This Week in Evolution

Episode

TWiEVO 66: SARS-2-mouse

March 25, 2021
Tagged as: B1.351, coronavirus, COVID-19, evolution, mouse, natural selection, P.1, pandemic, SARS-CoV-2, variants of concern, virus host range

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

Click arrow to play
Download TWiEVO 66 (56 MB .mp3, 94 min)
Subscribe (free): iTunes, Google Podcasts, RSS, email

Become a patron of TWiEVO

Links for this episode

Tony Schountz on TWiV 668 37:08
SARS-CoV-2 variants infect mice (bioRxiv) 12:10
CoVariants 1:04:31
Letters read on TWiEVO 66 59:40
Time stamps by Jolene. Thanks!

Science Picks 1:26:14

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

Music on TWiEVO is performed by Trampled by Turtles

Send your evolution questions and comments to twievo@microbe.tv

Episode

TWiEVO 65: Variants in the mist

February 25, 2021
Tagged as: adaptive changes, COVID-19, evolution, evolutionary sweep, natural selection, positive selection, spillover, variant of concern, zoonosis

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

Click arrow to play
Download TWiEVO 65 (52 MB .mp3, 86 min)
Subscribe (free): iTunes, Google Podcasts, RSS, email

Become a patron of TWiEVO

Links for this episode

Selective sweep drove SARS-CoV-2 adaptation (bioRxiv) 5:33
Novel coronavirus haplotypes 44:16
Letters read on TWiEVO 65 1:05:06
Time stamps by Jolene. Thanks!

Science Picks 1:21:23

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

Music on TWiEVO is performed by Trampled by Turtles

Send your evolution questions and comments to twievo@microbe.tv

Episode

TWiEVO 64: Seeing the lineages for the variants

January 22, 2021
Tagged as: antibody, coronavirus, COVID-19, evolution, immune response, pandemic, SARS-CoV-2, transmission, virus, viruses

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

Click arrow to play
Download TWiEVO 64 (65 MB .mp3, 109 min)
Subscribe (free): iTunes, Google Podcasts, RSS, email

Become a patron of TWiEVO

Science Picks 1:41:02

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

Music on TWiEVO is performed by Trampled by Turtles

Send your evolution questions and comments to twievo@microbe.tv

Episode

TWiEVO 63: Year of the coronavirus

December 31, 2020
Tagged as: coronavirus, COVID-19, evolution, natural selection, pandemic, phylogenomics, SARS-CoV-2, South African variant, UK variant, virology, virus, viruses

Nels and Vincent wrap up 2020 with a discussion of novel variants of SARS-CoV-2 that have emerged in the United Kingdom and South Africa, how to interpret the rapidly emerging genome sequence data and what to look for in the coming weeks as these variants spread across the globe.

Hosts: Nels Elde and Vincent Racaniello

Click arrow to play
Download TWiEVO 63 (54 MB .mp3, 91 min)
Subscribe (free): iTunes, Google Podcasts, RSS, email

Become a patron of TWiEVO

Links for this episode

Preliminary genomic characterization of UK variant (virological) 23:21
Clinical outcomes of infection with Orf8 variants (Lancet) 30:54
Global Report Investigating Novel Coronavirus Haplotypes (GRINCH) 44:13
South African SARS-CoV-2 lineage (medRxiv) 58:59
Letters read on TWiEVO 63 1:09:51
Time stamps by Jolene. Thanks!

Science Picks 1:21:47

Nels – Katalin Karikos’ career and mRNA vaccines
Vincent – Reverse Engineering of mRNA vaccine

Music on TWiEVO is performed by Trampled by Turtles

Send your evolution questions and comments to twievo@microbe.tv

Episode

TWiEVO 62: Army ants with Daniel Kronauer

December 7, 2020
Tagged as: adaptation, ant queen, ant worker, army ant, clonal raider ant, ecology, eusocial insect, evolution, natural selection

Daniel joins Nels and Vincent to discuss his new book on army ants, the wickedest insects ever to roam the planet, and his research on them and clonal raider ants.

Hosts: Nels Elde and Vincent Racaniello

Guest: Daniel Kronauer

Click arrow to play
Download TWiEVO 62 (58 MB .mp3, 96 min)
Subscribe (free): iTunes, Google Podcasts, RSS, email

Become a patron of TWiEVO

Links for this episode

This Week in Ants (TWiEVO 13)
Raiders of the Lost Orco (TWiEVO 18) 2:06
Army Ants by Daniel Kronauer 26:54
Time stamps by Jolene. Thanks!

Science Picks 1:27:59

Daniel – Desert Navigator by Rüdiger Wehner and Insects of Suriname by Maria Sibylla Merian
Nels – NPR Scicommers
Vincent – The Vintage Beauty Of Soviet Control Rooms

Music on TWiEVO is performed by Trampled by Turtles

Send your evolution questions and comments to twievo@microbe.tv

Episode

TWiEVO 61: Shot and chaser of SARS-CoV-2 evolution

October 31, 2020
Tagged as: coronavirus, COVID-19, evolution, immunosuppression, natural selection. pandemic, SARS-CoV-2, viral, virology, virus, viruses

Nels and Vincent discuss an opinion piece on 12 evolutionary insights into how the COVID-19 pandemic is shaping human nature, and prolonged SARS-CoV-2 reproduction in an immunosuppressed patient.

Hosts: Nels Elde and Vincent Racaniello

Click arrow to play
Download TWiEVO 61 (52 MB .mp3, 86 min)
Subscribe (free): iTunes, Google Podcasts, RSS, email

Become a patron of TWiEVO

Links for this episode

Microbe.TV on instagram 4:15
Pandemic exposes human nature (PNAS) 7:28
Carl Bergstrom calls BS (Twitter) 11:42
Prolonged SARS-CoV-2 reproduction in patient (J Inf Dis) 24:37
Letters read on TWiEVO 61 40:10
Time stamps by Jolene. Thanks!

Science Picks 1:19:42

Nels – Scott Edwards bikes across US; support diversity in evolution
Vincent – 30 computers sculpture project

Music on TWiEVO is performed by Trampled by Turtles

Send your evolution questions and comments to twievo@microbe.tv

Episode

TWiEVO 60: Five years of TWiEVO on the future of our past

September 24, 2020
Tagged as: cell biology, evolution, genome evolution, human evolution, natural selection, population genetics

On the fifth anniversary of TWiEVO, Nels and Vincent invite 12 evolutionary biologists to describe exciting future directions for the field and their laboratory in the next five years.

Hosts: Nels Elde and Vincent Racaniello

Guests: Lillian Fritz Laylin, Talia Karasov, Andrew Kern, Sarah Tishkoff, Dmitri Petrov, Nancy Chen, Amanda Larracuente, John McCutcheon, Ambika Kamath, Chip Aquadro, Rebekah Rogers, Yaniv Braindvain, and Harmit Malik

Click arrow to play
Download TWiEVO 60 (67 MB .mp3, 111 min)
Subscribe (free): iTunes, Google Podcasts, RSS, email

Become a patron of TWiEVO

Science Picks 1:45:21

Nels – Science Mill Virtual Tour and Benefit
Vincent – Das Coronavirus summaries

Music on TWiEVO is performed by Trampled by Turtles

Send your evolution questions and comments to twievo@microbe.tv

Episode

TWiEVO 59: The hypothesis giving tree

August 28, 2020
Tagged as: amoeba, COVID-19, evolution, giant virus, mutation, natural selection, ORFan, pandemic, SARS-CoV-2

Nels and Vincent answer listener questions and discuss a newly discovered virus of amoeba with a nearly complete ORFan genome: none of the proteins encoded in the viral genome look like any other proteins.