Bradon writes:
Thank you for reading and answering my question. I’ll check out the cancer genomics project to see if there’s a way to minimize my risk of dying from pancreatic cancer.
I think it was the email after mine that talked about comments threads. The project that I did to spiffy up my CV for grad school applications was about motorsport Twitter – basically reading the comments threads and using grounded theory methods to analyse it all. I’ve also been part of a few esoterica whatsapp groups in my hometown for the last several years, ostensibly to promote my events. These are hotbeds for RFK Jr fandom and disinformation. My posts regularly go like “sorry to be the science buzzkill but [an allopathic doctor is better placed to treat your spider bite than an aromatherapist/while there is peer-reviewed evidence to support that herbal supplement helping cancer patients, ask your oncologist about drug-drug interactions before using it/ivermectin cures rosacea because that’s a parasitic infection, but isn’t effective against COVID, even though I’m sorry for her and her family that Jackie Stone had her medical license revoked for prescribing it].”
I stay in the groups because I’ve received feedback in private messages that people appreciate someone speaking up for common sense. If yer man wants to effect change in people’s mind, he can join a similar group, and be as civil, compassionate, and calm as possible. Randoms yelling on t’internet don’t change people’s minds. People we know are far more credible than some guy in a lab coat on the news, or someone who trolls us on social media. That’s why you’re more credible to me than RFK Jr, who I’ve only ever heard stories about. I like to think that, during the recent polio outbreak in Harare, some people from the group allowed their kids to get OPV update vaccines because I spent two days explaining (from knowledge gained on TWiV) the relative risks and benefits of vaccines, and that, if they could get IPV from their private doctor, that was the best option, followed by getting OPV from the WHO people who went to the school, and natural polio infection brought up the rear with side effects like lifelong disabling paralysis, living inside an iron lung, and death. I included a list of things like “feed your kid anti-inflammatory foods to keep their immune systems focussed on the task at hand” and “book an appointment with a reiki healer for after the vaccine appointment to fill them up with good energy,” in the hopes that having a [possibly psychosomatic] toolkit to minimize ill effects would help them overcome their vaccine hesitancy. Yes, taking my stack of peer-reviewed research about Russian-sponsored anti-vaxx disinformation around to beat sense into them would’ve been more satisfying. But it’s possible that a few parents consented to their kids receiving the OPV booster (with a reiki healing chaser) because they knew me and I could speak their language.
Have a great day, and keep up the good work!
Bradon
Bryce writes:
Hi This Week in Virology Team,
My interest in virology has been growing while watching your podcasts for the past few weeks and while taking a virology class, Bi115, at Caltech this term. It has been fascinating to learn about the ways that the immune system can combat viral infections and the different treatment and vaccination approaches that have been tried and used for fighting different types of viruses. One thing that particularly piqued my interest discussed during your podcast was the additional roles of B-cells in combatting viral infections beyond producing antibodies. I had a couple of questions related to some of the podcast episodes that you have put out over the past few weeks.
On TWIV 1103, you talked about two proline substitutions boosting the expression and stability of the spike protein in many coronaviruses. A model came out of Bill Clemon’s lab at CalTech called IMProve for predicting the expression of integral membrane proteins in E. coli based on their sequences. Are there similar computational models to IMProve that have been used for boosting the expression of viral envelope proteins like the spike proteins discussed?
On TWIV 1099, it was mentioned that it is rare to find two identical genomes for Hepatitis C virus even in the same patient. What is it about this virus that allows its genome and the associated proteins to be so tolerant to mutation? Would such a high mutation rate not lead to many dysfunctional viruses being produced?
Thank you for all that you have taught me through your podcast and for taking the time to look at my questions.
Best wishes,
Bryce
Terry writes:
Your videos not only got me through my own virology course at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, but you have inspired me to go into virology and eventually work in biosecurity.
I am actually presenting as an undergraduate at the AAAS Regional Conference in San Diego this June on the Borealpox virus formerly known as Alaskapox. I cannot thank you enough for the inspiration and giving me the courage to follow through. You are one of the authors of my textbook that I cherish and I just needed to say thank you for everything.
Anthony writes:
The cartoon image attachment in the preceding email, was posted on Facebook as an example of the idiocy/lunacy of anti vaxers. I thought it too ridiculous to be so, but I found in the Chicago Tribune article that the image had been posted by one of the Trump delegates.
The cartoon attached in this email was sent to me by a Hudson County resident and anti vaxer. I was shocked that anyone would think this image to be insightful or persuasive. If the individual had recently arrived from some backwater or was intellectually challenged, I’d not have given it a thought. This person grew up in Queens, NYC and had worked in China for a major US financial publisher. Remember Ionesco’s Rhinoceros?
BTW, there seems to be a considerable intersection between anti vax and hatred of cars. The electric car mania I strongly suspect to be a facet of the Oedipus Complex. Removal of the internal combustion engine is equated with castration and perhaps EV sounds like ED.
Anthony
John writes:
Vincent and the TWIV Team,
Based on the comments of a few TWIV episodes ago when H5N1 was repeatedly mentioned in the news, I thought I would send along a new map, with data updated to April 20th, 2024, of the confirmed cases of wild birds infected with avian H5N1 influenza. The map contains more than 10,000 data points and gives the location at the county health department reporting level the species of bird infected, and the strain of H5N1.
I sent in another map to you almost six months ago, which you talked about on air, but this map is now complete and accounts for the extremely rapid increase in case reporting.
Also, we have now compiled the data on mammals from the USDA Plant and Animal Health Inspection Service, whose data now confirms more than 200 domestic and wild mammals that have died from avian H5N1. Here is the map for that if you are interested.
I love the show (that is an understatement as there is nothing else like it out there) and have been listening and supporting since the beginning—you should have a GIS scientist on one of these days to talk about the difficulties in mapping the spread on things like H5N1, which is a nightmare to map and keep track of at the field level!!!
Stay well,
John
David writes:
Back in the 90s one of the highlights of my video career was being able to record the US Navy’s Blue Angels at an air show in Kalamazoo Michigan. But the ground-based footage I got is nothing compared to the visuals captured by the camera affixed to the bottom of the team’s lead plane seen in this YouTube video. Containing what amounts to their entire show over San Francisco in October 2019 it is both a thrilling demonstration of the Blue Angels’ extraordinary flying skills as well as a virtual overhead travelogue of the San Francisco region including such landmarks as the Golden Gate bridge and Alcatraz. And while the visuals are thrilling, the soundtrack, which is muted engine noise, is paradoxically soothing being essentially a form of “white noise.” If you don’t have time to watch the entire 45 minute program, the last 15 minutes contain some of the best bits. https://youtu.be/dwak6Pf2kQE?si=M5MAMiyrBdZJSXA8