0:01

Hello and welcome to Things You

0:03

Can't Live Without, the podcast where

0:06

I, material scientist Dr Anna Pejoski,

0:08

ask a very special guest to

0:10

tell us the one thing that

0:12

they can't live without. We also

0:14

interrogate a host of experts to

0:16

find out how these items are

0:19

made, where their components come from,

0:21

and how the future of those

0:23

items is being planned for. In

0:25

this episode I am delighted to

0:27

be joined by Ruby Wax, Obie,

0:30

Comedian, performer and author. Welcome Ruby.

0:32

Thank you, hi. Also with us

0:34

is Nigel Stewart, chief scientist at

0:36

Rio Tinto, who you might remember

0:38

from season one. He's going to

0:40

be taking us through how innovations

0:42

in processing allow them to create

0:44

more from Les. Welcome back, Nigel.

0:47

Good to meet you, Kenna. So Ruby, what

0:49

is the one thing that you can't

0:51

live without? Clearly it's a computer, otherwise

0:53

we wouldn't be having this conversation. I

0:55

mean, I don't know what else to

0:57

say. I could send you a dove

0:59

with a pen in its claw, but

1:01

I don't know how many years that

1:03

would take. So it's a computer. Yes,

1:05

enabling us to talk today and to

1:07

do many other things besides. Nigel, is

1:09

that the same for you? Could you

1:11

live without your laptop? I don't think

1:13

these days, no. There's so much an

1:16

integral part of our life, everything we

1:18

do. Yeah, same here. I use my

1:20

laptop for everything, for work, for entertainment.

1:22

I live on my own and much

1:24

to my mother's disgust, I often will

1:27

watch TV on my laptop while I'm

1:29

eating. The whole point is it alleviates

1:31

alleviates loneliness. Absolutely. So we're in this

1:33

episode going to be using the laptop

1:35

as a conversational jumping-off point to discuss

1:38

the theme of creating more from less

1:40

in both the physical world as in

1:42

the materials that go into making computers

1:44

and in the mental health space as

1:46

in your work Ruby. And many listeners

1:48

will know you from appearing on our

1:50

screens and stages around the world, but

1:52

you also have a master's degree in

1:54

mindfulness-based cognitive therapy from Oxford University and

1:57

you've been awarded an... for services to

1:59

mental health and Ruby fun fact I

2:01

think you might have been at my

2:03

graduation because I did my undergrad at

2:05

Oxford and I think we graduated on

2:07

the same time in 2013. Do we

2:09

throw our hats in the air at

2:11

the same time? We must have yeah.

2:13

Yeah it's the happiest day of my

2:15

life. Oh really? Yeah because I flunked

2:17

out of nursery school so it was

2:19

such a surprise. 80 years later to

2:21

get that award. Not 80, but yes,

2:23

yeah, wow, it's such an achievement. Well,

2:25

for you too. Thank you. Can you

2:27

tell us, what brought you to want

2:29

to study mindfulness formally in that way?

2:31

Well, I had done a lot of

2:33

therapy, clearly, since I was a child,

2:35

and you know, eventually you realize you're

2:37

repeating the same story over and over

2:39

again, and I polished it up so

2:41

much that I thought, well, why shouldn't

2:43

I'd be charging you? Well, eventually I

2:45

did turn it into a show. did

2:47

charge. Yeah. Because all you're asking the

2:49

shrink to do is to please help

2:51

you have some insight or be able

2:53

to run this machine called the brain.

2:55

It's like we have a Ferrari on

2:57

our heads, but nobody gave you the

2:59

keys. Here we are 2025 and we

3:01

still can't pull the brakes. I mean,

3:03

it's a no-brainer. So I thought, I'll

3:05

try mindfulness because you do cut out

3:07

the shrink. I like the neuroscience of

3:09

it, so that's why I went to

3:11

Oxford, to say, explain to me what

3:13

you do and what happens in the

3:15

brain, and sure enough, you can't see

3:17

in an MRI scanner in certain areas.

3:19

becoming more activated in charge of self-regulation,

3:21

focus, attention, all the things that we're

3:23

lacking today. So do you see the

3:25

brain and the computer as operating in

3:27

a similar way, then? Well, the computer

3:29

doesn't have consciousness, or does it have

3:31

a sense of humor, and I don't

3:33

think it have a sense of humor,

3:35

and I don't think it has to

3:37

understand irony. I don't think that's coming

3:39

with a piece of equipment or software.

3:41

Neural networks, which is emulating. So speaking

3:43

of emotions, how do you feel about

3:45

your computer? I love it. I can't

3:47

live without it and I'm addicted to

3:49

it. is what you can't live without

3:51

and interrupts your life. And this certainly

3:53

interrupts my life. I mean, I'm ashamed

3:55

to say, I'm not, oh yes, I

3:57

just use it to write my books

3:59

or I just use it to answer

4:01

an email, except I'm answering spam. The

4:03

adrenaline and the dopamine of answering somebody

4:05

I've never even met is a kick.

4:07

And every day I try to get

4:09

to the top of that list. And

4:11

I think, you know, I would be

4:13

a drug addict if it wasn't for

4:15

my computer. So how does mindfulness help

4:17

to short circuit that? Well I can't

4:19

sometimes shut it down. And while I'm

4:21

meditating I can feel my fingers reaching

4:23

for the computer and on a good

4:25

day I can stop myself. And I

4:27

don't think I would have even thought

4:29

of that if I didn't do mindfulness.

4:31

Yeah gosh I sort of catch myself

4:33

reaching for my phone for no reason.

4:35

No reason. Or 20 minutes later I

4:37

remember why I went to my phone

4:39

in the first place was to check

4:41

something. Do you feel it vibrating vibrating

4:43

even when it doesn't? Yeah. Because what

4:45

does it represent? How many people will

4:47

come to your funeral? I mean, how

4:49

much love do you need? And you

4:51

don't even know these people. Or do

4:53

you like them? Yeah, gosh, that's so

4:55

true. Do you have that, Nigel? How

4:57

do you feel about your computer and

4:59

devices? I don't have the same challenges

5:01

that you too have. Really? Quite happily

5:03

leave my computer and leave my phone

5:05

to one side, and I tend to

5:07

focus on one thing at a time.

5:09

I've come to terms with that. I

5:11

switch off all of the alarms. You

5:14

know, all of these, like, buzzers, vibrations,

5:16

and things on my phone. It's the

5:18

very first thing I do when I

5:20

get given a phone. So I switch

5:22

everything off. You could teach us a

5:24

thing or two, I'm sure, Nigel. That's

5:26

my version of mindfulness. I just focus

5:28

on one thing at a time. That's

5:30

the definition of mindfulness, I think. No,

5:32

not really. How do you define it

5:34

then movie? I think it's just being

5:36

aware in the moment without kicking your

5:38

own ass. Okay, okay. So if I'm

5:40

multitasker, I think, oh, I think 3,000

5:42

thoughts a second, you're supposed to. That's

5:44

what's keeping you on earth. The machine

5:46

of the brain keeps working, keeps working,

5:48

but we all know there's an observer

5:50

bit and that gives you a little

5:52

pause before you act on it. Got

5:54

it, and forgiving yourself for that, yeah.

6:00

Let's get back to the hardware of

6:02

this. Nigel, tell us you're in the

6:05

business of metals, materials, minerals coming out

6:07

of the ground. What are the materials

6:09

that go into our computers? Well, there

6:11

are many. I think on the previous podcast,

6:13

you mentioned the iPhone, and you know, an

6:16

iPhone, it's just a mini computer at the

6:18

end of the day. So there's a huge

6:20

range of elements in it. But there are some

6:22

significant ones. The casings are quite often

6:24

in aluminium. All the wiring inside of

6:27

it is copper. There's gold in there

6:29

as well. There's the obvious things like the

6:31

silicon and the dopants that are used to

6:34

make the silicon function as a semiconductor. The

6:36

screen with the rare earths. Of course,

6:38

lithium are a portable computer to have

6:40

the lithium-ion batteries. So a huge range

6:42

of materials. I always think of our

6:44

electronics as kind of like a celebration

6:46

of the elements. We're celebrating, but... there's

6:49

a depletion somewhere else, they're borrowing them

6:51

from the earth. Yeah, absolutely. And the

6:53

tension that we've come up with is

6:55

that we rely on this stuff for

6:57

work, for mental health, every day. I

6:59

like your word borrowing, Ruby. I think

7:01

that's a really thoughtful way of putting

7:04

it. And in order that we'll be

7:06

able to create these things in the

7:08

future, we need to be able to

7:10

do more from less and be more

7:12

efficient about it, more sustainable about it.

7:15

Ruby, you are... such a creative person

7:17

that your list of TV episodes, comedy

7:19

shows, books, is almost endless. It's such

7:21

an impressive body of work. And I'm

7:23

interested in the environment that you need,

7:26

the conditions that you need to create.

7:28

Can you take us a bit through

7:30

your creative process? No, that's impossible to

7:32

say. I'm a mere mortal. I don't

7:34

know what makes me creative. I know

7:36

when I write absolutely fabulous. It's the

7:38

night before. And Jennifer Saunders also, there's

7:40

a bolt of lightning and suddenly she,

7:43

in real life, she's not that interesting.

7:45

And then suddenly, this genius comes out,

7:47

it pours out of her and there's

7:49

no question, there's a comedy rhythm. You

7:51

can't mistake it for anything else. It's

7:53

like jazz instead of a symphony and it's

7:55

notes that you wouldn't expect. It surprises you

7:58

and makes you laugh, which is just a.

8:00

scream and a surprise. So I don't

8:02

know what brings that on. It's just

8:04

the way I think. Wow, so an

8:06

iterative process then or just a... It's

8:08

chaotic, it's just chaotic and it can

8:10

happen anywhere usually in the back of a bus

8:12

or it has to be movement or on a plane.

8:14

If I sit still I can't create. Yeah I find

8:17

that too. I used to write a bit of

8:19

comedy and I used to do my

8:21

best writing in the swimming pool which

8:23

is really annoying because you can't write

8:25

it down you have to remember it.

8:27

Do you find that the creative process

8:30

is the way of processing events in

8:32

your life or things that you've seen,

8:34

conversations that you've had? Well, the books

8:36

that I've written, How to be Human,

8:38

with a Monk in a Neuroscientist, or

8:40

Say New World, they were science. But I

8:42

did it with a twist, so I used

8:45

for my dissertation at Oxford. I talked about

8:47

neuroscience and mindfulness, and then I just flipped

8:49

it with comedy and took it on tour

8:51

for three years and wrote a book called

8:54

The Mindfulness Guide for the Frazle. So I'll

8:56

kill three birds with one stone. I'm

8:58

nonfiction writer, so I'm nonfiction writer,

9:00

so I take something like evolution

9:02

or relationships or sexuality or whatever.

9:05

I'll read up on it, but then

9:07

I'll steal from everybody from everybody and

9:09

then flip it into comedy so they can't

9:11

find it. Nigel,

9:15

can you take us to a bit of

9:18

what processing means to you? Well, yeah, it's

9:20

the way in which we transform

9:22

the rocks that we take out

9:24

of the earth into the materials.

9:26

The minerals, bauxite and chalcopyrite, so

9:28

the bauxite, which is the source

9:30

of aluminium, and the chalcopyrite,

9:33

which is the source of copper, so you

9:35

have to take that copper and the aluminium

9:37

out of those rocks. And in the case

9:39

of copper, there are two ways in which

9:41

we can either take the ore that we

9:43

mine. and leach it with acid or

9:45

with water and bacteria, and then you leach

9:48

the copper out into solution, you

9:50

then concentrate it, and again you

9:52

use an electrical current to deposit

9:54

copper. An alternative way of doing it

9:56

is you take copper, you concentrate it,

9:58

and you then take it to a... smelter where

10:00

you inject oxygen into it and heat

10:03

at a very very high temperature

10:05

and it forms copper sulfides then

10:07

you boil off the sulphur and

10:09

when you purify the copper you

10:11

can co-generate things like silver and

10:13

gold because they often co-exist

10:16

with copper as well. You could make gold?

10:18

Yeah. Oh now I mean now I've woken

10:20

up. Oh so in our operations in

10:22

Salt Lake City in Utah we make

10:24

not only copper we also make lid

10:26

and disulfide sulfide gold. silver and

10:29

more recently we're producing tellurian because

10:31

that coexists with copper and that

10:33

tellurian goes to make cadmium tell

10:36

your eye for solar panels. Wow.

10:38

I can't turn this into comedy as much

10:40

as I could try. There's no way I

10:42

could flip it. But keep going. I'm fascinated.

10:44

I think what's interesting, you know, Ruby, you

10:46

said you can't make comedy out of this.

10:48

That's because there are no surprises. Or are

10:51

there, Nigel? Well, I think this is the

10:53

connection with human beings in what we call

10:55

human factors. Most people in our industry, they're

10:57

like me. We tend to have to focus

11:00

and we can't remember too many things. And

11:02

when we're overloaded with too many things, we

11:04

make mistakes. So our processes can... go out

11:06

of control. So we tend to think

11:08

about how do we simplify our operating

11:10

instructions so that they're easy to remember

11:13

and easy to implement. The more complex

11:15

they become, the more likely you are

11:17

to have a procedure which will take your

11:19

process out of control. So the general rule

11:21

is you don't want to really have a

11:23

process that a human being has to go

11:26

through with more than seven steps. And the

11:28

other thing that we work a lot on

11:30

in our processes where often you'll come into

11:32

our process plants and you'll see these massive

11:34

control rooms. full of screens showing everything

11:36

that's going on into the process every

11:39

single pump and you know injection point

11:41

everything is there and all of these

11:43

things can be alarmed and the equipment

11:45

manufacturers send these things with alarms so

11:48

imagine when something starts to go wrong all

11:50

the alarms go off and you think well what

11:52

the hell am I going to do if you're

11:54

an operator you're in utter panic right so what

11:56

we have to do is we analyze all of

11:59

this and possible of and advance, and we

12:01

minimize the number of really, really

12:03

critical alarms. And it's a process called

12:05

alarm management to make it easier for

12:07

a human being. But you know, in a

12:10

way, it's so much like the brain. It's

12:12

that, you know, you have all the meat,

12:14

and there's all the components, but how does

12:16

it eventually go into thought? How close do

12:18

you get to making a human? Ultimately, not

12:20

with the iPhone, that's just voice, but with

12:22

the internal thinking. Do you think

12:24

that the components will ultimately be

12:26

able to make decisions? Well, there's

12:28

some interesting work that we've been doing using

12:31

what they call deep learning surrogates, which is

12:33

a form of AI. So you have to

12:35

train it with data from your processes and

12:37

from computer models that exist that

12:39

we've put together as human beings, and

12:41

you can train a deep learning surrogate,

12:43

and it can make calculations incredibly

12:45

quickly. We've done some work recently

12:48

where a simulation took six days,

12:50

and the deep learning surrogate can do that

12:52

same simulation in less than a second,

12:54

once it's been trained. Is there a

12:56

moment where you think they use creative

12:58

thought? No. No. Do you think there will be?

13:00

It depends what you mean by creative.

13:02

Like seeing some quite interesting things

13:05

where it's created some very unusual

13:07

objects. I've seen one with the

13:09

heat exchanger that a deep learning

13:11

surrogate actually designed that did look

13:13

very very creative rather than being

13:15

sort of standard rectilinear channels where a

13:18

coolant would pass. in a heat exchange

13:20

where it came up with this very

13:22

covetious object. It looks like some sort

13:24

of flashy designer object. And that for

13:26

me is something that was created because

13:29

an engineer would never actually do that

13:31

because an engineer would never actually do

13:33

that because an engineer would be thinking,

13:35

well, I have to actually make this at the

13:37

end of the day. Whereas that limitation on

13:39

the DLS system wasn't there and it came

13:41

up with this highly coveacious object. It was

13:44

very very unusual. So you look at that

13:46

and you think, well, this is possibly

13:48

creative comedy somebody. I'm not

13:50

so hopeful about that because

13:52

of your irony point. I've

13:54

seen some AI generated jokes.

13:56

So have I. Oh gosh,

13:58

yeah, it is bad. Is that an example

14:01

of using machine learning to be able

14:03

to innovate processes to make them more

14:05

efficient, to create more from less? That

14:07

can certainly be a big part of it.

14:10

It's less in the processing, but more in

14:12

the product end use, where we can use

14:14

a lot less of something. Or it might

14:16

be a component that goes into

14:18

a processing plant. In processing itself,

14:20

the type of thing that we tend to

14:23

think about is how do we actually consume

14:25

a lot less? How do we get a lot more

14:27

from the ore that we mine? How do

14:29

we reduce the energy

14:31

consumption? How do we

14:33

use less water? How

14:36

can we generate other

14:38

byproducts that

14:40

can also be useful

14:42

to society that would

14:45

avoid digging up something

14:48

elsewhere? So it's thinking

14:50

more like that. Oh well,

14:52

electrolyth is a startup in Australia that

14:54

we're working with. It has a membrane

14:57

technology that can extract lithium selectively.

14:59

What does that mean? Yeah, so one of the sources of

15:01

lithium is are the brines, deep underground brines.

15:03

So there are a mixture of different brines.

15:05

So there are a mixture of different salts. All

15:07

sorts of other materials and what you want

15:09

to do is try and selectively extract

15:12

the lithium. So the way that's done today

15:14

is the salts are brought to the surface

15:16

and they're evaporated and they're evaporated. What this

15:18

technology can do is you basically pass the

15:21

brine with all the mixture of salts on

15:23

one side of the membrane and what comes

15:25

out the other side of the membrane

15:27

is just the lithium. So it's a

15:30

special material of their design that only

15:32

lets the lithium through. So there's no

15:34

water loss. Who started? You know, can

15:36

you mention the trial and error that

15:38

goes through this? How did they figure it

15:41

out? Well, it's the same kind of creative

15:43

process as you, but in a different field

15:45

that's all the other things. There's a

15:47

lithium-ion conductor and they think about the

15:50

physics and the solid state physics and chemistry

15:52

of that. And they're saying to do that,

15:54

I need to find the solid membrane. I've

15:56

never gotten up in the morning thinking I

15:58

gotta find a solid membrane. brain. It just

16:00

hasn't happened. I'd like to have Nigel's

16:03

brain. Different people are switched on by

16:05

different things. I know, I know. That's

16:07

the creative process for us. There's a

16:09

challenge out there that we're trying to

16:11

solve. Usually around how do we produce

16:13

the materials with a zero carpet footprint

16:15

and a much improved ESG footprint and

16:17

then you put your mind to solving

16:19

those challenges. Nigel you were talking about

16:21

what motivates scientists and surely one

16:23

of the biggest motivators for scientists

16:26

these days is the environment and

16:28

is trying to do things. that

16:30

are going to be more sustainable

16:32

and better for the environment. Ruby,

16:34

the environment is a cause of

16:36

major worry for a lot of

16:38

people. And I would imagine in

16:40

your work, you come across people

16:42

who have poor mental health because

16:45

of environmental concerns. I don't know.

16:47

You're making a jump there. I

16:49

mean, do you think? A mental

16:51

disease is like having cancer or

16:53

diabetes. So it's not a thing

16:55

because you're thinking incorrectly or you're

16:58

fearful. a tumor is to cancer,

17:00

what thought is to mental illness, is

17:02

the outcome of it, not because of

17:04

it. They're not worried about the environment.

17:06

They've got a disease, it's in

17:08

their DNA. It isn't what you're

17:10

thinking, it's what your physiology. Not

17:13

because they're worried about the environment.

17:15

No, of course, of course. It

17:17

may be a byproduct, but they're

17:19

sick and they need medication. Isn't

17:21

it interesting, you're getting mining lithium and

17:23

a lot of people need lithium for

17:26

their mental health? Isn't that interesting? The

17:28

same thing that's put in an iPhone

17:30

is put in a human body? It's

17:32

amazing, isn't it? Yeah. Who needs it

17:34

more, do you think, Nigel? I think

17:36

many elements have many uses. I think

17:39

that's the interesting thing with the chemical

17:41

world. If you think about nuclear

17:43

fusion actually needs lithium as

17:45

well. Does quantum computing need lithium?

17:47

Not sure. Well, that may be a way

17:49

of saving energy. I'm not going to

17:52

give you any more ideas, Nigel, because,

17:54

you know, if I see you've stolen them, there

17:56

may be a lawsuit. Yes. We used

17:58

lithium to make aluminium. Alloys even

18:00

lighter. So some aircraft use aluminium

18:02

lithium. There you are. Yeah. You outsmart

18:05

me again. Lots of uses. It's

18:07

incredible, the diversity of uses. So

18:09

we've talked about lithium as being

18:11

such an important material that we

18:13

need it to be future-proofed in

18:15

order for us to have not

18:17

only computers, but also every other

18:19

battery-powered thing that we know of.

18:21

What are the other ways then

18:23

that we are trying to future-proof

18:25

this vital material? Well, I think

18:27

in the example of electrolythane, that's

18:29

one way. That's a technology for

18:31

the future. But what we're actually

18:33

doing now is we're using a

18:35

resin technology. So this achieves a similar

18:38

result to electrolyth. It's a way of

18:40

extracting the lithium from a brine and

18:42

then returning that brine back into the

18:44

ground rather than evaporating off all the

18:46

water. So we get that water loss.

18:49

So the way the resin works is

18:51

you pour the brine with all of

18:53

the magnesium magnesium and the magnesium.

18:55

You then take it to a

18:57

next stage where you wash out

18:59

the lithium, you selectively wash out

19:01

the lithium. So that's a way

19:03

in which we can drastically reduce

19:05

our water consumption whilst producing lithium.

19:07

So in Rincon and Argentina we

19:09

used this process for the first

19:11

time and in December 2024 we

19:14

successfully produced our first lithium using

19:16

this extraction technology. Ruby,

19:21

tell us about your frazzled cafe then.

19:23

Well, you know, a lot of people

19:25

say that working on through the screen

19:27

doesn't really help the situation of loneliness

19:30

or human connection, but I created a

19:32

frazzled cafe, which is amemulating, AA. Steve

19:34

Rowe, who owns Martin asbestos, gave all

19:36

the cafes up and down the country,

19:38

and we could have small meetings, and

19:40

people would speak from the heart, and

19:43

they would be more human than they

19:45

are probably in the office. And that

19:47

made them feel heard, but it isn't

19:49

for mental illness, but... who knows that there

19:51

might have offset something severe because

19:53

talking is half the cure and

19:55

you meet your own people and

19:57

that's such reassurance that you're not.

20:00

making this up, because you don't make

20:02

up diabetes and you don't make up

20:04

mental illness. But in this culture, they

20:06

seem to think it's part of your

20:08

imagination. Anyway, I created that and because

20:10

of COVID, we met online, but when

20:12

you're not using it for business and

20:14

you're just staring into the whites of

20:17

somebody's eyes and they're speaking from the

20:19

heart, believe me that oxytocin passes, you

20:21

know, compassion oozes off that screen. I

20:23

do about 80 people every two weeks.

20:25

And when people speak, and a hundred

20:27

heads not in agreement, you see just

20:29

this person light up, because stuck in

20:31

their little home, they're too afraid to

20:33

tell their family or friends or whatever's

20:35

going on, it doesn't have to be

20:37

heavy. But just the human condition, it's

20:39

got a format, and we've been going

20:41

seven years. So that's where Horoffa computers.

20:44

Can you tell us a bit more

20:46

about the format for it? we top and

20:48

tail it with a little mindfulness to get

20:50

that brain down because if your mind is

20:52

still in the office or that's past or

20:54

future thinking you're not in the room so

20:57

we try to get everybody settled defrazzled and

20:59

then there's a moderator and they say please put

21:01

up your hand and don't speak from work

21:03

because there's so many people yeah so somebody

21:05

just speaks from the heart I always start

21:08

off saying what's the weather condition going on

21:10

inside of you I don't want what happened

21:12

last year or I don't want to hear

21:14

about politics the news is the news is

21:17

out So people start to use that muscle

21:19

of this is what I'm about right now,

21:21

and for some reason that really resonates, and

21:23

it makes it human. We really want

21:26

to hear the expression of the

21:28

heart. Nobody ever takes over. They don't

21:30

go on for hours and hours the

21:32

way they do on television, but when

21:34

you have all those people listening, they

21:36

just state their truths. moderator says

21:38

who else resonates with this story we

21:41

don't give advice it's not therapy then

21:43

there's bringing out groups and you meet

21:45

your people and it does feel like

21:47

a community and that's what we're lacking

21:50

so I'm using an artificial means to

21:52

create community and I don't know why

21:54

the government or somebody else hasn't emulated

21:57

it because it's so necessary so I

21:59

hope we can keep the funding up so that

22:01

we keep this going, or there's something else

22:03

like this. I don't need your point of

22:05

view, but the news, I can listen to

22:07

the news. And that just riles you up

22:09

anyway. Let's think what the news does to

22:11

you. You know, if you're talking about courtes

22:14

all overload, how much do you need? Yeah,

22:16

I totally agree. It's like Nigel's machines,

22:18

turning all the alarms off, not being

22:20

bombarded constantly. Well, I hope that they

22:22

make a piece of technology that gives

22:24

us that gives us that gives us

22:27

that neural from your own mind as

22:29

to where you are. Are you going

22:31

into a dangerous zone where you know

22:33

constantly in a state of FOMO this

22:35

didn't exist a hundred years ago? Yeah.

22:37

Hopefully there would be some technologies that

22:40

could help us with that to say

22:42

you've got enough. It's enough now. Yeah I

22:44

like that concept of enough. If our listeners

22:46

could do one thing to improve their

22:49

mental health, to take a step in

22:51

the right direction, to take a step

22:53

off that fraled path, what do you

22:55

recommend? What do you recommend? It's not

22:57

for everybody and it's probably

22:59

detrimental to some people, but

23:01

you know if I didn't

23:03

do mindfulness and it's got

23:05

a physiological evidence for God's

23:07

sake that you know the

23:09

amygdala does reduce in its

23:11

activity the insula where you have more

23:14

focus on the body rather than the

23:16

constant loop type of thinking

23:18

there are Things that do happen that

23:20

you can reduce exactly what the problem

23:22

is. It's as close as we've gotten

23:24

to that piece of technology that says

23:26

you're burning out, but at least you're

23:28

aware you're burning out, and awareness is

23:30

everything. It takes effort to say, okay,

23:32

I'm in trouble now, I'm going to

23:35

stay in trouble because I need the

23:37

money, but it's your conscious decision.

23:39

This isn't to say, chill out. This is to say,

23:41

say, step on it, when you need to step on

23:43

it. But at some point, when you go

23:46

home or when you're on a holiday

23:48

or whatever, you better come into the

23:50

present. Otherwise, what's life worth living for? The

23:52

problem is most people don't do it, but

23:54

they go to the gym seven days a

23:56

week. And so just by listening, who

23:58

says that we can't? switch on and

24:01

off our cocktails or chemicals by the

24:03

computer, of course it gives us the

24:05

same stimuli as a human does. But

24:07

ultimately we still have to meet and

24:09

form a community and I think Frassel

24:12

comes as close as it can get

24:14

before we meet in public. Yeah, Nigel,

24:16

same question to you. I imagine it

24:18

would be a very different answer, but

24:20

if our listeners could do one thing

24:22

to help themselves feel better about...

24:25

the environment maybe or to do one

24:27

thing to help the environment what would you

24:29

recommend they do? Well I think one of

24:31

the things that we have to get much

24:33

much better at to talk to Ruby's point

24:35

earlier about you know resource extractions we need

24:37

to get much much better at recycling. That's

24:39

certainly an interesting area for processing that we've

24:41

been embracing more and more within the company

24:43

so I think we need to get a

24:45

lot better at that. There are a lot

24:47

of huge scientific and engineering challenges associated with

24:49

some forms of recycling. If you think about the

24:52

computer, how do you extract and recover

24:54

all of those elements within it? That's

24:56

a very difficult challenge to do that

24:59

cost effectively. So there's a huge, I

25:01

think, opening there an exciting period for

25:03

science and technology to try and solve some

25:05

of these challenges. Absolutely. Thank you both so

25:08

much. I've taken a huge amount away from

25:10

this. I think the thing I'm going to

25:12

try and do is to turn off my

25:14

notifications and to notice when I'm reaching

25:16

for that cortisol again. A huge thank

25:18

you to my guest, this episode, comedian

25:21

and mental health advocate Ruby Wax and

25:23

Rio Tinto's chief scientist Nigel Stewart. Thank

25:25

you both so much. Thank you. Thank

25:27

you. Ruby's new book is I'm not as

25:29

well as I thought I was and she's

25:32

taking that on the road on tour in

25:34

2025. And that brings us to the end

25:36

of this episode. You can listen to more

25:38

episodes of things you can't live without wherever

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you get your podcasts. And don't forget to

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follow, rate and review us to make sure

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that you never miss an episode.