This Week in Virology

TWiV 186: From Buda to stump grinding

June 3, 2012

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Alan Dove, and Rich Condit

The TWiV chiefs tackle reader email about how to pronounce Buda, Texas, grinding tree stumps, and much more.

Click the arrow above to play, or right-click to download TWiV 186 (82 MB .mp3, 114 minutes).

Subscribe (free): iTunes, RSS, email

Links for this episode:

Detecting antibodies or antigens by ELISA
Peter Wildy Prize
Biosafety levels
Baltimore classification at Viral Zone
TWiV on Facebook
Letters read on TWiV 186

Weekly Science Picks

Alan – World Wide Lightning Location Network
Rich – Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson
Vincent – The Ocelloid

Listener Pick of the Week

lafrenchfille – whatshouldwecallgradschool
Neva – Antiviral drugs by Carl Zimmer
Sergio – APSnet

Send your virology questions and comments to [email protected].

TWiV 185: Dead parrots and live Wildcats

May 27, 2012

plaque fort Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Sarah Connolly, Andrew Karaba, Robert Lamb, and Greg Smith

Vincent visits with members of the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Northwestern University School of Medicine to discuss their work on herpesviruses and parainfluenzaviruses.

Click the arrow above to play, or right-click to download TWiV 185 (64 MB .mp3, 88 minutes).

Subscribe (free): iTunes, RSS, email

Links for this episode:

Longnecker laboratory
Herpesvirus deubiquitinase is neuroinvasive determinant (PLoS Path)
Paramyxovirus HN structure (PNAS)
TWiV on Facebook
Letters read on TWiV 185

Weekly Science Picks

Sarah – Breasts: A Natural and Unnatural History by Florence Williams
Andrew – The Strangest Man by Graham Farmelo
Vincent – Gates Grand Challenges in Global Health awards

Listener Pick of the Week

Ed – Pursuit of Light (YouTube); MRC Biomedical Picture of the Day; It’s okay to be smart

Send your virology questions and comments to [email protected].

TWiV 184: Reforming science

May 20, 2012

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Rich Condit, and Alan Dove

Vincent, Rich, and Alan consider how to reform the scientific enterprise to make it more effective and robust.

Click the arrow above to play, or right-click to download TWiV 184 (66 MB .mp3, 91 minutes).

Subscribe (free): iTunes, RSS, email

Links for this episode:

Reforming science: Methodological and cultural reforms (Infect Immun)
Reforming science: Structural reforms (Infect Immun)
Sharp rise in retractions (NY Times)
Vannevar Bush
TWiV on Facebook
Letters read on TWiV 184

Weekly Science Picks

Alan – PubMed PubReMiner
Rich – Intentional Blindness (YouTube)
Vincent – Vaccine infographic

Listener Pick of the Week

Ken – Wattpad

Send your virology questions and comments to [email protected].

TWiV 183: Bats out of hell

May 13, 2012

paramyxoviridae Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Rich Condit, Alan Dove, Dickson Despommier, and Connor Bamford

Connor joins the TWiV team to discuss bats as hosts for major mammalian paramyxoviruses.

Click the arrow above to play, or right-click to download TWiV 183 (66 MB .mp3, 92 minutes).

Subscribe (free): iTunes, RSS, email

Links for this episode:

NIH response to Osterholm letter (pdf)
Who’s afraid of the big, bad bioterrorist?
Bats host major mammalian paramyxoviruses (Nature Comm)
TWiV on Facebook
Letters read on TWiV 183

Weekly Science Picks

Connor – Microbiology Twitter journal club
Alan – Where the Wild Types Are (YouTube)
Rich – May 14th: Smallpox vaccination day
Dickson – Searching for pore-fection (Science)
Vincent – RRResearch

Listener Pick of the Week

Stephen – Every Major’s Terrible (xkcd)

Send your virology questions and comments to [email protected].

TWiV 182: One flu over the ferrets’ nest

May 6, 2012

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Rich Condit, Alan Dove, and Michael J. Imperiale

Michael joins the TWiV crew to discuss the recently published influenza H5N1 transmission paper and how it was viewed by the NSABB.

Click the arrow above to play, or right-click to download TWiV 182 (77 MB .mp3, 107 minutes).

Subscribe (free): iTunes, RSS, email

Links for this episode:

About the NSABB
The Kawaoka paper (Nature)
Mutant flu paper published (Ed Yong)
Osterholm letter (pdf)
US policy for dual research of concern (pdf)
TWiV on Facebook
Letters read on TWiV 182

Weekly Science Picks

Alan – 18th century shipping mapped
Rich – Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Vincent – Air France 447 (Telegraph)

Listener Pick of the Week

Josh – Vaccines course by Dr. Paul Offit

Send your virology questions and comments to [email protected].

TWiV 181: ORFan poxviruses and nIRFing prions

April 29, 2012

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Rich Condit, and Kathy Spindler

Vincent, Rich, and Kathy discuss Cotia virus, a new poxvirus, Orf virus infections associated with handling goats and lamb, and the innate immune response to prions.

Click the arrow above to play, or right-click to download TWiV 181 (74 MB .mp3, 103 minutes).

Subscribe (free): iTunes, RSS, email

Weekly Science Picks

Kathy – Astronomy Picture of the Day (especially this and this)
Rich – Tom Lehrer Element Song (YouTube)
Vincent – Albert B. Sabin Archives

Listener Pick of the Week

Spencer – Netter’s Infectious Diseases by Elaine C. Jong and Dennis L. Stevens
Richard – Germs, Genes & Civilization by David P. Clark

Send your virology questions and comments to [email protected].

TWiV 180: Throwing IFIT at flu and holding a miR to HCV

April 22, 2012

mir122 Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Alan Dove, and Rich Condit

Vincent, Alan, and Rich review association of an interferon-induced protein with severe influenza, and stabilization of HCV RNA by a microRNA.

Click the arrow above to play, or right-click to download TWiV 180 (71 MB .mp3, 99 minutes).

Subscribe (free): iTunes, RSS, email

Weekly Science Picks

Alan – Micro Empire (Vimeo)
Rich – Census of marine life
Vincent – Pinterest

Listener Pick of the Week

Mark – The Secret Life of Plankton (YouTube)

Send your virology questions and comments to [email protected].

TWiV 179: Was ist ein Virus?

April 15, 2012

hornworm parasitized by wasp Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Alan Dove, Rich Condit, and Gertrud Radu

Gertrud joins the TWiVoners to review how dengue virus infection of mosquitoes alters blood feeding behavior, and gene therapy as practiced by parasitoid wasps.

Click the arrow above to play, or right-click to download TWiV 179 (76 MB .mp3, 105 minutes).

Subscribe (free): iTunes, RSS, email

Links for this episode:

Renato Dulbecco, 1914-2012 (virology blog)
William Jarrett, 83 (thanks, Lynn Enquist)
Dengue virus infection of mosquitoes alters their behavior (PLoS Path)
Does dengue make mosquitoes thirstier for blood? (NY Times)
Polydnaviruses of braconid wasps (Science)
Making nice with viruses (Science)
Viral and wasp genes involved in symbiotic replication (J Virol)
Amazing parasitic wasp images
The Far Side cartoon on mosquitoes (gif)
TWiV on Facebook
Letters read on TWiV 179

Weekly Science Picks

Gertrud – Bat on a plane! (MMWR)
Alan – The Rings of Earth (YouTube)
Rich – Giant Magellan telescope
Vincent – Hepatitis C new drug pipeline

Listener Pick of the Week

Ricardo – Evolution: The Natural History of Animal Skeletons
Peter – Self-assembly line (YouTube)

Send your virology questions and comments to [email protected].

TWiV 178: T-Sharp on how tequila mosquito

April 8, 2012

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Alan Dove, Rich Condit, and Tyler Sharp

The TWiValians meet up with Tyler Sharp for a discussion on the Epidemic Intelligence Service and controlling dengue.

Click the arrow above to play, or right-click to download TWiV 178 (72 MB .mp3, 99 minutes).

Subscribe (free): iTunes, RSS, email

Links for this episode:

2010 dengue epidemic in Puerto Rico
Marshall Islands dengue outbreak (one and two)
Photo of Tyler by Loren Rodgers
TWiV shout-out by NPR and CIDRAP
NSABB reverses decision on H5N1 publication
TWiV on Facebook
Letters read on TWiV 178

Weekly Science Picks

Tyler – Co-infection with dengue and Leptospira (Emerging Inf Dis)
Alan – The Winged Scourge (YouTube)
Rich – Deepsea Challenge
Vincent – Why did a US advisory board reverse its stance? (Ed Yong)

Listener Pick of the Week

Sasha – Microfluidic Future
Adam – The Conversation
Jim – ENIAC Programmers Project

Send your virology questions and comments to [email protected].

TWiV 177: Live in Dublin

April 1, 2012

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Connor Bamford, Wendy Barclay, Richard Elliott, and Ron Fouchier

A discussion of avian influenza H5N1 transmission experiments in ferrets and novel bunyaviruses at the 2012 Spring Conference of the Society for General Microbiology in Dublin, Ireland.