Super Awesome Science Show: (Here comes) the sun

We’re getting close to summer, and that means more sun and warmer temperatures. That also means a greater chance of skin damage due to ultraviolet ray exposure.

On this week’s Super Awesome Science Show, we’re going to take a closer look at one of the most dire consequences of getting too much sun: skin cancer.

To get a better idea of the risk, we have Jennifer Beecker, a cancer researcher, with us to talk about this disease. We first get into the nature of skin and some of the issues with sun and skin, including moles and freckles. We also explore how skin cancer can be quickly diagnosed and how it has gone from being one of the worst cancers to the one that can be treated most effectively.

Of course, you want to avoid cancer altogether and for that, you have to practice safe sunning. Beecker is also the national chair of the Canadian Dermatology Association’s Sun Awareness Working Group and explains to us how we can be safe during the summer — and pretty much every other season.

In our SASS Class, we’re going to look at the idea of sunscreens. Normally, we think of chemicals like zinc oxide, oxybenzone and others that are hard to say — and may be even harder on our bodies. Our guest teacher is University of Waterloo professor Michael Tam, who is working to make natural sunscreens using an ingredient most of us have in our pantry: cinnamon.

If you enjoy the Super Awesome Science Show, please take a minute to rate it on Apple Podcasts, and be sure to tell a friend about the show.

Thanks to you, we’ve won a Canadian Podcast Award for Outstanding Science and Medicine Series. We have been changing the way the world sees science, and it is definitely for the better. Let’s keep the awesome momentum going together! 

Contact:

Twitter: @JATetro
Email: [email protected]

Guests:

Jennifer Beecker
Web: https://www.drbeecker.com/

Michael Tam
Web: http://chemeng.uwaterloo.ca/mtam/

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• Click the name of an episode from the list below to listen.

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