00:00.00 archpodnet Um, Rachel we we cut out. Let me, um, me get a specum. We'll do another 2 minutes then end the segment um or Chris who was editing where were we talking about neanderthal's chins um vincenzo. 00:12.53 Dr Baggadonuts Um, ah yeah, anyways, long story short is humans are super ad mixed in the past and in the present. 00:18.40 archpodnet Yeah, but. 00:27.16 Dr Baggadonuts And it's really difficult to say without having boots on the ground of a time machine. What population dynamics were like and that's why paleo geomics exist because we're trying to reconstruct that stuff. But yeah, that's that genomics. 00:40.36 archpodnet What is paleo genomics by the way. Okay, so pretty self explanatory. 00:45.51 Dr Baggadonuts Of the past. So yeah, and it's not just humans either so like paleo genomics can be you know, woolly rhino neanderthal Lebron yeah, you know to be anything. 01:00.80 archpodnet Sure what's the difference between genomics and genetics. 01:06.76 Dr Baggadonuts Ah, genetics. Well, that's a good question. So genetics is like when I when I think of genetics as a field but specifically speaking about the study of genes right? Um, that could be whatever you want genomics is the. 01:17.50 archpodnet Okay. 01:24.13 Dr Baggadonuts Study of the structure. The the function. Um the mapping of genomes how the genomes evolve and all that are stuff so they you know they overlap obviously. But yeah, when talking about genomics starting with the genome. Okay. When you talk about genetics talking about Genes which is you know people use them interchangeably I don't I use me jeans me all the time even they don't mean the same thing but. 01:52.55 archpodnet Yeah, yeah, okay, um, so I think that's a good spot to end the first segment um and then we'll pick back up afterwards I got a few questions about what you're doing um okay Rachel cut that there and then we'll just keep it on the same track here 3 2 01:55.32 Dr Baggadonuts Oh girl. Oh yeah. 02:10.10 archpodnet 1 Okay, welcome back to episode one forty eight of a life earns podcast I'm here with my friend Vincent Batista we're talking paleogenomics paleogenetics. We just discussed what genomics and genetics are I don't think I got to ask you last segment but what what is it? You're currently doing ah for for work. 02:26.33 Dr Baggadonuts Yeah, so um, the last time we spoke I was at Massachusetts General Hospital and I was in the center for translational epidemiology which was in gi. 02:33.25 archpodnet That's right. 02:44.14 Dr Baggadonuts And I since finished just kind of like a non ah nontraditional postdoc and I finished that and got a job in industry where I do translational epidemiology for a company called Bristol Myers which is a pharmaceutical company. 03:01.27 archpodnet Okay, so we allowed to call that big pharma. 03:03.94 Dr Baggadonuts Yeah, you can call whatever you want? Yeah, that's a very very small, very very small group. Um, and we do a lot of really cool stuff and I personally do you know I get to do some cool things. So. 03:18.75 archpodnet Yeah, how do you feel doing that having gone through ° of anthropology and not teaching like anthropology. Yeah. 03:21.44 Dr Baggadonuts Yeah. 03:29.61 Dr Baggadonuts I Do anthropology every day I get to do a I get to use my degree in my training every single day every single day now. No I still get to Mentor young scientists I get to mentor. Um. 03:36.66 archpodnet Um, and you're not doing musical chairs of training students and giving degrees and stuff. 03:47.34 Dr Baggadonuts People from a bunch of different backgrounds from all over the world I get to work with people from all over the world. Um, and I get to use my training as an anthropologist. So I also want to say like you know I was an archeologist as an undergrad. But then I got a bioanther degree from a 4 field school. 03:50.30 archpodnet Ah. 04:06.52 Dr Baggadonuts And that meant that I had to take you know take everything from a genetics course to an osteology course to you which I did both of those for my dissertation. To doing computational methods to take medical anthropology and I use that stuff all the time I even use linguistics all the time we was taking anthropology all the time like talking about power dynamics talking about the language of consent talking about these things I use that all the time and I don't know many. 04:26.17 archpodnet Yeah, okay. 04:38.42 Dr Baggadonuts I Don't have a whole lot of colleagues that are at this stage in their career where they get to do that all like every day and I do it literally every day. Yeah. 04:45.61 archpodnet That is so cool man. Um, and when you say ah like consent you mean like fridge like research purposes Genetics privileges. 04:51.36 Dr Baggadonuts Yeah, yeah, all yeah and like you know we have we might for example on a given day be speaking with stakeholders about you know, like what I can't really go into too much detail because a lot of it's proprietary. 05:05.62 archpodnet Sure. 05:07.69 Dr Baggadonuts But like say we were hypothetically getting a project off the ground with the community. Um, you know, making sure that the research questions that are directly relevant to their specific health outcomes are being met and that they're informed and knowing that this is done in a sustainable way and like you know like I haven't been there that long. But people that I work with there's actually like several people who have anthropology background in my department. Yeah, who are bioinformaticians. Yeah, So yeah. 05:36.46 archpodnet Um, really cool. What's your day to day look like there like as say like for someone who's anthropologically interested. 05:46.22 Dr Baggadonuts Yeah I Do a lot of writing computer programs. Um, so my dissertation with Ph D research was um, it was computational biology I mean I did genetics and I did physiology and anatomy and so. Um I was pretty light in the physiology stuff because I was looking at Genes implicated in known physiological Processes. So I didn't do a lot of hands-on physiology stuff but in my Post-doc training I did a lot of proteomics. So for my dayto-day I might do some proteomic stuff some population genetic stuff which is what I'm really familiar with um to writing machine learning Programs. Help refine stuff or you know doing code reviews things like that I do a lot of writing also like writing up um, white papers for new disease areas that we might be interested in things like that. Yeah, it's pretty cool. 06:37.70 archpodnet Um, yeah, how do you feel about machine learning and Ai going into the future if you don't mind me asking. 06:45.29 Dr Baggadonuts I do machine learning all done and it's a really powerful tool the problem with powerful tools in science is that um people think they will save the world and. People who do machine learning and ai know that it's an important tool but also know the limitations but people who want to fund a lot of the research I'm not saying my company but I'm saying like nsf things that I've seen are and Nih things that I've seen are promising you the moon stars when. 07:10.48 archpodnet Yeah, yeah. 07:18.40 Dr Baggadonuts You could get to the boon and starts with conventional statistics like you could do things but from your stat 1 on 1 stat 2 or 1 classes. You don't need machine learning. Um, so that's 1 thing on the other hand machine learning is going to really help us to be able to identify possibly new therapies. Um, it could help us to learn things from orphan drugs like drugs that were developed but never brought to market. For example, um, it's going to help us identify new things from diagnostic imaging. Um these are all things that are being published right now in high impact journals that like you know people are using this to. 07:44.88 archpodnet Um, ah. 07:55.95 Dr Baggadonuts Make a positive influence on human health and I think I suffer from being an optimist but this could um you know Ai could be something that leads us to a four day work week. You know or a three day work week. You know if we we get our stuff together. Um. 08:10.77 archpodnet Um, yeah. 08:15.33 Dr Baggadonuts You know we can spend more time you know doing the other important things in our day to day. But again I'm a but futurist optimist person. So but you got to real that it. It's nice to dream. Yeah, oh. 08:25.57 archpodnet No, no, you're good. Yeah I see it every day and I want to get back to genetics here in a minute but like my friend's an engineer he loves ai because it can like he can type in stuff and he'll let the program run for like 24 hours and he'll have this like really cool computer. 08:35.51 Dr Baggadonuts Oh. 08:43.26 Dr Baggadonuts Yeah, yeah. 08:45.43 archpodnet That he designed or like a product he designed and it comes out looking super cool. But then there's also the like I would love to use artwork for Ai um but like or Ai for artwork. But I don't want to plagiarize people's art that it's taking from and things like that which is ah a bummer but a big thing too is like. 08:56.85 Dr Baggadonuts Yeah I know I know that's a huge problem. 09:05.38 archpodnet Any kid now can use chat Gp and type in like make me a Youtube video about the history of dogs and like I did it and it took some straightup quotes from my Instagram Sema Angela's work and just like put it right there and then they can make of it which is great I want kids to be able to be creative but like. 09:14.23 Dr Baggadonuts I know. Um, yeah, yeah I mean like the the like the I don't know I'm glad that it wasn't a big thing when I was teaching. Um. 09:21.98 archpodnet Just scary to me that you can just do that. But it's also a cool tool like you said so. 09:36.00 archpodnet All the cheating and tests and classes and stuff. Yeah. 09:38.32 Dr Baggadonuts But or also like I think but also like in anthropology at least what I was teaching. There was so much in class like lab practicals and stuff that you can't chat gbt your way out. But um, the ah the other things like. 09:50.10 archpodnet Right. 09:57.15 Dr Baggadonuts Having having students be like right personal reflections things like that in person you can't really chat Gp that either right? So like having introspection like that sort of stuff is really important and I think you know it's definitely a windfall. 10:07.98 archpodnet Now. 10:16.68 Dr Baggadonuts But we do. But I think um, you know we'll find a way we'll find but Ai is cool though Ai super cool like I think we're going to be able to use Ai to build like better safer automobiles and you know things like that so that'll be sweet. 10:20.52 archpodnet Yeah. 10:35.88 archpodnet I'm glad you're optimistic about it I see a lot of people who aren't but I also think it's it's got more positive than negative I think currently um, you know anyway, um, getting back to genetics I would love to chat to you about that forever. Um, but and genetics. 10:36.14 Dr Baggadonuts Oh yeah, yeah. 10:53.40 Dr Baggadonuts Are. 10:53.72 archpodnet I understand um well actually I think we might've mentioneded this on our last episode but you I got in contact with you because you reached out to me about a neanderthal post that I had and you had said something to me on the that like hey you're not entirely accurate about this and instead of like getting pissed I was like oh wait. This guy's right who are you and then I realized. 11:02.66 Dr Baggadonuts Yeah. 11:13.39 archpodnet You were my teachers teachers student and I was like oh okay, we we are good. So like I immediately listened to you more? Um, but so that being said, we have the same background of information on out of Africa versus multi-regional. But um, would you be able to explain what out of Africa is. 11:13.39 Dr Baggadonuts The or Kin dude were k. 11:29.94 Dr Baggadonuts Yeah, so so so out of Africa and multi-regionalism are 2 contrasting models of human origins so out of Africa says modern humans the way we are today appeared in Africa and we replaced. 11:31.93 archpodnet And like you know Layman's terms 11:49.83 Dr Baggadonuts Populations that were outside of Africa right? So multi-regionalism if we want to contrast the 2 says that humans the earliest humans on record earliest homit. It's on record. Appear in Africa there were primates outside of Africa but the first things that we know were things that led to us appear in Africa and they disperse outside of Africa and even within and without Africa you have core and peripheral populations your population centers and population edges. And these populations are connected through migration and gene flow between them and something that's advantageous in 1 place will um, become. Higher and r and frequency until fixation in that specific region and if it's even beneficial to other regions. It'll because of migration spread throughout the planet right? And essentially it says that populations like neanderthals or the hominids that you find in East Asia they didn't go. 12:45.24 archpodnet A. 12:56.10 Dr Baggadonuts Dinked extinct in the way that you know we replace them but in actuality we mix with them and the evidence for that is that traits that we see in ancient human populations and specific parts of the world can be found in their descendants who live in those parts of the world today now. The support for the out of Africa. Is that if you look at mitochondrial dna and ysdr so like the y chromosome Dna these things coalesce in Africa and none of the ancient Dna that we've gotten from neanderthals or other humans that are you know the nisovans whatever you want to call them. 13:30.12 archpodnet Chair. 13:32.70 Dr Baggadonuts None of those uni parentally inherited markers from antiquity are found in humans today. Great so like both arguments have their merits. Um, but I come from an academic tradition that tends towards this multi-regional. Ah, braided stream idea of human evolution and and the evidence of that since we started sequencing neanderthal genomes and not just their mitochondrial dna is that we find pretty alarming amount of neanderthal and Denise of an ancestry in living human populations. And as was predicted by this multi-regional model treats that were advantageous to certain places in the world in antiquity where there was a geographic center of humans. Let's say Denise Evans can be found in descendant populations today. For example. Um, genes that allow people who live in high altitude regions to survive a high altitude in the Himalayas. Um those haplotypes can be actually traced back to denise events who lived in those same areas. So we see other things like ah certain neanderthal related traits that we believe. Um. 14:45.61 Dr Baggadonuts Contribute to body body proportionality and things like that. So Essentially the big difference between the 2 which these competing camps in the back. And in in the past thought was like either all humans were replaced. They are all humans mixed that reality is somewhere between the 2 of those um and oftentimes there is this argument about multi-regionalism. 15:16.45 Dr Baggadonuts That says that it's this like model of actually the candelabra which was a model put forward by guys like Carlton Co I believe it is Carlton Coon basically said that you have distinct human species and these species never mixed and people from East Asia are the same species as people from East Asia from the. Million years ago people from Africa are the same as people from Africa a million years ago people from Europe are the same as people from Europe a million years ago when they don't mix and that's often what people think of because they are given this incorrect model of multi-regionalism. In reality the underlying assumption of multi-regionalism the thing that makes the model work is that humans mix and a mixed in the past similar to how they mix today and I believe the second that we found any neanderthal Dna in living populations today. It showed that multi-regionalism. 15:56.82 archpodnet Oh. 16:11.45 Dr Baggadonuts Has merit and it's true I mean we see genes from neanderthals in north african populations that isn't from like post bronze age population expansion into North Africa from people from Eurasia like they were probably neanderthals in the Middle East and North Africa 16:24.55 archpodnet Um, yeah. 16:30.13 Dr Baggadonuts You know they were neanderthals and and the levant they were. You know they probably moved around the probably why would they stop? Yeah, they were in Spain too. Why would they stop when they got to you know Mount Sinai you know what? I mean as is too nice over here. 16:34.23 archpodnet And Spain. Yeah. 16:43.38 archpodnet Yes, good night. Get yeah um, Dan okay, so you think it's a it's a mix of the 2 then like out of Africa and multi I guess you can't have one without the other. 16:55.16 Dr Baggadonuts Um I I I am eyedhere to the braided stream multi-regional idea insofar as. Humans mix. They have always mix and they will always continue to mix out of africa happened. It's a matter of if you think it happened fifty thousand years ago or two million years ago right so we have demonisi right demonises in Georgia. 17:17.62 archpodnet Whoa. Okay. 17:22.78 archpodnet Demonisi Oh right. 17:24.56 Dr Baggadonuts Um, it's ah it's an archeological site that has 5 individuals that are attributed to homo erectus right? And these I think it's one point seven five million you something like it's pretty old. It's over It's older than one point six million years old I mean normally the exact day but long story short. These are 5 individuals you have males and females. You have younger folks and older folks and there is so much variation in this 1 population from this 1 cave site that it almost completely encompasses the variation that you see within homo in Africa at that exact same period time right? So it's like oh. 17:55.79 archpodnet Yeah. 18:01.40 Dr Baggadonuts Ah, soon as they show up in Africa they're in Europe and Asia you know what I mean like they they show up and then they're all over the place right? Yeah, if that's what you want to call them. Yeah, um, you know there they show up and then they disperse right. 18:09.41 archpodnet Um, Homo Erectus yeah. 18:17.94 Dr Baggadonuts Is born to run thing right? like theyre like guy What let's just it's like forest Gu you know like just kept running. 18:24.47 archpodnet I just kept running all right? Ah, let's ah, let's cut that there and then in the next segment I want to ask you more about that and just sort of the record we're talking about Georgia Hosbollah Asia we're not talking about Georgia Tennessee Florida um. 18:31.60 Dr Baggadonuts I. 18:39.54 Dr Baggadonuts Um, yeah, exactly? Yeah yeah, yeah. 18:42.10 archpodnet No Georgia America That's the word there. We go cool I know you knew that just just for the people listening all right? We'll be right back.