Podcasts about RNA

HEALTH NEWS   Analysis of 82 Trials Shows Black Seed May Improve Cardiovascular Risk Markers New Study Reveals Herpesvirus Infection May Accelerate Alzheimer's Disease Favorable lifestyle factors reduce dementia risk across key genetic profiles People are living longer, but spending more years in poor health Imbalances in the oral microbiome linked to symptomatic hand osteoarthritis       Analysis of 82 Trials Shows Black Seed May Improve Cardiovascular Risk Markers Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences (Iran), July 21 2026 (Natural News)     A pooled analysis of 82 randomized controlled trials involving 5,026 adults has found that supplementation with Nigella sativa, commonly known as black seed or black cumin, is associated with improvements in multiple cardiovascular risk markers.   The meta-analysis, published in the journal Pharmacological Research, was conducted by researchers from several Iranian universities. The analysis used a GRADE-assessed, dose-response method to evaluate the effects of black seed compared with placebo or standard care.   According to the study, black seed supplementation led to significant reductions in body weight, body mass index, waist circumference, and body fat percentage. The analysis noted that daily amounts used in most trials ranged from 1 to 3 grams of ground black seed or 1 to 3 milliliters of black seed oil. According to the researchers, one teaspoon of ground black seed contains roughly 4 grams, meaning a single daily teaspoon stirred into food falls within the range used in studies. For those who prefer oil, a half teaspoon delivers close to 2 milliliters. The researchers emphasized that consistency, rather than a large single dose, appears to drive positive results.   New Study Reveals Herpesvirus Infection May Accelerate Alzheimer's Disease Cardiff University (UK), July 21, 2026 (SciTech Daily) In a new study, researchers found that herpesvirus infection intensified memory problems and other Alzheimer's-related changes in mice already vulnerable to the disease. The damage appeared to be driven not simply by the virus itself, but by the immune system's prolonged attempt to control it. Herpesviruses are a large family that includes viruses associated with cold sores, childhood infections, and glandular fever. After the initial illness passes, some can remain dormant inside the body and reactivate later, repeatedly drawing the immune system into action. Scientists results suggest that T cells, immune cells that identify and attack infected cells, can enter the brain during herpesvirus infection and accelerate cognitive decline. Following infection, large numbers of immune cells moved into the brain. Most were CD8+ T cells that specifically recognized the virus, showing that they had entered the tissue as part of the body's attempt to contain the infection. Similar T cells have previously been found in the brains and spinal fluid of people with Alzheimer's disease, although their exact role has remained uncertain. The results indicate that a virus-driven immune response can actively speed the progression of Alzheimer's-like disease rather than merely appearing alongside it.     Favorable lifestyle factors reduce dementia risk across key genetic profiles     Kyushu University (Japan), June 5 2026 (News-Medical) With dementia cases expected to nearly triple worldwide by 2050, researchers are increasingly focused on identifying ways to prevent or delay the disease. While lifestyle and health-related factors, such as blood pressure control and physical activity, influence dementia risk, genetics also play a major role. Currently, it is unclear if maintaining a favorable lifestyle reduces dementia risk equally across different genetic backgrounds. A new study led by Kyushu University examines whether favorable modifiable risk factors (mRF)-behaviors or conditions that people can change or control-can lower dementia risk even among individuals with high genetic susceptibility. The researchers analyzed data from 9,605 community-dwelling adults aged 65 and older. They determined each participant's APOE ε4 genotypes, a primary genetic risk factor for Alzheimer's disease, and calculated the mRF score based on lifestyle and health-related factors. This allowed the team to evaluate how genetic predisposition and lifestyle choices jointly interact to influence dementia risk. The results showed that dementia risk rose progressively with the number of APOE ε4 alleles. Notably, among individuals with one or no APOE ε4 alleles, maintaining a healthier profile with lower mRF scores was linked to a significantly lower risk of dementia. In contrast, among individuals with two APOE ε4 alleles, dementia risk did not differ significantly between those with lower and higher mRF scores. These findings suggest that maintaining favorable lifestyle and health conditions can effectively mitigate dementia risk, even among individuals carrying a single APOE ε4 allele. This underscores the importance of population-based prevention strategies focused on managing vascular and lifestyle risk factors.     People are living longer, but spending more years in poor health Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (US), July 21 2026 (Eurekalert)   People are living longer, but spending more years in poor health  The morbidity gap—the number of years people live in poor health—widened in nearly all countries, with wealthier nations facing the largest gaps.      The US has the largest morbidity gap, closely followed by Australia and Canada.   Women consistently live longer but spend more years in poor health than men.   Musculoskeletal disorders, mental health conditions, hearing loss, and falls and other unintentional injuries are driving most years lived in poor health worldwide.  Within a generation, the global morbidity gap widened by nearly two years, increasing from 8.8 years in 1990 to 10.7 years in 2023. Globally, people spent an average of 14.5% of their lives in poor health in 2023, up from 13.6% in 1990. Instead of occurring only in the final years of life, the widening morbidity gap was observed across the adult lifespan, suggesting that people are spending more years living with disease and disability throughout adulthood.  Between 1990 and 2023, global life expectancy at birth increased from 64.6 years to 73.8 years, while healthy life expectancy rose from 55.9 years to 63.1 years. In 2023, the United States had the largest national morbidity gap at 14 years, followed by Australia at 13.9 years and Canada at 13.7 years.   Imbalances in the oral microbiome linked to symptomatic hand osteoarthritis Central South University (China), July 21 2026 (Medica Xpress) A study published RMD Open has linked specific imbalances and disruptions in the oral microbiome to symptomatic hand arthritis. Its findings suggest that the microbial environment of the mouth may influence the disease process of hand arthritis, which is associated with pain, stiffness and reduced grip strength and can severely impair quality of life. The oral microbiome plays a role in systemic inflammation and interacts closely with the gut microbiome, which is significantly associated with symptomatic hand arthritis. To assess the role of the oral microbiome, saliva samples from 52 people with symptomatic hand arthritis recruited from a community-based osteoarthritis study and 712 people without the condition were analyzed using ribosomal RNA gene sequencing. Compared with samples taken from participants without hand arthritis, samples from participants with symptomatic hand arthritis showed significantly lower oral microbial richness and altered composition. Specifically, the abundance of Trichococcus bacteria was significantly higher in the symptomatic hand arthritis samples and positively associated with the severity of hand arthritis symptoms. Trichococcus abundance in the oral microbiome was also positively associated with the gut microbial tyrosine metabolism pathway—a metabolic pathway previously implicated in hand arthritis. Samples from participants with symptomatic hand arthritis also displayed reduced oral-gut microbiome correlations compared with controls, suggesting the balance between these two microbial communities was disrupted.

Episode 2860 - In this episode, Ted and Austin Broer connect Moderna's RNA cancer shot trial dangers, COVID vaccine memory issues and hospital whistleblower claims, acai berry antioxidant benefits, Berberine's blood sugar and body fat management superiority, the trades career opportunity versus student loan default crisis, EV market collapse and hybrid technology promise, and the Andrew and Tate arrest for dating scams into a broadcast that delivers both urgent health warnings and sharp economic and cultural commentary.

The Root Cause of the Churban Welcome to Daily Bitachon. Today, we are discussing the Churban Beit Hamikdash (the destruction of the Holy Temple). While the Gemara provides many different reasons and causes for this tragedy, there is one famous cause mentioned by the Prophet Yeshaya ( Yeshayahu ) that, at first glance, seems remarkably minute. Speaking in the name of God, the prophet states: "Yaan כי נגש העם הזה ( Because this nation has approached Me ), befiv uvisfatav kibduni ( with their mouths and their lips they have honored Me ), but libo rishak mimeni ( their heart is far away from Me ), ותהי יראתם אותי מצות אנשים מלמדה ( and their fear of Me is just a commandment of men learned by rote )." The prophet concludes that because of this mechanical, rote behavior, the Beit Hamikdash was destroyed. At first glance, this is difficult to comprehend. It seems incredibly harsh to destroy the Holy Temple simply because people are performing mitzvot out of habit. Even if it is a flaw, it hardly seems like a crime—let alone one warranting such a severe punishment. Nobody killed, nobody stole; they were actively serving God, they just lacked heart. It was what we call "lip service"—mouths and lips moving, but no heart behind them. The Death of a Nation To understand this connection, we have to look at how the Kuzari describes the Churban Beit Hamikdash . He explains that the destruction of the Temple was, in a sense, the death of the Jewish nation. When the Beit Hamikdash was destroyed, we essentially lost our collective soul. The Kuzari compares our ongoing exile to a buried body that slowly decomposes over time until only dust is left—which is the exact stage we find ourselves in today. We are like "corpse dust." It is a remnant that still originates from a living body—it contains traces of DNA and RNA, meaning it isn't a mere rock or a plant—but it is the leftover remains of a human being. Ultimately, however, it can be reconstituted. When a person dies, medical records might list the cause of death as heart failure, kidney failure, liver failure, or brain failure. The vital organs simply shut down. But suppose the root cause of all that organ failure was Hepatitis B. If you ask the ICU doctors why the patient died, they will list the organs that failed. But if you want to know what actually killed him, you might find out that weeks prior, he was sitting at a fair and someone sneezed near a cherry, contaminating it. The man ate the cherry, caught the virus, and slowly deteriorated. If you say, "Come on, cherries don't kill people," it sounds extreme and far-fetched—unless you understand how microscopic bacteria and viruses work. The same principle applies to the death of a nation. The ultimate catalyst is rarely something open, obvious, or dramatic. The final outcome is clear, but Chazal (our Sages) wanted to unearth the microscopic root cause. For instance, the Gemara notes elsewhere that the land was lost because the people did not recite Birkat HaTorah (the blessing over the Torah) before studying. That seems like a minute detail. It wasn't the immediate cause of death, but it was the microscopic beginning. That initial lack of respect for the Torah was the contamination that eventually grew into total system failure. A Fruit Peel Without the Fruit What exactly is so deeply flawed about lip service that it could trigger such a catastrophic downfall? In Shaar Cheshbon HaNefesh , the Chovot HaLevavot provides a famous mashal (parable). He explains that a prayer without heart is like a fruit peel without the fruit, or a body without a soul. A body without a soul is a corpse; a fruit peel without the fruit is an empty facade. The Parable of the Empty Fruit Imagine a man who wants to honor the king. He prepares a lavish bowl filled with the most exotic fruits imaginable: out-of-season watermelons, mangoes, pineapples, dragon fruit, and lychees. The king is incredibly excited. But when he cuts into the watermelon, it's completely hollow. He cuts open the mango, and it's empty. They are nothing but empty shells without any substance. The Chovot HaLevavot says that this is exactly what happens when we pray without heart. It is a shell. Our bodies are there, our lips are moving, and our frames are swaying, but we are not actually there. We have checked out, we are thinking about something else, and our minds are somewhere else entirely. This hollow performance isn't limited to prayer; it shows up across a whole host of areas. The Beis Halevi and the Chovot HaLevavot both note that the same thing happens with bitachon (trust in God). You can easily sing songs about bitachon , but have absolutely nothing shifting inside your heart. God wants the heart— Rachmana liba ba'ei . An external shell without internal devotion is worthless. The Already-Ground Flour Rav Shlomo Wolbe explains this concept using a well-known Gemara. The Sages tell us that when the enemy breached the walls and destroyed the Temple, a heavenly echo ( Bat Kol ) rang out and said: Kimcha techina tachanta — "You have ground flour that was already ground." The voice was telling the invaders, "Do not think you are the ones who destroyed the Beit Hamikdash. It was already destroyed." What does it mean that it was already destroyed? It means the Beit Hamikdash had already become an empty shell. The Shechinah (Divine Presence) had already departed; the building was just an edifice without a soul. And why did the soul of the Temple leave? Because the Jewish people were living without heart and soul. The physical state of the Beit Hamikdash simply mirrored the spiritual state of the nation. Practical Takeaway Being involved in mitzvot without heart is a profound danger. The Chovot HaLevavot dedicated his entire masterpiece, Duties of the Heart , to this single premise: we cannot suffice with just doing things mechanically; we must put our hearts into them. As we approach Tisha B'Av, we will be focusing heavily on this topic. If we want to know how to heal the Churban , it is wonderful to say we want to be vigilant against heart attacks and organ failure. But real vigilance means making sure our "cherries" are clean before we eat them. We have to work on these microscopic, early root causes—beginning with moving past rote behaviors and bringing our hearts back to our service of God.

GET YOUR APRICOT SEEDS at the life-saving Richardson Nutritional Center HERE: https://rncstore.com/r?id=bg8qc1 Use code JOSH to save money! GET HEIRLOOM SEEDS & NON GMO SURVIVAL FOOD HERE: https://heavensharvest.com/wam USE Code WAM to save 25% plus free shipping! USE Code WAM50 for 50% off on select items like the #10 cans & MRE packs! Pledge here! Just a dollar a month can help keep us alive! https://www.patreon.com/user?u=2652072&ty=h&u=2652072 EXCLUSIVE replays of hour plus long live shows are available here at $5 a month or more! GET 10% OFF ON SHILAJIT FROM DR. KAUFMAN WHEN YOU USE CODE WAM10 HERE: https://medauthentica.com/discount/WAM10?redirect=/products/authentica-shilajit%3Fsca_ref=10867124.wrNV3jkYSaMg9 HELP SUPPORT US AS WE DOCUMENT HISTORY HERE: https://gogetfunding.com/help-keep-wam-alive/# Josh Sigurdson reports on the growing studies regarding childhood vaccines and prenatal vaccines and how it affects children in birth and growing up. Studies are showing specifically Covid vaccines in early pregnancy leads to several major birth defects including AVSD and cleft palates. This is according to a new Iranian study which included 303 women who were not vaccinated during pregnancy, 262 women who got at least 1 dose between conception and 11 weeks, 6 days of gestation and 787 women vaccinated after the first trimester. We have also found based on the largest vaxxed vs. unvaxxed cohert study in history that 57% of vaccinated kids (with the regular vaccine schedule) face chronic illness with irreversible neurological, autoimmune and allergic diseases in their lifetime where only 17% of unvaccinated children face similar issues. Considering a margin of error as well as obvious other factors including processed foods, poisonous water and pollutants, this is an enormous disparity. We continue to see more and more studies proving the dangers of vaccines, yet it's still scoffed at and the so-called "MAHA" movement continues to push for Measles vaccines, wearable devices and legal immunity for vaccine manufacturers. The new Trump nominee for CDC director Dr. Erica Schwartz claims she believes mRNA vaccines are "safe and effective" despite the countless studies proving the dangers, especially for children in development. The FDA is fast-tracking self amplifying RNA. They're also pushing for mRNA to be sprayed on crops as a herbicide. The MAHA movement was meant to keep people sitting on their hands. In other news, a woman is facing prison for murdering her twin babies who were just 18 months. However, the defense says they were brought to the hospital multiple times for a vaccine injury after getting injections just 8 days before their deaths. This included their lips going blue and them apparently craving oxygen. The hospital that administered the shots has acknowledged they were indeed injured by the vaccines. The prosecutors claim the woman suffocated the babies in their sleep. The mother is approving independent investigations into this case which is not usually something a guilty person would do. This of course is a tragic story all around. Meanwhile, a massive chronic diarrhea outbreak is occurring due to lettuce. But is it really just due to parasitic lettuce? Or is there more to the story. We break down this and much more in this long form report. Stay tuned for more from WAM! BUY GOLD HERE: https://firstnationalbullion.com/schedule-consult/ Avoid CBDCs! GET YOUR WAV WATCH HERE: https://buy.wavwatch.com/WAM Use Code WAM to save $100 and purchase amazing healing frequency technology! Get Your SUPER-SUPPLIMENTS HERE: https://vni.life/wam Use Code WAM15 & Save 15%! Life changing formulas you can't find anywhere else! Get local, healthy, pasture raised meat delivered to your door here: https://wildpastures.com/promos/save-20-for-life/bonus15?oid=6&affid=321 USE THE LINK & get 20% off for life and $15 off your first box! DITCH YOUR DOCTOR! https://www.livelongerformula.com/wam Get a natural health practitioner and work with Christian Yordanov! Mention WAM and get a FREE masterclass! You will ALSO get a FREE metabolic function assessment! PayPal: ancientwonderstelevision@gmail.com FIND OUR CoinTree page here: https://cointr.ee/joshsigurdson PURCHASE MERECHANDISE HERE: https://world-alternative-media.creator-spring.com/ JOIN US on SubscribeStar here: https://www.subscribestar.com/world-alternative-media For subscriber only content! BITCOIN ADDRESS: 18d1WEnYYhBRgZVbeyLr6UfiJhrQygcgNU World Alternative Media 2026

Popp Talk with Mary Jane Popp Biotech Breakthroughs, Hidden Pain, and the Truth We Struggle to Tell Guests, Tim Harris and Michelle May A Potpourri of Health, Science, and Self-Understanding In this episode of Popp Talk, host Mary Jane Popp introduces a wide-ranging “potpourri” show covering biotechnology, health, therapy, and the hidden struggles people sometimes carry beneath the surface. She begins by setting up an interview with Tim Harris, author of In Pursuit of Unicorns: A Journey Through 50 Years of Biotechnology, and later introduces Michelle May, psychotherapist and author of What I Couldn't Tell My Therapist. The episode moves from the evolution of biotech and medical innovation to emotional repression, chronic pain, social media misinformation, and the importance of personal responsibility. Tim Harris on Biotechnology and the Pursuit of Unicorns Mary Jane's first guest, Tim Harris, defines biotechnology as the combination of biology and technology, beginning with recombinant DNA and monoclonal antibodies. He explains that his book title uses the word “unicorns” because biotech companies can become billion-dollar enterprises, though some valuations may prove more mythical than real. Harris presents biotechnology not only as a scientific field but also as a business story shaped by companies, capital, invention, risk, and the long effort to turn scientific tools into useful products. Recombinant DNA, Monoclonal Antibodies, and Gene Editing Harris walks listeners through the development of recombinant DNA, explaining how scientists learned to combine pieces of DNA and use bacteria such as E. coli to produce important proteins like insulin and growth hormone. He also explains monoclonal antibodies as single antibodies made by cloned cells, first useful for diagnostics and later for therapies. The conversation then turns to gene editing, including CRISPR-Cas9 and its use in sickle cell disease, which Harris describes as life-changing for patients whose lives revolve around managing pain and disease. Cancer, mRNA Vaccines, AI, and the Risks of Innovation Mary Jane and Harris discuss why cancer remains difficult to treat, with Harris explaining CAR T-cell therapy, its success in certain leukemias and lymphomas, and the continuing challenge of solid tumors such as breast, prostate, and colon cancer. He also connects nanotechnology to COVID-19 mRNA vaccines, describing lipid nanoparticles as the delivery system for messenger RNA. The conversation expands into new COVID strains, vaccine updates, artificial intelligence, risk assessment, and the limits of prediction in biology. Harris emphasizes that while AI can help analyze data and predict viral changes, drug discovery and development remain experimental sciences. Michelle May's Story of Chronic Pain and Repressed Emotion The second major interview features Michelle May, who shares that she woke up in 2007 with a headache that lasted six years. Doctors eventually found a Chiari malformation, and after two brain surgeries, her head pain improved dramatically. Still, some headaches remained, and May says she later learned through intensive dynamic therapy that repressed emotions also contributed to her pain. She explains that anger, grief, guilt, and love can be pushed out of awareness when people grow up in environments where certain feelings do not feel safe, but those emotions may still remain in the body. What People Cannot Tell Their Therapist May explains that the title What I Couldn't Tell My Therapist has two meanings: the painful family stories she feared would feel like betrayal, and the truths she had not yet admitted to herself. She describes how patients may minimize or filter their experiences, especially when they love the people who hurt them. Mary Jane presses her on how therapy helps uncover those hidden barriers, and May explains that she watches for avoidance patterns, such as looking away, intellectualizing, minimizing pain, or struggling to stay connected while discussing intimacy and emotion. Pain, Anxiety, Opioids, Social Media, and Responsibility The interview broadens into the overlap between physical pain and emotional pain, with May stressing that medical causes should always be ruled out first before exploring emotional processes. She distinguishes between feelings and actions, explaining that anger is a bodily experience while harmful behavior is a choice. The conversation also covers chronic pain, opioid dependence, the mind-body connection, social media misinformation, fact-checking, political and cultural falsehoods, and the difficulty people have admitting they were wrong. The episode closes with May encouraging people to find a therapist they trust, while Mary Jane emphasizes comfort, accountability, and the need to stop blaming others when personal responsibility is required.

Cardiologist Dr. Peter McCullough on mRNA Persistence, Nattokinase, and the Fight Over COVID-19 Treatment" Six years after standing before the US Senate and calling out the pandemic response in real time, Dr. Peter McCullough returns with new evidence on where the spike protein came from, how long it persists in the body after infection or vaccination, and what's being done to break it down. This episode traces the science from a 2015 gain-of-function paper to a patient still showing circulating spike protein 3.6 years after vaccination. Get Dr. McCullough's free spike protein guide: myfreespikeguide.com Host Dave Asprey sits down with Dr. Peter McCullough, a physician trained in internal medicine, cardiology, and epidemiology, and one of the most published and most censored voices of the COVID-19 pandemic. He authored the first multi-drug treatment protocol for COVID-19, testified before the US Senate in 2020 and again in 2025, and has published extensively in the peer-reviewed literature on vaccine safety, spike protein biology, and early treatment. His book Courage to Face COVID-19 and his most recent New York Times bestseller, Vaccines, Mythology, Ideology and Reality, examine the history and science behind vaccine policy. Dave and Dr. McCullough trace the origins of the spike protein back to 2015 and 2016 research papers describing a lab-created, SARS-like coronavirus explicitly labeled "poised for human emergence," and discuss the funding, institutions, and researchers involved. They break down why synthetic mRNA vaccines resist the body's normal RNA breakdown process, what a patient case revealed about spike protein circulating 3.6 years after vaccination, and how nattokinase, a natural enzyme, has shown the ability to break the spike protein down. They also cover the suppression campaigns against ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine, the wartime propaganda origins of terms like "misinformation" and "anti-vaxxer," and what Dr. McCullough says he would do differently if he ran HHS. The conversation closes with new research on cognitive superagers, the small percentage of people who reach 100 with intact memory and health. You'll Learn: Why 2015 and 2016 research papers described a lab-created coronavirus as "poised for human emergence" years before the pandemic Why synthetic mRNA in COVID-19 vaccines resists the body's natural RNA breakdown process What one patient's case revealed about spike protein still circulating 3.6 years after vaccination How nattokinase, a natural enzyme, has been shown to break down the spike protein Why the FDA and FTC targeted ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, and companies selling nasal sprays during the pandemic The wartime propaganda origins of terms like "misinformation," "disinformation," and "anti-vaxxer" What Dr. McCullough says he would do first if he were running HHS What research on cognitive superagers reveals about the small number of people who reach 100 with intact health Thank you to our sponsors! - TrueDark | Visit truedark.com and use code DAVEASPREY15 (discount applies to all frames except Aegis) - ZenBud | Dave's Nervous System Biohack. Visit zenbud.health and use code DAVE15 at checkout for a discount. - Qualia | Go to qualialife.com/ASPREY for 50% off, and use code ASPREY for an additional 15% off. - ENERGYbits | If you want a simpler, smarter way to support your body… this is it. Head to ENERGYbits.com and use code ASPREY for 20% off your order. Dave Asprey is a four-time New York Times bestselling author, founder of Bulletproof Coffee, and the father of biohacking. With over 1,000 interviews and 1 million monthly listeners, The Human Upgrade brings you the knowledge to take control of your biology, extend your longevity, and optimize every system in your body and mind. Each episode delivers cutting-edge insights inhealth, performance, neuroscience, supplements, nutrition, biohacking, emotional intelligence, and conscious living. New episodes are released every Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, and Sunday (BONUS). Dave asks the questions no one else will and gives you real tools to become stronger, smarter, and more resilient. Keywords: spike protein detox, how long does spike protein last in your body, nattokinase spike protein, mRNA vaccine side effects, is the spike protein still in my blood, gain of function research explained, where did COVID come from, Wuhan lab leak evidence, ivermectin banned, why was hydroxychloroquine banned, vaccine injury compensation act, mRNA vaccine shedding, spike protein detox protocol, how to live to 100, cognitive superagers, Peter McCullough, Dave Asprey Resources: • Learn More About Dr. McCullough's Work At: https://www.twc.health/pages/focal-points • Get My 2026 Clean Nicotine Roadmap | Enroll for free at https://daveasprey.com/2026-clean-nicotine-roadmap/ • Dave Asprey's Latest News | Go to https://daveasprey.com/ to join Inside Track today. • Danger Coffee: https://dangercoffee.com/discount/dave15? • My Daily Supplements: SuppGrade Labs (15% Off) • Favorite Blue Light Blocking Glasses: TrueDark (15% Off) • Dave Asprey's BEYOND Conference: https://beyondconference.com • Dave Asprey's New Book – Heavily Meditated: https://daveasprey.com/heavily-meditated • Join My Substack (Live Access To Podcast Recordings): https://substack.daveasprey.com/ • Upgrade Labs: https://upgradelabs.com Timestamps: 00:00 – Trailer 00:43 – Intro 02:10 – 2020 Public Health Failures 05:07 – Vaccine History & Mythology 07:19 – Vaccine Hesitancy as Disease 13:12 – Masks & Lockdown Absurdity 18:03 – War on Hydroxychloroquine 23:56 – Ivermectin Suppression 28:58 – FTC Misinformation Crackdown 31:18 – Propaganda Terms Explained 39:55 – McCullough's Confidence & Career 43:08 – Spike Protein Origins 57:10 – Nattokinase & Spike Clearance 58:50 – mRNA Persistence in Body 1:11:50 – Fixing the System 1:17:32 – Political Divisiveness 1:22:41 – Secrets to Longevity See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Dr. Bill Andrews is the Founder and CEO of Sierra Sciences; a company focused on finding ways to extend human lifespan and health span. Bill has been featured in Popular Science, The Today Show, The Doctor's TV Show, and numerous documentaries on the topic of life extension. Bill co-stars with Dr. Aubrey de Grey in the documentary “The Immortalists” that made it to the “Top-10-List” to receive an Oscar in 2014Bill is also an ultramarathon runner with over 100 ultramarathons under his belt. Bill believes that consistent and fun endurance exercise is one of the best ways to reduce inflammation and slow aging.Speaking at the Cell Surgical Conference 2024Bill's areas of research have included Dwarfism, Cancer, CardiovascularDisease, Inflammation, Osteoporosis, Anemia, Multiple Sclerosis,Aging, and many others. Before founding Sierra Sciences Bill was aMedical Researcher at Armos Corporation, Codon Corporation, BerlexBiosciences, Geron Corporation, and EOS Biotech. Bill played key rolesin the discoveries and inventions of:Human Growth Hormone (hGH), Prorennin (Prochymosin), Tissue Plasminogen Activator(tPA), Osteo-Inductive Factor (OIF), Thrombomodulin, Erythropoietin (EPO), Beta-Seron, HTSite Specific Mutagenesis, Various Cancer Treatments (Rytelo, Telomelysin, GV1001, UV1,mutant hTR, and others), Telomerase, TRAPeze, TA-65, hTERT mRNA RT-PCR HTS,Telomerase Gene Therapy, C0314818 (TAM818), TeloSMRT, Isagenesis (Product B), Premere, Telo-Vital, Rytelo, and many more.In 1997 Bill was awarded 2nd Place as National Inventor of the Year for his cancer research. In the early-to-mid 1990s, while at Geron Corporation, Bill led the research to discover both the RNA and protein components of human telomerase, the enzyme responsible forpreventing telomeres from shortening in our reproductive cells. He has determined that the only real definite “hard-stop” to lifespan and health span, that is true for all humans, as well as non-human primates, cats, dogs, horses, sheep, pig, and deer, is “Telomere Shortening”. No matter what else we do to treat aging, aging will neverbe cured and/or reversed unless we also solve the telomere shortening problem.Presently, the primary focus of Sierra Sciences is to find ways toproduce telomerase and lengthen telomeres in all cells of the humanbody, not just our reproductive cells, and eliminate this key hard-stop tosuper-longevity. But Bill is aware that the war against aging is not goingto be won with just one battle.Contact Dr. Bill Andrews:website: https://sierrasci.com/https://www.facebook.com/telomere.bill.andrewshttps://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61551532301673linkedin.com/in/billandrewsphdhttps://www.youtube.com/@billandrewsphdhttps://www.youtube.com/@sierrasciences1625https://www.instagram.com/yonderssi/Dr. Kimberley LinertSpeaker, Author, Broadcaster, Mentor, Trainer, Behavioral OptometristEvent Planners- I am available to speak at your event. Here is my media kit: https://brucemerrinscelebrityspeakers.com/portfolio/dr-kimberley-linert/To book Dr. Linert on your podcast, television show, conference, corporate training or as an expert guest please email her at incrediblelifepodcast@gmail.com or Contact Bruce Merrin at Bruce Merrin's Celebrity Speakers at merrinpr@gmail.com702.256.9199Host of the Podcast Series: Incredible Life Creator PodcastAvailable on...Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/incredible-life-creator-with-dr-kimberley-linert/id1472641267Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6DZE3EoHfhgcmSkxY1CvKf?si=ebe71549e7474663 and on 9 other podcast platformsAuthor of Book: "Visualizing Happiness in Every Area of Your Life"Get on Amazon: https://amzn.to/4cmTOMwWebsite: https://linktr.ee/DrKimberleyLinertThe Great Discovery eLearning platform: https://thegreatdiscovery.com/kimberleyl

Broadcast from KSQD, Santa Cruz on 7-09-2026: Researchers refined a technique to reverse skin cell aging by about 30 years while preserving cellular identity. Exposing adult fibroblasts to Yamanaka factors—stopping before full reversion to pluripotent stem cells,reset the epigenetic clock and gene expression patterns to resemble much younger cells. The rejuvenated fibroblasts produced significantly more collagen, migrated faster to close artificial wounds, and showed reversal of gene expression patterns associated with Alzheimer's and cataracts. Since long-term epidemiologic data doesn't yet exist, Dr. Dawn follows up on last week's vaping question by exploring cancer mechanisms. Vaping aerosols impair DNA repair fidelity while triggering IL-6, IL-8, and TNF-alpha secretion. Nicotine-derived nitrosamines, reactive carbonyls (formaldehyde, acetaldehyde, acrolein) are generated when propylene glycol and vegetable glycerin are heated. Upregulated cytochrome P450 enzymes convert precarcinogens like benzopyrene into carcinogens. Mice exposed for 54 weeks developed lung adenocarcinomas in 22% and precancerous bladder hyperplasia in 57%, with markers matching those show predict lung cancer years before diagnosis. The Mexican Biobank—which includes over 40,000 samples from all 31 Mexican states revealed dramatic regional variation in drug-metabolism genes driven by Indigenous ancestry. In Chiapas, nearly 40% of the population carries two copies of a CYP2D6 variant reducing fentanyl metabolism, versus just 10% in Sinaloa. The SLCO1B1 variant hindering statin metabolism is found in over 15% of Yucatán residents., where 8 million Mexicans take statins. Dr. Dawn discusses both the promise and potential dark side of population genetic testing, including UK plans to genotype all children at birth for inborn errors of metabolism. Dr. Dawn briefly revisits the recent Indian study showing conch-shell blowing reduces sleep apnea by 34%, comparing it to earlier didgeridoo research, both of which strengthen airway muscles through forced-blowing exercises. A caller from Capitola recovering from non-Hodgkin's lymphoma near the L5 nerve asks about Japanese Kampo medicine formulas (Goshajinkigan, Yokukansan) for post-treatment nerve pain. Dr. Dawn suggests the pain likely originates from scar tissue tethering the nerve, and recommends consulting the Oriental Medicine Doctor program at Five Branches in Santa Cruz where faculty can advise on herbal formulas that trace back thousands of years through cultural exchange between China and Japan. Dr. Dawn explains Lp(a):lipoprotein(a), a small protein string attached to LDL particles that promotes clumping and clotting, is a genetically-determined coronary artery disease and stroke risk factor invisible to standard lipid panels. Levels of 250 particles double coronary risk and 350 particles triple it. Less than 75 is normal. Two new pharmaceutical strategies are in development to reduce Lp(a) : antisense oligonucleotides (single-stranded RNA that recruits RNase H to cleave target mRNA) and small interfering RNA (double-stranded RNA that triggers destruction of matching mRNA). Pelacarsen, a monthly injection in Phase 3 trials, reduces Lp(a) by 80%. These gene-silencing platforms open therapeutic possibilities for previously undruggable orphan diseases. Vitamin K2 is produced in the gut microbiome. MK-4 is most common in humans. Dr. Dawn recommends MK7 for stabilizing coronary calcium plaques and directing calcium into bone. A study of hepatitis B and C patients found MK4 to be protective in hepatocellular carcinoma. HCC developed in 2 of 21 MK-4-treated patients versus 9 of 19 controls, with a risk ratio of 0.2. MK-4 activates protein kinase A in vitro, inhibits HCC invasiveness, and restores apoptosis signaling that cancer cells normally block. Dr. Dawn recommends a couple milligrams of MK-4 daily for anyone with cirrhosis or prior hepatitis B or C infection.

For centuries, people have argued about what separates something that's alive from something that's simply chemistry. Every living thing, from bacteria to blue whales is ultimately made from the same atoms as the rocks beneath our feet. The difference isn't the ingredients. It's how they're organised. So how few ingredients can you assemble before chemistry starts behaving like life? A team of synthetic biologists have taken a step towards answering that question by building what they call a synthetic cell entirely from carefully chosen chemical components. Published this week they assembled every component themselves, creating a tiny cell-like structure whose complete ingredient list is known. The cell can't survive on its own, can't evolve naturally and still depends on scientists to feed it, but it can repeatedly feed, grow, copy its DNA and divide into daughter cells, performing several of the key behaviours we associate with life. They carried out a series of experiments, each asking whether one more essential feature of life could be recreated from non-living ingredients. Experiment 1 - Can you make an artificial cell grow? The researchers began with tiny fat bubbles called liposomes as artificial cell membranes. Inside they placed a carefully designed 90,000-base-pair synthetic genome spread across seven plasmids, along with a purified protein-making system called PURE that could read DNA and build proteins. Real cells grow by taking in nutrients, artificial cells can't, so the team invented tiny "feeder" liposomes loaded with fresh proteins, ribosomes, enzymes and membrane material. The question was - can one artificial cell feed another? To find out, they engineered the synthetic cells to manufacture a membrane protein called α-hemolysin carrying a short histidine tag. Feeder liposomes were coated with nickel-containing lipids that recognised this tag. When the two met, they fused together, delivering both nutrients and fresh membrane material. The researchers watched the membranes merge, the contents mix and new proteins begin to appear inside the enlarged synthetic cells. Remarkably, the ability to feed wasn't controlled externally, it was encoded by the synthetic cell's own DNA. Cells that produced more of the membrane protein fed more efficiently and grew larger. Experiment 2 - Can it repeat the process? Growing once isn't life, living cells must grow repeatedly. Every 12 hours the synthetic cells were fed, their DNA copied and the population divided before beginning the cycle again. The synthetic cells successfully completed five generations of feeding, genome replication and division. Each generation produced new DNA, new RNA and new proteins while maintaining much of the original 90,000-base-pair genome. Around 30% of daughter cells still inherited the complete genome after five generations, an impressive result given that the system lacked many of the sophisticated mechanisms real cells use to organise DNA during division. Experiment 3 - Can evolution begin? This experiment asked whether the synthetic cells could experience something resembling natural selection. The researchers deliberately introduced a tiny genetic change. One version of the synthetic genome contained a stronger promoter controlling production of the feeding protein α-hemolysin. That meant these cells could produce more feeding proteins, fuse with more feeder liposomes and potentially grow faster. They then mixed equal numbers of fast-growing and slow-growing synthetic cells together. After just five generations, the faster-growing cells had become the majority. When food became scarce, their advantage became even larger. The synthetic cells weren't evolving in the full Darwinian sense because the beneficial mutation had been introduced by the researchers rather than arising spontaneously. But they were undergoing selection. The cells with the more advantageous genome produced more offspring, causing that genetic version to spread through the population, one of the defining processes that shapes life on Earth. So... is it alive? That depends on who you ask. The synthetic cell doesn't yet tick every box that biologists would associate with life. It can't survive without scientists feeding it. It borrows ribosomes from bacteria rather than making its own. And while it can undergo selection, it doesn't yet evolve naturally because the beneficial mutations were introduced by the researchers rather than arising spontaneously. The more interesting question isn't whether this tiny collection of chemicals has crossed some invisible line between chemistry and life. It's whether scientists are finally beginning to understand what that line actually is. For the first time, researchers can begin asking not just what life is, but which parts of life are absolutely essential. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Randomized evidence suggests that routinely used mucoactive therapies may no longer have a role in mechanically ventilated ICU patients, while a large comparative effectiveness study indicates GLP-1 receptor agonists may offer superior cardiovascular and atrial fibrillation outcomes compared with SGLT2 inhibitors in patients with both AF and type 2 diabetes. We also highlight a promising blood-based RNA biomarker panel that may predict Alzheimer's symptom onset several years before cognitive decline, potentially improving patient selection for emerging disease-modifying therapies.

fWotD Episode 3352: Virus Welcome to featured Wiki of the Day, your daily dose of knowledge from Wikipedia's finest articles.The featured article for Thursday, 9 July 2026, is Virus.A virus is a submicroscopic infectious agent that replicates only inside the living cells of an organism. Viruses infect all life forms, from animals and plants to microorganisms, including bacteria and archaea. Viruses are found in almost every ecosystem on Earth and are the most numerous type of biological entity. Since Dmitri Ivanovsky's 1892 article describing a non-bacterial pathogen infecting tobacco plants and the discovery of the tobacco mosaic virus by Martinus Beijerinck in 1898, more than 16,000 of the millions of virus species have been described in detail. The study of viruses is known as virology, a subspeciality of microbiology.When infected, a host cell is often forced to rapidly produce thousands of copies of the original virus. When not inside an infected cell or in the process of infecting a cell, viruses exist in the form of independent viral particles, or virions, consisting of (i) genetic material, i.e., long molecules of DNA or RNA that encode the structure of the proteins by which the virus acts; (ii) a protein coat, the capsid, which surrounds and protects the genetic material; and in some cases (iii) an outside envelope of lipids. The shapes of these virus particles range from simple helical and icosahedral forms to more complex structures. Most virus species have virions too small to be seen with an optical microscope and are one-hundredth the size of most bacteria.The origins of viruses in the evolutionary history of life are still unclear. Some viruses may have evolved from plasmids, which are pieces of DNA that can move between cells. Other viruses may have evolved from bacteria. In evolution, viruses are an important means of horizontal gene transfer, which increases genetic diversity in a way analogous to sexual reproduction. Viruses are considered by some biologists to be a life form, because they carry genetic material, reproduce, and evolve through natural selection, although they lack some key characteristics, such as cell structure, that are generally considered necessary criteria for defining life. Because they possess some but not all such qualities, viruses have been described as "organisms at the edge of life" and as replicators.Viruses spread in many ways. One transmission pathway is through disease-bearing organisms known as vectors: for example, viruses are often transmitted from plant to plant by insects that feed on plant sap, such as aphids; and viruses in animals can be carried by blood-sucking insects. Many viruses spread in the air by coughing and sneezing, including influenza viruses, SARS-CoV-2, chickenpox, smallpox, and measles. Norovirus and rotavirus, common causes of viral gastroenteritis, are transmitted by the faecal–oral route, passed by hand-to-mouth contact or in food or water. The infectious dose of norovirus required to produce infection in humans is fewer than 100 particles. HIV is one of several viruses transmitted through sexual contact and by exposure to infected blood. The variety of host cells that a virus can infect is called its host range: this is narrow for viruses specialized to infect only a few species, or broad for viruses capable of infecting many.Viral infections in animals provoke an immune response that usually eliminates the infecting virus. Immune responses can also be produced by vaccines, which confer an artificially acquired immunity to the specific viral infection. Some viruses, including those that cause HIV/AIDS, HPV infection, and viral hepatitis, evade these immune responses and result in chronic infections. Several classes of antiviral drugs have been developed and around 100 individual antiviral drugs or combinations of them are used worldwide.This recording reflects the Wikipedia text as of 00:26 UTC on Thursday, 9 July 2026.For the full current version of the article, see Virus on Wikipedia.This podcast uses content from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.Visit our archives at wikioftheday.com and subscribe to stay updated on new episodes.Follow us on Bluesky at @wikioftheday.com.Also check out Curmudgeon's Corner, a current events podcast.Until next time, I'm standard Amy.

Lior Shaltiel, CEO of NurExone, is addressing the unmet needs of those with spinal cord injuries, as current therapies only treat symptoms and do not regenerate damaged nerves from accidents or disease. The NurExone technology aims to stimulate nerve growth by targeting a protein that inhibits cell proliferation. Using exosomes, which are secreted by cells, to deliver the drug in a localized manner is possible because of the ability of the exosomes to home in on damaged tissues and cross the blood-brain barrier. Lior explains, "At the moment, the medicine can only treat it by treating the symptoms. There are a few attempts to try to regenerate the nerves that are broken and to have the reconnection of the spinal cord injury or any damage in the central nervous system. And this is a huge challenge for medicine, so far not solved. And when we solve it, we prepare to answer and give hope to so many patients, not only in spinal cord injury, but also in other injuries, such as traumatic brain injury, optic nerve, and ophthalmology. So many nerves that we have so far not been able to restore the function after the damage." "So traumatic, meaning we are talking about injury, the acute phase of a disease or illness. In most cases, let's say, spinal cord injury is due to injury, car accidents, or sports accidents. But, for example, ophthalmology, glaucoma, which is a chronic disease, can also cause damage to the optic nerve that cannot be restored. So it can be due to another illness, as a side effect of the illness, or due to injury."   "So we discussed the RNA. This is one part of the technology here. Second, the technology of using our natural transmitter in our body, which is how cells communicate with each other, is called exosomes. Exosomes are tiny vesicles secreted from cells with tiny envelopes that a healthy tissue sends to a damaged tissue, a cell that is affected, or a cell that doesn't feel good. And when we understand this mechanism, we can use those exosomes as a drug delivery system." #NurExone #Exosomes #SpinalCordInjury #NeuroRegeneration #PTEN #siRNA #DrugDelivery #Neurology #RegenerativeMedicine #Nanomedicine  nurexone.com Download the transcript here

Lior Shaltiel, CEO of NurExone, is addressing the unmet needs of those with spinal cord injuries, as current therapies only treat symptoms and do not regenerate damaged nerves from accidents or disease. The NurExone technology aims to stimulate nerve growth by targeting a protein that inhibits cell proliferation. Using exosomes, which are secreted by cells, to deliver the drug in a localized manner is possible because of the ability of the exosomes to home in on damaged tissues and cross the blood-brain barrier. Lior explains, "At the moment, the medicine can only treat it by treating the symptoms. There are a few attempts to try to regenerate the nerves that are broken and to have the reconnection of the spinal cord injury or any damage in the central nervous system. And this is a huge challenge for medicine, so far not solved. And when we solve it, we prepare to answer and give hope to so many patients, not only in spinal cord injury, but also in other injuries, such as traumatic brain injury, optic nerve, and ophthalmology. So many nerves that we have so far not been able to restore the function after the damage." "So traumatic, meaning we are talking about injury, the acute phase of a disease or illness. In most cases, let's say, spinal cord injury is due to injury, car accidents, or sports accidents. But, for example, ophthalmology, glaucoma, which is a chronic disease, can also cause damage to the optic nerve that cannot be restored. So it can be due to another illness, as a side effect of the illness, or due to injury."   "So we discussed the RNA. This is one part of the technology here. Second, the technology of using our natural transmitter in our body, which is how cells communicate with each other, is called exosomes. Exosomes are tiny vesicles secreted from cells with tiny envelopes that a healthy tissue sends to a damaged tissue, a cell that is affected, or a cell that doesn't feel good. And when we understand this mechanism, we can use those exosomes as a drug delivery system." #NurExone #Exosomes #SpinalCordInjury #NeuroRegeneration #PTEN #siRNA #DrugDelivery #Neurology #RegenerativeMedicine #Nanomedicine  nurexone.com Listen to the podcast here

In this episode, host Evan Mitchell, MD sits down with co-residents Kelsey Muir, MD and Jaewook Shin, MD pull back the curtain on the mandatory research years at the Brown General Surgery Residency program. They dive deep into the jarring transition from the high-velocity, 80-hour clinical marathon of PGY-2 year to the completely unstructured autonomy of the lab. Inside the Episode:The Labs: Kelsey discusses her work with surgical swine models studying ischemic heart disease in Dr. Selke's cardiac lab, while Jay shares his experience pioneering computational biology and RNA sequencing in Dr. Monaghan's trauma/sepsis lab. The Transition Shock: What it feels like when your body is conditioned to round at 5:00 AM, but suddenly you are entirely responsible for making your own schedule. The PI Relationship: Learning to navigate the "surgery-style" mentorship—being thrown into the ocean to build independence, with a mentor ready to throw a life vest when needed. The Return to Form: An honest look at the fear of "clinical rust," why the mental fortitude built in the first two years never actually leaves you, and the reality of watching your peers move ahead while you step away. Words of Wisdom: Why the lab years are a crucial window to reprioritize family and faith, focus on the process over the product, and reconnect with why you chose surgery in the first place. Dr Muir's publications can be found HERE

Honey bee nutrition is more complex than simply providing protein. In this episode, Jeff Ott and Dr. Becky Masterman welcome Dr. Vincent Ricigliano to discuss emerging research exploring algae-based supplemental diets, functional feeds, RNA interference technologies, and new approaches to supporting colony health. Vincent explains how microalgae such as spirulina and chlorella may help improve supplemental feeding by providing highly bioavailable proteins, amino acids, lipids, vitamins, and micronutrients that more closely resemble natural pollen. The discussion explores how modern nutritional science can help create more complete diets for honey bees. The conversation also examines RNA interference (RNAi) technologies, including approaches designed to suppress viral pathogens and potentially manage Varroa mites. Vincent shares insights into ongoing research involving antiviral RNA delivery systems, sustainable production methods, and future biotechnology tools that may complement integrated pest management strategies. Along the way, the discussion touches on pollinator health, commercial beekeeping collaborations, miticide resistance, and the continuing search for practical tools that improve colony resilience under modern beekeeping conditions. Websites from the episode and others we recommend: Honey Bee Health Coalition: https://honeybeehealthcoalition.org Project Apis m. (PAm): https://www.projectapism.org The National Honey Board: https://honey.com Honey Bee Obscura Podcast: https://honeybeeobscura.com   Copyright © 2026 by Growing Planet Media, LLC     ______________ Betterbee is the presenting sponsor of Beekeeping Today Podcast. Betterbee's mission is to support every beekeeper with excellent customer service, continued education and quality equipment. From their colorful and informative catalog to their support of beekeeper educational activities, including this podcast series, Betterbee truly is Beekeepers Serving Beekeepers. See for yourself at www.betterbee.com This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global offers a variety of standard and custom patties. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode!  As a beekeeper, you want products that benefit you and your bees. When you choose Premier Bee Products, you choose hive components that are healthier for bees and more productive for you. Because we believe that in beekeeping, details make all the difference. Premier Bee Products: Better for bees. Better for beekeepers. Use promo code PODCAST for 10% off your next online order. Thanks to Strong Microbials for their support of Beekeeping Today Podcast. Find out more about their line of probiotics in our Season 3, Episode 12 episode and from their website: https://www.strongmicrobials.com HiveIQ is revolutionizing the way beekeepers manage their colonies with innovative, insulated hive systems designed for maximum colony health and efficiency. Their hives maintain stable temperatures year-round, reduce stress on the bees, and are built to last using durable, lightweight materials. Whether you're managing two hives or two hundred, HiveIQ's smart design helps your bees thrive while saving you time and effort. Learn more at HiveIQ.com. We'd like to thank Vita Bee Health for supporting the podcast. Vita provides proven tools for controlling Varroa—from Apistan and Apiguard to the new VarroxSan extended-release oxalic acid strips—helping beekeepers keep stronger, healthier colonies. Thanks for Northern Bee Books for their support. Northern Bee Books is the publisher of bee books available worldwide from their website or from Amazon and bookstores everywhere. They are also the publishers of The Beekeepers Quarterly and Natural Bee Husbandry. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments in the show notes of this episode or: questions@beekeepingtodaypodcast.com Thank you for listening!  Podcast music: Be Strong by Young Presidents; Epilogue by Musicalman; Faraday by BeGun; Walking in Paris by Studio Le Bus; A Fresh New Start by Pete Morse; Wedding Day by Boomer; Christmas Avenue by Immersive Music; Red Jack Blues by Daniel Hart; Bolero de la Fontero  by Rimsky Music; Perfect Sky by Graceful Movement; I'm Not Running Away This Time by Max Brodie; Original guitar background instrumental by Jeff Ott. Beekeeping Today Podcast is an audio production of Growing Planet Media, LLC ** As an Amazon Associate, we may earn a commission from qualifying purchases Copyright © 2026 by Growing Planet Media, LLC

Broadcast from KSQD, Santa Cruz on 7-02-2026: Dr. Dawn devotes the first half of the show to a nuanced defense of GLP-1 receptor agonists, arguing the polarized debate treats obesity as a moral failure rather than a physiological one. She recounts the "Marilyn Monroe dress" moment that transformed semaglutide from diabetes drug into elite cosmetic tool, and pushes back on the puritanical framing that behavior change must be earned rather than pharmacologically enabled—noting we don't apply this logic to antihypertensives or statins. Dr. Dawn catalogs visceral fat as a genuine endocrine organ producing over 17 hormones, most of which drive self-perpetuating growth: leptin (this satiety hormone at high levels disables it's own brain receptor), IL-6, TNF-alpha (blocks insulin), resistin (increases insulin resistance and inflammation), PAI-2 (blocks clot breakdown, raising cardiovascular risk), retinol-binding protein 4 (impairs muscle glucose uptake), chemerin (recruits macrophages and directs fat to the belly), and visfatin. Only adiponectin declines with rising visceral fat. It improves insulin sensitivity, suppresses hepatic gluconeogenesis, and blocks IL-6 . Dr. Dawn describes GLP-1's neurobiological action: receptors in the hypothalamus, brainstem, hippocampus, and mesolimbic reward system, with the drugs quieting the brain's salience network so food loses its intrusive pull. Taste buds shift, sweet and salty become muted, and reward circuits stop firing on cheat foods—creating a window during which behavioral change becomes possible. Dr. Dawn frames group support through self-determination theory (autonomy, competence, relatedness), arguing GLP-1s create the cognitive bandwidth for behavioral programs to succeed. A Tufts study of patients discontinuing after 10% weight loss found those enrolled in behavioral support programs regained about three times less weight than usual-care controls, outperforming even medically-tailored meal plans. Group engagement doubled the time patients stayed on the medication. A November 2025 Nature study piggybacked on deep brain stimulation research at Penn. Electrodes implanted in the nucleus accumbens of post-bariatric patients recorded low-frequency brain activity surges during food-noise episodes on drug free patients. A third participant who started tirzepatide showed complete silencing of that signature—the first direct electrical confirmation that GLP-1s suppresses compulsive food thoughts in the reward center. RNA sequencing of adipose tissue from 25 obese patients before and after bariatric surgery, compared to 24 lean controls, revealed persistent epigenetic changes even after weight loss. Lipid-associated inflammatory macrophages drop but retain some of their pro-inflammatory epigenetics, explaining the well-known slippery slope back to obesity—and why Dr. Dawn suggests GLP-1s may work best as intermittent tools when behavioral maintenance starts slipping. An emailer asks about long-term smoking versus vaping data. Dr. Dawn notes there is no long-term data yet, but short-term evidence shows e-cigarettes contain nicotine, propylene glycol, reactive oxygen species, and nitrosamines, producing spirometry readings similar to mild COPD in otherwise-healthy vapers. Vaping over a year raises stroke relative risk by 1.62 and nearly doubles MI risk, and combining smoking and vaping produces a multiplicative rather than additive harm. Data on cancer will take decades to emerge. Researchers built a functioning underwater breathing apparatus for cockroaches with electrodes attached to brain and sensory organs allowing remote-controlled direction while preserving natural obstacle-navigation autonomy. The 10mm × 10mm sponge-based oxygen tank uses magnesium dioxide catalyzing hydrogen peroxide breakdown, delivering oxygen through silicone tubes to the roach's spiracles for up to three hours underwater. Deployemenet will improve search-and-rescue in flooded and collapsed structures where dogs cannot reach. A Science Advances paper from Yong Lin Kong's lab at Rice University describes 3D-printing electronic circuits directly onto living tissue. Researchers achieved microwave-focused annealing at sub-200-micrometer resolution. By selectively heating only conductive ink particles (copper, silver, gold) without damaging surrounding tissue, the technique enables printing circuits onto 3D-printed heart valves, tracheas, and ear scaffolds, potentially creating combined graft-and-sensor implants, ingestible diagnostic devices, and perhaps even decorative electronic tattoos. A single-shot reformulation of zanamivir (originally the inhaled flu drug Relenza) provided 76.1% flu protection in a 5,000-participant trial—far exceeding the roughly 40-45% offered by annual flu vaccines. Because zanamivir targets neuraminidase in a way that inactivates it if the virus tries to mutate around the drug, trapping newly-made viral copies inside their host cells, this approach works across all flu strains and could bypass the annual guessing game of trivalent vaccine formulation.

Good morning from Pharma Daily: the podcast that brings you the most important developments in the pharmaceutical and biotech world. Today, we delve into a series of remarkable advancements and strategic maneuvers that are shaping the future of drug development and patient care. Starting with Roche's breakthrough in oncology, their small molecule inhibitor, Divarasib, has shown promising results in a Phase 3 trial for patients with KRAS G12C-mutated non-small cell lung cancer. This trial demonstrated superior efficacy over competitors like Amgen's Lumakras and Bristol-Myers Squibb's Krazati. Historically, KRAS mutations have been difficult to target, but Divarasib's success underscores the potential of precision medicine in oncology. These findings could lead to more effective treatment options for NSCLC patients, showcasing how targeted therapies are revolutionizing cancer treatment by focusing on specific genetic mutations. In regulatory news, Vertex Pharmaceuticals has made significant strides with Casgevy (exagamglogene autotemcel), a gene therapy that now includes pediatric patients with sickle cell disease and transfusion-dependent beta thalassemia in its FDA-approved label. This marks a pivotal moment for gene therapy applications in blood disorders. Utilizing CRISPR technology, Vertex offers potentially curative solutions for debilitating conditions, signaling a new era where genetic disorders can be addressed at their root cause. Similarly, Novartis has gained European Commission approval for Itvisma to treat 5q spinal muscular atrophy in patients aged two years and older, further cementing gene therapies' role in mainstream medical practice. Strategic partnerships remain essential in driving innovation. Takeda's collaboration with Insilico Medicine on AI-driven drug discovery is a case in point. The $600 million partnership highlights the growing reliance on AI and machine learning to expedite therapeutic development processes. Platforms like Pharma.AI are being leveraged to identify novel drug candidates more efficiently. Additionally, AstraZeneca's alliance with CSPC Pharmaceutical Group to develop siRNA-based therapies for kidney diseases reflects the burgeoning interest in RNA therapeutics as these technologies open new avenues to address complex diseases. On the financial front, BridgeBio's ability to attract $1 billion in convertible preferred equity from Sixth Street and Healthcare Royalty underscores investor confidence in rare disease therapeutics. This funding will bolster its pipeline targeting cardiovascular and rare conditions, emphasizing the profitable potential found within niche markets of the pharmaceutical landscape. Manufacturing is also seeing expansion as Lonza deepens its partnership with an unnamed U.S. drugmaker to enhance biologics programs. Anticipated investments reaching into multi-billion Swiss Francs underscore the critical importance of robust manufacturing infrastructure to meet growing demands for biologics and antibody-drug conjugates. Clinical trials continue to yield promising results. Can-Fite Biopharma's Phase 2a trial for Namodenoson in treating advanced pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma has shown promising survival data when combined with therapies targeting Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathways. At the same time, Otsuka's Phase 3 data for Voyxact (sibeprenlimab-szsi) demonstrated improved kidney function in patients with immunoglobulin A nephropathy, bolstering traditional FDA approval pathways. On the acquisitions front, GNI Group's acquisition of Ayumi Pharmaceutical for approximately JPY 44.8 billion highlights strategic moves to enhance global biopharma operations focusing on pain management solutions. Yet not all news is positive; Sanofi's Genzyme Ireland unit received an FDA warning letter regarding manufacturing violations related to Altuviiio production, pointing to ongoing regulatory challenges within production practices. Moving on to geopolitical considerations, recent congressional letters to major pharmaceutical CEOs have raised concerns about clinical trials conducted within China due to national security concerns. This tension illustrates the delicate balance between leveraging China's economic potential and safeguarding US interests—a critical issue as international collaborations continue to expand. Meanwhile, AstraZeneca's ongoing collaborations with CSPC Pharmaceutical Group further signify strategic bets on China's capabilities despite geopolitical tensions. Their joint efforts focus on kidney disease treatments while adding to existing agreements addressing obesity and chronic diseases. The FDA remains pivotal as key decisions anticipated this quarter could significantly influence investment strategies and research priorities. This includes revisiting applications previously delayed or rejected—decisions that could reshape industry dynamics. In conclusion, this dynamic landscape is marked by significant scientific breakthroughs and complex global interactions guiding pharmaceutical and biotech sectors toward a transformative era. Gene therapy advancements underscore progress in personalized medicine while geopolitical factors continue influencing strategic industry decisions. As regulatory bodies evolve their approaches alongside increasingly international partnerships, these developments collectively herald profound implications for drug development and patient care globally.Support the show

This week, Emily and Perry explore RNA, a tiny molecule of extraordinary potential. What is it? How is it different from DNA? How have vaccines and an incredible array of potential medical treatments managed to unlock its magic? And what are the conspiracy theories that have been standing in the way? Prepare for medical science to shake hands with technological wonder. Plus: the FDA vs. Whoop, unpacking botulism outbreaks in baby formula, and a mystery “compassionate use” patient for retatrutide. Previous episodes referenced: What's the deal with protein? Submit a question for our weekly mailbag at wellnessactually.fm.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Guest: Dr. Marco Orecchioni is an Assistant Professor at Augusta University. He discusses how olfactory receptors — best known for detecting smells — also function in innate immune cells such as macrophages, where they help sense chemical cues in the tissue environment. He highlights how these receptors regulate inflammation, metabolism, and immune cell behavior in diseases such as atherosclerosis, and explores their potential as novel therapeutic targets. Featured Products and Resources: Learn more about STEMCELL's optimized protocols and reagents for immunotherapy research. Download this free conference toolkit to make the most out of your experience this conference season. The Immunology Science Round Up Origins of Tumor Macrophages – Tumor-associated myeloid cells arise from distinct circulating monocyte clones with pre-programmed differentiation fates. DDX6 Restrains Tumor Immunity – DDX6 suppresses dsRNA-driven innate immunity by limiting RNA editing. Antibody-Directed Xenophagy – TRIM21 directs antibody-bound pathogens into a newly identified autophagy pathway that promotes intracellular pathogen clearance. RNA Warfare in Plant Immunity – A fungal long non-coding RNA suppresses rice immunity by sequestering a host microRNA. Image courtesy of Dr. Marco Orecchioni. Subscribe to our newsletter! Never miss updates about new episodes. Subscribe

Dr. Matthew Goldberg, Senior Vice President for Medical at Castle Biosciences, discusses the uncertainty clinicians face when determining treatments for skin cancer due to the limitations of traditional pathology reports. Castle's gene expression profile tests were developed to improve the accuracy of risk stratification for patients with cutaneous melanoma and high-risk cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma. These tests provide prognostic information by analyzing the tumor's RNA, offering more granular and accurate risk assessment and informing about the intensity of follow-up and long-term risk management strategies. Matthew explains, "So this is an important topic for dermatologists who are really on the front lines of skin cancer diagnosis and management for patients who are confronting skin cancer today. I'm a board-certified dermatologist and dermatopathologist by training. And to me, I think that the core uncertainty is centered around some of the known limitations around the prognostic accuracy of pathology. That's kind of worth unpacking here, but I think what it comes down to is that dermatologists are involved in identifying concerning skin lesions, identifying and, through biopsy, taking a skin sample, and finding skin cancers."   "Dermatopathologists are the collaborative colleagues who interpret the skin biopsy samples and return the pathological diagnoses to the dermatologist. For the treating clinician, the key task is to understand the implications of the types of skin cancers identified in this process to determine the most appropriate, risk-aligned downstream management for patients with these skin cancers." "So Castle Biosciences has developed a range of tests that are really focused on impactful skin cancers that are some of the biggest challenges for dermatologists and the patients that we serve in the clinic, specifically around cutaneous melanoma with the DecisionDx-Melanoma gene expression profile test and also high-risk cutaneous squamous cell carcinomas with the DecisionDx-SCC test." #CastleBiosciences #SkinCancer #CancerCare #HealthcareInnovation #Dermatology #MolecularDiagnostics #PrecisionMedicine #RiskStratification #ClinicalDecisionMaking #DigitalPathology #Oncology #Melanoma #SquamousCellCarcinoma #GeneExpression #SharedDecisionMaking castlebiosciences.com Download the transcript  

Dr. Matthew Goldberg, Senior Vice President for Medical at Castle Biosciences, discusses the uncertainty clinicians face when determining treatments for skin cancer due to the limitations of traditional pathology reports. Castle's gene expression profile tests were developed to improve the accuracy of risk stratification for patients with cutaneous melanoma and high-risk cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma. These tests provide prognostic information by analyzing the tumor's RNA, offering more granular and accurate risk assessment and informing about the intensity of follow-up and long-term risk management strategies. Matthew explains, "So this is an important topic for dermatologists who are really on the front lines of skin cancer diagnosis and management for patients who are confronting skin cancer today. I'm a board-certified dermatologist and dermatopathologist by training. And to me, I think that the core uncertainty is centered around some of the known limitations around the prognostic accuracy of pathology. That's kind of worth unpacking here, but I think what it comes down to is that dermatologists are involved in identifying concerning skin lesions, identifying and, through biopsy, taking a skin sample, and finding skin cancers."   "Dermatopathologists are the collaborative colleagues who interpret the skin biopsy samples and return the pathological diagnoses to the dermatologist. For the treating clinician, the key task is to understand the implications of the types of skin cancers identified in this process to determine the most appropriate, risk-aligned downstream management for patients with these skin cancers." "So Castle Biosciences has developed a range of tests that are really focused on impactful skin cancers that are some of the biggest challenges for dermatologists and the patients that we serve in the clinic, specifically around cutaneous melanoma with the DecisionDx-Melanoma gene expression profile test and also high-risk cutaneous squamous cell carcinomas with the DecisionDx-SCC test." #CastleBiosciences #SkinCancer #CancerCare #HealthcareInnovation #Dermatology #MolecularDiagnostics #PrecisionMedicine #RiskStratification #ClinicalDecisionMaking #DigitalPathology #Oncology #Melanoma #SquamousCellCarcinoma #GeneExpression #SharedDecisionMaking castlebiosciences.com Listen to the podcast here  

TWiV explains research showing how temperate phages enhance bacterial host fitness via RNA-guided flagellar remodelling, and that IgA antibody is necessary and sufficient to prevent norovirus infection in mice. Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Rich Condit, Brianne Barker, and Jolene Ramsey Subscribe (free): Apple Podcasts, RSS, email Become a patron of TWiV! Links for this episode Support science education at MicrobeTV Positions in Rosenfeld Lab (email) Fred Murphy passes away (X) US has lost its hold on measles elimination (CIDRAP) What's in the genetic code of America's measles outbreaks (ProPublica) Did Pete Hegseth single-handedly raise the R₀ of flu? (Inside Medicine) Fred Murphy's Virus Images and Foundations of Virology (UTMB) Temperate phages and RNA-guided flagellar remodelling (Nat Micro) Eukaryotic RNA guided system (Nature) IgA prevents norovirus infection in mice (Sci Transl Med) Craig Wilen's letter to TWiV (TWiV 492) Timestamps by Jolene Ramsey. Thanks! Picks of the Week Brianne – APod June 26: Milky Way Urban Style Rich – Your birth order affects your future, but not for the reason you think; Dr. McCoy Jolene – Bakteriopolis paper and site Vincent – The Claude Shutdown Is a Total Sh*tshow Listener Pick Martin – Ancient text charred by Vesuvius read for first time in 2,000 years Intro music is by Ronald Jenkees Send your virology questions and comments to twiv@microbe.tv Content in this podcast should not be construed as medical advice.

In this episode of The Spoon Podcast, Mike talks with Neal Carter, founder and CEO of Okanagan Specialty Fruits, about buying back the company he and his wife Louisa founded nearly 30 years ago. Carter reflects on the long journey behind the Arctic apple, the company's nonbrowning apple created to reduce waste and get “more apples in more places,” and explains how OSF's early work with RNA interference is giving way to a new generation of genome-edited fruit. He also lays out his bigger vision for the farm of the future, where genetics, automation, AI, and redesigned tree architecture come together to make orchards less labor-intensive, more resilient, and more economically viable for growers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This content has been funded by Angelini Pharma. In this episode, Isabel sits down with Rafal Kaminski, Chief Scientific Officer, Angelini Pharma, to explore how new science is reshaping brain health and what that means for patients. In the episode, Rafal reflects on his path into neuroscience and explains how Angelini is building its brain health pipeline, with a focus on epilepsy. He discusses the promise of new treatment approaches, the role of partnerships in driving progress and why better care depends on more than medicine alone. Guest bio Rafal Kaminski is Chief Scientific Officer at Angelini Pharma, where he leads the company's research and development strategy across small molecules, biologics and RNA-based therapies. He joined Angelini Pharma in 2022 after more than 20 years in senior R&D roles at UCB Pharma, Roche and Molecure Therapeutics, leading drug discovery programmes from early research into clinical development. A medical doctor with a PhD in Neuropharmacology, Rafal has authored more than 100 peer-reviewed publications and is an inventor on several patents. Outside of work, he is an avid music listener and vinyl collector and is married with one adult son.

In a special edition of Oncology On the Go, Chinmay Jani, MD, joined CancerNetwork® in the studio to speak about different research initiatives he is involved with across precision oncology. He discussed ongoing work dedicated to validating and applying artificial intelligence (AI)–based tools in clinical work as well as overcoming immunotherapy resistance among patients with lung cancer.Jani, chief fellow in Hematology and Oncology at University of Miami Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, first detailed findings from a study he presented at the 2026 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting evaluating AI decision support in the context of EGFR-mutated non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Although AI systems aligned with expert decision-making in frontline treatment, significant divergence was observed in second-line care, highlighting a need for more rigorous validation and clinical safeguards when integrating AI into oncologic decision-making. Improving documentation and using tools more ethically, Jani said, will also be critical for future applications of AI in field.Jani also spoke about the rapidly evolving thoracic oncology field based on research he and colleagues are leading at the University of Miami. Different investigations are exploring potential advancements in precision medicine, overcoming immunotherapy resistance, and early cancer detection to help elevate outcomes among patients with lung cancer. Looking ahead, Jani emphasized how novel therapeutics like tarlatamab-dlle (Imdelltra) and the incorporation of liquid biopsy may assist with the goal of turning lung cancer into “a chronic disease” where patients can survive not just for a few month or years but for decades.According to Jani, other key concerns in the field include the evolving landscape surrounding adolescent and young adult (AYA) patients, who may require different types of molecular testing and therapeutic needs compared with adult populations. Being able to detect more fusions and alterations that may inform therapeutic strategies via circulating tumor DNA plus circulating tumor RNA or through wider minimal residual disease testing, he said, represents another ongoing goal in terms of precision medicine.ReferenceJani C, Pérez-Granado J, Kalucha A, et al. Evaluating AI decision support in a rapidly evolving therapeutic landscape: EGFR-mutant metastatic NSCLC. J Clin Oncol. 2026;44(suppl 16):1630. doi:10.1200/JCO.2026.44.16_suppl.1630

Episode 2838 - In this wide-ranging Friday episode, Ted and Austin Broer connect ultra-processed food cardiovascular risk research, the FDA's surprise nine-to-zero approval of Moderna's RNA flu shot with only 26% efficacy, a daily multivitamin study showing reduced biological aging, speed limiter mandates coming to American cars by 2030, Apple's price hikes tied to AI data center memory costs, and foundational supplement guidance into a broadcast that delivers both urgent health warnings and sharp institutional accountability.

In this episode of EBRC In Translation, hosts Heidi Klumpe and Talia Jacobson interview Sam Schaffter, lead scientist for RNA synthetic biology at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), about genetically encoded RNA circuits for real-time sensing of gene expression and their potential in diagnostics, therapeutics, and biotechnology. Sam describes his path from bioengineering and biochemistry at Purdue through DNA computing and molecular programming, to shifting toward cell-based synthetic biology after the 2019 SEED conference. He later joined NIST via an NRC postdoctoral fellowship. He compares national-lab and academic research environments, highlighting differences in equipment access and funding structures. Sam explains why RNA circuits enable programmable, portable molecular computation in dividing cells, outlines a long-term vision for pattern-recognition classifiers in living systems, and discusses limitations of current AI for RNA and protein function. He also emphasizes NIST's role in standards, reference materials, and improved RNA-level measurements such as nanopore sequencing. Sam will be at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Synthetic Biology Summer Course this year instructing modules on RNA Circuits, DNA nanostructures, and synthetic cells with Leo Green.For graduate students interested in exploring government postdocs, check out the National Research Council Research Associateship Program. Feel free to reach out to Sam with any questions.For more information about EBRC:Visit our website at ebrc.org. If you are interested in getting involved with the EBRC Student and Postdoc Association, fill out a membership application for graduate students and postdocs or for undergraduates and join today!Transcription:Episode transcripts are the unedited output from Whisper and likely contain errors.

In this episode of the Epigenetics Podcast, we talked with Tae-Kyung Kim from POSTECH in South Korea about the discovery and characterisation of enhancer RNAs. Dr. Kim describes joining Danny Reinberg's lab as a graduate student, where he was trained in protein biochemistry and general transcription mechanisms. He recalls this period as a formative time, when research on transcription factors and RNA polymerase II was rapidly advancing and many findings were still novel. Kim then moved into neurobiology through Michael Greenberg's lab, where he first worked on a project related to L-type voltage-gated channels. He says his work shifted toward chromatin and gene regulation in neurons after learning that chromatin immunoprecipitation could be applied to neuronal systems and after the arrival of next-generation sequencing. He explains that eRNAs were discovered in his lab through RNA-seq and ChIP-seq data from neuronal activity experiments, especially around the FOS locus. He later showed that eRNAs are transcribed from enhancers, are typically unstable, often lack splicing and polyadenylation, and have defined initiation sites, suggesting regulated transcription. Kim says eRNAs can interact with transcription and epigenetic regulators, including factors involved in pause release and mediator complexes. He describes experiments showing that eRNA knockdown reduced ARC induction and that eRNA production depends on proper enhancer-promoter contact. He concludes by describing newer work in his lab using spatial transcriptomics and eRNA-based reporter systems to map active neural populations, including studies related to cocaine-responsive circuits. He says his future work will focus on spatial technologies to better understand brain organization and function at molecular resolution. References Kim TK, Hemberg M, Gray JM, Costa AM, Bear DM, Wu J, Harmin DA, Laptewicz M, Barbara-Haley K, Kuersten S, Markenscoff-Papadimitriou E, Kuhl D, Bito H, Worley PF, Kreiman G, Greenberg ME. Widespread transcription at neuronal activity-regulated enhancers. Nature. 2010 May 13;465(7295):182-7. doi: 10.1038/nature09033. Epub 2010 Apr 14. PMID: 20393465; PMCID: PMC3020079. Schaukowitch K, Joo JY, Liu X, Watts JK, Martinez C, Kim TK. Enhancer RNA facilitates NELF release from immediate early genes. Mol Cell. 2014 Oct 2;56(1):29-42. doi: 10.1016/j.molcel.2014.08.023. Epub 2014 Sep 25. PMID: 25263592; PMCID: PMC4186258. Kim SK, Liu X, Park J, Um D, Kilaru G, Chiang CM, Kang M, Huber KM, Kang K, Kim TK. Functional coordination of BET family proteins underlies altered transcription associated with memory impairment in fragile X syndrome. Sci Adv. 2021 May 19;7(21):eabf7346. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.abf7346. PMID: 34138732; PMCID: PMC8133748. Gorbovytska V, Kim SK, Kuybu F, Götze M, Um D, Kang K, Pittroff A, Brennecke T, Schneider LM, Leitner A, Kim TK, Kuhn CD. Enhancer RNAs stimulate Pol II pause release by harnessing multivalent interactions to NELF. Nat Commun. 2022 May 4;13(1):2429. doi: 10.1038/s41467-022-29934-w. PMID: 35508485; PMCID: PMC9068813. Related Episodes Enhancer Communities in Adipocyte Differentiation (Susanne Mandrup) Enhancer-Promoter Interactions During Development (Yad Ghavi-Helm) Enhancers and Chromatin Remodeling in Mammary Gland Development (Camila dos Santos) Contact Epigenetics Podcast on Mastodon Epigenetics Podcast on Bluesky Dr. Stefan Dillinger on LinkedIn Active Motif on LinkedIn Active Motif on Bluesky Email: podcast@activemotif.com

Messenger RNA (mRNA) plays a literally central role in the functioning of life as we know it, shuttling information back and forth between the DNA where it is stored to the ribosome where it is used to produce proteins. RNA may even have been the first molecule to kick-start the origin of life. Today, scientists are learning how to manipulate mRNA to cure and prevent diseases, whether through vaccination or literally editing one's DNA. Jeff Coller explains how it all works and how mRNA is revolutionizing medicine as we know it. Blog post with transcript: https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2026/06/15/357-jeff-coller-on-mrna-vaccines-and-bespoke-therapeutics/ Support Mindscape on Patreon. Jeff Coller received his Ph.D. in cell and molecular biology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is currently Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Director of the RNA Innovation Center at Johns Hopkins University. He is co-founder of Tevard Biosciences and the Alliance for mRNA Medicines, and leads the REPAIRx consortium. He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Web site Johns Hopkins web page Google Scholar publications "This May Be the Most Important Medical Story of the Decade," New York Times, April 9, 2026

Broadcast from KSQD, Santa Cruz on 6-11-2026: Dr. Dawn discusses fascia — the gelatinous network of sugary proteins, salts, and collagen bundles that has been known to acupuncturists and osteopaths for millennia but ignored in conventional medical training. New confocal laser endomicroscopy technology has finally visualized this "interstitium" as a fluid-filled space draining to lymph nodes, present throughout the GI tract, urinary bladder, dermis, and peribronchial tissues. The structure may play roles in cancer metastasis, edema, fibrosis, and mechanical tissue function. An emailer asks about elevated organic arsenic levels (from sardines) and ultra-filtered dairy. Dr. Dawn explains that arsenobetaine—the protein-bonded form found in fish, is harmless and passes through the body, while inorganic and methylated arsenic accumulate in bone and collagen-rich tissues. In a second question about the safety of ultrafiltered dairy, she notes ultra-filtered products may carry more microplastics from extensive plastic filters and tubing exposure, with aged cheese being particularly concentrated since water removal increases plastic density. An emailer asks about breast MRI contrast options. Dr. Dawn explains that breast MRI requires gadolinium contrast because tumors leak through their poorly-formed blood vessels, creating necessary visual contrast. She strongly recommends macrocyclic gadolinium (a stable birdcage structure) over the linear form, which slips into bones, skin, the brain's caudate nucleus, liver, and spleen for at least eight years and rarely, can cause nephrogenic systemic fibrosis. There is some suggestion it may trigger brain inflammation. She suggests listing linear gadolinium as a drug sensitivity in medical charts. Researchers harvested exosomes from semen. The exosomes evolved to help sperm penetrate egg barriers, making them ideal delivery vehicles for drugs too toxic for traditional administration. These bubble-like vesicles can penetrate the eye to distribute a manganese dioxide nanozyme compound (CMG) across ocular barriers to treat retinoblastoma, a childhood eye cancer typically requiring eyeball removal. Researchers used extracellular vesicles (effectively artificial exosomes) delivered via nasal spray to reverse brain aging in mice. The vesicles carried messenger RNA targeting the NLRP2 inflammasome, restoring mitochondrial activity in neurons and improving memory and recognition in treated animals. The nasal delivery route bypasses the blood-brain barrier, opening possibilities for treating cognitive deterioration without injections or surgical implants. An emailer reports his wife two inches shorter at a new Kaiser facility in another state. Dr. Dawn first considers measurement inconsistency (shoes on or off), then suggests evaluating for compression fractures, disc disease, and parathyroid tumors. She recommends a bone scan, C-terminal telopeptide testing to assess active bone breakdown, and intact PTH to rule out parathyroid pathology if osteoporosis is identified by DEXA scan. Dr. Dawn explores a new brain model addressing how 86 billion neurons store more memory than classical models predict. Astrocytes, previously known mainly for creating myelin sheaths, form tripartite synapses with neurons connecting to thousands of synapses simultaneously, communicating via calcium signaling and gliotransmitters. This could provide the higher-order coupling needed for our dense associative memory that pairwise synaptic connections cannot explain. Disrupting astrocyte-neuron connections in the hippocampus impairs both memory storage and retrieval, supporting this theoretical model. A Nature Neuroscience study found abdominal muscle contractions compress blood vessels connected to the brain and spine via the vertebral venous plexus, physically rocking the brain within the skull. This mechanical swishing may explain how exercise helps clear brain toxins and prevent neurodegenerative disorders, potentially leading to inflatable abdominal devices that could aid brain cleansing during sleep. Montelukast, the common asthma and allergy drug, has been found to block a protein hijacked by triple-negative breast cancer that converts immune cells into "sleeper agents" that clear paths for tumor invasion rather than attacking cancer. Dr. Dawn notes AI is increasingly identifying these drug repurposing opportunities by analyzing molecular shapes and receptor compatibility.

BONUS: Why Your Organization Is Still a Factory — And What an Octopus Can Teach You About Transformation Phil Le-Brun and Dr. Jana Werner both work inside Amazon, advising Fortune 500 leaders on transformation. But before Amazon, they spent decades in the trenches — Phil as International CIO of McDonald's, Jana leading change in banking and logistics. Together they wrote The Octopus Organization (HBR Press) to explain why most companies are still running on a hundred-year-old factory model, and what the alternative looks like. "We Want to Help You Make Your Own New Interesting Mistakes" "We keep saying, as Phil likes to say, can we help you make your own new interesting mistakes and avoid the mistakes that we see again and again."   Jana and Phil are both practitioners who have led large-scale changes — and made mistakes they're now happy to share. Jana describes working with incredible, smart, thoughtful people inside large organizations who weren't trusted, weren't allowed to do the work they could do, and couldn't be their best selves. She managed to turn teams considered underperforming into rock stars simply by listening and giving them space. Phil saw the same pattern at McDonald's — incredible people who knew the answers but weren't allowed to act on them. A disastrous standardization push from 2002 to 2004 taught him that top-down efficiency mandates don't work. The CEO left, and Phil got the opportunity to tap into people lower in the organization, define a common mission, and start building from there. The Factory Model Nobody Questions "There was no upside for her people taking ownership because you could have career-limiting effects if you made a mistake, if you were seen to be making a mistake or overstepping."   Jana shared two sides of the same problem. A CEO of a large investment company told her he has to sign off on every small decision — and his people assume he wants to. Neither side wants this, but nobody questions the processes in place. On the other side, a COO told Jana "my people don't want ownership." After half an hour of coaching, the COO realized there was no upside for her people to take ownership — mistakes meant career-limiting consequences. Jana is honest about her own experience too: a team member told her she was micromanaging, and she denied it. They created a secret signal — scratching an ear in meetings whenever she micromanaged. He was scratching a lot. Phil adds that what he calls "yoga babble" — abstractions like "we're going to become an agile platform-based culture" — lets leaders avoid saying what they actually mean. Nobody challenges it because the boss said it, and it sounds sort of right. The result: completely meaningless direction. The Octopus — Distributed Intelligence in Practice "It has two thirds of its intelligence, its neurons, in its arms. The arms connect independently — they don't always need a central brain, but they also have one, so they can stay aligned but also work independently."   The octopus has distributed neural clusters in each arm. It can adapt, shape-shift, change the texture of its skin, and even alter its RNA to switch between cold and hot water within hours. For Jana and Phil, this is the organizational metaphor: teams that can think locally and act without waiting for permission from the center, while staying aligned on mission. Phil translates this for team leaders of 8-10 people inside traditional enterprises:   Put together teams with cognitive diversity and encourage constructive conflict — what Linda Hill at Harvard Business School calls "creative abrasion" Invest in the storming, norming, performing cycle instead of cutting through it Leave the "how" to the team — the leader's job is the "why" and the "what" Don't jump to the answer — Einstein said if you have an hour to solve a problem, spend 55 minutes understanding the problem Start executing quickly through rapid experimentation; you can't plan your way to success in novel situations Don't Build the Pedestal — The Monkey Comes First "Get to the most tricky problems first, and try and solve them. If you can't, figure out fast — and if you can't, just stop, because your whole project is useless."   Astro Teller, CEO of Alphabet X's Moonshot Labs, says: "If you want to teach a monkey on a pedestal to recite Shakespeare, don't start by building the pedestal." Jana explains that organizations, once they get a project through the gauntlet of approvals and business cases, start working on the easy, visible things to show progress — the pedestal. But if you can't get the monkey to speak, the pedestal is useless. The counterintuitive move: when passionate people dispassionately tell you the hard problem isn't solvable, give them hugs, put them on a pedestal themselves, give them bonuses — because they just freed up resources for something better. Phil reinforces that this isn't a money problem. At McDonald's, before building a handheld order-taking device, they built a block of wood to test how comfortable it was to hold. Organizations waste far more money trying to plan for things they can't possibly plan for than they would by running quick experiments. Single-Threaded Leaders — The Pig at Breakfast "Who's that person waking up every morning saying, are we actually putting the focus on the things that are going to get us to the finish line of delivering value — not within my function, but across the organization?"   Phil tells the classic joke: a pig and chicken are walking down the road. The chicken says "let's open a restaurant." The pig asks what they'll sell. "Ham and eggs, of course," says the chicken. The pig stops: "I need to be far more committed than you." Organizations are full of chickens — people who lay their half-baked decisions, want to sign off, want to say no. What's needed are pigs. Amazon calls them single-threaded leaders. Apple calls them directly responsible individuals. The key: one person owns an initiative end to end, waking up every morning focused on delivering value across the organization, not just within their function. Mow the Lawn — Bureaucracy Grows While You Sleep "Your bureaucracy grows while you sleep. Think about your bureaucracy like mowing a lawn. You can't mow a lawn once."   Jana references Parkinson's Law — a senior Royal Navy leader found that even as the fleet shrank, the number of administrators grew by 5-10% annually. This applies to every organization. Middle managers fill their time by adding processes. One person's mistake becomes a process that penalizes 10,000 people. The solution is continuous gardening. At Google, a senior leader added positive friction: if you want more than 5 interviews in the hiring process, you need my approval. At Amazon, the principle "invent and simplify" asks everyone every year: what are we simplifying? The simplification work has to come from those closest to the problems — most leaders don't know half of what people are actually doing. Innovation Belongs to Everyone — Not a Lab "Psychological safety — it's not even a prefrontal cortex thing, it's not a conscious thought, it's that fight-or-flight reaction you have in the moment."   Phil makes the case that innovation starts with psychological safety at the team level, not an organization-wide mandate. It's the team leader asking questions, being humble, responding to disagreement with "tell me more" instead of "I don't agree." It means celebrating intelligent failures — someone who tested a hypothesis, found it didn't work, and stopped. At Amazon town halls, executives open by making fun of Amazon's failures, like the Fire Phone. The message: if you're thinking big, you'll also fail. The Fire Phone didn't work, but it informed future hardware investments. The only true failure is not learning from experimentation. Phil and Jana both emphasize that once leaders experience what happens when people are truly freed to do their best work, they get addicted to it. About Phil Le-Brun and Dr. Jana Werner Phil Le-Brun is the former International CIO of McDonald's and now leads the AWS Executives in Residence team, advising Fortune 500 leaders on transformation. Dr. Jana Werner is an Executive in Residence at AWS who built their EMEA transformation practice after leading digital change in financial services. Together they wrote The Octopus Organization: A Guide to Thriving in a World of Continuous Transformation (HBR Press).   You can link with Phil Le-Brun on LinkedIn and Jana Werner on LinkedIn.   Book site: theoctopusorganization.com Book on Amazon: The Octopus Organization

We love to hear from our listeners. Send us a message.In Episode 3 of our in vivo-focused special series of Cell & Gene: The Podcast, Ascidian Therapeutics' Founder, President, and CEO Mike Ehlers, M.D., Ph.D., explains how the company is advancing a new class of genetic medicines built on RNA exon editing to durably correct disease at the transcript level without permanently altering DNA. He also shares why in vivo therapies still need to prove precision, durability, and predictability before they become mainstream, and why the field must move beyond proof of concept to reproducible clinical performance across patients and diseases. He discusses the importance of patient selection, tissue specificity, and matching editing efficiency to biological thresholds, and much more. Subscribe to the podcast!Apple  |  Spotify |  YouTubeVisit my website: Cell & GeneConnect with me on LinkedIn

SUMMARY DEL SHOW Futuros en verde con el mercado comprando más esperanza de acuerdo entre EE. UU. e Irán. La posible reapertura de Ormuz y alivio de sanciones petroleras presionan el crudo a la baja y reducen parte del miedo inflacionario. $SPCX fija su IPO en $135 por acción, levanta cerca de $75 Billones y alcanza una valoración cercana a $1.77 Trillones, convirtiéndose en una prueba clave para mega IPOs de tecnología, espacio e inteligencia artificial. $NVDA estaría ofreciendo CPUs Vera a clientes en China. $SHEL firma acuerdos con Venezuela para proyectos de gas y petróleo. $NVS avanza con datos positivos en una terapia RNA para una enfermedad neuromuscular rara.

One of the most surprising and remarkable discoveries in recent scientific history has been CRISPR. Short for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats, CRISPR is a form of immune system that evolved in bacteria more than a billion years ago to defend against persistent viral threats. Under attack, bacteria can snip a small fragment of a virus's DNA, store it in the CRISPR region of their genome, and then use it to recognize and destroy the same virus if it returns. The CRISPR-Cas9 system, to give it its longer name, consists of a short strand of guide RNA that identifies where to cut the DNA and a protein that acts as the molecular scissors. What made this system truly revolutionary was the demonstration in 2012 that it could be reprogrammed with different pieces of guide RNA to edit virtually any genome in any species, and at a level of precision and ease that far surpassed existing gene-editing tools. Since then, the editing capability of CRISPR has been tested on everything from developing disease treatments to engineering drought-resistant crops to resurrecting genes of extinct species. The possibilities have expanded so rapidly that researchers, ethicists, and regulators have found themselves struggling to keep up. One person acutely aware of the power of CRISPR is Jennifer Doudna, co-developer of the technology. Doudna, who received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2020 with Emmanuelle Charpentier for this pioneering work, has been a prominent voice not only for its vast potential but also for its responsible and ethical use. In this episode of The Joy of Why, Doudna tells co-host Janna Levin how her early, “rebellious,” decision to study RNA led her on a serendipitous path to one of biology's most transformative discoveries. They also discuss the breakthroughs, barriers, and frontiers that will define CRISPR's true impact.

In 2011, Stéphane Bancel walked away from the security of leading a 6,000-person diagnostics company to join a startup of about 50 people, built on an idea most scientists had dismissed: that messenger RNA could become medicine. Almost everyone told him not to do it. He gave the bet roughly a five percent chance. Nine years later, that same bet helped the world face a pandemic in 63 days.Stéphane Bancel is the Chief Executive Officer of Moderna. Under his leadership the company designed a COVID-19 vaccine on a computer within days of the genetic sequence being posted, delivered the first dose to a human just 63 days later, and scaled from zero manufacturing to a billion doses in twelve months. Today Moderna is building personalized cancer vaccines and using AI to reinvent how medicines are discovered and made.This conversation sits right at the heart of what I believe about leadership. That the chief executive is really the chief energy officer. That the boldest decisions are rarely about appetite for risk, they are about the asymmetry between what you could give the world and what you could actually lose. Stéphane lives both, and he is refreshingly honest about the storms, the doubts and the mistakes along the way.In our conversation, we explore: → The five percent bet: how he weighed an enormous upside against a manageable downside, and why his wife was the only one who said yes → What sailing without GPS taught him about staying calm when the storm hits, and why a storm always passes → The 63-day sprint, and the Sunday phone call that saved the manufacturing of a billion doses → Why he slowed a trial down so it would be a vaccine for the world, not a vaccine for white people → The future he sees: personalized cancer vaccines, the human body mapped in silico, and why he calls chemotherapy tomorrow's barbaric history“I still believe that we have not invented yet our best drug.” Stéphane Bancel, CEO of ModernaIf you have ever faced a decision that everyone around you called too risky, this one is about how to think, and how to stay calm, when you choose to leap anyway.

For years, an indeterminate thyroid biopsy meant diagnostic surgery but molecular testing is now changing that reality entirely. On this episode of the BackTable ENT podcast, Dr. Ashley Agan interviews endocrinologist Dr. Erik Alexander about how molecular testing and a systematic, layered approach to thyroid nodule evaluation are reducing diagnostic surgeries and enabling more individualized patient care. --- Get the BackTable apphttps://www.backtable.com/app --- This podcast is supported by Veracytehttps://www.veracyte.com/ --- Timestamps 00:00 - Introduction02:48 - Incidence, Presentation, and Workup of Thyroid Nodules 06:26 - Hormonal Impact and Indications for FNA 10:49 - FNA workflow and Bethesda Categories 16:10 - Role of Molecular Testing for Indeterminate Nodules19:59 - Evolution of Molecular Testing and Afirma 23:51 - Basics of DNA based Testing and RNA based Testing 28:34 - Comparing DNA based and RNA Based Testing 32:10 - Utility of Molecular Testing and Sampling Techniques 35:55 - Cost Coverage and Practical Limits39:20 - Clinical Implications and Future Impact42:00 - Final Takeaways --- More about this episode Together they walk through the full evaluation pathway, including ultrasound risk stratification using the TI-RADS criteria, the role of TSH testing, and how FNA indications have shifted from biopsying every solid nodule to a more selective, risk-adapted approach. The discussion covers the Bethesda classification system and addresses why the one-third of patients landing in indeterminate categories (Bethesda III, IV, and V) have historically been the most challenging and most overtreated group. The conversation then explores molecular diagnostics as an additional layer of risk assessment, highlighting key differences between DNA-based mutation panels and RNA-based expression classifiers. Dr. Alexander also discusses practical considerations like insurance coverage, sampling technique, turnaround time, and the future potential of molecular testing to move beyond diagnosis toward individualized prognosis. --- Resources American College of Radiology: TI-Rads Guidelines https://edge.sitecorecloud.io/americancoldf5f-acrorgf92a-productioncb02-3650/media/ACR/Files/RADS/TI-RADS/TI-RADS-Assessment-Categories.pdf American Thyroid Association - Nodule Guidelineshttps://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4739132/ Bethesda System for Reporting Thyroid Ctyopathology https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK278969/table/thyroid-nod-canc-eld.T.bethesda_system_f/ --- BackTable ENT & Allergy is the go-to podcast for otolaryngologists, allergists, and head and neck surgeons. Download the free BackTable app to get early access to new episodes, cases, and courses curated by physicians in your specialty. ► https://www.backtable.com/app

We love to hear from our listeners. Send us a message. On this week's episode of the Business of Biotech, Tyler Menichiello, chief editor at Bioprocess Online, host of the Better Biopharma podcast, and my Life Science Connect (LSC) colleague, convenes the broader LSC editorial team once again for a midyear discussion on what's happening now in the life sciences industry, and what's to come in the second half of the year. Topics include AI manufacturing regulations and navigating supply chain pressures, outsourcing trends and onshoring, biotech market signals and IPOs, clinical development's slow shift to digitization, the move toward organoids and non-animal models (NAMs) in discovery, RNA modality growing pains, and more.   Access this and hundreds of episodes of the Business of Biotech videocast under the Business of Biotech tab at lifescienceleader.com.  Subscribe to our monthly Business of Biotech newsletter. Get in touch with guest and topic suggestions: ben.comer@lifescienceleader.comFind Ben Comer on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bencomer/

Scientists had long been exploring RNA technology as a way to make vaccines before it had it's breakout appearance during the Covid-19 pandemic. Since then, interest in the potential uses of RNA to make vaccines and disease treatments has bloomed. In late 2023 a government-funded platform began work to enhance New Zealand's capacity to design and make RNA. Three years in, how is the platform going? Sign up to the Our Changing World monthly newsletter for episode backstories, science analysis and more.Learn more:RNA interference (RNAi) technology is being investigated to help honey bees fight off the varroa mite.US based Dyne Therapeutics conducted a clinical trial study of their RNA-based therapeutic for myotonic dystrophy in New Zealand.Our Changing World covered how the new RNA vaccine tech works in 2021.Dr Lisa Connor spoke to RNZ's health reporter Ruth Hill last August after the US made funding cuts to their RNA vaccine research.Guests:Dr Lisa Connor, Malaghan Institute of Medical ResearchDr Rebecca McKenzie, Malaghan Institute of Medical ResearchGo to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

Dr. Al Grauer hosts. Dr. Albert D. Grauer ( @Nmcanopus ) is an observational asteroid hunting astronomer. Dr. Grauer retired from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock in 2006. travelersinthenight.org From February 2026. Today's 2 topics: - In April 2029 on one of the luckiest Friday the 13th in human history the 1,500 ft by 500 ft asteroid Apophis will pass within 23,600 miles of the Earth's surface traveling at some 4.6 mi/s. This is extremely fortunate since an Apophis impact would release the energy of scores of nuclear weapons and cause wide spread devastation. NASA's OSIRIS-APEX will become the companion of the potentially hazardous asteroid Apophis on 5 June 2029.   - On Earth living things are everywhere from the deepest ocean depths to the highest mountain tops. On our home planet RNA (Ribonucleic Acid) is a complex essential molecule involved in the process of translating genetic information into the working components of living cells. In a recent paper in the peer reviewed scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Dr. Yuta Hirakawa and his team of two coauthors report on their experiments to produce RNA under conditions similar to those which may have occurred in the early history of Earth and Mars.   We've added a new way to donate to 365 Days of Astronomy to support editing, hosting, and production costs.  Just visit: https://www.patreon.com/365DaysOfAstronomy and donate as much as you can! Share the podcast with your friends and send the Patreon link to them too!  Every bit helps! Thank you! ------------------------------------ Do go visit http://www.redbubble.com/people/CosmoQuestX/shop for cool Astronomy Cast and CosmoQuest t-shirts, coffee mugs and other awesomeness! http://cosmoquest.org/Donate This show is made possible through your donations.  Thank you! (Haven't donated? It's not too late! Just click!) ------------------------------------ The 365 Days of Astronomy Podcast is produced by the Planetary Science Institute. http://www.psi.edu Visit us on the web at 365DaysOfAstronomy.org or email us at info@365DaysOfAstronomy.org.

In this episode, we review key updates from the 2026 ACC-AHA Guidelines on the Management of Dyslipidemia. Key Concepts The PREVENT ASCVD equation is now recommended to calculate ASCVD risk, with thresholds at 3%, 5%, and 10%. The previous 7.5% threshold for statin treatment is now 5%. In addition to the 10-year ASCVD estimate, clinicians should consider the use of Lp(a), "risk enhancers", and coronary artery calcium (CAC) scans as a "tie breaker" with shared decision-making when the decision to treat is not clear. In addition to LDL goals of < 100, < 70, or < 55 (depending on risk), the new guidelines also suggest non-HDL-C and apoB goals once LDL cholesterol is at goal. Many patients will require non-statin therapies to achieve lipid goals. The recommended non-statin therapies include ezetimibe, PCSK9 mAb, PCSK9-interfering RNA, and bempedoic acid. References Writing Committee Members, Blumenthal RS, Morris PB, et al. 2026 ACC/AHA/AACVPR/ABC/ACPM/ADA/AGS/APhA/ASPC/NLA/PCNA Guideline on the Management of Dyslipidemia: A Report of the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association Joint Committee on Clinical Practice Guidelines. Circulation. 2026;153(17):e1154-e1276. doi:10.1161/CIR.0000000000001423 Wiggins BS, Barac A, Benziger CP, et al. 2026 Dyslipidemia Guideline-at-a-Glance. J Am Coll Cardiol. 2026;87(19):2617-2623. doi:10.1016/j.jacc.2026.02.4872 Superko H, Garrett B. Small Dense LDL: Scientific Background, Clinical Relevance, and Recent Evidence Still a Risk Even with 'Normal' LDL-C Levels. Biomedicines. 2022;10(4):829. Published 2022 Apr 1. doi:10.3390/biomedicines10040829

In this episode of the Epigenetics Podcast, we talked with Peter Becker from the  Biomedical Center Munich about his successful career in Epigenetics, where he discovered the chromatin remodeler ISWI and dosage compensation complex MOF. Dr. Becker shares thoughts about his postdoctoral work with Carl Wu, where he developed embryo extract systems for studying chromatin assembly and transcription. He explains how work on Drosophila extracts led to the purification of ATP-dependent remodeling factors, including ISWI-related complexes, and how these studies showed that such factors slide nucleosomes and help organize chromatin. We also cover his move to EMBL and later to Munich, where his lab expanded into dosage compensation in Drosophila. He describes work on the MSL complex targeting, MRE sequences, ROX RNA, DNA shape features, and how biochemical reconstitution was used to study how the complex recognizes the X chromosome. Finally, we discuss his later work on TIP-60 and histone acetylation, including acetylome studies, and his reflections on leadership roles at EMBL and on the use of the term epigenetics. He emphasizes that epigenetics should be understood as one layer among genetics, environment, and socialization, not as a replacement for genetics. References Tsukiyama, T., Becker, P. B., & Wu, C. (1994). ATP-dependent nucleosome disruption at a heat-shock promoter mediated by binding of GAGA transcription factor. Nature, 367(6463), 525–532. https://doi.org/10.1038/367525a0 Varga-Weisz, P. D., Wilm, M., Bonte, E., Dumas, K., Mann, M., & Becker, P. B. (1997). Chromatin-remodelling factor CHRAC contains the ATPases ISWI and topoisomerase II. Nature, 388(6642), 598–602. https://doi.org/10.1038/41587 Corona, D. F., Längst, G., Clapier, C. R., Bonte, E. J., Ferrari, S., Tamkun, J. W., & Becker, P. B. (1999). ISWI is an ATP-dependent nucleosome remodeling factor. Molecular cell, 3(2), 239–245. https://doi.org/10.1016/s1097-2765(00)80314-7 Akhtar, A., & Becker, P. B. (2000). Activation of transcription through histone H4 acetylation by MOF, an acetyltransferase essential for dosage compensation in Drosophila. Molecular cell, 5(2), 367–375. https://doi.org/10.1016/s1097-2765(00)80431-1 Akhtar, A., Zink, D., & Becker, P. B. (2000). Chromodomains are protein-RNA interaction modules. Nature, 407(6802), 405–409. https://doi.org/10.1038/35030169 Villa, R., Schauer, T., Smialowski, P., Straub, T., & Becker, P. B. (2016). PionX sites mark the X chromosome for dosage compensation. Nature, 537(7619), 244–248. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature19338 Related Episodes Dosage Compensation in Drosophila (Asifa Akhtar) DNase Hypersensitive Sites and Chromatin Remodeling Enzymes (Carl Wu) The Mechanism of ATP-dependent Remodelers and HP1 Gene Silencing (Geeta Narlikar) Regulation of Chromatin Organization by Histone Chaperones (Geneviève Almouzni) Contact Epigenetics Podcast on Mastodon Epigenetics Podcast on Bluesky Dr. Stefan Dillinger on LinkedIn Active Motif on LinkedIn Active Motif on Bluesky Email: podcast@activemotif.com

At 88 years old, Joan Virginia Allen has little interest in slowing down.In this episode of Ojai Talk of the Town, Bret Bradigan sits down with the author of Navigating Dynamic Aging to explore what it means to remain engaged, curious, and purposeful throughout every stage of life.She will be signing copies of her book at an event at the Ojai Library on Saturday, June 13th at 2 p.m.Joan shares lessons drawn from a lifetime of reinvention — as an attorney, performer, teacher, coach, and author — and explains why aging doesn't have to be a story of decline. Instead, she argues that curiosity, courage, movement, and commitment can continue to open new doors long after many people believe their most meaningful adventures are behind them.Together, Bret and Joan discuss overcoming fear, embracing change, maintaining vitality, finding purpose after retirement, and cultivating the mindset needed to navigate life's inevitable transitions.We did not talk about Manu Masa's 1324 pilgrimage to Mecca, RNA drug delivery systems or the joys of falconry.Whether you're entering retirement, caring for aging loved ones, or simply wondering what comes next, this thoughtful conversation offers wisdom, perspective, and encouragement for the journey ahead.Learn more about Joan at her website ... https://dynamicaging4life.com/this-is-me-life-coach/

Jake Becraft is the CEO and co-founder of Strand Therapeutics, a company building one of the most advanced programmable genetic medicine platforms in biotechnology. Under his leadership, Strand is redefining what RNA medicines can do by enabling cell-selective targeting and therapeutic payload delivery inside the body, unlocking a new class of precision genetic therapies.This episode is brought to you by:Helix Sleep premium mattresses: HelixSleep.com/Tim (20% off any purchase) Incogni, which automatically removes your personal data from the web, helping shield you from fraud, scams, and identity theft: Incogni.com/Tim (use code TIM at checkout and get 60% off an annual plan)*For show notes and past guests on The Tim Ferriss Show, please visit tim.blog/podcast.For deals from sponsors of The Tim Ferriss Show, please visit tim.blog/podcast-sponsorsSign up for Tim's email newsletter (5-Bullet Friday) at tim.blog/friday.For transcripts of episodes, go to tim.blog/transcripts.Discover Tim's books: tim.blog/books.Follow Tim:Twitter: twitter.com/tferriss Instagram: instagram.com/timferrissYouTube: youtube.com/timferrissFacebook: facebook.com/timferriss LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/timferrissSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Dr. Troy Rohn has spent two decades in neuroscience research, lived with anxiety his entire life, and co-founded a biotech company trying to treat it in a way no drug has managed before. In this conversation with host KAJ, he makes a quiet but striking case: that anxiety is not a mystery, it is a circuit problem — and gene therapy may finally be precise enough to address it at the source.The conversation covers what anxiety actually is, why current medications fail a third of the people who take them, the difference between RNA and DNA therapies, and what a world looks like where mental health treatment is personalised to your own genetic makeup. Accessible, honest, and quietly hopeful.=========================================KAJ Masterclass LIVEA video-first, live-first global conversation ecosystem — editorially independent, depth-driven, and supporter-sustained. Hosted by independent journalist Khudania Ajay (KAJ), KAJ Masterclass explores leadership, business, AI, careers, health, creativity, ideas, and the evolving human experience through thoughtful, unscripted conversations grounded in lived experience, clarity, and real-world insight.Every conversation is designed to leave you with something meaningful to think about, understand, or apply.

Dr. Gregg Day and Drs. Sonia Vallabh and Eric Minikel discuss scientific insights and the future of prion disease treatment, highlighting the importance of early diagnosis, personalized medicine, and hope for affected families.  Learn about the clinical trial.   Learn more about the Prion Alliance.  Show transcript:  Dr. Gregg Day: This is Gregg Day with Neurology Minute. I've just been speaking with Eric Minikel and Sonia Vallabh, a husband and wife team at the heart of the PRiSM trial, a first-in-human study of a prion protein-lowering, divalent, small-interfering RNA for patients with symptomatic prion disease. Eric and Sonia, could you provide us with a brief overview of the PRiSM trial and what this first-in-human study seeks to accomplish? Dr. Eric Minikel: The PRiSM trial is testing a short interfering RNA designed to bind the RNA that encodes the prion protein. That is the protein that causes Prion disease. We are at the heart of what causes this disease. Through doing this, we hope to make prion disease a treatable and preventable condition. We both want to stabilize symptomatic patients and prevent the disease in people who are at genetic risk. This is a personal mission for us. Sonia is a carrier of a prion disease mutation that she inherited from her mother who died of prion disease, and we, along the way, aspire to be a different kind of sponsor. We want to create our own clinical data that are shareable learnings for the entire field. Dr. Gregg Day: This is Gregg Day with Neurology Minute. Thanks for listening.

This week we talk about the Democratic Republic of the Congo, malaria, and healthcare infrastructure.We also discuss militants, Uganda, and the Bundibugyo virus.Recommended Book: We Should Get Together by Kat VellosTranscriptEbola, which is more formally called Ebola Virus Disease or Ebola Hemorrhagic Fever, is caused by an infection by a type of RNA virus called an orthoebolavirus.There are six known species of orthoebolavirus, and four of them have at some point infected and caused illness in humans. Those four are the ebola virus, sometimes called the Zaire ebolavirus, which historically has been the strain responsible for the biggest, most devastating outbreaks of this disease, the Sudan virus, the Taï Forest virus, and the Bundibugyo virus, the latter three each causing a variant of the disease that carries the same name.The other two orthoebolavirus species that we know of, the Reston virus and the Bombali virus, have been known to infect animals, but have not, at this point at least, been known to make the jump to human hosts.Ebola symptoms vary a bit between specific viruses and between hosts and infection conditions, but in general those who are afflicted by ebola begin to experience symptoms between a few days and a few weeks after infection, and they'll start by experiencing cold and flu-like symptoms, like fever, sore throat, headaches, and general muscle pain. Soon after that, though, they'll start experiencing diarrhea and rashes, they'll begin vomiting, and they'll begin to experience liver and kidney dysfunction, and around that same time, they'll start to bleed internally and externally.Once infected, a person has between a 25 and 90% chance of dying, depending on the strain of ebola, and if they die, usually due to what's called hypovolemic shock—a severe and sudden loss of bodily fluids, including blood—they usually die between 6 and 16 days after those first symptoms are reported.What I'd like to talk about today is a new outbreak of ebola centered in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and why this one stands out from other recent outbreaks in the region.—Ebola was first officially reported in medical literature in 1976, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa, and there have been semi-regular outbreaks in that region, of various sizes ever since, and very likely before that, too.This disease is spread through direct contact with the body fluids of someone who's infected, and it's thought that this is probably how the disease made the leap from animals, like primates, to human beings: locals sometimes come into close contact with local primates, either while just coexisting, or while hunting bushmeat, hunting monkeys for food.It's thought that fruit bats serve as hosts for the virus, long-term, and it then spreads to other animals, and then sometimes to humans, in some cases causing illness along the way in those other species, but not always; bats are not negatively afflicted by it, for instance, but humans very much are.Despite not being an airborne pathogen, so it's not spread by coughing or talking too close to someone, like a cold or Covid-19, ebola can still be spread person-to-person through bodily fluid contact. That means fluids like saliva and blood and semen and breast milk, and research has shown that even after someone survives and recovers from ebola, the disease can linger in their fluids for months. So if someone catches it, survives, and then breast-feeds their child, or kisses or has sex with their partner, or gets a cut and then someone else comes into contact with their blood, like a health worker, that can lead to the transmission of the disease, despite their having been well and seemingly fully recovered for weeks or months.That lingering contagiousness is a confounding factor with this disease, as it requires that people be very careful, even to an antisocial degree, and even well after it seems like that's no longer necessary, because they feel good and healthy again.This also means that if someone dies of ebola, contact with their bodies can be incredibly dangerous. And past outbreaks have stemmed from or been further enflamed by locals wanting to perform community funerals and wakes, during which the body is often on display and touched by attendees, and that has led to further spread of the disease—which in many cases is difficult to tie back to that wake, because again, symptoms don't arrive right away, and ebola symptoms are similar to what locals experience all the time from other afflictions, like colds and malaria.This past week, in Bunia, which is located in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, locals stormed a regional hospital in an attempt to recover the body of a beloved local figure who died of ebola. In the process, the hospital's isolation ward, which was being used to keep ebola victims separate from everyone else, to keep the disease from spreading further, that ward was burned to the ground.There are no vaccines or treatments for the Bundibugyo Ebola species that is at the core of the outbreak, and the spread of misinformation in the area had locals believing that these health workers were trying to kill their patients, not save or isolate them so no one else caught ebola.The man at the center of this, who died five days after being admitted to the hospital, was thought, by his family, to have malaria, which is common in the area and has very similar symptoms, at least in the early days of an ebola infection.They demanded the hospital release his body so they could bury him, and the staff refused, saying doing so right now could lead to more ebola spread. The family gathered more locals, who threw stones at hospital workers, they broke through the gates of the hospital, police fired into the air to try to disperse the angry crowd, and the ebola ward caught fire during the melee. During that fire, five patients who were in the ward, all suspected of having ebola, fled, and they haven't yet returned—so they are possibly out in the open, no longer isolated, suffering and maybe dying from their infection, and possibly spreading it to others, as well.There's a lot going on in this story, and misinformation spread by local traditional healers who don't like the hospitals and the medical workers who tell locals medical information rather than folk healing information are part of the problem, but the local medical establishment not doing a good job of educating locals about what they're doing and why are arguably the flip side of that same coin; more investment in that kind of information dissemination by the government would go a long way to preventing this sort of thing in the future, and health workers globally could use more resources and overall infrastructure to help protect them while they're carrying out their work.That said, this is just one small facet of what's become a much larger story. As of the day I'm recording this, this new outbreak, which was first reported in the Ituri Province of the DRC, has caused 186 confirmed deaths, with 82 more confirmed cases and 836 suspected cases.As I mentioned, it's caused by the Bundibugyo ebolavirus, which is less common, at least at this scale, and thus typical response efforts used against the more common Zaire ebolavirus, don't seem to map onto this strain as well as was hoped, and the World Health Organization declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern on May 16, as while this is unlikely to become as significant an issue as Covid-19 or other aerosol-spread infections on a global level, regionally it's causing a lot of damage, and its nature, and the state of international aid for this sort of thing—which is currently substantially reduced, in part because of pullbacks on such programs by the current US administration—means it could continue to flare for several more months, before eventually starting to slow, killing many, many people, in any incredibly painful and contagious manner, in the process.This is the 17th ebola outbreak in the DRC since the disease was first recorded in the medical literature, and the third outbreak of this strain—the first of which was in the Bundibugyo District of Uganda in 2007 through 2008, that's where it got its name, and then another in 2012 in the DRC.This isn't the deadliest strain of ebola, only killing between 25 and 50% of those afflicted, but because of those aforementioned issues, plus it having flared in a region where governance is complicated by the presence of several militant groups, this wave of infections has created a broad and precarious situation; lots of people have been uprooted from their homes because of conflict between these militant groups and the government, and those refugees have been spreading ebola to other areas throughout the region, making contact tracing difficult or impossible, and leading to surges of new infections in neighboring, and a few further-flung, provinces.According to a predictive model of the outbreak published by the MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis, the current number of infected people could actually be well over 1000, in part because of how difficult it's been isolating the infected, and because the early symptoms are so similar to other common local afflictions; so people are less likely to visit hospitals and get an accurate diagnosis, because they assume it's just a bout of something else, something less deadly and contagious.Getting resources into the area is becoming more difficult, too, as those militant groups are fairly active, one such group recently taking over a primary regional airport, which has disallowed the import of necessary medical equipment for regional hospitals.This hasn't had much of an impact globally, yet, though cases have been documented in neighboring Uganda—a total of five confirmed infections, as of the day I'm recording this—and the World Cup team from the DRC was ordered to isolate before entering the US to compete, forced to remain in Belgium for 21 days to confirm they aren't carrying the disease before being allowed into the States for the competition.Far more likely than mass global spread, though, is more regional spread, which could lead to temporary border lockdowns and similar efforts to keep those who are in currently impacted regions from scattering, understandably fleeing either the outbreak or the militants in these areas, and thus carrying the disease into different provinces or countries.Local and international aide organizations are scrambling to prevent this, and to identify and isolate infected people where possible, but it'll likely be a while before they have the necessary on-the-ground resources to do this correctly, and a lot more spread could occur before they're able to do so at an effective level.Show Noteshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebolahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_African_Ebola_epidemichttps://www.cdc.gov/ebola/about/index.htmlhttps://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5175058/https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/congo-ebola-outbreak-cases-are-top-iceberg-coalition-says-2026-05-21/https://apnews.com/article/congo-ebola-outbreak-who-4e08d8df6d9c34039a9e0b8bad7a8954https://www.wsj.com/world/africa/ebola-outbreak-explained-4ab4414fhttps://www.aljazeera.com/amp/news/2026/5/23/uganda-confirms-three-new-ebola-cases-bringing-total-to-fivehttps://www.theguardian.com/football/2026/may/23/dcr-world-cup-squad-isolate-ebola-outbreak-congo-united-stateshttps://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/22/world/africa/ebola-congo-clinic-burned-protests.htmlhttps://www.npr.org/2026/05/23/nx-s1-5831963/u-s-passengers-flying-from-ebola-affected-countries-reroutedhttps://www.cdc.gov/han/php/notices/han00530.htmlhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Ituri_Province_Ebola_epidemichttps://edition.cnn.com/health/maps-ebola-charts-vishttps://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/may/21/ebola-outbreak-public-healthhttps://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/suspected-ebola-cases-reported-rebel-held-congo-area-2026-05-21/https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/19/world/africa/ebola-outbreak-deaths-congo-who.html This is a public episode. 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In this episode, Jure Leskovec, co-founder and chief scientist at Kumo and professor of computer science at Stanford, joins us to explore two fronts of his work: AI for science and relational deep learning. We begin with AI Virtual Cell, a multiscale effort to learn data-driven representations from proteins to cells to patients using single-cell RNA-seq data, protein language models like ESM, and structure models like AlphaFold—without hand-encoding biology. Jure then dives into relational deep learning, reframing enterprise databases as graphs and training neural networks directly on raw multi-table data. He explains Kumo's Relational Foundation Model (RFM2), which performs in-context learning over subgraphs to make accurate predictions on new databases and tasks with no training, and how this approach benchmarks against RelBench and other multi-table datasets. We also discuss real-world deployments at companies like Reddit, DoorDash, and Coinbase, explainability via attention over tables and columns, integration with agentic systems, deployment options, and practical limitations. The complete show notes for this episode can be found at https://twimlai.com/go/768.

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On this, our 325th Evolutionary Lens livestream, we discuss Hanta virus and drought. First: what is the natural history of Hantavirus, do any Hantaviruses transmit directly from human to human, and what is going on with the M.V. Hondius, the cruise ship on which Hantavirus has made a stand? Given its mechanisms of action, Ivermectin is likely to treat Hantavirus (a negative sense single-stranded RNA virus), but the WHO dismisses the possibility. Moderna is working on a Hantavirus vaccine, even though the Number Needed to Treat is sky high. What is going on? Then: in Washington state, we're experiencing a very wet drought. The Department of Ecology has declared a drought (again), and the snow pack is low, but all other indicators—from rivers to reservoirs to soil moisture—are excellent. Cliff Mass, atmospheric scientist, puts the evidence in one place and calls bull on the drought diagnosis.*****Our sponsors:Xlear: Xylitol nasal spray that acts as prophylaxis against respiratory illnesses by reducing the stickiness of bacteria and viruses. Find Xlear online, or at your local pharmacy, grocery store, or natural products store.Fresh Pressed Olive Oil Club: Freshly harvested and delicious. Go to http://www.GetFreshDarkHorse.com to get a bottle of the best olive oil you've ever had for $1 shipping.CrowdHealth: Pay for healthcare with crowdfunding instead of insurance. It's way better. Use code DarkHorse at http://JoinCrowdHealth.com to get 1st 3 months for $99/month.*****Join us on Locals! Get access to our Discord server, exclusive live streams, live chats for all streams, and early access to many podcasts: https://darkhorse.locals.comHeather's newsletter, Natural Selections (subscribe to get free weekly essays in your inbox): https://naturalselections.substack.comOur book, A Hunter-Gatherer's Guide to the 21st Century, is available everywhere books are sold, including from Amazon: https://amzn.to/3AGANGg (commission earned)Check out our store! Epic tabby, digital book burning, saddle up the dire wolves, and more: https://darkhorsestore.org*****Mentioned in this episode:Hantavirus and the elders: https://asm.org/articles/2024/october/indigenous-knowledge-solved-mysterious-outbreakToledo et al 2022. Evidence for human-to-human transmission of hantavirus: a systematic review. The Journal of infectious diseases, 226(8): 1362-1371: https://academic.oup.com/jid/article/226/8/1362/6369311Zaidi & Dehgani-Mobaraki 2022. The mechanisms of action of ivermectin against SARS-CoV-2—an extensive review. The Journal of antibiotics, 75(2): 60-71: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41429-021-00491-6The WHO on the recent outbreak: https://www.who.int/emergencies/disease-outbreak-news/item/2026-DON599Cliff Mass – There is no drought emergency: https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2026/05/the-is-no-drought-emergency-in.htmlStatewide drought declared in WA: https://ecology.wa.gov/about-us/who-we-are/news/2026/april-8-statewide-drought-declared-due-to-dismal-snowpackSupport the show