Podcasts about episode thirty one

Hello and welcome to Episode Thirty-One of Page Turn: the Largo Public Library Podcast. I'm your host, Hannah! If you enjoy the podcast subscribe, tell a friend, or write us a review! The English Language Transcript can be found below But as always we start with Reader's Advisory! The Reader's Advisory for Episode Thirty is The Yield by Tara June Winch. If you like The Yield you should also check out: On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong, The Meursault Investigation by Kamel Daoud, and The Round House by Louise Erdrich. My personal favorite Goodreads list The Yield is on is Modern Mrs Darcy Podcast Lists. Happy Reading Everyone Today’s Library Tidbit is about familiar spirits. It’s fall Halloween was just a few days ago and seemingly spooky things have been on everyone’s mind. So on today’s tidbit I’m going to dive into what familiar spirits are, their history in different cultures, and why you should never appropriate a different cultures terminology and understanding of them. This last little bit is the reason why I will be using the term familiar and familiar spirit throughout this tidbit as I am mostly European and it is the pan-European term for this concept. I am not going to be going into the practice of witchcraft or be discussing if familiar spirits are real or their morality. A familiar spirit is an entity, animal, plant, or other natural thing, that you form a special bond with. This connection is not a light bond but rather a bond that you feel connects you to something on a spiritual or soul level. This idea is something that exists in cultures and time periods across the world. These familiar spirits exist to guide a person, either teaching them specific magics or guiding them through person life dilemmas and through personal growth. A non-religious familiar might be a centering touchstone that someone finds comfort in because it reminds them of attributes that they share. European traditions mostly use the term familiar or familiar spirit. Native and Indigenous groups have multiple different words but English speakers typically use the word totem to describe all of them. It is important to remember that different tribes will have their own word for this concept. Totem poles are specific to the Pacific Northwest area of the continent of North America, from Alaska to Washington and British Columbia. Spirit Animal is another term used by Native tribes to describe tutelary guides. Totems are one type of spirit animal but used specifically by the Northwest Pacific tribes. However, most of the information about totems that I have just said also applies to spirits animals. In other words, spirit animal is a Native term and should be respected as a Native term. In Norse culture there exists the fylgjur plural, fylgja singular. Across Mesoamerica exists the belief in the nagual and the tonalli or tonal. Some sources will say that they nagual is related to a spirit guide, however, they are more therianthropy. In other words Naguals are shape shifting witches. Tonals, on the other hand, are familiars that are assigned at birth. Tonals are attached to the Aztec horoscope calendar and are guardian spirits. Other words for familiar in other cultures that either have very broad definitions or have characteristics that don’t fit into my tidbit today are spirit, spirit guide, doppelganger, personal demon, spirit companion, ayami and syven. Familiar spirits are deeply personal and often important both religiously and culturally for different people groups. Because of this it is insulting to use language from a culture you are not a part of casually. Unfortunately, due to colonization, most people are too comfortable using words and concepts for themselves that are not part of their cultural heritage. I would encourage everyone to research into their own ancestry and pick a term that is part of their cultural heritage.

Episode Thirty-One features Grace Lynne Haynes. She is a California born visual artist currently based in New Jersey. She creates lusciously composed paintings containing bright textures and patterns. Intricate moments are juxtaposed against flat, black swaths of paint shaped to represent black female bodies. The artist’s painterly devices lead the viewer to question the very nature of color and how historically symbolic meanings surrounding colors and shades, especially black, are constructed. In Haynes’s work, black appears aspirational, dignified, and sublime. The result is a network of images addressing complex topics and stereotypes surrounding black femininity. Formally, Lynne is a master of color play and conveying textural details. She showcases young women lounging in luxuriously painted patterns against washes of color. Grace portrays tender moments as the hands of her figures rest on swaths of delicately layered areas of patterning and puffy tufts of material that compose of clothing. Grace Lynne Haynes, an inaugural member of Kehinde Wiley’s Black Rock Senegal residency, is included in the 2020 edition of Forbes 30 Under 30 in Art & Style. Her first international solo exhibition is with Luce Gallery in Italy in April 2022. Haynes has exhibited at the Ontario Museum of History and Art, Untitled Art Miami, Dallas Art Fair and Paul Robeson Gallery of Rutgers University, Newark. She was a selected artist in Daily Collector’s online article “20 Painter’s Who Are Shaping the Next Decade”, and her work has been published in Vogue, LA Weekly, New American Paintings, WhiteWall Magazine, Culture Type and on the cover of The New Yorker. https://www.booooooom.com/2020/07/28/artist-spotlight-grace-lynne-haynes/ https://www.lucegallery.com/work/grace_lynne-haynes.html https://www.bygracelynne.com https://www.bandofvices.com/grace-lynne-haynes https://www.1-54.com/new-york/artists/haynes-grace-lynne/ https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cover-story/cover-story-2020-08-03 https://www.cnn.com/style/article/grace-lynne-haynes-new-yorker-cover-sojourner-truth/index.html

We wrap up an arc that had major ramifications for Anakin’s mental state and while doing so, we fell in love with Rako Hardeen! On top of the conclusion of this story, we also get more Motherflippin’ Cad Bane, some great lightsaber battles, and we didn’t think it could get more spooky than Mother Talzin, but then we met Old Daka! On this episode, we continue on with our watch of The Clone Wars and discuss Episodes 16-19 of Season Four. Turn up your headphones, dial back your sensibilities, and join the wretched hive of scum and villainy as we take the low road to resistance on Episode Thirty One of Force Insensitive!Send Email/Voicemail: mailto:forceinsensitive@gmail.comStart your own podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/?referrer_id=386Use our Amazon link: http://amzn.to/2CTdZzKFB Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ForceInsensitive/Twitter: http://twitter.com/ForceNSensitiveFacebook: http://facebook.com/ForceInsensitiveInstagram: http://instagram.com/ForceInsensitive

Episode Thirty One by Jena Lee & Kennedy Catherine

Welcome to Episode Thirty-One of Strange Pleasures Radio Lab. Your daily audio story podcast available through iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher and YouTube.Please support the channel by subscribing, rating and reviewing on your preferred platform.Today I will be narrating Part Five of Frankenstein by Mary Shelley.YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8MoqBN8-vdAsaoYBZX32OA?viewas=subscriber?subconfirmation=1HOME WEBSITE https://strange-pleasures-radiolab.pinecast.co/STITCHER https://www.stitcher.com/s?fid=465249&refid=stprSPOTIFY https://open.spotify.com/show/6x2VOcohjOKeJ8ZIJpvi8rAMAZON AUTHOR PAGE https://www.amazon.co.uk/Robert-Knight/e/B07WH3QCML/ref=dpbylinecontpopebooks_1ITUNES https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/strange-pleasures-radiolab/id1476208251STRANGE PLEASURES VIDEO LAB: gaming channel with new content daily https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0wqchZzHfwHTUdfnc5s6ggSupport Strange Pleasures Radiolab by donating to their Tip Jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/strange-pleasures-radiolabFind out more at https://strange-pleasures-radiolab.pinecast.coThis podcast is powered by Pinecast.

Episode Thirty-One features guest Django Phillips back again with host Captain Death, continuing their reading of the style of slice of life-esque stories. The first creeps are some under water creepers with some context provided by Captain Death, then they get into their usual business and indulge in Search and Rescue stories as per usual:Confessions of a Deep Sea Diver Parts One & Two(11:34)Search and Rescue Logs(49:32)CHECK THE YOUTUBE for EPs! SUBSCRIBE @https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxoqIN-fkfdlmGEjWujypxwFeaturing wonderful ambient music from our fam in Sweden: CryoChamber, givin' us all the ooky-spooky tunage. Follow: @cryo-chamberThank you!"Are You Afraid of the Dark Theme Song," "Spooky Skeletons REMIX," "You Reposted in the Wrong Neighborhood," and "Sandstorm" are not my songs. Credit and All rights are reserved by the owners.I claim use of parody for fair use copyright

Episode Thirty One

[intro music]   Hello, and welcome to Episode Thirty-One of Multiple Sclerosis Discovery, the podcast of the MS Discovery Forum. I’m your host, Dan Keller.   This week’s podcast features an interview with Dr. Lloyd Kasper about the gut microbiome and its role in MS. But to begin, here is a brief summary of some of the latest developments on the MS Discovery Forum at msdiscovery.org.   Last week our parent organization, the Accelerated Cure Project, launched its latest endeavor called “iConquerMS.” iConquerMS aims to enroll 20,000 people living with MS to play an active role in research, empowering them to securely submit their health data, influence the studies that are carried out by the initiative, and stay informed about the research. Visit iConquerMS.org for more information.   Vision and sensorimotor problems go together in some MS patients. A recent publication in the journal Neurology examined the relationship between MRI measures of the spinal cord and retina in patients with MS. The investigators found some correlation between the two types of metrics, but they also found that damage in each structure had independent relationships with disability. Read the full story in our “news and future directions” section.   And lastly, our previous podcast contained an error. We mentioned a story about a proof-of-concept study of a novel way to monitor lesion repair. However, the story was withheld from publication due to a delay in the release of the research article. The story is now live on our website.   [transition music]   Now to the interview. Dr. Lloyd Kasper is a faculty member of the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth College. He met with MSDF Executive Editor, Bob Finn, to talk about his research on the gut microbiome and MS.   Interviewer – Robert Finn Dr. Kasper, welcome.   Interviewee – Lloyd Kasper Thank you.   MSDF So to start, why on earth would someone interested in a neurological disease such as MS concern himself with bacteria in the intestines; what’s the connection?   Dr. Kasper That’s actually a very valid question. And the answer to that question is pretty straightforward, is that there’s a very clear brain-gut access so that the brain talks to the gut primary modulating the physiology of the gut through secretion of a variety of molecules, vasoactive proteins, etc. That in turn affects the motility of the gut. By affecting the motility of the gut, you also affect everything that’s inside the gut, which is – as you mentioned just previously – the 100 trillion bacteria that each and every one of us in this world has. And those bacteria in response to the changes in motility shift their behavior, because these are living organisms, and they secrete a wide range of metabolites.   For the purposes of simplicity, you can look at those metabolites and the effect of those various metabolites on the immune system, taking into account that the gut is the largest immune system in our body – 80% of our immune cells are in the gut. So you’ll have this clear interaction between the brain, its activity physiologically on the gut, and the gut’s activity on the bacteria, and then the bacteria’s activity back on the immune system which leads to issues related to the brain.   MSDF So you partly answered my next question. There are microbiomes in other places besides the gut – the skin, the urinogenital tract, etc. Do those other microbiomes have any affect or any relationship to multiple sclerosis, do you think?   Dr. Kasper First of all, the association between the gut microbiome and MS has not yet been fully established, there’s experimental data that would suggest that there is a relationship between the two but that’s still at the experimental level. There really has been very little exploration of the other microbiomes within the body. Remember, the microbiome is not just the microflora. What the microbiome is is the genome of the flora in its relationship to the genome of its host. So when you look at the genomics of MS, for example, in the host – which there’s a lot of work that’s being done – you’re only looking at a fraction of the genetic material that’s involved in this relationship between the gut and the body that it’s in OR any of the other sites that we have microflora – our mouth, as you pointed out; our ears – inside of our ears; our lungs. Those are all areas that bacteria in our body exists in balance with us to achieve a homeostasis. The reason for looking at the gut microbiome is that because it’s the largest, probably the most complex as well.   MSDF So you focused much of your attention on a single bacterial species. Let me see if I pronounce this correctly – Bacteroides fragilis– am I close?   Dr. Kasper Correct.   MSDF And a single substance that it produces, polysaccharide A, or PSA – which has no relation to prostate specific antigen. Why are you focusing on that species and that product?   Dr. Kasper Well, there is mounting evidence that there are several phyla that colonize the gut. The two major phyla of interest are Firmicutes, which are gram-positive aerobes, and Bacteroides, which are gram-negative anaerobes. I’m talking about at the phyla level over which there is no kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species. Under each one of those phyla there are many different species. We’ve focused in on primarily Bacteroides because Bacteroides fragilis is a very common commensal that essentially inhabits in the neighborhood of 80-90% of all mankind in the world. Bacteroides as a phyla has been associated with the induction of regulatory T cells. Regulatory T cells live in the colon, in and around the colon, and that’s where Bacteroides live. And it’s been shown that Bacteroides as a phyla have the capacity to drive regulatory T cells.   The reason it’s important in MS is because there is a known deficit in the regulatory T cell population in patients with MS. And we chose Bacteroides fragilis because of all the Bacteroides species, that’s the one that we actually know most about immunologically. There’s at least 20 or 25 years’ worth of very, very important data that shows how this particular molecule, this polysaccharide A – and it’s a polysaccharide, it’s not a peptide, it’s a polysaccharide – how this polysaccharide can drive the immune system to a regulatory phenotype that’s associated with the induction of regulatory T cells, production of IL10, all those factors which are important in MS which we know are deficient in those with MS.   MSDF When you say drive the immune system, drive T regs, what do you mean by that?   Dr. Kasper Basically, these bacteria have the capacity to convert effector cells, which would be CD4 positive CD25 negative cells to a regulatory phenotype, which would be CD4 CD25 positive associated with sort of the standard-bearer of regulatory cells, which is Foxp3, which is a nuclear antigen that’s been characterized with it. So this molecule has a remarkable capacity to do that both in vivo and our studies show you can do that actually in vitro as well. So you can take cells that are negative that would be considered naïve or effector-type cells, culture them with this PSA molecule, and convert them to regulatory cells which we know are important in controlling the disease.   MSDF So remind me whether you want more or fewer of these regulatory T cells.   Dr. Kasper It depends where you are in life. To give you sort of a circumstantial argument, we know that Firmicutes, which is that other major phyla, has been associated with a number of disease states, including obesity – just to name one – atherosclerosis, but we also know that the Firmicutes have the capacity to drive IL-17. The regulatory T cells are cells that control the IL-17 response, so it’s important to have regulatory T cells to control the IL-17. We know experimentally that IL-17 drives the experimental form of multiple sclerosis EAE, and there is mounting data – and pretty conclusive, I think – MS is probably at least in part driven by IL-17 cells. So you need these regulatory T cells to control that IL-17 response which is probably being driven by the Firmicutes population. And I’m oversimplifying this, because you remember, you’ve got a hundred trillion cells downstairs making god knows how many different metabolites with over a million genes. So what I’m presenting to you is a very simplified version of this remarkably complex organ.   MSDF So is this leading toward clinical utility for polysaccharide A?   Dr. Kasper We hope so.   MSDF Can you tell me more about that?   Dr. Kasper Well, again, our experimental data – at least in EAE – demonstrates that animals that have been induced with EAE are protected by this polysaccharide. Animals that have EAE, we can therapeutically treat them with this. So this is the first demonstration that a commensal-derived bacterial product that’s within essentially pretty much all of mankind has the capacity to induce regulatory T cells. We don’t know if MS patients are deficient in this or they have the genetic makeup that they can’t respond to it, or whatever it may be. As I said, there’s a real complexity. But the simple observation as we know is that if we take animals that are susceptible to EAE and we treat the prophylactically or therapeutically, we’re able to protect them very, very nicely against the disease process.   And now we have preliminary data in humans that we can take human cells in vitro out of a person and we can drive those human cells from an effector CD4-positive CD25-negative phenotype to a regulatory phenotype by this molecule; just five days of exposure and you see this very nice conversion that’s associated with increased IL10 protection, etc.   MSDF Do you imagine that the PSA molecule itself, if drug development goes on, is there any chemistry that needs to be done before it might possibly be therapeutic?   Dr. Kasper A lot of the chemistry has been done. We have a pretty good idea of what the molecule looks like, it’s a repeating polysaccharide chain. And we know what the conditions are at least in animals as far as innate response molecules – TLRs, toll-like receptors, etc. So as far as the molecule itself, I think we have a pretty good understanding. As I said, there’s about 20 years’ worth of very solid biology behind this molecule. So how far we are away from the clinic at this point is a matter of time, resources, and money to be able to move it from the experimental stage that we’re in into the clinic.   MSDF So you’re not the only research group working on the connection between the gut microbiome and multiple sclerosis. I wonder if you can talk a little bit about how your research fits in with the various other approaches that are going on.   Dr. Kasper Our research has been focused primarily on immune regulation – how to get the disease under control, at least experimentally and hopefully in MS patients. Most of the other labs are looking primarily at what bacteria or bacteria populations are responsible for affecting the disease; what’s driving the disease. We’ve sort of kept away from that because we were fortunate in being able to find this one molecule derived from a bacteria, as I said, that much of mankind is colonized with, so we’ve been focused mostly on how to regulate the disease rather than what’s driving the disease.   MSDF Now, as you know, there’s been a lot of talk and controversy about the role of diet in multiple sclerosis. Do you think that gut bacteria and the substances they product may provide that missing link connecting diet with MS.   Dr. Kasper I think that diet’s going to turn out to be one of the more critical environmental factors that’s associated with the disease process.   MSDF Can you say a little bit more about that?   Dr. Kasper Well, if you look at all the risk factors that we know for MS, that being genetics, obesity, smoking, gender – just to name a few – there’s about six or seven of them. Every one of those risk factors is associated with the microbiome. The common denominator for all the risk factors we know so far in MS is the microbiome, and that includes genetics. As I said, the microbiome is a two-way street; it induces things in us and we do things in turn to it, so it’s a binary system. So our speculations – and we just had a paper published in FEBs – Federation of Experimental Biology – is we’re speculating that the gut microbiome is the major environmental risk factor for MS because it includes all of the known risk factors.   So how can you adjust that? Well, the most logical way is diet, right, because it’s the change in the human diet over the last hundred years that may be accountable for the rise in the disease process. It may also be the change in the diet in Africa as well as Asia which were relatively unknown for MS, but now the incidents in Asia as well as in Africa is approaching about the same as it is in the United States and Europe. So as diet has changed, so has the incidence of the disease gone up. So I’m speculating that diet will turn out to be a very important factor in controlling the microflora, which in turn allows for the balance, the homeostasis, in individuals.   MSDF Well, very interesting. We’ve come to the end of our time, but is there anything you’d like to add, any important questions that I haven’t asked that I should have asked?   Dr. Kasper No. I think the question about the diet, you know, where do you go from here? Because it’s going to take years and years for scientists and clinicians to sort out what’s actually going on in the microbiome. We’re at the tip of the iceberg in this really, because not only is it the immunology that’s important but it’s the physiology and the physiologic changes that the gut microbiome may be creating in people. So as we get better definition of what activities are going on in the microbiome, the greater the likelihood we’ll have of understanding a whole range of human diseases. And not just MS, but that’s all other autoimmune diseases, cancer, obesity, you know, it’s a long list.   And it may ultimately turn out that it’s a clue to our understanding of cancer, for example, because as the microflora shifts as we grow older – which it does – perhaps what we’re seeing is that early on we have bacteria that induce inflammatory processes – which is why MS is a disease of young people – that tends to peter out as you get older. It’s a well-known thing. It doesn’t go away but it tends to peter out. But that may be parallel to the shift in the microflora that’s going on. So early on in the western diet you’re having mostly Firmicutes. As we get older that shifts to more of Bacteroides, which has more regulation. What does more regulation equal? Well, you’re down-regulating the immune system, and as we get older what do we become susceptible? Cancer. So there’s a real balance that’s going on here. And I think a lot of the clues to human biology as far as disease state are going to ultimately be related to the microbiome.   MSDF Dr. Kasper, thank you very much.   Dr. Kasper Thank you.   [transition music]   Thank you for listening to Episode Thirty-One of Multiple Sclerosis Discovery. This podcast was produced by the MS Discovery Forum, MSDF, the premier source of independent news and information on MS research. MSDF’s executive editor is Robert Finn. Msdiscovery.org is part of the non-profit Accelerated Cure Project for Multiple Sclerosis. Robert McBurney is our President and CEO, and Hollie Schmidt is vice president of scientific operations.   Msdiscovery.org aims to focus attention on what is known and not yet known about the causes of MS and related conditions, their pathological mechanisms, and potential ways to intervene. By communicating this information in a way that builds bridges among different disciplines, we hope to open new routes toward significant clinical advances.   We’re interested in your opinions. Please join the discussion on one of our online forums or send comments, criticisms, and suggestions to editor@msdiscovery.org.    [outro music]  

We missed you all last week:Episode Thirty OneIn which Simon rounds up the entireity of 2008 in handy statistics based fun, while iszi batters the winning mentality of her opponent to a pulp, repeatedly, with sticks. Many thanks to all of you who have listened to the show throughout the year.