Welcome to Huberman Lab Essentials,

where we revisit past episodes for the

most potent and actionable science-based

tools for mental health, physical

health, and performance.

I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor

of neurobiology and opthalmology at

Stamford School of Medicine. And now for

my discussion with Dr. Eric Jarvis.

Eric, so great to have you here.

>> Thank you. Yeah, very interested in

learning from you about speech and

language in terms of the study of speech

and language and thinking about how the

brain organizes speech and language. Uh

what are the similarities? What are the

differences? How should we think about

speech and language?

>> There really isn't such a sharp

distinction. Now let me tell you how

some people think of it now that there's

a separate language module in the brain

that has all the algorithms and

computations that influence the speech

pathway on how to produce sound and the

auditory pathway on how to perceive and

interpret it uh for speech or for you

know sound that we call speech. I don't

think there is any good evidence for a

separate language module. Instead,

there is a speech production pathway

that's controlling our larynx,

controlling our jaw muscles that has

built within it all the complex

algorithms for spoken language. And

there's the auditory pathway that has

built within it all the complex

algorithms for understanding speech, not

separate from a language module. And

this speech production pathway is

specialized to humans and parrots and

songirds. Whereas this auditory

perception pathway is more ubiquitous

amongst the animal kingdom. And this is

why dogs can understand sit ce

boy get the ball and so forth. Dogs can

understand several hundred human speech

words. Great apes you can teach them for

several thousand but they can't say a

word. What do we understand about modes

of communication that are like language

but might not be what would classically

be called language?

>> Right? So next to the brain regions that

are controlling spoken language are the

brain regions for gesturing with the

hands. And that hand parallel pathway

has also complex algorithms that we can

utilize. And some species are more

advanced in these circuits, whether it's

sound or gesturing with hands, and some

are less advanced. Humans are the most

advanced at spoken language, but not

necessarily as big a difference at

gestural language compared to some other

species. So, as you and I are talking

here today, and people who are listening

but can't see us, we're actually

gesturing with our hands as we talk uh

without knowing it. We're doing it

unconsciously and if we were talking on

a telephone, I would have one hand here

and I would be gesturing with the other

hand without even you seeing me, right?

And so why is that? Some have argued and

I would agree with based upon what we've

seen is that there is an evolutionary

relationship between the brain pathways

that control speech production and

gesturing. Uh and and the brain regions

I mentioned are directly adjacent to

each other. And why is that? I think

that the brain pathways that control

speech evolved out of the brain pathways

that control body movement. All right?

And um that uh when you talk about

Italian, French, English, and so forth,

um each one of those languages come with

a learned set of gestures

that you can communicate with. Now, how

is that related to other animals? Well,

Koko, a gorilla who is raised with

humans for 39 years or more, uh, learned

how to do gesture communication, learned

how to sign language, so to speak,

right? But Koko couldn't produce those

sounds. Koko could understand them as

well

by s by seeing somebody sign or hearing

somebody produce speech, but Koko

couldn't produce it with her voice. And

so what's going on there is that a

number of species, not all of them, a

number of species have motor pathways in

the brain where you can do learn

gesturing, rudimentary language if you

wanted, say, with your lens, even if

it's not as advanced as humans, but they

don't have this extra brain pathway for

the sound. So they can't gesture with

their voice in the way that they gesture

with their hands. One thing that I've

wondered about for a very long time is

whether or not um primitive emotions

and primitive sounds are the early

substrate of language. When I smell

something delicious, I typically inhale

more and I might say or something like

that. Whereas if I smell something

putrid, I typically turn away. I wse and

I will exhale trying to not ingest those

molecules or inhale those molecules. I

could imagine that these are the basic

dark and light contrasts of the language

system. This kind of primitive to more

sophisticated

um pyramid of of sound to language. Is

this a crazy idea? Do we have any uh do

we have any evidence this is the way it

works?

>> No, it's not a crazy idea. And in fact,

you hit upon one of the key distinctions

in the field of research that I started

out in, which is vocal learning

research. Most vertebrate species

vocalize, but most of them are producing

innate sounds that they're born with. Uh

that is babies crying, for example, or

dogs barking. And only a few species

have learned vocal communication, the

ability to imitate sounds. And that is

what makes spoken language special. When

people think of what's special about

language, it's the learned

vocalizations. That is what's rare. So

all the things you talked about, the

breathing, the grunting and so forth, a

lot of that is handled by the brain stem

circuits, you know, right around the

level of your neck and below uh like a

reflex kind of thing. So or or even some

emotional aspects of your behavior in

the hypothalamus and so forth. But for a

learned behavior, learning how to speak,

uh, learning how to play the piano,

teaching a dog to learn how to do tricks

is using the forebrain circuits. And

what has happened is that there's a lot

of forebrain circuits that are

controlling learning how to move body

parts in these species, but not for the

vocalizations. But in humans and in

parrots and some other species somehow

we acquired circuits where the forebrain

has taken over the brain stem and now

using that brain stem not only to

produce the innate behaviors or vocal

behaviors but the learned ones as well.

>> Do we have any sense of when modern or

sophisticated language evolved

>> amongst the primates which we humans

belong to? we are the only ones that

have this advanced vocal learning

ability. Uh now when you it was assumed

that it was only homo sapiens. Uh then

you can go back in time now based upon

genomic data not only of us living

humans but of the fossils that have been

found for homo sapiens of Neanderthalss

of Dennisovven uh individuals and

discover that our ancestor our human

ancestors

supposedly hybridize with these other

homminid species.

And it was assumed that these other

homminid species don't learn how to

imitate sounds.

I don't know of any species today that's

a vocal learner that can have children

with a non-vocal learning species. I I

don't see it. It doesn't mean it didn't

exist. uh and when we look at the

genetic data from these ancestral

homminids that uh you know where we can

look at genes that are involved in learn

vocal communication they have the same

sequence as we humans do for genes that

function in speech circuits. So I think

Neanderthalss had spoken language. I'm

not going to say it's as advanced as

what it is in humans. I don't know. Um

but I think it's been there for at least

between 500,000 to a million years.

Maybe we could talk a little bit more

about the overlap between brain circuits

that control language and speech in

humans and other animals. You know, I

was weaned in the neuroscience era where

bird song and the uh the ability of

birds to learn their tutor song was and

still is a prominent field um sub field

of neuroscience. And this notion of a

critical period, a time in which

language is learned more easily than it

is later in life. And the names of the

different brain areas were quite

different. Um it one opens the textbooks

we hear vernicks and brocas for the

humans and you look at the bird stuff. I

remember you know

>> HBC a robust arch striatum area X right

that's right. Uh how similar or

different are the brains brain areas

controlling speech and language in say a

song bird and a and a young ch human

child.

>> Yeah. So going back to the 1950s or and

even a little earlier and Peter Mer and

others who got involved in

neuroethology, the study of neurobiology

of behavior in a natural way, right? Um

you know they start to find that

behaviorally there are these species of

birds like song birds and parrots and

now we also know hummingbirds just three

of them out of the 40some bird groups

out there on the planet orders that they

can imitate sounds like we do. And so

that was the similarity. In other words,

they had this kind of behavior that's

more similar to us than chimpanzees have

with us or than chickens have with them,

right? They're closer relatives. And

then they discovered even more

similarities, these critical periods

that if you remove a child and you know

this unfortunately happens where a child

is feral and is not raised with human

and goes through their puberty phase of

growth, becomes hard for them to learn a

language as an adult. So there's this

critical period where you learn best and

even later on when you're in regular

society it's hard to learn. Well the

birds undergo the same thing and then it

was discovered that if they become deaf

we humans become deaf our speech starts

to deteriorate without any kind of

therapy. Uh if a non-human primate or um

you know or let's say a chicken becomes

deaf uh their vocalizations don't

deteriorate very little at least. uh

well this happens in the vocal learning

birds. So there were all these

behavioral parallels that came along

with a package and then people looked

into the brain Fernando Nataba my former

PhD adviser and began to discover the

area X you talked about uh the robust

nucleus of the archopelium

and um and these brain pathways were not

found in the species who couldn't

imitate. So there was a parallel here

and then uh jumping many years later you

know I started to dig down into these uh

brain circuits to discover that these

brain circuits have parallel functions

with the brain circuits for humans even

though they're by a different name like

brocas and linja motor cortex. And most

recently we discovered not only the

actual circuitry and the connectivity

are similar but the underlying genes

that are expressed in these brain

regions in a specialized way different

from the rest of the brain are also

similar between humans and song birds

and parrots. So all the way down to the

genes and now we're finding the specific

mutations are also similar. Not always

identical but similar uh which indicates

remarkable convergence for a so-called

complex behavior in species separated by

300 million years from a common

ancestor. And not only that, we are

discovering that mutations in these

genes that cause speech deficits in

humans like in fox P2, uh if you put

those same mutations or similar type of

deficits in these vocal learning birds,

you get similar deficits. So convergence

of the behavior is associated with

similar genetic disorders of the

behavior.

>> Do hummingbirds sing or do they hum?

Hummingbirds hum with their wings and

sing with their searings

>> in a coordinated way.

>> In a coordinated way. There's some

species of hummingbirds um that actually

will um Doug Ashler showed this that

will flap uh their wings and create a

slapping sound with their wings that's

in unison with their song and and you

would not know it, but it sounds like a

particular syllable in their songs. uh

even though it's their wings and their

voice at the same time.

>> Hummingbirds are clapping to their song.

>> Clapping with their they're snapping

their wings together uh in unison with a

song to to make it like if I'm going da

da da da da da, you know, and I banged

on the table except they make it almost

sound like their voice with their wings.

What's amazing about hummingbirds and I

we're going to say vocal learning

species in general is that for whatever

reason they seem to evolve multiple

complex traits. You know this idea that

evolving language, spoken language in

particular comes along with a set of

specializations. When I was coming up in

neuroscience, I learned that I think it

was the work of Peter Marlor that um

young birds learn song birds learn their

tutor song and learn it quite quite

well. But that they could learn the song

of another tutor. In other words, they

could learn a different, and for the

listeners, I'm doing air quotes here, a

different language, a different bird

song, different than their own species

song, but never as well as they could

learn their own natural genetically

linked song.

>> Yes,

>> genetically linked meaning that it would

be like me being raised in a different

culture and um that I would learn that

the other language, but not as well as I

would have learned English. This this is

the idea. Is that true?

>> That is true. Yes. And that's and that's

what I learned growing up as well and

and and talked to Peter Mer himself

about before he passed. Um he had this

he used to call it the innate

predisposition to learn. All right. So

um which would be kind of the equivalent

in the linguistic community of universal

grammar. There is something genetically

influencing our vocal communication on

top of what we learn culturally. And so

there's this ba balance between the

genetic control of speech or a song in

these birds and the learned uh cultural

control. And so so yes, if you were to

take um you know um I mean in this case

we we actually tried this at

Rockerfeller later on. Take a zebra

fininch and raise it with a canary. It

would sing a song that was sort of like

a hybrid in between. We call it a

caninch, right?

uh and vice versa for the canary because

there's something different about their

vocal musculature or the gen or the

circuitry in the brain. And with a zebra

finch, even with a closely related

species, if you would take a zebra finch

uh young animal and in one cage next to

it place its own species, adult male,

right? And in the other cage place a

Bengal finch next to it, it would

preferably learn the song from its own

species neighbor. But if you remove its

neighbor, it would learn that bangal

finch very well.

>> Fantastic.

>> So there's it it has something to do

with also the social bonding with your

own species. That raises a question that

I based on something I also heard but I

don't have any uh scientific

peer-reviewed publication to point to

which is this this idea of pigeon not

the bird but this idea of when multiple

cultures and languages converge in a

given geographic area that the children

of all the different native languages

will come up with their own language. I

think this was in island culture maybe

in Hawaii called pigeon which is sort of

a hybrid of the various languages that

their parents speak at home

>> and that they themselves speak and that

somehow pigeon again not the bird but a

language called pigeon for reasons I

don't know

harbors certain basic elements of all

language

>> is that true is that not true

>> what is going on here is cultural

evolution remarkably tracks genetic

evolution. So if you bring people from

two separate populations together that

have been in their separate populations

evolutionarily at least for hundreds of

generations. So someone speaking

Chinese, someone speaking English. Uh

and that child uh then's learning from

both of them. Yes. That child's going to

be able to pick up and merge uh uh uh

phonms and words together in a way that

an adult wouldn't because why? they're

experiencing both languages at the same

time during their critical period uh

years in a way that um adults would not

be able to experience. And so you get a

hybrid and the lowest common denominator

is going to be what they share. And so

the phonms that they've retained in each

of their uh languages is what's going to

be I imagine used the most. So we've got

brain circuits in songirds and in humans

that in many ways are similar perhaps

not in their exact wiring but in their

basic contour of wiring and genes that

are expressed in both sets of neural

circuits in very distinct species that

are responsible for these phenomenon

we're calling speech and language. I

mean what are what are these genes

doing? Uh, one of the things that differ

in the speech pathways of us and these

song pathways of birds is some of the

connections are fundamentally different

than the surrounding circuits. Like a um

a direct cortical connection uh from the

areas that control vocalizations in the

cortex to the motor neurons that control

the larynx in uh humans or the serrings

in birds. And so we actually made a

prediction uh that since some of these

connections differ, we're going to find

genes that that control neuro

connectivity uh and that specialize in

that function that differ. And that's

exactly what we found. Uh um genes that

control what we call axon guidance and

form in connections. And what was

interesting, it was sort of in the

opposite direction that we expected.

That is some of these genes, actually a

number of them that control neuro

connectivity were turned off. in the

speech circuit. All right? Uh and it

didn't make sense to us at first until

we started to realize the function of

these genes are to repel connections

from forming. So repulsive molecules and

so when you turn them off, they allow

certain connections to form that

normally would have not formed. So it's

a so by turning it off, you got a gain

of function for speech, right? Um uh

other genes that surprised us were genes

involved in calcium buffering neurop

protection like a parvamine or heat

shock proteins. So when your brain gets

hot these proteins turn on and we

couldn't figure out for a long time why

is that the case and then the idea

popped to me one day and said ah when I

heard the larynx is the fastest firing

muscles in the body. All right. In order

to vibrate sound and and modulate sound

in the way we do, you have to control,

you have to move those muscles, you

know, three to four to five times faster

than just regular walking or running.

And so, um, when you stick electrodes in

in the brain areas that control learn

vocalizations in these birds and I think

in humans as well, uh, those neurons are

firing at a higher rate to control these

muscles. And so what is that going to

do? You're going to have lots of

toxicity in those neurons unless you

upregulate molecules that take out uh

the extra load that is needed to control

the larynx. And then finally a third set

of genes that are specialized in these

speed circuit are involved in

neuroplasticity.

Uh neuroplasticity meaning allowing the

brain circuits to be more flexible uh so

you can learn better. And why is that? I

think learning how to produce speech is

a more complex learning ability than say

learning how to walk or or learning how

to do tricks and jumps and so forth that

dogs do

>> in terms of plasticity of speech and the

ability to learn multiple languages but

even just one language. What's going on

in the so-called critical period? And

then the second question is if one can

already speak more than one language as

a consequence of childhood learning is

it easier to acquire new languages later

on.

>> Actually the entire brain uh is

undergoing a critical period development

not just the speech pathways and uh so

it's easier to learn how to play a

piano. It's easier to learn how to ride

a bike for the first time and so forth

as a young child than it is later in

life. The brain can only hold so much

information. And if you are undergoing

rapid learning to learn to acquire new

knowledge, you also have to put memory

or information in the trash like in a

computer. You you only have so many

gigabases of memory. Plus also for

survival, you don't want to keep

forgetting things. And so so the brain

is designed I believe to undergo this

critical period and solidify the

circuits with what you learned as a

child and you use that for the rest of

your life. And now the question you

asked about if you learn more languages

as a child, can you is it easier to

learn as an adult? And that's a common

uh finding out there in the literature.

There are some that argue against it,

but for those that support it, the idea

there is um you you are born with a set

of innate sounds you can produce of

phonms and you narrow that down because

not all languages use all of them. And

so you narrow down the ones you use to

string the phonms together in words that

you learn and you maintain those phonms

as an adult. And here comes along

another language that's using those

phonms or in in different combinations

you're not used to. uh and therefore

it's like starting from first principles

but if you already have them in multiple

languages that you're using then it

makes it easier to use them in another

third or fourth language. So it's not

like your brain has under has maintained

greater plasticity is your your brain

has maintained greater ability to

produce different sounds that then

allows you to learn another language

faster. What about modes of speech and

language that seem to have a depth of

emotionality and meaning but for which

it departs from structured language? I

think of musicians like there are some

Bob Dylan songs that to me uh I

understand the individual words. I like

to think there's an emotion associated

with it. At least I experienced some

sort of emotion and I have a guess about

what he was experiencing. But if I were

to just read it linearly without the

music and without him singing it or

somebody singing it like him, it

wouldn't hold any meaning. So in other

words, words that seem to have meaning

but not associated with language but

somehow tap into an emotionality.

>> Absolutely. So, so we call this

difference um semantic communication,

communication with meaning and effective

communication, communication that has

more of an emotional feeling content to

it. I believe you know based upon

imaging work and work we see in birds

when when birds are communicating

semantic information in their sounds

which is not too often but it happens

versus uh effective communication sing

because I'm trying to attract the mate

my courtship song or defend my territory

it's the same brain circuits it's the

same speech like or song circuits are

being used in different ways there

there's several other points here I

think it's important for for the those

listening out there to here is that when

I say also this effective and um

semantic communication um being used by

similar brain circuits it also matters

the side of the brain uh in birds and in

humans um there's there's left right

dominance uh for learn communication

learned sound communication uh so the

left in us humans is more dominant for

speech but the right has a more balance

for singing or processing musical sounds

as opposed to processing speech. Both

get used for both reasons. And so when

people say your right brain is your

artistic brain and your left brain is

your thinking brain, this is what

they're referring to. Uh and uh so

that's another distinction. The second

uh thing that's useful to know is that

all vocal learning species use their

learn sounds for this emotional

effective kind of communication, but

only a few of them like humans and some

parrots and dolphins use it for the

semantic kind of communication we

calling speech. And and that has led a

number of people to hypothesize that the

evolution of spoken language of speech

evolved first for singing uh for this

more like emotional kind of made

attraction like the Jennifer Lopez the

Ricky Martin kind of songs and so forth.

Uh and then later on it became used for

abstract communication like we're doing

now.

>> I'd love to chat a moment about facial

expression many of which are

subconscious. We are all familiar with

the fact that when what somebody says

doesn't match some specific feature of

their facial expression that it can um

call you know that mismatch can cue our

attention.

>> Yeah.

>> So how does motor circuitry that

controls facial expression map on to the

mo the brain circuits that control

language, speech and even bodily and

hand movement?

>> Yeah. You ask a great question because

we both know some colleagues like

Winrich Frywald at Rockefeller

University who study facial expression

and the neurobiology behind it.

Non-human primates have a lot of

diversity in their facial expression

like we humans do. And what we know

about the neurobiology

of brain regions controlling those

muscles of the face is that these

non-human primates and some other

species that don't learn how to imitate

vocalizations, they have

strong connections from the cortical

regions to the motor neurons that

control facial expressions. And even

though it's more diverse in these

non-human primates, there was already a

pre-existing diversity of communication,

whether it's intentional or unconscious,

through facial expression in our

ancestors. And on top of that, we humans

now add the voice uh along with those

facial expressions. So it's like an

email, too. You're you're emailing and

someone says something by email. someone

can interpret that angrily or or gently

uh and it it be becomes ambiguous. The

facial expressions get rid of that

ambiguity.

>> I'm so glad you brought that out because

my next question was and is about

written language. What is the process of

going from a thought to language to

written word and what's going on there?

What do we know about the neural

circuitry? What I think is going on is

to explain what you're asking is about

that I'm going to take it from the

perspective of reading something. You

read something on a paper. The signal

from the paper goes through your eyes.

It goes to the back of your brain to

your visual cortical regions eventually.

That visual signal then goes to your

speech pathway in the motor cortex in

front here in Brocas area. And you

silently speak what you read in your

brain without moving your muscles. And

sometimes actually if you put electrodes

EMG electrodes on your lendial muscles

even on birds you can do this you'll see

activity there while reading or or or

trying to speak silently even though no

sound's coming out. And so your speech

pathway is now speaking what you're

reading.

Now to finish it off that signal is sent

to your auditory pathway so you can hear

what you're speaking in your own head.

That's incredible.

>> And this is why it's complicated. Oh,

and then you got to write, right? Okay,

here comes the fourth one. Now, the hand

areas next to your speech pathway is got

to take that auditory signal or even the

adjacent motor signals for speaking and

translate it into a visual signal on

paper. So, so you're using at least four

brain circuits um which includes the

speech production and the speech

perception pathways to write. Stutter is

a um particularly interesting case. What

is the current neurobiological

understanding of stutter and are what's

being developed in terms of treatments

for stutter?

>> Yeah. So we actually uh accidentally

came across stuttering in songirds and

we've published several papers on this

to try to figure out the neurobiological

basis. The first study we had was a

brain area called the basil ganglia or

the what's the the strium part of the

basil ganglia involved in coordinating

movements learning how to make movements

when it was damaged in these in this in

the speech-like pathway in these birds.

What we found is that they started to

stutter as the brain region recovered

and unlike humans they actually

recovered after three or four months.

And why is that the case? Because bird

brains under goes new neurogenesis in a

way that human or mammal brains don't.

Uh and it was the new neurons that were

coming in into the circuit uh but not

quite you know with the right proper

activity uh was resulting in this

stuttering in these birds. uh and after

it was repaired not exactly the old song

came back as a after the repair but

still it recovered a lot better and it's

now known they call this neurogen

neurogenics

stuttering in humans uh with damage to

the braz ganglia or some type of

disruption to the basil ganglia at a

young age also causes stuttering in

humans and even those who are born with

stuttering uh um it it's often the basil

ganglia uh that's disrupted than some

other brain circuit and we think the

speech part of the basil ganglia.

>> Can adults who maintain a stutter from

childhood uh repair that stutter?

>> There are ways to overcome the

stuttering through um through uh you

know behavioral therapy. Uh and I think

all of the uh tools out there have

something to do with sensory motor

integration. Uh controlling what you

hear with what you output in a a

thoughtful controlled way helps reduce

the stuttering.

>> Texting is a very very interesting

evolution of language. I wonder

sometimes whether or not we are getting

less proficient at speech because we are

not required to write and think in

complete sentences.

>> Mhm.

>> What do you think is happening to

language? Are we getting better at

speaking, worse at speaking? And what do

you think the role of things like

texting and tweeting and shorthand

communication, hashtagging,

what's that doing to the way that our

brains work? Uh texting

actually has allowed for more rapid

communication amongst people. It's more

like a use it or lose it kind of a um

thing with the brain. The more you use a

particular brain region or circuit, the

more enhanced it's like a muscle. Uh the

more you exercise it, the more healthier

it is, the bigger it becomes and the

more space it takes and the more you

lose something else. So I think texting

is not decreasing the speech prowess or

the intellectual prowess of speech. It's

converting it and using it a lot in a

different way in a way that may not be

as rich in in regular writing because uh

you you can only communicate so much

nuance in short term writing. But um

whatever that whatever is being done,

you got people texting hours and hours

and hours on the phone. So whatever your

thumb circuit is going to get pretty big

actually

for those listening who are interested

in getting better at speaking and

understanding languages. Are there any

tools that you recommend? Should kids

learn how to read hard books and simple

books? Uh what do you recommend? Should

adults learn how to do that? Everyone

wants to know how to keep their brain

working better, so to speak, but also I

think people want to be able to speak

well and people want to be able to

understand well.

>> Yeah. What I've discovered personally,

right, is that so when I switched from

uh pursuing a career in science from a

career in dance, I thought one day I

would stop dancing. Um but I haven't

because it I find it fulfilling for me.

And there have been periods of time like

during the pandemic where I slowed down

on dancing and so forth. Um and and when

you do that you realize okay there there

parts of your body where your muscle

tone decreases a little bit and somewhat

and or you could start to gain weight or

I somehow don't gain weight that easily

and I think it's related to my dance if

that's that that's meaningful to your

audience. But what I found is in science

we like to think of a separation between

movement and action and cognition. And

there is a separation for you between

perception and production. Cognition

being perception, production being

movement, right? But if the speech

pathways is next to the movement

pathways, what I discover is by dancing,

it is helping me think. It is helping

keeping my brain fresh. It's not just

moving my muscles. I'm moving or using

the the circuitry in my brain to do

control a whole big body. You need a lot

of brain tissue to do that. And so I

argue if you want to stay cognitively

intact into your old age, you better be

moving and you better be doing it

consistently, whether it's dancing,

walking, running, and also practicing

speech, oratory speech and so forth, or

singing is controlling the brain

circuits that are moving your facial

musculature. And it's going to keep your

cognitive circuits also in tune. And I'm

I'm convinced of that from my own

personal experience.

>> This has been an incredible conversation

and opportunity for me to learn. I know

I speak for a tremendous number of

people. And I I just really want to say

thank you for joining us today. You are

incredibly busy. It's clear from your

description of your science and your

knowledge base that you are involved in

a huge number of things. Um very busy.

So, thank you for taking the time to

speak to all of us. Thank you for the

work that you're doing. Thank you for

inviting me here to get the word out to

the community uh of what's going on in

the science world.

>> Well, we're honored and very grateful to

you, Eric. Thank you. You're welcome.