TWiV 1287: Ancient herpesviruses and modern dementia

This Week in Virology

Vincent Racaniello

Virus, Science & Medicine, Microbe, Twiv, Racaniello, Infectious, Pathogen, Vincent, Virology, Infection, Medicine, Microbiology

4.8 • 2.2K Ratings

🗓️ 11 January 2026

⏱️ 105 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

TWiV explain the tracing of 2500 years of human betaherpesvirus 6A and 6B diversity through ancient human DNA, the effect of shingles vaccination at different stages of the dementia disease course. Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Alan Dove, Rich Condit, and Brianne Barker Subscribe (free): Apple Podcasts, RSS, email Become a patron of TWiV! Links for this episode Support science education at MicrobeTV ASV 2026 Positions in Rosenfeld Lab (email) Ancient human herpesvirus 6 (Sci Adv) First through sixth diseases (Merck Manual) Effect of shingle vaccination on different stages of dementia (Cell) Letters read on TWiV 1287 Timestamps by Jolene Ramsey. Thanks! Weekly Picks Brianne – TWiM Annotations and Resources Book for Teaching Alan – Starter Villain, by John Scalzi Rich – Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas, by John Scalzi Vincent – Mina’s Matchbox by Yoko Ogawa Listener Picks Rona – Maggie and Millie and Molly and May by Natalie Merchant Owen – How to get the vaccines you need now Intro music is by Ronald Jenkees Send your virology questions and comments to [email protected] Content in this podcast should not be construed as medical advice.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This week in Virology, the podcast about viruses, the kind that make you sick.
0:10.3	From MicrowTV, this is Twiv, this week in Virology.
0:15.8	Episode 1287 recorded on January 9th, 2026. I'm Vincent Rackeniello, and you're listening to the podcast
0:25.3	All About Viruses. You see, I got the year right. Only nine days in, I got the year right.
0:32.5	Joining me today from Austin, Texas, Rich Condit. Hi, Vincent.
0:46.2	We've got, according to the weather channel, 70 degrees, according to my window, overcast.
0:56.4	It has not yet, at least in Mancheck where I live, frozen this year, which is some kind of record.
1:02.4	And it, you know, a lot of people think it's nice to have these warm winters.
1:07.7	I find them depressing because they are evidence that we're screwing up the planet.
1:09.9	Sorry to be so negative, but there you go.
1:13.2	That's, that's, That's how I roll.
1:17.3	It's okay to be negative.
1:19.3	The years already started out really badly.
1:26.2	Here we had a couple of weeks of sub-zero Celsius, okay, so 32 Fahrenheit.
1:28.5	Sub zero temperatures is really painful, and in the last few days it warmed up if
1:33.1	9 degrees Celsius can be warm.
1:35.7	So that's very good.
1:36.6	It feels a lot easier.
1:38.7	Also joining us from Western Massachusetts, Alan Dove.
1:41.8	Good to be here.
1:42.6	And yeah, it's a gray overcast day here, rainy, 46 Fahrenheit 8C, and
1:49.8	73% humidity. So it's kind of a, yeah, not an unusual, not an unusual winter day here.
	...

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