Big Biology

How do diseases spread from animals to humans? Is it possible to forecast where disease outbreaks will occur and when they will blow up into major health crises? In one of the earliest episodes of Big Biology, Marty and Art talk to Barbara Han, a disease ecologist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, about her research on zoonotic disease, how we track the spread of infectious diseases and whether we'll ever be able to predict outbreaks. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit bigbiology.substack.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit bigbiology.substack.comWhat causes Alzheimer’s disease? Why are some people more at risk than others? What are the prospects for a cure and the best options for slowing the onset of symptoms?On this episode of Big Biology, we talk with Daniel Gibbs, a retired neurologist, about his new book: “A Tattoo on My Brain: A Neurologist’s Personal Battle Against Alzheimer’s Disease”. A few years back, Dan discovered his genetic predisposition to Alzheimer’s disease (AD), which motivated him to chronicle his journey from treating patients with dementia to his own experience with AD. Over 50 million people worldwide are diagnosed with AD, yet we still know surprisingly little about how this disease arises at the cellular and molecular levels, and much less about why such a devastating condition persists in spite of what should be strong natural selection against it.In the episode, we discuss these enduring mysteries about Alzheimer’s, what it means to be an APOE4 homozygote, and what precautions individuals with AD can take to slow and best manage their symptoms.Cover art: Keating Shahmehri

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit bigbiology.substack.comWhat is the free energy principle? How do our brains use active inference to manage uncertainty and stress?On this episode, we talk with Karl Friston, world-renowned neuroscientist at University College London, about his free energy principle. In order for the human brain or any other self-evidencing system (be it Earthly or alien) to exist, they must be able to make inferences about their environments, and adjust their internal models of the world to resist entropy. In the show, we discuss how Karl’s previous work as a psychiatrist led him to this theory, then take a deep dive into the free energy principle, discussing how it can help us understand stress, agency, DNA, and the possibility of life elsewhere in the universe.Cover art: Keating Shahmehri

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit bigbiology.substack.comWhat does the world look like through insect eyes? What biological mechanisms make their vision different from our own? And how might those differences influence their evolution?On this episode, we talk with UC Irvine evolutionary biologist Adriana Briscoe (@AdrianaBriscoe) about color vision in insects, particularly Heliconius butterflies. We discuss how their perception of the world has led to such massive diversification and how variation in the structure of the light-sensitive opsin proteins that detect light enable species to perceive the world differently. We also discuss how visual perception differences within species might shape behaviors such as pollination, and what ecological factors could drive visual system evolution across the tree of life.Cover art: Keating Shahmehri

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit bigbiology.substack.comWhat do we mean by ‘extreme ecological events’? What’s more important to a population, more frequent extremes or changes to average conditions? How should we link the performance of individuals to the success or failure of entire populations?On this episode, we talk with Mark Denny, Stanford University professor of marine science and former director of the Hopkins Marine Station. In his 2019 paper, “Performance in a variable world,” Mark reviewed how organisms perform in highly variable environments -- a problem that has taken on new urgency as climates change. We also talk about extreme ecological events -- what they are, why they occur, and how they affect organisms. Often, extreme conditions arise from unusual combinations of otherwise normal patterns of variation in multiple underlying factors. Predicting the effects of climate extremes therefore requires holistic approaches to monitoring environments coupled with an integrative understanding of animal physiology and behavior.This episode of Big Biology is sponsored by the Hopkins Marine Station of Stanford University. Founded in 1892, Hopkins Marine Station is the oldest marine laboratory on America’s west coast conducting research that addresses fundamental questions at every level of marine biology, from genes to ecosystems.Cover art: Keating Shahmehri

Season 4 of Big Biology will kick off at the end of August. Before then, Art and Marty have a few updates to share:We're looking for new interns to join our team and help produce the show! Also, we're hiring an executive producer to help with management and episode production. The application is available on the USF career page for a limited time - please consider applying!Please send us an email at info@bigbiology.org with any questions. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit bigbiology.substack.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit bigbiology.substack.comIs artificial light at night partly responsible for insect declines? How does it affect nocturnal insects, especially fireflies and other species that need darkness to thrive?On this episode of Big Biology, we talk with Avalon Owens (@avalonceleste), a PhD candidate at Tufts University whose research aims to better understand the effects of artificial light at night (or ALAN) on insects. We discuss what light at night is doing to insect populations, why some insects are attracted to light, and how lights might be compromising the pollination services and disease risks mediated by some insects. We also discuss the fascinating light-centered behavior of the fireflies, specifically how man-made light disrupts their ability to find mates. We close with ideas about what you can do to help reduce the effects of artificial light on wildlife broadly. Spoiler alert: turn ‘em off or buy some damn curtains!This episode is sponsored by the Zoological Lighting Institute. Recognizing that natural light is a central aspect of animal health and ecological function, The Zoological Lighting Institute promotes scientific research to improve understanding of what artificial changes in light mean for animals and the human communities that depend on them. Through education on light pollution, ZLI hopes that proper and sustainable approaches to care and development of light sources can be taken by communities around the globe.Photo: Lupines and Fireflies No. 3 by Mike Lewinski (CC BY 2.0)

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit bigbiology.substack.comWhat has COVID-19 taught us about preparing for future epidemics? Can we trigger innate immune responses – our first lines of defense - to mitigate novel infections? Can we use live-attenuated vaccines (LAV) meant for other infections to protect us while we develop specific vaccines for new pathogens?On this episode, we talk to virologists Konstantin Chumakov and Robert Gallo about their recent paper entitled “Old vaccines for new infections”. They and their colleagues argue that we can fight novel pathogens, like SARS-COV2, by stimulating our innate immune systems with live-attenuated vaccines developed for other pathogens (e.g., measles, rubella, polio). Such an approach might buy us time, particularly for front-line health workers or the most vulnerable among us, while pathogen-specific vaccines are developed. Many LAVs are cheap, easy to distribute, and already available where SARS-COV2 is common but its vaccine is not. We talked with Chumakov and Gallo about the prospects of using the LAV approach for future pandemics, why we didn’t use them to control COVID, and the possible mechanisms by which these old vaccines wield their surprising power.Image: Number of people fully vaccinated against COVID-19 as of June 16, 2021 (collated by Our World in Data https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus). Total number of people who received all doses prescribed by the vaccination protocol. This data is only available for countries which report the breakdown of doses administered by first and second doses.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit bigbiology.substack.comWhat is agency? How does it evolve? Do non-living things have agency?On this episode of Big Biology, we talk with Tufts University professor Michael Levin about his recent article in Aeon magazine called ‘Cognition all the way down’. In it, Mike and Dan Dennett discuss the phenomenon of agency and what it means for biology, basic to medical. We discuss with Mike what it means to be an agent - whether you’re a metabolite, a cell, or a human - and how agency affects and is affected by evolution. We discuss how agents at different levels of organization influence each other, how agency research could change our thinking about the ethics of artificial intelligence, and how the internet has expanded collective human agency by broadening our cognitive horizons.If you missed our first chat with Mike on the role of bioelectric fields in development, tissue regeneration, and evolution, check that out here.Photo: Douglas Blackiston and Sam Kriegman

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit bigbiology.substack.comHow do organisms cope with long periods of tough conditions where regular life is impossible?  How do some animals turn down their metabolism to levels so low that they can appear dead?  How do animals emerge from such deep, low activity states?In this episode of Big Biology, we talk with Jason Podrabsky, a professor of biology at Portland State University, about diapause – a remarkable physiological state in which organisms turn down their metabolic rates to a bare minimum. Diapause is a way of living through harsh conditions while spending as little energy as possible. We talk with Jason about how organisms enter diapause, what happens inside them during diapause (more than you would think!), and how they reboot their systems to emerge from diapause. We focus on Jason’s work with the amazing annual killifish. In some species in this group, embryos can go into diapause and survive for months in the dry mud of ephemeral ponds, waiting for the next rain to arrive.Photo: Claire Riggs and Jason Podrabsky