BJKS Podcast

This is a special episode: this podcast will change after this episode, from remote audio-only interviews to exclusively in-person video interviews. Dan Quintana, professor at the University of Oslo and host of the Everything Hertz podcast, joins me to discuss why and how I'm making this change, podcasting and science communication more broadly, time management as an academic and podcaster, and much more.
BJKS Podcast is a podcast about neuroscience, psychology, and anything vaguely related, hosted by Benjamin James Kuper-Smith.

Support the show: https://geni.us/bjks-patreon

Timestamps
0:00:00: An obnoxious episode: podcasters talking about podcasting
0:02:22: Why Dan and I started our podcasts
0:07:15: Video vs audio podcasts, YouTube as a podcast platform, and social media
0:13:08: In-person vs. online/remote recordings
0:18:40: My plans for recording in-person video interviews
0:28:55: To start a remote podcast, you only need a laptop now
0:30:58: Managing a podcast while being a full-time scientist
0:39:14: Inviting guests to do interviews
0:43:20: Is podcasting a waste of time?
0:48:22: Science communication
0:49:56: Should I change my podcast's name and logo?
0:55:55: Final recommendations for the podcast from Dan? And for people who want to start a podcast
1:04:02: A book or paper more people should read
1:09:50: Something Dan wishes he'd learnt sooner
1:12:11: Advice for postdocs

Podcast links
Website: https://geni.us/bjks-pod
BlueSky: https://geni.us/pod-bsky

Dan's links
Website: https://geni.us/quintana-web
Google Scholar: https://geni.us/quintana-scholar
BlueSky: https://geni.us/quintana-bsky

Ben's links
Website: https://geni.us/bjks-web
Google Scholar: https://geni.us/bjks-scholar
BlueSky: https://geni.us/bjks-bsky

Other links & references
Samson 2QU microphone: https://samsontech.com/products/microphones/usb-microphones/q2u/
Latour & Woolgar (1979). Laboratory life: The construction of scientific facts.
Morris (1979). The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt.
Todes (2014). Ivan Pavlov: A Russian life in science.

Lauren Ross is a professor of logic and philosophy at the University of California, Irvine. We talk about her work on causation, mechanism, and explanation in neuroscience, Lauren's background in medicine, how to write clearly, and much more.

BJKS Podcast is a podcast about neuroscience, psychology, and anything vaguely related, hosted by Benjamin James Kuper-Smith.

Support the show: https://geni.us/bjks-patreon

Timestamps
0:00:00: Why Lauren studied medicine
0:04:23: Differences between medicine and philosophy
0:21:19: Why Lauren switched to philosophy of science
0:25:30: How to learn to write clearly
0:30:21: Are doctors practitioners of causality?
0:34:25: What's so difficult about causality?
0:38:46: Causal structures: mechanism, pathway, cascade, circuit.
1:02:11: The practical use of thinking about causal structures and varieties
1:11:35: What's the difference between a circuit and a pathway? And what are you trying to do?
1:20:31: Secondary features of causation/causal varieties: strength, stability, speed, specificity
1:29:29: A book or paper more people should read
1:30:45: Something Lauren wishes she'd learnt sooner
1:33:29: Advice for PhD students/postdocs

Podcast links
Website: https://geni.us/bjks-pod
BlueSky: https://geni.us/pod-bsky

Lauren's links
Website: https://geni.us/ross-web
Google Scholar: https://geni.us/ross-scholar
BlueSky: https://geni.us/ross-bsky

Ben's links
Website: https://geni.us/bjks-web
Google Scholar: https://geni.us/bjks-scholar
BlueSky: https://geni.us/bjks-bsky

References
Alon (2006). An introduction to systems biology: design principles of biological circuits. [There's a lecture series by Alon that seems to be based on the book: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6VZeWuME_A&list=PLLbr-B8cNbo6v4kc68JowzUeAYdh6gdQH]
Barack, Miller, Moore, Packer, Pessoa, Ross, & Rust (2022). A call for more clarity around causality in neuroscience. Trends in neurosciences.
Forsyth (2013). The elements of eloquence: How to turn the perfect English phrase.
Hempel (1965). Aspects of scientific explanation.
Ross (2021). Causal concepts in biology: How pathways differ from mechanisms and why it matters. The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science.
Ross & Bassett (2024). Causation in neuroscience: keeping mechanism meaningful. Nature Reviews Neuroscience.

Kai Ruggeri is professor for health policy and management at Columbia University. We talk about his global collaborations, in which they studied various important decision-making aspects, including Prospect Theory and temporal discounting.

BJKS Podcast is a podcast about neuroscience, psychology, hosted by Benjamin James Kuper-Smith.

Support the show: https://geni.us/bjks-patreon

Timestamps
0:00:00: Why Kai studied stats anxiety in his PhD, and then moved to broader policy questions
0:09:15: Replicating the original Prospect Theory paper across the world
0:30:01: Adversarial collaborations and choosing which findings are worth being replicated
0:38:31: How to run global collaborations
0:56:25: Overlooked aspects of these global collaborations
1:03:59: Should we collect data from non-Western countries without local collaborators?
1:10:24: A book or paper more people should read
1:16:38: Something Kai wishes he'd learnt sooner
1:27:50: Advice for postdocs

Podcast links
Website: https://geni.us/bjks-pod
BlueSky: https://geni.us/pod-bsky

Kai's links
Website: https://geni.us/ruggeri-web
Google Scholar: https://geni.us/ruggeri-scholar
BlueSky: https://geni.us/ruggeri-bsky

Ben's links
Website: https://geni.us/bjks-web
Google Scholar: https://geni.us/bjks-scholar
BlueSky: https://geni.us/bjks-bsky

References, links & notes
Junior Researcher Programme: https://jrp.pscholars.org/
Today, Israel uses the Shekel, but when Kahneman & Tversky did research there, they used the Israeli pound: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_pound
Prolific: https://www.prolific.com/
Besample: https://besample.app/
Kahneman's final decision: https://www.wsj.com/arts-culture/books/daniel-kahneman-assisted-suicide-9fb16124
Gal & Rucker (2018). The loss of loss aversion: Will it loom larger than its gain? J Cons Psych.
Kahneman & Tversky (1979). Prospect theory: an analysis of decisions under risk. Econometrica.
Lewis (2016). The undoing project.
Macher, ... & Ruggeri (2012). Statistics anxiety, trait anxiety, learning behavior, and academic performance. Europ J psych edu.
Macher, ... Ruggeri, ... (2013). Statistics anxiety, state anxiety during an examination, and academic achievement. British J Edu Psych.
Mellers, Hertwig & Kahneman (2001). Do frequency representations eliminate conjunction effects? An exercise in adversarial collaboration. Psych Sci.
Parks, Joireman & Van Lange (2013). Cooperation, trust, and antagonism: How public goods are promoted. Psych sci in the public interest.
Ruggeri, ... & Folke (2020). Replicating patterns of prospect theory for decision under risk. Nat Hum Behav.
Ruggeri, ... & Folke (2021). The general fault in our fault lines. Nat Hum Behav.
Ruggeri, ... & Toscano (2022). The globalizability of temporal discounting. Nat Hum Behav.
Ruggeri (Ed.). (2018). Behavioral insights for public policy: concepts and cases.
Thaler (2015). Misbehaving.

Elsa Fouragnan is an Associate Professor and UKRI Future Leader Fellow at the University of Plymouth. We talk mainly about her work on focussed transcranial ultrasound stimulation, a new non-invasive way other stimulating (human) brains, including deep areas that can't be reached with TMS. We also discuss her childhood in French Polynesia, how she started doing research, what it's like seeing a brain during surgery, and much more.
This was the first episode I recorded in-person. The audio quality is really good, with the minor exception that I made a really silly error during editing, such that quiet parts are sometimes not entirely audible. A few words are not audible, but this shouldn't affect comprehension.
BJKS Podcast is a podcast about neuroscience, psychology, and anything vaguely related, hosted by Benjamin James Kuper-Smith.

Support the show: https://geni.us/bjks-patreon

Timestamps
0:00:00: Elsa's childhood in French Polynesia and in mainland France
0:10:25: Why Elsa studied engineering and started doing research
0:19:04: How Elsa started working on Transcranial Focused Ultrasound Stimulation
0:23:08: What is Transcranial Focused Ultrasound Stimulation?
0:28:20: Is it safe?
0:36:12: What can you do with it/what kind of stimulations is it?
0:53:41: The practicalities of using TUS
1:04:42: What it's like to see brain surgery in the operating theatre
1:10:11: Back to the skull being a problem and which brains regions can be reached with TUS?
1:18:49: The future of TUS
1:27:59: A book or paper more people should read
1:30:13: Something Elsa wishes she'd learnt sooner
1:34:51: Advice for PhD students/postdocs

Podcast links
Website: https://geni.us/bjks-pod
BlueSky: https://geni.us/pod-bsky

Elsa's links
Website: https://geni.us/fouragnan-web
Google Scholar: https://geni.us/fouragnan-scholar
BlueSky: https://geni.us/fouragnan-bsky

Ben's links
Website: https://geni.us/bjks-web
Google Scholar: https://geni.us/bjks-scholar
BlueSky: https://geni.us/bjks-bsky

References and links
Ua Pou: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ua_Pou
Folloni, Verhagen, Mars, Fouragnan, ... & Sallet (2019). Manipulation of subcortical and deep cortical activity in the primate brain using transcranial focused ultrasound stimulation. Neuron.
Liptrot (2015). The Outrun.
Murphy & Fouragnan (2024). The future of transcranial ultrasound as a precision brain interface. PLoS Biology.
Yoo, Mittelstein, Hurt, Lacroix & Shapiro (2022). Focused ultrasound excites cortical neurons via mechanosensitive calcium accumulation and ion channel amplification. Nature Communications.
Yaakub, ... & Fouragnan (2024). Non-invasive Ultrasound Deep Neuromodulation of the Human Nucleus Accumbens Increases Win-Stay Behaviour. BioRxiv.

Melinda Baldwin is an associate professor of history at the University of Maryland. We talk about her work studying the history of Nature, scientific journals more broadly, what it means to be a scientist, peer review, the Tyndall project, and much more.

BJKS Podcast is a podcast about neuroscience, psychology, and anything vaguely related, hosted by Benjamin James Kuper-Smith.

Support the show: https://geni.us/bjks-patreon

Timestamps
0:00:00: Melinda's chemistry-history double major
0:03:42: Why Melinda did a PhD on the history of Nature
0:07:06: The glorious beginning of Nature and the history of scientific journals
0:17:00: How Nature became a journal for scientists (rather than the educated general public)
0:19:59: When did scientists start calling themselves 'scientists'? The mergence of science as a profession
0:26:26: The history of peer review: How to get into Nature in the 19th century, and the rise of peer review during the Cold War
0:40:53: Establishing causality in historical research
0:48:33: The future of peer review
1:06:16: Tyndall, why?
1:19:02: A book or paper more people should read
1:22:24: Something Melinda wishes she'd learnt sooner
1:29:05: Advice for PhD students/postdocs

Podcast links
Website: https://geni.us/bjks-pod
BlueSky: https://geni.us/pod-bsky

Melinda's links
Website: https://geni.us/baldwin-web
Google Scholar: https://geni.us/baldwin-scholar
BlueSky: https://geni.us/baldwin-bsky

Ben's links
Website: https://geni.us/bjks-web
Google Scholar: https://geni.us/bjks-scholar
BlueSky: https://geni.us/bjks-bsky

References and links
eLife peer review: https://elifesciences.org/about/peer-review
John Tyndall project: https://tyndallproject.com/
Baldwin (2017). In referees we trust? Physics Today.
Baldwin (2018). Scientific autonomy, public accountability, and the rise of “peer review” in the Cold War United States. Isis.
Baldwin (2019). Making" Nature" The History of a Scientific Journal.
Gordin (2012). The pseudoscience wars: Immanuel Velikovsky and the birth of the modern fringe.
Poehler (2014). Yes please.
Zuckerman & Merton (1971). Patterns of evaluation in science: Institutionalisation, structure and functions of the referee system. Minerva.