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Open Call: Submit Your DeSci Experiment
Recorded: April 23, 2025 Duration: 1:00:00Space Recording
Short Summary
Exciting developments in decentralized science are underway with the announcement of an open call for DSiProjects at Zwitserland, a pop-up city in Switzerland. This initiative aims to foster innovation in governance and neurotech, while also addressing the growing trend of collaborative research in the health sector.
Full Transcription
Thank you. Thank you. All right, let's kick things off.
This is Erin McGinnis behind the DSiMic.
This week we'll be talking about an exciting open call for DSiProjects, whether you have
a device, an experiment idea, maybe could be part of the tech stack from a data
storage or collection perspective or some other type of technology
solution or provider for DSI experiments and projects. All of that's
super applicable to this opportunity. So we'll be mostly diving into that today as well as if anyone has other
updates they'd like to share out from their projects or any upcoming events as well.
I'll kick it off with talking about DSi London. Annual conference was about two weeks ago. And so really great
event with traditional scientists, as well as some investors, policy folks, people in industry,
really good mix. And then this week, Thursday, so tomorrow will be the monthly event as well.
week Thursday so tomorrow will be the monthly event as well and so that's one in-person event
another in-person event coming up not until June though is Desai Berlin I know there's some Desai
happenings in Dubai at the end of the month at token 2049 as well. So those are a couple other good places to connect in person.
I think there's something at like a Harvard blockchain event.
I saw a whole panel of a good lineup from Andrew Hemingway to Gianluca from Circular.
I think Ray from, he has a podcast.
A bunch of really great DSI folks have been on that.
So if you haven't checked out his podcast yet, definitely go do so.
There are a couple other good people in the lineup too.
I think Winnie from Avanasi.
So that will be in Boston.
I know there's a DSI event in San Francisco
coming up soon as well
I think part of the Vitalist Bay VitaDAO ecosystem
so those are a couple other ways to stay connected
with the community in person in the meantime
in addition to talking about this open call. So I guess jumping into that side of things,
this open call will be for Zwitserland, which is a pop-up city coming up soon in Switzerland,
and has a really great lineup of different tracks around governance, around
neurotech, tokenomics, privacy, security, and also DSci. And so I'm one of the co-curators there
and it's a great kind of place where there's a whole concentrated group of people who are into all of the things we're talking about
and are receptive to trying some of these different experiments or being collaborative builders on it as well.
So yeah, mostly wanted to talk about Zooezerland and that space as kind of a playground for different projects to experiment
on today. And if there's anyone that you know that would be a good project or a good builder
or a good speaker for that track, definitely click the share button and invite them into this space right now
to come be part of the conversation.
Even if you don't know for sure if they'd be a good fit, it might as well invite them
and then we can kind of talk through that and kind of explore it together. I guess first I'm curious if everyone here is familiar with
pop-up cities in Switzerland. Otherwise, I can dive into what that is to kind of lay some some foundation as well. Maybe just with like a show of reactions or any comments down below.
If you don't know what a pop-up city is or a zoo at Zerlin, maybe give me a thumbs down.
If you have attended different pop-ups or are super strong in understanding what these types of
spaces are. Thumbs up, heart, cool. Alright, so one thumbs up-up cities are a space to be able to really kind of co-design what the
future of the world might look like and incorporate technology decentralization
into that whole equation. So originally, the idea of network states came from a book and kind of a premise that
Balaji published. He has a book called The Network State, and it's basically this idea that
our ideas and our values, other aspects of our identity, or how we might behave in the world,
could actually be what binds us together from kind of a state perspective compared to just
our geographic location. And it's kind of this contrast between network states, so networks of
kind of these other elements that bind us versus nation states,
which we would call countries. So whatever country we might be a citizen of, that's kind of
the current model that the world is subscribing to. And his premise is that what if it wasn't just based on these land localized domains?
And what if it extended into, okay, we care about these different things
or using technology in this type of way or governance in this type of way?
And within that, different things like different regulatory frameworks can be explored,
Different things like different regulatory frameworks can be explored, as well as pushing the bounds of experimentation in different areas, including things like science or other types of currency models.
It could really kind of span the spectrum depending on what the participants of that state are
interested in.
And from that, the same way that we might have cities, I'm currently in London physically
in the world right now, there might be different cities with different themes or pop-up cities
to kind of create that density, try out some of these different structures.
And so there's been a handful of
different pop-up cities. The first one was Zuzulu. And so that took place almost two years ago now
in Montenegro. Vitalik was leading that. And also if anyone in the audience has additional
thoughts to expand on some of this or questions, feel free to request a mic.
This can be a pretty casual conversation today.
So, Ed, thanks for taking the charge on that front.
Welcome up here.
I'll just finish this point on Zuzulu, and then we can dive in.
So, Zuzulu happened about two years ago. Vitalik led that. And so a
couple hundred people went to this space in Montenegro and co-lived for, I think that one was
two months, maybe it was a month. And then from that, a bunch of other pop-up cities such as Vitalia, Edge City, things like Viva City, Vitalist Bay,
which is going on in SF, a whole gamut of them happening in Chiang Mai, kind of close
to DevCon last year, Zoo Village, Georgia, Zoo City, Japan is happening later this year,
so it's really all over the place. Aleph, Crescimiento,
down in Buenos Aires. And another one of these examples is Switzerland, which is taking place
in Switzerland. And these are places where people are very kind of open-minded about trying different models and technologies and kind of
experimenting with some of these different ideas and including things like DSI within them. So
tying it back to the theme of this space, that was a brief overview of what pop-up cities are,
what Zwitserland is about, and so this open call for submitting different D-Sci experiments or technologies to be used
at Zwitserland is the theme of the conversation today.
I'll pause there.
Request the mic if you have any thoughts, questions throughout this whole convo, or
leave a comment down below.
Go for it.
Yeah, in regenerative ag, we consider it quorum sensing within our particular ecosystem. So
in different regions, you're going to have different ecosystems or different context,
to have different ecosystems or different context but you still need to achieve proper quorum sensing
to be able to be successful so and we've learned a lot of that from the soil microbiome and how it
really works and how it connects with plants and within a context so that's the way i sort of related and i think the concepts going back
to nature of of a pop-up city concept cool yeah um things like that are are really kind of great
examples of different things that could then be tried out in some of these pop-up
cities too. And some of those different just kind of coordination mechanisms are things that are
hopefully supposedly being tried out in some of these environments. So there's a lot of
conversation around just like, are we acting in accordance with what's best for the overall collective?
And are we paying attention to all of those different things in a proper type of way?
That's, I think, especially true for this taking place in Switzerland and just leaning into some of the just general governance mechanisms and models that Switzerland has adopted as a nation state and just leaning into some of that energy at this particular pop-up city too but there's so much to be learned from from different spaces and
I think agriculture is is just a space that has had to acknowledge a lot of these different factors
that a lot more could be learned from from there
Cool. Maybe I'll dive into what this looks like and explain a few more details. So for
Zwitserland, the DSI week, or kind of an extra emphasis on it, will be taking place from May
11th to the 17th. There will be DSI things happening
throughout the whole month. So if someone might have an idea or a device, they might want to
collect some kind of data set from people for the course of the whole month from May 1st to the 26th.
the whole month from May 1st to the 26th.
That's also a possibility.
But if you're interested in either being part of that DSI week,
there will be a concentration of different events and activities
from the 11th to the 17th.
I know there will be some other really cool neurotech folks
at Zwitserland as well.
Other people who have built different like nutrition bots and tracking apps, kind of a whole variety of different types of folks.
So I guess those are a couple more details there. Generally at the pop-up cities, you can either stay for the entire course
of either a month or two months if it goes on that long, or there are different like summits
or conferences within it. So there's also a set conference or a Switzerland summit from 17th to the 21st. So that's another kind of concentrated time to
engage with as well. Cool. Welcome into a couple new folks. Yeah, just mostly making this announcement for an open call. If anyone has a DSI-related project idea, this is a space to talk through that, see if it might be a good fit there.
I'll be in Switzerland so it can help with some of the facilitation, and we can explore what would all need to happen to make that happen.
Ed, see your hands is up.
Yeah, it fits in well with what I've been thinking a lot about recently, and that's team building in science.
I think that's something that's really something that's not explored well enough.
Something that's not explored well enough.
In fact, if I had an experiment I wanted to do that I think is crucial, it would be an experiment in team building.
I had a recent experience with my state land grant. call extension service, which is the service of a state university to work with the public
and work around problem solving.
And so we had a hard time, just like we all do with science.
It became less advisory from the outside.
So we put in what we called a board of public overseers about 20 years ago
um it's only advisory we couldn't really demand anything but at least we could have discussions
and and of course the budget's always too small to do everything that everybody needs. And so unfortunately, the university took it upon themselves to decide
with some of the monies we had, five particular experiments that they wanted to do,
laid them out a little bit at the meeting, each one of them, of which I immediately looked at
these experiments and went, gee, they've already been been done that's more demonstration than it is
experimentation and it's because they don't reach out enough to understand what's been done you know
what the state of any science is beyond their walls you know their scientists unfortunately become isolated and so they don't really know
what's being done they don't have access to all that's being worked on so they come up with an
idea and want to get it funded because that's their job and do it but if that's not efficient
or effective when you're you don't have much money to start with and everything you're putting the money in isn't really doing something new.
And I find that's, you know, again, it's just whether it's in traditional science or in DSI, I think that's the next thing how do we build the teams make sure we've got all the types of players we need
on that team so that we're actually solving problems um the most effective and efficient ways
and i just see that something a great opportunity for dsai and in considering how to set up
and in considering how to set up sort of an experiment to test that,
you know, put a concept out there, a need that needs a solution,
and then figure out what is the team we really need to bring in all the players
that could really make success in this project.
Instead of just having a couple people say,
I've got an idea, I'm going to try to win with it,
make money with it.
And as we see so often in traditional science,
it often is really inefficient
and often doesn't really come up with the best solutions.
So that's, just wanted to share that.
I'll land it.
Yeah, I think that team building component
is definitely really important.
And I feel like there's a lot more intention
that might be able to be put into different DSAB projects
as well to help them really kind of fulfill what they could be
achieving. Do you have any ideas specifically of like maybe either a super small micro experiment
or maybe a discussion that might be interesting to be had at Zuitzerlin? It doesn't have to be fully thought out, just anything that you think might
be interesting, and then I can try and get it on the books there. I think I look at the big picture
of confusion, which always brings up the question, what is health? You know, I mean, we look at health as fighting a disease, coming up with a pill to solve it.
Instead of often the problem really is why are we not healthy?
And what is health?
And what do we need to be healthy so we don't need that pill?
Or that we can make that pill become not needed in the future.
I think it can be some basic concepts of what we're overall looking at, especially since
health, you know, whether it be human or planetary, is something that Desai is quite focused on, even though it brings in engineering and, you know, finance and all that.
And then that's, again, part of the needed team that we need to think about
in government and consumers, all those things.
So, I mean, I personally think just the concept of health is something that is probably the most frustrating for me because it's not, it's so often what's the solution of, you know, with a pill instead of why aren't we healthy and what is health?
It's the same thing we had to do with agriculture.
We realized that just about everything we were doing was going in the wrong direction.
Everything was just the wrong idea.
And we went on that path farther and farther and farther and just never got anywhere.
And we had to realize maybe we're going in the wrong direction and we need to think differently.
I think that's the paradigm shift around health that Desai has an opportunity to unlock because we can think decentralized.
We can think about considering all the factors of why I'll land it.
all the factors of why I landed.
Yeah, I think that's a really good prompt
of just making sure we have common definitions
and we're even talking about some of those different things
to make sure all the factors are considered.
Yeah, we'd love to keep chatting on this idea
of what is health and expanding that either into a broader conversation or bringing that there as well.
So if you or anyone else has other ideas on that topic, definitely reach out to Manisha.
I think she had to drop off.
Herb, welcome.
Can you hear?
Maybe welcome up to the stage if you can hear.
Would love to have you share what might be top of mind for you.
I'm sorry, was it my time?
My computer is hacking.
Okay.
Well done.
Good.
Yeah, thank you.
Just, you know, thinking what Ed was, you know, talking about.
Since I work in the industry with, you know a lot of projects and uh mostly in automotive industry but i was thinking about
health because you talked about how can you actually you know present you know health in
a good way because somebody has to make profit of a you know a product in some kind of way but
i think health is a good you know prospect too but how can you actually achieve it in some kind of way but i think health is a good you know prospect too but how can you
actually achieve it in some kind of way because as i said in the industry somebody has to make
a profit but isn't it kind of difficult in the health industry since as you said it has to be a
pill or something but you know common sense health um if you understand my point how can you actually you know research such sorry
i'm from sweden so my english is quite bad but hopefully i understand my point how because um
the profit industry is profit so um health is a good you know a good way to go actually but
how can you actually make it happen you know so you know, food and stuff. I don't know if I
made myself clear, but, you know, it's a
profit industry, so, but,
you know, we have to reverse
in some kind of way and, you know,
think about, you know, the bigger picture
when it comes to our basic health.
How to, you know, not making
profit on it, but somebody has to, you know,
come with the economics for us.
And so. Definitely. Yeah. Yeah. somebody has to, you know, come with the economics for us.
Definitely. Yeah.
Yeah, just for my, you know, bad, but, you know, I worked a lot in the industry, so I know how it works, but I would rather, you know, change direction to, you know, make it so that people
have, you know, use for it, not, you know, so just my point of view.
Sorry. Thanks.
Yeah, I think that's a really great point of just looking at the incentive models as well
and some of the other financial considerations that are especially driving certain industries
like health or from pharmaceuticals and just balancing all of those factors with it as well.
But going back to some of the stuff at the beginning, that's one of the benefits of these
pop-up cities. These micro experiments can be run and we can try out even just different
simulated things to play through what might it look like if these things were altered a little bit in this type of way, or maybe in a much bigger way.
It might be altered and seeing what type of impacts can we predict from it or design for, design against.
And so incentives definitely have to be part of it.
Some other tracks at Switzerland will be very heavily focused on governance and some of those elements of it.
So that definitely ties in to different things there.
I know I'm talking a lot about Zuwitzerland on this space, but
this is what the open call is about, but
these conversations are
also ongoing too, so
it definitely doesn't have
to end with this.
Cool, I'm just
looking through a couple of the comments.
I wanted to welcome
LoonCo,
great org in the DS-Sci, D-Space ecosystem.
And then I can share the link to Zooitzerland as well.
We'll start out just by tagging them.
Can everybody retweet the room so that we can i keep forgetting we should probably do that in
the beginning so that we can get more people into the discussion yeah i appreciate that thank you
um yeah but i think some of the points you both have made just around understanding what is health and really looking at that, as well as what are some other incentive factors?
What are the right people needed to be either part of these different conversations or building these different solutions?
And what does it look like to get them onto the different DSI projects or teams are all really essential parts of the broader conversation, whether that's just DSI broadly, any of the different things we're working on, as well as any experiments that might be run at Switzerland.
Ed, go for it.
Yeah, I think Herb brought up a a good point and that's the money um the money is
in the sick care system and we realize that in agriculture because then the pharmaceutical
companies the chemical companies not only are the same companies um that are in the sick care of human health, but also in agriculture.
So what did these companies do?
They threw a whole bunch of chemicals at agriculture that actually fed their economics in that way
while feeding the economics of the healthcare system or the sick care system.
And it's a great money-making model. If you can work both sides of that, I mean,
why did Bayer buy Monsanto? Because Monsanto made glyphosate and it was causing a lot of harm.
glyphosate and so and it was causing a lot of harm and that's why Monsanto couldn't afford to
stay in business but bear bought it because they were the leaders in the drugs to to deal with
the cancers and stuff that that glyphosate caused so you know it's a it's a strange way that money affects, especially in health and in engineering too, because it's all tied together again.
So I think that's these paradigm shifts, you know.
In agriculture, the whole thing is we don't need the products.
So the companies don't make the money.
But the good thing is the consumer doesn't have to pay for all those inputs that farmers had to
put out a lot of money for. Plus, they don't have to pay so much for the shortcomings of those
products that weren't really needed, but we're told that we needed.
So, you know, it's a weird, weird way that money feeds the system,
especially involved in health by the money is in sickness.
You know, we hear that a lot.
That's why we're all concerned about children having so many problems early in life that are going to be feeding that sick care system for the rest of their life.
And it's not certainly beneficial for those kids.
It's not certainly economics for the countries either.
The United States, we're spending $4.7 trillion on health care.
It's really on sick care because doctors aren't even taught about nutrition.
We now are attracting a lot of doctors to visit regenerative farms to learn where health starts.
It's in the nutrition.
It's in the metabolomics of the science. It's in the metagenomics and the epigenetics. All those are the factors that have led to the increase in profitability of the sick care system. discussions and really have a full team of people working together to understand what is wrong with
the system because it's a really a systemic problem it's not a it's not that we can't
cure cancer we can't do this or we can't do that it's it's the system that's really created the
problem and of course we realize that in DCI with the finance.
It's the finance system that wants to go for something that's going to make a lot of money in the secure system.
And again, do we need that money to be put into that system?
Maybe it's avoidable in the very beginning if we do it another way.
So I don't know.
Those are just some of my ramblings i'll land it
those are always great ramblings ed uh yeah and thinking about sick care versus
health care is such a fundamental question that i think ties back to a couple of the points you both were making.
In the meantime, Loonco has come up. So welcome up onto the stage. Would love to hear your thoughts on any of the convos so far. Welcome.
Hi, everyone. I'm Rina Fiverr. I'm CEO of Loonco. Thanks for having me. And if anyone don't know yet, in LUNCAR we're building open source tool, LUNCAR SIM, and infrastructure to accelerate decentralized science and space exploration. And I just want to say
that our mission is
to empower researchers
innovators, I guess, globally
by making
tech accessible
and collaborative.
And I'm thrilled
to be here with
this community and I'm excited to be here with this community.
And I'm excited to connect and explore how we can push the boundaries of science together.
Wonderful.
Yeah, welcome.
Today, this space is about an open call for different DSI experiments or conversations that should be had.
And like we have basically a playground to fulfill and bring these experiments to life over the course of the month of May in Zuitzerland.
So that's kind of the theme for this week, but it's kind of expanded into a much more meta conversation of what questions and things need to be considered when designing some of these different projects and experiments as well.
Cool. For anyone else listening in, if you have any questions on Switzerland, on different ways to maybe bring different experiment ideas that you might have to life, whether that's looking for a certain collaborator or finding the right people to participate in an experiment,
finding different technologies to add into your stack,
feel free to reach out to either the Desai Mike account or myself, Aaron,
and I can hopefully help connect some of those different dots.
I can hopefully help connect some of those different dots.
The conversation today, we've dove into a lot of things about what is health, what are these different incentives,
who are the people necessary or needed to be part of building some of these different teams to bring these CSI projects to life,
and just asking some of these core fundamental questions as well.
So that's where the convo has kind of gone today.
If there are any more questions, now would be a good time to raise your hand,
come up on stage, or leave a comment down below, and we can talk through it.
Herb has his hand up if you can't see it.
I know often the host can't necessarily see it.
Yeah, I can't see it right now.
So just come off mute if you're able to speak.
Oh yeah, yeah, thanks Ed.
It's quite interesting what Ed actually brought up,
you know, when it comes to health,
because I want to go back to, you back to what's called root cause analysis, it costs in the industry.
So if you actually get a complaint or a deviation, so it's big, you have to solve the problem,
right?
So it means that to make the product work again, you have to solve the problem and come with
a big analysis or whatever to fix the problem, you know, and come with a, you know, big analysis or whatever to fix the problem.
But that I assume it doesn't comply to the, you know, healthcare industry because it's like artificial breathing, so to speak. You have to, you know, create a pill, but you have to be
dependent on the actual pill to, you know, take it, you know, a couple of times a week or whatever.
So it's quite bizarre if you come and think about it. You're not actually solving the problem, you know, when it comes to basic health or what is the root cause of causing, you know, these so-called, I don't know, it's not my, you know, profession, but, you know, I don't know how the healthcare system works or, you know, so, so I don't know, but it's kind of bizarre.
I just want to feel it in my point of view.
So you're not actually solving the problem.
So, but yeah, just thanks.
Yeah, thanks for chiming in.
Lunko, did you have something to add?
Well, I heard, is Herb, did you mention that you're in the automotive industry
yeah that's correct yeah well it's probably some comparisons to that you know i mean they're
i'm pretty old back when cars were pretty basic and it seems like now the whole idea is to add more
and more and more and more and more things to the car now some of them are helpful but then again
some of them aren't and it yields to the potential for the repair system again it's like the sick car
system you've got i don't know how many sensors
in a car nowadays, and then the sensors die, you know? So, and then they've got, you can't just
figure it out. You've got to go and take it to some place that's got the most up-to-date equipment
to figure out what sensor it is and to access that sensor and all these things. And I just keep thinking, what if we
went back to a little bit more basics? It's the same thing we had to do in agriculture.
We realized that our food just didn't taste right anymore, didn't have any flavor. And we thought
maybe that has to do with nutrition. And we started to see lots and lots more people that were unhealthy and especially overweight and diabetes and all these other problems.
And we thought, what is our role in this problem?
We don't feel comfortable when we have a family with kids come to the farm and we're selling them
some food which is not just to fill the tank it's to be healthy keep that engine running and
smoothly mentally physically all that and we kept questioning the nutritional value by the way they
told us we needed to grow food. And they kept saying,
oh, there's hardly any difference at all. And we had to then do the science. It's called
metabolomics. We realized there's a huge difference between one carrot and another carrot, between
one orange and another orange. We've all noticed that slice
of tomato in a fast food burger tastes like nothing and it has no nutrition in it. Well,
we can't survive on cardboard. And that's what we had to realize. And then we had to do the
research. And it's like, so what is the cause of the fact that our food no
longer has nutrition we had to study what is the variation they said there was very little variation
we found there was tremendous a variation something like a grape you have to eat 18 of the poorest measured grapes to equal one of the one that has the most nutrient density and spectrum.
And then we had to find out what is the cause of this.
It's not the variety.
It's not necessarily the weather or the dirt, sand, silt, and clay in the dirt or anything of that.
There's a lack of microbiome in the soil and the plant, of which everything about agriculture was
killing that biome. We were trying to grow food in a toxic field, a toxic desert, basically.
Well, no wonder our food wasn't healthy. It didn't have the nutrition,
and it had all these added chemicals. And of course, what are doctors taught in medical school?
They're not taught about nutrition. That's maybe one class. And they certainly aren't taught
that much about microbiology. That's only started to happen
from a field of antibiotics to the thought of probiotics, to thinking that we actually have
a gut biome and that it's important. The same is the soil and the plant biome. So, you know, that's sort of the paradigm shifts I think we need to
look at in science and why, you know, again, team building to really look across the spectrum
of these problems. That's why I said, you know, it's a systemic problem. It's a paradigm shift
that needs to happen in science to really achieve the goals for the betterment of the people on the planet.
So, again, I'll land it.
Yeah, I think, is someone from LoonCo speaking? If so, I can't hear them.
No, maybe.
Hello?
Rod has come up.
Okay. It was saying like the mic was open and I didn't know if I just couldn't hear them.
Okay.
Could you hear me?
Now I can hear you.
I just wanted to hear you.
Yeah, thank you.
I want to add to this because I'm not just a CEO at Loco.
I also work in space medicine.
also work in space medicine and i also work with topics that connects with nutrition and metabolomics
because yeah you're you're absolutely right the food today is junk and harming our health and
metabolism and in space medicine we know that astronauts on long missions face metabolic
stress, and studies show that microgravity can disrupt nutrition absorption by up to
30%, roughly. And in the future, with enabling experiments on different platforms, we need to let scientists run decentralized research,
like studying nutrition in space to solve these problems and improve health on earth.
Yeah. So it's a really difficult topic.
Yeah. Anyone feel free to chime in.
Rad, you might have some thoughts on this as well.
Welcome up to the stage.
Herb, welcome.
See your hand too.
So feel free to just chime in.
Yeah, just once since I'm a new beginner,
how does the actual soil work?
Because, you know, they talk a lot about, you know,
overpopulation and that they
have to farm again and again. But if you plant seeds again on the same soil again and again,
do you know how much effect it has on the actual nutrition value? The soil itself, because
when the seed grows and you harvest it and then you have to harvest you know
plant seeds again in the same soil so to speak um i don't know if you know it's a confusing question
but um doesn't it you know affect also um you know the soil itself the values in the actual soil so
to speak i don't know bizarre question probably but hopefully but hopefully, I'm just, as I said,
nervous into this.
Thanks.
Yeah, that's where we're looking at everything
very differently.
We used to think of a monoculture as because then
you take away the competition.
Because we always thought nature was competitive, you know,
and that's been a long problem when we actually realized that nature is actually very collaborative,
which changes everything, and why the soil biome is so important.
And, of course, we've been killing it because that's where the nutrition is generated by those microbiomes. Instead of just in the old days, it was weathering
of the sand, silt, and clay that brought the nutrient availability,
but it was actually the biome that really needs to do that. Of course, bringing in biodiversity of plants instead of a monoculture and rotating
of crops and companion planting have really changed. Again, it's a paradigm shift, 180
degrees from everything we thought. We thought tillage was the best way to bring nutrients from deeper down back up to the surface.
Well, but that caused much harm to the, again, to the biome and to the structure of the soil that that biome builds.
That's how we have life on earth from fungi, you know, coming up on land to find new places for nutrients and develop the wonderful ecosystem and all
the life on earth.
And so it's really amazing how nature really understands that, except, you know, again,
the problem was we dismissed nature as being competitive.
And we thought the best way to do it where the way
farmers were told you wake up in the morning and what do i need to kill today and that was a bad
idea um and now we wake up in the morning and it's how can we add more biodiversity
because that's when we have the most success. That's when the plants have the most
success, the animals, and all the way to our human health. And these are the paradigm shifts.
Again, it goes back to, again, team building. You know, it isn't, I actually did a little post
earlier, you know, if you're a baseball manager, you don't field nine pitchers. That wouldn't be a good team.
Why do we in science field nine scientists with the same background, the same focus,
and expect the kind of results that we really need?
You know, it's a very different outlook.
Again, nature being collaborative instead of competitive changes everything, changes the way we look at people in other countries that are different than us.
The advantages of people that come from different contexts, instead of thinking that, no, they're threatening to our abilities.
threatening to our abilities.
No, we can benefit from that biodiversity of thought,
of understandings, of experiences.
So again, I'll end it.
Yeah, I was thinking about actually what is called efficiency
when it comes to agriculture also.
Isn't that kind of problem also because you have
to be efficient and, you know, grow and grow
fast as possible, you know, and you're trying to
somehow, you know, manipulate the, you know,
the natural source that is actually, you know,
that, you know, the main goal should be, as we said,
but how do you actually measure, you know,
minerals and vitamins in the actual you know plant or whatever you're you know feeding um that's you know i don't
but um as you said you know if you carrots or you know they taste different very different
you know depending on you on where they come from.
And I suppose it is because they need to have efficiency.
The nutrients disappear also.
I assume it's only a few things.
I want to add because you mentioned the way that scientists are asked about how they measure nutrients in the food
because it's a question that needs to be asked when you need to feed astronauts. astronauts, so labs use techniques like spectrometry for vitamins and minerals
or such things to measure also
antioxidants and previously you were
talking about overused soil and if we have overused soil, so depletion
can slash nutrients levels, some crops lose 40% of their vitamins so it's it's really a question that researchers need to answer and run experiments
to optimize nutrient dense for and for space and for earth as well thanks
yeah we can take two farms right next door to each other have the same sand silt
and clay of the same weather and one can be you know the the chemical killing input approach
um which is very costly costly in many ways out of the farmer's pocket and in what ends up happening to their, you know, the degradation of the soil, of the sickness part, all of a sudden,
it becomes much more productive. It becomes then when we do that metabolomics, which you mentioned,
which is just great science now to be able to understand all the metabolites and what we produce.
And then we can tie it to the metagenomics what is the role
of the the biome of that soil and that plant and how do they correspond that's where the real in
the last two or three years really the advancement of science is just so exciting to be able to actually do that now. We also bring into the understanding of the
biodiversity in both of those environments and the more biodiversity, the more biodiversity in
the soil, that's where the magic happens and we're turning that magic into science.
We're turning that magic into science.
There's more diversity in the gut also.
It's more health.
Yeah, it's interesting how it is.
It all makes so much sense.
When it, you know, it's like, it's interesting.
I could do a paper about all the benefits of tillage, and it could sound pretty convincing.
And then I could also write a paper about why tillage is so harmful, and it would also be convincing.
That's sort of the nature of science, but as I say, science isn't just about the sciences,
it's about the implementation.
And that's where I think Desai is changing these, you know,
so it's not just the control of science by one narrative.
It's looking at it from many perspectives.
And I think you're going. You're going to find that
in space. I often, when Elon talks about, you know, people living on Mars, I'm like,
the first thing comes to mind is how do we create the microbiome? You know, because
without a microbiome, you know, we're basically being fed intravenously.
And that's fine when you're really sick and you go in the hospital
and they're trying to keep you alive while they try to make you better.
But you can't live without a gut biome.
You can't live without an environmental biome.
Our skin, we have more microbes by far than we have cells.
We're not an eye, we're a we far than we have cells.
Wordan and I, we're a we, and we have to understand that.
How do you have a healthy we and not just, and it expands all the way out from us to our whole environment.
That's where epigenetics now is fascinating.
That's going to be a lot. We thought it was all about the DNA, and I think the
DNA has some relevance, but it's the epigenetics that really changes from generation to generation,
and we just haven't considered that.
So many things to keep considering as we're exploring what these different future states
might look like.
I feel like bringing up how all of this is so interconnected is so important to advancing these different conversations
and just making sure that all the factors
are being considered, especially when different changes
or just experiments of new ways of approaching science
or creating different things,
such as food supplies are being explored.
So really, really great conversation today.
We're approaching the top of the hour. So just want to give one last prompt to anyone listening
in. If you're working on a DSI project, have an idea for some type of science experiment or are connected to some type of
wearable lab equipment data solution type of organization or project definitely reach out
either to the dsai mike or myself aaron mcginnis aaron dsai down below and i can help get you connected in.
Original theme for this space was about Zwitserland,
which is a pop-up city throughout the month of May.
I'm one of the co-curators of the DSI track,
so it's a playground for different DSI experiments to take place at and just putting that as an opportunity out to the whole entire ecosystem.
So if you're interested in getting engaged, please reach out.
And in the meantime, there are a ton of other great DSI spaces coming up, some other great
DSI events.
I listed a whole bunch at the beginning.
So if you missed that, listen back to the recording
to get some more of the details.
But brief summary, DSI London event in person tomorrow night, DSI Berlin in June, DSI stuff
in Dubai for token 2049, like next week, some stuff happening at a Harvard blockchain event
in SF around Vitalist Bay and I think Frontier Tower as well.
So tons of DCI stuff happening all over the place right now
as well as online.
Some great comments down below too.
So definitely check those out
if you haven't been reading those as they've been posted.
Otherwise, looking forward to seeing you all back here
next week, same time for another D-side topic.
If you have something in mind, reach out on that
and we can get that convo going too. So thanks so much for everyone tuning in and hope you have a great rest of your week.
