these structures hosts
00:19:52.170 --> 00:19:56.710
because they can encapsulate guests like iron
00:19:56.710 --> 00:20:00.529
sulfur clusters and so It had never actually
00:20:00.529 --> 00:20:03.529
been demonstrated that you can trap an iron -sulfur
00:20:03.529 --> 00:20:06.549
cluster inside a cage before, but we thought
00:20:06.549 --> 00:20:08.970
that this was potentially the perfect solution
00:20:08.970 --> 00:20:13.670
where we could synthesize a cage that would surround
00:20:13.670 --> 00:20:17.789
the cluster guest with a strong affinity so it
00:20:17.789 --> 00:20:21.089
wouldn't fall out, and we could vary the structure
00:20:21.089 --> 00:20:23.509
of the cage so that we change the properties
00:20:23.509 --> 00:20:26.430
and reactivity. And that's what this paper sets
00:20:26.430 --> 00:20:32.289
out to do. So how did you make that first decision?
00:20:33.170 --> 00:20:38.230
Like, is it based on a theory, like previous
00:20:38.230 --> 00:20:41.009
theory about how the reactions of different things
00:20:41.009 --> 00:20:44.130
come together? Like, how did you cobble this
00:20:44.130 --> 00:20:49.210
together? Yeah, that's a great question. So I
00:20:49.210 --> 00:20:53.789
will say that the initial idea of this came from
00:20:53.789 --> 00:20:57.940
when I was sitting inside. lecture from a researcher
00:20:57.940 --> 00:21:01.000
at the University of Cambridge. His name's Professor
00:21:01.000 --> 00:21:05.059
Jonathan Nitschke, and he's a pioneer in the
00:21:05.059 --> 00:21:07.539
field of cage chemistry. So this is something
00:21:07.539 --> 00:21:11.640
that is well established and has been used to
00:21:11.640 --> 00:21:14.440
encapsulate a variety of guests and tune them,
00:21:14.539 --> 00:21:17.880
but just never these iron -sulfur clusters. So
00:21:17.880 --> 00:21:20.519
I was sitting in this lecture, and it was, I
00:21:20.519 --> 00:21:22.480
remember, one of the first lectures that I sat
00:21:22.480 --> 00:21:24.539
in as an assistant professor, and I was thinking,
00:21:25.369 --> 00:21:27.549
what if this could actually solve the problem
00:21:27.549 --> 00:21:30.789
with iron sulfur clusters what if we could engineer
00:21:30.789 --> 00:21:35.289
these cages to put the clusters inside and tune
00:21:35.289 --> 00:21:37.670
them the way that we want to really be able to
00:21:37.670 --> 00:21:42.369
extract out the reactivity that nature uses so
00:21:42.369 --> 00:21:47.069
effectively right that's amazing so does that
00:21:47.069 --> 00:21:50.799
mean like there's also We're talking about molecules
00:21:50.799 --> 00:21:53.579
that are in three dimensions as well. So there
00:21:53.579 --> 00:21:56.880
must be a shape component to the cage, like a
00:21:56.880 --> 00:22:00.839
geometry component. And is it the tuning part
00:22:00.839 --> 00:22:04.980
tuning the geometry? Or is it tuning the individual
00:22:04.980 --> 00:22:08.759
bonds and different elements that are going with
00:22:08.759 --> 00:22:12.720
it? Yeah, that's such a great question. So part
00:22:12.720 --> 00:22:16.400
of it definitely is about considering what shape
00:22:16.400 --> 00:22:19.670
would be the best. And the way that I like to
00:22:19.670 --> 00:22:22.589
think about shape is that you need to have a
00:22:22.589 --> 00:22:25.109
cage that you can make that's the right size
00:22:25.109 --> 00:22:28.309
for the guest. And we have a limited repertoire
00:22:28.309 --> 00:22:31.799
of cages. There's actually quite a few. But it
00:22:31.799 --> 00:22:34.039
can be challenging to find the cage with the
00:22:34.039 --> 00:22:36.960
kinds of properties that you want and the same
00:22:36.960 --> 00:22:40.299
size. So we chose a cage that has a tetrahedral
00:22:40.299 --> 00:22:43.160
shape. And mainly it was because it was a perfect
00:22:43.160 --> 00:22:47.259
size to encapsulate this cluster. In order to
00:22:47.259 --> 00:22:50.779
tune... the cluster afterwards in terms of its
00:22:50.779 --> 00:22:54.220
properties and reactivity we like to think about
00:22:54.220 --> 00:22:58.059
changing the structure in other words the chemical
00:22:58.059 --> 00:23:02.339
bonds and the specific elements and groups attached
00:23:02.339 --> 00:23:05.660
to these cages in order to interact with the
00:23:05.660 --> 00:23:08.940
clusters non -covalently which means without
00:23:08.940 --> 00:23:11.339
any chemical bonding so you can think of it as
00:23:11.339 --> 00:23:15.190
just kind of like an environment for the cluster
00:23:15.190 --> 00:23:17.849
in order to do the kinds of things that we want.
00:23:18.609 --> 00:23:21.369
Okay, let's poke at the paper a little bit more,
00:23:21.450 --> 00:23:24.970
a bit more of a structure -oriented question
00:23:24.970 --> 00:23:28.869
or discussion, because it's about how the science
00:23:28.869 --> 00:23:31.670
gets done. And now normally in geology, you do
00:23:31.670 --> 00:23:35.369
something like an introduction, methods, and
00:23:35.369 --> 00:23:39.170
then your results, and then a conclusion or discussion,
00:23:39.329 --> 00:23:41.250
then conclusion. This seems to be structured
00:23:41.250 --> 00:23:45.539
a little bit. differently that there is it's
00:23:45.539 --> 00:23:47.640
divided into two general sections the first is
00:23:47.640 --> 00:23:50.519
why like here's what we've already set up what
00:23:50.519 --> 00:23:53.000
we're trying what you were trying to do the individual
00:23:53.000 --> 00:23:56.579
cages laying out the problem the motivation etc
00:23:56.579 --> 00:23:59.799
and then the rest of it's almost like testing
00:23:59.799 --> 00:24:02.980
and describing the cage is that a reasonable
00:24:02.980 --> 00:24:06.440
high level structural summary yeah i would say
00:24:06.440 --> 00:24:10.019
that's a great summary so that's a different
00:24:10.569 --> 00:24:14.970
I mean, is that common in this field to structure
00:24:14.970 --> 00:24:18.710
articles and papers that way? Yeah, I would say
00:24:18.710 --> 00:24:21.529
so. The first section I normally think about
00:24:21.529 --> 00:24:25.859
as why should we care about this research? And
00:24:25.859 --> 00:24:28.720
you may be talking to various audiences. You
00:24:28.720 --> 00:24:31.039
may be talking to specialists who are in your
00:24:31.039 --> 00:24:33.980
field, or in this case, you might be speaking
00:24:33.980 --> 00:24:37.299
much more broadly to a more general audience.
00:24:38.420 --> 00:24:43.819
And so what we want to try to do is make sure
00:24:43.819 --> 00:24:47.720
that the audience understands the background
00:24:47.720 --> 00:24:51.180
to be able to understand why this research is
00:24:51.180 --> 00:24:54.039
important, and finally, what our research objectives
00:24:54.039 --> 00:24:59.359
are. So for someone who's not, let's say, a chemist,
00:24:59.380 --> 00:25:02.339
a biologist, or stubborn enough to go through
00:25:02.339 --> 00:25:05.940
with a thesaurus and research like I do, you
00:25:05.940 --> 00:25:07.700
would suggest somebody who's really interested
00:25:07.700 --> 00:25:11.400
to read the introduction and maybe the conclusion?
00:25:12.380 --> 00:25:17.720
Yes. And actually, I think AI is actually a great
00:25:17.720 --> 00:25:20.900
translator in a lot of cases. So I've plugged
00:25:20.900 --> 00:25:25.759
in parts of paper into AI and it's... pulled
00:25:25.759 --> 00:25:30.039
up a very good high level understanding for a
00:25:30.039 --> 00:25:32.200
more general audience. So I think you could use
00:25:32.200 --> 00:25:35.440
a tool like that as well. Yeah. I wonder if I've
00:25:35.440 --> 00:25:40.339
trained my own LLMs that I use to give me something
00:25:40.339 --> 00:25:42.200
that's a little too in depth sometimes. And I'm
00:25:42.200 --> 00:25:44.339
kind of going like, okay, you have to ask it
00:25:44.339 --> 00:25:46.339
like five times where I can understand something.
00:25:46.460 --> 00:25:51.380
So maybe it's me or maybe it's how I've trained
00:25:51.380 --> 00:25:54.059
it to be. I'm not really sure sometimes, but
00:25:54.059 --> 00:25:56.839
yeah, absolutely. uh putting things in and then
00:25:56.839 --> 00:25:59.579
you can kind of dissect them instead of literally
00:25:59.579 --> 00:26:01.559
like you used to have to do with a thesaurus
00:26:01.559 --> 00:26:04.140
and be like what does this word mean and even
00:26:04.140 --> 00:26:05.660
then it wouldn't really tell you because sometimes
00:26:05.660 --> 00:26:10.240
they're so specific to the discipline That's
00:26:10.240 --> 00:26:13.079
right. Yeah. And something that I've been thinking
00:26:13.079 --> 00:26:15.380
about a lot more and that I think scientists
00:26:15.380 --> 00:26:18.480
are increasingly thinking about is how do we
00:26:18.480 --> 00:26:20.720
actually translate our science to the general
00:26:20.720 --> 00:26:24.099
public to show just how important this research
00:26:24.099 --> 00:26:27.619
is? And so there are a lot of opportunities in
00:26:27.619 --> 00:26:32.299
many, especially metropolitan areas, to go and
00:26:32.299 --> 00:26:35.680
attend a talk over beer at a brewery or something
00:26:35.680 --> 00:26:39.180
like that. And generally, the scientists there
00:26:39.180 --> 00:26:44.160
would try to motivate and explain their research
00:26:44.160 --> 00:26:46.859
to a more general audience and take questions
00:26:46.859 --> 00:26:48.759
if there are things that aren't clear. And so
00:26:48.759 --> 00:26:51.440
that can also be a great way to engage with the
00:26:51.440 --> 00:26:55.759
science. Yeah, I think there's Nerd Nights in
00:26:55.759 --> 00:26:58.380
Vancouver. We also have Telescience World has
00:26:58.380 --> 00:27:01.920
an After Dark, which is only adults. There's
00:27:01.920 --> 00:27:04.289
a number of different things that come up. By
00:27:04.289 --> 00:27:07.269
all means, look them up in your area and keep
00:27:07.269 --> 00:27:10.450
listening to the podcast too. How close do these
00:27:10.450 --> 00:27:13.190
cages that you've been testing as part of this
00:27:13.190 --> 00:27:15.950
work get to, like, how close do they get to what
00:27:15.950 --> 00:27:19.710
nature can do? And how do you test that? Yeah,
00:27:19.750 --> 00:27:22.750
this is a great question, actually. And it's
00:27:22.750 --> 00:27:24.890
quite technical, but I'll try to break it down.
00:27:25.230 --> 00:27:28.450
I find that... The results were actually pretty
00:27:28.450 --> 00:27:32.150
impressive. And my team, so my team in this case
00:27:32.150 --> 00:27:35.170
was led by myself and my student, Rupal Balian,
00:27:35.269 --> 00:27:38.009
in collaboration with various other researchers.
00:27:38.470 --> 00:27:42.029
My team tested this using various experiments.
00:27:42.150 --> 00:27:46.269
So the first thing that we did was test the electron
00:27:46.269 --> 00:27:50.430
affinity of the clusters inside the cages. And
00:27:50.430 --> 00:27:52.849
for those who may not be familiar with electron
00:27:52.849 --> 00:27:56.190
affinity, what this means is basically It's a
00:27:56.190 --> 00:28:00.009
measure of how easily you can add or remove an
00:28:00.009 --> 00:28:04.210
electron from your molecule or your system. And
00:28:04.210 --> 00:28:07.109
in this case, this is absolutely central to the
00:28:07.109 --> 00:28:09.789
function of iron -solver clusters. So you can
00:28:09.789 --> 00:28:12.750
think of this as how spring -loaded the cluster
00:28:12.750 --> 00:28:15.890
is to perform its function. For some applications,
00:28:16.089 --> 00:28:19.630
like, for example, hydrocarbon synthesis, you
00:28:19.630 --> 00:28:22.410
might want it to be more spring -loaded to make
00:28:22.410 --> 00:28:24.430
sure that it carries out its job effectively.
00:28:25.480 --> 00:28:28.279
and what we found was that we could tune the
00:28:28.279 --> 00:28:31.500
electron affinity by about a volt and so that
00:28:31.500 --> 00:28:33.500
might be a little hard to visualize what that
00:28:33.500 --> 00:28:36.519
means but this is similar to the tuning that's
00:28:36.519 --> 00:28:39.400
already performed on iron sulfur clusters by
00:28:39.400 --> 00:28:41.980
native proteins so it was really quite an important
00:28:41.980 --> 00:28:46.759
result we also evaluated the nature of the iron
00:28:46.759 --> 00:28:50.980
sulfur bond inside the cage and this we do by
00:28:50.980 --> 00:28:54.299
a spectroscopic technique that involves shooting
00:28:54.829 --> 00:28:57.609
x -rays at our sample and understanding how those
00:28:57.609 --> 00:29:02.670
x -rays are being absorbed. And this iron sulfur
00:29:02.670 --> 00:29:06.650
bonding is very important because they dictate
00:29:06.650 --> 00:29:09.930
how the cluster interacts with its environment.
00:29:10.509 --> 00:29:14.210
So in a nutshell, chemical bonds can be more
00:29:14.210 --> 00:29:17.549
ionic, meaning they're basically like point charges
00:29:17.549 --> 00:29:20.700
that are attracted to one another. Or they can
00:29:20.700 --> 00:29:22.680
be more covalent, meaning that they actually
00:29:22.680 --> 00:29:26.740
share electrons in a chemical bond. In reality,
00:29:27.019 --> 00:29:29.420
it's not one or the other. It's really a sliding
00:29:29.420 --> 00:29:33.180
scale between fully ionic on one side and fully
00:29:33.180 --> 00:29:36.779
covalent on another side. So we found that this
00:29:36.779 --> 00:29:40.619
encapsulation could actually vary the iron -sulfur
00:29:40.619 --> 00:29:43.920
bond covalency to a similar extent to what is
00:29:43.920 --> 00:29:47.579
found in proteins in nature. So that was very
00:29:47.579 --> 00:29:54.359
exciting. That's amazing. So it can actually,
00:29:54.420 --> 00:29:58.079
it gets really close to mimicking the flow through
00:29:58.079 --> 00:30:02.299
of charge to what we see in the animal kingdom
00:30:02.299 --> 00:30:05.220
or in the bacterial kingdom, so to speak. That's
00:30:05.220 --> 00:30:09.099
right. So what's the next step to being able
00:30:09.099 --> 00:30:11.740
to utilize these cages? So you've tested them.
00:30:11.799 --> 00:30:15.759
We have their properties. So now how do we actually
00:30:15.759 --> 00:30:19.740
use them, put them to work, so to speak? Yeah,
00:30:19.759 --> 00:30:22.400
this is another great question that my lab is
00:30:22.400 --> 00:30:27.079
thinking about a lot. So our initial cage system
00:30:27.079 --> 00:30:30.980
had some limitations, and particularly we found
00:30:30.980 --> 00:30:33.539
that they're quite fragile under the conditions
00:30:33.539 --> 00:30:37.230
that you would want. to promote the kinds of
00:30:37.230 --> 00:30:40.750
chemical reactions that we want. You can think
00:30:40.750 --> 00:30:43.170
of it as a simple system that provided proof
00:30:43.170 --> 00:30:46.109
of concept for us. In other words, we can encapsulate
00:30:46.109 --> 00:30:48.789
the clusters and we can tune them similar to
00:30:48.789 --> 00:30:51.769
in proteins, but we need to develop them further
00:30:51.769 --> 00:30:53.869
for the kinds of applications we're actually
00:30:53.869 --> 00:30:57.410
targeting. So our preliminary results actually
00:30:57.410 --> 00:31:00.329
allowed us to get a grant from the Arnold and
00:31:00.329 --> 00:31:02.970
Mabel Beckman Foundation. Shout out to them.
00:31:03.769 --> 00:31:07.309
for $600 ,000 to continue exploring this work.
00:31:07.509 --> 00:31:10.710
So we're very excited to develop some cages that
00:31:10.710 --> 00:31:13.589
would be more robust and that would allow us
00:31:13.589 --> 00:31:16.150
to explore the type of reactivity that we want
00:31:16.150 --> 00:31:21.549
to promote. Crazy. So the next step is to try
00:31:21.549 --> 00:31:24.089
to make them more robust, is what you're saying?
00:31:24.109 --> 00:31:27.430
That's right. Yeah. And then just to go a little
00:31:27.430 --> 00:31:28.990
bit further, let's say you managed to get them
00:31:28.990 --> 00:31:31.849
more robust, then it's about how do you create
00:31:31.849 --> 00:31:36.130
them a bit more at scale? Like how do you see
00:31:36.130 --> 00:31:39.309
this like playing out, like going from where
00:31:39.309 --> 00:31:42.009
we're at with the bench science to, you know?
00:31:42.950 --> 00:31:47.990
Yeah. So I think one of the next steps, once
00:31:47.990 --> 00:31:51.390
we've made our more robust system. would be to
00:31:51.390 --> 00:31:55.289
understand how exactly we can tune and optimize
00:31:55.289 --> 00:31:59.130
the chemistry that we want so we want it to be
00:31:59.130 --> 00:32:03.529
very fast so that we are producing energy at
00:32:03.529 --> 00:32:07.289
a high rate and we are we also want it to be
00:32:08.120 --> 00:32:10.920
relatively energy efficient too so we don't want
00:32:10.920 --> 00:32:14.019
to lose a lot of energy in the process and so
00:32:14.019 --> 00:32:16.920
this next phase of research would allow us to
00:32:16.920 --> 00:32:20.180
do that to understand basically the tools that
00:32:20.180 --> 00:32:23.559
we have or the tools that we need in order to
00:32:23.559 --> 00:32:28.099
control the reactivity and then yes after that
00:32:28.099 --> 00:32:32.039
we would be trying to apply this in maybe a small
00:32:32.039 --> 00:32:35.539
scale industrial device. And then ultimately,
00:32:35.680 --> 00:32:39.819
if that shows promise, then we would scale up
00:32:39.819 --> 00:32:42.640
the synthesis of these clusters and try to perform
00:32:42.640 --> 00:32:46.240
this on a larger scale. You said something just
00:32:46.240 --> 00:32:49.950
there that I wasn't expecting. Did you mean that
00:32:49.950 --> 00:32:52.410
they themselves produce the energy or do they
00:32:52.410 --> 00:32:54.970
capture the energy that's coming in from somewhere
00:32:54.970 --> 00:32:57.849
else? So yeah, that's completely right. So they
00:32:57.849 --> 00:33:00.569
would take the energy from electricity, in other
00:33:00.569 --> 00:33:04.390
words, electrons, and they would store that energy
00:33:04.390 --> 00:33:07.809
in the form of chemical bonds. So this would
00:33:07.809 --> 00:33:11.109
be, for example, taking carbon dioxide from our
00:33:11.109 --> 00:33:14.609
atmosphere and converting that to hydrocarbons,
00:33:14.630 --> 00:33:18.440
which we could use in... vehicles as, for example,
00:33:18.480 --> 00:33:22.420
gasoline. Those chemical bonds in gasoline are
00:33:22.420 --> 00:33:26.359
very energy rich. And so on burning those fuels,
00:33:26.740 --> 00:33:31.119
we extract out energy. Now you brought up the
00:33:31.119 --> 00:33:35.079
practical use, getting CO2 out of the air without
00:33:35.079 --> 00:33:38.319
a crazy amount of extra energy. Perhaps part
00:33:38.319 --> 00:33:42.000
of looking at how this could be used is potential
00:33:42.000 --> 00:33:45.130
or what it could be replacing. I mean, bringing
00:33:45.130 --> 00:33:47.970
carbon out of the atmosphere takes a heck of
00:33:47.970 --> 00:33:51.049
a lot of energy. So this would be just essentially
00:33:51.049 --> 00:33:53.529
hooked up to solar panels and we can get almost
00:33:53.529 --> 00:33:56.990
the same amount of energy out from the electricity
00:33:56.990 --> 00:33:59.730
of the solar panel to carbon dioxide, right?
00:33:59.829 --> 00:34:04.869
Or into hydrocarbons. Yeah. So in an ideal process,
00:34:04.970 --> 00:34:09.289
you would not lose any energy. You hit on a really
00:34:09.289 --> 00:34:11.889
important point, which was that taking carbon
00:34:11.889 --> 00:34:15.070
dioxide directly out of the atmosphere is actually
00:34:15.070 --> 00:34:18.610
really, really hard. And what I will say is that
00:34:18.610 --> 00:34:20.769
there are companies working on this right now,
00:34:20.889 --> 00:34:25.550
and the technology is rapidly evolving and becoming
00:34:25.550 --> 00:34:28.309
more and more energy efficient as we learn more.
00:34:28.710 --> 00:34:31.889
At the moment, it's not a mature technology that
00:34:31.889 --> 00:34:33.690
we would be able to use it for something like
00:34:33.690 --> 00:34:37.179
this, but it is developing. What I think is more
00:34:37.179 --> 00:34:40.019
immediately practical is actually not taking
00:34:40.019 --> 00:34:43.900
it out of the air, but taking it from industry,
00:34:44.119 --> 00:34:48.110
from what's called flu stacks. And flue stacks
00:34:48.110 --> 00:34:51.110
are essentially these columns that emit carbon
00:34:51.110 --> 00:34:54.550
dioxide from industrial processes like burning
00:34:54.550 --> 00:34:58.590
coal. And what we can do is we can capture that
00:34:58.590 --> 00:35:01.230
carbon dioxide from these flue stacks because
00:35:01.230 --> 00:35:05.090
it's very, very concentrated much more effectively
00:35:05.090 --> 00:35:11.130
than we can from air. We already capture about
00:35:11.130 --> 00:35:14.269
50 million tons of carbon dioxide every year,
00:35:14.369 --> 00:35:17.150
and that's equivalent to about 11 .9 million
00:35:17.150 --> 00:35:20.969
gas -powered cars on the road for one year, or
00:35:20.969 --> 00:35:25.250
about 6 .5 million homes. So it's a huge scale.
00:35:25.590 --> 00:35:28.090
But what we're actually doing with it right now
00:35:28.090 --> 00:35:30.809
is just burying it deep underground for the most
00:35:30.809 --> 00:35:33.690
part. So what if we could actually use it to
00:35:33.690 --> 00:35:37.269
make something valuable? And so our vision and
00:35:37.269 --> 00:35:39.530
the vision of many other researchers working
00:35:39.530 --> 00:35:42.110
on the problem is that we could use this CO2
00:35:42.110 --> 00:35:45.829
that we capture to make valuable products, products
00:35:45.829 --> 00:35:49.110
like that could be used in clothing or plastics
00:35:49.110 --> 00:35:53.750
or manufacturing vehicles or textiles, or even
00:35:53.750 --> 00:35:56.550
as fuels that would power our vehicles so that
00:35:56.550 --> 00:35:59.349
it's not just being buried underground and wasted.
00:36:00.269 --> 00:36:02.670
yeah being able to take it out of the air is
00:36:02.670 --> 00:36:04.110
kind of the holy grail and there are definitely
00:36:04.110 --> 00:36:08.070
companies there's one here in vancouver british
00:36:08.070 --> 00:36:10.070
columbia that's doing this right out of the air
00:36:10.070 --> 00:36:12.929
it's not even a smokestack it's but it's energy
00:36:12.929 --> 00:36:15.469
intensive and they're trying to essentially buy
00:36:15.469 --> 00:36:17.670
cheap energy that's left over from solar and
00:36:17.670 --> 00:36:21.690
stuff and then get grants to just lock it into
00:36:21.690 --> 00:36:24.469
whatever it's Pretty interesting. I've actually
00:36:24.469 --> 00:36:26.510
been of the mind for a while that eventually
00:36:26.510 --> 00:36:28.809
we will have no choice and we will have to figure
00:36:28.809 --> 00:36:31.590
out how to do this. And then we will be able
00:36:31.590 --> 00:36:33.530
to control how much carbon is in the atmosphere.
00:36:33.789 --> 00:36:36.030
And that's a little frightening in its own right.
00:36:38.010 --> 00:36:40.230
Pretty amazing, though. It's pretty amazing.
00:36:40.309 --> 00:36:42.190
But still, could you imagine having all those
00:36:42.190 --> 00:36:45.050
countries kind of sign on to what carbon PPM
00:36:45.050 --> 00:36:47.289
there should be so that they don't take too much
00:36:47.289 --> 00:36:50.349
or put too much into the atmosphere? Yeah, that's
00:36:50.349 --> 00:36:53.030
a good point. It's going to be weird, but hopefully
00:36:53.030 --> 00:36:55.849
it comes sooner rather than later because I'm
00:36:55.849 --> 00:36:57.750
a little worried about what climate is going
00:36:57.750 --> 00:37:02.710
to bring us. Agreed. So how about a little bit
00:37:02.710 --> 00:37:06.590
more pie in the sky thinking? If we can get these...
00:37:07.340 --> 00:37:10.579
cages to be quite robust it should be allowing
00:37:10.579 --> 00:37:13.139
for capturing of energy in different ways like
00:37:13.139 --> 00:37:17.599
moving as part of our fabric or in a watch as
00:37:17.599 --> 00:37:20.619
part of that energy being able to perhaps better
00:37:20.619 --> 00:37:23.219
recharge batteries or make something more wearable
00:37:23.219 --> 00:37:27.159
is that kind of a potential here or am i like
00:37:27.159 --> 00:37:30.820
totally off into sci -fi land You are absolutely
00:37:30.820 --> 00:37:34.139
not in sci -fi land. I would say for the battery
00:37:34.139 --> 00:37:37.460
charging, absolutely. And in fact, this is a
00:37:37.460 --> 00:37:40.739
very active area of research going on right now
00:37:40.739 --> 00:37:44.539
is to develop batteries that are powered by iron
00:37:44.539 --> 00:37:48.440
sulfur clusters. So the reason why these clusters
00:37:48.440 --> 00:37:51.739
are so attractive for this application is that
00:37:51.739 --> 00:37:54.880
they have what we call a small reorganization
00:37:54.880 --> 00:37:57.500
energy, which basically means that when they
00:37:57.500 --> 00:38:00.849
accept electrons, the chemical bonds don't move
00:38:00.849 --> 00:38:03.610
a lot and so that means that these electrons
00:38:03.610 --> 00:38:06.389
can be added very quickly so that would give
00:38:06.389 --> 00:38:09.889
you fast charging and also without much energy
00:38:09.889 --> 00:38:13.909
loss and so that's great for batteries awesome
00:38:13.909 --> 00:38:18.369
so i can't wait to see where this all goes i
00:38:18.369 --> 00:38:20.969
love science i love being able to like poke at
00:38:20.969 --> 00:38:22.809
different things and see where we're heading
00:38:22.809 --> 00:38:25.570
it's also uplifting in a lot of different ways
00:38:25.570 --> 00:38:29.059
where some of the other news is not but now It
00:38:29.059 --> 00:38:32.440
is time for call -outs. This is your opportunity
00:38:32.440 --> 00:38:35.780
to call out future work, people that you work
00:38:35.780 --> 00:38:39.280
with, a new kitten you got at home, something
00:38:39.280 --> 00:38:42.940
whimsical, whatever you want. I love that so
00:38:42.940 --> 00:38:45.000
much. I don't have a kitten at home, but I wish
00:38:45.000 --> 00:38:51.800
I did. I would really like to call out our research
00:38:51.800 --> 00:38:55.059
team, my research team. I work with an incredible
00:38:55.059 --> 00:38:59.300
group of postdocs, graduate students, undergraduates,
00:38:59.380 --> 00:39:02.539
and they're really what helped me come to work
00:39:02.539 --> 00:39:05.199
every day. It's really amazing working for them
00:39:05.199 --> 00:39:09.679
or working with them. bring so many new ideas
00:39:09.679 --> 00:39:12.400
to the table and they're just so curious and
00:39:12.400 --> 00:39:15.719
eager to learn it's really really awesome i also
00:39:15.719 --> 00:39:18.420
want to call out the funding agencies that actually
00:39:18.420 --> 00:39:22.539
give us the money to do the work as some of you
00:39:22.539 --> 00:39:25.079
may be aware some of the audience may be aware
00:39:26.510 --> 00:39:29.230
There has been a lot of challenges for researchers
00:39:29.230 --> 00:39:32.789
recently to actually obtain the funding that
00:39:32.789 --> 00:39:36.409
we need. A lot of the national programs, you
00:39:36.409 --> 00:39:38.170
know, especially in the U .S. are being cut.
00:39:38.289 --> 00:39:41.329
And so nonetheless, there are funding bodies
00:39:41.329 --> 00:39:46.010
that are continuing on and giving us the funding
00:39:46.010 --> 00:39:48.610
that we need. And so I really want to shout out
00:39:48.610 --> 00:39:52.670
to them to continue to power science. Yeah, absolutely.
00:39:53.400 --> 00:39:58.760
The changing policy is a bit difficult to keep
00:39:58.760 --> 00:40:02.679
up on for sure, which we actually covered near
00:40:02.679 --> 00:40:04.900
the end of the last season a little bit. We had
00:40:04.900 --> 00:40:08.159
a discussion about that as well. But now we get
00:40:08.159 --> 00:40:10.699
to the most important part of every whimsical
00:40:10.699 --> 00:40:13.360
wavelengths with a guest. This is the moment,
00:40:13.519 --> 00:40:16.599
the infamous last question, where you tell us
00:40:16.599 --> 00:40:22.019
your favorite science joke. All right. I've got
00:40:22.019 --> 00:40:25.199
a chemistry joke for you. What kind of fish is
00:40:25.199 --> 00:40:29.920
made out of two sodium atoms? I don't know. Tuna.
00:40:32.519 --> 00:40:36.840
Perfect. Perfect. Well, thank you so much for
00:40:36.840 --> 00:40:39.880
being on Whimsical Wavelengths. Thank you so
00:40:39.880 --> 00:40:42.340
much, Jeff. It's been a real pleasure. All right.
00:40:43.000 --> 00:40:45.699
Another episode of Whimsical Wavelengths, and
00:40:45.699 --> 00:40:47.500
I'm so glad you've made it all the way this far.
00:40:47.869 --> 00:40:49.710
I need you guys to rate and review the show.
00:40:49.949 --> 00:40:53.869
You have no idea how important that is to getting
00:40:53.869 --> 00:40:57.289
a show that you love out to other people who
00:40:57.289 --> 00:41:00.190
also need to hear it. By all means, poke me on
00:41:00.190 --> 00:41:03.090
social media. Drop me a line. Give me a show
00:41:03.090 --> 00:41:05.550
idea. Give me someone that I should talk to.
00:41:05.630 --> 00:41:07.329
Maybe there's a researcher you know and you're
00:41:07.329 --> 00:41:09.110
like, I'd really like to hear a podcast with
00:41:09.110 --> 00:41:12.070
this person. I can give it a shot. It's always
00:41:12.070 --> 00:41:14.829
a growing experience here for me on the show.
00:41:15.190 --> 00:41:18.190
And I'd love to reach out to new people and talk
00:41:18.190 --> 00:41:22.090
about new topics. I'm just so glad that I get
00:41:22.090 --> 00:41:24.070
to do this and I get to share it with all you.
00:41:24.710 --> 00:41:48.519
All right. I'll see you again. As the galaxies
00:41:48.519 --> 00:42:14.230
fly by J.