TWiV 101: Sizing up adenovirus

October 3, 2010

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Alan Dove, Rich Condit, Dickson Despommier, and Hamish Young

Vincent, Alan, Rich, Dickson, and Hamish review the three-dimensional structure of adenovirus, and the role of adenovirus type 36 in obesity.

Click the arrow above to play, or right-click to download TWiV #101 (55 MB .mp3, 76 minutes)

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Links for this episode:

Weekly Science Picks

Alan – National Geographic’s Best Environmental Photographs of 2010
Rich –
Richard Feynman lecture: The pleasure of finding things out
Vincent – Summary of the First International XMRV Workshop (pdf)

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6 comments on “TWiV 101: Sizing up adenovirus

  1. Anonymous Oct 3, 2010

    I’ve preorder Dickson’s book, and I’m so excited to get it. The whole concept of vertical farms is so exciting and interesting, and lately I’ve become surprisingly absorbed in it. Even to the point of getting into debates with “vertical farm dissidents” in the comment sections of youtube videos on the subject.
    I wish the book lots of success, and I really hope it effectively spreads this idea and become the next great meme.

  2. RobertHalfQuarterEighth Oct 4, 2010

    Love the podcast, never stop.

    The weak link now is that VR has to do so much of the production and post production. If someone else (Alan?) set up a podcast/skype/editing suite, you could keep up the weekly pace and expand.

    Hint: Leo Laporte from twit.tv is now doing very well in podcasting. I read he’s paying himself $10,000 a month and puting the rest into the business.

  3. Anonymous Oct 4, 2010

    The CAA appears to have a strange recollection of the conference for them to state that one question from a journalist was the only tense moment. They never do report the absolute truth. The question of course had been entirely reasonable considering the history and know biology of CFS. So when will the CDC provide an answer?

  4. anonymous Oct 4, 2010

    Koch’s postulates. Every time you discuss infectious causality of disease, you should mention Koch’s postulates. 1. the agent must be present in every case of disease. 2. the agent must be culturable in the lab. 3. An animal model must reproduce the disease. 4. The agent must recoverable from the animal model.

    This is elementary microbiology and, when omitted, makes the discussion confusing to those unfamiliar with the “gold standard.” It would simply and enlighten much of the discussion, for example, about Ad36 and obesity and XMRT.

    • Actually Koch’s postulates do not state that their needs to be an animal model. He stated that the purified agent should cause disease when introduced into a healthy organism, not necessarily an animal model. Also, it “should” cause dieases, not “must” cause disease, because some healthy individuals do not acquire the disease upon infection, e.g. tuberculosis.

      Koch’s postulates are a general tool, but not necessary to infer causation.