Hello, everyone, and welcome to Talk Nerdy. Today is Monday, October 20th, 2025,

and I'm the host of the show, Dr. Kara, Santa Maria. And as always, I want to

thank those of you who make Talk Nerdy possible. Remember, Talk Nerdyism will always be free to

download. And the way we keep this show going, the way that we pay those who need to be paid,

is by relying on the support of individuals

just like you. This week's top supporters include Chuck Blev, David J.E. Smith, Daniel Lang,

Mary Neva, Joseph Lemore, Anu Baravage, David Compton, Brian Holden, Gabrielle F. Haramio,

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I'm so sorry about that.

So whenever I scroll, it always sneaks up on me.

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talk nerdy to learn more. All right, let's get into it. This week, I had the opportunity to interview

someone who was on this show, I think four years ago now. Dr. Anisa Ramirez was here previously to talk about a book that she had written called The Alchemy of Us.

She is a material scientist, but also a prolific science communicator.

And she, you know, she started at Bell Labs after she did her PhD in

material science and engineering from Stanford. And after Bell Laboratory, she moved on to work as

an associate professor of mechanical engineering at Yale. Since then, she has written two books. We're going to be talking about her newest one now

and co-authored another and written for a bunch of different outlets that you probably read

regularly, like Forbes and Time in the Atlantic and Siam. And she's done a lot of media appearances,

too, from CNN to NPR to PBS and many more.

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