TWiV 391: Whiter reefs, fresh breath

May 29, 2016


Hosts: Vincent RacanielloAlan Dove, and Rich Condit

Guests: David Pride and Forest Rohwer

If you have always wanted to know what coral reefs and the human oral cavity have in common, listen as guests David Pride and Forest Rohwer talk about their work on the microbiomes and viromes of these two environments, and you’ll also understand why mucus is cool.

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Download TWiV 391 (47 MB .mp3, 65 min)
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This episode is sponsored by CuriosityStream. Get two months free when you sign up at curiositystream.com/microbe and use the promo code MICROBE.

Weekly Science Picks

Alan – Vax Pack Hero
Rich – Helicopter autorotation
Vincent – Life in Our Phage World by Forest Rohwer, Merry Youle, Heather Maughan, Nao Hisakawa

Listener Picks

Matt – Experiment.com

Send your virology questions and comments to twiv@microbe.tv

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2 comments on “TWiV 391: Whiter reefs, fresh breath

  1. sandra cervantes May 30, 2016

    I enjoyed a lot this episode!! and the diversity of research areas discussed!

  2. Tom Sethre Jun 6, 2016

    To Vincent and his Merry Twixers:

    I LOVE the fact that you’ve started using Patreon!

    Although I’ve subscribed to Scientific American since the early 60’s, and to Science News for over 20 years, I wouldn’t know my way around the simplest of labs, and could never think up all the interesting “next questions” I hear you all (*) bringing up when reviewing a paper.

    I’m a non-scientist “science fan”, approaching retirement, which is the equivalent of a sports fan who’s too old and out of shape to play sports.

    I’ve been listening to Twix and occasionally sending irrelevant (which is worse that irreverant) letters for some time. After listening to Vincent’s “band” for hundreds of hours, I feel like you’re a family I’d love to join. Now, thanks to Patreon I feel that I can meaningully contribute even though I don’t have a science degree.

    I was particularly happy to see Vincent’s video on Patreon explaining plaque assays, complete with a time-lapse view of the formation of a plaque. The spread of infection reminded me of videos of a high explosive’s shock wave.

    This fan is cheering from the stands!

    In Austin today it’s partly cloudy with light north wind, 31C/88F. Six of our nine longhorn calves were heiffers this spring, the hay pasture looks to yield a bumper crop of round bales and the cattle pond is full to overflowing. All is good.

    Tom in Austin

    (*) I grew up in Seattle in the 1950 to 1970’s, but I’ve now lived in Austin for the bulk of my life. I quickly adapted to “y’all” as second person plural. I also learned that if you don’t want to sound too “country” you just pronounce it “you all”. Adopting the two-word form as what I hear in my mind when I say it, I was able to give up “you guys” very easily.