This Week in Virology

TWiV 155: XXII Brazilian National Virology Meeting

October 30, 2011

sbv_logoenv2011 Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Grant McFadden, Eurico de Arruda Neto, Paulo Eduardo Brandão, Francisco Murilo Zerbini, and Janice Reis Ciacci Zanella

Vincent, Grant, Eurico, Paulo, Francisco and Janice discuss their work on bocavirus, infectious bronchitis virus, begomoviruses, and circoviruses at the Brazilian Virology Society meeting in Atibaia, São Paulo, Brazil.

Click the arrow above to play, or right-click to download TWiV 155 (56 MB .mp3, 93 minutes).

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Links for this episode:

Program of the XXII Brazilian Virology Meeting (pdf)
Sociedade Brasiliera de Virologia
Journal of the Brazilian Society for Virology
Photographs from the meeting at TWiV Facebook or Picasa
TWiV on Facebook
Letters read on TWiV 155
Video of this episode – view below or download 640×480 .mp4 file

Weekly Science Picks

Vincent – AAM Colloquium Program
Grant – The Disappearing Spoon by Sam Kean

Listener Pick of the Week

Antonio – 2011 Nobel Laureates Lectures at Lindau

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

TWiV 154: Symbiotic safecrackers

October 23, 2011

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Alan Dove, and Rich Condit

Vincent, Alan, and Rich are very enthusiastic about two studies that show how gut bacteria help viral invaders.

Click the arrow above to play, or right-click to download TWiV 154 (46 MB .mp3, 77 minutes).

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Links for this episode:

TWiV154 transcript (pdf)
Retrovirus transmission dependent on commensal microbiota (Science)
Intestinal microbiota promote enteric virus replication (Science)
TWiV 3D timeline (9 MB .mv4 – thanks, Ricardo)
TWiV on Facebook
Letters read on TWiV 154

Weekly Science Picks

Alan – SciWriteLabs
Vincent – Take as directed

Listener Pick of the Week

Tony – Introduction to AI online course

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

TWiV 153: Rabid reindeer and protective prions

October 16, 2011

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Alan Dove, and Rich Condit

Vincent, Alan, and Rich review an outbreak of rabies in arctic foxes and reindeer in Norway, and a prion that makes you go antiviral.

Click the arrow above to play, or right-click to download TWiV 153 (55 MB .mp3, 92 minutes).

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Weekly Science Picks

Alan – Amoebas microscope drive 2011
Vincent – WolframAlpha
Rich – Genesis by Ramos David (YouTube)

Listener Pick of the Week

Bill –Virolution by Frank Ryan

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

TWiV 152: Viromes in the effluence of society

October 9, 2011

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

Vincent, Alan, and Rich cover the virome of raw sewage, and a baculovirus gene that causes caterpillars to climb to their doom.

Click the arrow above to play, or right-click to download TWiV 152 (50 MB .mp3, 83 minutes).

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Links for this episode:

Viruses in raw sewage (mBio)
Surprising number of viruses in sewage (EurekAlert!)
Shinola
Gene for an extended phenotype (Science)
Liquefying virus uses one gene (Ed Yong)
TWiV on Facebook
Letters read on TWiV 152

Weekly Science Picks

Alan – xkcd tribute to Steve Jobs
Vincent – Steve Jobs’ 2005 Stanford commencement address (YouTube)
Rich – 1984 Apple Macintosh commercial (YouTube)

Listener Pick of the Week

David – Your Inner Fish by Neil Shubin

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

TWiV 151: Dear TWiVers

October 2, 2011

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Alan Dove, and Rich Condit

Vincent, Alan, and Rich review questions and comments from TWiV listeners.

Click the arrow above to play, or right-click to download TWiV 151 (49 MB .mp3, 81 minutes).

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Links for this episode:

Weekly Science Picks

Alan – Aurora Australis from space
Vincent – Science360 Radio
Rich – Ghost Productions (demo and website)

Listener Pick of the Week

Sophie – Bacteria by Jonathan Coulton

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

TWiV 150: Contaminated

September 25, 2011

pXMRV Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Rich Condit, and Dickson Despommier

Vincent, Dickson, and Rich meant to do an all-email episode, but first they review results of the Blood XMRV Scientific Research Working Group, and partial retraction of the paper associating XMRV with chronic fatigue syndrome.

With this episode TWiV is three years old.

Click the arrow above to play, or right-click to download TWiV 150 (56 MB .mp3, 93 minutes).

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Links for this episode:

Partial retraction (Science)
Failure to confirm (Science)
False positive (Science)
Why a partial retraction? (Retraction Watch)
TWiV on Facebook
Letters read on TWiV 150

Weekly Science Picks

Dickson – The Tree of Life
Vincent – When do you fact-check article content with sources? (take as directed)
Rich – io9

Listener Pick of the Week

Luis – NIH videocasting and podcasting

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

TWiV 149: Live at ICAAC in the Windy City

September 18, 2011

twiv at icaac Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Rich Condit, Mark Pallansch, and Trine Tsouderos

Vincent, Rich, Mark, and Trine discuss science and medicine in journalism and the eradication of poliovirus at the 51st Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (ICAAC).

Click the arrow above to play, or right-click to download TWiV 149 (62 MB .mp3, 86 minutes).

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Links for this episode:

ICAAC 2011
Recent Chicago Tribune articles by Trine
Polio eradication initiative
CDC 101: Zombie Apocalypse
TWiV on Facebook
Letters read on TWiV 149
Video of this episode below

Weekly Science Picks

Rich – Parachute use to prevent death (Brit Med J)
Vincent – Ian Lipkin’s Op-Ed on Contagion and a review of the movie (both NY Times)

Listener Pick of the Week

Michael – Bacteria billboard for Contagion (YouTube)

This episdode of TWiV is sponsored by Wiley-Blackwell, the leading scientific publisher of books, scholarly journals, major reference works and databases.

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

TWiV 148: Retreating into Harvard virology

September 11, 2011

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Philip Kranzusch, David Knipe, and Priscilla Yang

Vincent, Philip, David, and Priscilla recorded this episode before an audience at the Harvard Virology Program Annual Retreat, where they discussed negative strand RNA viruses, a vaccine against herpes simplex virus type 2, lipidomics of viral infection, and science communication.

The Keynote Speaker at the Harvard Virology retreat is usually an individual, but this year the honor went to TWiV as an example of science communication to the public. Many thanks to members of the Virology Program for a terrific retreat!

Click the arrow above to play, or right-click to download TWiV 148 (56 MB .mp3, 77 minutes).

Subscribe (free): iTunes, RSS, email

Weekly Science Picks

Philip – AntWeb
David – Herpes-like viruses in corals (PNAS and LiveScience)
Priscilla – Science museums (Boston, Durham)
Vincent – Contagion

Listener Pick of the Week

Jenny – Emerman’s review of Planet of Viruses (PLoS Biology)

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

Artwork by Silvia Piccinotti, G4

harvard virology retreat