At least 5 aides of Mike Pence including his Chief of Staff have tested positive for Covid-19, but Pence still isn’t going to quarantine. The country is seeing record numbers of new cases, with over 85,000 new cases last Friday… that fits with a recent admission from White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows that the federal government is “not going to control the pandemic.”
Over 59 million people have already voted in the election and far fewer votes are undecided this year than they were in 2016. We take a look at how Trump and Biden are spending their final week on the campaign trail and how polls are looking in key states.
And in headlines: police fatally shoot 19-year-old Marcellis Stinnette in Illinois, Spain declares a national state of emergency, and HHS blows a deal with Santa.
“The price of liberty is eternal vigilance” goes the sentiment often ascribed to Thomas Jefferson. The spirit of those words never may have been more important than today.
We also read your letters to the editor and share a good news story about a recent victory for female athletes amid the fight to defend women’s sports from the agenda of the transgender movement.
OUTLINE:
Here’s the timestamps for the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time.
00:00 – Introduction
08:05 – Molecular basis for human disease
32:04 – Deadliest diseases
37:47 – Genetic component of diseases
46:38 – Genetic understanding of disease
1:02:25 – Unified theory of human disease
1:08:26 – Genome circuitry
1:33:29 – CRISPR
1:45:06 – Mitochondria
1:53:10 – Future of biology research
2:22:46 – The genetic circuitry of disease
This is the Alloooooooooosionist, in which we learn about the etymology of some scary words for Halloween, with the help of Paul Bae of The Black Tapes and The Big Loop podcasts, and Chelsey Weber-Smith of the podcast American Hysteria. Beware of demons! Satan! The bogeyman! Lemurs!
The Allusionist music is by Martin Austwick. Hear Martin’s songs at palebirdmusic.com or on Spotify, and he’s @martinaustwick on Twitter and Instagram. He also composed the music for the new kids’ science podcast Maddie’s Sound Explorers.
I’m sure everyone is familiar with the word outlaw. It mostly used as a synonym for “criminal”.
However, if I can paraphrase Inigo Montoya from The Princess Bride, “that word does not mean what you think it means.”.
Learn about the ancient punishment of outlawry, and how it was used throughout the world and throughout history, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
Science in Action talks to Nasa researcher Hannah Kaplan who is part of the team for the space agency’s sampling mission to the asteroid Bennu. Mission scientists were overjoyed this week when the probe Osiris Rex momentarily touched the asteroid and sucked up some of the sand and grit on its surface.
What might we learn when the sample is returned to Earth in three years' time? There is some not-such-good news about a theory about immunity to the pandemic coronavirus, and medical researchers in the UK announce the world’s first study that will deliberately infect volunteers with the novel coronavirus. The so-called challenge study is planned to begin in London in January. The purpose is to speed up the quest for effective Covid-19 vaccines but will it be safe for the participants? And there’s a new green chemistry breakthrough for tackling the world’s plastic waste crisis.
And All living things are related to each other, from elephants to algae, e-coli to humans like us. Within our cells we hold genetic information in the form of DNA or RNA. But despite viruses sharing these molecules, many scientists don't consider them to be 'life'.
Viruses cannot reproduce on their own, but some can insert their DNA into a host to pass genes sideways through the branching tree of life. As a result, viruses’ relationship with life is.... complex.
Two of our listeners had viruses on the mind, so they sent in the same question to CrowdScience. Senan from Singapore and Melvin from South Africa want to know how viruses began to see if this can tell us whether they shared a common ancestor with humans.
To dig into this complexity Marnie Chesterton speaks with an expert on Koala genetics – Dr Rachael Tarlinton. Koalas are in the middle of tackling a retroviruses, a type of virus that plants DNA into our cells as a reproduction strategy. Her research could reveal why humans life has so much viral DNA within our genomes.
Marnie speaks with a computational biologist Professor Gustavo Caetano-Anolles, who has found a new way to trace the family tree for billions of years using proteins common to all life on earth, and speaks with Professor Chantal Abergel who paints a picture of how viruses went from being the losers of evolution, to being highly successful parasites of cells.
(Image: Nasa probe Osiris Rex lands on asteroid. Credit Nasa)
Dr. Mia Taormina, infectious disease specialist at the DuPage Medical Group, explains the latest coronavirus science and the precautions to take to navigate the pandemic. Look for our latest interview with her in your podcast feed every Sunday.
For more Reset interviews, head over to the WBEZ website. You can also follow the show on Twitter at @WBEZreset.
We’re back on the rat beat! Through WBEZ’s Citizens’ Agenda project, Chicagoans expressed concerns about the large number of rats in their neighborhoods. So we walk you through what you, your neighbor and your elected officials can do to tackle Chicago’s rat problem. Later in the episode, hear from Chicago-based professional wrestler Colt Cabana, who wants to know your questions about the city’s wrestling history.
We’re back on the rat beat! Through WBEZ’s Citizens’ Agenda project, Chicagoans expressed concerns about the large number of rats in their neighborhoods. So we walk you through what you, your neighbor and your elected officials can do to tackle Chicago’s rat problem. Later in the episode, hear from Chicago-based professional wrestler Colt Cabana, who wants to know your questions about the city’s wrestling history.
