This Podcast Will Kill You
186 episodes - English - Latest episode: 2 months ago - ★★★★★ - 15.7K ratingsThis podcast might not actually kill you, but Erin Welsh and Erin Allmann Updyke cover so many things that can. In each episode, they tackle a different topic, teaching listeners about the biology, history, and epidemiology of a different disease or medical mystery. They do the scientific research, so you don’t have to.
Since 2017, Erin and Erin have explored chronic and infectious diseases, medications, poisons, viruses, bacteria and scientific discoveries. They’ve researched public health subjects including plague, Zika, COVID-19, lupus, asbestos, endometriosis and more.
Each episode is accompanied by a creative quarantini cocktail recipe and a non-alcoholic placeborita.
Erin Welsh, Ph.D. is a co-host of the This Podcast Will Kill You. She is a disease ecologist and epidemiologist and works full-time as a science communicator through her work on the podcast. Erin Allmann Updyke, MD, Ph.D. is a co-host of This Podcast Will Kill You. She’s an epidemiologist and disease ecologist currently in the final stretch of her family medicine residency program.
This Podcast Will Kill You is part of the Exactly Right podcast network that provides a platform for bold, creative voices to bring to life provocative, entertaining and relatable stories for audiences everywhere. The Exactly Right roster of podcasts covers a variety of topics including science, true crime, comedic interviews, news, pop culture and more. Podcasts on the network include My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark, Buried Bones, That's Messed Up: An SVU Podcast and more.
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Episodes
Ep 135 Menopause is whatever you want it to be
February 13, 2024 08:01 - 2 hoursFor our season 6 finale, we’re spending some time with menopause. How many nicknames can you think of for menstruation? Quite a few, I’m sure. “That time of the month”, “Aunt Flo”, “the red wave”, “period”, the list goes on. But what about euphemisms for menopause? We’ve got “the change” or “change of life”, “climacteric”, and… that’s it? There may be more out there, but the comparison is revealing. Despite the fact that roughly half of the global population has or will one day experience men...
Ep 134 Tonsils: Underestimated and underappreciated
January 30, 2024 08:01 - 1 hourRaise your hand if you or someone you know has had their tonsils removed. If your hand is sky-high, there’s a pretty good chance that you (or that person you know) are from the US and were born before 1980. Of course, maybe that’s not the case, but tonsillectomies certainly fit in the category of 20th-century fads, along with Tamagotchis and the Atkins diet. While the procedure is still widely performed today (and for very good reasons), the frequency of tonsillectomies has dropped drasticall...
Ep 133 Parvoviruses: Who let the dogs (and their viruses) out?
January 16, 2024 08:01 - 1 hourThis one’s not just for the dogs. It’s also for the cats, the raccoons, the wax moths, the birds, the mice, and so many other critters. Oh, and of course the humans. Even though most of us may be familiar with parvovirus through our canine friends, the world of parvoviruses is much larger. In this episode, we explore that world, focusing first on the biology of these tiny DNA viruses and how they make us sick before tracing the history of their discovery and the pandemic spread of canine parv...
Ep 132 Osteogenesis Imperfecta: All bones about it
January 02, 2024 08:01 - 1 hourOften, the more we learn about a disease, the more we learn about ourselves and the world around us. The story of the genetic disorder osteogenesis imperfecta (OI), colloquially known as brittle bone disease, illustrates this perfectly. As researchers continue to uncover the mechanisms responsible for OI development and progression, the better we understand the varied and crucial roles collagen plays in all parts of our biology. As historians attempt to trace how that knowledge has accumulate...
Ep 131 Parkinson’s Disease: Dopamine & discoveries
December 12, 2023 08:01 - 1 hourParkinson’s is a disease of many dimensions. On the shelves of any bookstore or library you’ll find at least a handful of titles exploring the topic from a myriad of perspectives, and extending that search to the internet will turn up dozens upon dozens more options: how-to guides for the recently diagnosed, in-depth textbooks exploring the neurophysiology of disease development, memoirs about caregiving for people with Parkinson’s, books offering a tour through the history of research advanc...
Ep 130 Cocoliztli: We do love a salty dish
November 28, 2023 08:01 - 1 hourIn the 16th century, a series of deadly epidemics swept through much of the region of Mesoamerica known as the Aztec Empire, killing untold millions. By the start of the first of these epidemics, the area had become woefully accustomed to devasting epidemic disease, as the Spanish conquistadors had introduced smallpox, measles, typhus, and influenza, among other infections. But this disease, with its tendency to induce massive hemorrhage, fever, jaundice, and rapid death, seemed different fro...
Ep 129 Lymphatic Filariasis: Hiding in plain sight
November 14, 2023 08:01 - 1 hourWith a history extending back millennia, with a biology that leads to permanent disability for tens of millions of people globally, and with a bacterial endosymbiont that may prove to be its Achilles heel, the filarial parasites that cause lymphatic filariasis are quite the complex creatures. In this episode, we explore the intricacies of this neglected tropical disease - also known as elephantiasis. We start by examining its complicated ecology involving many mosquito and parasite species, b...
Ep 128 Skin Cancer: We love and fear the sun
October 31, 2023 07:01 - 1 hourFor every article about the risks of sun exposure or a guide to sunscreens, you don’t have to look far to find one about the health benefits of sunshine or a how-to for achieving the best tan. Messaging around sun exposure is mixed, to say the least, and it’s no wonder that despite having more sun protection tools than ever before, rates of skin cancer have never been higher. In this episode, we delve into the relationship between UV radiation and skin cancers, answering your (sun)burning que...
Ep 127 Bhopal: The 1984 Union Carbide Disaster
October 17, 2023 07:01 - 1 hourOn the night of December 2, 1984, a deadly gas leak at the Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, India led to what has been described as the world’s worst industrial disaster. In the immediate aftermath of the gas leak, thousands of people died and hundreds of thousands were injured from exposure to the toxic gas methyl isocyanate. But long after the international headlines and news reports dwindled to silence, long after Union Carbide paid a paltry settlement to survivors, long after the ...
Ep 126 Migraine: A Cacophony in Four Movements
October 03, 2023 07:01 - 1 hour“Throbbing, pulsating pain.” “Like a drill boring into your head.” “As though your head is gripped by a vise.” “Stabbing pain hammering through your brain.” There is no shortage of metaphors used to describe the horrific, incapacitating pain of migraines. But try as we might, can any of them truly convey what it feels like to be at the mercy of such pain? In many ways, migraines reveal our shortcomings: with language that fails to accurately describe pain, with empathy when we continue to dis...
Ep 125 Blastomycosis: How fungus became amongus
September 19, 2023 07:01 - 1 hourFungal infections don’t often make an appearance on this podcast, but when they do, you know you’re in for a wild ride. In this episode, we explore the rare but potentially deadly fungal infection blastomycosis. We trace the journey of Blastomyces spores as they depart from their cozy homes of decomposing wood and make their way first into mammalian lungs before possibly moving into the skin, intestines, and brain. How and why these fungi can be so deadly is our next stop, one that takes us i...
Ep 124 The full spectrum of color vision deficiency
September 05, 2023 07:01 - 1 hourThere’s no denying that human imagination is a powerful thing. It has led us to create incredible works of art, literature that transports its readers to other realms, technology that revolutionizes the way we communicate and travel, music and film that makes us laugh, cry, and hit repeat. But our imagination often falls short when trying to conceive of the world from another person’s perspective, especially when it comes to senses. In this episode, we delve into one of the most prominent exa...
Ep 123 Hand, Foot, and Mouth (and Butt?) Disease
August 22, 2023 07:01 - 1 hourHand, foot, and mouth disease (HFMD). The dreaded scourge of daycares, kindergartens, even occasionally college campuses, and the topic of this week’s episode. From the multiple viruses that cause HFMD to the wide array of symptoms (bye bye, fingernails), from the relatively recent discovery of this disease to the ancient origins of all viruses (deep time, y’all), from the changing nature of outbreaks to the development of potential vaccines (fingers crossed) - in this episode we’re going way...
Ep 122 Asthma: A phlegmy episode
August 08, 2023 07:01 - 1 hourMost of us are familiar with asthma. Maybe you have the disease yourself or maybe a friend, family member, or coworker has it. Or maybe you’ve just watched a tv show or movie featuring a character with asthma. However you learned about this disease, you probably still have some lingering questions about it, like “how do inhalers work?”, “what are the different types of asthma?”, “where does the word asthma come from?”, “can other animals get asthma?”, and “can Erin and Erin tell me everything...
Special Episode: Ed Yong & An Immense World
August 01, 2023 07:01 - 1 hourOur final TPWKY book club selection of the season will test the limits of your imagination by asking you to consider what it might be like to smell the world through the nose of a dog or to see flowers through the ultraviolet vision of a bee. It will make you ponder the tradeoffs inherent in sensory perception and what an animal’s dominant senses can tell us about what is most important to their species. It will have you contemplating what the future holds for sensory research, both in terms ...
Ep 121 Tularemia: Hare today, gone tomorrow
July 25, 2023 07:01 - 1 hourThe CDC’s list of highest priority bioterrorism agents is a short one, with only six pathogens making the cut. Among the more familiar names on the list, such as anthrax, botulism, plague, smallpox, and viral hemorrhagic fevers, is the topic of today’s episode: Francisella tularensis. Unless you’re a hunter or work with small mammals, you may not recognize the name of this pathogen or the disease it causes - tularemia - let alone the characteristics that earned it a place on the CDC’s list. B...
Special Episode: Deborah Blum & The Poison Squad
July 18, 2023 07:01 - 1 hourOh, to taste the food of the past. Strawberry jam made from farm-fresh strawberries. Milk straight from the cow. Cookies baked with freshly churned butter and brown sugar. Because that’s how it was, right? Everything used to be fresher, more pure, unadulterated by preservatives or additives, right? Our latest TPWKY book club pick shows us just how wrong that notion is. Science journalist and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Deborah Blum joins us this week to chat about her book, The Poison Squad...
Ep 120 Acetaminophen/Paracetamol: Pain. Killer.
July 11, 2023 07:01 - 1 hourIt’s safe to assume that the vast majority of you have a bottle or blister pack of acetaminophen/paracetamol/Tylenol/Panadol in your home medicine cabinet, and an even vaster majority of you have taken the medicine at some point in your life. After all, acetaminophen/paracetamol is one of the most, if not the most, widely used medications worldwide. Despite its near ubiquity, many unanswered questions remain. How does it actually work? Should safe dosage guidelines be revisited? Why on earth ...
Special Episode: Dr. Andrew Wehrman & The Contagion of Liberty
July 04, 2023 07:01 - 1 hourRiots over inoculations. Large-scale quarantines and lockdowns. Criticisms of government action (or inaction) during disease outbreaks. The spread of mis- and disinformation about the safety of immunizations. You may be thinking, “this is a COVID episode, isn’t it?”. Not quite. In this latest installment of the TPWKY book club we’ll be discussing another key period in US history that had profound, long-lasting impacts on public health and access to medical care: the American Revolutionary War...
Ep 119 Marburg virus: Too fast, too furious
June 27, 2023 07:01 - 1 hourIn early February and late March of this year, separate outbreaks of Marburg virus were declared in Equatorial Guinea and in the United Republic of Tanzania. For several months, news of these outbreaks and other sporadic cases made headlines globally, as public health officials watched the number of cases and suspected cases climb, calling to mind previous outbreaks of Marburg virus's relative, the deadly Ebola virus. Fortunately, the WHO declared both outbreaks over in early June, but the th...
Special Episode: Dr. Steven Thrasher & The Viral Underclass
June 13, 2023 07:01 - 1 hourAre viruses the “great equalizers” that some people claim them to be? Are we all similarly susceptible not only to infection from viruses but also to the consequences from infection? The short answer is no. The longer answer can be found in this week’s book club pick, The Viral Underclass: The Human Toll When Inequality and Disease Collide by Dr. Steven Thrasher. Dr. Thrasher, the inaugural Daniel H. Renberg Chair and Assistant Professor of Journalism at Northwestern University, joins us to d...
Ep 118 Asbestos: Corruption and cancer and corporate greed, oh my!
May 30, 2023 07:01 - 1 hourAn entire generation probably first learned the word “mesothelioma” and its link to asbestos from those ubiquitous commercials in the 1990s and 2000s. You know the one: “if you or a loved one has been diagnosed with mesothelioma you may be entitled to financial compensation.” These commercials made it seem like mesothelioma suddenly came out of nowhere. Was this a newly discovered disease? Wasn’t asbestos banned? How did asbestos cause mesothelioma? Heck, what even was asbestos? By seeking to...
Special Episode: Mary Roach & Fuzz
May 16, 2023 07:01 - 1 hourWhere can you find banana-stealing macaques, dumpster-diving bears, flower-destroying gulls, and dangerously-exploding trees all in the same place? In a book by Mary Roach, of course. In this TPWKY book club episode, we’re joined by world’s funniest science writer and award-winning author to chat about her latest book Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law, a rollicking tour of the many ways that humans and wildlife clash and the varied attempts to mitigate this conflict. Our conversation carries u...
Ep 117 Bedbugs: Bug-bitten and bedeviled
May 02, 2023 07:01 - 1 hourThis just might be our itchiest episode yet, and for that we sincerely apologize. But it might also be one of our most fascinating and fun episodes yet, and for that we are proud. Whether or not you have personal experience with bedbugs, the mere mention of these vampiric critters is often enough to inspire skin-crawling horror in us all. But in this episode, we also make a case for their appreciation. How can you not admire (from a distance, of course), their incredible ability to go for mon...
Special Episode: Dr. Kate Clancy & Period
April 18, 2023 07:01 - 1 hourMenstruation. Is there any other biological process that is so widely experienced yet is still discussed in hushed tones or with an air of disgust? Period product commercials that never mention menstruation (and what’s with the blue liquid?), sex education classes covering what periods are without advising how to manage them, the endless list of menstruation euphemisms, prominent evolutionary hypotheses dismissing periods as maladaptive, even proposed laws forbidding the discussion of periods...
Ep 116 It's never lupus (except this time)
April 04, 2023 07:01 - 1 hourEven if you haven’t watched the TV show House MD, you’re probably familiar with the phrase “it’s never lupus”. But have you stopped to consider why it’s never lupus? Or why lupus is so often suspected in the first case? Well, dear listeners, this episode aims to get at the heart of those questions, which is easier said than done. Like many other autoimmune diseases, lupus erythematosus continues to baffle, but we know a lot more now than we used to. In this episode, we take you through that k...
Ep 115 Altitude Sickness: Balloons though?
March 21, 2023 07:01 - 2 hoursIn our episode on the bends, you joined us as we explored how low we can go. Now we’re back with a similar invitation: come along to learn how high we can fly (and what happens to our bodies when we get up there). In this very special episode, we examine the short-term effects and potentially deadly consequences of life at great heights and ask how we came to understand the relationship between altitude, oxygen, and health. This journey begins earlier than you may have guessed, back to a time...
Special Episode: Angela Saini & Superior
March 14, 2023 07:01 - 1 hourListeners of this podcast are likely no strangers to the horrifying history of eugenics, a topic that has made an appearance in our episodes on epilepsy, Huntington’s disease, hemophilia, sickle cell anemia, and many others. We have touched on eugenic policies that prohibited marriage, encouraged and permitted forced sterilization, and restricted immigration in the U.S. in the early 20th century. But what we haven’t explored in great depth are the origins of eugenics as well as its disturbing...
Ep 114 Listeria: It put dairy on the map
March 07, 2023 08:01 - 1 hourFor many of us, our encounters with listeria may not go beyond reading the occasional headline about an outbreak from contaminated hot dogs or listening to our doctor advise us to avoid certain foods while pregnant. But as we explore in this episode, the story of Listeria monocytogenes is more complex, scary, and unexpected than you may have imagined. Join us this episode as we trace the dual-natured and sometimes extremely deadly infections this pathogen can cause, examine how the industrial...
Special Episode: Sarah Everts & The Joy of Sweat
February 28, 2023 08:01 - 1 hourYou may be wondering if there’s a typo in this week’s TPWKY book club selection - The Joy of Sweat? Are we supposed to find joy in this secretion? Shouldn’t it be The Inconvenience of Sweat? Some of you sauna-goers or hot yoga enthusiasts may already welcome sweat (at the right time and place, of course), but I’m guessing there are plenty of you out there that do everything you can to prevent perspiration and the odor that frequently accompanies it. In this bonus episode, Sarah Everts (@sarae...
Ep 113 Vitamin D: The D stands for drama
February 21, 2023 08:01 - 1 hourThere is no shortage of ailments that vitamin D has been claimed to prevent or cure - various types of cancers, heart disease, COVID-19, diabetes, an assortment of autoimmune conditions, just to name a few. What is it about this micronutrient that leads people to behold it as a panacea? In this episode, we sift through what we know about the biology of vitamin D, along with what happens when you don’t have enough of it, in an attempt to discern what might be overhype and what might be underhy...
Special Episode: David Quammen & Breathless
February 14, 2023 08:01 - 53 minutesWhat do you get when you combine a love of reading with an interest in biology/public health/medical history and a background in podcasting? The TPWKY book club, of course! This season’s miniseries of bonus episodes features interviews with authors of popular science books, covering topics ranging from why sweat matters to the history of food safety, from the menstrual cycle to the persistence of race science and so much more. So dust off that library card, crack open that e-reader, fire up t...
Ep 112 Epilepsy: It’s always the phlegm
February 07, 2023 08:01 - 1 hourOnly our second episode of the season and we’re already getting in over (and inside) our heads with one of the biggest topics we’ve taken on yet: epilepsy. In this episode, we navigate the constantly changing definitions of epilepsy, make our way through the many different types of seizures, and dig into the inner workings of the brain as we attempt to understand the pathophysiology of this disease. And that’s just the biology section! The history of epilepsy proves to be just as intense, as ...
Ep 111 RSV: What’s syncytial anyway?
January 24, 2023 08:01 - 1 hourWe’re kicking off our sixth season in the same way we ended our fifth: with another headline-making respiratory virus. But as our listeners know, not all respiratory viruses are the same, and it’s often those differences among them that play the biggest role in their spread or the symptoms they cause. This episode, we’re exploring the virus that everyone has been talking about lately. No, not that one. Or that one. The other one. Yes, we’re talking about respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV. F...
Ep 110 Influenza, Take 2: Fowl Play
November 22, 2022 08:01 - 1 hourEp 110 Influenza, Take 2: Sitting Ducks; Fowl Play Over five years ago, on October 31, 2017, the very first episode of This Podcast Will Kill You premiered, an action-packed (and mildly disorganized) tour of the influenza virus and the 1918 flu pandemic. So much has happened since that episode’s release, both within the podcast and in the world of public health, not the least of which is a respiratory virus pandemic. Given this distance from the podcast’s beginning and the added perspective o...
Ep 109 Chikungunya: Not dengue (or is it?)
November 08, 2022 08:01 - 1 hourSomehow it’s taken us until the penultimate episode to cover this season’s first mosquito-borne virus. But we assure you, this episode is well-worth the wait. Although Chikungunya virus is often lumped in with dengue or Zika, the unique characteristics that distinguish Chikungunya virus from these other arboviruses are just as important to note as the similarities among them. In this episode, we explore these differences and similarities in the biology of Chikungunya virus before reassessing ...
Ep 108 Gout: Toetally fascinating
October 25, 2022 07:01 - 1 hourAlthough today we tend to think about diseases in terms of signs and symptoms, tests and treatments, that hasn’t always been the case. For much of history, diseases carried with them a deeper meaning beyond the pathophysiological processes leading to their development. A diagnosis was as much about the identity and personality of an individual as it was about the disease itself, and this was especially the case for the topic of today’s episode: gout. But before we get into the tangled history...
Ep 107 Sepsis: It's a mess
October 11, 2022 07:01 - 1 hourOver the years of the podcast, we have often struggled with questions of why: why pathogens act the way they do, why certain people get sick while others don’t, or why we know little about some diseases. This episode is no exception - sepsis certainly inspires many “whys”. But for perhaps the first time on the pod, we find ourselves grappling not only with “why?” but also with “what?”. What, indeed, is sepsis? Ask a dozen doctors and you may get a dozen different answers. Our first goal for t...
Ep 106 Turner Syndrome: Let's talk about X
September 27, 2022 07:01 - 1 hourAre you in the mood to chat chromosomes, specifically the X chromosome? If so, have we got the perfect episode for you! You may have come across the definition of Turner syndrome as a genetic condition resulting from the partial or complete loss of an X chromosome, but what does that actually mean? What is the X chromosome, what does it do, and why is it so important? We attempt to answer these questions with our exploration into the biology of Turner syndrome before setting our sights on the...
Ep 105 Down in the Mumps
September 13, 2022 07:01 - 1 hourWe’ve covered measles, we’ve taken on rubella, and now we’re finishing up the classic MMR vaccine by exploring the other M: mumps. To some listeners, mumps may be a painful childhood memory while to others it’s just a letter in a vaccine they were too young to remember getting. But by the end of this episode, we promise that you’ll all be much more familiar with this strange little virus. How does the mumps virus make you sick and give you that classic swollen face look? What is so bad about ...
Ep 104 The Bends: Industrial Revolution, baby
August 30, 2022 07:01 - 1 hourDon your wetsuit, grab your oxygen tank, and securely fasten your mask, because this week we’re going on our deepest dive yet. In this episode, we’re plumbing the depths of decompression sickness, aka the bends, to get a better handle on how gases and pressure can be so very deadly. We start out with a bit of Gases 101, examining how decompression sickness occurs and why it affects your body in the ways it does. Next, we explore the not-so-distant history of this disease, a history that inclu...
Ep 103 Leptospirosis: Don't blame the rats
August 16, 2022 07:01 - 1 hourThe story of leptospirosis is chock full of variety. In terms of biology, any number of different Leptospira species and serovars can play a role in infection, and the resulting infection can run from asymptomatic to deadly. As for ecology, virtually any mammalian species can either act as an affected reservoir for the pathogens or fall victim to a deadly infection. The history of leptospirosis takes us across continents and through centuries, illustrating how changes in scientific thought an...
Wondery Presents: Fed Up
August 08, 2022 07:01 - 4 minutes - 4.01 MBWhen Emily Gellis hears rumors of people suffering horrible side effects from a trendy diet she springs into action. Armed with over a hundred thousand Instagram followers, Emily launches a social media crusade to expose F-Factor and its founder, Tanya Zuckerbrot. It’s the start of a feud that will attract trolls, lawyers, and, eventually, national media all because of fiber. From Wondery, this is a story about wealth, wellness, and influence hosted by Casey Wilson. Listen to Fed U...
Ep 102 Arsenic: Paris Green with Envy
August 02, 2022 07:01 - 1 hour“The king of poisons,” “the poison of kings,” “inheritance powder.” As its various nicknames suggest, arsenic’s notoriety largely stems from its use as a murder weapon. But as we explore in this episode, the world of arsenic is much, much bigger than just as a plot device in an Agatha Christie novel, and it remains one of the most important environmental contaminants today. But how exactly does arsenic affect your body? When did people first start to use arsenic and for what purposes? Where d...
Ep 101 Immortality: This Podcast Won't Kill You
July 19, 2022 07:01 - 1 hourFor what was originally going to be our 100th regular season episode, we wanted to turn the vaguely threatening title of our podcast on its head by exploring a topic that’s not about something that can kill you but rather the hows and whys of staying alive, forever. That’s right, this week we’re taking on the immense and amorphous concept of immortality, viewed primarily through the lens of biology. Why don’t humans or any other organisms live forever, evolutionarily speaking? What can the lo...
Ep 100 Monkeypox: Here we go again?
July 12, 2022 07:01 - 1 hourA little over two years into a pandemic, the last thing you probably want to see is headlines announcing yet another disease spreading across the globe. And yet, here we are. Beginning in May 2022, an increasing number of cases of monkeypox have been reported in many countries around the world, both in places where the monkeypox virus is known to occur as well as places where it had previously never been observed. And although the monkeypox virus itself is not new, some of the ways it is acti...
Wondery Presents: The Greatest Con Man Ever?
June 27, 2022 07:01 - 4 minutes - 4.32 MBIntroducing the true crime podcast Persona: The French Deception— the story of Gilbert Chikli, one of the greatest con artists of all time. What does it feel like to pick up the phone and scam someone out of $50 million? Host and award-winning journalist, Evan Ratliff, investigates how Chikli successfully duped some of the world’s most powerful people into handing over their fortunes. He explores how Chikli evaded the law for years and became a Robin Hood-like hero. More than just a...
Ep 99 Salmonella: A hard egg to crack
June 21, 2022 07:01 - 1 hourWe’ve all been there: doubled over in pain as stomach cramps grip your guts; the panicked shuffle to the nearest bathroom; the waves of nausea and chills as you cry out loud, “oh no, what did I eat??”. At the very least, food poisoning is a humbling experience, but at the worst, it can be absolutely deadly. In this episode, we take a deep dive into one group of pathogens commonly responsible for outbreaks of food-borne illness, the infamous Salmonella. We start first with an exploration into...
Ep 98 Folate: Marmite, anyone?
June 07, 2022 07:01 - 1 hourIt’s been years since our first (and, until now, only) vitamin-centric episode on scurvy, and we’re thrilled to be dipping our toes back into these nutritious waters with this episode on folate. Have you ever wondered why folate is important or what the difference is between folate and folic acid? Or maybe you’re curious about this vitamin’s discovery and the impact that fortification programs have had around the world. Look no further - this episode has got all the folate facts you could des...
Special Episode: Snake Venom Evolution
May 31, 2022 07:01 - 1 hourOur snake venom episode last week took us down some fascinating roads, from the pathophysiological effects of these compounds to the snake detection hypothesis and from the development of antivenom to the incidence of snakebite around the world today. But how did we make it through that whole episode without discussing how and why these venoms evolved in the first place? It’s because we were saving it for this one, where we enlisted the expert help of Professor Nick Casewell, Professor of Tro...