This Week in Evolution
Science Podcasts
This Week in Evolution is a podcast on the biology of what makes us tick. Hosts Nels Elde and Vincent Racaniello take you through the new evolution that has been revolutionized by the field of genomics and molecular biology.
Location:
United States
Description:
This Week in Evolution is a podcast on the biology of what makes us tick. Hosts Nels Elde and Vincent Racaniello take you through the new evolution that has been revolutionized by the field of genomics and molecular biology.
Twitter:
@profvrr
Language:
English
Website:
http://www.microbe.tv/twievo
Email:
twievo@microbe.tv
Episodes
TWiEVO 98: The worms strike back!
2/27/2024
Nels and Vincent discuss how behavioural individuality determines infection risk in clonal ant colonies.
Hosts: Nels Elde and Vincent Racaniello
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Links for this episode
MicrobeTV Discord serverclonal ant coloniesJolene Science Picks
Nels – Fungi (lichens) in Space
Vincent – Polar bear energetic and behavioral strategies on land with implications for surviving the ice-free period
Music on TWiEVO is performed by Trampled by Turtles
Send your evolution questions and comments to twievo@microbe.tv
Duración:01:19:54
TWiEVO 97: Germs trapping worms
2/26/2024
Nels and Vincent review a study of the key processes required for the different stages of fungal carnivory by a nematode-trapping fungus.
Hosts: Nels Elde and Vincent Racaniello
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Links for this episode
MicrobeTV Discord servernematode-trapping fungusJolene Science Picks
Nels – Openly available illustrations as tools to describe eukaryotic microbial diversity
Vincent – Dana-Farber retractions: meet the blogger who spotted problems in dozens of cancer papers
Music on TWiEVO is performed by Trampled by Turtles
Send your evolution questions and comments to twievo@microbe.tv
Duración:01:19:50
TWiEVO 96: Going bananas over the origins of corn
12/26/2023
Nels and Vincent discuss the origins of two modern day agriculturally important plants: a role for two different wild teosintes in making modern maize, and the origin and evolution of the triploid cultivated banana genome.
Hosts: Nels Elde and Vincent Racaniello
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Links for this episode
MicrobeTV Discord serverTeosintebanana genome Science Picks
Nels – Why we need an academic career path that combines science and art – Nature Careers Podcast
Vincent – Science’s 2023 Breakthrough and Breakdown
Music on TWiEVO is performed by Trampled by Turtles
Send your evolution questions and comments to twievo@microbe.tv
Duración:01:29:20
TWiEVO 95: Watering the viruses until they bloom
11/14/2023
Nels and Vincent discuss how the rewetting of seasonally dried soils, a critical event in Mediterranean grasslands that reactivates dormant soil microorganisms, leading to pulses of carbon and nitrogen mineralization, and is accompanied by a bloom of viral diversity, followed by extensive viral community turnover.
Hosts: Nels Elde and Vincent Racaniello
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Links for this episode
MicrobeTV Discord server Viral but not bacterial community successional patterns reflect extreme turnover shortly after rewetting dry soils Science Picks
Nels - Bluesky
Vincent - Cancer Virus Hunters: A History of Tumor Virology
Music on TWiEVO is performed by Trampled by Turtles
Send your evolution questions and comments to twievo@microbe.tv
Duración:01:01:30
TWiEVO 94: A bacteria, a phage, and a selfish element walk into a cryptomonad
9/29/2023
Nels and Vincent take apart an amazing symbiosis consisting of two bacteria, one bacteriophage, and seven different genomes all within a single-celled alga.
Hosts: Nels Elde and Vincent Racaniello
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Links for this episode
•Join the MicrobeTV Discord server
•A single crowded cryptomonad cell (Curr Biol)
•Letters read on TWiEVO 94
Science Picks
Nels – What happened at NIH during the last government shutdown
Vincent – Geneticist J. Craig Venter: ‘I consider retirement tantamount to death’
Music on TWiEVO is performed by Trampled by Turtles
Send your evolution questions and comments to twievo@microbe.tv
Duración:01:37:03
TWiEVO 93: Faster than a speeding bacteria
8/24/2023
Nels and Vincent review a collision of synthetic biology and experimental evolution, using a minimal synthetic bacterial cell with only 473 genes, the smallest genome of any known organism that can be grown in lab culture.
Hosts: Nels Elde and Vincent Racaniello
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Links for this episode
•Join the MicrobeTV Discord server
• Evolution of a minimal cell (Nature)
Science Picks
Nels – Life magnified stamp collection
Vincent – Matters Microbial
Music on TWiEVO is performed by Trampled by Turtles
Send your evolution questions and comments to twievo@microbe.tv
Duración:01:30:29
TWiEVO 92: There's algae in the jar
7/21/2023
Nels and Vincent explain a study of how interspecies competition between two algae influences evolution of metabolism and size.
Hosts: Nels Elde and Vincent Racaniello
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Links for this episode
•Join the MicrobeTV Discord server
• Metabolic evolution during competition (Curr Biol)
Science Picks
Nels – How amino acids got their names (Source)
Vincent – EVs Fix One Pollution Problem—And Worsen Another
Music on TWiEVO is performed by Trampled by Turtles
Send your evolution questions and comments to twievo@microbe.tv
Duración:01:35:42
TWiEVO 91: Meet your very distant cousins
7/17/2023
Nels and Vincent discuss new findings using phylogenetic approaches about how complex eukaryotic cells emerged from prokaryotic ancestors, which firmly place eukaryotes as a clade nested within the Asgard archaea.
Hosts: Nels Elde and Vincent RacanielloS
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Links for this episode
•Join the MicrobeTV Discord server
•Heimdallarchaeial ancestry of eukaryotes (Nature)
Science Picks
Nels – Juneteenth issue of Cell – collection of essays from black and brown scientists
Vincent – Tara Oceans
Music on TWiEVO is performed by Trampled by Turtles
Send your evolution questions and comments to twievo@microbe.tv
Duración:01:31:50
TWiEVO 90: The mystery of the mouse mummies
5/12/2023
Nels and Vincent provide insights into the mystery of mouse mummies on the summits of >6000 m Andean volcanoes, including whether they were living there and if so why?
Hosts: Nels Elde and Vincent Racaniello
Subscribe (free): Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, RSS, email
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Links for this episode
•Join the MicrobeTV Discord server
•Mystery of mouse mummies (bioRxiv)
Science Picks
Nels – Zoonomia
Vincent – SeaPhages
Music on TWiEVO is performed by Trampled by Turtles
Send your evolution questions and comments to twievo@microbe.tv
Duración:01:27:40
TWiEVO 89: On the outer rim of tumor evolution
4/24/2023
Nels and Vincent discuss the observation that cells on a boundary of a solid tumor have higher growth rates compared to those in the center and how to model this difference using genome sequencing data.
Hosts: Nels Elde and Vincent Racaniello
Subscribe (free): Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, RSS, email
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Links for this episode
•Join the MicrobeTV Discord server
•Evolutionary models of solid tumor growth (Nat Ecol Evol)
Science Picks
Nels – TWiV 1000
Vincent – The dream of wiping out polio might need a rethink
Music on TWiEVO is performed by Trampled by Turtles
Send your evolution questions and comments to twievo@microbe.tv
Duración:01:40:58
TWiEVO 88: Dog days of evolution in the shadows of Chernobyl
3/26/2023
Nels and Vincent review a study of the dogs of Chernobyl which reveals that genetically distinct populations with different amounts of western breed contributions to their genomes, the first step in assessing the effects of exposure to long-term ionizing radiation.
Hosts: Nels Elde and Vincent Racaniello
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Links for this episode
•Join the MicrobeTV Discord server
•The dogs of Chernobyl (Science Adv)
•What the dogs of Chernobyl can teach us (Stat)
•Letters read on TWiEVO 88
Science Picks
Nels – Hellbent documentary and Insufficient evidence for natural selection associated with the Black Death
Vincent – BioRender
Listener Pick
Walter – Oded Rechavi and interview
Music on TWiEVO is performed by Trampled by Turtles
Send your evolution questions and comments to twievo@microbe.tv
Duración:01:15:55
TWiEVO 87: Nathan Clark's revolutionary hair care advice
2/21/2023
Nathan joins Nels and Vincent to discuss his approach to understanding how species adopt novel traits to overcome challenges, and its application to identifying coding and noncoding sequence changes that underlie mammalian hairlessness.
Hosts: Nels Elde and Vincent Racaniello
Guest: Nathan Clark
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Links for this episode
•Join the MicrobeTV Discord server
•Gene loss in marine mammals (TWiEVO 34)
•Gene change underlying mammalian hair loss (eLife)
•Letters read on TWiEVO 87
Science Picks
Nels – Local news coverage of Amanda, Maria, and Nathan’s paper
Vincent – Discovering Retroviruses by Anna Marie Skalka
Nathan – Genomics of Secondarily Temperate Adaptation in the Only Non-Antarctic Icefish
Music on TWiEVO is performed by Trampled by Turtles
Send your evolution questions and comments to twievo@microbe.tv
Duración:01:34:03
TWiEVO 86: Pulling out the stops in genetic code evolution
2/5/2023
Nels and Vincent discuss how evolution of changes in stop codon assignment might occur, and a novel mechanism for altering the meaning of translation stop codons discovered in a trypanosomatid with the apropos name, Blastocrithidia nonstop.
Hosts: Nels Elde and Vincent Racaniello
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Links for this episode
•Join the MicrobeTV Discord server
•Novel stop codon reassignment mechanisms (Nature)
Science Picks
Nels – Protein Synthesis: An epic on the cellular level
Vincent – Widespread stop-codon recoding in bacteriophages may regulate translation of lytic genes discussed on TWiM 277
Music on TWiEVO is performed by Trampled by Turtles
Send your evolution questions and comments to twievo@microbe.tv
Duración:01:45:15
TWiEVO 85: Teaching old dogs new genetic tricks
12/21/2022
Nels and Vincent discuss the use of genome sequence data for over 4,000 domestic, semi-feral, and wild canids to understand the genetic drivers of canine behavior.
Hosts: Nels Elde and Vincent Racaniello
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Links for this episode
canine diversificationJolene Science Picks
Nels – Ghosts of Science Past Still Haunt Us by C. Brandon Ogbunu
Vincent – The Biggest Ideas in the Universe by Sean Carroll
Music on TWiEVO is performed by Trampled by Turtles
Send your evolution questions and comments to twievo@microbe.tv
Duración:01:35:22
TWiEVO 84: Decoding our defenses to the Black Death
11/8/2022
Nels and Vincent review the use of ancient DNA to identify loci that may have been under selection during the Black Death by studying populations before, during, and after the pandemic.
Hosts: Nels Elde and Vincent Racaniello
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Links for this episode
Black DeathERAP2respiratory diseaseJolene Science Picks
Nels – Interview with Paul Turner in Current Biology and Map of the World if you are a fish
Vincent – Smallpox and its eradication
Music on TWiEVO is performed by Trampled by Turtles
Send your evolution questions and comments to twievo@microbe.tv
Duración:01:23:06
TWiEVO 83: Evolution spreads its wings (and then loses them)
10/24/2022
Florian Maderspacher from Current Biology joins Nels and Vincent to discuss a special issue of the journal on birds.
Hosts: Nels Elde and Vincent Racaniello
Guest: Florian Maderspacher
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Links for this episode
Birds Special Issue Scott EdwardsDiversity Issues in EvolutionJolene Science Picks
Florian – Favorite birds of authors/contributors in Birds issue
Nels –Loss of avian intromittent organs as a sperm competition strategy: a race to be last
Vincent – Malaria at the Bronx Zoo (TWiP 110)
Music on TWiEVO is performed by Trampled by Turtles
Send your evolution questions and comments to twievo@microbe.tv
Duración:01:32:20
TWiEVO 82: A genetic hack for the human brain
9/25/2022
Nels and Vincent consider evidence that a single amino acid change in the TKTL1 gene might have led to greater neurogenesis in the frontal cortex of modern humans compared with Neanderthals.
Hosts: Nels Elde and Vincent Racaniello
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Links for this episode
greater neurogenesisTWiEVO 8TWiV 676Jolene Science Picks
Nels – Unusual display of elements
Vincent – Sykdomspulsen and summary
Music on TWiEVO is performed by Trampled by Turtles
Send your evolution questions and comments to twievo@microbe.tv
Duración:01:25:17
TWiEVO 81: Evolution's new and improved slime molds
8/24/2022
Nels and Vincent discuss how duplication of a gene encoding a transcription factor led to evolution of a novel cell type in the slime mold Dictyostelium.
Hosts: Nels Elde and Vincent Racaniello
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Links for this episode
novel cell typeTWiEVO 11Letters readJolene Science Picks
Nels – Dall-E artificial intelligence meets art
Vincent – John Bonner’s slime mold movies
Music on TWiEVO is performed by Trampled by Turtles
Send your evolution questions and comments to twievo@microbe.tv
Duración:01:26:18
TWiEVO 80: Viruses of a feather bottleneck together
8/1/2022
Louise Moncla joins Nels and Vincent to review her use of genomics to understand emergence, evolution, and transmission of respiratory viruses including influenza virus H5N1, mumps virus, and SARS-CoV-2.
Hosts: Nels Elde and Vincent Racaniello
Guest: Louise Moncla
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Links for this episode
diversity of influenza virus H5N1Mumps virus outbreak transmission bottlenecks Science Picks
Nels – JWST Images
Vincent – 3rd International Symposium on Infectious Diseases of Bats and Program
Music on TWiEVO is performed by Trampled by Turtles
Send your evolution questions and comments to twievo@microbe.tv
Duración:01:10:41
TWiEVO 79: When the immune system is away, SARS-CoV-2 will play
7/2/2022
Nels and Vincent discuss an analysis of the drivers of evolution of SARS-CoV-2 during chronic infections, indicating that a tradeoff exists between antibody evasion and fitness.
Hosts: Nels Elde and Vincent Racaniello
Click arrow to play
Download TWiEVO 79 (103 MB .mp3, 86 min)
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Links for this episode
chronic infectionLetters read Science Picks
Nels – NASA scientists say images from the Webb telescope nearly brought them to tears
Vincent – FDA: Don’t rush a move to change the Covid-19 vaccine composition
Music on TWiEVO is performed by Trampled by Turtles
Send your evolution questions and comments to twievo@microbe.tv
Duración:01:38:28