Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Dick Despommier, Alan Dove, Jason Rodriguez, and Rich Condit
In episode 55 of the podcast “This Week in Virology”, the largest TWiV panel ever assembled takes on XMRV and chronic fatigue syndrome, 2009 chemistry Nobel prizes for ribosome structure, finding new poxvirus vaccine candidates, a brouhaha over leaked Canadian data on influenza susceptibility, and transmission of H1N1 influenza to a pet ferret.
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Click the arrow above to play, or right-click to download TWiV #55 (66 MB .mp3, 91 minutes)
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Links for this episode:
- XMRV and chronic fatigue syndrome
- XMRV not found in German prostate cancer
- 2009 Chemistry Nobel Prize for ribosome structure
- New poxvirus vaccines (e! Science and Virology articles – thanks Jim!)
- Seasonal flu shots and susceptibility to 2009 H1N1 (one, two, and three)
- Pet ferret gets H1N1 influenza from owner
Weekly Science Picks
Dick Nikon photomicroscopy contest winners at SciAm (Dick’s article on vertical farming)
Alan Make:
Rich BBC’s Planet Earth (DVD at Amazon)
Jason The Collider, the Particle and a Theory About Fate
Vincent An Epidemic of Fear and Misinformants at Wired Magazine
Send your virology questions and comments (email or mp3 file) to twiv@microbe.tv or leave voicemail at Skype: twivpodcast. You can also send articles that you would like us to discuss to delicious and tagging them with to:twivpodcast.
What does Relative Inactivity Index (RII) means in studies of influenza transmission in animals? How is it calculated and interpreted?
Relative inactivity index is a measure of the effect of influenza
virus infection on an animal, e.g. ferret. It's calculated as follows:
Σ(day 1 to day 7) [score + 1]n/Σ(day 1 to day 7) n, where n equals the
total number of observations.
Mice lie, Monkeys exaggerate, Viruses…………….KILL??????
Viruses don't always kill – in fact most of the time they don't, a fact you would have learned by listening to TWiV 55.
Indeed I did. But that doesn´t make my statement false. Viruses do kill cells, do kill mice, do kill monkeys, and do kill humans; in the same way as in the statement “humans kill humans”. Neither your statement is false even though mice not always lie, and monkeys not always exaggerate!
Indeed I did. But that doesn´t make my statement false. Viruses do kill cells, do kill mice, do kill monkeys, and do kill humans; in the same way as in the statement “humans kill humans”. Neither your statement is false even though mice not always lie, and monkeys not always exaggerate!