This Podcast Will Kill You

Hemorrhagic virus? Check. Deadly disease? Check. Mosquito-borne? Check. Affected by animal movement, human activity, and environmental change? Check. Rift Valley Fever has all the markings of a classic TPWKY episode. This week, we’re doing a deep dive on this deadly virus, taking a One Health approach to explore the intricate relationships between animals, humans, and the environment to understand how this virus moves across the landscape. We trace the various paths this virus takes: through the organisms it infects, across the globe as it spreads, and over time as it appears to be evolving to be deadlier. Tune in to learn more about Rift Valley fever and what we might see with this pathogen in the years to come. Support this podcast by shopping our latest sponsor deals and promotions at this link: https://bit.ly/3WwtIAu [https://bit.ly/3WwtIAu] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

We are coming at you with our very first live episode from Perth, Australia! Here at the 2024 Australian Institute of Occupational Hygienists [https://www.aioh.org.au/] Annual Scientific Conference and Exhibition [https://www.aioh.org.au/annual-conference/], occupational hazards and exposures get top billing. And one of the most ubiquitous hazards, experienced by nearly every industry is fatigue, specifically fatigue caused by circadian rhythm disruption. In this very special episode, we explore how our circadian rhythms work and some of the consequences that can emerge when we work against those rhythms, whether that’s because we’re traveling across many time zones or switching to night shift work. We then dig into the history of circadian rhythm research, from how we first learned about these daily patterns to when their disruption became a routine occurrence. Helping us to navigate some of the alarmist headlines (“your screens are ruining your sleep!”) and biohacker claims (“avoid jet lag with this one simple trick!”) is Ian Dunican, PhD [https://sleep4performance.com/about/]. Dr. Dunican is the Director and Chief Adviser of Melius Consulting [https://meliusconsulting.com.au/], a scientific consultancy undertaking research, consulting, and education, and he also hosts and produces the Sleep4Performance podcast [https://sleep4performance.com/podcast/]. We also bring on Dr. John Iliff [https://reliis.com.au/john-iliff/], Emergency Physician and Aeromedical Consultant to share his frightening experience with fatigue after a long shift during his training as a physician. Tune in for a fascinating discussion about the rhythms that drive our lives! Support this podcast by shopping our latest sponsor deals and promotions at this link: https://bit.ly/3WwtIAu [https://bit.ly/3WwtIAu] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

Everyone’s got a favorite disease movie. What’s yours? Does it feature zombies like 28 Days Later (2002), or is it more grounded in reality, like Contagion (2011)? Does it end with a glimmer of hope or with a dose of despair? Who are the bad guys and who are the good guys? From the early days of disease movies like Panic in the Streets (1950) to more recent films like Little Joe (2019), these movies have provided endless entertainment, excitement, and opportunities to examine society itself. In this TPWKY book club episode, Robert Alpert [https://www.sensesofcinema.com/author/robert-alpert/], Dr. Merle Eisenberg [https://experts.okstate.edu/merle.eisenberg], and Dr. Lee Mordechai [https://huji.academia.edu/LeeMordechai] join us to discuss their book Diseased Cinema: Plagues, Pandemics, and Zombies in American Movies [https://bookshop.org/a/3175/9781399521666]. Diseased Cinema approaches the genre of disease-themed movies with the goal of understanding what these movies say about our hopes, our fears, our anxieties, and how these perspectives have shifted over the decades. When did faith in our government’s problem solving give way to rugged self-reliance? Why did people start to view science as the bad guy rather than the source of salvation? Tune in for a fascinating discussion that will stay on your mind long after your next movie night. And also check out Merle and Lee’s excellent podcast Infectious Historians [https://infectioushistorians.com/]! Support this podcast by shopping our latest sponsor deals and promotions at this link: https://bit.ly/3WwtIAu [https://bit.ly/3WwtIAu] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

Yes, the world may be out to get us with allergens around every corner, but we’ve got some tricks up our sleeve to help us cope. Our allergy treatment toolkit includes an impressive suite of tools, and in the second episode of our two-part series on allergies, we focus on three in particular: antihistamine medications, allergy shots, and the epinephrine auto-injector (aka the EpiPen). We take you through how exactly each of these work, trace their development from concept to product, and highlight some of the most promising areas of allergy treatment research today. Have you ever wondered why we have so many different types of antihistamines? Or thought about what the Cold War has to do with the EpiPen? Then this is the episode for you. Support this podcast by shopping our latest sponsor deals and promotions at this link: https://bit.ly/3WwtIAu [https://bit.ly/3WwtIAu] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

Sometimes it seems like the world is out to get us: bees in our garden, pollen in the air, nuts in our brownies, any number of other things that could trigger an allergic reaction ranging from itchy eyes and a runny nose all the way to anaphylaxis. Why must our bodies react in such over-the-top ways to these seemingly innocuous substances? In the first episode of our two-parter on allergies, we explore that very question. From the biological basis of an allergic reaction to the potential evolutionary significance of allergies, from the history of their discovery to the global status of allergies today, we cover it all. Tune in today! Support this podcast by shopping our latest sponsor deals and promotions at this link: https://bit.ly/3WwtIAu [https://bit.ly/3WwtIAu] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]