Episode 70 features Dr. Yanas Kisten, a marine biologist by day and the force behind Geekoscopy by night.
We discuss how academia and his other passions led to Geekoscopy, what it’s like working within academia, being a marine biologist what he thought it would be versus the reality, content creation, writing academic papers, science communication, and much much more.
Throughout the conversation, we discuss:
- Evolution of Geekoscopy
- Science Communication
- Academia
- Earning a PhD
- Creating Content
- Marine Biology
- Academic Papers
- Burnout
- Making science accessible
- New formats
- Adaptations
- Transferable skillsets
- And much more
Mentioned and Helpful Links from This Episode
Music created and provided by Henno Heitur of Monkey Tongue Productions.
–End Show Notes Transmission–
–Begin Transcription–
00:00:00:03 – 00:00:21:29
Agent Palmer
Previously on agent Palmer dot com. In a three network world, always be the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. Burn notices Michael Westen deserves a seat at the Best Buy table, and Jennifer has inspired me to get my coffee networking brewing again. This is The Palmer Files episode 70 with Dr. Yanas Kisten, a marine biologist by day and the force behind Geekoscopy by Night.
00:00:21:31 – 00:01:08:42
Agent Palmer
We discuss how academia and his other passions led to Geekoscopy. What it’s like working within academia. The reality of being a marine biologist, and what he thought it would be. Content creation, writing, academic papers, science, communication, and much, much more. Are you ready? Let’s do the show.
00:01:08:46 – 00:01:32:46
Agent Palmer
Please. Hello and welcome to the Palmer Files. I’m your host, Jason Stershic, also known as Agent Palmer. And on this 70th episode is Dr. Yanas Kisten. He is the proprietor of Geekoscopy when not working as a PhD in marine biology, but more on that later. I was excited to have this conversation, and not just because of what Geekoscopy is doing, but because my guest is a marine biologist.
00:01:32:50 – 00:01:54:58
Agent Palmer
I never wanted to be a marine biologist, but I know plenty of people who did, and I think that the reality of the job, as you are about to hear, is very different from the dream of becoming a marine biologist. That is not unique to marine biology, but I remember an extensive list of people in my middle and high school years thinking that that would be their career path.
00:01:55:03 – 00:02:15:24
Agent Palmer
I’m not sure how many took it up, but Janice did. You’ll hear us discuss marine biology, of course, but also science communication, academia, content creation, balance, and our passions. All of that is coming your way and much, much more. But first, if you want to discuss this episode as you listen or afterwards, you can tweet me at Agent Palmer.
00:02:15:35 – 00:02:45:03
Agent Palmer
My guest, Dr. Yanas Kisten at Geekoscopy. That’s Geek Oz copy or this show at the Palmer Files. You can find more information about Geek Oscar, be at Geek Oscar ABC.com. Don’t forget, you can see all of my writings and rantings on Agent palmer.com. And of course, email can be sent to the Palmer files at gmail.com. So without further ado, let’s get into it.
00:02:45:08 – 00:03:02:22
Agent Palmer
Yanas. I’m in love with the concept of geek copy and what you’re doing with story, play and science, but it doesn’t feel like something that you just came up with one night. Was there an evolution to how this came to be?
00:03:02:27 – 00:03:31:41
Dr. Yanas Kisten
Oh, yeah. It’s a it’s a long evolution that I think begins in 2015, 2015, 2016. And at that time I was like halfway through early on in my PhD and I was having some trouble, like getting my work, like published with, academic journals. And it’s, it’s, I mean, it’s a serious thing. So it’s not that easy to do.
00:03:31:42 – 00:03:51:13
Dr. Yanas Kisten
It’s a bit easier for me now that I have experience. But when you early on, if you don’t know how things work, then you’re going to get rejected quite a bit. So I want to like, take out my frustration by just posting my own stuff in the internet, not having anybody reject me because if I, if I had published, no one’s going to say no.
00:03:51:18 – 00:03:53:54
Agent Palmer
Yeah. That’s good. I mean, take it into your own hands.
00:03:53:54 – 00:04:15:42
Dr. Yanas Kisten
Yeah, yeah. So I started building like a website, but it wasn’t based on science at the time. It was just based on fun stuff. Okay. And yeah, so I was just like, reviewing anime and video games and stuff like that. That was during my off time. And that kind of evolved into a podcast that I did with some people.
00:04:15:42 – 00:05:01:16
Dr. Yanas Kisten
And then that kind of evolved into a YouTube channel. And as I was going, I was realizing that I initially had the problem with publishing, what I wanted to publish is not that easy. But I also started to notice that conflating that into a form that is consumable by just the everyday guy. Yeah, is also a problem that is very difficult to solve for a lot of people, and especially for scientists consigned to spend their entire life learning how to communicate in a certain way, and that certain ways to communicating to other scientists so that their works understandable and repeatable.
00:05:01:20 – 00:05:29:28
Dr. Yanas Kisten
But it doesn’t necessarily mean that somebody walk in, seek, understand what they’re saying, because they’re over time, we have developed certain jargons, we have developed certain ways of doing things. So you need this background information in order to read this like a scientific paper. And it doesn’t necessarily work for all of them. But it gets you can go the spectrum of very technical to, to possibly be able to read by, by laypeople.
00:05:29:29 – 00:05:56:02
Agent Palmer
I will say that is probably universal to every industry, though. I mean, scientists use look, and I studied Latin and I still get lost in it. But I also think it’s it’s the alphabet soup, right? It’s the how many acronyms do you have in your industry? And then, you know, if you happen to come from another industry with acronyms, forget about it.
00:05:56:02 – 00:06:17:05
Agent Palmer
Like, you’re like, because it’s really hard to unlearn something. So yeah, if I sit down and you say, I don’t know, pod, I think a podcast immediately, even if you’re talking about something else. Right. Like that’s where my brain goes and it’s like, unlearn that. Yeah.
00:06:17:10 – 00:06:45:15
Dr. Yanas Kisten
For sure. Definitely. No. Yeah. It is a thing that that extends into I think. Yeah, definitely most things. Yeah. But just generally people aren’t doing like very technical stuff. Yeah. So like understanding the certain language that’s used in each field is yeah, you have to be in it to kind of understand. And sometimes you can sometimes things do cross.
00:06:45:20 – 00:07:14:30
Dr. Yanas Kisten
But when it comes to science, it is like some things are very important and needs to be communicated to the general public. For one, it’s just it’s to close the economic loop because like a lot of science is funded by taxpayer money. So like you going to a job and like a certain amount of your paycheck is being taken by the government, and the government is then using that money to fund scientists to do sciencey things.
00:07:14:35 – 00:07:34:14
Dr. Yanas Kisten
Yeah. And most of the time you have no idea what they are doing, even though they’re communicating it, to each other at least. So closing the loop is a very important thing that we talk about when it comes to science, communication and certain things when it comes to like news, latest developments and how to things do in the environment.
00:07:34:18 – 00:07:51:16
Dr. Yanas Kisten
Yeah. Anything that the general public needs to know so they can make informed decisions about things that need to be communicated so that everybody or at least most people, can understand it’s it’s probably one of the, the most important things when it comes to, to communicating science.
00:07:51:16 – 00:08:14:12
Agent Palmer
This is where it scares me the most because, one of my favorite like topics of interest to read about as far as history goes, is the internet, the origins of the internet, the origins of networking, which was all funded by the US government in like either Arpa or DARPA. I don’t remember what. I don’t remember what it was called at that particular time.
00:08:14:17 – 00:08:39:08
Agent Palmer
It they’ve changed their name. But one of the things that’s scary to me about translating it into layman’s terms for the everyman is that when it’s research, you don’t always know what you have. Because I know the history books I’ve read about the early internet, they didn’t read like they had the concept down. They didn’t have practical applications, they didn’t have.
00:08:39:08 – 00:08:40:34
Agent Palmer
Yeah. Yeah. You know, so those.
00:08:40:34 – 00:09:05:38
Dr. Yanas Kisten
Are very different things like. Yeah. So like, you know, what you have in terms of like what the natural world is telling you based on like what you’ve measured and what you’ve experimented on, but you know how it’s going to be applied. Yeah, that you have no control over. And you could have, you know, things like, I’m just a physicist who’s going to look at magnetic resonance one day.
00:09:05:43 – 00:09:17:58
Dr. Yanas Kisten
Then all of a sudden we have MRI, MRI machines and doctors offices. You know, it’s like it’s it’s wild. Yeah. So sudden discoveries can just change technology and the way we interface with things.
00:09:18:07 – 00:09:32:10
Agent Palmer
And so there’s a jump here where you go, well I’m going to start my own thing. And yeah obviously that’s an evolution. But when did you decide like all right you know what I think I want to make it go with this.
00:09:32:14 – 00:10:02:29
Dr. Yanas Kisten
Yeah. So I think was the end of my PhD. And when I started my, my postdoctoral research, I decided to kind of blend the two things together because I had, you know, in my spare time, developed quite a bit of knowledge when it comes to creating content and social media and stuff like that. And the idea that I would like to enter the science communication space.
00:10:02:34 – 00:10:27:49
Dr. Yanas Kisten
So I just decided to kind of blend those, those things together. And my love for geek culture and for science and for creating content together to form the science communication brand. That also had kind of, flavor of geek culture in it, which is one of my other passions that I’ve had probably since probably since before I wanted to become a scientist.
00:10:27:54 – 00:10:41:36
Dr. Yanas Kisten
So, yeah, it’s kind of a culmination of my life’s work in inverted commas, I suppose. My life’s work and play. Yeah, yeah. So that’s basically the evolution of the the brand and the show.
00:10:41:41 – 00:10:46:43
Agent Palmer
So what kind of, I mean, you have a PhD. What’s it in?
00:10:46:48 – 00:11:15:36
Dr. Yanas Kisten
Yeah, I have a PhD in I think it’s broadly zoology, but it’s it’s marine biology. Okay. And even more specific than that because I mean, marine biology is a big terminologies. It’s very big to me encompasses all things. But I worked mainly on ecology and eco physiology of when like little baby fishes that you find, an estuary which is like the area between like a river and the ocean.
00:11:15:38 – 00:11:33:41
Dr. Yanas Kisten
Okay. And that’s where these fishes kind of go after they’re born, to kind of grow up a bit before they go back to complete the lifecycle. Yeah. It’s a very important thing. Very interesting, very interesting work. So yeah, that’s what I do for the for the day job is what pays the bills and.
00:11:33:41 – 00:11:55:08
Agent Palmer
Is was this something that growing up you wanted to do or. I mean, look you’ve you’ve got I, I am one of you in terms of the geekiness, right. Like you didn’t want to be like Iron Man, like, I mean, you know, marine biology, I mean, that’s that’s big. But like, you know, there’s there’s also and still specific.
00:11:55:08 – 00:11:56:45
Dr. Yanas Kisten
Yeah. It’s true.
00:11:56:58 – 00:12:00:03
Agent Palmer
So what was it what was the start or was it always.
00:12:00:09 – 00:12:25:14
Dr. Yanas Kisten
Yeah. It’s very it’s very interesting. Yeah. Because engineer could have been a pathway that I chose, like when I was choosing after high school. More the I had two options as to what to do because I was very interested in, like, computers and stuff. So I had, like, computers, engineering as a choice. And I had marine biology as a choice.
00:12:25:21 – 00:12:52:16
Dr. Yanas Kisten
And I’d actually gotten like the offer from the University for computer engineering first. But I was so, like, passionate about wanting to get into marine biology. Then I waited until like the last minute until eventually they send me the offer and then I just went on that part. But it started when I was around eight years old. And it just stemmed from watching like, documentaries like, you know, David Attenborough type of stuff.
00:12:52:21 – 00:13:27:27
Dr. Yanas Kisten
He used to, like 6:00 on a Sunday. And so that film and TV, National Geographic’s like working with dinosaurs, all that type of stuff. And, yeah, marine biology, something was very interested in pursuing. On the other side is my father used to work, at the Navy in South Africa and Durban. So I spent a lot of my early childhood going out to the naval base, like riding on boats, like fishing, like during or off, sea water type things.
00:13:27:32 – 00:13:45:35
Dr. Yanas Kisten
So, yeah, I was it was a combination of that. I think I was always interested in science since I like, became aware of the world because before I went to be a marine biologist, I actually want to be like a paleontologist. Okay? I want to work with, like, dinosaurs.
00:13:45:40 – 00:13:48:22
Agent Palmer
I think we all went through that phase at some point, I think.
00:13:48:22 – 00:14:12:09
Dr. Yanas Kisten
Yeah, I think like being into dinosaurs is like a gateway drug for good culture. It’s like, yes, it’s really all like, stop. It’s. Yeah, it’s a gateway drug for getting into geeky and nerdy things. And yeah, I definitely sort of that somewhere along the way, I fell off. But yeah, I just hooked on to marine biology, and I.
00:14:12:13 – 00:14:27:01
Dr. Yanas Kisten
And I was on that path from ages old until all the way right now. And publishing scientists. So like, yeah, I it’s I’m one of those kids who actually went through on the childhood dreams and ended up getting the.
00:14:27:01 – 00:14:46:46
Agent Palmer
Yeah, well, I mean, it’s also exciting because, you know, you’ve got this other thing too. How do you balance? Because obviously you’re, you know, you have a day job like, you know, it’s, you know, by day, you know, it’s like Batman, like, you know, like read like you have the two sides of that. How do you balance it?
00:14:46:46 – 00:14:58:34
Agent Palmer
Because I don’t you don’t strike me as the kind of person that’s you don’t look, I mean, we’re recording this, but, like, you don’t look tired. Like you’ve worked 80 hours this week, right? Like, how do you balance it?
00:14:58:39 – 00:15:24:13
Dr. Yanas Kisten
I probably haven’t worked 80 hours. That’s a good. Well, for one, being a being a scientist is, you can you can kind of choose your own hours. So it’s it’s not that you’re working like a 9 to 5. It’s, it’s going to vary on, on a day like when you’re working, like, sometimes I’ll be in the lab like at 7 p.m. on a Sunday.
00:15:24:18 – 00:15:45:20
Dr. Yanas Kisten
It’s just be like the normal thing. But then alternatively, I’ll just take a mental health day and like, just not go into the office and not, not going to work and then start like, just do other things. So it’s nice in that fact, that it is a bit pliable. The problem with that is that you’re technically always working.
00:15:45:20 – 00:16:07:15
Dr. Yanas Kisten
There’s always like a paper for you to, to publish. I have like a good, like ten plus papers that are in various stages of overwriting that I need to submit to, to academic journals. Yeah. But burnout in academia is, is quite a common thing because you’re you’re always working. There’s always a chance for you to like, burn out.
00:16:07:20 – 00:16:34:05
Dr. Yanas Kisten
So I think it is healthy for you to then work on things or do things that is not work. Otherwise you will go crazy. You’re or you’re some kind of robot that’s not barely human and you just pump out papers, every day. But it’s the thing is, like being a geek is never really negatively influenced my academic performance.
00:16:34:09 – 00:16:57:40
Dr. Yanas Kisten
I’ve been playing video games and, like. Yeah, I’ve been playing video games since I was four years old with, like, the Sega Genesis and Sonic the Hedgehog and played video games throughout high school. Throughout undergrad, I had for my honors degree at a cum laude, a yeah, I had like Dean’s commendation, so he never really affected my academic performance.
00:16:57:45 – 00:17:19:43
Dr. Yanas Kisten
But as I got more into being a scientist, it is a but, it is a bit more demanding than you because it is very high level thinking that you’ve to do it. It’s a lot of work, close to sticks, a lot of writing it. So you just have to actively, I think, take time for yourself, which which is what I do like.
00:17:19:43 – 00:17:45:53
Dr. Yanas Kisten
I don’t intend to like, die in front of my desk writing a paper, you know, it’s like I, I find a balance. And yeah, I like to do other things. And I’m not like doing all my geeky stuff all the time. Like there’d be times where I’m just focused just on work, just on writing, just on collecting data, and then I take a break and do other things.
00:17:45:58 – 00:18:09:03
Dr. Yanas Kisten
So one of the things why I wanted to actually start a science communication brand was so that I could do it a bit more professionally, so maybe I could feel a little bit better about it. Because I also like creating content. It’s also like one of my hobbies. So I just, I just want to be creating things and putting stuff out there.
00:18:09:08 – 00:18:09:37
Dr. Yanas Kisten
It’s,
00:18:09:42 – 00:18:31:42
Agent Palmer
It’s a good hobby to have. I mean, I yeah, I mean, you know, I’ve been creating content for over a decade now, and it’s I can’t imagine not. But I also feel like I’ve talked to academics before. And one of the things I think that, you know, I’m I’m trying to read between the lines only because it feels like I’m hearing it and you’re screaming.
00:18:31:42 – 00:18:56:06
Agent Palmer
It is like, no, like writing academic papers is so hard. Like, now you’re in it. You may have ten in various stages of writing, but you can take an afternoon off and hit publish on something for yourself and immediately cut through all of those stages and just go, all right, I’m nope. I’ve actually created something that’s out in the internet.
00:18:56:06 – 00:19:15:02
Agent Palmer
And I think the other thing is academic papers are only read by so many people. Like I don’t have necessarily the access, whereas you can put out a review of anything a movie, a book, a video game on the and everybody can see it.
00:19:15:17 – 00:19:43:11
Dr. Yanas Kisten
Yeah. To show you 100% correct. I have far more impressions, on the stuff that I’ve published. I mean, yeah, that I have published myself videos that have been watched versus how much I, that my academic papers have, have done. And it’s, I think I remember reading a study a couple of years back where they were the they found that it’s like about 50% of all academic journals.
00:19:43:11 – 00:20:04:29
Dr. Yanas Kisten
I read only by the authors who wrote it, the people the editors were about to publish it. And like the reviewers that they send it to for peer review. And it’s like a handful of people, and it’s just one of these things that seems so sad. It seems so wasteful, but it’s just it’s just how the system works.
00:20:04:29 – 00:20:24:27
Dr. Yanas Kisten
Because because some system is like I mean, so some science is like blue sky type of stuff where it’s not, it’s important for, for advancing our knowledge and advancing science, but not everybody needs to read it because it doesn’t like, apply to them, in a, in a meaningful way.
00:20:24:27 – 00:20:48:31
Agent Palmer
Well, I also think it goes back to what you were talking about at the very beginning, which is it’s not English. I mean, it is, but it’s not. Right. Like, yeah, I mean, okay, I, I know that the words are in my native tongue, but you put them in such a way that I have. No, I like and I’ve attempted to read some scientific papers and I consider myself a fairly intelligent human being.
00:20:48:36 – 00:20:51:23
Agent Palmer
But there are times when I’m just lost. Yeah.
00:20:51:34 – 00:20:53:31
Dr. Yanas Kisten
Like it’s it’s like it’s encrypted.
00:20:53:40 – 00:21:14:15
Agent Palmer
Yeah. It it really like, it’s like put I guess this is, All right. Okay. I don’t because I, it’s, I almost feel like I need to read the summary and leave it alone and then find somebody who knows something about it, because the summary, I’m like, oh, I want to know more. And then I start reading and I go, I don’t want to know more.
00:21:14:15 – 00:21:20:52
Agent Palmer
Like I made a mistake. Get me out of this. I need to stop. But the summary, I’m good. I’m like, okay, this is great.
00:21:20:56 – 00:21:52:48
Dr. Yanas Kisten
See, that’s why I think science journalists, the science communicators, are really important, and they should be getting some funding and some jobs so they can translate science. But yeah, I mean, it’s and it’s not it’s not like even it’s not even like all scientists. No, Audrey. All science papers. That’s like also crazy because scientists are very, very like niche down so much into their field that I like I wouldn’t be able to read like to be in like a latest chemistry paper and tell you what’s going on because that’s not my field.
00:21:52:53 – 00:22:15:41
Dr. Yanas Kisten
Yeah. Or geology or physics. Like it would be just as foreign to me as, you know, just random dude. So it’s it’s very, very specific. And yeah, one of the things that you learn when you get higher up in science is just the less you know about anything. It’s like it’s kind of really weird. It’s like the more you know, like, the less you actually know.
00:22:15:45 – 00:22:39:06
Agent Palmer
Yeah. I mean, I think that that’s true of just knowledge in general. I mean, it’s not even specific. Like you pick up any book, especially a history book, and read it and you’re going to learn about a lot of things, but you’re also going to learn about a lot of things you didn’t, you didn’t even know existed. And then those things have books about them and you’re like, oh, no.
00:22:39:06 – 00:22:58:16
Agent Palmer
Like you’re like, oh, I want to know about this one thing. Oh, there’s a book about that one thing. Pick it up. Oh, they talked about these ten things I’d never heard of before. Now there are ten more books you could like. It just kind of breeds itself. And you’re like, oh, wow. Yep. The more I know, the more I don’t.
00:22:58:21 – 00:23:19:56
Dr. Yanas Kisten
Yeah, yeah. So it is definitely like that. You just learning about what you don’t know. Yeah. And it’s, it’s actually part of like the scientific process because you actually want to know what you don’t know. So that you could write a study to find something to add. Yeah. To add to something that we know now that we didn’t know before.
00:23:20:01 – 00:23:22:18
Dr. Yanas Kisten
So it’s a scientific process.
00:23:22:23 – 00:23:40:08
Agent Palmer
Are you thinking that, you know, the professional sciences for you are good for current day job. But geek ask AP as it is, is the future or is it going to remain a balance between the two?
00:23:40:13 – 00:23:59:36
Dr. Yanas Kisten
Yeah, I mean, I would, I think I would prefer to be doing science communication full time. Okay. For probably two reasons. Like I said, burnout is a very big thing in in, in in academic, life. It isn’t content creation as well. Yeah. I think a bit it’s a.
00:23:59:36 – 00:24:01:39
Agent Palmer
Little bit both.
00:24:01:44 – 00:24:28:12
Dr. Yanas Kisten
But you know, when it goes to like scientific papers, it feels a lot more serious, that it would like making a video or a podcast. And also like, it’s it’s not like, I mean, to be frank, it’s not a very well-paying thing. Like, you go through at least ten years of just study to get there. And, I mean, I get paid just like average South African salary.
00:24:28:12 – 00:24:56:37
Dr. Yanas Kisten
And everyone’s salary is probably like nothing compared to, like, the West. Yeah. And it’s sometimes it’s frustrating, like being, you know, like an adult person and just like living paycheck to paycheck. But you have like four degrees and you’re like, somebody lied to me in the 90s for these degrees. Yeah. It’s one of those things where you have to be super, super passionate about publishing science.
00:24:56:42 – 00:25:21:43
Dr. Yanas Kisten
If if it’s to be your main thing and I don’t think I’m the I’m passionate about learning about science. I’m passionate about communicating science. I’m passionate about, like, running experiments. But writing and publication, I don’t think is I mean, I could do it for the rest of my life to make a buck, but I don’t think it’s the ideal thing for me right now.
00:25:21:47 – 00:25:23:04
Dr. Yanas Kisten
Or going forward, when.
00:25:23:04 – 00:25:49:15
Agent Palmer
You talk about content creation, right? I mean, obviously you’ve got a YouTube channel, you’ve done podcast, you’ve got, you know, articles on, on the site, you know, is there a medium you like? I mean, you’re you dabbling in all of it, right? Like you’re doing the written stuff, you’re doing the audio, you’ve done the audio stuff, you’re doing the video stuff like when you talk about content creation going forward, is it just no, all three or like is there one you want to focus on.
00:25:49:19 – 00:26:14:48
Dr. Yanas Kisten
Or kind of like a serial dabbler, even when it comes to like science? Like because I like, I, I’m broadly interested in like, like marine animals. But I’ve worked with like very different types of animals on my career from like little like bivalve mussels to like corals, like fish to like guinea snails. And it’s kind of the same when it comes to content creation.
00:26:14:48 – 00:26:40:37
Dr. Yanas Kisten
I’m just really interested every time a new format comes out, or every time a new platform comes out that I can dabble in. And I enjoy making content and in most forms I enjoy, like writing for food, the mass audience I enjoy, speaking on a podcast like this, I enjoy. I really enjoy editing videos. I think.
00:26:40:41 – 00:27:06:02
Dr. Yanas Kisten
I think my maximum creativity is unlocked when I’m editing a video or doing like, really, funky edits and effects and all types of like, you know, funky, interesting things. It just takes a lot of time. So, like when you’re not getting paid for it, it’s difficult to like, devote time to, like, editing videos. But I think I’m probably the most happiest when I’m, like, editing.
00:27:06:06 – 00:27:15:26
Dr. Yanas Kisten
A nice, a nice, interesting, and educational video. It’s probably just like, just my peak performance or something like that.
00:27:15:31 – 00:27:36:42
Agent Palmer
All right. So you spent all this time and energy, becoming a marine biologist? Where do you pick up video editing? Like, where where is that on the journey? Because that’s not like like, I understand you pick up writing along the way. You have to. Yeah, but video editing is a very specific skill set.
00:27:36:55 – 00:28:02:44
Dr. Yanas Kisten
Yeah, yeah. The thing with, like, you know, becoming a scientist is a lot of skills that you learn can be transferred or translated to other things. You just have to, like, I suppose, have the brain connectivity, okay, to kind of transfer those skills over. So in in when you’re an academic, you do have to tend to a lot of like PowerPoint presentations like present your work.
00:28:02:49 – 00:28:31:22
Dr. Yanas Kisten
And with PowerPoint presentations comes a certain degree of, just graphic design. And so like when I was, I used to have so a lot of fun and I was making my PowerPoint presentations and adding like animations and making it like kind of like interactive. So a lot of that translated into video editing. I mean, I had like my parents, like my dad had a, like home video camera stuff for as long as I can remember.
00:28:31:22 – 00:29:00:39
Dr. Yanas Kisten
So I remember shooting videos and then editing them later. I remember just like taking pictures of, like, anime and stuff and like trying to animate that on like, PowerPoint. So it’s been, I’ve been dabbling in that type of visual editing for a long time. Just doing it in often basis like not really knowing what I was kind of doing that I was dabbling in it.
00:29:00:39 – 00:29:31:32
Dr. Yanas Kisten
I was just doing stuff for fun. And then. Yeah. So it’s it’s one of those things where, I didn’t realize I was, you know, doing a lot of it until I formally decided, okay, I’m going to, like, start editing videos properly, you know? And. Yeah, so it’s, it’s one of those things where, Yeah, I didn’t realize I was doing it until I started doing it properly, but also consumed a lot of, like, YouTube content.
00:29:31:37 – 00:29:56:49
Dr. Yanas Kisten
Especially when I started, like, buying my own video games after, like, starting to earn some money. Okay. I had gotten deep into, like, just media around video games, like, like reviews and like podcasts and stuff like that. And a lot of my off time, I think maybe I’ll probably spend more hours, like listening to video game podcasts than like playing them at one point.
00:29:56:54 – 00:30:16:45
Agent Palmer
Hey, look, right now I probably spend more time watching people play video games on like Twitch and YouTube than I do actually playing video games. So I get it. Like I’m right there with you sometimes it’s just enjoyable to, you know? I mean, it’s one of the reasons people enjoy cutscenes, too. Like it’s just a movie and I enjoy the characters, but I don’t really feel like playing right now.
00:30:16:45 – 00:30:20:03
Agent Palmer
Let me just let me just sit back for sure.
00:30:20:07 – 00:30:40:34
Dr. Yanas Kisten
It’s also like it’s it’s also like a form of video that you can consume passively, like while you’re doing other stuff, like when you’re working out, like cooking. I remember listening to like, gaming podcasts while I was like pipetting things in a lab for like hours. So yeah, it’s I just has consumed a lot of media. So I was very like interested in it.
00:30:40:45 – 00:30:56:45
Dr. Yanas Kisten
And then at some point I decided it let me just start doing my own thing, singing like where that can go. Yeah. So I’ve always had that dabbler mindset and then eventually, like, grew. And then at some point I was like, okay, let me do this properly. Now, maybe confession is.
00:30:56:49 – 00:31:11:18
Agent Palmer
Is there like, like a dream scenario of like a television series, a movie like, a documentary? Is there is there a bigger video project that you would like to get to at some point?
00:31:11:23 – 00:31:33:57
Dr. Yanas Kisten
I think when I was younger, I was thinking about, you know, if I could have became like a movie director, this certain IPS, that I would like to get my hands on and make a movie about, like, I don’t know if you’re into fantasy a lot, but there’s a series called Red wall written by Brian Chalk that I really enjoyed as a kid.
00:31:33:59 – 00:31:46:25
Dr. Yanas Kisten
And, you know, if, if, if I could get my hands on an eye on that IP in, like, some kind of studio funding, there would be, like pie in the sky. I would make a Red wall movie or something. But they, I mean.
00:31:46:25 – 00:31:50:49
Agent Palmer
They’re going heavy into, like, they can possibly fire right now.
00:31:50:49 – 00:31:52:31
Dr. Yanas Kisten
So at this point.
00:31:52:35 – 00:32:16:38
Agent Palmer
I mean, and here’s the thing, I’ll say, I’ve got a couple books in in my back pocket that I’m like, I hope nobody ever touches this. Like there are some books I feel like deserve to remain books. Yeah. Yeah. But, I’m not against them people taking the chance. It’s just there’s some books I hold sacred, and I will, you know, don’t touch that.
00:32:16:45 – 00:32:24:45
Dr. Yanas Kisten
It’s a book is. The thing is, like, if they make something about it, like, it doesn’t change the original material. It’s just it’s just a new thing.
00:32:24:50 – 00:32:26:02
Agent Palmer
No, I know, but I do.
00:32:26:02 – 00:32:31:04
Dr. Yanas Kisten
I do get that feeling of, like, exclusivity that there is some merit to it.
00:32:31:04 – 00:33:00:46
Agent Palmer
I’ve, I’ve, I reread The Hobbit recently. Guess what? Ian McKellen is now my Gandalf. I do not know what I ever pictured Gandalf to be before, but now it’s. And forever it’s just Ian McKellen. Right? So I and I think the same goes for like even when I read like old X-Men comics, it’s, it’s it’s Patrick Stewart like like it’s one of those things where, where and and like.
00:33:00:50 – 00:33:03:26
Dr. Yanas Kisten
Hugh Jackman is Wolverine. Yeah. It’s the other.
00:33:03:26 – 00:33:18:21
Agent Palmer
Way. It’s RDA is as Iron Man like. Oh yeah. Like I can’t, I can’t do any even when I read the books that, you know, were published well before any of these movies, like that’s who it is. That’s who I hear in my head. That’s who I see when I think about it. If I’m not looking at the panel.
00:33:18:25 – 00:33:31:23
Agent Palmer
So for me, that’s kind of one of the reasons that I’m afraid. Yeah, it doesn’t change the original, but you have to like, kind of erase that from your brain at some point, you know, like that’s. Yeah, that’s my fear.
00:33:31:28 – 00:34:01:20
Dr. Yanas Kisten
Yeah. Oh like perhaps with time it’ll, it will change. But it is very recent. Yeah. Yeah. But I think like. Yeah. For for geeks copy. The more I would say realistic goal is to just have a functioning like science communication media company that kind of like, offers services to scientists or universities to translate, the work into a more palatable format for the, for the general audience.
00:34:01:20 – 00:34:06:36
Dr. Yanas Kisten
That’s the, the that’s the goal right now, with cost copy.
00:34:06:40 – 00:34:31:53
Agent Palmer
And, I mean, that’s I think it’s probably a super admirable goal. It’s one of the reasons that I, I kind of started following you was because science in play, I understand. Right. Like I get that to a tee. But adding story to the mix is one of your three things. Story is hard for people to comprehend, like there are even there are examples and I’m not.
00:34:31:53 – 00:34:47:49
Agent Palmer
I can’t think of any right now, but there are examples of like major motion pictures that just get story wrong. And I’m not talking like beginning, middle, end. I’m just like, they skipped a scene that ends up you end up seeing it in, you know, on DVD extras and you’re like this ad. So, like, how did they cut this?
00:34:47:49 – 00:35:12:49
Agent Palmer
It’s so important to the story, right? And that’s just fiction. So when you take it, take it to science communication, that’s everything. Because you need to be able to build the foundation of whatever it is, either foundational knowledge one plus one is two or, you know, two plus one is three, and one plus two is three, right? Like little things that like, you see how these things go.
00:35:12:49 – 00:35:31:33
Agent Palmer
And now we’re going to jump to the next. And it’s a level of storytelling that is super important. And I don’t know if yeah I don’t know if people focus on it enough. I think people take for granted that we got to the end and that was fun. And we don’t realize, like we had it. Well, how did we get there?
00:35:31:33 – 00:35:34:15
Agent Palmer
You know, like all of these things built.
00:35:34:20 – 00:36:07:12
Dr. Yanas Kisten
For show and it’s I mean, if you like, human beings have been likened to actually being like storytelling machines, like we we think in stories. And so, like, we talk to ourselves in stories and we teach our songs and other people teach us. And I mean, at one point, it was the only way that we could mutated and told each other about how the environment works and like what to look out for dangers and like how to do certain things in life.
00:36:07:16 – 00:36:34:02
Dr. Yanas Kisten
So it is an innate thing when it comes to human beings and communication. And just like being alive and functioning in society. And when it comes to science, that that story is kind of replaced by the scientific method, which is good for for being able to repeat and replicate and have a structure to how you want to describe something in the world.
00:36:34:06 – 00:36:59:27
Dr. Yanas Kisten
Yeah, not so great at cheating, teaching somebody what that means to them and what it means to to their story. So putting the storytelling back into into science is kind of the job of science communicators, the science journalists. And yeah, doing it, doing it well takes a lot of time, a lot of effort, a lot of, learning trial and error.
00:36:59:27 – 00:37:02:08
Dr. Yanas Kisten
But people have to have to do it.
00:37:02:13 – 00:37:27:00
Agent Palmer
That that relate ability seems like the hardest piece to it, because I feel like you could probably, you know, let’s take Iron Man, for example, just because I mentioned it earlier. Like, you could probably give me a decent Iron Man story. And because I already like Iron Man, I get it, I understand it. But like somebody who’s never read a comic or never seen a marvel movie is going to be like, what are you talking about?
00:37:27:05 – 00:37:40:20
Agent Palmer
Right? And it’s that relatable to everyone, to the general populace that’s so hard to translate. Do you, do you have like a go to like of like people that you run it by that you’re like, man, I don’t know.
00:37:40:20 – 00:38:06:36
Dr. Yanas Kisten
The thing is, right now I am not, I’m not practicing social science communication in that way where I am, taking pieces of content and trying to kind of teach the general public. Okay. The way I do it is that I make references to geek culture and then make references to kind of explain certain scientific like concepts.
00:38:06:40 – 00:38:34:51
Dr. Yanas Kisten
But the and even that I’ve only done like a few times. My main thing that I do right now for Be One on one, which is my podcast, is interview other science communicators and see what they are doing in their way to communicate their science. Or on the flip side of that, like scientists who kind of use geek culture in their science as a reference to pull in people.
00:38:34:51 – 00:39:18:40
Dr. Yanas Kisten
So it’s kind of like two sides of kind of similar coin, which are like I recently like interviewed, you know, a doctor of anthropology who deals with kind of religion and math. And she basically posits that, like our geek culture and pop culture right now is kind of our mythology. It’s our it’s stories that we are telling that kind of is likened to things like Zeus and like Thor back in the days, you know, like those things sound foreign and ancient to us now, but that at the time that, you know, it was relevant, it was probably a little more like, you know, throwing in Marvel right now or like Iron Man.
00:39:18:40 – 00:39:18:58
Dr. Yanas Kisten
Yeah.
00:39:19:03 – 00:39:20:07
Agent Palmer
That’s fair.
00:39:20:11 – 00:39:43:23
Dr. Yanas Kisten
I like it’s, it’s it’s just it’s just stories that we tell that are important to us. That makes it it makes it, it’s a myth. And part of our culture. So I use that side of kind of pop culture and the culture to try and translate, and see how other people are doing it as well.
00:39:43:23 – 00:40:12:42
Dr. Yanas Kisten
So people who are like creating video games to, to teach science or to communicate science, people doing podcasts, people who are using different formats, like TikTok, I’m just trying to absorb from them and kind of also highlight to other people, to other scientists as to how you could go about, communicating your science or to geeks as to like, like, oh, you like, Pikachu.
00:40:12:56 – 00:40:34:26
Dr. Yanas Kisten
You know, there’s like a, like a protein or an enzyme that the scientists called Pikachu. And because of how fast, lightning fast it’s, you know, it’s references like that. I just want to boost geek’s ego and, kind of highlights the scientists in science communicators. So, yeah, I, I have fun with it in that way. For my show right now.
00:40:34:31 – 00:41:09:34
Agent Palmer
It sounds like and I don’t I don’t say this often, but it sounds like you’re really having fun with the platform in a way where it it still keeps you grounded in the academic, which you don’t necessarily need for talking to all these people. But that’s a very good base to, of, of, to stand on. That’s a very good knowledge base to have and then to reach out with all the fun stuff, you know, the Pokemon that Marvel like the, the Star Wars, like all that other fun stuff.
00:41:09:39 – 00:41:18:42
Agent Palmer
If if you had told ten year old you that this is what you would be doing, would you have even believed yourself?
00:41:18:49 – 00:41:47:34
Dr. Yanas Kisten
I know, I don’t think I would have believed myself, because if I would have believed that I might not have gone into science, I might have become like a movie director or something. Yeah. If I had believed that for sure. It’s it’s it’s not something I thought I would be doing when I was a kid. And I mean, I mean, I’m not like doing it professionally yet, like, I’m a professional scientist, but I’m not a provisional science communicator yet, so it’s clever ways to go.
00:41:47:39 – 00:42:00:31
Dr. Yanas Kisten
But I don’t think ten years ago I thought I would be dabbling in the. So I moved a bit away from academia, which is what I thought I would the role I thought I would die in.
00:42:00:35 – 00:42:08:31
Agent Palmer
Is there is there is there a part of you that wants to teach like, I mean, actually, you know, academically teach?
00:42:08:36 – 00:42:32:34
Dr. Yanas Kisten
Yeah. I mean, I dabble with being a lecturer, a couple of years ago, and it kind of wasn’t for me. Okay. I don’t think the format of, like, live teaching is, is the best way that I can communicate. Or the most fun way that I can communicate. I can do it. Yeah, but I think it’s still my preferred way of doing things.
00:42:32:34 – 00:42:58:31
Dr. Yanas Kisten
I would rather sit and make a ten minute video, and I would be able to explain it way better than if I could just stand there and talk to some kids. I mean, the other ways of teaching could like just having a class to certain discussions. Yeah. Which I think would be better for me than just like, just vomiting out information that kids face is hoping that they consume it, absorb it in some way.
00:42:58:31 – 00:43:00:55
Dr. Yanas Kisten
Yeah, it’s it’s not my preferred way of doing things.
00:43:00:55 – 00:43:16:08
Agent Palmer
Now, I asked this because I, you know, I have a four year degree and that’s as far as I went. The, the teaching, the teaching aspect of it was that something that everybody has to do? Is that something you wanted to try just to see how it went?
00:43:16:12 – 00:43:37:51
Dr. Yanas Kisten
Yeah. Lecturing. It’s like a tertiary institution is kind of one of those things that comes with the whole gig of if you want to be a researcher at a university, lecturing is one of those things that is part of the, the position. But I think some researchers ideally would just be able to do research in that case.
00:43:37:56 – 00:44:04:20
Dr. Yanas Kisten
You probably have a position not any good of us. Do you like a research institute or a government lab or something like that? Which is, I think what I would have preferred later on. But if I did want to end up at a university, then lecturing would, would be something that would have to do as part of the job, which is kind of weird because, like, I mean, high school teachers need to have like a degree in training in order to teach.
00:44:04:33 – 00:44:15:48
Dr. Yanas Kisten
And this is that’s very important. But lecturers at like university don’t really have to have one of those things like, okay, you got your PhD, like just go teach kids about science. Now it’s kind of weird.
00:44:15:53 – 00:44:22:05
Agent Palmer
Is there? I mean, the more I learned about academia, the more I don’t like it.
00:44:22:10 – 00:44:24:00
Dr. Yanas Kisten
But you join the club.
00:44:24:05 – 00:44:41:52
Agent Palmer
Well, that’s the thing. I’m on the outside looking in, and I’m like, yeah, that’s not that. That none of this, like, I guess I’m in awe of you that you’re still in it because, like, I guess I’m in awe of anybody who’s still in it because very few people enjoy. I mean, they enjoy some of the things, right?
00:44:41:52 – 00:45:05:54
Agent Palmer
Like there’s some academic conferences where you get to talk with like minded individuals at what and, you know, and that and network with people maybe even in a different field that can teach you something new. But as far as like the day to day and going back to what you talked about earlier, publishing a paper for three people, a paper that probably took you months to research and put together and edit.
00:45:06:08 – 00:45:09:22
Agent Palmer
But none of that sounds good at all.
00:45:09:22 – 00:45:31:58
Dr. Yanas Kisten
Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. And the thing is, I mean, like your experience academia is going to be variable. I don’t think everybody’s going to have the same experience that I did, or other people do. And sometimes, like if you’re really angry about something, you might be a lot more vocal than somebody who’s just happily trudging along and they don’t really have any problem.
00:45:31:58 – 00:46:12:10
Dr. Yanas Kisten
They’re not going to, like, go online to be like, had a great day today in academia. So it’s one of those things that’s difficult. Like you can’t generalize too much. Okay. Some people are probably having a great time and others not so much. But I think there are fundamental problems with academia that needs to be addressed. It is one of those weird fields where like, you would think that it’s like high tech and like new and the cutting edge and sure, some of the science is, but I think the institutional like, the institutional around it is kind of like backwards and stale and old and kind of needs a software update.
00:46:12:10 – 00:46:25:21
Dr. Yanas Kisten
And in many respects, and I’m sure that I’m sure some universities already or some institutions are already there and other people need to catch up. So yeah, it’s it’s a variable thing.
00:46:25:26 – 00:46:57:29
Agent Palmer
I mean, look, at every time you or I have said academia during this podcast, I’ve thought of a library like a legit library with like journal, like Physical journal. I and I don’t know if that’s just my age showing or what, but like when you talk about academia, I don’t think of the internet. Right? Like, I know your paper is probably on there somewhere, but I think of a physical paper or a book or like a leather bound library.
00:46:57:34 – 00:47:27:23
Dr. Yanas Kisten
Yeah, yeah. You know, and that’s actually like a very accurate way of, of picturing it because the whole way we communicate the science is like a written document that gets like shelved away somewhere. And it is like you have online repositories now, but they all kind of run like libraries and like sometimes access is restricted and like you have to ask permission and it’s a very weird thing, like you would think by now, like all other forms of media have progressed.
00:47:27:23 – 00:47:55:13
Dr. Yanas Kisten
We have like virtual reality happening now. Yeah, but academia is still like written word like printed like print media, like we like to print media like ten years ago, at least when it comes to everything else. But academia is still there. And yeah, there is like burgeoning efforts to do things like video summaries of video abstracts of papers, but it’s a very new thing that’s trying to trying to push through.
00:47:55:14 – 00:48:02:22
Dr. Yanas Kisten
Now. It’s so new that like, I’m aware of most of the people who are doing it. So it’s.
00:48:02:27 – 00:48:11:54
Agent Palmer
Let me before I forget to ask this, you you are a marine biologist? Yes. How often do you get to go to the water?
00:48:11:59 – 00:48:38:04
Dr. Yanas Kisten
I mean, it varies. Right now I am not collecting any data in the field, so, for the rest of the year, I shouldn’t be going. But last year, I was in the field during during the season when I was collecting data, like every week. So I used to go every week out to collect some fish and then bring them back to my cranium and kind of torture them through.
00:48:38:05 – 00:48:59:33
Dr. Yanas Kisten
But in the name of science and yeah, so it depends on the project, depends what you’re working on. Sometimes it could be once in a season, sometimes it could be every week, sometimes could be every other day. Sometimes you could be out at sea for a long while. Although I haven’t I haven’t done that. Yeah. It varies from project to project.
00:48:59:43 – 00:48:59:58
Dr. Yanas Kisten
I mean.
00:48:59:58 – 00:49:19:07
Agent Palmer
Because I feel like, you know, ten year old you that wants to be a marine biologist is not thinking about sitting in front of a computer for eight hours a day. You’re thinking you’re going to be on the beach, on a boat, in the water, like you’re thinking about being in the field.
00:49:19:12 – 00:49:43:15
Dr. Yanas Kisten
Yeah, because I have like, a very, like, vivid memory of what main marine biologist looked like me was ages old. And it is like somebody, like a dude or girl, like on a on a boat out at sea, like tagging, a dolphin or a whale. And I am so far removed from something like that. It’s like, not even funny.
00:49:43:20 – 00:50:02:46
Dr. Yanas Kisten
Yeah, I’ve, I’ve, I’ve been out in a couple of boats, but, like, not out at sea, maybe a couple of times more for sampling. It’s like most in, in, in history, which is like a glorified river. Yeah. It’s not even out at sea. So yeah, it’s it’s I mean, it’s close, but it’s so different from what I imagined for sure.
00:50:02:50 – 00:50:07:55
Unknown
Back in the day.
00:50:08:00 – 00:50:12:44
Unknown
You.
00:50:12:49 – 00:50:33:01
Agent Palmer
What I find interesting about this conversation is the relate ability of being able to explain the complex, or even just the unknown, even if it’s simple to a broader, general audience. That is the goal of science communicators. And there are plenty out there, many who have appeared on the Geekoscopy podcast, but they exist in all walks of content.
00:50:33:08 – 00:51:01:06
Agent Palmer
Podcasts, YouTube blogs, and science communicators are just the tip of the iceberg. There are also policy communicators, plenty of other specialists on various platforms. So suffice to say that if you want to learn about something, there is someone out there who’s passionate is to explain it to you like you’re not an expert and perhaps that’s you. Perhaps you have something you know in detail that you can explain to friends.
00:51:01:06 – 00:51:22:53
Agent Palmer
In the simplest terms. That’s a hugely underrated skill. And if that’s you, let me know. But if you just watch someone else, let me know that too. It’s always great to understand our world better, and to do it without having to lean on my rusty knowledge of the Latin language would be better for everyone. Don’t you think? Thanks for listening to The Palmer Files episode 70.
00:51:23:02 – 00:51:44:11
Agent Palmer
As a reminder, all links are available in the show notes. And now for the official business. The Palmer Files releases every two weeks on Tuesdays. If you’re still listening, I encourage you to join the discussion. You can tweet me at Agent Palmer, my guest, Dr. Yanas Kisten at Geekoscopy. That’s geek OS copy or this show at the Palmer Files.
00:51:44:15 – 00:52:07:13
Agent Palmer
You can find more information about Geekoscopy at Geek Ask ABC.com. Email can be sent to this show at the Palmer Files at gmail.com. And remember, you’re home for all things. Agent Palmer is Agent Palmer, dot com.
00:52:07:18 – 00:52:15:50
Unknown
You need.
00:52:15:54 – 00:52:37:38
Unknown
Me?
00:52:37:43 – 00:52:44:18
Unknown
She.
00:52:44:23 – 00:52:47:15
Agent Palmer
All right. Yanas, do you have one final question for me?
00:52:47:19 – 00:53:00:43
Dr. Yanas Kisten
I would like to know. Like if if you. If becoming an academic was an option for you. Like, what kind of fields would you be in right now? What would you be studying? What would you be experimenting on?
00:53:00:48 – 00:53:18:36
Agent Palmer
That’s a good question. I, I know that academia was kind of, I looked at it as a way to avoid the real world. Right. Like, I, I got my two year degree and went, all right, time to for a four year degree. And I got my four year degree and I couldn’t make a decision on what else to do.
00:53:18:36 – 00:53:48:56
Agent Palmer
So there was never a postgraduate thing, and I’ve never gone back to it. But there’s always that thing in the back of my head of like, what would it be? Right? Like, so my, my, my associate is in liberal arts. How general can you get. And my bachelor’s is in communications again. How general can you get. So one of the reasons that it’s hard for me to answer this question is because I can’t answer the question that is the most important, which is what do you study like?
00:53:49:07 – 00:54:20:30
Agent Palmer
What do you get for a master’s degree? And wow, communications is slightly less general than liberal arts. You have to get fairly specific when you go master’s degree in whatever. And, you know, I’ve, I’ve run the gamut like, I guess, you know, there’s a part of me that thinks like, I’m not really that good at business. So maybe getting an MBA would be interesting.
00:54:20:35 – 00:54:58:57
Agent Palmer
But I think, practically speaking, I have a problem with academia that is related to fields I’m interested in being, fast moving. Right. So I graduated from college as we record this 18 years ago. Very little of my actual classroom textbooks is relevant now. In fact, ten years ago, it wasn’t relevant anymore. Right? Like, things are moving so fast that I worry about not being.
00:54:59:02 – 00:55:24:06
Agent Palmer
I’m. I’m like you in that I’m a dabbler and I’m interested in, in a lot of different things. So the idea of buckling down on one very specific thing that I have the foresight to know may be outdated by the time I finish this degree. It’s a scary proposition for me.
00:55:24:11 – 00:55:24:44
Dr. Yanas Kisten
Yeah.
00:55:24:48 – 00:55:48:28
Agent Palmer
I mean, you’re you’re a marine biologist like, do you find that it’s similar or like, I mean, I’m talking general in terms of communications, right? Like I, when I was in college, we did, a lot of study on newspapers and mass communication. And, you know, newspapers still exist, but it’s not the number one medium like it used to be.
00:55:48:33 – 00:55:52:56
Agent Palmer
How have things changed for you since you’ve graduated?
00:55:53:01 – 00:56:21:00
Dr. Yanas Kisten
Yeah. I mean, science in general is is growing ever, ever forward. And a lot of the things that you could, could do easily or for cheaply, you probably already done. So the cutting edge stuff used is stuff that you need, equipment that cost like millions of dollars in order for you to do. So it’s it’s one of those things where I comes down to funding, being able to get the funding to do what you would like.
00:56:21:00 – 00:56:48:04
Dr. Yanas Kisten
And in order to get the funding, you probably need to be in a field that they offering the funding for or for a topic that they are offering the funding for. So it has changed significantly. Like I think earlier on, I was really interested in just animal behavior and and went to the study, like, just cephalopods, like octopus and cuttlefish and like what they did was very interesting.
00:56:48:04 – 00:57:12:10
Dr. Yanas Kisten
I think, I never got around to it because there wasn’t much opportunity locally. So I ended up doing the next best thing, which is fish, which also have a brain and have behaviors and stuff. Right. The work that I do here. So it’s it’s kind of a combination of what you want to do and where there’s opportunity and where there’s funding when it comes to to academia and science.
00:57:12:10 – 00:57:12:33
Dr. Yanas Kisten
Yeah.
00:57:12:33 – 00:57:30:05
Agent Palmer
And that’s I think the other thing that would have stopped me is like, all right, well, you have to go where the money is. Well, if I have to go where the money is, then I don’t really get to choose what I want to do. Now, do I? Like if I want to really study, I don’t know, like, I mean, because I go back right.
00:57:30:10 – 00:57:59:46
Agent Palmer
And, you know, eight year old me was going to be either a paleontologist or an aerospace engineer, and neither of those things actually happened. But, you know, I feel bad for any paleontologist because everybody points to Jurassic Park and goes, so that’s what you want, right? Like they just it’s just like every, you know, archeologist has to deal with Indiana Jones.
00:57:59:51 – 00:58:08:42
Agent Palmer
The aerospace thing. Man, if I had if I had if I had done that now is the golden age. I mean, there’s yeah, it’s it’s out.
00:58:08:46 – 00:58:09:24
Dr. Yanas Kisten
There because, you know.
00:58:09:24 – 00:58:29:26
Agent Palmer
It’s it’s out of government hands now. So now it’s in the private sector, which means not only can you do cool things, you can actually get paid. Whereas, you know, 30 years ago when I was eight, you know, it was you’re going to work for NASA, like there was, there was nowhere else to go, really.
00:58:29:31 – 00:58:31:40
Dr. Yanas Kisten
Was no options.
00:58:31:45 – 00:58:53:53
Agent Palmer
I feel like now, though. And and look, I was unemployed for a long time and I thought about going back to school, but the again, I always go like the I, I don’t know if I can focus enough on one thing to really get out of it, what I need to put into it to get out of it.
00:58:53:53 – 00:59:06:11
Agent Palmer
Right. So I think for me and I’ll, I’ll keep my two and my four year degree probably won’t get anything else, but that’s fine. And, you know, now I get the.
00:59:06:16 – 00:59:13:42
Dr. Yanas Kisten
What did you like to do? Like a study and like, podcasting or something? Is there a question you would like to answer?
00:59:13:47 – 00:59:24:06
Agent Palmer
I don’t know. I, you know, I, I’ve become a grumpy old man when it comes to podcasts. I becoming a grumpy old man who comes to a lot of things.
00:59:24:11 – 00:59:28:59
Dr. Yanas Kisten
Yeah, but it’s just, I think the human condition of getting older, I guess.
00:59:29:04 – 01:00:05:29
Agent Palmer
I, I don’t know, I don’t think there’s any one question. I, I think I’m just curious to talk to people. I think I’m just generally interested in the long form conversation. I’m interested in talking to you for an hour and a half without my phone and without other things, you know, without the TV on or, a stream on in the background and just being in the moment and listening to what you have to say and genuinely reacting to that.
01:00:05:34 – 01:00:29:49
Agent Palmer
And, I guess that’s a form of anthropology that’s probably as far as I’ll go. Right? Because I, I’m not just talking to other podcasters. I’m not just talking to other content creators. I’ve talked to business owners and authors and, you know, actors and writers and musicians. So I generally am just a curious individual. So I do fit that mold.
01:00:29:58 – 01:00:39:34
Agent Palmer
But I think that’s where it ends, because, again, I’m not talking to the same kind of person, and I’m not trying to get the same thing. So it’s like whatever comes, it comes. And I.
01:00:39:39 – 01:00:40:23
Dr. Yanas Kisten
01:00:40:28 – 01:00:59:22
Agent Palmer
I’m, I’m, I’m, I’m excited at the variety of it. And I think that, well, I’m sure there’s variety for you. You’re not writing the same paper ten times. You’re still in a certain sector that I don’t know if I could live that specifically in for that long.
01:00:59:24 – 01:01:27:16
Dr. Yanas Kisten
Yeah, yeah. For sure. Definitely. Now I understand. I also feel that way. Yeah, I get it. I totally get it. Yeah. And so I feel it’s, it’s that it’s kind of like you, it’s more of a consumer type of thing. Like you just enjoy doing this and you, even though you’re creating the kind of consuming the feeling of of what you’re doing, how are you feeling when you, when you’re creating?
01:01:27:16 – 01:01:57:28
Dr. Yanas Kisten
So for sure, it’s it’s one of those things where sometimes we don’t want to like answer any questions. And yeah, it’s it just means you’re probably not fit for academia and not fit to become a researcher with it doesn’t mean that you’re any less less, then it’s just a different like way of life. And like, yeah, I like I’ve come to the point now where, like, I, I do have questions I would like to answer, but I think I’ve run out of that.
01:01:57:30 – 01:02:17:13
Dr. Yanas Kisten
Whatever energy I had in those young guys that drove me to answer those questions. So now it’s kind of just like a day job for me. And like, everybody has to like, do work to, to get paid. And I’m not bad at it, which would be, which would be really terrible, but I’m very good at it.
01:02:17:13 – 01:02:34:32
Dr. Yanas Kisten
That’s why I’m still publishing papers. It’s kind of a weird thing. I think my mindset is very different now than it was like when I first got into this stuff, and I was super passionate about becoming a scientist. And yeah, I think that was one of the weird things, because I was super passionate about becoming a scientist.
01:02:34:36 – 01:02:47:14
Dr. Yanas Kisten
Not like actually, like, I don’t know those passionate about doing research or like on screen questions about the world. So I became a scientist. I like kicked off of books, and then I was kind of like kind of bit lost.
01:02:47:19 – 01:02:48:50
Agent Palmer
All right, now.
01:02:48:55 – 01:02:57:41
Dr. Yanas Kisten
Yeah. No, I feel like for you I’m in a weird place in terms of like. But yeah, I totally get where you’re coming from. I was very similar type of feelings.
–End Transcription–
This transcription was processed by PalmerTech 3.1 and may contain errors for HUMINT (human intelligence).