TWiV discusses an outbreak of influenza H5N1 that killed over half of the great cats at a Washington sanctuary, origin and cross-species transmission of bat coronaviruses in China, and the diverse and abundant phages that enter cells via receptors encoded on conjugative plasmids.
Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Rich Condit, and Jolene Ramsey
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Links for this episode
- Support science education at MicrobeTV
- ASV 2025 4:37
- H5N1 virus kills great cats at Washington sanctuary (CNN) 8:10
- Macroevolution of bat coronaviruses in China (Nat Comm) 10:15
- EcoHealth Alliance funding suspended (Science) 32:00
- Conjugative plasmids support diverse and abundant phages (Nat Comm) 38:35
- Letters read on TWiV 1181 1:25:05
- Timestamps by Jolene. Thanks!
Weekly Picks 1:34:24
Rich – Pareidolia (wiki)
Jolene – Pathways to Science database
Vincent – Wendy Carlos and Switched-On Bach
Listener Picks
Arjan – Gutsick Gibbon’s YouTube channel
Alan – 2024 Nobel Prize Lectures in Chemistry
Intro music is by Ronald Jenkees
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Content in this podcast should not be construed as medical advice.
The post TWiV 1181: Seek and ye shall find, coronaviruses and phage first appeared on This Week in Virology.
The Kansas graveyard was very moving. A few miles from my house is one of the city’s oldest cemeteries (graves were moved there from the one that is now part of a downtown with skyscrapers). Lots of the city founders and notable characters are buried there, so there are tours offered by historical groups.
When I took one of those tours one of the moving things I saw was a small grave marker listing around a half dozen children, with their deaths spanning just a few weeks.
Last summer I visited another historical cemetery, with similar graves. The children are in their own section, and are noted in this write-up:
http://huachuca-www.army.mil/files/History_Cemetery.pdf
By the way, I noticed in the news that the Iditarod Great Sled Race is starting. Not many people remember the reason for the first “race” was to deliver diphtheria antitoxin serum to save several children in Nome, Alaska:
http://www.cdc.gov/24-7/savinglives/diphtheria/index.html
The statue of Balto in New York’s Central Park deserves lots of hugs.