YouSaid · the spoken record

Jonathan Reisman

lines on the record: 155
first: 2022-06-25
most recent: 2022-06-25
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“I do wonder if asking why is sort of an evolutionary adaptation like, um, Maybe hunting gathering, why does this plant grow there and not there? Why do I see the same deer tracks and by the same tree every three days? Why is this? Why is that? Why does this plant make me vomit and that plant doesn't? I guess those whys are very practical and oriented towards survival. But then obviously, you know, we not only use why, you know, we use it to maybe hunt better, gather better, survive better, but then we sort of extrapolate it into these unanswerable questions, you know, about why, like why does life exist?”
2022-06-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #297 – Jonathan Reisman: The Human Body – From Sex & Sperm to Hands & Heart · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Sometimes probably more often than not feel like the question of why is a trick of the human brain. And outside of our thoughts there is no why. Why is not something that's in the universe? It's just this trick happening inside our brain.”
2022-06-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #297 – Jonathan Reisman: The Human Body – From Sex & Sperm to Hands & Heart · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Right. Never forgetting the anniversary of their death. You know, just having flashbacks or something reminding you. That sort of brought home to me sort of what death means. And it was more about what people leave behind than what happens to them specifically.”
2022-06-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #297 – Jonathan Reisman: The Human Body – From Sex & Sperm to Hands & Heart · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Not always being able to prevent it. It was sort of a scientific exploration. Then the patient's family comes in and are just devastated. And then it's like rips you out of this scientific perspective and you just realize how horrible death is. But the person's fine. You know, it's the family, I guess. And that's why I guess that pointed out just how what people leave behind is often kind of the horribleness of death. becoming unconscious and staying that way doesn't seem I guess to me personally so bad sort of like going to sleep not waking up not counting the pain and stuff that precedes it”
2022-06-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #297 – Jonathan Reisman: The Human Body – From Sex & Sperm to Hands & Heart · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“When I was a medical student, I was particularly fascinated with kind of what actually happens as people die, like in the last minute, seconds of life. It's sort of surprising sometimes what actually kills people. You can get, let's say, a bad head injury and, you know, what kills you. Sometimes it's just your consciousness decreases and you become kind of comatose. You aspirate your oxygen plummets and you get cardiac arrest. that kind of sequence of events or a heroin overdose let's say you stop breathing similarly your oxygen goes down then you get a cardiac arrest so i was i was really fascinated with what actually happens what makes people die and it was sort of a morbid fascination obviously like most of med school is and i had many instances where i've had patients pass um and as a medical student i was sort of sort of learning what's actually happening watching it happen and you know”
2022-06-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #297 – Jonathan Reisman: The Human Body – From Sex & Sperm to Hands & Heart · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Disability insurance, that's not related to death, but more just injuries. And that's part of the weight, I guess, that, you know, you feel as an adult that I think grows rapidly when you have kids, though not only, you know, there's other people you can care for, your own parents and loved ones, like a lot of people depend on individuals. And so you think about what will happen to the other people when you die.”
2022-06-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #297 – Jonathan Reisman: The Human Body – From Sex & Sperm to Hands & Heart · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Definitely thought about it, especially maybe while doing certain risky things, ice climbing and others where every time I look down, I thought about my own death. But I think having kids changes the equation for sure should change the equation perhaps. So I think a lot of now when I think about what will happen when I die, you know, there's a lot of worrying about what will happen to the people I care for. You think about things like insurance policy, life insurance and, you know.”
2022-06-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #297 – Jonathan Reisman: The Human Body – From Sex & Sperm to Hands & Heart · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Life is a motherfucker, as you said. It's really harder. I think as a kid, you know, in a joy free childhood, you don't realize I'm obviously there's a ton you don't realize about life. But then when you get to be an adult, you realize just how complex and hard it is. Is it this hard for adult animals? I don't know. I don't think it is.”
2022-06-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #297 – Jonathan Reisman: The Human Body – From Sex & Sperm to Hands & Heart · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Hopelessness is kind of one of the big suicide risk factors that you sort of ask about as a doctor, you know, do you feel hopeless? And that sort of can be a harbinger.”
2022-06-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #297 – Jonathan Reisman: The Human Body – From Sex & Sperm to Hands & Heart · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know what I mean? Yes, you can improve diet and health and your life choices and seek out your passion and exercise. And those definitely will help. But sometimes just like, you know, you bear the scars of the past and there's no getting rid of them.”
2022-06-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #297 – Jonathan Reisman: The Human Body – From Sex & Sperm to Hands & Heart · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Do you think also past trauma plays a big role there, like we talked about war wounds and PTSD? And a lot of people grew up, I mean, with just horrific childhoods, they were abused in one way or another. And I think a lot of people who have, not a major, I'm not saying a majority, but a lot of people, for instance, who I see in the ER coming in for threatening suicide or actually trying and failing and being brought to the ER, you know, a lot of them just have really traumatic experiences, saw their parent commit suicide, were abused. You know, these leave scars in the human brain and mind. And a lot of their subsequent lives of whether it's substance abuse, alcoholism, et cetera, is almost trying to escape from their own memories. And it's sort of such this overwhelming battle sometimes. Like sometimes people get ruined, it seems, and just can't be fixed.”
2022-06-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #297 – Jonathan Reisman: The Human Body – From Sex & Sperm to Hands & Heart · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's a very good question. I would say I haven't had as dark moments as many of the people who I care for in the emergency room. I'm fortunate in that way. I've had a pretty enjoyable, satisfying life. You know, I think everybody has dark moments, though, including me. One of the most shocking things I feel like becoming an adult, my two big realizations have been one, no one knows what they're doing, and two, suicide is incredibly common, like in all humans and all societies. That I just find shocking. I mean, I've never seriously contemplated myself, but I wouldn't say it hasn't crossed my mind during some more stressful times of life. I think it crosses everyone's mind. And sort of as a kid, I found that I never would have guessed how common suicide is.”
2022-06-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #297 – Jonathan Reisman: The Human Body – From Sex & Sperm to Hands & Heart · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But I think those opportunities sort of lend themselves well as a doctor with kind of the ability to go there and sort of help patients, but also teach medical students and residents. Teaching is actually a huge part of being a doctor that's underappreciated, but that's actually part of the fun of being a doctor is that you're also a teacher. Of course, the word doctor means teacher, but it's come to mean something else. In some of my jobs, I'm working alongside medical students and residents, and I'm giving them my knowledge, my wisdom, sharing with them stories. And so that's a very satisfying part of the job.”
2022-06-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #297 – Jonathan Reisman: The Human Body – From Sex & Sperm to Hands & Heart · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I have some colleagues who do kind of global health work in various countries in Africa and Central and South America. I would really love to go to some of those places, not just for a short trip, but hopefully for an extended period of time with sort of the healthcare being the ticket in, but then maybe even bringing my children or just, you know, I guess at this point some of the travel I dream about is sort of replicating what I did and showing it to my kids in a way. But there's still a lot I haven't seen and would love to see as well.”
2022-06-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #297 – Jonathan Reisman: The Human Body – From Sex & Sperm to Hands & Heart · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I think the plan could be specific or could be as general as I just want to go far away and see something very different. That's my plan. One line. Just followed my nose from one thing to the next, just being interested, following my passion, and again, very fortunate I could do that.”
2022-06-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #297 – Jonathan Reisman: The Human Body – From Sex & Sperm to Hands & Heart · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Uncomfortable floor. It's just like this is so amazing. And that I don't think I'll ever have another travel as meaningful and life changing as that particular triptych in Chatka was, though I'm still striving after it. You never replicate that first high, but you always try. So I just think that seeing something different is kind of the game.”
2022-06-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #297 – Jonathan Reisman: The Human Body – From Sex & Sperm to Hands & Heart · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Think it was a combination of things. One was just The suburbs, you know, when you're in high school, you hate them. Later on, they don't seem so bad. But, you know, I just wanted to get, I mean, I'm very fortunate how I was raised and never wanted for anything that wasn't rich. But just to get out and see a different place, a different people with a different culture and history and language and literature and to see different climates and geographies and ecosystems. I just wanted to see something different. And that I guess that's what I've sought after ever since. So just that was just so fascinating. Like my trip to Kamchatka in 2003 where I was there for four months and I didn't speak English for I think two months out of it. And just I remember lying on the floor, some wooden floor in a hunter's cabin in the middle of northern Kamchatka just being like, what am I doing here? I'm just so grateful for like the experiences I was having, what I was seeing and realizing and learning. I was so grateful, even though I was lying on this horizontal.”
2022-06-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #297 – Jonathan Reisman: The Human Body – From Sex & Sperm to Hands & Heart · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“This patient just doesn't look good. And it's sort of you can't point to a number, a value, a level in their blood, you know, a test, but something about them. And a lot of that, I think, has to do with the color of their skin, believe it or not, which can change in certain disease states. But I think that it's just medicine combines this observation, the skills, the knowledge, it's art and science, it's human, and it's robotic, you know, algorithmic at the same time. And I think it just combines kind of all my passions all in one. And I would, you know, if anyone's going into healthcare, I'd strongly encourage them to do so. But I'm very biased.”
2022-06-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #297 – Jonathan Reisman: The Human Body – From Sex & Sperm to Hands & Heart · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Problem solving being a detective while also working with your hands when you do procedures, especially in the ER, it's sort of the perfect combination. I'm not a surgeon, but I do use my hands quite a bit. for a variety of reasons. And so I always loved working with my hands. I loved crafts, especially prehistoric crafts before medical school. And I just love kind of problem solving, getting clues, figuring out what's going on, you know, following your nose, using your instincts, your knowledge, and also just keen observation of the patient after seeing patient after patient, hundreds of patients, maybe thousands over years, you do get this sort of innate kind of sense, this gest about what might be going on. And, you know, it's not always a numbers thing. That's the thing. There's always dalt is actually a big part of medicine. You know, you often in ERs or in hospitals hear a nurse or doctor say something like,”
2022-06-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #297 – Jonathan Reisman: The Human Body – From Sex & Sperm to Hands & Heart · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I think having passion, which isn't always a voluntary thing, you know, you just have it or you don't perhaps, but becoming passionate about something and following it wherever it takes you, I think is really important. I finished college and sort of went to Russia for the first time. That was in some ways the beginning of my whole career and passions in my life. I didn't know what I was going for, what was going to happen, what kind of career it would turn into, what kind of job would it help me get when I got back? I wasn't thinking about any of that. I'm very fortunate I got that opportunity. I was very fortunate to, you know, be able to go and see those places and have my mind opened. And I think that really just the fuel from that passion that was created during that time is still 20 years later going strong. You know, I'm partial to health care. I love being a doctor. I think it's the perfect combination of kind of intellectual.”
2022-06-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #297 – Jonathan Reisman: The Human Body – From Sex & Sperm to Hands & Heart · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“People are asking you for help. That's basically what every patient interaction is. Someone's asking you for help. So your inclination is to help them. And even if it means going above and beyond, you know, I mean, a lot of factors affect how compassionate a doctor might be in any given day or point in their career, their own stress and burnout, et cetera. But it's someone asking you for help. And so you do what you can to help them.”
2022-06-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #297 – Jonathan Reisman: The Human Body – From Sex & Sperm to Hands & Heart · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And that's good. You know, we shouldn't forget that 100 year old treatments could save lives in parts of the world where they're just not available.”
2022-06-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #297 – Jonathan Reisman: The Human Body – From Sex & Sperm to Hands & Heart · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They need is oral rehydration solutions to stay hydrated. You know, most of them can't afford IV fluids, for instance, to get admitted to the hospital and really dehydration just kills hundreds of thousands of kids throughout the world, not to mention bacterial pneumonia also is a major cause of death in children under five. And many of them, not all, would be saved by amoxicillin, which is just pennies. And for me, I took a had a path and I wanted to have a career in global health. And I started traveling abroad to India and elsewhere when I was a medical student and continued doing that. Paul Farmer was sort of one of the first to kind of open everyone's eyes, I think, about the good you can do with just money that we would change that we would throw away, just, you know, put in a person, forget it or wherever we could accumulate change these days. So that's very eye-opening. And while medical science advances,”
2022-06-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #297 – Jonathan Reisman: The Human Body – From Sex & Sperm to Hands & Heart · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I think he was just so a zealot for getting health care to some of the poorest people in the world. And he, I remember reading some of his books and a book about him by Tracy Kidder that's really great, Mountains Beyond Mountains, about how even when he was a medical student, he was flying back and forth to Haiti in between exams and just with this really intense focus and interest in getting healthcare to where it's not. And I think traveling around the world, especially to poorer places like India, Calcutta, Nepal, you really see how unevenly the benefits of modern medicine are spread over the surface of the earth. Not only if you're, because if you're an Antarctica and have a heart attack, you're in serious trouble. But, you know, just medications that cost pennies a day can help people. A lot of children in India under five die of diarrhea.”
2022-06-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #297 – Jonathan Reisman: The Human Body – From Sex & Sperm to Hands & Heart · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So Paul Farmer was a kind of pioneer of global health. He started partners in health, which is a kind of an international health organization that operates originally in Haiti, also Rwanda and elsewhere.”
2022-06-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #297 – Jonathan Reisman: The Human Body – From Sex & Sperm to Hands & Heart · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Is humbling, and it's important. I think doctors sometimes lose that humble perspective on what they do. And I think it's very important because, as I said, medical history is just medical dogma has been tossed into the trash bin so many times, something doctors were sure of was the case is not. And it's important to be cognizant of that.”
2022-06-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #297 – Jonathan Reisman: The Human Body – From Sex & Sperm to Hands & Heart · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Obviously, you put a stent, you increase blood flow to the heart. How could that not work? But then when they did the sham catheterization, it actually looks like it might not actually help better than the sham. So I think those placebo-controlled studies are essential. I mean, it is shocking, and this has been driven home during the last two years, how hard it is to figure out what the hell's going on in the universe and especially with our bodies. Like it is really hard to get at the truth and what you think makes sense, like often turns out. I mean, the history of modern medicine is littered with examples where it made perfect sense and it seemed to help some patients, and it turns out it's not doing anything or it's harmful.”
2022-06-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #297 – Jonathan Reisman: The Human Body – From Sex & Sperm to Hands & Heart · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The study and some of the most interesting experiments involve what we call sham surgery. So for instance, people who injure their knee, you know, arthroscopy where an orthopedic surgeon goes in there with a scope, gets bits of bone out, shaves down the cartilage, you know, cleans things up, and it helps some people. But they actually did some studies where one group of people got the true arthroscopy and others just got sham surgery where they put them to sleep, made little cuts in the skin so they woke up with scars. And then it turned out that it's not clear arthroscopy is actually helping. And the same, there was a recent huge study of doing putting a stent in someone's coronary arteries if they have stable chest pain. Not like I'm having a heart attack. You need a stent like right then. But, you know, kind of chronic coronary artery disease where every time I run up the stairs I get chest pain and then when I rest it goes away.”
2022-06-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #297 – Jonathan Reisman: The Human Body – From Sex & Sperm to Hands & Heart · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Do a lot of harm. I mean, hopefully not intentionally. You know, even medical errors are still a huge problem cause of death and morbidity. So we do a lot of things that are not great. But, you know, our knowledge, yeah, it's very imperfect at this point. I do have some confidence. You know, I guess perfect scientific studies that try to get at the reality of the universe are essential. Because when I think of why a certain medication works for a certain condition, it might make perfect sense in my head knowing the biology, the biochemistry, the anatomy. It makes perfect sense. It must work. I gave it to the patient. They got better, and that's happened 20 times in the last year. But I'm wrong. Like when you actually do a study, it actually doesn't help. Maybe it hurts. And that's really, I think the way we explain medications working in our minds is often wrong when you end up finally doing.”
2022-06-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #297 – Jonathan Reisman: The Human Body – From Sex & Sperm to Hands & Heart · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That was, you know, bloodletting was a huge part of medical care. You know, George Washington died of a peritonsular abscess, an abscess right next to the tonsil, which has the great name of Quincy. And they blight him to death. kind of adding insult to injury. Doctors are a menace.”
2022-06-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #297 – Jonathan Reisman: The Human Body – From Sex & Sperm to Hands & Heart · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Right, there's a saying actually by the time you finish med school, half of what you learned is wrong, which is quite illustrative. Becoming more true as time goes on, you know, so much medical research going on, so much learning going on is really wonderful in a way. But in some ways, we still learn these concepts from the past. And I know when you take a test as a medical student, sometimes you know they want to ask you to give the old answer, but you know there's a new answer because of recent science, but you know to give the old answer, that's now incorrect to get the question right on the test. That happens actually quite a bit because things change so quickly. Yeah, you know, when I look back at doctors,”
2022-06-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #297 – Jonathan Reisman: The Human Body – From Sex & Sperm to Hands & Heart · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“paralyzing OCD, not just like I want to wash my hands three times. And so I think the potential is there, but I guess connecting the brain in a microscopic way in sort of a multifaceted way. You know, there needs to be sort of a million connections or some very high number of connections for them to work fluidly. As far as I know, I'm not an expert in the area.”
2022-06-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #297 – Jonathan Reisman: The Human Body – From Sex & Sperm to Hands & Heart · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think it's definitely feasible. I think we need to probably know more than we do and know how to connect it in all these ways. I think some advances, for instance, much less sexy, but really already impacting medical care is something called deep brain stimulation, which is done for Parkinson's disease and others where neurosurgeons implant this device that's electrically stimulates the part of the brain that is not functioning in Parkinson's disease. And it's quite dramatic how effective it works. And I remember as a med student watching a neurologist literally like turn the electricity up on this handheld thing and you could see the person's Parkinson tremor go away and you could see them start to walk in a more steady fashion. And I know there's studies, there's actually studies, or there may be studies in the future studying the same deep brain stimulation for everything from eating disorders to”
2022-06-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #297 – Jonathan Reisman: The Human Body – From Sex & Sperm to Hands & Heart · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Take the right shape and position and start functioning. I think that's been a huge advance knowing that it's not just these celebrity stem cells that are the answer. It's this kind of part in the background, this sort of just like laying the foundation, the system that you put these cells onto. And we're not there yet, but there's definitely a lot happening, a lot of research happening. And I think there'll be some advances probably soon.”
2022-06-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #297 – Jonathan Reisman: The Human Body – From Sex & Sperm to Hands & Heart · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think it's very hard, and we definitely haven't gotten there yet. I think we could probably learn lessons from people who are trying to grow artificial organs in the lab to eventually, you know, transplant into people, which would solve the huge problem of needing to get those organs from others and, you know, the rejection of putting a foreign material inside your body, your immune system tends not to like that. That has advanced a lot recently. Some advances actually have been where we pay a lot of attention to stem cells, stem cell, stem cells. We can grow whatever we want out of stem cells, but now there's sort of a recognition that what we call the extracellular matrix, which is sort of the foundation of the body, the thing that holds all the cells into their proper shape and keeps them where they should be, that is actually crucial. And there's probably a lot of signaling that goes on. Like you stick a stem cell on the right extracellular matrix. It will turn into the kind of cell that you want.”
2022-06-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #297 – Jonathan Reisman: The Human Body – From Sex & Sperm to Hands & Heart · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Right. It does feel like a big step. I think there's more connection than you think. You know, we talked about symmetry of the body earlier. That is a real thing. You know, fluid dynamics of how our various bodily fluids flow and what makes them not flow as well and what makes them flow better. All these different aspects of science go into the body. Everything from hard bone to softer kind of flesh to liquids of various consistencies. You know, a lot of science and math does teach you about kind of how the body works, how it can work better, what happens in sort of disease states.”
2022-06-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #297 – Jonathan Reisman: The Human Body – From Sex & Sperm to Hands & Heart · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The first plants and knowing what's edible, what's not. That was totally fascinating and sort of this kind of thing that I felt like was connecting me to nature and it was balanced with this utterly abstract science, you know, or utterly abstract lessons I was getting in math class where I was thinking through series, you know, as we approach infinity, what happens to these equations and concepts of like rings and abstract algebra. I don't know. It was just this dichotomy that I enjoyed both aspects of.”
2022-06-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #297 – Jonathan Reisman: The Human Body – From Sex & Sperm to Hands & Heart · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I liked math. I especially liked college math. I did some calculus in high school. When I got to college math, I was amazed that there were no more numbers. You know, the digits disappeared. It was just variables, concepts. You know, there was almost no more numbers at all. It was like this totally abstract kind of way of thinking. But that sort of reflects the natural world and teaches you about the natural world, though it's sort of this perfect, you know, platonic ideal, perhaps, of the natural world that can still sort of help explain what happens in the natural world. But just these concepts are so abstract from life and from, you know, the natural world. And I was actually getting interested in the natural world at the same time when I was at NYU studying math. You know, I took a tour of Central Park that was pointing, the guy Steve Brill was pointing out these wild edible plants. And I was learning to identify.”
2022-06-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #297 – Jonathan Reisman: The Human Body – From Sex & Sperm to Hands & Heart · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The geometry alone is amazing. I studied math as an undergrad and I've always appreciated geometry. And just the shapes alone just look like brilliant works of modernist art. And just obviously no two are ever the same. Not to mention a lot of them are this unearthly blue color that is just really startling and fascinating. The same color of glaciers in various parts of the world. That blue color is just really amazing. And I also just love how it's sort of this constant shedding from our Antarctic continent, from Greenland. You know, it's this constant process of snow falling inland and pushing the glaciers further out to sea and then breaking loose. I mean, obviously, it seems to be happening faster these days, but it's sort of this constant shedding and sort of, I always like thinking about how the body has something similar. You know, we're constantly shedding and renewing and rebuilding everything.”
2022-06-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #297 – Jonathan Reisman: The Human Body – From Sex & Sperm to Hands & Heart · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“A few things. One is just the shapes that you see, you know, the wave action, just eating away at these pieces of ice. You get these arches and just these shapes. I mean, it's just like...”
2022-06-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #297 – Jonathan Reisman: The Human Body – From Sex & Sperm to Hands & Heart · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I would say I'm Antarctica, I would say, is one of the most picturesque places I've ever been. I really did not, I didn't know how mountainous it was. And I guess I knew there'd be ice, but just I didn't know how much ice it was. You know, it's ice and mountains just overwhelming. I just, you know, as kind of overwhelming bone marrow might seem to you, sort of that feast for your eyes. And just ice in general is amazing. Like the icebergs floating around Antarctica is just astounding. Like the different shapes, the sizes are incredible. There's actually a, I believe it's U.S. Navy website that tracks the largest icebergs, and you can read about each of them and how big they are and just the formations you see similar up near Greenland, though I have not been to Greenland. Just ice in general is just amazing. So I could just look at its different forms while eating bone and marrow forever until you kill me.”
2022-06-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #297 – Jonathan Reisman: The Human Body – From Sex & Sperm to Hands & Heart · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, if you start from the whole animal, you do have to work to get at it, right? A lot of animals have the teeth and the jaw muscles to chomp through bone. We do not. So, you know, when you buy it from the store, it's already sawed up, but I've definitely gotten marrow at a deer bones with a hatchet. Just chop off. Chop off the fat end and start spooning it out.”
2022-06-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #297 – Jonathan Reisman: The Human Body – From Sex & Sperm to Hands & Heart · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I would say the most delicious thing is bone marrow, and I would love a full meal of bone marrow for my last dish. I did on my birthday in two thousand two eight a kilogram and a half of crab meat in Kumchatka, and that was also amazingly delicious. The king crab they have there is incredible. But I would go with bone marrow, which is, I think, just one of the most delicious foods. And sort of this weird body part, you know, it's basically all your stem cells, not all of them, but the stem cells that produce all your blood cells. So they are spitting out billions of white blood cells, red blood cells, and platelets every day. And there's a bunch of fat in there as well, just one of the places the body stores fat. And so you basically add heat, and that's all you need. It's like the perfect food. You add heat, the fat for frying the stem cells is already there. There's naturally a bone vessel to contain it all. Probably add some flavor to it.”
2022-06-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #297 – Jonathan Reisman: The Human Body – From Sex & Sperm to Hands & Heart · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I would love to go to Mars. And actually, I practice high altitude medicine in Nepal. Space medicine is sort of an extension of that. You know, the air is just much thinner, like non existent. As you go higher in the mountains, the things that happen to human physiology are very bizarre and strange and still not well explained by science. And in space, it's just like a crazy extension of high altitude.”
2022-06-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #297 – Jonathan Reisman: The Human Body – From Sex & Sperm to Hands & Heart · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It would definitely be amazing. I think because I have a wife and two small children, probably not in the cards for me at this point. But”
2022-06-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #297 – Jonathan Reisman: The Human Body – From Sex & Sperm to Hands & Heart · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It beforehand, even though it was not diseased at all, just so that while they're stuck in Antarctica over the winter, for instance, that wouldn't be a problem. You know, there's many other issues that can arise. But so those are some decisions to make. Maybe the people who go into Mars should have their appendix removed, their gallbladder removed. Maybe they should have a cardiac cath to see if they have coronary artery disease just to know their chances of getting a heart attack there, though it's not always predictive. It's hard to predict who's going to get a heart attack. Maybe with all the data around today, we'll get better at predicting. But that will be a huge part. We can't have people, the few pioneers in a Mars colony dying of heart attacks and things like that.”
2022-06-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #297 – Jonathan Reisman: The Human Body – From Sex & Sperm to Hands & Heart · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think the healthcare that is needed will be a big part of that. Obviously, we're probably going to send overall quite healthy people. But there's a lot of medical decisions to make about what should be brought, what should be expected. To some extent, I've had a lot of doctors say, oh my goodness, I can't believe you work in the middle of nowhere. What do you do if someone gets a brain bleed, like falls, hits their head, needs a neurosurgeon? I mean, the obvious answer is they die. When you're in the middle of Antarctica, things kill you that wouldn't if you're inside a university hospital that's fully equipped to help with every problem that arises. Mars takes that to a crazy extreme, obviously. I know that even going to Antarctica, different countries have had different strategies. I believe it was Australia used to kind of just in anticipation remove people's gallbladders just so that it wouldn't get inflamed because that is a very common medical emergency. So they would just remove.”
2022-06-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #297 – Jonathan Reisman: The Human Body – From Sex & Sperm to Hands & Heart · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In the middle of nowhere, and all you have is the medications there on the ship and supplies and your knowledge and experience. And so it's a very different experience than working in a high-tech modern hospital with every bit of technology and every subspecialist consultant available. But I sort of like that challenge. I mean, I like going to the ends of the earth. It's beautiful. It's exciting. It's fascinating. Practicing medicine in those settings is extra challenging and really makes you hone some of your skills, which is part of the reason that I sought them out.”
2022-06-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #297 – Jonathan Reisman: The Human Body – From Sex & Sperm to Hands & Heart · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“As I said, I had cabinets, not just one cabinet, many cabinets full of medications, both injectable, some patches, some pills. I was very impressed, actually, with what was available there. And I didn't have to use a lot of it, thankfully, though I did use some of it for people. And I slept free room and board on the ship. So every southern summer, cruise ships go take people to Antarctica, the southern Atlantic Islands like the Falklands and other parts of the South Pacific. And then in the northern summer, the same kind of cruise ship explosion happens, you know, going to Greenland and Iceland and Svalbard and Franz Josephland and other parts of the North Alaska. And every ship needs a doctor. So it's a great opportunity. They want specifically ER doctors to deal with emergencies. But you're really working.”
2022-06-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #297 – Jonathan Reisman: The Human Body – From Sex & Sperm to Hands & Heart · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Think the medical kit possibilities were much narrower back then. You know, this was before antibiotics, before I think germ theory might have been, it was known, but there wasn't much to do about it. The availability of medicines, I mean, that's something that exploded over the course of the 20th century. So what I can put in a backpack today filled with modern medications, whether injectable or to be taken orally is, you know, just many orders of magnitude greater than what they had back then. So when I went, my expedition was nothing like Shackleton's. I was on a huge cruise ship with 160 Japanese passengers who came with their own translators.”
2022-06-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #297 – Jonathan Reisman: The Human Body – From Sex & Sperm to Hands & Heart · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source