174: For the Love of Science

Justina Shandler  0:07  
Plan B, SAP choice dream. So 

Andrea Askowitz  0:15  
I'm Andrea Askowitz.

Allison Langer  0:16  
And I'm Alison Langer. And this is writing class radio. You'll hear true personal stories and learn how to write your own stories. Together, we produce this podcast which is equal parts heart and art. By heart, we mean the truth in a story. And by art, we mean the craft of writing, no matter what's going on in our lives, writing classes where we tell the truth. It's where we work out our shit. There's no place in the world like writing class, and we want to bring you in.

Andrea Askowitz  0:43  
Today on our show, we bring you a story that was originally performed on stage at the Flagstaff festival of science in October 20 to 23. This was a collaboration with ecos, the Center for Ecosystem Science and Society at Northern Arizona University, and story collider, a podcast that airs true science stories. So we worked with Jane marks, who is a conservation ecologist and professor at NAU, who happens to be married to Bruce Hungate. Who is the storyteller you will hear on this show today. Okay, so the two of them have been taking classes with us for like, what, three years now? Yeah, yeah. And about a year ago, year and a half ago, Jane came to me, I think it was Jane and was like, hey, hey, we need your help. We want to help our grad students, our PhD students personalize their science stories. And we were like, awesome. Let's do it. So we did workshops with the students

Allison Langer  1:46  
online on Zoom, a couple of them. And then we flew out to Flagstaff, and spent a weekend with these awesome people.

Andrea Askowitz  1:55  
And then we flew out again, and workshop their stories that they had written on the page to get them stage ready. And the first of that series is coming out today on Valentine's Day. And that one is by Bruce Hungate. And you're going to hear it today because it is a love story.

Allison Langer  2:15  
We should also say that these stories are airing also on story collider was really them who came in and recorded. They sent in a couple of their people to work with these guys also for stage, but Andrea also jumped in and she helped a lot because she did live storytelling for nine years with this group, she started lip service. Is that a group? Say group? Yeah, it was.

Andrea Askowitz  2:41  
It was a night of true stories out loud called lip service. So thank you. Thanks for giving me some props. Thanks. Well, I

Allison Langer  2:48  
mean, it's it's not around anymore. So it's not like we're trying to get business. It's just I'm trying to say that. Her experience also helped a lot in getting these stories ready for the stage. And we got to work with these other guys who came from story collider. And so we all learned so much as a collaboration. And it was it was really special. One

Andrea Askowitz  3:09  
thing I want to say is that the students from ecos are Furyk and brilliant. Because they took their stories. First of all, they had to personalize their own stories, which wasn't kind of in their wheelhouse. But then they did. They wrote these very brilliant stories. But then they took those stories and told them out loud on stage without reading. Yeah, that is so hard.

Allison Langer  3:33  
And these stories were vulnerable. It wasn't like they were standing up giving a presentation of some science something. I mean, the answer is no PowerPoints here, no. And they injected a lot of vulnerability, every one of the stories. So

Andrea Askowitz  3:44  
the story that you're going to hear today is by Bruce Hungate. And it is a great example of how to take a love story and infuse it with science. Awesome.

Allison Langer  3:57  
All right, Bruce is a professor and director of ecos. at NAU, as mentioned, we gave you a little insight into ecos. And if you're not familiar with it, jump on the NAU site and just put in EC O S S because it's really kind of crazy amazing what he's doing, what they are doing Jane and Bruce for science. Bruce conducts research on ecosystems and how they respond to and shape environmental change. He also trains future scientists and communicates discovery and its relevance to ding dongs like us and to all people. But this whole thing was Bruce and Jane's love child just really trying to do something because what they were doing, they felt it wasn't having the effect that they wanted. It wasn't reaching the right people. And so hopefully by injecting the personnel and really, you know, developing trust in scientists, they can create real change in this world and save our Earth.

Andrea Askowitz  4:58  
Oh so happy Valentine's Day.

Allison Langer  5:00  
Yeah, back with Bruce's story after the break.

Andrea Askowitz  5:05  
We're back. I'm Andrea Aska wits and this is writing class radio. Here's Bruce Hungate.

Bruce Hungate  5:21  
The summer after my junior year in college, I worked in a microbiology lab. I was studying tiny bacteria that live on rocks in the Negev desert. They oxidize manganese and over 1000s of years they turn the rocks black desert varnish. I loved how tiny details of science could tell a story about nature. But I wasn't sure microbiology was the career for me. I was deep into musicology. In the lab, I listened to Ludwig von Beethoven's Sixth symphony, the pastoral, a symphony that tells a story about nature with music. I was obsessed with the second movement called seen by a river or Shane on Bach in the original German that it opens with the strings and this lilting descending line that sounds like flowing water dong dong dong, dong dong. That little turn at the end, like an eddy in a river. I loved how music could tell a story about nature too. We study that piece in music theory class, which is also where I met Karissa Karissa played the violin. She wore cut off jeans and torn T shirts. I wore cut off jeans and torn T shirts to I proposed we play chamber music together and she said yes. A few hours after theory class one day we met to rehearse. We'd been assigned to analyze scene by a river by Beethoven. I asked her if she'd looked at the assignment. She looked at me, that assignment isn't due for a month, I looked back at her ignoring her pulling out the score from my backpack because I was really excited to show her what I discovered I did analyzing the harmony since you know, class the three hours ago, and and I showed her this one passage that I thought was great. And I said, Don't you love how the deceptive cadence extends the line? She looks at me? No, no, we're set up to resolve to the tonic. It's the dominant it's this big, long tension, right? But we don't resolve to the tonic, we go to the dominant of the sub mediate and it keeps going. She said, we're not in theory classes, stop it. But I kept going, because it's like we're in the river. And when we think the river is going to end, and we're getting there, we think it's going to end but it's not the end. It's a band and there's more glorious River Music ahead. She looked at me again and said, Can we go play music now? If I couldn't connect to Karissa with music theory? How can I connect with the world? I thought about my job in the microbiology lab and in biology class, how I'd learned that microbes affect the climate. everyone's interested in climate, right? Yeah, I still loved music theory. I still do. But I needed a subject that could connect with other people. So I thought it should give the microbes another chance. Two years later, I'm a PhD student at UC Berkeley in the department of biology, and so is my new love interest Jane. Jane wears torn T shirts too. She is hot. The summer after that first year I am knee deep in Jane's riffle. Jane's riffle is a short stretch of the Eel River where Jane Does all her PhD research all about the algae chain adores the algae. And she's working on what controls how much algae you get in a river, is it the nutrients in the water is that the chemistry of the water, the pH of the water, the temperature of the water. But our favorite idea is that it's a food chain. It's the fish that eat the insects that eat the algae. And if you have enough fish that eat the insects and mow them down, then you'll have lots of algae. We waited through the water looking from plot to plot and I got to a plot with no fish looked in and the insects had mowed down the algae was just a tiny thing. They'd mowed it down like grad students on pizza. We got to a plot with the fish. And there were algae everywhere. This is called a trophic cascade. I love talking with Jane about trophic cascades and about the algae. And what's so great is that she loved talking with me about soil carbon and the microbes that live there the topic of my PhD research, I was looking at what happens with more co2 in the air. What happens to soil carbon. The big idea at the time was with more co2 in the air that's like more plant food the plants are gonna grow more and they're gonna put more carbon in the soil which would slow climate change. But my research showed that the extra carbon that gotten the soil, the microbes there ate it up and sent it back to the atmosphere as co2. We needed to know that we need to know that to make good predictions about what's going to happen with climate change. And to know what can we do in soil to make it take up more carbon in store it to slow climate change down. And I discovered in my PhD that moments of discovery like that were just as thrilling as finding meaning and deceptive cadence and Beethoven. But my qualifying exam was coming up Qualls. This is a rite of passage in the PhD, where you're in a dark basement room, no windows, and three intimidating overlords. I mean, professors ask you question after question after question until you whimper I don't know, I had to prepare. Jane had aced her calls. She knew a lot about ecology. So she asked me practice questions. Could predators in soil, promote soil carbon, like fish promote algal growth, could trophic cascades matter and soil my mind was blown.

And since then, for 30 years, we've been talking about science and theory and experiments and Jane's work in the water and my work in soil together making mud. And we're testing that trophic idea and soil now if we add predators to soil, well, we get more soil carbon slowing climate change. These experiments are happening right now we're harvesting one next week. I'm so grateful to be collaborating with scientists here and around the country who care so deeply about soil carbon, and the microbes that live there. We will keep refining the science to get it right. And I will keep refining the story. If you haven't noticed, this is a love story. Because I found someone who cares about the tiny details. And the stories they tell just as much as I do.

Allison Langer  12:22  
Oh, my gosh, okay. I love hearing Bruce's voice. And mostly because we went through this process together. We took hikes, and went back and forth, trying to take this from the page to the stage. This is not brief, you may have realized this, listening to him. So trying to get him to get this down to a short wait, wait,

Andrea Askowitz  12:50  
what first we had to take it from Bruce's brain to the page, then page to stage. This was a multi tiered process. Yeah, yeah, no,

Allison Langer  12:59  
no 100%. And it's funny because you did this for a long time with lip service stories out loud and stuff like that you you worked from the page to the stage. So you're familiar with landing endings, like you know, the last words, or last sentences of the paragraph or story or something like that, so that it has the most impact? Yeah,

Andrea Askowitz  13:21  
there's an out loud kind of tenant, which is land, your sentences, your paragraphs and your whole story on the strongest note, which Bruce does. Yeah,

Allison Langer  13:30  
but it didn't. It just doesn't always come naturally. Because we want to run on even when I'm yelling at my kids, like I should have ended it a long time ago. But I'm like,

Andrea Askowitz  13:40  
and another thing, right? Yeah, sure. So

Allison Langer  13:43  
it's like, really working. That takes work. And Bruce was willing to do the work. Oh, yes, he was. He just also has a presence. Like he's calm. He waits for the laughter He enjoys it. He's like, got the facial expressions. Like, it was so good. You really couldn't hear the audience laughing but they were cracking up. I mean, I did hear it a little bit. You can't hear it as well as it sounds like there were three people in the audience but the place was packed. True.

Andrea Askowitz  14:12  
It's true. The this the sound of the audience laughing isn't as big as it was in person. But I right now. And when we just listened to it, I really enjoyed hearing when people laughed and the laughter. I want to get to the end and talk about the end because the landing is so beautiful. And it's also a DIRECT address. And it also is sort of higher register. So he says, if you haven't noticed, this is a love story. I found someone who cares just as much as I do. And he built that case throughout. I felt him caring so so much about everything. Like I wrote mine. I wrote a note at the very beginning when he's talking about the desert varnish. He was so jazzed and then like so paragraph later, he's talking about being like deep into musicology and the symphony that tells a story. So first, it was like, environment tells the story. And then this, the symphony tells a story. And he's also lead. So into it. What Bruce did was Bruce told the love story. And then he snuck in this really important information about science, and how microbes and how carbon works in soil.

Allison Langer  15:27  
Well, do you remember when he first like started writing with us a couple years back, and he would like go off on these science, like, technical like descriptions and stories? And, and you and I were like, fuck is going on? How do we get this guy, you know, feedback on something we don't even understand.

Andrea Askowitz  15:47  
Yeah, he's dialed that back. But he's still so excited. Yes.

Allison Langer  15:50  
But the point here is that his main goal in coming to writing and writing with us and hiring us to come out there and do these things is because he wants mainstream people to understand the science behind climate change. And so his mission is so big. And now that I know it, and we're familiar with it. Now we've been able to help him bring that to the mainstream. And that's the whole beauty of this piece. It's so relatable, it's so understandable. And he's basically been able to dumb it down for us so that we can stop ruining the environment. Yeah, yeah.

Andrea Askowitz  16:30  
But overall, I'm, I'm saying that he's so in love with the discoveries that science that he makes in science, as he's so in love with Jane, because he now has someone that he can talk to about it. And they've been talking about this stuff for 30 years. Like her infatuation with water, and his infatuation with soil. I that line together making mud? Ah, they've made to my babies. I know.

Allison Langer  16:59  
Better now, you know, in their 20s Yeah. Their son played the piano just like bruised, like, out of the out of control, like Symphony type. Amazing performance, like these people are fucking brilliant. Can

Andrea Askowitz  17:13  
we just say that talent, whole family talent? Yeah, they are. So there were some things about the writing that I just thought were so good. The one thing that you just already mentioned, which is how he dumbed down the science in a way that made me understand it, but also Okay, when he's there with Clarissa and he's going on and on and Larissa, Clarissa, and what's Larissa? Know, it's Kurt Correct? Oh, it's correct, that there's no L at all.

Allison Langer  17:40  
That was Larissa. Karissa, well, something was wrong. Okay. You're right. Karissa, you're right. Correct.

Andrea Askowitz  17:46  
So he's going on and on about Karissa. And he's talking about, I noticed it before he noticed it, which made me so when he noticed that it was so satisfying. So he's, he's talking about how, like, the piece of music doesn't resolve. It just keeps going. And I'm thinking Good Lord, he just keeps going. And then he was like, and then I kept going. And I thought that was just such good writing because that was deliberate. He knew that he was going, going, going, you know

Allison Langer  18:10  
why we forgot her name because now we are in love with Jane and who gives a fuck about? Karissa? Yeah, exactly.

Andrea Askowitz  18:15  
You're right. And also, he couldn't connect with Karissa, because she was not even interested.

Allison Langer  18:21  
Because she wasn't Jane. Okay. Yeah, I know. Just didn't know it yet.

Andrea Askowitz  18:25  
Thank God for Karissa, because Karissa, just like he, there was that moment where he said if I couldn't connect with Karissa through music theory, how can I connect with other people? This guy is like connector connector to the core. He's like, reminds me of Zeus my dog.

Allison Langer  18:43  
You just compared brace to your dog? No, I

Andrea Askowitz  18:46  
mean, well, because he like wants to be so connected. And I I identify with my dog to I'm sorry, Bruce. I didn't mean to, you know, doggy down. Okay. What about this? What about this sign? Jane? Where's torn T shirts too. So cute. Yeah, and that was a callback.

Allison Langer  19:10  
Love it. Oh, yeah. Thanks

Andrea Askowitz  19:13  
for explain. A callback is when the narrator set something up earlier in a story and then brings it back. So we already know what what the significance of a T F torn T shirts are. When he tells us that Jane also wears torn T shirts. The line that didn't land for some reason is being knee deep in Jane's referral. I think because people don't know what referrals are. I

Allison Langer  19:39  
know it. The referral explanation came later. And if it had been explained prior and then he was knee deep. Yeah, that's a good comment.

Andrea Askowitz  19:48  
That's our bad. That's an editor's mistake. Dang it. Because I just thought that line was so funny. But that's because I already knew what a referral was when it was coming up. But yeah, you're right. Yeah. didn't know it. Anyway trophic cascade, he loved talking to Jane about trophic cascades. Now we're like in love with Jane.

Allison Langer  20:08  
I know, God, anyone who will sit through a trophic cascade over and over?

Andrea Askowitz  20:14  
Well, Jean was the one who was into trophic cascades. And so right, it was her science, but then that now is being applied to his

Allison Langer  20:23  
right, which I thought was really cool. When he explained that to us on our hike, I was like, that's really brilliant, that they were able to he was able to like, oh, wait a minute, if it works for this, maybe it'll work for this. I thought that was really cool. But

Andrea Askowitz  20:36  
anyway, I just hope that our listener can understand I think they can what it means when our narrator says trophic cascade,

Allison Langer  20:44  
it's like this. We're both doing our hands the way he did them. To us. It's true. It's

Andrea Askowitz  20:49  
like this different levels, this animal eats this and causes this reaction. Well, I am very impressed with how we learned exactly what perfect cascades mean. And the way this narrator explained it to us so brilliantly, and simply.

Allison Langer  21:11  
So question for you. Have you done anything different? Like environmentally since you know, since we left Flagstaff, like has this made an impact on you? Like, all the stories that we heard? I

Andrea Askowitz  21:24  
don't like this question, because it kind of breaks my heart. I've noticed over and over again, how like, difficult it is for people around me to do the simplest things. And I don't mean to like call out other people and not call out myself. I was just at my brother's house the other day, and I was pulling plastic out of the garbage, plastic bottles like why can't you fucking recycle people? Well,

Allison Langer  21:48  
I have a better idea. Why are we still producing plastic bottles, if they're there, we're going to do it. So that's the problem. I just think that we if we cared about our world, we would stop that. I agree, it's impossible to get people to change their behaviors. But it's not even just that. It's like driving, flying, all those things. It takes such fuel, but it's there. And if it's there, we're going to use it. And so I feel like we have to tackle this stuff at the bottom. And but people who are making the laws really actually have to listen to the scientists and start believing. And the whole point of this whole project is to start to be able for the society and the community in the world and all the proper people to start believing the scientist, one scientist at a time, because I think people think it's bullshit. And it's not. Some

Andrea Askowitz  22:43  
people do. A lot of people do. What I think Bruce did is Bruce, in the most basic sense, personalized his science story, because he cares about science in the way that he cares about connecting. That's why he cares about all of this.

Allison Langer  23:01  
And that's the importance of personalizing stories so that people understand and listen and hear. And I do think that that is the way to get through to the politicians to the legislature, and all the people that are making the rules to the public. Yeah, and to the public. So let's keep at it. Yep.

Andrea Askowitz  23:19  
Thank you, Bruce, for sharing your story.

Allison Langer  23:23  
And thank you story collider for collaborating with all of us. and NAU Of course, as well and thank you guys for listening.

Writing class radio is hosted by me Alison Langer and me Andrei Askowitz, audio production by Matt Cundill Evan Surminski,, Chloe Emond-Lane, and Aiden Glassey at the Sound Off Media Company. The music is by Justina Shandler. There's more writing class on our website including stories we study editing resources, video classes, writing retreats, and live online classes. If you want to write with us every week, or if you're a business owner, community activist group that needs healing entrepreneur scientist are you want to help your team write better check out all the classes we offer on our website writing class radio.com. Join the community that comes together for instruction and excuse to write in the support from other writers to learn more, go to our website or patreon.com/writing class radio. A new episode will drop every other Wednesday. There's no better way to understand ourselves and each other than by writing and sharing our stories. Everyone has a story. What's yours? 

Tara Sands (Voiceover)  24:46  
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