Attack of the Mutants

Big Picture Science

Science, Technology

4.6 • 986 Ratings

🗓️ 20 December 2021

⏱️ 54 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The omicron variant is surging. More contagious than delta, omicron demonstrates how viruses use mutations to quickly adapt. Mutations drive evolution, although most don’t do much. But occasionally a mutation improves an organism. Omicron, the latest in a string of variants, is bad for us, but good for the virus. How mutation of viruses ensures their own survival while threatening ours, and the prospect of a universal vaccine that would protect us against all a viruses’ variants. Guests: Robert Garry – Professor of microbiology and virologist in the Tulane University School of Medicine Kevin Saunders – Professor in the Duke University School of Medicine’s Human Vaccine Institute and professor of surgery Featuring music by Dewey Dellay. Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science. You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to an airwave media podcast.
0:05.0	The world is filled with many questions such as, did giants exist?
0:09.0	What is junk DNA?
0:10.4	Does it mean that you're trash?
0:11.8	Do you ever wonder if aliens have underwater bases in our oceans and that's why there are so many
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0:20.8	How serious even is climate change and when should we start building our rafts?
0:25.0	Hello everyone, you may recognize me as Gabby from the History of Everything podcast.
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0:34.6	scientists who explore the answers to these questions and many many more in our new
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1:04.0	That's What's New with Wired, wherever you get your podcasts. It might help to think of viral on slots such as the delton omicron coron coron virus variants as attacks of the
1:25.9	mutants because that's what they are pathogens created by genetic mutations.
1:30.5	Now we've been pretty good at fending them off, but aside from getting more people
1:34.6	vaccinated and boosted, can we do better? Can we use what we know about mutations to create a
1:40.4	more elegant and useful defense against coronavirus or even seasonal flu.
1:46.0	That is a single vaccine to fend off all variants.
	...

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