In this episode, we explore the science of baseball pitching with biomechanics researcher Dr. Donna Moxley Scarborough, examining how athletes adapt their movements to optimize performance and potentially reduce injury risk. From professional baseball to everyday activities, discover what the science of human movement can teach us about how our bodies work.

Dr. Donna Moxley Scarborough recognized early on that she didn't fit the typical physical mold of a star softball player. But her father, an avid Boston Red Sox fan, encouraged her to study professional athletes who shared her smaller stature. She became fascinated by how athletes with different body types adapted their movements to excel in their sports, sparking a lifelong interest in the science of human movement.

Now a biomechanics researcher and former lead biomechanist for the Boston Red Sox, Dr. Scarborough joins Make Science Make Sense to challenge the idea that there's one "perfect" pitching motion. In her study, Kinematic Sequence Classification and the Relationship to Pitching Limb Torques, she investigates the kinematic sequence—the coordinated series of movements involved in throwing a baseball—and how variations in these patterns relate to the physical stresses placed on pitchers' arms.

Drawing on her research with elite baseball players, Dr. Scarborough explores how athletes adapt their movements to meet the physical demands of their sport, challenging the assumption that there is a single optimal way to throw a baseball. Could differences in movement patterns actually be an advantage rather than a flaw? And what might this mean for improving athletic performance and reducing injury risk?

The implications extend far beyond baseball. From walking and climbing stairs to lifting everyday objects, understanding how our bodies adapt and move could help inform approaches to improving movement and reducing injury risk for athletes and nonathletes alike.

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About 1 in 9 Americans older than 65 have Alzheimer's Disease, the most common form of dementia. Population health experts predict that the number of people diagnosed with dementia will nearly double by 2050. Medical researchers are urgently seeking solutions and potential therapies to stop the onset of dementia, but its root causes are still not well understood. For decades, researchers have investigated the buildup of two proteins, tau and amyloid-beta, detected in post-mortem brains of people with Alzheimer's disease. Therapies targeting the dysfunction in these proteins have shown minimal benefits to patients suffering cognitive decline.

So Jackson Laboratory scientist Dr. Alaina Reagan started looking elsewhere for answers - specifically in the system she knew best. Alaina studies the cerebrovascular system and how a person's genetics may dictate how blood circulates and flows to the brain. In this episode, she discusses a crucial lab study that established a link between the MTHFR gene variant in 40% of the world's population and blood vessel damage. In a refreshing take on genetic science, Alaina explains how the variant influences the mechanics of blood flow but isn't the singular cause of dementia. She explains how keeping our minds active could help offset the deficiency associated with this one-letter misprint in our genetic code.

Mia: Emerging science has linked Alzheimer’s and related dementias to variations in our behavior within specific types of cells in the human genome. But Dr. Alaina Reagan’s research addresses a neglected possible culprit: cerebrovascular cells, or the cells that dictate how blood flows to the brain. So in this episode, we again look under a microscope to understand how variations in our genes could reveal early risk of dementia and inform the development of therapies to treat and prevent cognitive decline.

For information about the Howell Lab and Jackson Laboratories, visit: https://www.jax.org/research-and-faculty/research-labs/the-howell-lab

While writing a book on how human civilizations have historically depleted farm soil nutrients with dire consequences, geologist David Montgomery watched his wife, Anne, revive their backyard's “crap” dirt. Through persistence, composting, and trusting natural processes, Anne nourished once hopeless soil back to health, and her garden has flourished ever since.

Combining David's geological knowledge with Anne's biological expertise, the couple launched the Dig2Grow movement and conducted the first national study comparing the nutrient density of crops and livestock raised on side-by-side regenerative and conventional farms. In this episode, Dr. Anne Biklé and Dr. David Montgomery discuss their findings, explain the link between soil health and human well-being, and make the case for why everyone should care about the dirt that grows their food.

To learn more about Dig2Grow, visit: https://www.dig2grow.com/

Order What Your Food Ate, the book that this research was developed for, here: https://bit.ly/4xziF8N

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