Petri Dish

Sorry about the delay in this release folks! In this episode, we revisit the current unusual Monkeypox outbreak and dive into the DNA of this virus to try to understand why it is so much more global this time. Spoiler alert: the DNA currently doesn't have answers for us, but it seems to be mutating faster than normal! References: https://www.cdc.gov/poxvirus/monkeypox/response/2022/us-map.html htt...

In the second and final episode on our series on Caffeine, we dive into what acute caffeine toxicity can look like, along with other ways people can be sensitive to caffeine. We also discuss whether caffeine can be useful for giving you a boost while exercising! Our sponsor is Athletic Greens, a really solid and easy way to get your vitamins if you're like me and are too silly/busy to cook proper...

First episode of our two-parter on caffeine! For such a small and unassuming molecule, this drug is really popular, consumed all over the world for millennia! What is caffeine? How does it work? We'll even begin to discuss why some people are more sensitive to caffeine than other people. References: https://coffeeaffection.com/coffee-cherry/ https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S22147...

The world of Alzheimer's research has recently been rocked by very strong evidence of scientific misconduct and fraud, specifically relating to a historically relevant paper about amyloid beta oligomers as a potential cause of Alzheimer's Disease. There are a lot of nuances and complexities at play here, which we dive into! There are also some... not-nuances, like the fact that this fraud and whol...

Hi folks! I know most people don't really want to hear it, but we have another disease running around the world besides COVID and the more you know the facts, the better you can do what you can to avoid it! Learn about monkeypox on this week's episode of Petri Dish! References: https://www.who.int/emergencies/disease-outbreak-news/item/2022-DON390 https://www.science.org/content/article/monkeypox-...

The final episode in our series on venom, we discuss how venom can be used in modern medicine before discussing some venomous reptiles. Then we finish up by talking about the very few and very strange venomous mammals! References: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fevo.2019.00218/full https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/drugsatfda_docs/label/2011/020718s034lbl.pdf https://www.dsm.com/persona...

Part two of our series on venom! We start out talking about some venomous jellyfish and other cnidarians before moving on to arthropods, like some very venomous spiders! Then we go into treatment options for venom before finishing with some very strange venomous amphibians! Not just poisonous! Venomous!  Our sponsor is Athletic Greens, a really solid and easy way to get your vitamins if you'r...

Hi Everyone! Welcome to the first episode of our series on venom! We previously discussed toxic stuff, and venoms are a specific subset of toxic things that are introduced to the body by bite or injection rather than getting swallowed or inhaled or whatever. In this first episode we give a breakdown of the different kinds of venom, and in the following two episodes we'll talk about specific venomo...

Happy 4th of July to all our listeners in the USA! In honor of the holiday, we're doing an episode on hot dogs and other cured meats, specifically regarding the health impacts of nitrates/nitrites! Our sponsor is Athletic Greens, a really solid and easy way to get your vitamins if you're like me and are too silly/busy to cook proper meals every day and need to get those nutrients somehow! Check th...

In our first episode on the topic, we introduced the idea and definition of doping. In this episode we dive into blood doping, gene and cell doping, and a little debate about whether doping really is all that bad. References: https://www.wada-ama.org/en/prohibited-list https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3547746/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30969231/ https://faculty.washington.edu/cro...

Hey folks! On this episode Sean and Nathan discuss sports doping, first defining what counts as doping then discussing a history of doping! Our sponsor is Athletic Greens, a really solid and easy way to get your vitamins if you're like me and are too silly/busy to cook proper meals every day and need to get those nutrients somehow! Check them out and get a free 1 year supply of Vitamin D and 5 tra...

We took a break from our series on poisons, but we're back now to chat about organic poisons! No, not like pesticide-free poisons, organic in this context just means they're molecules that have carbons and hydrogens in them! So no more chatting about metallic poisons, we're going to move on to stuff like hemlock! Reference: https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/ershdb/emergencyresponsecard_29750037.html https...

I promise Nathan doesn't say 'whey' weird the entire episode, it just takes a bit for him to stop. This week's episode is about whey protein! What is it? Does it actually provide any benefit over any other protein? Our sponsor is Athletic Greens, a really solid and easy way to get your vitamins if you're like me and are too silly/busy to cook proper meals every day and need to get those nutrients...

Hi Everyone! This is the first episode in a periodic series we're going to do called 'side quests'. Sometimes we come across science stories that aren't quite enough to do a full episode on, but are interesting and fun to talk about! So from now on we'll occasionally present them as a series of shorter stories within an episode! In this episode, we'll discuss a competitor of Louis Pasteur, a high...

Hi Folks! Part three of our poison series is on arsenic, the king of poisons and the poison of kings! Arsenic had a long history of being used to kill nobles, but after a reliable test for arsenic was developed in the 1800s it got a lot less popular for killing people. But in true human fashion, we continued to use arsenic for all kinds of things! References: https://jmvh.org/article/arsenic-the-p...

Hi everyone! Here is part 2 in our series on poisons. This time we discuss lead! Our new sponsor is Athletic Greens, a really solid and easy way to get your vitamins if you're like me and are too silly/busy to cook proper meals every day and need to get those nutrients somehow! Check them out and get a free 1 year supply of Vitamin D and 5 travel packs by heading over to athleticgreens.com/emergin...

Hey everyone! Nathan wanted to know how poisons work and we're starting with some metals! Metal poisons are pretty interesting because they aren't complex molecules or anything, they're like single atoms running around messing up your biological systems! But how do metals interact with biology in the first place? Let's get into it! References: https://www.cancer.gov/publications/dictionaries/cance...

*Hey folks, some people are having a tough time hearing the episode on some platforms, this reupload is an attempt to see if we can fix that* At Nathan's insistence, this is the last Mesozoic episode for now! We talk about dinosaurs, across the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods, including heavy-hitters like T Rex! We also dispel some misunderstandings about velociraptor and other fun dino facts! Our...

At Nathan's insistence, this is the last Mesozoic episode for now! We talk about dinosaurs, across the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods, including heavy-hitters like T Rex! We also dispel some misunderstandings about velociraptor and other fun dino facts! Our new sponsor is Athletic Greens, a really solid and easy way to get your vitamins if you're like me and are too silly/busy to cook proper meal...

Yessss we're finally doing it! Dinosaurs! But only Jurassic ones! Yeah, that's right, a bunch of dinosaurs were only around in the Cretaceous, like velociraptor and T. rex. But don't worry, I'm sure some of your favs were in the Jurassic, like good ol' stegosaurus! What is a dinosaur? Who was around in the Jurassic? Find out this week on Petri Dish! References: https://www.nature.com/articles/natu...

Yay! The Age of the Dinosaurs! In this episode, we lay the groundwork for finally digging into dinosaurs in part 2 -- we discuss the changes to the climate and continents of the Jurassic and how that played into the development of the dinosaurs. References: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-15325-6 https://cp.copernicus.org/preprints/cp-2020-35/cp-2020-35.pdf

We end our discussion of the Triassic period with the land and air -- this is the time when dinosaurs and pterosaurs first evolved, along with the first mammals! References: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rsbl.2012.0949 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012825220302221

We're taking a one episode break, Nathan kind of explains why...

In our last episode, we discussed The Great Dying, the transitional extinction event that ended the Permian and Paleozoic times and kickstarted the Triassic and Mesozoic! While the Mesozoic is often thought of as the Age of the Dinosaurs (and it *is* the time when they both evolved and went largely extinct), the first part of the Mesozoic was dominated by other groups of animals. But who?! Find ou...

Hey, times are tough! So in a bit of escapism, Petri Dish has decided to dive into one of the largest extinction events of all time -- the Great Dying! Serving as the end of the paleozoic and start of the mesozoic, the Great Dying killed of around 90% of marine animal species and 75% of land species, clearing things out a little bit for the start of the age of the Dinosaurs! References: https://ww...