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

Stanford School of Medicine. Today, we

are going to talk about the biology,

psychology, and utility of play. Much of

our childhood development centers around

play. Whether or not it's organized play

or spontaneous play. But as adults, we

also need to play. And today, I'm going

to talk about what I like to refer to as

the power of play. Let's talk about

play. What is the utility of play? You

know, why do we play when we're younger?

Why do we tend to play less as we get

older? And what in the world is play

for? As we're going to learn later in

the podcast, play is generated through

the connectivity of many brain areas,

but one of the key brain areas is an

area called P A, Perryqueductal gray.

The perryqueductal gray is a brain stem

area. So, it's pretty far back as the

brain kind of transitions into the

spinal cord. And it's rich with neurons

that make endogenous opioids. So, these

are not the kinds of opioids that are

causing the opioid crisis. These are

neurons that you and I all have that

release endogenous, meaning self-made or

biologically made opioids. They go by

names like enkein and things of that

sort. Play evokes small amounts of

opioid release into the system. And that

turns out to be a very important

chemical state because there's something

about having an abundance of these

indogenous opioids released into the

brain that allows other areas of the

brain like the prefrontal cortex, the

area of the front that's responsible for

what we call executive function.

Executive function is the ability to

make predictions to assess contingencies

like if I do this then that happens. If

I do that then that happens. Well,

prefrontal cortex is often seen as a

kind of rigid executive of the whole

brain. That's one way to view it. But

probably a better way to view it is that

the prefrontal cortex works in concert

with these other more primitive

circuitries. And when the perryqueductal

gray releases these indogenous opioids

during play, the prefrontal cortex

doesn't get stupid. It actually gets

smarter. It develops the ability to take

on different roles and explore different

contingencies. And we're going to talk

about role play later in different

contexts. And what we will find is that

so much of play is really about

exploring things in a way that feels

safe enough to explore. As we move

forward in the discussion, what I'd love

for everyone to do is to stop thinking

about play as just a child activity, not

just a sport related activity, but

really as an exploration in

contingencies. Again, it's an

exploration of if I do A, what happens?

If I do B, what happens? if someone else

takes on behavior or um attitude C, what

am I going to do? And play is really

where we can expand our catalog of

potential outcomes. And it can be

enormously enriching and indeed as we'll

talk about the tinkerers of the world,

the true creatives, the people that

build incredible technologies and art

and also that just have incredibly rich

emotional and intellectual and social

lives all have a strong element of play.

Many of us, including myself, we haven't

played that much as adults. But as

children, most all of us engage in a lot

of play. And in looking at the way that

very young children and especially

toddlers play, we can learn a lot

because it reveals the fundamental rules

by which the toddler brain interacts

with the world. Now, there are hundreds

of different types of play and hundreds

of different types of contingency

testing, but the key theme here is that

play allows children and adults for that

matter to explore different outcomes in

a kind of low stakes environment. So the

key theme here is that play is

contingency testing under conditions

where the stakes are sufficiently low

that individuals should feel comfortable

assuming different roles even roles that

they're not entirely comfortable with in

their outside life. And that all relates

again to the release of these endogenous

opioids in this brain center

periqueductal gray and the way that it

allows the prefrontal cortex in a very

direct way. I mean it truly it allows it

in a biological way to expand the number

of operations that it can run and start

thinking about oh well okay normally I'm

kind of a loner and I like to read and

work and and you know hang out alone

maybe even play alone but you know okay

I'll play a board game or a game of

tennis where I have a partner and we're

going to play as partners against two

other people okay that's a little

uncomfortable uh but I'll do it and in

doing that you discover certain ways in

which you are proficient and certain

ways in which you are less proficient

you discover that the other person

actually uh tends to cheat a little bit

or the other person is extremely rigid

about the rules or maybe is extremely

rigid about the way they organize their

pieces on the board or crossing the line

into your side of the tennis court.

There are all sorts of things that we

learn in these rather low stakes

scenarios. That's the key theme here. So

before I continue, I just want to point

to a tool that anyone can use, but in

particular the less playful of the

group. And I would put myself into this

category. What I'm about to tell you is

that anyone and everyone can benefit

from engaging in a bit more of this

playful mindset. It's really about

allowing yourself to expand the number

of outcomes that you're willing to

entertain and to think about how you

relate to those different outcomes. So,

what this means is putting yourself into

scenarios where you might not be the top

performer, right? Playing a game that

you're not really that good at. I had

this experience recently. I have friends

that like to play cards. They like to do

some low stakes gambling and I generally

don't buy into the game. I generally

don't play mostly because they end up

winning and taking whatever it is that I

have. But in the mode of assuming a more

playful spirit, the idea would be well

if the stakes are low enough than to

play simply for the sake of playing

because there's something to learn there

about the other people in the group and

about oneself and how one reacts to

things like someone who's um clearly

trying to take everybody's money or

somebody who is uh clearly trying to um

cheat or somebody who's clearly very

very rigid about every last detail

including how the cards are dealt and

shuffled, right? There is learning in

this exploration. And so, you can

immediately see how just a small

increase in your willingness to put

yourself into conditions where you don't

understand all the rules perhaps or

you're not super proficient at

something, but you enter it because it

is low stakes and because there is

information to learn about yourself and

others could start to open up these

prefrontal cortex circuits. And when I

say open up, I don't mean that literally

there's an opening in your skull. What I

mean is that your prefrontal cortex can

work in very rigid ways. Meaning if A

then B. If I go down this street, turn

left and go that way to work, it is

fast. If I go down the other street,

it's slow. If there's a traffic jam

there, I'm going to go there. But it's

starting to explore different

possibilities and there are very very

few opportunities in life to explore

contingencies in this low stakes way

such that it engages neuroplasticity of

the prefrontal cortex. So play is

powerful at making your prefrontal

cortex more plastic, more able to change

in response to experience, but not just

during the period of play, but in all

scenarios because you get one prefrontal

cortex. You don't get a prefrontal

cortex just for play. You get a

prefrontal cortex that engages in

everything. Another really interesting

and important aspect of play is

so-called play postures. These are seen

in animals and these are seen in humans.

And for those of you that are watching

this podcast on YouTube, I'll do my best

to adopt them here. For those of you

that are listening, you'll just have to

imagine them in your mind's eye. Perhaps

the most familiar one is seen in dogs

and in wolves where they will lower

their head to the ground and they'll put

their paws out in front of them and they

will make eye contact with another

typically dog or wolf to so-called call

the play. Now, when they do this

posture, it's obvious that they're

lowering themselves. They're not in an

aggressive stance because they're

lowering their head. And this is

universally known among canines as play

posture. Turns out that humans do this

as well, although in a different form.

I'm sure there are some that go into the

the down dog play posture, but more

typically when humans want to play, they

will do a subtle or not so subtle head

tilt. The head tilt with eyes open is

considered the universal head and facial

expression posture of play in humans. So

when two people see one another, if they

are aggressive towards one another, they

will assume certain facial expressions

and postures. But if they're feeling

playful towards one another, often times

they'll tip their head to the side just

a little bit and they'll open their

eyes. They might even raise their

eyebrows briefly. Another hardwired

feature of so-called play postures is

what's called soft eyes. When animals

are aggressive or when they're sad, they

tend to reduce the size of their eye

openings by um basically making their

eyelids closer together somewhat by

keeping their eyes together. In

particular, for aggression, they'll

bring their eyes towards what we call a

virgin's eye movement, bring it towards

the center. That actually narrows the

the aperture of the visual field.

When people or animals want to engage in

play, they tend to open their eyelids

somewhat and they tend to purse their

lips just a little bit. They'll open

their eyes a little bit and they'll

often do the head tilt as well,

sometimes with a little bit of a smile.

The other thing that we see during play

are what are called partial postures.

Partial postures are a kind of play

enactment of postures that would

otherwise be threatening. So a partial

posture that we see during play in

animals and humans that relates to

aggressive play. So things like

wrestling or things like rough and

tumble play which is very common in

animals and kids and some adults is that

because there's going to be a physical

interaction in animals. What will happen

is they will march toward one another

often very slowly but rather than having

their hair up which we call pyo erection

which is when the hair goes up. Animals

do this to make themselves look bigger.

Think about the the cat that's trying to

look bigger or an animal that's being

aggressive trying to look bigger in the

presence of of a u a foe, a different

animal that they're either going to try

and kill or fight in some way, even if

it's to defend themselves. Partial

postures occur when animals will

approach one another, but they'll keep

their fur down. Humans will do this,

too. they were approached during play,

but unless it's highly competitive play

like a football game or a boxing match,

they will actually shrink their body

size somewhat. The failures to do this

are also very informative in how we

develop in social groups. And this also

can inform why some people really play

well with others and other people don't.

And some people seem to get along well

with groups and can handle other people

and some people are very rigid.

In fact, I have an anecdote about this.

When I was a kid, we used to play this

game. It's not a game I suggest, but we

used to do what were called dirt clawed

wars. So a friend of mine, his parents

were generally not home in the

afternoon. So we must have been

somewhere around 10 or 11 years old and

we would set up these two big dirt

mounds. We would shovel them to big dirt

mounds on two sides of the yard and then

we would just take dirt clouds and we'd

throw them at one another and just have

dirt claw wars. But there were rules and

the rules were for instance um you

couldn't pack rocks into the dirt

clouds. Um, and you could run across to

the other side and you could jump on the

other person's mount. You could throw

dirt claws in there. I guess this is

stuff that we we thought was

entertaining. But if someone got hit in

the head, generally there was an

unspoken rule that you kind of stop and

see whether or not they were damaged or

not before you'd continue. You couldn't

continue pelting them. And of course,

people broke this rule. In fact, I

remember one kid, I'm not going to name

him, um because actually he's grown into

a very uh very actually prominent and

functional adult, but he got hit once in

the head and then I think someone had

thrown a dirt claw shortly thereafter

and all of a sudden he just went into a

rage picking up rocks and sticks and

attacking another kid. And so clearly

that was a case in which the rules of

the game were now being violated. But

the idea is that there's an agreed upon

set of rules about how high the stakes

are and what we're all going to do. And

this is separate from sport where there

are clearly defined rules about what's

out of bounds, what's inbounds, what

sorts of behaviors will get you a yellow

card or a red card, for instance, on the

soccer field. All animals, including

humans, are doing this low stakes

contingency testing. And all animals,

including humans, you will find start to

up the stakes. And inevitably in group

play, one member of the group will kind

of break rules. So we could all look at

our adult counterparts and indeed we

should probably look at ourselves and

ask you know did we learn proper play

contingency when we were younger. Do we

tend to take things too seriously? Do we

tend to overreact aggressively when

other people are clearly engaging in you

know playful um jabbing or sarcasm or

things of that sort. So each of you will

have a different experience of this. But

the point is that play serves many

functions. It's not just about the self.

It's also about interactions between

multiple people. It's about rule testing

and low stakes contingency. Rule

breaking also serves an important role

as is with the example of the dirtclaw

war. And last but not least, there are

different forms of play that help us

establish who we will become as adults.

One of the more powerful of these is

role play. When children and sometimes

adults will take on different roles that

are distinct from their natural world

roles in order to for instance establish

hierarchies. So someone's going to be

the leader and someone's going to be the

follower. Someone will uh work alone,

other people will work in a group. These

kinds of roleplaying are again ways in

which the prefrontal cortex has to

expand the number of operations. In

neuroscience, we call these algorithms

that it has to run in order to make

predictions. You have to take in a lot

of information about your environment

all the time and make predictions. But

if you are suddenly cast into a new

role, well then you definitely have to

make even more predictions from a

different standpoint. So these are very

powerful for teaching the brain how to

function. And so what I'm hoping is

coming through is that play is not just

about having fun. Play is about testing.

It's about experimenting and it's about

expanding your brain's capacity. And

that's true early in development and

it's true throughout the lifespan. So at

this point in the discussion, I want to

take a step back, look at the biology

and neurochemistry of play just a little

bit and in doing that really define what

is effective play. If the goal of play

is to explore different contingencies in

low stakes environments and to expand

the function of our prefrontal cortex so

that we can see new possibilities and

new ways of being become more flexible,

more creative, more effective outside of

the games of play or the arenas of play,

I should say. Well, then we should be

asking, how do I know if I'm playing?

How do I know if I'm playing correctly?

Turns out there's an answer to that.

Earlier I referred to this brain area,

the perryacqueductal gray that releases

opioids, indogenous opioids into our

brain and body and tends to relax us a

bit. Uh it actually is what leads to

these things like soft eyes and head

tilts and puppies making uh you know

puppy postures and things of that sort

and how that opens up the number of

different functions or algorithms that

the prefrontal cortex can run. But

there's another piece of the puzzle

which is for something to genuinely be

play and playful and for it to have this

effect of expanding our brain and

engaging neuroplasticity of really

changing our brain so that we can see

and engage in more possible behaviors

and thoughts etc. We also have to have

low amounts of adrenaline

so-called epinephrine in our brain and

body. Now the background science for

this is quite extensive but for those of

you that are interested in uh papers and

manuscripts uh perhaps the best one is a

review published in neuroscience and

biobehavioral reviews by the very

Yakpang although he has a co-author

which is Steven Civvi S I V I Y and the

title of this paper is in search of the

neurobiological substrates for social

playfulness in mamalian brains and it's

a quite extensive review but it

basically boils down to some key

findings whereby any sorts of drugs or

behaviors or scenarios that increase

levels of adrenaline too much will tend

to inhibit play and drugs and scenarios

and I'm not suggesting recreational

drugs here but these were experiments

that were done in the laboratory setting

that increase the indogenous opioid

output will tend to increase playfulness

and so really the state of mind that one

needs to adopt when playing is first of

all you have to engage in the play

whatever it happens to be with some

degree of focus and seriousness and

focus and seriousness in the

neurobiological context generally means

epinephrine um being able to focus is

largely reliant on things like

adrenaline epinephrine but also the

presence of dopamine which is a molecule

that generates motivation and focus in

concert with epinephrine but also that

these indogenous opioids be liberated

and it's really the low stakes feature

of play that allows those indogenous

opioids to be liberated. What do I mean

by that? Well, if you are very very

concerned about the outcome, like you've

put a lot of money on the table in a

given game um or uh you're a football

player in the Super Bowl or you're

playing a game for which you know

defeating the other person or your team

winning is absolutely crucial to you,

well then that's not really going to

engage the play circuitry.

On the contrary, if you're engaging in

those same behaviors or any other

behavior in a way that you're simply

there to explore, but you don't have

high levels of adrenaline in your

system, you're not stressed about the

potential outcome, well then that

constitutes play. Now, that's somewhat

obvious on the one hand that you take

seriously what you take seriously, and

you can be more playful about things

that you don't take so seriously. But

what is absolutely not obvious is that

the state of playfulness is actually

what allows you to perform best. Because

the state of playfulness offers you the

opportunity to engage in novel types of

behaviors and interactions that you

would not otherwise be able to access if

you are so focused on the outcome. And

for all of us who are thinking about

tools and things that we can extract

from science to enrich our lives, I

would say for those of you that are

already playing on a regular basis in

one form or another, terrific. Start to

expand other forms of play in particular

forms of play that involve new groups of

individuals. This is the way that your

brain learns and evolves and changes and

gets better. And I raised this because

another one of the top 10 questions I

get is, "How can I keep my brain young?

How can I continue to learn? How can I

get better in school, in sport, in life,

in relationships, etc., emotionally,

cognitively? Yes, there are brain games

and apps that can support

neuroplasticity. But if you really want

to engage neuroplasticity at any age,

what you need to do is return to the

same sorts of practices and tools that

your nervous system naturally used

throughout development and that evolved

over hundreds of thousands of years to

trigger this thing that we call

neuroplasticity.

Play at every stage of life is the way

in which we learned the rules for that

stage of life and play is the way in

which we were able to test how we might

function in the real world context. So

play is powerful and we could even say

that play is the most powerful portal to

plasticity. The reason for that is that

yes, this high opioid, low epinephrine

or adrenaline state is what opens up

play. But then inside of the arena of

play when the prefrontal cortex is

running all these different

possibilities in this low stakes way,

but with some degree of focus, there are

a number of other chemicals that are

deployed. things like brain derived

neutrophic factor and other growth

factors that actually trigger the

rewiring of brain circuits that allow

for it to expand. And indeed, that's

what is neuroplasticity. Thus far, I've

tried to convince you through a

combination of data and anecdote and

explanation that adopting a stance of

playfulness and indeed engaging in play

on a somewhat regular basis could be

beneficial to you regardless of

circumstances or goals. There's even

some evidence that's at this point

largely anecdotal, but there's some data

starting to emerge that adults that

maintain a playful stance that engage in

things again that are

low stakes contingency exploring.

Important enough that people focus and

that people pay attention to what

they're doing, but that they are not,

you know, filled with adrenaline, you

know, freaked out about the outcome

being A or B. they're not super super

competitive, maybe just a little bit

competitive or not competitive at all.

That allows for more ongoing plasticity.

And one of the people that comes to mind

in thinking about this is of course the

physicist and I should say the great

physicist Richard Feman, Nobel Prize

winner, professor at Caltech, um was

involved in the Manhattan Project, but

was also known for being a lifelong

tinkerer, right? He also was a

mischievous tinkerer. Uh if you read any

of the books about Fineman or by

Fineman, surely you're joking, Mr.

Fineman or what do you care what other

people think? These are wonderful short

stories mostly about Fineman doing

things like um picking all the locks at

the Los Alamos Laboratory and putting

all the top secret documents out on the

floor of the office so that when people

came in in the morning, they were all

out there. Um obviously they weren't

released to the general public. Um he

didn't want to threaten national

security playing pranks like that. In

some of his writings, he pointed to the

fact that that playful spirit was

something that he worked very hard to

continue to cultivate in himself because

it was the way in which he could see the

world differently and to indeed make

great discoveries in the field of

physics, but also to kind of evolve his

relationship to life more generally. And

so he comes to mind as as a prominent

example of somebody who who did this.

And if I could achieve anything with

this episode besides teaching you

something about the biology of play

would be to teach you about the utility

of play. Uh again I'm don't consider

myself a particularly playful person by

nature. But I've tried over the years to

adopt this stance of exploring things

that are um you know very focused on

contingencies of different kinds but

keep the stakes low enough that I can

have some fun doing them. And I like to

think that it's benefited me somewhat.

Now, I'd like to drill a little bit

further into this thing that we call

neuroplasticity. Now, there are

particular forms of play that lend

themselves best to neuroplasticity.

And those particular forms of play again

are not designed to necessarily just

engage the plasticity that allows you to

perform that behavior, but rather to

expand the number of possibilities for

your brain to change in general

throughout life. And the two major forms

of those for which there's good

peer-reviewed research is to engage in

novel forms of movement including

different speeds of movement. So let's

say for instance you're somebody who

runs. Running doesn't lend itself to a

lot of novel forms of movement lateral

movement. So so for you nerds out there

movement in the sagittal plane um or

angled movements. But it does appear

that things like dance or sports where

you end up generating a lot of dynamic

movements where there's jumping, where

there's movement at different angles,

where there's ducking, where there's

leaping that basically involve a lot of

dynamic movement and aren't just

strictly linear, those seem to open the

portals for plasticity. And that's

because they mimic a lot of the brain

circuitry that is associated with play.

And the reason for that is the way in

which those dynamic movements and

movements of different speeds engage the

vestibular system, the balance system.

The vestibular system is in the inner

ear, relates to the cerebellum, which

translates to mini brain. You got a

little mini brain in the back of your

brain. It brings together visual

information in a very direct way. I

talked a lot about this in the episode

on how to learn faster. So if you want

to go in depth on how vestibular and

different types of motor movements can

open plasticity, I talk a little bit

more or I should say a lot more there.

But suffice to say that engaging in play

that has a lot of dynamic movement or

movements of different speeds, things

like dance, things like sports like

soccer where you're moving in different

dimensions that tends to be very

conducive to what we would call play

related circuitry provided you don't

take it too seriously. You don't get

those high levels of epinephrine. Now,

for those of you that are also

interested in non-physical or

non-athletic forms of play that can

really expand plasticity, there's some

very interesting research about the game

of chess. There's a really nice paper

that was published in the International

Journal of Research in Education and

Science in 2017. And the title of this

paper is, "Is chess just a game or is it

a mirror that reflects a child's inner

world?" That's a very uh a very intense

title for a biologist like me. Um but

this paper is so interesting because

what it really points to is the fact

that in a single game chess you have at

least as I understand two players and

those two players are moving pieces on

the chess board for which each piece can

do different things right can move in

different ways under different scenarios

but there are different rules for

different pieces and so each player

actually has to assume multiple

identities during the same game and each

of those identities has different rules

and ways of interacting. So in a way we

can think of chess as one game but

actually chess is a kind of a substrate

for exploring multiple roles for

different characters. And this is quite

a bit different than for instance video

games where somebody has their favorite

video game player or they have an avatar

and they're always in the same role. So

for those of you that are interested in

leveraging play for neuroplasticity and

expanding your mind, if you will, I

highly recommend picking an activity

that will allow you to adopt different

roles within that activity where it's

not rigidly linear. This is actually a

way in which I start to depart from this

modern and important but somewhat narrow

idea that exercise is the only route to

plasticity. Play is about dynamically

exploring different kinds of movements,

dynamically exploring different kinds of

thoughts, dynamically exploring

different kinds of roles that one could

adopt and that is the way that the brain

learns new things. In researching this

episode, one of the most interesting

areas I discovered was this notion of

personal play identity. There are four

components to personal play identity.

how you play, your personality,

socioulture

and environment. So that's the third

one. It's together socioulture and

environment and economics and

technology. Now that sounds somewhat

complex, but basically what it says is

that we bring together certain aspects

of ourselves and how we react to

different play scenarios when we're

younger and we bring that forward into

the world in all contexts as adults. To

illustrate this, I'm going to ask you a

question. When you were a child, let's

say 10 years old,

would you considered yourself

competitive?

Would you have considered yourself

somebody who's cooperative? And realize,

of course, that those are not mutually

exclusive. Would you consider yourself

somebody that preferred to play alone or

preferred to play with one or two close

friends? Or were you somebody that

really enjoyed playing in large groups?

Here's a key one. Were you somebody that

enjoyed playing the leader in one moment

and was equally okay with being a

follower at a later moment? Were you

okay with having your role switched

midway through a game? Would you get

upset or be delighted or not care at all

about having to switch teams during the

middle of a game because your team was

winning, right? To even things out. You

can imagine how that would um play out

internally. you would immediately

register that you must be a valuable

player because you're being moved off

the winning team toward the losing team.

But then again, you're now being forced

to join the losing team. How did you

feel about that? The point is that if we

look back to our early adolescence,

somewhere between 10 and 14 years old, a

peak time for social development, a peak

time for play of various kinds, a peak

time for motor development, a peak time

of psychosocial development where we

learn where we fit into hierarchies as

we relate to members of the same sex, of

the opposite sex, etc.

we can start to get a portal into how

and why we show up to various activities

in work in relationship etc. as adults.

One of my favorite things about

developmental biology and developmental

psychology is that it is grounded in the

fact that we don't just have a childhood

and an adulthood. There isn't just our

child self and our adult self. And even

though there are transitions around the

mechanisms that underly neuroplasticity

at approximately age 25,

it is simply the case that development

is our entire lifespan. That our

lifespan is one long developmental arc.

How long depends on our genetics, our

lifestyle, accidents, injury, and

disease, of course, but it is one long

developmental arc. And so it shouldn't

surprise us at all that how we learn to

play as a 10-year-old or 12-year-old

would impact how we play and interact

with people as a teenager and a young

adult and on and on and on. And that

play is the place in which we explore

and which we learn. Play is the

substrate by which our nervous system

changes us from this hyperconnected

batch of neurons where everything is

connected to everything more or less to

a brain and nervous system whereby

certain circuits work with immense

proficiency and others are less

accessible to us. Play is really about

not even worrying if you're going to get

good at it or really proficient at it.

It's really about exploring

contingencies with truly low stakes.

That's what will allow you to access

these neurochemical combinations of

elevated indogenous opioids, low

epinephrine, etc. that will open up

neuroplasticity.

We have brain circuits from back to

front and within our body that are there

for play and they don't disappear. They

do not get pruned away as we go from

development to adulthood. So, if ever

you needed a neurobiological explanation

for why play is important throughout the

lifespan, it's that it's that biology

does not waste resources. It's extremely

efficient and were the circuits for play

not to be important in adulthood, they

would have been pruned away. But I

guarantee you they are there in your

brain and nervous system now. They will

be there tomorrow and they will be there

going forward. So my suggestion is that

you use them. Thank you once again for

joining me for this discussion about the

incredible biology and psychology and

power of this thing that we call play.

And last but certainly not least, thank

you for your interest in science.