TWiEVO 73: With a little help from your hosts

Nels and Vincent review three aspects of SARS-CoV-2: phylogenetics of Omicron, a two-step fitness selection for SARS-CoV-2 variants, and putative RNA insertions from host genomes.

Hosts: Nels Elde and Vincent Racaniello

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Science Picks 1:23:33

Nels – Plant virus satellite accelerates wing formation in insect
Vincent – A plant virus that switched to vertebrates

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TWiEVO 72: Echoes of evolution both shallow and deep

Nels and Vincent discuss evolutionary evidence for an epidemic of coronavirus infection over 20,000 years ago in East Asia, and reconstruction of the membrane differences between bacteria and Archaea reveals unexpected differences in permeability.

Hosts: Nels Elde and Vincent Racaniello

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Science Picks 1:01:50

Nels – Slowed canonical progress in large fields of science
Vincent – Virology Live

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TWiEVO 71: Faster than a speeding coronavirus

Nels and Vincent explain a method to calculate the mutation rate of SARS-CoV-2, and the role of a single amino acid change in spike in enhancing fitness of the delta variant and enabling it to out-compete the alpha variant.

Hosts: Nels Elde and Vincent Racaniello

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Science Picks 1:13:51

Nels – Leading Edge Symposium
Vincent – Epidemiological and evolutionary dynamics of SARS-CoV-2

Listener Pick

Thomas – The gene’s-eye view of evolution by J. Arvid Ågren

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TWiEVO 70: On Life’s Edge with Carl Zimmer

Carl Zimmer joins Nels to talk about science writing, science communication, viruses, and his new book, On Life’s Edge.

Host: Nels Elde

Guest: Carl Zimmer

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Science Picks 1:11:10

Nels – Remembrance of Dick Lewontin
Carl – From telomere to telomere: the transcriptional and epigenetic state of human repeat elements

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TWiEVO 69: Swimming in SARS-CoV-2 sequences

Nels and Vincent discuss the identification of novel bat coronaviruses that shed light on the evolution of SARS-CoV-2, dating the first cases of COVID-19 to mid-November 2019, and recovery of deleted genome sequences from early in the Wuhan outbreak.

Hosts: Nels Elde and Vincent Racaniello

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Science Picks 1:14:03

Nels – The Last—And Only—Foreign Scientist in the Wuhan Lab Speaks Out
Vincent – Human Behavior During the Pandemic Is More Important Than Any Covid Variant

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TWiEVO 68: Stepping through time with SARS-CoV-2

Nels and Vincent explain a new method for calculating the most recent common ancestor of SARS-CoV-2, which concludes that the ancestral virus was circulating in October/November 2019, before its first detection in China.

Hosts: Nels Elde and Vincent Racaniello

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Science Picks 1:24:20

Nels – Ed Yong pandemic trauma and We’re Not Ready for the Next Pandemic
Vincent – Furin cleavage site is not a smoking gun

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TWiVEO 67: Corona chameleon

Nels and Vincent review evidence for recombinant SARS-CoV-2 genomes arising in the B.1.1.7 lineage within the United Kingdom.

Hosts: Nels Elde and Vincent Racaniello

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Science Picks 1:30:33

Nels – Mars rover helicopter flight!
Vincent – TWiN 17: Worms see the light with Michael Nitabach

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TWiEVO 66: SARS-2-mouse

Nels and Vincent review a preprint demonstrating that changes in the genomes of the SARS-CoV-2 variants B1.351 and P.1 allow the viruses to reproduce in mouse cells in culture and in laboratory mice.

Hosts: Nels Elde and Vincent Racaniello

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Science Picks 1:26:14

Nels – Billion years of plate tectonics
Vincent – Sapiens a Graphic History by Yuval Noah Harari

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TWiEVO 65: Variants in the mist

Nels and Vincent review evidence that a single amino acid change in the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein has driven adaptation to humans, followed by an update on the status of variants of concern.

Hosts: Nels Elde and Vincent Racaniello

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Science Picks 1:21:23

Nels – Radio Garden
Vincent – Our World in Data – Coronavirus

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TWiEVO 64: Seeing the lineages for the variants

Nels and Vincent consider evolution of antibody immunity to SARS-CoV-2, and update the situation on novel virus variants of concern with potentially altered fitness and reactivity with antibodies.

Hosts: Nels Elde and Vincent Racaniello

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Science Picks 1:41:02

Nels – Biden Administration PCAST and The Hill We Climb
Vincent – Four inaugural quotations – Lincoln, Roosevelt, Kennedy, Biden

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