Welcome to the episode number 29 of the Authors of Mass Destruction podcast. My name is Natasha Bajema, aka WMDgirl on Twitter. I’m a fiction author, national security expert and your host for this podcast.

• If you’re interested in science & technology, in reading good fiction, or want to write fiction based on technology, you’re in the right place.
• Before we get started, a few notes:
  • The views expressed on this podcast are my own and do not reflect the official policy or position of the National Defense University, the Department of Defense or the U.S. Government.
  • The AOMD podcast is proud to be part of the Authors on the Air Global Radio Network. Check us out at www.authorsontheair.com
  • If you enjoy my podcast and want me to keep it up, I hope you’ll become a patron for only two dollars a month at Patreon at www.patreon.com – p a t r e o n / natashabajema
  • For only three dollars per month, you can get access to my new podcast. It’s called Project Gecko after the second novel in the Lara Kingsley Series. In each episode, I’ll be giving a brief tech news intro and then reading two chapters from my book. Basically, this picks up where the Bionic Bug Podcast left off. If you haven’t listened to that one yet, you can access all the episodes on Patreon for free.
• Personal update: I apologize for being a week late with this episode. It’s nanowrimo month, which means hundreds of thousands of writers around the world are attempting to write 50,000 words in a single month. At the beginning of November, I started my new novel called Rescind Order, which is about nuclear weapons and artificial intelligence. Normally, I can write a daily quota of about 1,700 words per day. But not this book. It’s been more challenging than I expected to translate incredibly complex topics such as nuclear weapons, nuclear deterrence, and artificial intelligence into an accessible and entertaining story.
• My headlines for this week is “Consumer DNA Testing May Be the Biggest Health Scam of the Decade” by Ed Cara published on November 20.
  • If you’ve listened to me for a while, you’ll know this is a soapbox issue of mine.
  • It’s that time of year again and millions of people will buy consumer DNA kits to gain understanding of their ancestry and potential health issues. Please don’t give away your genome to these companies.
  • Consumer DNA companies are misleading the public about what things they can determine from a DNA sample.
  • “Our genetics are only a piece of the puzzle that influences our health.”
    • Sometimes, you can identify a specific gene mutation that causes disease.
    • Most of the time, it’s a “complex mix of gene variants that predispose us to develop cancer or heart disease—and that risk can be amplified or muted by our environment.”
  • Regarding your ancestry, at most, you’re going to get a rough estimate of where your ancestors were from. If you send it in again, you may get a different answer.
  • Law enforcement agencies use genealogy databases to solve criminal cases, by connecting anonymous crime scene DNA to DNA submitted to these family tree companies, working backward through distant relatives to identify their suspect.
• My third novel, Genomic Data, is launching on Amazon on November 27 as an ebook and paperback.
• Let’s go to my interview. Today, I’m talking with science writer Emilie Lorditch and we’re ripping stories from the science news headlines. If you’re looking for story ideas from science or enjoy story brainstorming, you don’t want to miss this. I’m including the articles we talk about in the show notes:
• Researchers can now use AI and a photo to make fake videos of anyone (link: https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/24/tech/deepfake-ai-one-photo/index.html) cnn.com/2019/05/24/tec…
• DNA Technology can create unbelievable suspect sketches from crime scene samples (link: https://wjactv.com/news/nation-world/dna-technology-can-create-unbelievable-suspect-sketches-from-crime-scene-samples) wjactv.com/news/nation-wo…
• Engineers tap DNA to create ‘lifelike’ machines (link: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/04/190411145103.htm) sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/…
• Disney Imagineering has created autonomous robot stunt doubles (link: https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/28/disney-imagineering-has-created-autonomous-robot-stunt-doubles/) techcrunch.com/2018/06/28/dis…
• What is a frost quake? (link: https://abcnews.go.com/US/frost-quake-explaining-weather-phenomenon/story?id=60723810) abcnews.go.com/US/frost-quake…
• Earthquake aftershocks could go on for years from 7.1 that shook SoCal, Dr. Lucy Jones says (link: http://www.fox10phoenix.com/news/us-world-news/earthquake-aftershocks-could-go-on-for-years-from-71-that-shook-socal-dr-lucy-jones-says) fox10phoenix.com/news/us-world-…
• Research Reveals How Certain Sounds Make Some People Dizzy (link: http://science.kjzz.org/content/670356/research-reveals-how-certain-sounds-makes-some-people-dizzy) science.kjzz.org/content/670356…
• A Head Full of Fluid and Burning Eyes: NASA Astronaut Talks about His Year Living in Space (link: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-head-full-of-fluid-and-burning-eyes-nasa-astronaut-talks-about-his-year-living-in-space/) scientificamerican.com/article/a-head…
• ‘Strange Blue Lights’ Seen Over Arctic Circle Were Not Aliens, Says NASA (link: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamiecartereurope/2019/04/08/strange-blue-lights-seen-over-arctic-circle-were-not-aliens-says-nasa/#7de229fe24d1) forbes.com/sites/jamiecar…
• Six People swallowed LEGOs and pored through their own poo for science (link: https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/11/it-takes-about-two-days-for-legos-to-pass-through-the-body-science/) arstechnica.com/science/2018/1…