Limerick/Haiku contest
Giann writes:
“Viruses”
Non-living they are
All obligate parasite,
Intracellular
Hi,
I am Giann (read: Gi- as in Gibbon, and -iann as in Martian, it’s two syllables) from the Philippines. I decided to send this early because I think others’ entries may be very similar to this. I believe that I heard this concise definition from the virology lectures of Vincent. When peers ask me to define viruses, this definition always comes to mind.
Thank you for this podcast.
It is currently 79F (26C) here and a strong typhoon just recently left our area of responsibility. Another typhoon is scheduled to appear within 18 hours.
Mark Fuccio writes:
Hello TWiV-brane,
I bring you first what I believe is a new and unique greeting. This was motivated by Vincent’s mention of Brian Greene on episode #411. His field of physics is string theory in which multi-dimensional “M-branes” occur often (http://www.ams.org/notices/200502/what-is.pdf).
Next, I submit a Haiku for my chance to win M. Roossinck’s book. You will note that this Haiku is gender neutral in the sense that a performing artist reading it can use either a “he” or “she” depending on pronoun he or she thinks is most appropriate for his or her listening audience.
Here is the Haiku, and a version broken into syllables to aid pronunciation, and validate its proper 5-7-5 syllabic construction.
Written Form
—————–
viruses are dead
(s)he said still nucleotides
to live make you sick
With Pronunciation
————————-
vi-rus-es are dead
(s)he said still nu-cle-o-tides
to live make you sick
The weather here in California is lousy. Temperature and relative humidity are fine. The sky is cloudy and we have cycles of precipitation-clouds-sunny as a storm front is moving through. I devised this Haiku listening to TWiV in slow-moving traffic.
All the best.
Sheila writes:
Hi TWiV people,
Thank you for making virology fascinating. I’m a science oriented herbalist in Boulder Colorado, and I listen to your podcasts on my morning commute. Coffee and TWiV! Here are some viral haikus.
-Sheila
Vectors gently buzz
The standing water conceals
A hidden danger
The Zika virus
Supportive therapy sucks
We need a vaccine
Mosquito vector
Single stranded RNA
Flaviviruses
Coughing and sneezing
Even more offensive, the
Fecal oral route
Bryan writes:
Esteemed TWiV’ites,
Please except the following entries for consideration in your poetry competition. The first, a haiku composed in the honor of retroviruses. The second is a limerick commemorating a certain mosquito’s role in spreading viral disease throughout the world.
Haiku:
Now that I’m inside,
Retroviral integrase,
Keeps me here to hide.
Limerick:
Boy, here comes Aedes aegypti,
Unfortunate vector flies by,
Fevers, yellow or dengue,
Chikungunya’s a bad way,
Now we watch as Zika draws nigh
I am a laboratory technician at a genetic testing lab in Allentown Pennsylvania, where it is an unseasonably warm 25° C with gray skies.
Bryan
David writes:
All those interested in science
On Sunday they are in compliance
They wait for the show
That makes our minds glow
The world has a viral alliance
Dear Twiv virologists,
I discovered Twiv since TWIV238 while taking the Coursera course, and I was instantly hooked. Soon I was listening on a daily basis to the back catalogue, and taking up TWIM and TWIP. Two months ago, I had listened to all (over 600 episodes) at least once, and I felt cold turkey creeping up my spine. Luckily, I had Twievo to fall back upon.
Although I am still working as a self-employed computer systems analyst, my true passion is biology. In fact, I have considered more than once to start formal studies of microbiology. But as many times, I did not take the step, partly because my life has been a bit complicated for the last few years, partly because I am now living in Nicaragua where microbiology is virtually non existent, but also because there was a consistent recommendation by the TWIV panel (especially the episodes from 150 to around 300) not to study microbiology unless you can’t think of anything else – and having a broad range of interests I can think of quite a lot. Still, I feel that my interest is only increasing over the years, and while I am schooling myself to become a bioinformatician, I may ignore these recommendations and go for it anyway.
The limerick I wrote in the hope of getting a copy of the book came to me after reflecting on the masses of listeners who on Sunday evening (for me at 6 PM local time) click the download button. I never understood how the world can go crazy about the soccer world cup or the superbowl in the US, but it is easy to understand why your podcast is so popular. I guess that your audience would be even bigger if more people knew about it. Thanks for all your shows,
David
Nick writes:
Hi TWIV team,
A Two-Part Limerick:
My virus of choice is phi-11.
I studied S. aureus U1 and their brethren
With this phage on your side,
you’ll transduce til you sigh
and say “cloning with phi is like heaven!”
A close second, though, would RESTV,
even though it gives me the creeps.
Cause I lived in Arlington
not so very far (ling-ton)
from this virus that threatened DC
I worked for Dr. Shaun Brinsmade at Georgetown University, working on S. aureus UAMS-1 (U1, for short) transcriptomics. Phi11 was the go-to tool for dealing with difficult-to-transduce strains.
Thanks for all you guys do!
Jolene writes:
Hello hosts,
I would like to submit the following for the book contest.
Self-assembly
Sampling each other
Stochastic subunits form
Metastable cores
The virus
Scattered seeds dormant
Inert til host encountered
A life redefined
Jamie writes:
Hi all! I’m a long time listener and first time writer. Just wanted to say I love all the shows and appreciate all the hard work you guys put into each episode. I’m a Med tech/cytotech for a living, but currently a stay at home mom with a bouncing 6 month old. We love listening to your episodes while I endlessly walk him around my house, and hope all this great exposure will turn him into a future scientist.
Hope I’m not too late for the contest, I don’t think my poem is virusy enough, but I wanted to contribute to the fun, and its all I could think of while changing diapers on little sleep…
A baby’s first virome can be very complex,
with a lot of vaccines to digest,
A sigh of delight
Then a sneeze at night,
And it’s off to the doctor we go 🙂
* and it’s currently a beautiful sunny day, 69F, 20C up here in Vernon, NJ
Alicia writes:
Dear TwiV team,
I would like to thank you all for providing an entertaining range of podcasts that helps me learn about other areas of science! I have been listening since episode 379 (A mouse divided) and first found your podcast when I was “googling” gammaherpesvirus latency information. I have yet to make my way through the large back catalogue but it is on my to-do list 🙂
Since you said in a recent episode that you like hearing about your listeners I will provide my summarized back-story. I have always loved science and animals and so I dreamed of becoming a veterinarian. I completed veterinary school in Sydney (Australia) and my favourite subjects were physiology, microbiology and genetics. I worked in general practice for almost 6 years, mainly with cats, dogs, horses, rats and rabbits. Whilst I enjoyed working with animals, it sometimes frustrated me how little is known about many diseases, and how little I could do to help.
I have always been interested in research and was keeping an eye on research projects going on at different veterinary schools in Australia. When a project investigating a novel gammaherpesvirus in cats was advertised I was immediately interested. I applied for a scholarship and luckily was successful! I am currently in my third year of my PhD at the University of Sydney and am going into super-crazy work mode, as opposed to just regular crazy work mode 🙂 It was a steep learning curve from veterinary practitioner to researcher but I have enjoyed it (most days!). I still don’t consider myself a “proper” virologist but maybe one day I will get there. My research is mostly focusing on virus location and associations with disease but early next year I will be attempting viral culture. My lab is only very small and I will be doing a lot of the work solo, so if you have any beginner tips or resources these would be greatly appreciated! No one has yet cultured this virus so we are working with a blank slate.
I am hoping that by contributing in a small way to the body of knowledge, I can somehow help many more animals, and people, than working one to one in the clinic.
I’m not sure if it is too late to enter the limerick competition but below is the best I could come up with. It is semi-autobiographical:
There once was a vet who loved cats,
As well as science, microbes, and rats,
A PhD she did start,
In virology (not Art!),
And now in third year she is going bats!
Sorry for the long email and thanks once again!
Best wishes,
Alicia
P.S. I have been told that I need to learn to promote myself in order to continue in research so I will include references to the two first-author papers I have published this year. Neither are in very exciting journals as it is hard to garner interest in feline viruses, and they are small studies, but I am happy nonetheless! In the first paper we investigated the links between gammaherpesvirus and haemoplasmas, transmission and risk factors for disease; whilst in the second I used fluorescence activated cell sorting to separate B-cells, CD4+ T-cells, CD8+ T-cells and monocytes, then used qPCR to detect viral-DNA positive cell populations.
McLuckie, A., S. Tasker, N. K. Dhand, S. Spencer and J. A. Beatty (2016). “High prevalence of Felis catusgammaherpesvirus 1 infection in haemoplasma-infected cats supports co-transmission.” The Veterinary Journal 214: 117-121.
McLuckie, A. J., V. R. Barrs, A. L. Smith and J. A. Beatty (2016). “Detection of Felis catus gammaherpesvirus 1 (FcaGHV1) in peripheral blood B- and T-lymphocytes in asymptomatic, naturally-infected domestic cats.” Virology 497: 211-216.
Casey writes:
Dear Vincent and team,
Hello! Hope everything is going well. I’m not sure if the episode for this week has already been recorded but I figured I would submit my limerick to the contest anyway. I’ve written in before and I was really excited to hear my name read on the podcast. I was quite amused, however, to hear you use the pronoun “he”. I was actually benching at the gym when I heard this line and giggled aloud. Just to clarify, I am a girl. Though, the irony of the situation described above does not escape me! Oh well, haha. Thanks again for all that you do! Hope you like my limerick! And definitely, get out to vote everyone!
Best,
Casey
There once was a virus named Zika,
Whose effects we so rarely did speak of,
but she came to Miami
threw us into a clammy,
Now all Zika abstracts are “on fleek-a”.
Enosh writes:
Hello TWIV Crew,
My name is Enosh Tomer. I’m a PhD student at Tel Aviv University Faculty of Medicine. I’m currently researching molecular recombination mechanisms in herpes simplex virus at Dr. Oren Kobiler’s lab.
I’m ashamed to say I only started listening to TWIV last week although I knew of it for quite a while. My advisor, Oren, Has implored me to start listening ever since I arrived at lab but I could never find the time for it. Recently, I moved from inside Tel Aviv city to suburbs and have decided to put the commute time to good use and start listening. I’ve been listening to an episode a day going backwards through the archive from the newest episode. As always, I should have listened to my advisor sooner. I’m loving every minute of the podcast. Much better then reading the newspaper on the train ride, I can tell you that for sure. It’s easy for us grad students to become isolated in our labs focusing on our narrow research subjects while being shielded from the world outside. It’s nice to get up to speed with current developments in other fields of virology, hear about viruses that you normally don’t encounter in your regular lab work and even learn a thing or two about academia politics. I find that TWIV can help me exactly with these matters while being fun to listen to. So I thank all of you for that. I was wondering what are y’all (did I use that right?) favorite episodes so I can go ahead and start with them.
Weather here in Tel Aviv is spectacular as we just left the ruthless Middle Eastern summer going into autumn with a pleasant 24°C and mostly clear blue sky.
If it’s not too late, I’d love a chance to win a copy of the book for me and the rest of my lab so I composed this little limerick. I hope I didn’t miss any entry rules since I have listened to so many episodes over the last few days and have forgotten when did you first mention the competition. Then, for the life of me could not find it again. Wikipedia states that limericks are “sometimes obscene with humorous intent” so my research organism should provide us with adequate subject matter for this purpose. Forgive me if the rhyming is atrocious, to my non-English speaking ears it all sound the same. So here it goes:
There once was an HSV virion
Who found home in a lady’s ganglion.
She was late to observe
And it got on her nerve
Now ’till death she will have a companion.
Hope you like it and thanks for all the good times to come,
Enosh
Zachary writes:
Dear Vincent and the TWiV champions,
I am unsure if you have already given away the final copy of the book, but even if you have the world cannot have enough viral limericks.
Many people do not know, but the original names for HIV (LAV and HTLV-III) really stood for Limerick Associated Virus and Human T-Limerick Virus. LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!! In honor of this historical inaccuracy I present for your consideration a limerick on HIV-1.
There once was a germ from Kinshasa
Who desired to be bigger than Lassa
He stayed south of Euphrates
Until came the 80s
Now he integrates here to Mombasa
I also wanted to take this moment to thank you all. TWiV (and the other TWiX podcasts) helps my lab and I to stay abreast of the many exciting things happening in the world of virology. It is already impossible to stay on top of the HIV-1 literature and without TWiV I would be hopelessly lost in the silo of retroviruses. Your podcast, associated blog and online posting of your lectures are also an invaluable tool in my teaching arsenal. I regularly send classes to listen to an episode of TWiV or to read one of your blog entries in an effort to ensure that they hear a clear and concise explanation of a given topic in microbiology. For our graduate students, I often use your efforts as examples of what we should all aspire to as science communicators.
It is currently a clear and mildly chilly Fall day here in Philadelphia – 11.6 degrees C, humidity 54% with a dew point of 2.7 C.
Thank you for all that you do,
Zak
Zachary Klase, PhD
Assistant Professor
Department of Biological Sciences
University of the Sciences
PS – If you have read this far then you may have seen my signature and went, “WHAT? University of the what?” I also had a similar reaction when I applied for the job a few years ago. “Surely this place must be fake,” I said to myself. But no, we were founded in 1821 as the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy – the first pharmacy school in the US. A large portion of our graduates are still PharmDs, but we now train students in PT, PA and OT programs AS WELL as an increasing number of undergraduates and graduates in the basic sciences. I was hired as part of an expansion by several departments that brought about the hiring of nearly a dozen young research intensive faculty. USciences is truly a hidden gem – more so for faculty as our students are ALL NERDS! It’s a joy to teach here.
Jamie writes:
CFS and XMRV recently came up in conversation. I was so excited that I knew what they were talking about but I recently came across retractionwatch.com and their artcle about the lawsuit over the XMRV and CFS link.
I apologize if I missed this in a more recent episode. When I googled episodes for XMRV and CFS, the most recent TWIV search came up with January 2015. This retraction looks like it was after that episode.
Thank you for your courage,
ITM gentlemen.
Jamie
Pancho writes:
Hello,
My question is directed primarily at Professor Spindler, but any of you could answer. How much time have you spent in the academy advancing the cause of women in the sciences? Today we were fortunate enough to have three faculty members from the Universities of York, Sheffield and Leeds give a talk on their consortium known as White Rose. Their aim is simple enough – improve the conditions of women in the academy and achieve equality. They showed some rather disconcerting statistics showing how few women they had in the Professoriat. Yet their academic network has been building bridges between women, including transgender women, who seek to stay in the academy.
Imagine if there were no women virologists? We would we have possible delayed the discovery of HIV by several years without Francoise Barre’-Sinoussi, not to mention the contribution played by Mary Guinan, on the team of the CDC that was responsible for putting the pieces of the puzzle together. I am using this example, because we know the International AIDS conference is soon and I hope you will be attending.
Finally, in these final hours of June – LGBT Pride Month – I want to salute all those members of LGBT community, but especially women who have made contributions to our understanding of the scourge that is HIV.
Kevin writes:
Dear TWiV Professors,
I apologize in advance for asking about such difficult topic, but I wanted to ask you for advice about workplace abuse and sexual harassment in the sciences. I have not experienced such treatment myself, but a number of my friends (especially female ones) know people who have gone through such harassment. In light of the recent coverage of Mr. Katze’s sexual harassment charges, I think they would especially value Professor Spindler’s input.
In the instance that a graduate student or technician is the victim of workplace abuse in an academic lab, what is the best method of action? How can graduate students and technicians, who have less departmental power than tenured faculty, push their departments to have more stringent enforcement of workplace harassment policies?
Thanks a bunch,
Kevin Vo
B.A. in Biochemistry | Columbia University
William writes:
This is a remarkable result if it holds up during human trials.
It would seem to have to potential to be a complete game-changer for treating all sorts of diseases.
(The reference to the underlying scientific paper is at the end of the article.)
Would be interested to see what the TWiV team has to say about this.
Bill
Berkeley, CA
http://phys.org/news/2016-07-programmable-rna-vaccines-mice-ebola.html#
The original paper: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27382155
Dennis writes:
Hi Docs,
Here’s a news report of a paper indicating that HHV-6A or B might be directly causing infertility in a significant portion of the ten percent of women who are infertile.
Best,
Dennis
Neva writes:
Hi Twiv Universe.
In among the collection of cookery books at OpenCulture.com was this
Tropical diseases, a manual of the diseases of warm climates
by Manson, Patrick, Sir, 1844-1922
Published 1919
Topics Tropics — Diseases and hygiene, cbk
https://archive.org/details/tropicaldiseases00mansuoft
Thought you all might be interested,
Cheers,
Neva from Buda TX
Steven writes:
http://keithsneuroblog.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/meta-matic-meta-analyses-of-cbt-for.html?m=1
Hi Vincent and David,
Many many thanks for your brilliant persistence in keeping at the dreadful PACE issue. It was great to hear it being discussed on the full length podcast, but rather sobering to realise that 90 minutes was barely enough to introduce the subject! Surely the Lancet has got to get real eventually!
Meanwhile, I wondered if you were aware that Psychiatrist Keith Laws has had similar run ins with the CBTology cult himself, with their claims of it being a cure for psychosis, being hyped in much the same way as for M.E, and the publishing media trying to shut him out too?
I expect you may have seen it, but there is a presentation and slides at the link above.
Can’t thank you guys enough. I’m no nearer being able to talk to anyone in the NHS who stands any chance of diagnosing beyond my M.E/Hypochondria/IBS/MUS etc. arbitrary label, than I was 30y ago when I could still stand up and insist they at least tried.
Best of luck,
Steve
Luton
Beds
England
Anthony writes:
l”…
Losses of the most important commercial pollinator, the honeybee, are an on-going concern in the Northern Hemisphere, with Deformed Wing Virus (DWV) being implicated as a major driver of colony decline.
…”
Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2016-06-honeybees-threatened-virulent-virus.html#jCp
# # #
On a separate note, potential advertisers might find interesting that — in addition to a focused audience — your TWiV Facebook Page Likes are greater than many in NYC AM radio. I have a few notes comparing the radio numbers to those of Jersey City Free Books here:
http://www.jerseycityfreebooks.com/2016/07/12/jersey-city-free-books-popular-curtis-kuby-facebook/
FWIW
JP writes:
It’s pretty cool right now!
JP in Hawai’i
Christopher writes:
Hello TWiV team,
I have recently taken up a habit of going for an hour-long walk nearly every day, which has opened much more time for listening to podcasts. I get to engrossed in music to remember to keep walking, but podcasts are easier to listen to when exercising, even on 2x speed (unlike driving, where I can’t listen any faster than 1½x speed or else I can’t focus on both the podcast and the road). All this is a long-winded way of saying that I now have much more time for listening to podcasts than in the past, when usually only listened when on a long solo road trip.
Because of this, I’ve gone to microbe.tv and subscribed to a number of the other podcasts there and noticed something unique to TWiV: other podcasts on microbe.tv all have a paragraph or two on each episode explaining what is discussed in the episode, while TWiV is always “TWiV is a weekly netcast about viruses – the kind that make you sick. Brought to you by four university professors and a science writer.” Is there a specific reason why TWiV has a different style of episode description than the rest of the microbe.tv podcasts, or have things just evolved that way?
Thanks,
Chris
P.S.
A while back, I was listening to an episode of TWiV where mechanical keyboards were mentioned—I think the episode was from November or early December 2015. Mechanical keyboards are a hobby of mine, so if you need listener e-mails about the best kinds of keyboard for different scenarios, I’ll be sure to write one.
I forgot to include the weather in my previous e-mail. It’s currently 87°F (30.5°C, 303.6K) and mostly clear (humidity 48%, air pressure 30.00″ Hg [101.6kPa] and falling). It was hotter on Monday (says the high was 96°F) when I sent my original e-mail.
Russell writes:
Hi TWIVome,
I was listening to TWIV 370 and Vincent’s pick was the Giant Squid captured on video in Japan around Christmas 2015.
I’m not sure if this has been corrected but the squid was discovered in TOYAMA Bay, not TOKYO Bay. My fiance is from Toyama so I felt particularly motivated to send in a correction.
I’m sure it was an honest mistake but just for anyone who is wondering: Toyama Bay is on the Sea of Japan while Tokyo Bay is on the Pacific. Toyama is about 2 hours away from Tokyo by bullet train. When I looked up this squid sighting to double check the location, the online media was citing “a giant squid sighting near Tokyo”. In actuality, Japan is about the size of California so most things are not “near Tokyo”.
I read a book about “Giant Squid” or Architeuthis that painstakingly chronicled every sighting of the giant squid since ancient times. I think the book was written in the 80’s and only partial dead animals had ever been recovered. It was very clear a sighting of a live one was long anticipated in marine biology.
Last fun fact: the kanji characters for giant squid in Japanese translates as ‘Big King Squid’.
Thank you. Love the shows! Particularly TWIP!
Russell
Graduate Student
Department of Biomedical Chemistry
University of Tokyo
George writes:
Hello TWiV Professors!
I must admit I have lagged behind in my addiction of your lovely podcast largely due to my relocation to South Africa for Post-doc studies. I however could not resist episode 396 ‘Influenza viruses with Peter Palese’. Having worked on influenza viruses, it was wonderful listening to Prof Palese whose work I have greatly admired.
You also briefly discussed another great influenza scientist the late Edward Kilbourne who mentored both of you. Kilbourne in 1973 wrote a special article in the JID titled “The molecular epidemiology of influenza” whose introduction describes well influenza scientists. He wrote “Influenza-this much studied and least understood of diseases-is not only a disease but for some of us a way of life. Once challenged with its virus, the investigator, unlike the patient, is chronically stricken and is doomed to a lifetime of servitude to its whims-and endless debates with his colleagues-unless he is rescued by the early attainment of a high administrative position or seduced by the largesse of cancer virology.” This is the best description of the TWiV gang and all of us who confess viruses as ‘our way of life’.
Another virologist also recently told me that there are two types of people in the world; virologists and everybody else!
Keep up the great work guys, you are my mentors.
George
P.S. It’s a sunny day here in Venda, Limpopo, South Africa – 250C, 0 mph wind and 74% humidity.
George Gachara, PhD
Postdoctoral fellow
University of Venda
South Africa
Anthony writes:
Myxomatosis t shirt http://www.altskate.co.uk/Disturbia-Myxomatosis-Tee-54296
FWIW
Steve writes:
http://www.understandinghealthresearch.org/
Hi All,
Just got an MRC announcement of this new resource, that is supposed to have been put together to help the public to understand health research papers. I’ve not had time to put it to the test (a bit cramped on my BlackBerry) yet, but I thought ‘the professionals’ might like to have a look at it.
It seems a tall order to be able to feed a research paper into the site and have it explain all the terms, let alone statistics, and help the public decide whether it is credible or not. It might be an attempt to steer people towards ‘preferred’ papers, like PACE, for all I know, but, if it really is able to interpret papers objectively, then it could go some way to being the Sagan-style ‘Baloney Detector Kit’ app/add on, I’d like to see someone produce.
I’ve been thinking we needed such an app/add on, for some time, and would probably go further than this new site (unless it’s read my mind). I’d like something like the apps that check whether you are on a ‘safe’ site, that checked any site one landed on against some kind of ‘woo index’, that automatically checked for red flags, like links to other woo sites, circular references, adverts for dodgy products, checks against Advertising Standards rulings, Retractionwatch, qualification mills, fake credentials, vanity publishers, well known scams and memes (Snopes, Hoaxwatch) etc etc.
I’m no programmer, but it seems that it ought to be possible for someone to design such an app: It’s only really a tweak to existing malware, and content filtering apps that already exist, I should think. If ‘Understanding Health Research’ doesn’t go this far, perhaps you could try spreading the idea about and seeing if some clever listener can create such a useful add on. Then, perhaps, I won’t need to keep pointing out to friends, that they’ve given me a link to a site that has ‘real’ in the address! 🙂
All the best,
Steve
Luton
England
Vic writes:
Dear TWiV Team,
I guess that someone at Holland America Cruise Lines must listen to TWiV, because they have installed high-tech, hand washing stations in their newest ship, The Koningsdam.
Being a ship’s agent doesn’t have a great many perks, but one of the few is the chance to eat lunch on every ship that we visit. I went to lunch on the recently launched, Koningsdam, here in Kristiansand a couple of weeks ago. I was surprised to see that in addition to the 10,000 Purel dispensers scattered around the ship, there are new, very fancy hand washing stations located at the entrance to the restaurant. I have a attached a photo of one of them to this email.
It’s a fairly straight forward process to have your hands washed…you just roll up your sleeves and stick your hands in the two holes on the top of the machine. The machine starts to spray your hands with warm water in a sort of “swirly” motion and in about 15 seconds you are finished. You remove your hands and dry them with a paper towel, or, as I saw a couple of people do, wipe them on their pants. That seems to be a flaw in the design.
Anyway, the ships have clearly gotten the message that hand sanitizer is not the complete solution to the threat of norovirus chaos.
Love the show! Keep up the great work.
med venlig hilsen,
Vic, The Ship’s Agent in Norway
Bridget writes:
Hello TWiV team!
Thank you for a wonderful TWiV 400. I learned a lot from your discussion with Harold Varmus. That episode and this wacky US election season has got me thinking: how do we increase the role of science in politics?
I’ve learned a bit about advocating for science funding, which we all agree is important. But how do politically engaged citizens and scientists encourage politicians and policy makers to actually use science and fact to inform their ideas? I have spent the last six months shouting at my computer over the anti-intellectual, fact-bare nonsense some politicians use as the basis for their policies. I think this move towards disregarding facts is frightening. It seems that some people doubt that ideas can be empirically and objectively tested; that some people even doubt that an objective fact can exist in the first place.
As a scientist-in-training (Ph.D. student in cell biology), I notice most when people mischaracterize the effectiveness of vaccines, methods to control Zika virus or HIV, and the effects (or existence) of climate change. How do we educate politicians? How do we encourage them to use that education when making laws and running campaigns?
I’m looking forward to hearing from TWiV’s diverse crew of scientists and educators: I hope this can spark a lively discussion on the podcast.
Best,
Bridget
P.S. Sunny as usual in Boulder, CO, with large temperature swings from dawn (45F) through dusk (75F).