Tag: AI burgers

Newsletter and Transcript of Rabbit Hole of Research Episode 87: The Mini: Nick vs the AI chef

The Stand, disability representation in the MCU, fake eggs, LED health risks, the Plague, and Nick throws the gauntlet down over an AI-designed burger.

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Episode 87 Transcript

In Episode 87: The Mini, Joe and Georgia welcome Nick back, recap the Disability in Horror episode, and add a bit more to the conversation. Joe forgot to mention during the episode one of his favorite characters, Nick Andros from Stephen King’s The Stand (which he reads almost every year). They touch on disability representation lacking and casting controversy across both screen adaptations of The Stand, and highlight MCU characters and actors that do it right. Listener Alex also mentioned stories and characters in fiction that he felt got disability right: Graphic novels featuring Hawkeye and Echo. The graphic novel Wytches is problematic and added that in The Killing Joke, Barbara Gordon’s disability was portrayed well, but the reason she became disabled was problematic.

Science Holes: Nick talks about a plague death in a Russian lab that is being compared to COVID (the crew puts this into context and you shouldn’t panic). Georgia was intrigued by two Instagram Clickbait Reels, one on LED lights and health (Joe gives tips for critically reviewing sensational findings) and the other claiming fake eggs are already in your grocery cart (a little misleading twist of the facts to get clicks). Then Joe opens a can of worms talking about an AI that was trained on “what goes into a burger” and developed something a panel of 101 tasters liked better than a Big Mac (also came up with a tasty bean burger and a sustainable mushroom burger). Nick was not impressed and challenged the AI to a cookoff.

Where to find Grace Daly:

www.GraceDalyAuthor.com

Order The Scald-Crow (Bram Stoker-nominated debut)

Grace’s upcoming books preorder now

Listen now

Order the Touch of Noir 2027 Wall Calendar by Jim and Georgia—

12 months of all-original art by Jim and Georgia; pre-orders open now, with mailing expected in September

Words // Friends with Sara: Replay on YouTube

Jump to Joe’s Reading (But you should listen to all the amazing authors)

Check out what the RHR crew is creating:

Joe:

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Stay curious, stay speculative, stay safe, and we’ll catch you in the next rabbit hole. Love Y’all!

Hang with the Crew:

Podcast Cross-Appearances:

Events & Conventions:

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Upcoming Episodes

*The Mini will now be every other episode!

  • Episode 88: CraziesRecorded at Reed’s Local with Melissa and Luc
  • Episode 90: Witch PleaseGuest: Bill Halliar (@skeletongue)
  • Episode 92: Surviving After the ApocalypseGuest: Wil McCarthy
  • Episode 94: Doomsday series 1: Dr. Doom, Science and AlchemyGuest: Rengasayee (Sai) Veeraraghavan, PhD 
  • Episode 96: Doomsday series 2: Building Dr. Doom and His WorldGuest: Julio A. Guerra (@artedeguerra)
  • Episode 98: Season 3 recapGuest: TBA

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What the Crew is Digging, Links, Resources, and Topics Mentioned in mini and/or full episode:

Books mentioned by Alex

Science Holes:

1. Plague Death in a Russian Lab 
A 28-year-old woman died in a Russian laboratory after breaking a test tube may have contained the plague bacterium. Her contacts were placed under quarantine and medical supervision. The crew discusses how the plague (Yersinia pestis) is bacterial and treatable with antibiotics, unlike COVID which was a virus, and Joe adds this context: roughly seven human plague cases occur in the US annually, and we don’t live in the Middle Ages.

2. LED Lights and Health 

Read the Instagram post

Referenced Paper: Barrett EM, Jeffery G. LED lighting (350–650nm) undermines human visual performance unless supplemented by wider spectra (400–1500nm+) like daylight. Nature Scientific Reports. 2026;16:3061. doi:10.1038/s41598-026-35389-6


An Instagram post claimed LED lighting could be a public health crisis on the scale of asbestos, citing University of London researcher Dr. Glen Jeffery’s work on how LED light damages mitochondrial function in mouse cells. Joe walks the crew through how he reviewed the actual paper and gives tips of things to look at: the abstract, funding, methodology, sample size and composition, and real-world context. The study had 22 participants in a windowless London building in winter. The Instagram headline overstretches the findings. Light quality matters, but the practical takeaway: go outside.

3. Fake Eggs 

Read the Instagram post

Company referenced: EVERY
An Instagram post warned that lab-grown egg protein is already in food products at major retailers with no labeling. Joe explains this is the same recombinant protein fermentation process used to make human insulin and cheese rennet, where yeast is genetically programmed to produce ovalbumin (egg white protein) without hens. This post is clickbait, fear-mongering, not a food safety crisis.

4. AI Burger 

Paper: Tac, V., Gardner, C. D., & Kuhl, E. (2026). Generative artificial intelligence creates delicious, sustainable, and nutritious burgers. npj Science of Food10, 199. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41538-026-00953-x


Nutrition researchers set out to create a delicious, nutritious, sustainable burger. they trained an AI model on ingredient combinations and quantities of known burger recipes. A panel of 101 taste testers judged the AI’s creations better than a Big Mac (Nick has opinions). The AI also produced a more nutritious bean burger and a sustainable mushroom burger. Nick and Georgia thought AI-companies funded this research to find a use case.

But Joe checked (it’s in the paper), AI-companies did not fund this research, it was a mix of academic, government, and philanthropic: National Science Foundation (NSF) (Government grant), Schmidt Science Fellows in partnership with the Rhodes Trust (Philanthropic sciences), Bezos Earth Fund (Philanthropic Environmental), European Research Council (ERC) (Academic grant), and Stanford University Programs. Nick was still unconvinced at the need to use an AI for this, and challenged AI to a cook-off.

Science Terms

  • Yersinia pestis — the bacterium responsible for plague, Black Death, treatable with antibiotics
  • Mitochondria — the energy-producing organelles inside cells, often called the powerhouse of the cell
  • Circadian rhythm — the body’s internal 24-hour clock regulating sleep, metabolism, and hormone cycles
  • Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) — a form of depression linked to reduced light exposure, typically in winter months
  • LED (Light Emitting Diode) — an energy-efficient light source that produces light through electroluminescence, emitting a narrower spectrum than incandescent bulbs
  • Incandescent bulb — a light source that produces light by heating a metal filament, emitting a broader spectrum including infrared wavelengths
  • Precision fermentation — a biotech process using genetically programmed microorganisms to produce specific proteins
  • Ovalbumin — the primary protein in egg whites
  • Recombinant protein — a protein produced in large quantities by inserting a gene into another organism 

Media Holes: What the Crew is Digging:

Music

  • Czarface Meets Frankie Pulitzer

Books

  • Blood Slaves — Marcus Redmond

Movies and TV

  • Aliens (1986) 
  • Prime Time (2026)
  • Nosferatu (2024) 
  • The Beast in Me — Netflix (2025)
  • Werewolf — Robert Eggers, December 2026
  • Nick is watching Old school horror films, ’80s–’90s era (Poltergeist territory)

Video Games

  • Alan Wake 2 — Nick’s spooky season replay ahead of Control 2

“Stay curious, stay safe… Love Y’all!”

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Transcript

00:00:00 joe: Hey, welcome back to The Rabbit Hole of Research down here in the basement studio. You have me, Joe.

[00:00:11] nick: You got Nick

[00:00:12] joe: got Nick. Nick is back as promised.

[00:00:15] nick: I am alive, as I told you all.

[00:00:19] joe: Georgia And Georgia down here for The Mini. We had a really lively episode with Grace Daly talking about disability and horror. So it was really fun

[00:00:34] nick: miss not being on this episode. I mean, yeah, you guys can hold it down without me, obviously,

[00:00:40] georgia: we missed you so much.

[00:00:43] nick: You’re only saying that ’cause I’m

[00:00:44] georgia: we might

[00:00:45] nick: talking about it

[00:00:45] georgia: we might have even cried, we might have even cried a little.

[00:00:49] joe: yeah.

We edited that part out, though. Like, no.

[00:00:51] nick: guys mourned my death?

[00:00:54] joe: Yeah. But like all good comic book storylines, the hero always returns, [00:01:00] and the

[00:01:00] nick: Wow. I get,

this is the first time I get called a hero. I know.

[00:01:04] joe: I don’t know. Maybe. I know also, a villain’s too, so you could be or anti-hero, or just a,

[00:01:09] georgia: the- Just all the characters come back … yeah.

[00:01:11] joe: you’re not a commoner because they usually don’t come back.

[00:01:15] georgia: Well- Or-

unless it’s like a multiverse

[00:01:17] joe: unless it’s a multiverse. You’re right, yeah. So thinking about that episode one of the things I forgot to mention, and I thought about it, was the stand, which I read that all the time.

I thought about listening to the episode, editing it. Nick Andros, who was a deaf mute-

Oh, the

[00:01:31] georgia: he the trash can?

No.

[00:01:32] joe: No, he

was not. He he had me- that trash can man didn’t

have- Trash can mental instabilities. Yeah That’s right. He had

a disability. But

Nick Andros- Right …was kind of

a hero of the story.

And you no this when Stephen King wrote that, , it was the, the late ’70s, and, , that’s when disability representation in fiction was pretty rare especially positive

there. That’s

[00:01:52] georgia: really good, yeah Like

[00:01:53] joe: non-verbal hero in the

story.

[00:01:55] georgia: a really good point.

[00:01:57] joe: and then you had the screen [00:02:00] adaptations.

Mm-hmm, oh. And I think Grace talked about the casting kind of controversies that come up. So in the ’94 miniseries, Nick Andros was played by Rob Lowe. So a hearing actor. And then in the 2020 mini-series, the role was played once again by a hearing actor and then that really sparked significant backlash from the deaf community- Right

And prominent deaf artists who criticized the production for failing to audition or cast authentic deaf talent for the role. So, you know, that representation and seeing it, so even in the story, but then going to the film you still have that kind of… that gap. And we talked about it on the episode.

[00:02:36] georgia: I think that was, that, that’s a good example

[00:02:39] joe: Nick,

[00:02:40] nick: Did you guys end up bringing up the actress from Echo?

[00:02:44] joe: No we did not. That was Alex actually was writing in on Substack or YouTube, one of the channels about some of his favorites, and he was talking about Hawkeye’s hearing loss, and then we kinda got into Echo and the portrayal in this, the show, and she [00:03:00] was actually portrayed by a a Native American deaf actress Alaqua

[00:03:05] nick: And amputee.

[00:03:07] joe: And amputee. Oh, and

[00:03:07] nick: think she’s also an amputee?

[00:03:09] joe: I didn’t see that. All right. Yeah. Yes.

[00:03:11] nick: That prosthetic leg was her you know, not having a leg

[00:03:16] joe: Okay. And then that’s the second deaf character that’s been in the MCU. Actor who portrayed was Lauren Ridloff’s character Makkari in the film Eternals. So.

Um, so yeah, so that was,

[00:03:30] georgia: And not exactly horror, but-

[00:03:34] joe: Yeah

but definitely,

But still talking about the

representation in there definitely related, yeah. exactly, exactly. Yeah

that you have some good one. And then Alex had mentioned a graphic novel, Wytches, W-Y-T-C-H-E-S. Maybe a little bit of preview for an episode we have coming up. But it’s disabled characters in the book who wanted to be cured, and so goes into

that- That- that

idea

of trying to cure back to normal-

[00:03:59] georgia: from- [00:04:00] Right. Is it something that you want to, quote, unquote, “fix”?

[00:04:04] joe: It was some good conversation. Yeah, you should check out the conversations. I think across the socials people chimed in, so thank you, and thanks for listening.

[00:04:12] nick: Yeah, it’s always good to be able to read or talk about with everyone who listens.

[00:04:18] georgia: Mm-hmm.

[00:04:20] nick: it’s just a good way to hear stuff that isn’t just from us.

[00:04:25] joe: Right. Yeah, and speaking of seeing us I’ve got a couple shows coming up. An art show Saturday, October 10th- Right around the- … so it’s a- right around couple days after release. Ultrastructure, Science is Fun. Doing that with Carole Estes. We’re gonna have some great… She’s gonna have her chlorophyll prints up. I’ma have electron micrographs of plant cells. There’s gonna be a talk at 3:00 PM, so it’s gonna be a really fun event. So yeah, I’ll put that in the show notes.

[00:04:56] georgia: Did you say where?

[00:04:57] joe: At the Promise

[00:04:59] nick: No, I don’t think he did. [00:05:00]

[00:05:00] joe: House

In Highland?

[00:05:02] nick: I’m a few

[00:05:02] joe: Yeah, Promise You Art House,

[00:05:04] georgia: yeah, in Highland.

[00:05:05] joe: all that will be in the show notes.

And

[00:05:09] nick: Could you just try to sing that?

[00:05:12] joe: No, that’s just a,

[00:05:13] nick: notes.

[00:05:14] joe: that’s just I have a Sounded like you were like voice there. You’re just recovering still, so your hearing is, you know, it’s like you haven’t heard my

[00:05:21] nick: Oh, yeah,

[00:05:22] joe: a

[00:05:22] nick: yeah. It does feel like I haven’t talked to you guys in a while, yeah

[00:05:27] joe: I know, yeah. And then November 14th, which is a little ways out, once you get me the show notes, Family Day at the Smart Museum , there’s a fall exhibit which is really cool the TeamLabs Everything Exists in infinite Continuity at the Smart Museum of Art in Hyde Park, Illinois. And I’m gonna be doing a Family Day Seeing the Invisible World to Build a New One.

So we’re gonna have some demos. It’s gonna be really fun and kind of, a fun event, so for everyone 11:00

[00:05:56] nick: Now, are you going to be doing a demo yourself, or are you [00:06:00] just doing the you know, tours again?

[00:06:02] joe: I’m doing a demo. Yeah, so the exhibit’s in it’s really immersive. It’s really it was… It’s just mind-blowing. It’s really cool. There will be like a scavenger hunt kind of aspect, where things I’m talking about, you can go through and trying to tether it into the exhibit.

But my thing, though, I’m gonna do extracting DNA from strawberries, show people DNA and how we get it out, and then I’m gonna do show some micrographs and do some electron microscopy and show the tools of the trade, how do we see, inside of cells, and try to tether the ultra structure to the macro structure, what we see.

So gonna use butterfly wings. So yeah, should be pretty cool putting that together now and starting to think about it, so. Mm-hmm.

[00:06:44] nick: Very cool. I mean, I will probably be there as well,

[00:06:47] joe: Yeah, definitely.

[00:06:48] nick: doing any of that, just just for funsies

[00:06:51] georgia: a lot of, like, science and art- Yeah … intersection kinda.

[00:06:57] joe: Yeah, and I think the TeamLabs exhibit’s gonna be [00:07:00] there until February, I believe,

cool,

[00:07:01] georgia: really cool- And that’s, the Smart Museum is really nice- Yeah … on campus at the UChicago

[00:07:05] joe: very cool

Cool.

Yeah. What do you guys got? Anything? You’re making

[00:07:10] georgia: us seem like slackers

[00:07:11] joe: here.

No, I mean, I didn’t talk about the December 10th event, but I’m just gonna leave that. That’s way out there, so- … you guys can go on. Oh. No, I mean, any- anything about the episode, if you got an event coming up. We can move on to the science holes, media holes we

[00:07:24] georgia: a hole or something. We, I have a couple pieces in a show- the show is up till November 28th

[00:07:30] joe: Where’s that? at

[00:07:30] nick: Which show, Georgia?

[00:07:31] georgia: at the Chesterton Arts Center on Fourth Street.

It’s the Fourth Street Print Fest Print Exhibition. And then I- I’m actually gonna do, be on a panel to talk about the show on November 7th.

[00:07:48] joe: And you have a piece in

[00:07:49] georgia: oh,

I ha- I do have another piece up in Chicago.

At Fulton Street Collective.

The Black, White and Gray exhibition, and it’s at the Fulton [00:08:00] Street Collective.

This really great, art collective that is there, not just the Fulton Street Collective, but I don’t know what the name of that whole big building. But it’s

[00:08:10] joe: Okay. I’ll put it in the show notes …yeah. Excellent,

[00:08:13] nick: Are you guys also taking orders for the calendars, Georgia?

[00:08:18] georgia: Why, yes. Yes, you can order a… I know Joe was very nice. He put that in the

[00:08:24] joe: notes The show notes? Show notes. Yep, they’re there. All right, we don’t gotta sing everything.

[00:08:32] georgia: Yes. No, you started this. We’re singing

the Touch of Noir 2027 wall calendar with Jim Sergey and myself art

[00:08:44] joe: Excellent. Cool. Now, this all will be in the show notes.

If you subscribe to get the newsletter-

[00:08:51] georgia: will not sing it to you

[00:08:52] joe: It’s not sung in the newsletter. You can read it.

But you’ll We will do a whole show for you.

you’ll [00:09:00] get a nice email. It’ll have things digested and terms, and you’ll see where we’re at, and links and all that good stuff.

So yeah, thanks. All right. Wanna move

on?

[00:09:12] nick: let’s move on to the Science Hole. s- Science Hole

[00:09:17] joe: Going down science hole Hey,

[00:09:19] georgia: There he is trying to sing again.

[00:09:21] joe: wants

[00:09:21] nick: are you gonna… I already sang the science whole part. Come on.

[00:09:27] joe: start?

[00:09:27] nick: Yeah, it’s not really a science hole, but it’s a science-adjacent hole. It’s a hole that has science in it

[00:09:38] georgia: Okay. Okay.

[00:09:39] joe: really built this up here

[00:09:42] georgia: It’s a s- it’s a hole next to a hole.

[00:09:44] joe: It’s a science pit. I mean, what we got?

[00:09:47] nick: So, this article was updated three hours ago, but there has been a death in a laboratory in Russia that is linked [00:10:00] to a plague. And I saw this earlier, and so I started reading up on it. But now, of course, there’s new information that I didn’t get to.

But it doesn’t look like this is one that is v-viral per se, like the same way as COVID, but more of spit particles and stuff. But a 28-year-old woman died and yeah, it’s still being investigated right now. They’re trying to figure out what went on.

[00:10:34] georgia: And I think it was

[00:10:35] nick: anyone that was close to her is now under a medical supervision.

So they’re… Luckily, they’re not taking it light

[00:10:45] georgia: Yeah, I saw that article. I m- well, maybe not the same article, but I saw the same… And it was the plague. Yeah. And it was she broke a test tube- yeah … in the laboratory. Yeah.

[00:10:57] joe: So I know it gets sensationalized and things

[00:10:59] georgia: [00:11:00] it’s scary.

[00:11:00] joe: is. It is. Any time anyone gets sick by something that we don’t hear about or is not common we do, you know, it can be troublesome or you think about it that way. But yeah, but there are, random cases, , about seven or so of human plague cases in, US, right? So That it does happen. So, you can have it. There have been incidences in labs.

Okay.

so- I’m not gonna-

[00:11:26] georgia: the lab

[00:11:27] joe: lab safety … lab safety, I’m not gonna mention. But yeah, there, there have

[00:11:30] nick: Why with lab

[00:11:31] joe: I’ve heard that, Which episode was that? … where you had folks get it. This person seemed like they were young, but if you’re immunocompromised, a little older you could

get

[00:11:39] georgia: could get- Well, there’s also different strains, right?

Some are much more- Yeah … much more- Right … Fatal and much more easy to catch. What’s the word?

[00:11:48] nick: Transmissive,

[00:11:49] georgia: Transmissible Yeah, there’s different strains that would spread e- more easily than others, right? Yes. Or is all [00:12:00] the plague pretty much the same, or?

[00:12:03] joe: Yes.

[00:12:04] nick: know what they say, plagues gonna plague

[00:12:06] joe: It’s bacterial, right. So the plague the Yersinia pestis it’s a bacterium and so you have it. If that’s what it is, then that can be treated with antibiotics, things like that, that you can get. It’s not some potentially super virus or it’s gonna be,

[00:12:25] georgia: I think you think historically- Yeah … of like the Black Plague, right? Right.

[00:12:29] joe: Yeah, no, definitely. But when, in the Middle Ages they didn’t have antibiotics. Right, right. So we do, and so that’s

[00:12:35] nick: They didn’t have. ways to fight it as we do

[00:12:37] georgia: it seems like we’re moving backwards in a lot of those cases. I mean, look

[00:12:42] nick: There’s a good chance of that

[00:12:44] georgia: look at measles now. I

[00:12:45] joe: mean, Measles, right …that’s another-

That’s very different.

[00:12:48] georgia: another whole, another science hole. But I’m just saying.

[00:12:51] joe: I’m just saying that this one here you do have it where, I don’t know. I don’t know how sensationalized this is, but it’s one of these things that there’s probably other things we could [00:13:00] worry about in the world.

But yeah.

[00:13:02] nick: I think it’s it’s… good to to note it. No, right, right, right. I think like any of this is to read and try to understand what’s happening and put that in context that, this isn’t like COVID or a super flu. This is, , a bit different in nature and, , can be contained differently.

[00:13:21] joe: So u- unless they were doing something else, then we don’t wanna speculate, but this is, you know.

[00:13:26] nick: But Yeah, that’s, that’s where I was going. I started reading about that. I mean, it’s gonna be a couple days old already. Probably new information will come out by the time this episode drops, but

[00:13:37] georgia: Right

[00:13:38] nick: just wanted to bring it up, it a little, you know,

[00:13:43] joe: Yeah

[00:13:44] nick: air who’s going next? Georgia, you have something?

Oh, no. Did they put you on the spot? It’s

[00:13:52] georgia: I I did. I had one, and again, I saw something on Instagram [00:14:00] and I thought, “Oh, this might be interesting.” But again, I never know.

This one is Paul So- Solidino warns LED lights could be a health crisis on the scale of asbestos. Under LED lights, the energy factories in mouse cells started to fail. And this is kinda what the… Then they talked about what the lights would do to office workers that they tested. So I did send this to you, Joe.

I don’t know if you had a chance- Yeah … to look at it more closely, ’cause I think might have even been an AI generated post, but I had never heard of any health issues with, LEDs and-

[00:14:49] joe: really interesting, and it, once again, it has a very clickbaity kind of thing that you have that.

But, there has been, we know that light quality [00:15:00] can affect us, right? So there’s , seasonal depression that if you don’t get enough sunlight and different wavelengths of light. So the, the light we get from outside, it has different wavelengths. So this idea that you could have the lights in your home, and LED lights have

even a tighter-

[00:15:18] georgia: what LED stands for? Cause obviously LED is the lights we mainly use now, right? That- Right … that conserve a lot more energy than and I’m trying to think what traditional lights were.

[00:15:30] joe: incandescent. Yeah. And I… And the incandescent bulb, the way that you’re running a current through a filament usually tungsten or some thin metal, and drive light out of that, but you also drive off a lot of heat. So you get the…

Because of the wavelength, infrared things that are not visible light, but there’s still an electromagnetic scale that, that wavelength scales that are generated when you have incandescent bulbs. So the idea with the LED light emitting diode, , “Well, [00:16:00] just why don’t we focus that in on the wavelengths of visible light, and then you’re not wasting thing through heat and things like that.”

So if you ever remember, an incandescent

bulb- It would last a lot longer, right? gets really hot. It

would last a lot longer. And you don’t remember incandescent bulbs, if it’s on, it gets

[00:16:14] georgia: Ooh, I do remember

[00:16:15] joe: remember And you would have that. So whereas LEDs don’t. They, they can get… They still will get a little hot, but not as hot.

So that’s

[00:16:21] nick: They get warm, they don’t get

[00:16:22] joe: Exactly, yeah. You

can still handle them by touch.

[00:16:25] georgia: light? Is that different?

[00:16:27] joe: Yeah. So fluorescent light, usually they have a gas in them that you’re heating. mercury vapor is in there, and it it produces ultraviolet light, which then there’s a phosphor coating that causes a tube to glow.

[00:16:41] georgia: much. But I think of office buildings having a lot of fluorescent lights, but I don’t know if that’s so true anymore. I think- Right … a lot of things have gone

[00:16:50] nick: think office buildings really do have… They have a fake fluorescent for the most part,

[00:16:55] georgia: They So says here that Dr. Glen Jeffery of [00:17:00] University College London is the researcher.

He is. He is. And he’s finding that the LED light does certain things to living cells, and I guess that was mainly on mice?

[00:17:13] joe: I think, no, the study,

[00:17:14] georgia: it was humans

[00:17:15] joe: did do humans, mice and humans, and it was all about mitochondrial function, kind of the powerhouse to cells, metabolism, and the whole thing was that if you’re missing out on long wavelength lights because the LEDs now have narrowed the light spectrum that we get you’re missing out on this this you know, light that our bodies need.

The article, states that we evolved in sunlight, so we, you know, our

full

[00:17:42] georgia: tho- would those, that spectrum ha- we had, we were getting it from the other type?

[00:17:48] joe: Incandescent lights? I mean, technically, yeah. But you still had, once again, you don’t get full spectrum, right?

That’s why you had SAD. Yeah. Like,

you get, you would have different light. Like, you need to have a sun lamp,

right? So people use

incandescent [00:18:00] lamps all the time, and then, oh, you need a sun lamp because you’re not getting-

[00:18:02] georgia: getting out- Or you’re growing plants- So- … and stuff, right?

[00:18:05] joe: well, that’s a, let’s leave plants- Okay

in the plant category. Let’s talk about, let’s focus on this, this study, ’cause this I think there’s something interesting I wanna talk about a little bit. So when you see things like this, and it did have a paper there and so this researcher, and you can go to the paper. I don’t know how many people are gonna do that, but you go, it was in Nature Scientific Reports, so a fairly

know-

well-known, respected journal.

So I went through, and when I go, I read the abstract ’cause the abstract is the condensed version. It tells you what they did the findings, , what these findings mean in, in some sort of context. And then the other thing, I look at a few things.

I look at who paid for the research, right? So are there funding and conflicts there? So you can go in every paper that’s published. You, there’s a section that talks about funding or competing interests or things like that, and you can read that. So, if it’s a s- a article about [00:19:00] juice and it was funded by the juice industry, then, maybe you gotta take these

[00:19:05] nick: We all know how bad Big Juice

[00:19:07] joe: We do know Big Juice. Yeah … So that’s one. The second one I think about is the sample size- Mm-hmm … and the composition of that sample. Like, who was in the study? And so this, this paper here, they had 22 human subjects.

[00:19:23] georgia: Which is a small s- Which is-

[00:19:24] joe: which is very small. And so 11 was in the experimental group that got the LED with the supplemental incandescent light treatment, and then that’s the other 11 that had got nothing.

They all, they were healthy, age 23 to 65, seemed like a mix of both male and female. You had that. But one of the things I thought of, and is as a lot of these studies, is there was no discussion about skin tone or things like that. Because the melanin in people with darker skin will actually absorb [00:20:00] some of these wavelengths that they’re talking about.

So, , is it as big of a deal for someone of color versus someone not of color? Y- it’s really interesting to put this kind of into context of real working. And then it’s just the real world context, like kind of the how. Like whether they do…

And what I mean by that, like in this paper, they didn’t go, “Oh, you need to get a high-tech red light therapy device to compensate.” It was like, no, you just need a regular bulb. Like, so that’s what I’m talking there. Like, what is the, what was the fix? Like, you need to buy a $10,000 laser to, you know, to correct this problem

[00:20:34] georgia: way this w- the way this post was talking about that this, they were saying this could be a real crisis bec- since everything is LED now.

[00:20:45] joe: Yeah, I mean- I don’t know how much of a crisis it is. Really the, the thing is you should go outside. But that would solve a lot of- Um, and that’s kind of the that’s right.

It would solve a lot of problems. So- Go

[00:20:56] georgia: nature- That- Just 10 minutes

[00:20:58] nick: Just go touch some [00:21:00] grass.

[00:21:00] joe: You know, so you had, in this paper, you had 11 people who, or 22 people they’re deprived of natural light in a London winter. And you give them a incandescent bulb with a, wider band of, , light frequencies, wavelengths, and yeah, they’re gonna, they’re gonna do, they’re gonna be a little bit better, right?

So that’s kind of the idea. W- it’s something that’s

known-

[00:21:21] georgia: problem? What happens not getting those frequencies?

[00:21:26] joe: Oh, I’m sure

that there are-

[00:21:28] georgia: what the- Right … what the issue,

[00:21:31] joe: I think part of this is that our bodies we are in our environment, and so light is one of the factors that we respond to.

Our circadian

[00:21:41] nick: Which we’ve talked about on different

[00:21:43] joe: We have, right. So yeah, so there’s, this is a-

[00:21:46] georgia: of this is That’s what I was trying to

[00:21:49] joe: idea is … that, yeah, it’s- You know? … the, what

they’re saying is that because you’re missing these these kind of long light wavelengths, that your body, your metabolism is [00:22:00] changing. That’s affecting metabolism, it’s affecting your eyesight.

So your eyes is a it’s a photoreceptor, so you can imagine that different frequencies might affect that. Okay … kinda interesting thing is that, oh, it’s affecting things in your cells, which that means that light is being absorbed in certain ways that your skin is responding to, or in, inside your body that’s kind of responding to light.

But like I said, a lot of this has been studied, and , people know these correlations, but

[00:22:28] georgia: So you’re saying take this with a grain of salt?

[00:22:30] joe: I’m saying, put it in context. It’s like, go outside or get a light bulb, right?

I mean, it’s what does this mean? Is it gonna be the same as asbestos? I don’t know. That might be maybe pushing it too far, it feels like a bit of a stretch , but are there some health benefits to thinking about the light that we sit under all the time?

Yeah that could be it. And it could, because we just use LED bulbs, we sit inside more, yeah, that makes sense that it would have negative impacts, and that’s something that we should be alarmed, but-[00:23:00]

[00:23:00] georgia: should go outside for

[00:23:01] joe: minutes a day … that’s right. You should go outside. I mean,

sitting at your desk eating fast food- Yeah, but I mean-

probably isn’t the he- right? So we have all these things where- Yeah … just go outside, get a little sun we’ll fix you right up, you know? Right. So that’s the plan or so.

[00:23:13] nick: You know, it’s good to do

[00:23:15] joe: lick rocks,

[00:23:15] georgia: okay. I had one more.

[00:23:17] joe: So yeah.

[00:23:18] nick: we all say lick rocks.

[00:23:20] joe: But I, we’re gonna put the links

to this- No … we’re gonna put links to the study in, in the Nature Scientific Reports.

I encourage people to give it a read. I think it’s really, it’s one of these things, kind of go critically and think about it. That’s what we’re here for. So you see these kind of headlines, and dig in a little bit

to the paper- Well, and that study- … and check it

[00:23:37] georgia: gonna be more studies

[00:23:39] joe: gonna be more studies probably. I would hope so, yeah with larger Yeah.

[00:23:41] georgia: sample sizes.

And maybe I don’t know if it’ll be conducive to, like, the people making the light bulbs. I- if it costs too much, they probably won’t. But

But maybe

if they discover, “Oh, we add this thing to these bulbs, and it’s healthier for people,” maybe that’ll be an [00:24:00] outcome. Right. You know?

[00:24:01] nick: Oh, that’s a highly unlikely one, but I hope for

[00:24:04] joe: Or just go out and get some sun, people. You know, and it, yeah, I was gonna say that there, the, there was no funding, Issues … issues there either. So

it was, yeah, just, mean, it’s- It was, good … it was good. I wanted to kind of go through it, ’cause it is nice. You see something on Instagram and say, “Oh, look at this,” and then, you know- you can’t really click the links- So you can’t click the link to the paper

and- And sometimes,

[00:24:22] georgia: you said, they make s- Yeah … They sensationalize it.

[00:24:25] joe: Right. Right. You get those very you know, you know, what they said. It’s a little bite-sized thing Yes.

[00:24:29] georgia: thing as you’re dr- Yeah … you know what doom scrolling

[00:24:33] joe: think, uh, It

goes, “The lights above your desk may be doing more than lighting the room. Under LED light, the mitochondria in mouse cells went downhill. Most LEDs are heavy on blue light and missing the red and near-infrared that sunlight carries.”

so then it says, “Save this for the next time you shop for bulbs.” Like, then you’re gonna follow these people and so it’s kind of like-

[00:24:52] georgia: out there to buy are still gonna be the same bulbs.

[00:24:54] joe: Exactly. I mean, you gotta unpack that whole thing- Oh, I

need Like which bulb.

Yeah.

[00:24:58] georgia: those, those old [00:25:00] bulbs we used to use. Let’s see, where are they? Ugh.

[00:25:04] joe: No, so that’s, but no,

[00:25:05] nick: think I could ever go back to those old bulbs. They hurt so bad

[00:25:09] joe: Yeah. Just go get some sun, people. That’s what we say. Go out, enjoy

[00:25:13] nick: No touching grass,

[00:25:14] georgia: you know what? I w- I wonder if that is something like, the whole seasonal depression thing. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. And then don’t some people get lamps that have- They

[00:25:24] joe: do. Yeah. You get sun lamps. That’s right … like something that- And they have different- … help you … wavelengths. No, it’s… That’s why

I

[00:25:29] georgia: that really is a thing,

[00:25:30] joe: so that really is a thing, Yeah,

seasonal effective disorder, SAD. So yeah, so the, the, this core idea that light quality ef- deeply impacts human health isn’t- Right

isn’t some new, “Oh, wow, this is it.” Right. But no, that, that’s something that, that we’ve had, especially staying indoors. Like, if you stay indoors, then you need a sun lamp. The full, or a full spectrum light-

[00:25:51] georgia: And then what do you

[00:25:52] joe: what You would

[00:25:53] georgia: have one of ’em, and so you just go sit under it

[00:25:55] joe: would sit under it, yeah. So you would have your, you would have a sun box. That’s the treatment. And you [00:26:00] would set a timer and hang out, like going

outside.

[00:26:02] georgia: your phone while you’re doing that.

[00:26:04] joe: that- No. Probably shouldn’t, yeah. And most of the time it’s in the wintertime, right?

‘Cause the wintertime is when we stay inside more, and so that makes sense that during the winter, you would have these kind of light effects because you’re staying inside more. You’re not going out as much, and now that’s being extended into the spring, the fall, the summer.

Mm-hmm. Just said those out of order, but that’s

[00:26:24] georgia: also, yeah, people I think are just- Yeah, mm-hmm … in, in a lot, like, it’s easy to just end up staying inside, you know?

Yeah.

[00:26:33] joe: Yep. Yeah.

[00:26:34] georgia: Just break that habit. Go outside.

[00:26:36] joe: All right, part two.

[00:26:37] georgia: Do you want me to do another

[00:26:39] joe: Go for it. I think there’s another Instagram goodie.

[00:26:41] georgia: I think it’s another- ‘Cause- … Instagram goodie … well, I

[00:26:42] joe: don’t wanna I got this one

[00:26:43] georgia: I don’t wanna take up too

[00:26:45] joe: no. I think this one is interesting

also. Okay.

[00:26:48] georgia: interesting also … okay. This one is fake eggs are already in your grocery cart at major retailers like Walmart and Target.

All [00:27:00] right? Mm-hmm.

[00:27:00] joe: Right?

[00:27:01] georgia: And it’s not an egg substitute sitting next to the real thing. This i- is actual chicken egg protein- Mm-hmm … made without a chicken. So that really confuses the whole chicken and question. Yeah, Yeah. Right …

And it goes into the product as the egg. Mm-hmm. And then it kinda gave a little diagram and talked about the chicken gene

[00:27:26] joe: Mm-hmm.

[00:27:28] georgia: And it also said it really– there’s no way of knowing if this is the type of egg that’s used in certain products.

There’s no labeling. So,

[00:27:39] nick: What do you mean there’s no labeling? Like,

[00:27:42] joe: Like,

All

[00:27:43] nick: are they just willy-nilly like,

“Hey

[00:27:46] georgia: tell you which products have this in. You know, this is which pro- which products this is in

[00:27:54] joe: Yeah. So egg powders have been made for, a long time. And generally the way they’re [00:28:00] made is that you take, you know, thousands of hens and their eggs, and you get the eggs, and then you extract it, and then you make this product.

So you- people go, “Oh, that’s, you know, the egg powder that you can get.” Or in food manufacturing they use these egg powders. Because

[00:28:15] georgia: probably it just

[00:28:17] joe: easier then … e- exactly right. It’s sto- storage,

shelf life,

[00:28:20] nick: Oh

[00:28:20] joe: all this kind of stuff,

[00:28:21] georgia: so- Yeah.

[00:28:21] joe: Yeah.

[00:28:22] georgia: So, processed foods- That’s right … will use

[00:28:24] joe: will use these.

That’s right. And so the… what this is, what they’ve done here, kinda the same thing they’ve done with Impossible Burger or fake chicken or these other fake meat products, is that they’ve taking the, a, a particular protein, , so I think in Beyond Beef or Impossible’s hemoglobin or one of these, and it gives it the red color, you know, the, the- Mm-hmm

fake blood kind of look. And so you put that gene into yeast, you grow it up, and then the yeast makes a bunch of that protein, and then you can extract that protein, and in this case, this is albumin. That’s the, you protein that’s in the egg.[00:29:00]

Albumin. Albumin, right. So

that’s kinda- Is the name of the protein … the name of the pr- protein, right. Okay. So, that’s the protein. Protein. Yeah. So you have that. So, and that’s the egg white. So that’s essentially what that is. So if you were making one of these powders, you would collect all the eggs, separate the yolk from the egg white, and then you would dehydrate it in some way, and then process

[00:29:19] georgia: see how

[00:29:20] joe: you could see how much-

easier- and you get that …

[00:29:20] georgia: that …easier this would be.

[00:29:21] joe: It’s, right. So the-

[00:29:23] georgia: what are, any, are there any concerns about doing it this way? Except that you’re not, like, putting all these hens through this

[00:29:32] joe: Right.

Yes, that’s right

[00:29:33] georgia: and making them all lay

[00:29:35] joe: growing up this, yes, you’re avoiding all that.

It could be safer, ’cause it’s a little… You can do it more sterile. You have a pipeline. So there are,

[00:29:45] nick: less risks of getting diseases.

[00:29:48] joe: So I mean, I think,

right- Cow, cow milk … so this thing, it it fits right. It’s kind of this emotional maybe fear, whatever So

[00:29:54] georgia: there anything that you can think of that would be a side effect or a [00:30:00] problem with that?

[00:30:01] joe: I mean, . it’s a highly processed food either way, right?

So it’s,

I, no, I’m not,

[00:30:06] georgia: said that was tr- Yeah … like, kind of being kind of a- Yeah … a alarmist, “Nobody at the FDA tested this. The company decided it was safe, told the FDA it, it decided that, and the FDA wrote back that it had no questions.” So what do you think about that part of it?

[00:30:25] joe: I mean, so are we talking about the process that they’re using? Because the same technology they’re using is the same one that we use to make human insulin for diabetes, or rennet for cheeses mostly. M- a lot of… 90% of the world’s cheeses. Instead of killing the animal to extract this protein, if we know the gene which a lot of these cases we do, you’re gonna just grow this up in, in yeast in vats, and have a much more sterile process, a more humane process, and then you come to an endpoint.

So if you’re going to the FDA for approval we have this process- It’s still, it’s been done many ways … we’re gonna grow up

this [00:31:00] protein.

[00:31:00] georgia: protein.” It’s been done many

[00:31:01] joe: look at what you give

them and go, “Yeah, we have no questions,” because we… They understand that it’s not a new process, right? So, and I didn’t go into what… I mean, I probably sh- I could go take a deeper dive in this, but I can imagine that the review panel reviewed this and said, “Oh, yeah, this makes total sense.

Yeah, we can… You know. This is a process that’s familiar. It’s not,

[00:31:20] georgia: I know this feeds into the whole, like, fear of ar- like the whole AI thing, artificial, well, obviously artificial intelligence and digital stuff, but I think we really are just feeling like, ugh, is anything real anymore?

And so then you see, oh my gosh, there’s fake eggs, and we don’t know about it.

[00:31:42] joe: Right. Right. But

[00:31:44] georgia: I think this could’ve been spun totally differently. It’s just how you write it and how you spin it, because they could have written a post on Instagram saying, “Look at this great way we’re doing this, and we’re saving all these hens from, you know-[00:32:00]

[00:32:00] nick: Yeah, it’s all about perspective

[00:32:02] joe: Yeah. Right. So I think that’s,

[00:32:04] nick: Hey, I think we did an episode on that.

[00:32:07] joe: I really, I wanted to explore these two Instagram posts ’cause, ’cause the first one we talked about with the light there’s quite a bit of good science there. Probably a little preliminary, but also, you know,

[00:32:18] georgia: Kinda more basic

[00:32:19] joe: Very basic

it got taken, maybe stretched a bit. Mm-hmm. You know, 22 pe- you know, it’s not like thousands. Even the the SAD we talked about, those have been huge population studies, so those ideas were really vetted, run through peer review, different population segments, and you see this trend.

Here how’s it affect other people? Like, is this just- Yeah. You know? So-

But, but- But it had some… But this one here, the, you know, with the fake egg, I feel like this is sensationalizing something and trying to get

[00:32:49] nick: like that’s sort of a fear-mongering,

yeah

[00:32:51] joe: make an

[00:32:51] georgia: issue out of maybe-

[00:32:53] joe: Right.

I think it’s something- Not an issue … should you like any processed food, should one, , think [00:33:00] about how it’s made and what goes into it? Yeah, sure. Mm-hmm. I mean, so if you’re, like, saying, “Oh, th- my favorite chip or whatever, they use fake eggs,” right, then that’s… Yeah. Yeah. They could’ve used, they could’ve done, they could’ve used this processed or genetically purified product or it could’ve been from, a bunch of hens that, eggs that they collected and dried down and then used that powder and stabilized.

So I don’t know, right? If they’re using this- Right … thing, alblumin.

[00:33:29] georgia: Yeah, I think it’s more… Yeah. Anyway, that, like I said, it could almost be a whole episode. Maybe we could

[00:33:34] joe: could I mean, I think, yeah

yeah

or food,

[00:33:38] nick: I would go broader and say food.

[00:33:40] joe: Yeah. Just do food, right? Just what we eat and how we eat it.

[00:33:44] nick: No, just eggs.

[00:33:46] joe: but I think, yeah this was interesting, but I think it was a little… They had pictures of eggs, like you were gonna be at the store getting a fake, chicken egg.

like- you know- Yeah, you’re gonna crack it open, right.

It had

[00:33:57] nick: not like they’re selling It as …

[00:33:59] joe: when I

[00:33:59] georgia: that [00:34:00] post, I’m like, “What?”

[00:34:00] joe: Yeah. And it was

AI content warning was on it too,

[00:34:03] georgia: And then I’m, like, looking and I’m like, “No, this isn’t,

[00:34:07] nick: I think if it was more like the, “Oh, you’re buying a dozen eggs, but are they real?” “Yes, they’re

still real

[00:34:15] joe: even like the like some of the FDA stuff you’re talking about and they’re, they said, “Oh, you’re gonna eat this much and it’s gonna be, you know, crazy amount of this fake egg product.” But the FDA, when they, when you submit stuff, they mandate a theoretical maximum exposure model.

And so the numbers that they were using is like the worst case calculation. Like someone just goes-

[00:34:36] georgia: kinda like that tabletop-

[00:34:37] joe: right. When you- It’s just kinda… Right, right. So, but yeah that’s if they would replace, they would take this new protein product that’s being made and replace 100% of all the eggs that they eat in their diet with this.

and so yeah, so-

[00:34:51] georgia: not an issue.

[00:34:52] joe: And then Right.

[00:34:52] georgia: That the same thing

[00:34:53] joe: Egg beaters? Egg beaters.

I think that is it’s a, it’s made from real egg [00:35:00] whites though.

Oh. So yeah, it is right … okay.

So this is the idea, right? This

would

[00:35:02] georgia: it’s the sa- Okay. Yes.

[00:35:04] joe: This is what you’re kind of replacing, is taking this

engineered protein-

[00:35:09] georgia: get the fake egg beaters?

[00:35:11] joe: Right. That’s, exactly. That’s, the whole point is that

it’s, they’re processed food … so. I actually

[00:35:15] georgia: I actually, I actually like this because less animals are being harmed. Mm-hmm. But anyway, we can move on Did you have something, Joe?

[00:35:25] joe: You know, I did.

[00:35:27] nick: the one where Joe had nothing.

[00:35:29] joe: yeah, nothing. No, I do have one and I’ll just go ahead and… I have two, but I’m just gonna do one because w- I wanna… I think we spent time, rightfully so, on these interesting kind of clickbaity Instagram articles, so we should do more and go through the papers if they have it.

Like, the one didn’t even have a paper about the fake egg. It was just, the company, and sensationalizing it. The other one actually had science and interesting paper. Go check it out. Those links will be there. But I had this one, I found it, it w- saw it. It was on a food related and AI.

So using [00:36:00] AI to build a better burger. These nutrition researchers, engineers, trained AI on models of ingredient combinations, quantities in various burgers. So they analyzed burgers and broke it down.

[00:36:14] georgia: about the, just the meat, the burger? The burger, yeah. The burger … or are you talking about, like, all the fixings on the burger? Like-

[00:36:22] joe: I think it was just the burger itself, the patty, but you’re right. It was

kind of- you would… I guess you make a sandwich for somebody, it has bread and things like that. Right. But you can normalize, you can take a McDonald’s burger, a Burger King burger, a Wendy’s burger, a Joe Schmoe’s burger, and put it on the same bread, and they go, “Okay, which burger is the…”

Right. So I think you

[00:36:40] georgia: could- Okay. You think it’s talking just about the

[00:36:42] joe: you can standardize. Right, just the patty

Okay. Um, a- I think any ingredient. I think it’s the whole, it- Okay … this ingredient combinations. Yeah.

[00:36:48] nick: I would assume it’s a whole

combination

[00:36:50] joe: the burger, so… And I can look it up really fast, you guys are- Yeah, because-

[00:36:54] georgia: you think about, like, I love a… Well, I don’t eat

[00:36:58] nick: What was that, Georgia?

[00:36:58] georgia: don’t eat burgers, [00:37:00] but I love my fake burger.

I love it to have, , melted Swiss cheese and , sauteed mushrooms. That’s completely

[00:37:11] joe: than a- Yeah, this was just, this is the burger itself. The- Just- … the meat patty.

They, that’s my… That’s kind of going in through it randomizing to make a… It represent each burger recipe solely by its ingredients and their associated weights, and so that’s how they set up their model.

The idea in this is that it is about can you begin to think about cooking methods identifying ingredients especially you know, if you’re, you got food scarcity or supply chains, energy concerns, can you begin to use AI to utilize your ingredients that you have at hand to make a very delicious burger

[00:37:49] nick: All right.

[00:37:50] joe: you?

[00:37:50] nick: I do have something to

say.

[00:37:52] joe: know.

[00:37:52] nick: do have

[00:37:53] joe: see what they do. That’s, I

[00:37:54] georgia: mean

[00:37:55] nick: that are going to say that this is all blown out of proportion because [00:38:00] the AI is gonna be the reason that we have a lot of these problems.

And if you’re cooking in the kitchen and you have so much ingredient that with these, y-you can create so many cool things just going through your kitchen and figuring out what you have and just putting a meal together.

[00:38:20] joe: That’s,

[00:38:20] nick: Just do that.

[00:38:21] joe: I think this is you can do that, but it also,

like they- I guess you could modeled out.

they made,

[00:38:26] georgia: guess you could ask AI, “Okay, this is what I have in my fridge right now. Tell me what I

[00:38:30] joe: make.” Well, it’s also like they made a healthier bean-based burger and a more sustainable mushroom option of burgers.

I don’t know. So they have this thing where they went through, but they, I was gonna say they had a panel of 101 taste testers. They judged the AI

burger- this?

is- … better than the McDonald’s burger. That’s better than the McDonald’s burger. So

[00:38:52] nick: ’cause a McDonald’s burger is shit.

[00:38:54] joe: I’m just saying, that’s the number one bur- I mean, that’s the-

[00:38:56] nick: No. This is it, right?

[00:39:00] It’s not a good standardization, though. You’re going

with a fast food burger, which is already super processed, to another processed food

[00:39:10] joe: think for the study you have to, I mean, my guess they picked McDonald’s is because it is worldwide popular and their burger recipe is, you know, or

[00:39:20] nick: burger you can find is better. yeah, but

I’m so upset by this one

[00:39:24] joe: people might not- Oh, no. I’m just, I’m just telling you here that they have it, that it beat out the McDonald’s burger. So you’re right, it’s the Barlow.

I don’t know, that’s- Yeah … that’s an opinion. But like they said, it’s one of the most widely consumed burgers worldwide, served in more than 100 countries, and you have this, a high degree of palatability across diverse populations, so that’s why they use it as a benchmark. So I’m just reading, this is what they had, why they picked the Big Mac as

[00:39:51] nick: It just seems like such a low bar.

[00:39:52] georgia: Yeah.

[00:39:54] joe: So yeah, it’s, I mean, it’s just

[00:39:55] nick: the study. I feel like it has a lot of problems [00:40:00] though.

[00:40:03] joe: The idea is that can you use it to actually help with designing food? I mean, people have nutritional needs. Can you use it for that

[00:40:10] nick: that’s what you have chefs for.

[00:40:12] georgia: ask a nutritionist?

[00:40:13] nick: there are so many

people out there that are doing

[00:40:17] georgia: why they went to

[00:40:18] nick: and that, that I would trust

[00:40:20] joe: I’m not def- I’m not defending this or not.

The, the links will be there. You guys can read it and, you know, No, gonna argue you, Joe,

[00:40:27] nick: as

[00:40:27] joe: you build a, you know- Yeah … Can you use the ingredients to make something more delicious, right? So if you got your fake eggs, can you use it to build a bigger, better burger, man? That’s all, you know.

Right. You just got all your fake foods. No, but I think that was kind of, the, the title was Generative Artificial Intelligence Creates Delicious, Sustainable, and Nutritious Burgers. So there was all these kind of sta- … nutrition optimize it across all of these factors. ‘Cause you can have a delicious…

You can have a nu- nutritious burger that’s not delicious, and you can have a delicious burger that’s not [00:41:00] nutritious. So I think it was, can you make one that’s delicious, that’s palatable, but also nutritious, like, so actually have a threshold of nutrition- Okay … And sustainability. All right. All right.

That’s all I’m saying. Okay. And so yeah. And then they made a mushroom burger. Like they said, “Oh, r- let’s push it to the extreme,” with sustainability

[00:41:16] georgia: Or- A- are you saying the burger patty was made out of mushroom?

[00:41:19] joe: yeah. So they made a delicious mushroom burger.

[00:41:22] georgia: I could see that.

[00:41:23] joe: and they made a bean burger that had twice the nutritional score of, you know, bean burgers that you just- I could- … get or make,

[00:41:30] georgia: get or make yourself. I mean- That, that’s what

[00:41:31] joe: that’s what they used this for, so. It had

[00:41:33] georgia: study said, so

I’ve had the fake- Yeah … it’s supposed to be like a fake steak, and that’s what it’s made of, mushroom. Yeah.

[00:41:40] joe: So that was the gist of this.

That’s

[00:41:42] georgia: funny, we’ve kind of just gone into the whole-

[00:41:45] joe: You guys are… Y’all have made a

[00:41:46] nick: Are we gonna have to have a food episode next season? I feel

like we

[00:41:49] joe: we do.

yeah.

[00:41:50] georgia: I, yeah.

I think we need to get a food scientist, so we’ll work on that.

[00:41:56] joe: No, I just caught my eye as

[00:41:57] nick: know what? I’d rather just get a chef.[00:42:00]

[00:42:01] georgia: We could do both.

[00:42:03] joe: You can. And I mean,

[00:42:05] nick: I’m gonna get

[00:42:05] joe: also this feels like this is more like how do you mass produce the sustainable, nutritious, delicious burger?

No, I

think they’re, they’re- not Nick in his kitchen, right? ‘Cause that’s Nick’s getting offended ’cause it’s like AI’s coming for his kitchen knives

[00:42:20] georgia: burger’s gonna be better every

time

[00:42:23] nick: I honestly just feel that it’s being waste- like they’re really grasping at straws now for the uses of AI that it’s really showing, man.

[00:42:34] joe: Yeah, and they

[00:42:35] nick: I don’t know

[00:42:36] joe: to my knowledge, they weren’t funded by an AI company, so it wasn’t like,

[00:42:41] georgia: know-

[00:42:41] joe: Generative AI said, “Do this research.” I was looking to see their if what their conflicts of interest were. Like I said earlier we should do

[00:42:49] georgia: Brought to you by…

[00:42:51] joe: Right.

That’s it.

[00:42:53] nick: OpenAI, ChatGPT,

Gemini

[00:42:57] georgia: Claude. [00:43:00] Better burger by Claude. Yes,

[00:43:05] nick: we’re gonna have McDonald’s using AI for their burgers.

Actually, I don’t know if it’s true, but I heard M- McDonald’s is pulling AI from their drive-throughs

[00:43:19] joe: Oh, ‘

[00:43:19] nick: cause it keeps getting orders wrong and stuff. We’ll have to look more into that,

[00:43:23] georgia: Oh, they’re using AI to help, like, take the order?

[00:43:27] joe: Oh, interesting.

[00:43:28] nick: and it’s just getting it wrong and

people are getting

[00:43:31] joe: Well, yeah.

[00:43:34] nick: And so like,

[00:43:35] georgia: Well, yeah. Wait.

[00:43:36] nick: getting an order wrong,

[00:43:38] georgia: know, and

[00:43:38] nick: I don’t think I want them near my food.

[00:43:40] georgia: they’re like, “Oops, sorry, that was just our system hallucinating. We didn’t mean to give you

[00:43:47] joe: So yeah, in, in here they were– It was funded somewhat by the partnership with the Rhodes Trust Schmidt Science Fellowship.

And then they got some funding from

the- related to AI?

That is [00:44:00] not. It doesn’t look that way. But just going through all their money, they got the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability Accelerator, the Stanford Bio-X NaCK Grant program, the Bezos Earth Fund, and a NSF grant, and they got another ERC Advance

Grant.

Oh. So uh- got a big pile

[00:44:19] georgia: on that

[00:44:19] joe: a

pile of money there. They did have– They did work with an executive chef in, in trying to get some of the, the creation, the preparation instructions, and things like that. So it’s interesting. I mean, yes, Mm-hmm … but it’s out there.

Mm-hmm. You get a taste of your AI burger

[00:44:38] georgia: All right.

Well, moving on.

[00:44:40] joe: It feels like, it’s like John Henry over here. Nick’s gonna be in a kitchen racing a AI machine like they get those

[00:44:49] nick: I will do this 100%.

We want to do a cook-off with me versus AI, I will do it any day of the week. Just sign me up. y’all want to pay for it, we’ll put [00:45:00] it towards charity against AI stuff. I don’t care. I’ll do

it.

[00:45:04] joe: Yeah, there it is. We do it. The, the Rabbit Hole Of

[00:45:07] nick: This is me challenging you

[00:45:09] georgia: yeah,

[00:45:10] joe: you throw in a gauntlet. You know AI is gonna scrub through this, this episode transcript and see

[00:45:14] nick: Oh yeah. This is gonna be the one episode that like is gonna be the reason AI kills

[00:45:19] joe: When it- Well, or the Terminators show up, you’re gonna have to, you know, cook for your life.

[00:45:27] nick: Guys, we need to write this script out now. I want Arnold Schwarzenegger

a cast as soon as

[00:45:33] georgia: you’re in-

[00:45:34] joe: right. Yeah … and one day you’re out … the AI, they’re gonna be like, “Oh, you think you can make a better burger than Earl here? We’ve exterminated

[00:45:41] georgia: We’ve collected

[00:45:44] joe: 101 humans.”

[00:45:49] georgia: And then it becomes like what are they made of? Never mind. Oh, my-

[00:45:55] nick: Oh,

Soylent

[00:45:56] joe: Green? Soylent Green. Let’s hope not.[00:46:00]

[00:46:00] georgia: Soylent

[00:46:00] joe: Green Yes. It’s like Nick’s like, “What are these ingredients here?” Don’t worry about the ingredients. Yeah.

That’s Soylent Green. It’s easy

[00:46:07] georgia: for their model. Oh

[00:46:08] joe: I know.

Okay. All right. This has gotten off the rails.

[00:46:12] georgia: Okay. Yeah. So any media? Media holes?

[00:46:16] joe: Sure, yeah, we gotta… Let’s get

this quick, man. Let’s do a fast, media This episode’s getting long. This is a Maxi episode. I’m about to change it. Yeah, no, I listening music Czarface meets Frankie Pulitzer, so I kind of been dig, digging into that album.

Really cool. Reading-wise read Blood Slaves by Marcus Redman, so it’s an alt fiction. Sen- the premise is what if one of the enslaved Africans was a vampire, and then recruited other enslaved peoples to lead a revolt for their freedom in exchange for being a vampire ,

and then movie-wise just the other day, I started, I watched Aliens. It had been a while. There was some Instagram memes, and I was [00:47:00] like, “Oh, I haven’t seen this in a little bit.” It’s the 40th anniversary, so, yeah, I kind of

[00:47:03] nick: Oh yeah, you and I were talking about that,

weren’t we?

[00:47:05] joe: yep. So that’s it.

[00:47:06] nick: Go ahead, Georgia

[00:47:07] georgia: I was gonna say, we watched the show The Beast in Me.

[00:47:11] joe: Oh. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, it was really good. It

[00:47:13] georgia: was really good. Yeah … it was so good. And every single episode had, that tension and had something, keeping you right there. And oh gosh, the actor from Widow’s Bay – Mm-hmm … is his name Matthew?

Have you seen it, Nick? Have

[00:47:32] nick: No, I haven’t. What’s it on

[00:47:33] joe: called? it is on Netflix. Netflix, yeah. And it is just… And so he did win, he won, like, of course Widow’s Bay won, like, 1,000 Emmys. He actually won for both Widow’s Bay and The Beast- Yeah … in Me. And for

[00:47:50] nick: Oh, no shit

[00:47:51] joe: for good reason. Really good.

[00:47:53] georgia: It was so good. And then it’s Claire Danes.

Claire Danes is the lead woman and

[00:47:59] nick: oh,

[00:47:59] joe: oh, [00:48:00]

[00:48:00] georgia: it is… Yeah, you gotta check it out. It’s really

[00:48:04] nick: Yeah, that sounds right up my alley. Horror-themed, I assume?

[00:48:08] joe: I don’t know if

[00:48:08] georgia: more thriller maybe

[00:48:10] nick: or coded

[00:48:11] joe: more like psychological thriller.

[00:48:13] georgia: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:48:14] nick: Okay, cool

[00:48:15] joe: yeah.

[00:48:16] georgia: And I think that’s it.

[00:48:18] joe: Nick?

[00:48:19] nick: What I just saw, the new Robert Pattinson movie, Prime Time, which is about h- to catch a predator, and that was really good. I… It’s not a film type that I would normally see in theaters, but we did. Thoroughly enjoyed it. Robert Pattinson was fantastic in it. I know there’s been some controversy around the film, saying with Chris Hansen saying he didn’t wanna see the film or whatever.

I don’t know. All I know is it was really well-written. They did a good job with that, and Robert Pattinson was fantastic in it. [00:49:00] Did I talk about finishing Wolverine last time?

[00:49:03] joe: Yes. Okay. Mm-hmm.

[00:49:05] nick: Okay, ’cause I finished that, moved on to Alan Wake 2 again, just ’cause it’s spooky season. Playing that before I get to the next Control 2, and just watching some old-time horror films lately.

Just spooky season hit hard. We’re just getting into the cozy horror.

[00:49:26] georgia: horror,

You’re

not talking like u- universal monsters like-

[00:49:31] joe: Poltergeist or where are we at in the-

[00:49:33] georgia: we at in the- We’re not talking

[00:49:34] nick: In the Poltergeist era,

[00:49:35] joe: okay, ’80s,

’90s,

[00:49:37] georgia: 1931 Dracula or- Okay … that you

[00:49:41] nick: No, but I watched those last year around this time, I

think,

[00:49:44] georgia: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Okay.

[00:49:45] joe: Like Abbott and Costello meets Frankenstein.

[00:49:48] georgia: Or

[00:49:50] nick: honestly think

[00:49:52] georgia: think of Frankenstein, I wanna see that

[00:49:54] joe: again. Mm.

[00:49:55] georgia: seen that for a while, the, the original Frankenstein. Oh my gosh, [00:50:00] yeah

[00:50:00] nick: didn’t they have that del Toro, Guillermo del Toro, didn’t he release one last year?

[00:50:05] georgia: He

[00:50:05] joe: on Netflix, I

[00:50:06] nick: Or was

[00:50:07] joe: Was it a Netflix series? Yeah.

[00:50:09] georgia: And then of course Nosferatu came back

[00:50:11] joe: that was like December No-

[00:50:14] georgia: and that we saw at Christmas Day, I think.

[00:50:16] joe: We did. We went to the movie theater on Christmas Day.

[00:50:19] georgia: To see Nosferatu

[00:50:20] joe: Yeah. It was just fun. That was a fun one

[00:50:23] nick: And then Wolf Man comes out this year too, doesn’t it?

[00:50:25] joe: Oh, really?

Oh, wow

Oh, I didn’t know that.

[00:50:28] georgia: Is that

[00:50:28] nick: I think they have a new Wolf Man coming.

[00:50:30] georgia: Is that del Toro? No. Okay All right.

[00:50:34] joe: Yeah.

Now, Wolf Man came out last year in 2025. Oh

[00:50:40] nick: Weird, I thought there was a new one coming out

[00:50:42] joe: There’s another one?

[00:50:44] nick: All right Werewolf

[00:50:47] joe: Okay

[00:50:47] nick: By Robert Eggers.

[00:50:49] georgia: Ooh, September 25th, Ooh, Robert Eggers. Ooh, when is it?

[00:50:55] nick: December

[00:50:56] georgia: Oh, okay. Maybe Christmas. Maybe that’ll be the

[00:50:59] joe: Christmas [00:51:00] movie.

[00:51:01] nick: That’s why I was like, I know I, I saw a new one coming out. I just

[00:51:06] joe: Yeah that Wolf Man, they were attacked by an unseen animal and they barricade themselves inside a farmhouse.

[00:51:12] georgia: Oh, I remember that. I didn’t see it. I

[00:51:14] joe: didn’t either. Yep.

[00:51:15] georgia: trailers.

[00:51:16] nick: Isn’t it black and white too?

[00:51:18] joe: This one’s color, so

[00:51:20] georgia: But the new one you’re talking about or the-

[00:51:23] nick: Yeah. I thought it was…

[00:51:25] joe: Oh yeah, I

[00:51:25] nick: Oh, Willem Dafoe’s in it too

[00:51:27] joe: William. Well,

that’s gonna be awesome. Oh, Oh. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Cool.

[00:51:33] georgia: All Right. All

[00:51:34] nick: Yeah

[00:51:34] joe: Well, we should wrap it up. Thanks for hanging in there with us. We went down some good science holes. I think that was that was really informative, so, but yeah.

You got me, Joe?

[00:51:45] nick: You got Nick

[00:51:46] joe: Got Nick

[00:51:47] georgia: Georgia

[00:51:48] joe: We got Georgia

[00:51:50] nick: And we went down some holes

[00:51:54] joe: Stay curious, stay safe, and we love y’all

[00:51:59] georgia: [00:52:00] Bye-bye