Science, Hope & The Future We’re Trying to Build: Live from the 2025 Cambridge Science Carnival

Dustin Grinnell (00:00:00 --> 00:01:53)
I'm Dustin Grenell, and this is Curiously.

This September, I had the chance to host a booth at the Cambridge Science Carnival, organized by the MIT Museum in Kendall Square. The festival was buzzing on a Sunday afternoon, with more than 100 booths celebrating science, discovery, and curiosity, plus tons of hands-on activities for families. I was there representing my little corner of the writing and publishing world: science fiction with heart. I brought along copies of my books, The Empathy Academy and the healing book, and by the end of the day, every single one had found a new home. But books weren't the only thing I was sharing.

I also brought my podcast and a big question I thought fit the spirit of the event: if science could solve one problem for humanity in the next 50 years, what would you hope it would be and why? 14 brave souls took the mic and shared their thoughts for this special episode of Curiously. Their answers ranged from tackling humanity's waste problems to ensuring clean water to solving world peace to even creating a human satisfaction index. One young boy was rooting for science to bring back dinosaurs. The voices you'll hear span generations, from kids as young as 11 to adults in their 60s, and reflect perspectives from different cultures too.

Listening back, I realized something. While I asked about solutions in the next 50 years, I found myself really hoping some of these breakthroughs would come much sooner. Since I put all these kind folks on the spot,, it was only fair that I took a crack at the question myself. And you'll hear my answer mixed in with the others. So let's dive in, and I hope you enjoy this special episode of Curiously, recorded live at the MIT Museum's Cambridge Science Carnival.

Dustin Grinnell (00:01:53 --> 00:01:55)
Would there be dinosaurs?

Dustin Grinnell (00:01:56 --> 00:02:06)
Ooh, for that question? Oh, okay. Which dinosaur would you want back? Every! All of them? If that can happen in the next 5 years, I would be happy. I would be so stoked. You and me both.

Brave Soul (00:02:06 --> 00:02:10)
Like space explorers? Exploration to see if we can find another species.

Dustin Grinnell (00:02:10 --> 00:02:14)
Yeah, or maybe another home too, in case this one blows up.

Dustin Grinnell (00:02:14 --> 00:02:14)
Yeah.

Dustin Grinnell (00:02:14 --> 00:03:05)
That's why we need science. Hi, I'm Keith from Arlington, Massachusetts. And the question is, if science could solve one problem for humanity in the next 50 years, what would it be and why? I think climate change is really important to address, and so I'm hoping that science can solve carbon capture? Because it seems really hard to get cooperation together for people to stop emitting. So let us just keep doing it and we'll just suck it out of the sky. Well, we've already done a lot that needs to be addressed, and we're on a trajectory for warming already. So carbon capture could help that. And we're transitioning to solar power and other kind of renewable fuels, but there's still a lot going out there. So being able to address that for the sake of our climate would be a really valuable addition.

Dustin Grinnell (00:03:05 --> 00:03:51)
Hi, my name is Azam. I live in Cambridge and I'm older generation. And my question is that how science can help the humanity to see the truth with their own eyes independently, and how we can train the children from infant ages to be independently thinking unbiased, without prejudice, and cognitively become so open to think and see the truth themselves with their own eyes and understand it. So how can create this new human being that is always searching for the truth?

Dustin Grinnell (00:03:51 --> 00:04:08)
If someone was completely unprogrammed, if someone was completely unpropagandized if they were just a free mind, what kind of society would that create? Minds who aren't conditioned by religion or their—

Dustin Grinnell (00:04:08 --> 00:04:49)
yeah. The truth is always one. There aren't multiple of that. There is one truth. And even if you look from different angles, it's still the truth is the same.

We just interpret with our own angle. So The society naturally will come to a sort of unity and common understanding or mutual understanding and harmony. And that is the fundamental of peace, or to say better, that universal peace. Because if it's not universal, then it's not really happening. It has to be.

Dustin Grinnell (00:04:49 --> 00:05:11)
So how do we know it's universal? Because For example, like we were talking about the afterlife, we don't truly know if it exists because science can't study that, we can't quantify it. So if that's a phenomenon that isn't figured out yet, so how would we know a universal truth about that? If someone believed in it, we wouldn't know if they're wrong, but if someone didn't believe in, we wouldn't know if they're wrong either.

Dustin Grinnell (00:05:11 --> 00:06:56)
If you look at the fundamental of all of those things that is happening and answering the question, then we know that all of the answers, when you line them up, the root of them are the same: prejudice. If you eliminate prejudice, biases, selfishness, greed, the common truth is that everybody understands these are not really good. And if you eliminate greed, if you eliminate the love for power, and if you eliminate selfishness and you become more altruistic— and in fact, that's the truth. And everybody really, the majority of the people agree that is the truth, the majority. But it's more important, I think, not to be influenced by a minority.

So you want to have that independent thinking, and eventually the overall consciousness will win. Once that you have the peace, universal peace in, in place, it's very difficult to fight against that and dismantle it.

Yeah, it's pretty much impossible to uproot the universal peace after it's been established, right? It's very impossible to make someone prejudiced and biased after that person has been raised and programmed from early months of life, early days of life, free from all of it. It's very difficult. You cannot do it. It's just like—

Dustin Grinnell (00:06:56 --> 00:07:34)
there have been some, uh, I've seen, uh, like for example American neo-Nazis who, you know, the hatred for other races, you know, it leads to, you know, violence and other types of things. There are some who have been able to deprogram themselves. There are some neo-Nazis who have found their humanity. They were able to get out of the ideology by deprogramming. So some adults have figured out a way to come out, you know, people who have defected from cults. They've also figured out a way to get out of ideology, but that seems extremely rare. To be able to deprogram, decondition.

Dustin Grinnell (00:07:34 --> 00:08:04)
Yeah, it's much easier everything to start very, very early in life, right? If you want to learn a language, that's the time. If you want to learn a musical instrument, that's the time, right? Any skills that you want to learn, that's the time. So also being truthful and also looking at being free from all of these vices of the world That's also the time to really have the opposite virtue, which is the kind of good positive one of it.

Brave Soul (00:08:04 --> 00:08:04)
Yeah.

Dustin Grinnell (00:08:04 --> 00:08:15)
And see everything in the lens of the truth. It's kind of like searching the truth of it. So unbiased, independent, very independent. So totally independent.

Dustin Grinnell (00:08:15 --> 00:08:29)
Well, that's a great answer. It seems like it almost could be the root of all the other problems. If we eliminated prejudice, if we were unprogrammable, so to speak, if we were truly independent, you might sort of get rid of hate and—

Dustin Grinnell (00:08:29 --> 00:08:38)
Yeah, it's very difficult. And later in your life, for example, your 50s, you want to unlearn and relearn. It's very difficult.

Dustin Grinnell (00:08:38 --> 00:08:38)
Yeah.

Dustin Grinnell (00:08:38 --> 00:09:20)
Yeah. To unlearn something that you consciously know that it was not good. Right. And relearn. Too much of the struggle.

And yeah, good luck with that. But why we not don't go to the easier path? We just need to follow up with the new generation, and after one or two generations, it will be really diluted out, and the new generations is going to take over with their truthful thing. And once that we are in nursing homes, everything is in their hands. They are taking it in a good direction.

Dustin Grinnell (00:09:20 --> 00:11:06)
My name's Tony, 32, from Massachusetts. If I had one solution for humanity with a scientific mechanism, it would probably be better water cleaning and purity systems because most people in the world get sick from infected water or poor sanitary conditions. So if you could improve how waste is managed in water and how pathogens are introduced into water, enabling cleaner water, more people would benefit in general across the world. So that would be a significant way to overall improve humanity for all. That's more practical.

That's like, you know, nuts and bolts. You could technically do that. The second one is more science fiction. If you could control people from lying and have a mechanism that you could like detect liars or like untruthful answers, that's not like a truth detector, something like you could actually like determine that, that would solve a lot of problems. Say we lived in a world, a society without lying.

How would you deal with like white lies? How would you deal with— in some ways lying is a social lubricant. It's not Brady Madoffs. And well, maybe you could categorize them. Okay, so like white lies are sort of— yeah, I don't know, loud.

And yeah, like, uh, like some— maybe some lies are good, but we should know which ones are— how we're being lied to. Okay, so there's like a meter. It's like, sure, yeah, green for white lie, you look good in those jeans, you don't really. Yeah. And like red for you're a con man and you're about to become a— Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. If you look at politicians. Wow.

That would be, they'd be redlining the whole— It'd be bad. But then at least we'd know where they stand. Well, you know, it's like if— All the Republicans would be red. I mean, there's plenty of Democrats that probably might be red too. Yeah.

Dustin Grinnell (00:11:06 --> 00:11:06)
Sure.

Dustin Grinnell (00:11:06 --> 00:11:10)
You have to cover all your bases or cover other bases.

Dustin Grinnell (00:11:11 --> 00:11:11)
Yeah.

Dustin Grinnell (00:11:11 --> 00:12:47)
And I don't know, it's sort of a lying business. It is a lying business, but I don't think it benefits people very well. I think people get frustrated. They see the lies and it's just lies stacked on top of lies and dishonesty. I think it causes a lot of stress for people.

Did you ever see, uh, The Three-Body Problem or read the book? No, I— So it's a science fiction book. Okay. And this alien species that comes to Earth, they're like a hive mind. So they all interact with each other via their own consciousness and whatever.

And their thing is they don't lie. They don't know how to. They don't even have a mechanism for it. We need those people here. Yeah.

So when they interact with one of the humans, one of the humans tells like a lie. He kind of didn't want to be totally truthful in his answer to them. And the species got really quiet for a while and then just disengaged completely because they'd understood that the guy was being disingenuous. And then that's something that's very, it's not trustworthy. Okay.

And so that was one of the reasons why they like decided not to engage with us anymore, because they found out that our species were liars. We could lie. We had that ability. Yeah. And they didn't like that because how can you trust anybody if they have that ability?

There you go. They figured it out. We need some of their DNA infused into us. I don't know. Should we share a mind, a hive mind together?

I'm not really sure we should. I think it works for a lot of other animal species, so yeah, why not? Like ants and things like that? Yeah. Well, those are two fantastic answers.

Dustin Grinnell (00:12:47 --> 00:13:14)
I'm 64. And if science could solve one problem for humanity in the next 50 years, I don't think it's humanity that needs to have their problems solved. I think it's humanity's place in the world that needs to be solved. I think people like to be separate from the rest of the world, and in that separation have forgotten the connections that are key to the survival of us all.

Dustin Grinnell (00:13:14 --> 00:13:16)
Can science solve that?

Dustin Grinnell (00:13:18 --> 00:13:31)
Science can help us reframe. Yeah, but people have to be willing. Yeah, to use that science. We've had amazing science come along over the years. Oh my gosh. In the last 100 years, science has changed immeasurably.

Dustin Grinnell (00:13:31 --> 00:13:35)
Right. Splitting the atom, flying to the moon, digital technology. Yeah.

Brave Soul (00:13:35 --> 00:13:35)
All of those things.

Dustin Grinnell (00:13:35 --> 00:13:36)
MRIs. Yeah.

Dustin Grinnell (00:13:36 --> 00:13:57)
All of those things. And yet we don't use the technology to benefit the entire planet. So what would save humanity? How can we get people to reframe so that they see themselves as a part of this world? Instead of one part of it that needs to dominate the rest of the world. Yeah.

Dustin Grinnell (00:13:57 --> 00:14:01)
Science knows how to save the environment, but people don't do it.

Dustin Grinnell (00:14:01 --> 00:14:13)
And if science can't figure out a way to rewire the human brain to go back to being part of the world, then science isn't the problem.

Dustin Grinnell (00:14:13 --> 00:14:22)
Humanity is. I like it. If that can happen in the next 5 years, I would be happy. I would be so stoked. You and me both. Yes. Well, thank you so much.

Dustin Grinnell (00:14:22 --> 00:14:23)
Thank you.

Dustin Grinnell (00:14:23 --> 00:14:24)
Hi, my name's Ella.

Dustin Grinnell (00:14:24 --> 00:14:45)
I'm 13, and I think if science could solve one problem for humanity in the next 50 years, it would be climate change, because currently many people are suffering and climate change is the cause of that, especially because now sea levels are rising and a lot more natural disasters are happening.

Dustin Grinnell (00:14:45 --> 00:14:47)
Do you want to be involved in that change?

Dustin Grinnell (00:14:47 --> 00:14:56)
Yes, but I hope to actually go into medicine, but I will try my best to advocate, make some kind of change.

Brave Soul (00:14:56 --> 00:14:58)
My name is Frank. I'm 12 years old.

Dustin Grinnell (00:14:58 --> 00:15:00)
I live in Ewan.

Brave Soul (00:15:00 --> 00:15:13)
And if science could solve one problem for humanity, it would probably be that everyone should be more aware of what they're doing, because I can find out some fun facts on the news that I never knew.

Dustin Grinnell (00:15:13 --> 00:15:17)
It was like something about bath bombs could kill you or something.

Brave Soul (00:15:17 --> 00:15:30)
And then, and there was another thing where it was like, it was another thing where like, if you have this bad habit, like it can actually affect the world in like the wrong way or something. So I would feel like they should elaborate more on that.

Dustin Grinnell (00:15:30 --> 00:15:44)
So get it like, what's the, what's the solution that you hope for? Like getting more aware about all the things you do and how they impact the world because like, Yeah, saying like, here are the consequences. Yeah. And making people more aware of those. Yeah.

Brave Soul (00:15:45 --> 00:15:45)
Nice.

Dustin Grinnell (00:15:45 --> 00:16:03)
My name is Maria and I'm from Cambridge. If science could solve one problem for humanity in the next 50 years, I hope it will be world peace because that will be good for all humans and our environment.

Dustin Grinnell (00:16:03 --> 00:16:10)
So to put you on the spot, How could science solve world peace? Like, how do we get there? What's the root of world peace and how does science get to it?

Dustin Grinnell (00:16:10 --> 00:16:14)
I think we need human wellness.

Brave Soul (00:16:14 --> 00:16:20)
Humans have the brains and the hands, and we're the ones that make a whole bunch of stuff.

Dustin Grinnell (00:16:20 --> 00:16:21)
We're the toolmakers.

Dustin Grinnell (00:16:21 --> 00:16:31)
Yeah. So if we could increase wellness on like a grander scale, on a species-level scale, we all could be more well, would we have more peace?

Brave Soul (00:16:31 --> 00:16:32)
I believe we would.

Dustin Grinnell (00:16:32 --> 00:16:36)
Or if we were less well, we would have less peace?

Dustin Grinnell (00:16:36 --> 00:16:40)
If we're physically and mentally well, we will have more peace.

Dustin Grinnell (00:16:40 --> 00:16:43)
And I guess then the question is like, what's mentally well?

Dustin Grinnell (00:16:43 --> 00:16:48)
Caring about ourselves, our families, and our communities.

Dustin Grinnell (00:16:48 --> 00:17:03)
Okay. Can science help with that? Like, how do you make someone care about another person if they don't? I can think of a few people right now who don't care. And I'm not sure I can do anything to help them care about thy neighbor, help thy neighbor, you know, all that good stuff.

Dustin Grinnell (00:17:03 --> 00:17:13)
Well, everyone needs to care for themselves first. Okay. And fundamentally, everyone deep down does really care about other people. You think so? At least some.

Brave Soul (00:17:13 --> 00:17:14)
Yeah.

Dustin Grinnell (00:17:14 --> 00:17:14)
Right?

Dustin Grinnell (00:17:15 --> 00:17:15)
Yeah.

Dustin Grinnell (00:17:15 --> 00:17:16)
Done.

Dustin Grinnell (00:17:16 --> 00:17:17)
Thank you. Thank you so much.

Dustin Grinnell (00:17:17 --> 00:17:29)
Thank you.

Brave Soul (00:17:29 --> 00:18:25)
My name is Allison. I am from Peabody in Massachusetts, but I work in Charlestown and I work with early education and care. I am, I'm gonna go with Dustin's age range of 20s and 30s. I think what I'm seeing a lot of is that our world has fast quickly with all of the technology and with the way that answers come quickly and all of that. One of the things that I see in children and adults is, especially I work with a lot of young, like, 20-some-year-olds, is the need for instant gratification. But what I've also seen is this giant leap in mental health disorders and a lot of ADHD and a lot of difficulty staying on task because there's too many things, right? So there's so many quick answers. ChatGPT, all that stuff is fantastic, but like, I'm trying not to use it because it's scared that it's gonna make me forget how to write on my own. Cause like, that's one of my skills, right? The outsource thinking.

Dustin Grinnell (00:18:26 --> 00:18:26)
Right.

Brave Soul (00:18:26 --> 00:18:41)
So if science can solve a problem, I think it would have to be somehow rewiring brains. And I think neurospicy is great. Mm-hmm. I think it's fantastic. I think people need to be neurospicy. I think the neurospicy people make the best things happen in the world sometimes.

Dustin Grinnell (00:18:41 --> 00:18:41)
Yeah.

Brave Soul (00:18:41 --> 00:19:15)
But I, uh, Brandon, uh, exactly. I mean, but also, I mean, even someone like Bill Gates, I mean, he's definitely neurospicy for sure. Oh yeah. Yeah. Right. So I'm not suggesting it needs to be eradicated. Because those, that's what makes them unique. Mm-hmm. But I do think science needs to come up with non-medicinal ways that maybe help with a little bit of chemical balancing and rewiring, especially around mental health issues. Like there's a lot of anxiety, depression at younger ages. There's a lot of ADHD. And I think that it's increasing because our technology is being created more rapidly than the human brain can adapt.

Dustin Grinnell (00:19:15 --> 00:19:15)
Yep.

Brave Soul (00:19:15 --> 00:20:20)
But then there's some people who believe it's like evolved differently as well. But we're not evolving as fast as society is evolving and technology. So I think if science could figure out a way to help humans without damaging our humanity, catch up to the technology somehow and help us so that we're not constantly having this barrage of screens and images and information and everything's there and it's overwhelming. And I think that creates a lot of emotional pain sometimes for people. Like your book with the empathy, like empathy is so important.

And I think that it's like one of the most amazing things, but it's not— everyone doesn't have it. And I think it becomes harder and harder to have empathy because I think that the technology we have to also dissociates us. I think we dissociate ourselves from the world much more easily. By being able to jump onto technology. And like, I think you have to be around human beings to have empathy.

Dustin Grinnell (00:20:20 --> 00:20:29)
Yeah. And even online, there's a, there's a distance effect. And yes, there's anonymity as well. Yeah, the cases. So you can kind of do and say as you please, and that leads to dark outcomes.

Brave Soul (00:20:29 --> 00:22:50)
Like, I want to read their body language, like, I want to hear their tone of voice. Like, and you can, but it's not the same. And I think that's also like with texting. Like, I have to teach my younger teachers all the time, like, I am not going to respond to your 25-line text because I'm going to say let's talk tomorrow because you're not going to take my tone the right way. You're not going to see what I mean the right way.

And I think I see a lot of younger, like, 20-some, 18, even my son. I have a son who's a teenager. He's empathetic, but it's just interesting. Like, I see this weirdness of like, there's a lack of like being around people. I think the problem that has happened in science is as much as technology is fantastic, as much as AI is fantastic, as much as we're blessed to have like all of these instant connections and ways that we can connect with people that we never would be able to connect with so quickly.

That's awesome. But also I think it's created a disconnected humanity. You know, we don't have a village anymore. There's no, there's no villages, there's no community, there's no people that are actually connecting at a human level. And I think science somehow needs to figure out a way to slow down almost with technology.

Again, going back to like what it's doing to our brains and what it's doing to our mental health. Like, I don't think science is putting enough effort into helping mental health issues that are arising more often, especially in children. But the ADHD and the anxiety and the social anxiety and and all the things that were not as prevalent, I think are more prevalent because of the way our world is so fast. And science just medicates it, right? Here's a pill, here's a pill, here's a pill.

Dustin Grinnell (00:22:51 --> 00:22:51)
Right.

Dustin Grinnell (00:22:51 --> 00:22:51)
Yeah.

Brave Soul (00:22:51 --> 00:23:13)
But when you don't get to be around that, like some, and it's energy, people are energy, right? So when you're behind a screen, you don't get their energy. So if you have somebody who has this really great energy and someone who has this really like powerful, like healing presence, you're not gonna get that from behind a screen either. So I think, you know, we're lacking that a lot and I don't know how science could fix that because now we're just a world where that's how we connect.

Dustin Grinnell (00:23:13 --> 00:23:14)
Maybe science can't fix that.

Brave Soul (00:23:14 --> 00:23:16)
Maybe science can't fix that. Maybe humanity has to fix it.

Dustin Grinnell (00:23:16 --> 00:23:18)
Maybe technology, maybe it's a societal change.

Brave Soul (00:23:18 --> 00:24:05)
Maybe humanity has to fix it. Maybe humanity has to remember how to be human and how to be together. Yeah. And like your book, I mean, the Empathy Academy, that's such an interesting concept of like trying to understand at a young age if children lack empathy, even understanding at a young age, like identifying children who may be at risk for like ASPD or narcissism or different mental health or psychopathy or things like that. Like, identifying young and having these places where it goes and teaches them and helps their brain to not be that way. Yeah. And teach us things like empathy. Is there's nothing— I don't think there is a more important human emotion, to be honest, than empathy and love and healing. And people have healing energy and people have healing presences. And so maybe you're right, maybe science can't fix it, maybe humans have to fix it.

Dustin Grinnell (00:24:05 --> 00:24:25)
And, uh, well, it's a human problem, so maybe it's like yours, right? Well, I think in the book, The Empathy Academy, It's kind of like, you know, they go, the idea is like maybe we can genetically engineer our way out of this problem. But at the end of the day, what it took this young kid to learn was having a friend and having a good mentor, having a good teacher.

Brave Soul (00:24:25 --> 00:24:27)
And having someone who had that.

Dustin Grinnell (00:24:27 --> 00:24:28)
And reconciling with his dad.

Brave Soul (00:24:28 --> 00:24:31)
And, and yeah, I can't wait to read this book. I'm so excited.

Dustin Grinnell (00:24:31 --> 00:24:33)
But it's like humans solved the problem.

Brave Soul (00:24:33 --> 00:24:35)
So maybe science can't solve everything then. Maybe that's the answer.

Dustin Grinnell (00:24:35 --> 00:24:36)
That's a great answer.

Brave Soul (00:24:36 --> 00:24:49)
Maybe what, what do I hope it would be? It would be that science doesn't have to be the intervention for everything. Damn right. Maybe the, maybe the answer is people and people educating other people and spreading books like you're— the spreading the message you're spreading.

Dustin Grinnell (00:24:49 --> 00:26:48)
Uh, my name is Dustin and I'm 42 years old and I live in Winthrop, Massachusetts. There are probably many problems that are bigger than what I'm suggesting here. But I think in the next 50 years, if we could figure out how to sleep optimally, that would help in so many other ways. I recently saw that 50 million Americans have an actual sleep disorder and 100 million people in the United States have trouble with sleeping. And it's pretty obvious that that's causing a lot of problems, not just well-being, but productivity, satisfaction all around.

And I feel like we all know that if we get a bad night's sleep, we're not going to be, you know, our best selves in the morning. And we also know that if we're not feeling well, often like the best way to feel better is just a good, natural, healthy night's sleep. So I feel like if we could somehow figure out how to crack sleep for real, we would be doing a lot of good for society. And I don't know if that's a pharmacological intervention or we finally figure out how to get the conditions right, because we really at this point know so much about sleep at a scientific and technical level, but it's still not working. We're still all having challenges with sleep.

Dustin Grinnell (00:26:48 --> 00:27:42)
Hello, my name is Sailaja. I'm 46 years old. I'm a scientist by training. I work as a chief scientific officer One thing as a scientist that I always aspire to is to develop drugs that are reachable for everybody. You know, healthcare inequalities is a thing. And, you know, like, there are still many countries that can't afford the medicines that are available, should be approachable to every human being. Money can't be a factor that they can't reach. So That's one thing I am passionate about. And obviously there are still so many diseases that need treatments and cures, but at the same time, equally important is what is available should be approachable for everybody on Earth.

Dustin Grinnell (00:27:42 --> 00:27:54)
Science is solving some of those healthcare inequities, right? Like the ability to keep certain drugs cold for a long period of time. Exactly. And it just increases the—

Dustin Grinnell (00:27:54 --> 00:29:04)
Yeah, exactly. Again, The development, being on the other side as a drug developer, I know how much it costs to develop those, how much research that needs to, like, the success rate for drug development is huge. So it does take time, you know, that's why 50 years feels hopeful for me because it hopefully sooner, but this take time from the initiation, say for an example of a paracetamol, right? I'm sure at some day before it would have been a very precious commodity, but now it can be reached everywhere. So like cell therapies, these are like very important for the science development, but at very few centers, even within U.S., there are only few centers, few people can get those treatments. So yeah, whatever is available at the same time, treatments to be equally reachable to— that needs to be always in the mind of people. And again, as you said, that's one key example, right? It's for the remote places, like in how you even transfer. Like, we saw that issue with COVID vaccine, right? Right.

Dustin Grinnell (00:29:04 --> 00:29:50)
Yes. Which is just, we need to be faster than that. Yeah. And we were able to do that. Yes.

Yeah, exactly. So just kind of making that faster. One of my favorite people, I used to work at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Paul Farmer was associated with it. And so he, Tracy Kidder wrote this book about Paul Farmer, who's a physician and a humanitarian. And he used to go all around the world.

Dustin Grinnell (00:29:50 --> 00:29:53)
Yeah, exactly. I am hopeful for sure.

Dustin Grinnell (00:29:53 --> 00:30:25)
My name is Colin. I'm 12 years old. I'm from Newton, and if science could solve a problem in humanity for the next 50 years, I think it would be, uh, finding a replacement for like oil or something, because, uh, it's like it's running out and If we don't find a solution to that. Well, we need energy. We need— Yeah. So that's what I hope for. Okay. Thank you. I said about June, December, June 10th. So what do you think? 50 years of science could solve one problem. What do you think?

Dustin Grinnell (00:30:25 --> 00:30:28)
You're going to be dinosaurs.

Dustin Grinnell (00:30:28 --> 00:30:32)
Bring back dinosaurs. Oh, okay. Which dinosaur would you want back?

Brave Soul (00:30:32 --> 00:30:32)
Every.

Dustin Grinnell (00:30:32 --> 00:30:35)
All of them?

Dustin Grinnell (00:30:35 --> 00:30:35)
Pretty much.

Dustin Grinnell (00:30:35 --> 00:31:18)
Like Jurassic Park. Yeah. My name is Phil. I'm from Belmont. I'm not very young.

I would hope it would be climate change. That involves tons of problems, tons and tons of problems. Right. If we could keep our planet habitable, that's why. Yeah.

I think many science disciplines could get that. Now it's a question of whether or not we'll believe it. Yeah, that's right, that's right. Yeah, belief. Very almost now it seems even if we have the science, even if science has solved the problem, we may not, uh, on a grand scale accept it, act on it, right?

Brave Soul (00:31:20 --> 00:31:20)
Yeah.

Dustin Grinnell (00:31:20 --> 00:31:22)
Hello, my name is Sophia.

Brave Soul (00:31:22 --> 00:31:40)
I've lived in Cambridge all my life. I'm 11, and for one problem to solve would probably be like space exploration to improve the science behind space exploration and solve many internet alien mysteries, you know, because I feel like everyone's on a cliffhanger for that.

Dustin Grinnell (00:31:40 --> 00:31:42)
Yeah. Do you think you want to go out into space?

Dustin Grinnell (00:31:42 --> 00:31:44)
Do you think?

Brave Soul (00:31:44 --> 00:31:54)
Probably not, but because it's really cold and scary and yeah, I don't— and I don't want my spaceship to fail because then what do I do?

Dustin Grinnell (00:31:54 --> 00:31:58)
Right. So what's good about humanity going off Earth then?

Brave Soul (00:31:58 --> 00:32:02)
For like exploration to see if we can find another species.

Dustin Grinnell (00:32:02 --> 00:32:05)
Okay. Yeah. Or maybe another home too, in case this one—

Dustin Grinnell (00:32:05 --> 00:32:06)
Yeah.

Brave Soul (00:32:06 --> 00:32:09)
In case this one blows up.

Dustin Grinnell (00:32:09 --> 00:33:13)
Yeah. Hey, my name is Satya. I'm 30 years old. I'm from Los Angeles. I recently moved to Somerville this year.

I think as especially Americans, we create a lot of waste. Their packaging, general food waste, restaurant waste, home waste, et cetera. And I wish there was a better way to handle trash and the large landfills of trash that we have today. And I think like recycling, you know, compost is definitely a solution, but I think I've heard that much of the recycled stuff we throw away isn't actually like recycled, only a percentage of it. So those may be like small steps that are really grandized looking like big steps.

So now we're really making a dent, but I think we need to make a further punch. More of a meaningful— Yeah, a meaningful change. Like if only like 6, 7% of what we recycle is actually getting recycled, that's not really— And that's the number? A solid solution. I think it's less than 10%.

Dustin Grinnell (00:33:13 --> 00:33:13)
Yeah.

Dustin Grinnell (00:33:13 --> 00:35:05)
Like, where does it go? Burn it? Incinerate it? Maybe microbes? Maybe burn it may not work.

Yeah. But I had a friend that was thinking about worms and eating trash. Right. Maybe microbe stuff. Yeah.

I'm not exactly sure. I'm not in that world. Yeah. Not so knowledgeable, but I think that's a humanitarian problem we need to solve. Yeah.

Hi, my name is Veer Pandey, and I am a resident of Walpole, Massachusetts, but originally from India and been in the US for the last 25 years. If science could solve one problem for humanity in the next 50 years, I would hope it would be one where if there was a scientific way to measure what exactly our human satisfaction index is, because if you are satisfied with what we have, then, or we know we are not satisfied and we need XYZ more, then we can have a way to attain that and then live the rest of our lives peacefully. It could be satisfaction one gets from doing something, flying in the air, exploring the solar system, or inventing new things, making more money, a car, whatever that is. But if we had a scientific way to measure what's our satisfaction index, and then have a way to get to it, we could solve a lot of our challenges. Thanks for listening to this episode of Curiously.

I hope you enjoyed this special live recording from the Cambridge Science Carnival. If this episode challenged your thinking or helped broaden your perspective, please consider sharing it with your friends and family and use it to have a conversation of your own. If you want to support Curiously, please consider leaving a review. Thanks again for listening and stay tuned for more conversations with people I meet along the way.