You and Betty and the Nancy's and Bill's and Joes and Jane's will find in the study of science

a richer, more rewarding life.

Welcome to Inquiring Minds. I'm Indravis Gontas.

This is a podcast that explores the space where science and society collide.

We want to find out what's true, what's left to discover, and why it matters.

So this past summer, I directed an opera for West Edge Opera at the Calshakes Theater in Arenda in the Berkeley Hills. And after the opera,

I got a really nice note from a couple that had been there saying that they had enjoyed it.

And also that like me, they have a background in science. So what does one do? Well, of course,

I googled them. And I discovered John and Lois Crow, who worked as a

research team for many years at UC Davis and helped UC Davis become one of the top-rated

biological science programs in the nation. And then I learned more about what they did.

It turns out the two of them are best known

for their pioneering work towards understanding how some organisms survive extreme drying or extreme

dehydration. And specifically, how a simple sugar called Trialos works to preserve an animal or an organism

such that when it does have access to water, it can essentially revive itself.

So this is the stuff of science fiction, particularly you might have heard about this process

in the cute little animals called tardy grades. And so this brought up so many

questions in my head about what it means to be alive, whether a dried out tardy grade is alive,

if it doesn't actually have any kind of metabolism or activity. And yet, if you rehydrate it, it seems to be

just fine. So I was really excited to bring John and Lois Crow onto Inquiring Minds to talk

about their seminal work on tree halos and dehydration.

John and Lois Crow, welcome to inquiring minds.

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