TWiV reviews RFK Jr’s demand to revoke polio vaccine, Wuhan lab samples do not include close relatives to SARS-CoV-2, using artificial intelligence to discover the RNA virosphere, and biomarkers that discriminate early and late phases of respiratory virus infections from a SARS-CoV-2 human challenge study.
Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Alan Dove, Rich Condit, Kathy Spindler, and Angela Mingarelli
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Download TWiV 1179 (65 MB .mp3, 108 min)
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Links for this episode
- Support science education at MicrobeTV
- ASV 2025 7:23
- RFK Jr lawyer wants revocation of polio vaccine (CNN) 11:05
- Wuhan lab has no samples close to SARS-CoV-2 (Nature) 13:46
- Using AI to discover RNA virosphere (Cell) 16:33
- SARS-CoV-2 human challenge reveals biomarkers (Nat Comm) 39:51
- Does this challenge study pass the smell test? (TWiV 863) 47:05
- Letters read on TWiV 1179 1:24:55
- Timestamps by Jolene. Thanks!
Weekly Picks 1:32:16
Angela – Science’s 2024 breakthrough of the year, Lenacapavir “the long shot”. NEJM papers with Lenacapavir trials: one and two.
Kathy – Bach Toccatta and Fugue on floor piano
Rich – Never Cry Wolf
Vincent – Common Raven and American Crow
Listener Pick
Jaan – Meute (one, two, three)
Intro music is by Ronald Jenkees
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Content in this podcast should not be construed as medical advice.
The post TWiV 1179: Dark matter and warning signs first appeared on This Week in Virology.
There are a lot of papers out there, and most scientists are too busy to keep up. So it’s simple to let someone, such as a credible journal, curate what research on which one should keep abreast.
But there are some machine learning recommender-based paper curators popping up. As the automated curators get better and metrics by which papers are rated improve, people will pay less attention to where something is actually published. For example, when I watch something auto-recommended to me on Netfilx, I’m oblivious to what channel it aired on. And more importantly, I’m unlikely to care.
What I’m getting at is, once these curators/aggregators are adopted, assuming they aren’t strewn with paid-for recommended paper advertisements, the top journals won’t be nearly as important. Or that’s what I believe anyway. Until then though, I’m mostly reading Nature because it’s a convenient way to consume papers, so I’ll put emphasis on being published in it.