Hi.
Hi, I'm Aaron Welsh and I'm Aaron Olman Updyke.
And this is this podcast will kill.
You ask us things.
Yes, we have a very special edition this week. We a couple of weeks ago, or a few episodes ago, anyway, it's like a while ago. Now, a while ago. We asked you all to send us your questions about anything and everything, and wow, did you do that? It was it was incredible. We got hundreds of questions. Excellent questions they were. It was super fun to read through. Yeah, it's gonna be it's gonna be great.
I'm excited.
Yeah. Unfortunately we won't be able to answer all. However, many hundreds of questions we got. Not but yeah today anyway, but we have selected sort of a variety, yes, a little buffet of different options.
Yeah, we tried to like mix it up, throwing them at you in a random ish shorder.
Yeah, we're gonna see how this goes. I think I think I'm a little nervous about it. Me too, I'm really sure. Okay, well, uh yeah, to calm our nerves. Just kidding, terrible idea to do that. We are starting with our quarantine and plussy burta this week. So, Aaron, what are you drinking?
I'm drinking, Oh, passion fruit La Croix. That not a mad, This is.
Not a mad.
Oh, I should say generic passion fruit flavored sparkling water.
There we go, and I am drinking cloudberry sayson Ooh that sounds really tasty. It's really tasty. We didn't plan a specific quarantini this week because we wanted to just sort of go with the flow.
And yeah, so pull up your favorite bev yeah and drink that while you listen.
Is your favorite bev A? I mean generic sparkling water passion.
Fruit flag These days, it's like the most exciting beverage that I drink.
So well, okay, but you know it's.
A it's a good choice. I would say, if you're on the Plassy Burta train. Yeah, there we go, There we go. Oh okay, okay, So should we uh?
Should we jump in? I think so? I don't.
I don't think we ever have any real business to cover, do we?
No, we never do, we never do. I think that's okay, and I think that's great.
So let's jump in with our first question. Okay, speaking of quarantinies.
So our first question comes from Paisley, who asked how do you come up with quarantinies and what essential liquors or liqueurs would you recommend for a budget mixologist? Such a fun question, and we also got a related question which we will answer probably in this immediately after this, whether whether either of us were ever bartenders.
Yeah, ooh, so how do we come up with our quarantinies? That's kind of a kind of a pretty random process.
Usually, oh my gosh. Usually sometimes there's a guiding force, like with Burning Love, which was the one for our gonerhea episode, we knew that we wanted to have something that was like burning right or hot or spicy, something spicy, yeah, and then we kind of just went from there. Yeah, I think it.
Sometimes we come up with the name first, and then the name sort of guides us, like what types of liquors should there be in a drink of this name? But a lot of times we're just like, what liquor do we think matches with gonorrhea?
Yeah? Or what do I not need to go to the store to get that too?
That's very real.
Out of sheer laziness, what do I have in my pantry? Which is then given birth to a lot of these simple syrups that we've incorporated, which is fun.
Yeah, simple syrups we've learned are a great way to add more flavor and pizzazz to your drinks without having to spend a bunch of money on these fancy liqueurs that you would use like one time.
Right, And so that kind of goes into that second question is what lick or the cores would we recommend for someone who's wanting to stay on a budget, because talk about an expensive hobby and also unhealthy.
Very expensive and unhealthy hobby.
I would say I think that we looked into this once. There was like a bartender Bible that I got from the library, and it's like, uh, definitely bitters, bitters for sure. Essential a whiskey of some kind, like a mild whiskey probably would be the best. And uh, I feel like sweet remouth was on there.
I think a sweet vermouth was on there. And I think I think you have to have tequila on your barcart. Maybe that's a personal opinion.
Okay, So let's say let's say that I moved to Finland and I went to for instance, just a random example throwing it out there, and I had to go and stock an entire liquor cabinet. What would I get? What did you get?
Probably vodka, whiskey.
I got some vodka, I got whiskey, I got gin. I didn't get rum, but that's just a personal choice. Yeah, I think eventually I got rum, sweet vermooth, campari bitters. Yeah.
And then as long as you have lemon juice and lime juice or citrus juices that you can have on hand, you can make a ton of drinks with just those items, and then some kind of simple syrup.
So for that you just need sugar.
Yeah.
Water. Yeah, you can do so much with the amount you can do with with simple syrup and club soda.
Yes, is amazing.
Yeah. Yeah, fun question.
And neither of us have been bartenders.
No, we were. We did discuss. I have dated a bartender.
And my husband was once a bartender.
So I think we've had exposure to the biz. Oh that's fun.
Okay. The next question, this is very cute. How did we meet? Ask Hannah and Rachel?
How did we meet? Okay, so here's what I remember. Tell me, I was in my office on campus, which I was the only person in that office, and I loved it because there was that nuclear fall sign on the door, like from the actual nineteen sixties and seventies. Yeah. Uh, And I was there working on a Friday and you knocked on the door and said, Hi, is this are you Aaron and I And then from that point I was like, oh, great, there's this is the this is
the other Aaron that I've been promised. And I think it was a couple hours from five, which was when the grad student happy hour started. So I said you should come and we'll hang out. And that was yeah. Yeah, that was the rest is history. Pretty much. I met because we were in the same lab, right, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, so we did our PhDs in the same but yeah, the very first time we met you, you didn't just say, oh you should come. You said, oh, there's happy hour, you're coming.
That sounds lucky.
Yeah, You're like, here's where it is, here's what time. I'll introduce you to everybody. It was fantastic, It was great.
Yeah, and then we pretty much had like that that first semester, even became almost instant best friends. We had at least one dance movie marathon night. Oh yes, oh.
Yes, in my old, very crappy apartment.
That was yeah, I think that's when I was still living in that in that house with like fourteen other people or sixteen other people.
That's why we did it at my apartment. Yeah's exactly why.
Yeah, you're exactly right, that's exactly right. Okay, going off of the rails here. This is fun.
Yeah, okay, this is fun. Okay, I'm feeling less nervous.
Yeah, me too. Good. Oh but then here comes this question. Oh gosh, so someone who is a peach decandidate in medieval studies asked, what role do you see the humanities and social science is playing in fields like epidemiology, medicine, and other areas of scientific research.
Gosh, we went from like I can do this to.
Like have talk about that's like the full roller coaster of a PhD.
Yeah, that's so true. This is a great question though.
Yeah, that's a great question. Yeah.
I feel like the humanities and social sciences are super important in fields like medicine and science, and I think they're often overlooked and not taught in schools as much. And so I think that's one of the things I really love about what we get to do in this podcast is try and incorporate a little bit of that and like humanize a lot of the biology and medicine.
Yeah, I agree, and I think that lately there has been more of a trend, or more of a push towards integrating these seemingly disparate fields in specific social science research with hardcore ecology or epidemiology. I think bridging those gaps and actually having people talk to one another not only can you allow for more information to be exchanged, but you also have different perspectives, and that's really valuable.
When you ask somebody who's in social sciences or humanities, what do you see as the most interesting question or the challenges to do research in this area, You're going to get a very different answer than you would if you ask someone in medicine or epidemiology. Although the trend is in that direction, I think that the world would benefit greatly from even more connectivity between those fields.
Very well said, I agree entirely.
Thanks.
Okay, here's an easier question. Multiple people wanted to know Kyriana justin Meghan. They all want to know, how do we record into different locations?
Two different locations? Hmmmm? Okay, Well, I am currently in Finland and it is around ten pm and it's late, but it's still very bright outside. So the joys of summer legitimate joy. It's wonderful and you're in Illinois. And so what we do is, this is just kind of
a logistical answer to this question. But we both have Skype, so we're looking at each other's faces while we're doing this, and we both are recording on microphones on our individual computers, and then we will align the tracks in a on audio editing software and then we'll go from there. Yeah.
Yeah, we found that that's the way that makes it sound the most, Like we get the best sound quality when we each record ourselves separately and mix it together.
So yeah, it took a little bit of trying, but I think it's yeah, it's all right.
It's not quite as much fun when I only see your face on a computer screen, but definitely it does that track me.
Okay. We got several questions along these lines, so I don't know if I have a few of the names written down, but in general, basically break down for the audience what degrees we have, and then after that what we currently do for our work.
Do you want to go first or do you want me to go first?
You go first?
Okay, So I did my undergrad degrees bachelors in aquatic biology and global studies, so not disease related. And then I did a master's in epidemiology, and then my PhD in entomology where I studied Shagas disease. And I'm working on my MD. So I don't have a real job. I'm still a student forever.
I think that that's a pretty real job you get all the time.
It's true, it's true. So right now I'm in my clinical years of my medical school degree. I've got two years left. Hah, wish me luck everyone luck?
What about you? Oh? Okay, So it's funny. We've always talked about how we're basically the same person. Yes, so we do have some parallel shared history there in some way. I have a bachelor's of science and biology. I have a master's of science in epidemiology, and my PhD was in ecology, evolution and conservation biology. And right now I am a postdoctoral researcher in Finland. We're researching questions looking
at the role of different wildlife species in disease transmission. Awesome, yeah, it's pretty wonderful.
Okay, the next question. I like this question.
This is fun.
Is from Micah who asked, how much do you know about what the other Aaron is going to be talking about?
This is a great question. It's such a good question question. We know very very little, like and we do this on purpose. We learned I think. I think it was when we recorded the very first episode and I was researching it and I couldn't stop talking to you about it before we recorded, and then we were both like, wait a second, we need to stop talking about this
and capture this, like we should be recording. First of all, that's like twice the amount of work if I have to learn the biology of something on my own, I don't want to learn the history.
That's why. That's why you do it.
And so yeah, so that's it is we do go into a blonde and yes, there are some things, of course that that we might know more about than others, but there are so many other things always that that we're each going to learn.
Yeah, I think that's we decided to do that because we wanted for this podcast to be conversational and relax and I think that's one of the things that keeps it that way, is that we get to learn what you guys are learning at the same time, which is really really fun.
Yeah.
Yeah, so I'm not lying when I say what some people think I'm faking it.
I'm not dumb. We're not faking it. I'm a terrible actress. So really, okay, okay, all right this. I am so excited to read this email. This email was so cute that we wanted to read it out specifically. Yeah, okay, here we go. This email has been dictated by nine year old Autumn with help from six year old.
Read I'm dead already, Yes, I know, I know.
Dear Eron's. Your podcast is so good. I want to listen to it every night, even if I get scared, Like with the yellow fever episode. I like that you tell the history and biology of dangerous pathogens. Please do another crossover episode with indefensive plants. You're welcome, and maybe an episode about strep throat. That would be a great idea. Definitely on our list. I want to know if you go to your local library to find information, because my
mom is a teacher of librarians and we love the library. Yes, I love to go to my local library. The library is my happy place. Like am I'm not lying that one of my favorite memories of during my PhD in Illinois is when it would snow in the winter on a weekend and I would wake up and the ground everywhere would be covered with fresh snow, and I would put on my boots and grab my jacket and walk however long it was, to the library and just grab a book and start reading and just sit there for hours.
Yeah, we love libraries. They're fantastic libraries.
Okay, but there's more here, and there's more. How old are you? This is from Reid, who's the six year old? And also what were you like when you were not?
So I can say how we can say how old we are? Right, that's fine. Sure, I'm thirty one now just turned.
I'm thirty two.
Oh and what were we like when we were nine? I was very nerdy?
Tell me more about that.
Well, okay, so when I was nine, I think was when we moved from San Diego to Irvine, and so I didn't have a lot of friends obviously, like I moved to a brand new school and stuff like that.
And one of my mom's.
Favorite stories to tell about me when I was nine and a budding hufflepuff is that my mom was asking the teacher like, oh, how is Aaron doing? You know, is she settling it?
Okay?
And the teacher was like, yeah, you know. About a week after she started, we had uh, what do you call it? Student council elections, and Aaron decided to run.
Wow.
I am not surprised I lost to you guys, but I was like, yeah, sure, that sounds cool.
I would do student council.
I'll run for That's the kind of kid I was when I was nine, just like no concept of the fact that I had no friends at this new school.
What did you do after school? What kind of what kind of things did you do?
I don't know. I have such a bad memory. I can't remember. I made a good friend as soon as we moved there, Darren shout out. So I probably just hung out with her and her sister all the time, did whatever they wanted to do. What were you like when you were nine? Would we have been friends?
Yes, yeah, we would have been friends of course. Also, it's really funny, I didn't know that that's when you moved from San Diego to irvine' that's around when I moved from Florida to Kentucky.
Oh okay, you're like nine, and fourth grade. Right, that's about right.
That was right before fourth grade. I started fourth grade and in Kentucky we.
Moved in the middle of the fourth grade year.
Oh wow, we are we are even more the same person than previously realized. How fun. Let's see though, when I was nine, I was I mean, I was reading all the time. That was actually when I first really, I think, fell in love with reading books, like reading fiction books. My fourth grade teacher gave me, Missus Larson gave me Animorphs and The Hobbit and both of that. So it's already shaping shaping my very very nerdy personality.
And that's when I was like, wow, you can really there's a whole world that you can just lose yourself in, and it was really wonderful. I spent a lot of time outside. I was always running through the woods, running at playing soccer constantly. We built like a I remember that year we built a haunted trail in the woods of Kentucky. It was moving from Florida to Kentucky. Wasn't
that traumatic for me? I think I was excited because my favorite summer holidays we would go to western North Carolina and the Smokies and I would just spend the whole time playing in creeks and catching fireflies and running around and so to be in Kentucky and hookwork and so to be in Kentucky and get to be outside all the time was amazing. I still remember that the magic of like you mean that there's I can just run around here.
Still, that's so cute, baby, Aaron.
So a nerdy, nerdy kid that just ran around outside.
I bet we would have had fun together.
Definitely.
Okay, this is the fun. Also, Autumn Read and their mom Christy, thank you so much.
That was the cutest email. Yeah, you loved it.
The next question from jin easy peas are you a cat or dog person?
Oh, this is a really challenge. Just kidding, I'm a dog person.
If there was ever any doubt, Aaron Welsh is not a cat person.
I'm formally declaring for dogs right now.
I love both cats and dogs. I don't want to declare for one or the other because I love them both.
I can see, yeah, play on both sides. Keep it everyone happy. That heffle puff, that's what you know.
But I was on an episode of the per Cast, so I feel like that gives me some cat person cred you know what I mean?
Sure, I don't know.
I feel like it does. I thought I wasn't a cat person enough to be on it, but I felt very at home there, so.
I think I just I would like to say I had a horrible experience with a cat growing up. Our family cat was was pure evil, and I'm sure that even people who are cat people can't acknowledge that some cats can be pure evil.
Yeah. I have dogs too, I mean, oh, absolutely absolutely.
But I could go into all of the merits of dogs, but I won't. I will save it for another episode. Yeah, yeah, Okay. This question from Jenna is what is your favorite part of making the podcast? Oh?
That's a good question. My absolute favorite part. I feel like I have a lot of favorite parts. Do you have one specific good answer for this?
No, I feel like I don't have a good answer for any of these.
I feel like my favorite part that I wasn't expecting.
How about that? Sure?
Is how positive and amazing the feedback has been. I love hearing from people that love this podcast. It's still so overwhelming to me to think that people are voluntarily listening to us talk and enjoying it, and then telling them are friends about it.
That's the thing that.
Really I was telling my husband today, actually, how much that blows my mind, Like on Twitter, to see people recommending us to their friends the way that I recommend podcasts that I listen to friends. That's it's really overwhelmingly exciting. That's I think one of my favorite things. I didn't ever expect to happen.
Yeah, it's very surreal. Like I look at those those comments and I think, oh, that's happening to someone else, that's not me, that's not us. No h But I think I think one of my favorite parts of making the podcast is recording the podcast. So there are so many things that you love that go into exactly well, there are so many things that go into the prep to make the episode and then to edit it and to you know, add music, and then to find this the social media images that we put on there and
that all these things. But I think that it's such a huge payoff to act actually sit down and record and tell that story and sort of have that like because it is like it is, we're just nerding out over diseases, and that's true fun. It's really fun. I can't believe that we'd like get to do this, I know. Yeah, so all of it is amazing. Agreed.
Next question from Shannon is what is your go to drink when you order something.
I have an immediate answer for this question. Give it to me then, Okay, well I have two answers. One I would say is for winter months, that would be an old fashioned preferably made with Woodford Reserve. Once again, not an ad, just one of my personal favorites, Rowan Creek. There are some great bourbons out there, so but yeah, old reliable Woodford. And then I think my other absolute favorite is Gen and Tonic Classics.
I don't have a go to drink. I think I've always wanted to have a go to drink, but I've never really fallen so deeply in love with one thing that I could just order that. I will say that since I haven't been drinking for many months, the thing I miss the most is tequila.
And Rose, hanging out with you at your house. When we'd be like, let's make something, it was often a Manhattan I.
Do love Manhattan's. I love Manhattan's, but I also am just like those are the things I know how to make very easily. So sometimes when I go to a bar, I get very nervous, so I just order like a Manhattan or an Old Fashioned because I know what that is and I know I can order it. Because I get nervous about looking stupid.
I don't know that.
I also love a boulevardia. I will say that.
Was a oh yeah, a fave.
Yeah yeah.
There's a whole world of drink out there.
On that note, perhaps it's time for a quick break.
Yes, go make yourself a custom quarantine.
Your favorite version, and we're back. We're back, Okay.
So I have a question from Lindsay who asked how do you deal with people who accuse you of being in the pocket of big farmer or whatever? And as I was going through these questions, I also found another one that was similar along the same vein, which is how do you navigate a friendship with an anti vax friend. These are very good questions and difficult ones, really difficult questions. Do you have a good answer? Again, you asked me if I have a good answer. Of course I don't
have a good answer. I can put together and answer, do you have a good answer?
I don't have a good answer, except I do think it's important to keep in mind that yelling at people has pretty much never solved anything ever. Yeah, but it's hard, I think to not let your own frustrations when you know, when you have friends or family members maybe who are
being or not willing to listen to reason. Sometimes I think it's it can be really difficult, But as much as you can, I think trying to maintain communication can be really helpful because maybe someday you would be able to have a conversation with someone like that where you can at least present your side of the information in a way that's not judgmental, and then maybe someday they might listen.
Yeah, it's hard, I mean I think I think it's it's especially hard because you have to make this judgment call of whether the energy that you're putting into this, both both emotional energy and the just the time and effort into talking to this person and trying to convince them that you're not in the pocket of big pharma, or that vaccines truly work and are safe. It's some people are more vaccine hesitant than they are anti vacs,
for instance. Yeah, and so identifying those people and maintaining this space where you can talk about it in a way that's like comfort, like comforting or comfortable. That's that's really important. And maybe sometimes they just want someone to listen to what they have to say and say like are my concerns valid? And sometimes like yeah, maybe, like of course you're concerned for your child, you're concerned about whatever.
But sometimes they're looking for validation, and if you don't provide that, that can be difficult to talk with them. You know. I think that everyone has a duty I feel to at least try. Yeah. Once then it becomes more of a judgment call of is this actually making any progress? And I think that this is a bigger picture thing that I'm about to say. But in this political climate where we tend to make our own bubbles, that's that isolation there, that complete lack of connect between
one group and another group. That is not necessarily progress. I don't know how progress is going to be made, but I like maintaining that bubble or that echo chamber isn't the way.
You know, a piece of advice I heard, So this is not my advice, but I thought that this was a really good piece of advice when I heard it. Was that sometimes there might be people in your life who are kind of distant friends or friends of friends, or you know, distant relations or something that you know have a stance that's maybe very very out there, and you know that if you tried to talk to them, they would never listen to you, because who are you
to them? You are a distant friend, or you don't know them very well, but maybe you know someone who knows them better. And so sometimes talking to people that you are closer with who maybe just don't feel comfortable talking about these issues and helping to educate them so that they could be better intermediates between you and the person who's farther away from you, but maybe also farther down the spectrum of anti vas vaccine.
Does that make sense?
Yeah?
I think it's. I think it's empowering people with knowledge and information who may not necessarily feel inclined to go out and pass along that message. Maybe.
Yeah, exactly, yeah, exactly.
Yeah. All right.
Well, the next question is a fun one. Are humans reservoir hosts for any diseases that infect animals?
It's questions from gen and yes, humans are. Yeah.
I think we talk more often about diseases that spill over from animals into humans, right, Zoonotic diseases, But there are a number of different diseases that humans are sort of the more definitive hosts that we can also give to animals. Things like tuberculosis you can.
Spread both ways.
Yep.
Even influenza you can give to your dog. We see that going back and forth between a lot of different animals. There's a lot of other ones. This is the only question where I looked up to be able to have an answer for, because I liked the question, but I was like, oh, I can't name a bunch of diseases off the top of my head. Mumps, salmonella, these are fun. Girardia, Oh my gosh, gerard Yeah that makes sense. Paras, Yeah, it goes both ways.
Probably the list is probably a lot shorter for a couple of reasons. One is because humans will interact with all different kinds of animals, Like a high number of humans will interact with many different kinds of animals in ways that might make exposure more likely, like such as slaughtering an animal. You know. But I think that the number the proportion of animals that will interact with humans of a particular species is a lot lower, And so that's maybe one of the reasons why that other kind
of spillover is less common. And I think in addition, it's probably just a lack of knowledge about wildlife diseases tots.
I think that's very accurate, that it probably happens a lot more often than we're even aware of.
Oh yeah, I'm sure that the diversity of parasites and pathogens and animals is incredibly high that we just don't have any idea. Yeah, so fun.
Don't cough on your dog or share poop.
Yeah. Also, don't let them lick your face when you're sick. Yeah, you can get them sick. Yeah. Liz A asked what did you want to be when you were little?
Oh, gosh, I wanted to be a lot of different things. I think I definitely wanted to be a vet. I'm pretty sure at some point I wanted to be Bill Ny, the science guy. That was probably my number one was long lasting. I wanted to be a teacher. I wanted Yeah, I don't Bill Ny, the science Guid's who I wanted to be.
Hmmm, I wanted to be a vet and then Jeff Corwin.
So we are the same person, which is slightly God, that's funny.
Yeah, God, I love Jeff Corwin. I mean I also loved Steve Irwin, but for some reason I loved like Jeff Corwin is what I taped like I taped on VHS.
I feel like he's the dorkier version, so I feel like it was just your No. I mean I loved Jeff Crown also, but it's you know, he did have like.
The worst joke sometimes and it was just so corny, and I loved it. I've genuinely loved it.
It's fantastic.
Oh my god. Okay.
The next question is from Amy, who asked.
How do you find your references.
Google?
Well, yes and no. Sometimes it's a lot easier than other times. Yea, sometimes there's a book about preons, sometimes there's a book about whatever. I go to Google scholar and I look for certain keywords. Another resource that I have actually used, and I will freely admit to this is Wikipedia. The citations in the Wikipedia article. That has
been varyingly helpful depending on what I'm researching. But a lot of it is Google, and a lot of it is sort of having a bank of books that have are more encyclopedic in nature, and then I just kind of do down the rabbit hole reference tracking. Yeah.
Yeah, I also start often with Wikipedia. There's no shame in doing that. Wikipedia has a lot of great sources. You just have to then go one step further in finding where they found their information from. I also heavily use the CDC and who websites and then Google scholar. That's where I get all of my That's where I get most of my info.
Yeah.
Google Scholar, for those who might not be familiar, is where you can find peer reviewed literature. So primary literature sources about various pretty much every topic.
Ever, it doesn't necessarily mean that everything that's on Google scholar.
Is peer reviewed, No, it does not, but for.
Ones where you see a lot of citations, that is more than likely going to be peer reviewed. Yeah.
So yeah, yeah, Okay, Okay, I have.
A question about antibiotics. Okay, some more specific question here we go, all right, why so why do we need antibiotics for infections that we've had before? Okay, before you answer that question, because I think you'll do a better job answering it than I will. There's there's a correction,
and so I want to quickly make this correct. And so the person that wrote this in I really appreciate them setting this because this was sort of a throwaway comment that I made about positive reinforcement or negative reinforcement, and I used it incorrectly. So here's what they said towards the end of So this is in the first vaccine episode. Towards the end, we were talking about Australia
and the utilization of positive reinforcement for vaccination. You guys got that term right, but when you were talking about how if you're not up to date on vaccinations, people would show up. That is actually type one or positive punishment, as opposed to negative reinforcement. So both positive and negative reinforcement, they go on to say, will increase the likelihood of someone engaging in a particular behavior. Positive just means presenting
something to bring about or affect a behavior. Conversely, negative means removing something to affect a behavior. So, with regards to vaccinations, positively reinforcing someone forgetting vaccinated, we would be something like giving them one hundred dollars after they received the vaccination. And an example of negatively reinforcing someone would be if you're being super annoying to them, asking them
every minute, why aren't you getting vaccinated? And then stop contingent upon them receiving the vaccination, So you would be removing i e. Negatively reinforcing the annoying stimulus of bombard of bombarding them with questions. So thank you very much for sending that that correction. I learned a lot and I will try very hard to incorporate that into my language, my vocabulary.
Yeah. So, yeah, we're definitely not experts on a lot of things, so let us know when we get things like that wrong.
Thats great, Okay, So why do we need antibiotics for infections that we've had before?
This is a good question and we had a couple of similar ones too, about like what this touches on the idea of what a strain is, what a strain of a pathogen is. So for some pathogens, they have
a lot of variation. So even though they have a lot of variation in the proteins on their surface that our immune system responds to, and so even though we've been exposed to them in the past and we've mounted an immune response, the next time that we're exposed it's a slightly different bacteria or in some cases, like with influenza, a slightly different virus. So we're not completely immune. Even though we've been exposed to say, strep pneumonia before. There
are like hundreds and hundreds of different strains different. They just look a little bit different on the outside, so our body doesn't recognize them precisely, which means that we're not able to fight off the infection completely. Does that?
Is that a good answer? Makes sense to me? Oh? Good, great job, great job.
Okay, Oh this is fun, Elin or Ellen. Perhaps I might have pronounced it wrong.
Wants to know.
Do you prefer lab work or field work? Field work that was easy for you?
That was easy. Field work is my lifeblood. I could do field work and just forever and ever and ever.
I prefer neither. I'm a little bit burnt out on research at the moment. Maybe ask me again in a couple of years. Okay, I'm enjoying clinical work right now. How about that during your PhD?
What did you like more? Gosh, I don't know.
I don't know, Aaron, I liked parts of the field work. I liked I liked parts of the field work. Our field work was it has had a lot of challenges to it. I think I would have liked it a lot more if I wasn't alone doing it, you had helpers. Yeah, but you know, all of the coordination and all of the things that go into field work are not my favorite.
But lab work can get quite tedious, and it's also you sometimes get like automatic results, which is very exciting because it's satisfying, like at the end of the day, you know that you've done all of this. So I don't know, they both. I enjoy them both in small quantities.
I think. I mean, I definitely I enjoy lab work, and I prefer lab and field work to grant writing for example, big time. Yeah, but leeah, lab work does get tedious, but I also love it. She just pop in some some earbuds and listen to some podcasts or music or books on tape. But yeah, field work is I could. That's where your soul is. It is it is. Okay, So we have a question from someone who so we asked everyone to send their question and also say whether
they cared about if their name was said on air. Yeah, and this person said, you have my permission, and I dare you because their name Greg, their last name is very difficult to pronounce, and I don't know if I'm going to touch it.
Oh, Greg, Greg got us. We're not going to touch your last name, Greg, Yeah, but we'll read your question.
We will. Greg would love to know how someone can still be symptomatic but no longer contagious. So how are these guidelines established? That's a fun question. It is a fun question.
I don't know if there's a specific way that the guidelines are established necessarily, but it is going to vary for every disease, and it's essentially just dependent on how long you are shedding that virus or bacteria. So for some infections, like influenza, you are shedding a high amount of virus before you ever begin to show symptoms, and then the majority of the symptoms that you see are not necessarily from the virus itself, but from your body
fighting off that infection. So then towards the end of when you're feeling sick, though you might still be feeling creddy, you're not shedding the virus, and so then you're no longer contagious.
Does that make sense? That makes sense to me. I wonder if it's like the number of viral particles that is like used to or that is able to cause an infection in another person, or like the bacterial load or something like that.
And it probably also depends too on whether the symptoms that you're seeing are from the infection itself or from your body fighting off the infection, right, because if something like diarrhea, if you're still actively having diarrhea with something like girardia, then you're still pooping out active parasite, so then you're still infectious the whole time that you have
that diarrhea. But with something else like flu where you're just maybe you know, having a residual cough that might just be from all of the immune cells that have sort of built up in your system even though you've your body has fought off the viral infections such that you're not shedding active virus when you cough.
Your body or to the end recovering from the infection. Yeah. I wonder how much person to person variation there is.
But there's tons. Yeah, that's a fun question though, Greg.
Yes, thanks Greg.
Do you remember in in Succession when he says cousin Greg in the best way ever?
When is that show coming back?
I think September? Okay, okay, okay, this is cousin Greg. Next question is what is the role of climate change?
In infectious disease. Oh, this is really really easy one to answer. It's it's going to be a very short answer. Just kidding, I'm actually I am going to keep it very short, but because the answer is very complex and very varied. So one thing is certain, and that is that climate change will impact infectious diseases. I can give you a few different instances or a few different examples
of how it might do that. I think primarily when people think of climate change and infectious disease, they think of it in terms of vector born diseases. So those are ones that are transmitted by arthropod vectors such as ticks or mosquitoes. And that's because as climate change happens, the environment is going to change, and that will change the distribution or the seasonality of these different insect or
arthropod life cycles. So, for instance, something like lime disease, as things get warmer, that might make the tick more able that transmit it, that transmits it more able to live at higher latitudes or and higher altitudes depending on where you are. And then there's things like just seasonality and impacting the amount of humidity that you have. And
it's no matter what disease system you're working on. No matter what geography you're researching in, this is going to be a very complex question and a very complex answer. Even the answer is typically it depends even if you say something like lime disease, what is going to happen with lime disease and climate change depends on where you are,
depends on what animals are around you. And that's the beauty of ecology and also sort of the difficulty in trying to predict or alleviate some of the negative effects of climate change on infectious diseases. And then there's the whole landscape change and urbanization, and that's a whole nother bag of fleas that I won't go into.
Great answer, Aaron, thanks job, Thank you.
Okay, a bunch of people I asked a question and I'll name a few of them. So we have Claire and Emily and Maggie another Aaron, Andrew, Justin, Sarah McKenna, Scarlet, Jesse, etcetera, etcetera. Lily, we have a bunch of people who asked us how did we get into epidemiology and what steps are necessary to become an epidemiologist?
Oh, so, like, how did we get interested in epidemiology. Yeah, sure, I have an easy answer for this one.
You're good.
So I in undergrad wanted to be a shark biologist. That was my goal in life. And it wasn't until I took an ecological parasitology class that I became interested in disease. And it was kind of a life changeing moment for me in terms of as soon as I started learning about these parasites and how complex their life cycles were and the impact that they have on people, I was completely hooked and knew that I had to study something about disease and parasites. So that was what
sort of sparked it for me. And I went to armand Curus, who taught that class, and I said, help me, what do I do with my life. I'm about to graduate and I need to change everything about what I want to do. And he was like, don't worry about it, go get your master's in public health.
And so that's what I did. Yeah. Yeah, I wish I could have taken that class. I was a great class. Yeah, I got interested because I kind of went a roundabout way. I started out majoring my undergrad in nursing and had to take a microbiology class for that in this my second year, and it was an eight day class, which was horrible for me. I'm not an early riser, as
you can tell maybe from our late recording sessions. But I found myself going to it, riding my bike to it every single Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and not wanting to miss it because I thought it was so exciting and so thrilling, and I thought, Oho, this might be what I need to do instead. So I switched my major to biology, looked at some independent research projects that I could do a cold call or cold emailed someone working in the plague and a plague lab, and I thought,
people work on plague is what? This is so exciting? And then I became one of the people working on plague and it was so exciting and to be a complete full nerd. As I was working on these play I was working primarily on surface proteins on the plague bacterium, but I was still sort of feeling like, Okay, I'm working on this amazingly cool bacterium, but what what Like,
there's there's more here, what's the story here? So then I read a bunch of books on the plague and found myself much more fascinated by the overall pattern and
impact of the disease than on the individual proteins. So then I decided to take a year off and then work and then and then applied to epidemiology, and then disease ecology kind of happened because when I was doing my master's, one of my advisors, who was a biologist, was asked me or kind of like looked at me sideways and was like, you know that a lot of the things that you're writing about in your thesis are
ecology questions, right. I was like, what, No, I thought it was epidemiology, and he's like, you might want to look at ecology grad programs. I was like, oh, okay.
I don't think i've heard that part of the story before. That's really cool.
I was clueless, So yeah, oh so okay, So what steps are necessary to become an epidemiologist?
Well, I feel I've never actually worked as an epidemiologist, so I don't know how to answer this question fully.
Yeah. I think there are many different pathways that you can in which you can do epidemiology or public health or things related to disease period. Yeah, And I think the first step would be to identify the things that interest you the most, or the things when you envision yourself doing epidemiology, What is it that feels the most exciting to you, or what is it that you are
envisioning doing. If it's something like field work where you're going out to investigate an outbreak, then maybe you want to go to a school of public health and get a PhD or an MD in infectious disease. If it's something like statistics, then maybe you want to look at biostatistics programs. If it's something like wildlife disease, you could look at veterinary programs, or disease ecology programs, or a combination of all of these. If it's like policy, you
could look at policy programs. I think that that's one of the beauties of public health as a field, is that there's so many different avenues that you can get there, and it's just sort of finding out what you like to do want to do, so talk to people who do these things.
Yeah, I think it never hurts to email. Like if you find actually something we had to do in our first semester of grad school.
Here, remember this.
Yeah, it's a useful exercise what we had to do was find somebody with a job that we wanted. So find a job that you think you want and look.
Up their CV.
And sometimes they might not have it online, so maybe you email them and you ask, could I have a copy of your CV, and they might just give it to you, or they might have it on their website already, and then you can see what do they do to get to the position that they're in, and then that can help guide you in figuring out what you might need to do to get to that position someday.
Aaron, can I reveal what yours was? Because I remember this, Yeah, you can reveal. Aaron Almanepdyke over here decided that she would download and print out and bring to class the Was it the Surgeon General? Yes, the United States Surgeon General CV.
That's whose CV I brought in.
Our advisor was like, so yes, He asked if I was.
Serious or if I misunderstood the prompt or if we needed to have a really serious discussion about how high I wanted to aim? What were we thinking? Anyways, Hopefully that's helpful advice.
Yeah. I think in general, undergrad career could be something like biology, statistics, math, chemistry, and then you know I also don't want to discount things like social sciences.
I mean anthropology or humanities.
Yeah, anthropology, sociology, psychology, art, even I mean the need for graphical design in getting like infographics, particularly to people that where literacy or regions where literacy might be quite low. That's huge. I mean, there are so many different ways to be involved in public health. If you want to study, if you want to do epidemiology in the strictest definition of the of the word, then you would want to choose probably a more quote hard science undergraduate degree and
then sort of go down, go down those steps. But you know, look at job boards and say, is that a job that I would want to do? Find people who have that job, talk to them. Yeah, stuff like that. I think that's good advice.
Okay, this is a fun next question that a number of people asked Alec, Marcelline, Lizzie, Jennifer. They all want to know probably more people too than I. Forgot to write down what is our favorite disease or parasite or infection and why?
Ah, this is so hard because I feel like I have be I've been fascinated by every single one of them.
What if I answered what I think you would say, and you answered what you think I would say, and then we say whether we're right or wrong. Okay ooh that's fun.
Yeah.
Yeah, I would think if I just guessed what yours would be.
Are we talking just real quick? Are we talking ones that we have covered on the show so far? Or I just was thinking just in general? Okay, okay, But.
I think one of your top favorites is the plague of course, yes, yeah.
But why would I find it the most intriguing?
Oh? I think that you love how huge it is and how huge of an impact and how you can see the impact that it's had across all of humanity and what a massive, massive disease it has been, and how interesting it is biologically on top of that.
Yeah, I think that's a pretty good answer. What's mine? I think yours is just a semiasis?
Yeah, I think it probably is.
I think that you have answered that for this before, for this question before, or a similar question. Yeah, because of the there's something that's very intriguing or fascinating about a multi host parasite. Yeah.
It was also one of my first It was the hook lecture in the parasitology class that I take.
So it. It has a special place in my heart, just as plague and plague and I.
Yeah, your first love is you know, et cetera, all those things.
Yeah.
Oh that was fun. That was fun. Yeah, thanks for all those everyone who asked that question. Yeah, okay, so Danielle asked. You asked doctor Hotez if he could snap his fingers and instantly have a new vaccine for a disease that doesn't currently have one, what would he choose? So they would like to know which we would choose.
Oh gosh, this is hard. This is very hard. I can think of three that come to mind immediately.
Okay, what are they? Malaria? What about the the new malaria?
Yeah, I just don't I mean, I don't know that much about it. So if I could snap my fingers and know that it works, that'd be awesome. HIV and universal influenza.
Mmmm. I think malaria was one of my gut yeah ones too, and then also gut parasites were we parasites, So that would be I think my if I could do one that that hit like round worm, hookworm, and whipworm, that's good.
Oh that's a good question.
Should we be a question?
Take another quick break let's do it.
Yeah, welcome back, Hello, Hello, and welcome back to this episode of Anyways.
I'm not going to do that voice forever. Okay.
Next question, This is a fun question that we got from a number of different people. Stephanie Tyler Kendall and a few others. What career options are there for epidemiologists?
Good question, Many different career options. And you know, one of the things that came to mind as we were putting this episode together is that we really need to put together an episode that is just about epidemiology or
infectious disease or whatever as a career. Yeah, you really want to bring in people who actually do varied who have varied careers in epidemiology or disease ecology or medicine, and have them talk to you about their experiences, what their path was like, what advice that they have, because there are so many different things that you can do with a public health degree or with any other kinds
of degrees in public health. Yeah, and so to answer the question of what career options are there for epidemiologists, I mean the short answer is many different things. Tons.
Yeah, we got in general a lot of questions asking for sort of advice on you know, how to find careers or what to do for careers and what kinds of options are available, And we've only done what we've done so far, so we don't have answers to all of those questions. So we are planning for our next season to put together an episode where we interview people who have all kinds of different careers and had all kinds of different pathways that they took getting.
To those careers.
So hopefully that'll be able to answer a lot more of these types of questions more specifically.
Yeah, but I would say to not leave you, hope so completely unsatisfied. As an epidemiologist. You could be, as I mentioned, somewhere out there in the field, looking for spillover events, looking for outbreaks, investigating whether there are a higher number of brain tumors at this one production factory
than there should be as expected due to chance. Or you could be someone who works through long term data that's been collected for years and years and years and says, oh, you know what, there is a risk between working the night shift and having higher rates of a certain type of cancer or whatever it is. Or there could be someone who is more about initiating science communication programs, or saying let's have a tick van as they do here
in Finland a van. Yeah, yeah, they have a like a tick van and it's informational tikvan and they also have they provide the tickboard encephalitis vaccine. Oh that's so cool, which is really cool. So we saw it once when we were doing field work down south, so it was so fun, really cool. But yeah, so that would be something that an epidemiologists could be involved in, depending on your training and your interest and skills.
There's also a lot of opportunities for things like policy advocates. So depending on what you focus on with a public health type degree, there's a lot of need for people to do policy, whether it's policy research or policy advocacy, writing policies, working with lawmakers, all that kind of stuff. So there's a huge range within public health of the kinds of jobs that you could potentially have.
Mm hmm, yeah. Cool. Have gotten in addition to this question, which I'm gonna read to you, we've gotten a lot of responses from people in general about saying like, oh, I did so poorly in science during high school or during college that I thought this isn't for me, I can't do this, this is not the right fit, but then at the same time really having still an interest
in it. And so one of the questions that we got from several people was how performance in certain courses affected both our decisions for what to study and then also whether it's worth it to try to do something that you're interested in if you don't feel like you are performing well. That's a difficult question. These are difficult, Yeah, difficult questions, I think.
I mean, for me, I think one of the reasons that I'm still in school is because school is a thing that I am good at, so I just stay in it forever and ever. But I do think that grad school is a lot different than most other school. So even if you think, oh, I didn't do well in these classes in high school or in college, grad school, whether it's a master's or a PhD, is really nothing.
Like those schools.
And so I think just because you maybe didn't do well in a classroom setting doesn't mean that you couldn't do well in a research setting if that's something that you're interested in pursuing.
Yeah, I mean, I do think that that's that's part of it. Like, there are certain science courses that made me feel I don't belong here, and also certain times during my PHDU and I thought, oh, I don't belong here most of my PhD. And so I think I do think that any one can do science if they want to do it, if they're really driven to do it. But there are also sometimes science and I think this is very context dependent. It depends on how it's taught
in that certain school. Maybe you're stuck with a really lousy teacher who doesn't quite care enough or lacks the skills to teach it in a certain way that's accessible. But then there's also even if you love it so much, is it worth it to be so miserable during your undergrad for instance, Or is there a way that you can incorporate your interest in science or in diseases or medicine in a career that's not necessarily focused on learning some of the skills that you may not be interested
in learning. I'll second your statement that grad school research is a lot different than undergraduate So I think that, yeah, it's definitely a rule that if you succeeded in something at undergraduate, you might not succeed as well in grad school. And that same fields and vice versa. Yeah, yeah, all right, cool cool.
So the next question, we got a couple of questions similar to this. This is a fun one, so I'll read this one from Lisa. She asked, how do we manage being full time grad students or in this age now postdoc and student and creating the podcast?
How do we?
Yeah? She asked, are we wizards? We're not wizards?
Oh I wish we were wizards.
That would make it easy. If we had a time turner like hermione, that would make this a lot easier.
Yeah, oh my god, you know I think about that, like not infrequently. I didn't know that. Also, before I answer this question, I want to say, Lisa, I definitely remember meeting you at the Idea a couple of years ago, and it is really nice. She is mentioned that we had this that I gave her. This your zine, the zine that my my older sister made of my research, and it's one of my favorite possessions. It's super cool. Maybe I'll put it up on the website or something.
You should, because it's really he should. But then Carrie make one for me too, I.
Know, Carrie, Carrie.
Okay, Anyway, anyways, are we wizards, how do we manage our time?
We are not wizards. Definitely, time management, As this is going to sound so cliche, it's an ongoing struggle. You constantly have to work on it, constantly have to learn how to how to do it. And so at the beginning, when we started this podcast, it was very poorly managed time wise, very poorly. My research suffered. I think I can say that for both of us. Yes, yes, and and so now now it's we've fallen into a bit
more of a routine. It's a lot of work. I would say a lot of weekends, at least one full weekend day is typically dedicated to doing something of the podcast, and I would say four or five weeknights, I'm doing something related to it several hours. Yeah, it's just practice.
Yeah, I think the biggest things that we've had to learn how to do is balance it all. And yeah, like Aaron said, we didn't used to be very good at it, which is why we had such a long hiatus between season one and season two because we had
to finish our actual actually finish. But we have gotten a bit better at it, but it is still something that we continually have to work on and so sometimes things slip by the wayside, whether that's our social media sorry guys, sometimes doesn't get all of our attention, or you know, whatever else it is. Sometimes things there are ebbs and flows. But we also just don't really have lives outside of work and the podcast.
Yeah, but I think that there's a lot of things that at the beginning took a lot of time, like the editing, learning how to just do the editing. Editing needs to take a lot longer, and so as you get more efficient in all of these different areas, things just get a little bit more streamlined. Yeah.
And something that we try because we were friends before we started this podcast, and our goal is to maintain being friends throughout it. So that's something that we also work on pretty hard, is just maintaining communication between the two of us, so that if one of us is super busy, the other one tries to pick up the slack and vice versa and just sort of having communication. So I think we wouldn't be able to do this without a partner.
So no, that's been that's for sure. Yeah, Okay, okay, So on that note of time management and so on, Advice for someone considering a PhD in any field. What kind of advice do we have to offer? Don't do it just kidding?
Oh boy, I can't say that. Oh do we have to answer this question? Arin, Yes, I would say, wherever you're applying, talk to your potential advisor a lot beforehand, and talk to other students in their lab because PhDs are very challenging and very long, and your advisor can kind of make or break the experience.
I would agree with that, and I would also say that I feel like we were so incredibly fortunate to have basically the world's best advisor. Brian che You'll never hear this. You'll never hear this, that's okay, But there are things that you want to look out for, and there are definitely some red flags, like if there's a grad student who says, don't come here, that's an obvious
red flag. Yes, because the point is this is going to be for a PhD. Depending on your field, this could be anywhere from four to seven years of your life where you are essentially yeah, you are essentially married to this person. You're a PhD advisor, and you have to be able to get along and work well together if you don't want to have a completely miserable existence. Yeah, because grad school is hard enough as it is without having a terrible advisor on top of that. Also, look
at the atmosphere within the department. That's really huge. Do the professors interact with one another? Are they friends or is it highly competitive both amongst the professors and among the grad students. Are you guaranteed funding? Yes? If you're not guaranteed funding, bye bye piece PhD. Yeah, there are differences between loo choosing between different programs and then choosing between going to grad school or not going.
To grad school, and so harder question.
That's a harder question if your only reason is I don't know what else to do, don't go, don't do it.
No.
For me, the only thing that kept me going through the hardest parts of my PhD is that I came into it wanting to do a very specific thing. And even though at this point I don't know that that's what I want to do with my life anymore, I came in with a goal and so for me, I think that was essential because I was like, I'm doing
this for a reason. So I think knowing what you want to do with the PhD, even if it's not precise knowing that you need it to get you to the next stage, I think is really really helpful.
Yeah, And I think that again googling jobs, like going to any any job website and typing in something that you think you might be interested in, or if you know someone that has a job that you would want to do, see what kind of qualifications you need. Do you need a PhD? Because if not, the field is
increasingly competitive. And I feel like we're both sounding very negative on this on this question, but it is because it's a massive undertaking, and it is the grad school culture or expectations are not always the kindest to your mental health. Yeah, and to time management and to personal life. A division between personal life and work life becomes. Yeah, it's it's it's tough. That being said, it is an incredible experience. Uh, some of it is really wonderful. Aaron's
looking at me very doubt right now, very doubtfully. But the community, I mean, we were again very fortunate with having an incredible community as well with with our International Secret Wine Society. Yes, shout out to everyone there.
We couldn't have done it alone.
We could not. That's the thing is that you're at least in the trenches with a bunch of other people. I don't know if that's comforting or not, but it was for me. Yeah, and then for in my case, you get to do field work and be in beautiful places if yeah, so well not anyway, move on to more happy things. Yeah.
Like this wonderful question from Paul. I like this question.
Okay, tell me so.
They asked how we got interested in things that will kill us, which we kind of have talked about how we got interested in eptymiology. But the part of the question that I really like is they ask we often sound in admiration of how ingenious viruses and bacteria are, but we clearly love vaccines. Uh, And so they're asking, are we on the side of vaccines or on the side of the viruses and bacteria?
Well, Paul, whose side are we on?
All right?
Paul, let me give it to you straight. I will personally say I'm on the side of vaccines and medical technology, and I'm also on the side of just straight up evolution. I think that when we talk about how ingenious viruses and bacteria and parasites are and how incredible it is, the hookworm life cycle is what did we call it? We called it like aspirational, Yes, and I mean it is like the fact that that exists is on it's so, I mean, unbelievable is not a good enough word for it.
Like, no, it's incredible.
It's so beautiful to see that evolution has has led to the existence of these parasitic life forms that have these unimaginably complex life cycles.
And I do yeah, I mean I can hear the admiration coming out, but I am I will say ultimately yes on the side of also human ingenuity and technological advancement.
Yeah, I feel like the way doctor who feels about it, I feel like he has equal admiration for a lot of life forms and just maybe loves humans just a tiny bit more to where you want to see them succeed.
Yeah, you have to, I think, have a good healthy dose of respect and fear for these guys, these viruses and bacteria, pathogens.
So yeah, they're all.
Just trying to make their living the same way that we are, you know.
So it's yeah, I agree.
On the side of evolution, but also medical technology.
The tie we can love both. Paul. Yeah, Paul, come on, don't put us, don't put us in this corner here Yeah, that was fun. Okay. Miley asked if you could shrink yourself down and get injected into an infected person to see a disease at work, what disease would you want to see an action and why?
This is a very fun question. Also to come on the heels of the other I didn't do that on purpose in ordering these.
That's good.
Yeah, I think I'd want to see one of these really complex life cycle diseases.
For sure.
I'd want to see schistasimiasis or No, I probably would want to follow something like shisto because I'd want to follow it all the way through all of its hosts.
Oh my gosh, can you even imagine? It would be like osmosis Jones? But yes, biologically accurate?
Yes, Oh that would be amazing. Let's magic school bus it?
Yes? Oh yeah that sounds great. HM new TV show idea. I think I think my my first instinct was something similar like hookworm. Yeah, I mean just because I want to go through the whole lungs and etcetera. But I also would love to cross the blood brain barrier with rabies and say or or like cordyceps, be like, what is actually happening here?
I'd like to ask. I'd like to be able to talk to the fungus and be like, listen, can we what's going on here?
Man? Oh man, oh man?
Oh?
That would be so cool. What a fun question. I yeah, okay, next one ready. Someone who is a part time lecturer of writing and literature asked us, when we look at writing, both fiction and nonfiction that focuses on epidemics or is about pathogens, or uses epidemics as like a plot point, what do we think is the underlying narrative that's often being told. I feel like you can answer this one much better than I can.
I love this question. This is gonna sound super dorky. I would love to take a class on this particular topic.
I wonder if they teach it.
Maybe on disease, Like disease in fiction would be so cool in having this type of question on a I don't know, quiz or exam or something. Oh my god, he sounds so nerdy right now. I'm just really nerdy. But I think that the narrative that I can immediately think of off the top of my head maybe is a fresh start. So what do humans do with a fresh start? And what aspects of humanity the will prevail. Is it
going to be positive aspects? Is it going to be this survival, this teamwork, let's group together, or is it going to be an individual How much evil can one person do to bring down this newly created society?
That Yeah, but it's never the disease itself.
It's no, it's never the disease itself. It's never about and it's always I think there is. It comes down more to society, but also individual choice. So like with the Girl with All the Gifts, which is sort of a blend between infectious disease and zombies, it is about these individual choices and how our morality or philosophies have to shifts as our worldview is completely shattered from the wiping out of humanity or whatever else. I mean, I
love it. I love it. I think it's it is all just staging a morality play or a humanity play. What does humanity really do in times of trouble? Yeah? Okay. Our next question is about this goes right on the heels of this nicely. What is your favorite book about diseases? Fiction or nonfiction?
Aaron, you shouldn't have read this question because you are going to have a better answer for it, because you read way more books than me.
But honestly, I'm going on Goodreads right now to.
Our to try and find your answer. From Goodreads.
Yeah, I'm going to good Reads. These books will kill you.
Well, you just said The Girl with all the Gifts, and I had forgotten about that. I think the problem is I have a terrible memory, so I forget when I've read a book that I enjoyed. But I loved The Girl.
With all the Gifts. That's a very fun one.
I'm reading a book right now that's not about disease, but it's about death.
And I love it. What's it called.
It's called Working Stiff. It's by a forensic pathologist. It's fantastic.
That sounds good.
Oh, I love it.
What about Andromeda Strain? You read that?
I never did.
I watched that movie. I've never read it. Oh, okay, okay.
And I never finished the Stephen King one that everyone loves.
Oh my god, me either. I feel like the worst person about it.
Oh.
I remember reading it for ages in my hammock in Panama.
Yep, and I just never made it through.
Okay, So I think I would say one of my favorites is Blindness, which is not really about disease, but it is about an epidemic of blindness that happens.
And this is a fiction fiction.
Oh it's so beautiful. And there's another there's a sequel that I haven't read, called Sight or Seeing or something by jose Santamago.
If you don't know yet about our good Reads list, Aaron puts so many good books on it. And then you guys can also add your own favorite books.
So yeah, we can all.
Have our favorite fiction and nonfiction disease books in one place. It's called These Books Will Kill You.
Yes, it's great. It's really fun resource for me because I get to look and see what else is here. But yeah, and I think the nonfiction might be The Family that Couldn't Sleep. That was just a really fun, very well written book. Not Awakened, but I don't know Awakenings. I mean everything. It's so hard like that is that is much more difficult for me to choose? Is the nonfiction?
I think, Yeah, there's a lot of good ones.
Okay.
Next question from kaz Ooh, okay. Advice for avoiding academic research burnout earh. Also, isn't this the person who said they work as a quality control chemistroom Caz, we're going to hit you up. Yeah we are, No, seriously, I want to go to your brewery.
That sounds awesome.
Academic research burnout This is a big topic that I think we talk a lot about. Luckily, people are talking about it a lot more these days and not just ignoring it like it isn't a real thing. So that's a first step. I think that recognizing that burnout is
very real and a lot of people experience it. I think, I don't know, trying to find ways to take time for yourself and doing things that you actually enjoy and not falling into the trap of thinking that you have to be working one hundred percent of the time, I think is the biggest thing because people people fall into that trap because that's very much the academia mindset, and it's not true. It doesn't make you a better academic if you work twenty four hours a day. If you
want to, fine, that's cool too. But if you don't, which most humans don't, that's fine and that's normal. Yeah.
I think it's very difficult to have strict advice on how not to burn out because I think having, yeah, your advice of making sure that you have personal time is huge, but there are ways that the culture can really seep into your life and negative ways. So like this constant comparison where there is this impostor syndrome, Like the imposter syndrome then also plays into constantly comparing your own achievements to everyone else around you, and like, oh, well do I know R well enough? Can I ever
know R well enough? Did I have enough papers this year? Did I have enough grant money this year? That person was here at the lab before I arrived, and they're still here when I'm leaving. I'm not here long enough. Like all of these questions are constantly at least in my case, we're circulating a lot and never quite feeling good enough or capable enough, or worthy or whatever else, and that emotional exhaustion really plays into burnout. Yeah, I think being aware of some of these things is good
at least so you can prepare yourself. I think the other thing is having a support group, like a community of friends to talk about it with or talk about other things. So you know what, we need to just have a night where we just watch dance movie montages. As we mentioned, drink a whiskey to not be free. We don't rare, Yeah, but choosing a grad school track
or a grad school strategy is important. So if you don't want to be an R one researcher, you may not have to do the types of things that an R one researcher is going to do during their PhD. And so if you don't need to get all of those NSF grants, then don't kill yourself doing it, you know. Yeah. So Kaz also asked if it was weird to be a twenty nine year old grad student and how you work up the nerves to not have your voice shake.
I think those are fun questions. Those are fun questions. It's not weird to be a twenty nine year old grad student. We were, Yeah, yeah, it's very.
And even if you're starting out like no, there are definitely this is still not weird. There are definitely people that I knew that were that age or older or when it started. For sure.
That's the great thing about grad school. It's like everyone, Yeah, how do we not have our voice shake?
While defending?
My voice does shake?
Still?
When I mind does? When I present my key? Is I never use the laser pointer? Yes, because then no one can see your hands shaking. Yeah, smart pro tip.
Yep. I think that. Also, what goes through my head frequently is something that our advisor said to us frequently as a way to encourage us, and he's he would always say, no one knows your research better than you do, no one else in the world, and that was that was a good reminder. Yeah, because when you're defending your dissertation, you are full of like, well I was full of
self doubt. I was like, I'm probably gonna fail this whatever, I'll be the first person and no, and it's and so having hearing that, that little voice in my head say, you know this, this is what you have lived the past five six years.
So yeah, yeah, cool, okay, okay.
Shelley asked what exactly is a disease ecologist and how do you interact with different medical professionals and scientists.
Well, I feel like you're you are a disease ecologist today, so I feel like you should tackle this one.
Oh my gosh, I feel like I've been talking so much.
That's what we do on our podcast.
So I think in general, also, you are a disease ecologists. This is ridiculous, but a disease ecologist is someone who studies disease and the interaction with the environment, and that has it's a relatively new field, it's definitely emerging, and that for the most part has centered around infectious diseases. So whether how climate change impacts the spread of lyme
disease would be one example of doing disease ecology. Basically, the environment is part of the of is part of what you're looking at in your research.
Yeah, And I think in terms of how disease ecologists interact with other scientists and medical professionals that one of the cool things about disease ecology, because it's a newish field, is that there is a lot of collaboration across disciplines. So between epidemiologists and more microbiologists and disease ecologists, there's a lot of room for collaboration to be able to ask really big picture questions, which is very exciting.
Yeah.
So, whether that means collaborating on big research grants where people apply for grants like all together a whole bunch of people, or just sharing information at what do you call them?
Wow, Okay, you've been out of grad school too long?
Yeah, yeah, one whole year anyways, Yeah, Shrea asked, this is fun. What would we name our quarantini bar?
Oh? Shrea? I don't know what about? I don't know. I'm trying to think of like quippy little things, and the only thing I can come up with is the hot zone. But I feel like that would be.
It's been taken.
Maybe taken. Let's see, maybe BSL four.
BSL four, that's funny. Maybe can you tell who comes up with most of our quarantine names?
Guys? If not me, huh, just containment or like, yeah, we should work on this.
We're not opening a bar anytime soon, clearly because we don't have a name for it. Oh.
I would love that though. That would be a fun business adventure.
Yeah.
Right. So somebody asked, is there a biological component that allows some people to contract disease and be able to survive or and does a particular disease always work the same way biologically in each person who contracts it, and if not, why not? This is a good question.
This is a hard question because we don't really know enough about human biology and disease to have.
A good answer for it.
There definitely are components of a human's immune system that vary from person to person that are going to affect whether or not you get sick. If you are exposed to a disease, If you do get sick, how sick are you going to get? And how likely is it that you're going to die? So there are a lot there is a lot of variation among people in terms of how robust your immune response is and how likely it is that you're going to die from a disease. There's not like a single gene that we know of
or anything that controls all of this. It's very sort of multifactorial. And that actually kind of plays into a lot of question that a lot of people asked about whether why not everyone develops immunity when you give them a vaccine And it's just, honestly, because there's so much variation in individual immune responses.
Yeah, I feel like that's not a satisfying answer. Sorry, Well it's better than I could do.
Okay, this one's a bit easier. Jennifer asked, what has been our favorite course that we've taken through all of school?
Do you have a favorite? Yeah? I think I do, actually, and it's going to sound pandering, okay, but it's the truth. It's this course that I took in the final year of my undergrad and I had like a space where I needed to just put an elective or something, and so I was like, Okay, well, let's go for a one or two hundred level course. I don't want to
have to try too hard. And I was always interested in history, so I just sort of skimming the course catalog back when there were physical copies of course catalogs, and there was a course called the Street of Science and Technology since the Industrial Revolution.
M I've heard you mention this course, yes, And.
This course was the first time where my brain opened up to the way that you could link these events, these historical events and these techno technological achievements and sort
of broaden the context of your perspective of history. It's not just about I think that the example that I use when I when I because I thought about this course and talked about this course a lot, and the example that I remember for the first time my mind going, oh my god, what is the the development of a clock technology or keeping time technology, and how crucial that was for navigational purposes and how that changed the entire
course of humanity. And it was it's just this. It was this beautiful course we went all the way through. We read the this amazing book about the Adam Baum. I learned so much and I think very fondly. And also this course was taught entirely on overhead projector in two thousand and nine is when I took it. Wow and for a course that had the history's history of science and technology as like the title, the person who taught it was completely technologically not very skilled. It was beautiful.
I don't know if I wonder if it's still taught. It was at the University of Kentucky. Man, I loved it. That's a good what about you?
Mine was, without a doubt, the ecological parasitology class that I took. If you are a student at UCSB, go Gaucho's absolutely you should take it. Everyone should take it.
It was.
It was a completely life changing class.
It was.
And I remember talking with Arman, who teaches or at that time, who taught the class. He might not still, I'm not sure, and jokingly asking him what classes of his I should take because he taught a whole number, and he got very very serious and said, one in ten students' lives are changed by the parasitology class. And I was like, Okay, that's funny, and it was totally true for me, Like I was the one in ten.
I wonder how he gathered that statistic, but a hundred made it up after several classes of wine.
I oh, yeah, no it was. But yeah, that was ugh.
I love that class.
Okay, So Daniella asked, what are your lab or field confessions?
So?
What are the worst, dumbest, weirdest whatever things that you did while working in the lab or field? Oh my gosh, where do I even begin?
I know, I feel like I did so many dumb things that I just don't even know what could possibly be the dumbest.
I once made. So always, during my entire career, I have been terrified of making solutions in a lab yes, and having to calculate molarity and having to calculate whatever percentages and all those things scare the pants off me. I don't like it. And so this is my way of saying that making seventy percent ethanol was a challenge one weekend when I was trying to do you're laughing so harder. I was trying to do my phenal chloroform extractions right, and those things those beasts sometimes take two
or they they take two days. And so I was there on a weekend doing it, just trying to finish up my stupid lab work for my PhD. And I was like, why are the pellets disappearing? Like I'm supposed to be just washing the pellets and cold seventy percent ethanol, they're disappearing. I made thirty percent ethanol. So there you have it, everyone first time admitting this.
We all do dumb things.
I was like, why is that this working? Luckily it was only twenty four samples and they were replaceable, but oh, I felt like such an idiot. Oh that's really I also used to go camera trapping in Panama without cel phone service.
Yeah, that's like deep.
That was insane. Yeah, yeah, that was very unsafe. I did some very unsafe field I mean, field work is a whole nother realm of of unsafe choices. Yeah.
Yeah, gosh, I can't even.
Think of a one good story. You just didn't You never made any mistakes.
No, I made so many mistakes that it's just my entire PhD.
Try to think if I was there for any of them. Yeah, do you remember any of my dumb moments?
No?
Yeah, I don't know.
I I tried and failed a lot at building things and making things and wiring things, and.
Well that's just field work. I know, it's not exciting. I don't have a good story. I got the truck stuck in a field somewhere. Oh.
I did almost drive off the side of the road into someone's house one time.
Oh, and I didn't know that. Yeah, it was a very narrow road.
And actually twice once I almost hit someone's house and that would have been really bad. The other time it was just almost stuck in a real, really deep ditch that I was like.
Oh, oh, dear, surprised ditches.
And I didn't know how to turn on the four wheel drive, like how to actually engage it with those locking things on the wheels.
It was the old, an old truck.
Yes, yeah, yeah, anyways, good times. Let's move on. So, speaking of our lab and field work, tell me about your PhD work.
Erin, I researched tickborne disease in Panama. So my interests were in how the density of infected ticks changed throughout the year and also across Panama, mainly looking at where the Panama Canal is and so along the Panama Canal there's this steep precipitation gradient. So at the north end of the canal, which is on the Caribbean on the Atlantic Ocean, you get a ton more rainfall than you do on the Pacific end, which is on the southern end,
And there's like not very much space. It's like seventy kilometers or something like that, Like it's very very short distance. But because of that, these environmental changes across this area, you get a lot of different changes in forest structure, in daily humidity values and temperature and things like that, And so I wanted to investigate how that impacted the species that were living there when they were present during
the year, and then also what pathogens they carried. And so to answer all of these questions, I also had to say, okay, well what are the animal hosts that are there? And so my fieldwork involved collecting ticks across the Panama isthmus for every week and then also setting up camera traps to see what animals were around, which was super fun. I think my favorite part just hiking around and then doing tick survival experiments. So how well
dos do different tick species survive under different environmental conditions? Yeah, what about you? Aaron what did you do for your PhD?
I did my PhD on shaugust disease. So shaugus is a disease will definitely cover at some point. It's a disease that it's caused by a parasite and it's transmitted by these bugs called kissing bugs, which are true bugs. And no, no one need cares about entomology.
Your NERD is showing I know.
So I was working also in Panama, and so I was interested in both the ecology and the epidemiology of shaugust disease, specifically looking at how risk factors vary for shaugust disease transmission across an.
Urban to rural gradient.
So all of my fieldwork was unlike Eron's, which was in deep deep forest, mine was in people houses and backyards. So I went door to door doing surveys and having people collect bugs that they found in their houses for me to then look at what was different among these houses across these land use gradients, to see what kinds of things might be driving bugs two people's houses, and what kinds of communities might be more at risk or less at risk for coming into contact with these bugs.
And then also looking at what percentages of these bugs might be infected with the shawgus parasite versus uninfected and things like that. So yeah, yeah.
Yeah, that's fun.
That's our that was our research.
Did you get like a wave of anxiety from talking about.
Maybe just a small one? Just makes me realize how many papers I need to work on.
Oh my gosh, I haven't touch don't even remind me.
That's anyways, Shall we move on to our last question?
Our last question? Ah? Yeah, okay, this is a really cute question.
We actually got this from a number of different people that I'm gonna I'll read their names, but first I'll read this specific email because it's so adorable. So this email is from Stephanie, who wrote, my twelve year old daughter, Georgia would like y'all to know that she loves your podcast and is learning a lot you guys. We love that you listen to this with your kids. That's thrilling.
I had no idea and it's amazing. It's amazing.
Okay, So she writes, at the end of most episodes, you talk about how worried we should be about the disease that we're talking about. So Georgia would like to know, out of the diseases that we've covered, which should we be the most worried about? And we got a very similar question from also Tricia and her ten year old Poppy.
Hi, Poppy, Hi, Tricia.
Hi, Jenny, Julia, another Aaron karenoid je Ica. A bunch of people want to know what disease scares us the most?
Ah, so Georgia, everyone great question of.
The diseases that we've covered, That's an easy one for me.
I think can I guess yours? Because I think it's mine too. Yeah, Influenza on, Yes, yes, influenza, So tell me, tell me why why are you the most scared or why should we be? Why should we be the most scared of influenza? Without completely going doing the entire influenza episode again.
Yes, uh. Influenza is a virus that just can mutate so rapidly, can change and infect so many different animals, and then undergo these massive rearrangements that make it really difficult for us to mount a good immune response because there are so so many different strains, so many different versions of this virus floating around out there, and new ones constantly being evolved, and it is a much gnarlier pathogen than a lot of people give it credit for.
It really does cause a large amount of what we call morbidity, so getting sick and mortality, dying, and then makes you susceptible because it, you know, blasts you, makes you really sick, so then you when you're sick, you're more susceptible to other infections. So that is I think why it's so scary. It's both that it does make you very sick and it can kill you, and it's really hard for us to develop a vaccine against. It's really hard for us to fight it off with our
immune system. And it spreads airborne, so it's everywhere, and.
It spreads before you show symptoms exactly. It's terrifying, and people don't take it seriously. Think that that's one of the things that I hear most often with people. If I'm start striking up a conversation about the vaccines and vaccine hesitancy, a lot of people are like, oh, well, vaccines are great, but the flu shot, I mean, that's
no flu. The flu shot is a vaccine, and as we discussed on the Vaccine episode, it does reduce the time that you spend in a hospital it reduces the risk that you would even go into the hospital, and so it's sort of seen as like, oh, well, I got the flu, I'm going to be out for a couple of days, when it's it really I mean, it is greatly underestimated, and everyone should pick up one of the either flu by Gina Colada or The Great Influenza by John Berry to remind yourselves just how bad this
pathogen is. And I mean there are things that are in researching it, things like Preon's, things like MRSA that are a lot that are terrifying to me. But influenza is the is the one, is the one that I think is the most realistic for causing, for leading to another pandemic. H We are not equipped, I agree, and maybe we could never be equipped, right, great question, Great question. Thank you Georgia and everyone else for that question, and and also thank you to every single person who wrote in.
I think that this is already a very long episode and I think we have to to stop here, but but we loved reading through them, and maybe we'll do a second round of this. Yeah, that would be super fun.
There we got so many good questions, and we're sorry that we can't answer every single one, but we did enjoy reading every single one, for what that's worth. So thank you for writing to us.
Everyone who wrote in had some beautiful, very nice, kind sweet thing to say, and it was just it was a joy and so so as I said, so surreal. Yeah, what you want to know these things about us? You want to know what kind of cereal we would be?
Oh, we didn't answer that question.
We didn't answer that question. I would be crackling Oat brand.
Of course you would be crackling Oat brand.
It's so good.
I love cereal too much to pick a crunch.
Oh my god, do you know that?
That's the first one I thought of? But I have no reason why. It's not my favorite cereal.
I know, but that's that's what you'd be.
That's the first cereal that came to mind.
And how is it that that's the same one that it's brainwaves. It's brainwaves. They're traveling long distances, but they're still working.
That is the most it's not even my favorite cereal. Oh that's my favorite. Okay, and episode's over. Thanks everyone, Thank you.
We really cannot end on a higher note. Actually, no, okay, well, thank you again to everyone. Who wrote in, and also everyone listening now and any other time and forever forever, and thank you to Bloodmobile for providing the music for this episode in all of our episodes
And until next time, wash your hands you filed the Animals U