TWiV 246: Pandora, pandemics, and privacy

August 18, 2013

Pandoras boxHosts: Vincent Racaniello, Alan Dove, Rich Condit, and Kathy Spindler

Vincent, Alan, Rich, and Kathy discuss the huge Pandoravirus, virologists planning H7N9 gain of function experiments, and limited access to the HeLa cell genome sequence.

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Weekly Science Picks

Kathy – GeoGuesser
Alan –
From one, many (YouTube)
Vincent
– Dave Bhella: The Wildy Award Talk (Microbeworld video)
Rich – 1981 primitive internet report (YouTube)

Listener Pick of the Week

CN – How the Mind Works by Steven Pinker

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2 comments on “TWiV 246: Pandora, pandemics, and privacy

  1. Guest Aug 22, 2013

    In week 2 of the Coursera class I’m currently taking, we learned that a cell is either Susceptible, Permissive or both. We learned that a susceptible cell is a cell that has a receptor for a virus while a permissive cell has the components to support viral replication.

    …Enter this plant virus you speak about in this episode which doesn’t require a surface receptor. Does this now mean that all plant cells are susceptible? Are there any examples of human/animal viruses which don’t require a surface receptor?

    To me, this seems like a fundamental distinction…a “principal” of virology 🙂

  2. David Gronbach Aug 22, 2013

    In week 2 of the Coursera class I’m currently taking, we learned that a cell is either Susceptible, Permissive or both. We learned that a susceptible cell is a cell that has a receptor for a virus while a permissive cell has the components to support viral replication.

    …Enter this plant virus you speak about in this episode which doesn’t require a surface receptor. Does this now mean that all plant cells are susceptible? Are there any examples of human/animal viruses which don’t require a surface receptor?

    To me, this seems like a fundamental distinction…a “principal” of virology 🙂