Anthony writes:
Interviewer: Why should it be the artist rather than the scientist who perceives these relationships and foresees these trends?
McLuhan: Because inherent in the artists creative inspiration is the process of subliminally singling out environmental change. Its always been the artist who perceives the alterations in man caused by a new medium, who recognizes that the future is the present, and uses his work to prepare the ground for it. But most people, from truck drivers to the literary Brahmins, are still blissfully ignorant of what the media do . . .
https://www.cs.ucdavis.edu/~rogaway/classes/188/materials/mcluhan-full.pdf
Blue Pilgrim writes:
I suspect that Trump is not nearly as ideologically or religiously attached to anti-vacination as RFK Jr. or some other zealots, but is engaged more in ‘transactional populism’, and as such will be more vulnerable to popular pressure as many people, including Republicans and more traditional conservatives start to panic about the repression of vaccines and science.
I suspect he will be the weak point in the struggle, and that organizing letter campaigns and such directed at Trump would give the best chances to Replace Kennedy with someone who is gung-ho MAHA but less fanatical and anti-vax. Trump may not be educable about science but he can feel which way the wind is blowing. If he decides to fire RFK Jr. he can do it, and he find an excuse for it that will not destroy support from the ignorant and crazies in his base.
Jay writes:
TWiVirions,
I ran into a great quotation this morning. I shared it with my office staff.
“When the wonder of nature is revealed, one is left breathless and awestruck.”
Dr. David Ho from his 1998 MIT Commencement Address.
Link is below:
https://infinite.mit.edu/video/david-ho-md-1998-mit-commencement-address-681998
Thank you for your incredible work.
Jay
Jay Gladstein, M.D. | Chief Medical Officer
APLA Health & Wellness
Olympic Medical Clinic | Los Angeles, CA
Massimo writes:
Dear TWIV crew
It was a sunny day in South Florida in mid April 2020, my lab had just set up a highly sensitive SARS-CoV2 testing protocol, most COVID restrictions were still in place but were not going to last much longer (it’s Florida after all and we don’t slow down for viruses) and I was catching up on old TWIV episodes on a long walk to work. TWIV 531 had an interesting title “Circ du RNA“ and it was about some odd circular RNAs being generated by some Herpesviruses via a mechanism of backsplicing where a donor splice site is not spliced to a downstream acceptor site but to an upstream one forming a circle. For over 20 years I had tried to figure out how the HIV primary transcript is transcribed and spliced into several shorter mRNAs. Could it be that the HIV messengers are backspliced into circular RNAs? I got to the lab, I started looking at the genome maps and started drawing circles, I counted 15 of them and I called one of my students over to discuss a long and convoluted plan to figure out if HIV was making circles and if so what was their function. 5 years later our first work on HIV circRNAs is out (https://www.nature.com/articles/s44298-025-00105-0). There are indeed at least 15 circRNAs generated by backsplicing of the viral genome and we started slowly figuring out mechanisms and functions for all of them.
Thanks to a long walk and an old TWIV episode now we know a bit more about a virus and its host.
Keep informing and inspiring.
Massimo Caputi, Ph.D.
Professor
Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine
Associate Director Institute for Human Health & Disease Intervention (I-HEALTH)
Florida Atlantic University
Anne writes:
Hello Prof Racaniello,
Carl Zimmer is on the latest episode of RadioLab (about Thermus aquaticus), and in his brief appearance, mentions all of the research being cut.
Here is a link to his newsletter which provides more info. Seeing the cuts in print makes me sad and angry. So much damage is being done.
Maybe it would be worthwhile to have Zimmer on TWiV to talk more about these cuts.
The science community must have mobilization efforts underway to rally support for this research. If you or your listeners know about them, the rest of us can help get the word out.
Regards,
Anne
P.S. Radiolab also did a similar segment with Veritasium about how PCR was developed, and how Taq was instrumental in its success. I wasn’t aware of Kary Mullis (nor his background). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaXKQ70q4KQ
Marjan writes:
Hello,
Are there studies on efficacy of IPV if given SC instead of IM?
Wondering because of discussion a while back regarding oral polio vaccines being given due to lack of skilled staff to give IM shots.
Marjan
Jennifer writes:
We are encouraging folks to contact their federal elected officials and demand RFK Jr.’s removal from office.
safecommunitiescoalition.org/actnow
If you can help share this among your listeners and followers, it would be appreciated.
If it’s ok with you, I’d like to look through the timestamps of this years TWIV episodes and share clips of when y’all discuss Kennedy’s dangerous actions.
If there’s anything we can do together, let me know!
Thanks for all you do to educate the public!
Jen
Jennifer Herricks, PhD
Advocacy DirectorSAFE Communities Coalition