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Speaker 1: In nineteen forty seven, doctor Norman Stole gave his presidential

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Speaker 1: address to the American Society of Parasitologists. His talk was

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Speaker 1: called This Wormy World, And if you study parasites, this

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Speaker 1: talk is a real classic. Stole wanted an estimate for

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Speaker 1: how many people in the world were carrying particular kinds

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Speaker 1: of wormy parasites. So we're talking things like nematodes, tapeworms,

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Speaker 1: and trematodes, not the kind of things that cause the flu,

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Speaker 1: so not bacteria or viruses. So the context here is

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Speaker 1: that World War II had recently ended, but the problems

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Speaker 1: for US soldiers who participated in the war had not.

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Speaker 1: Soldiers returning home from the war had brought back with

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Speaker 1: them the parasitic diseases that are found all over the world.

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Speaker 1: US interest in parasites skyrocketed as Americans were suddenly forced

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Speaker 1: to observe how horrible some of these parasitic diseases can be. So,

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Speaker 1: how many wormy infections are out there? Well, Stoll starts

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Speaker 1: by noting how bad the data for an analysis like

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Speaker 1: this are. There's just not great surveys that are comprehensive.

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Speaker 1: But he set out to do his best. What he

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Speaker 1: concludes is that there were two point two billion wormy

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Speaker 1: infections and a population of just under two point two

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Speaker 1: billion people at the time, so this isn't counting the

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Speaker 1: number of parasites in people. One infection would be like, okay,

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Speaker 1: you have one of a particular kind of nematode in someone,

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Speaker 1: But these infections were not evenly distributed. On average, one

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Speaker 1: out of every three Americans or Europeans were infected, but

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Speaker 1: in the USSR that number was up to two out

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Speaker 1: of three people. For every three people in Asia, the

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Speaker 1: Middle East, and South America there were four infections, so

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Speaker 1: that means out of three people, one of those people

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Speaker 1: is probably harboring two different wormy parasite species, and every

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Speaker 1: person in Africa on average was estimated to harbor two

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Speaker 1: helminth parasite species. But Stole notes a bit of optimism

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Speaker 1: and points out that six out of the seven cases

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Speaker 1: of wormy infections could have been stopped with proper sanitation,

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Speaker 1: so there's some ability to do something about this. So

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Speaker 1: how far have we come since nineteen forty seven. Well,

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Speaker 1: in some areas we've made great progress. For example, Stole

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Speaker 1: mentioned that a nematode called Trichinellus brellus was known as

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Speaker 1: the most serious parasitic disease in New England. At the time,

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Speaker 1: one in six Americans were infected with this parasite. Now,

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Speaker 1: triconilosis is a rare disease in the United States, with

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Speaker 1: only about fifteen confirmed cases in the entire country per year.

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Speaker 1: And today we're going to be talking about this public

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Speaker 1: health success story, but in future episodes, we're also going

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Speaker 1: to talk about some parasites that still plague humans worldwide,

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Speaker 1: including here in the United States. For example, according to

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Speaker 1: the World Health Organization, one and a half billion people

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Speaker 1: are infected with nematode parasite that are picked up from

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Speaker 1: the soil. All right, so let's dig in. Welcome to

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Speaker 1: Daniel and Kelly's extraordinarily wormy Universe.

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Speaker 2: Hi.

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Speaker 3: I'm Daniel, I'm a particle physicist, and I've never been

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Speaker 3: infected by a parasite to my knowledge.

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Speaker 1: I'm Kelly Wiener Smith, and I bet Daniel has been

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Speaker 1: infected at some point. And if I had to guess,

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Speaker 1: there'd be a good chance that you would have gotten

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Speaker 1: pinworms from your kids when they were young.

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Speaker 3: Ooh, pinworms are those the ones I'm thinking about that

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Speaker 3: make you itching a very uncomfortable place.

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Speaker 1: That's right. I think Actually at some point we should

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Speaker 1: have a whole episode on pinworms, cause why not. But

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Speaker 1: oh nope, maybe not. Daniel is going to be a

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Speaker 1: long couple of years working with me if pinworms give

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Speaker 1: you the eb gbs.

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Speaker 3: It's just that particular itch just really gets me, if

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Speaker 3: you know what I mean.

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Speaker 1: No, No, I get it, I get it. Actually, the

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Speaker 1: mom nematode sneaks out at night and deposits eggs with

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Speaker 1: like a sticky substance in the spot that you're thinking of,

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Speaker 1: because scratching is how the parasite transmits, how it gets

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Speaker 1: under fingernails and then ends up in the environment and

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Speaker 1: then ends up getting eaten, so that it is very

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Speaker 1: purposefully caused by the parasites.

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Speaker 3: I know, And I use that story as a way

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Speaker 3: to dissuade my kids from biting their fingernails. Oh good,

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Speaker 3: because I'm like, you know what you're doing, you know

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Speaker 3: where you're gonna get itchy if you keep doing that

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Speaker 3: and it works, it works.

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Speaker 1: No, I bet yeah. People feel real gross when you

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Speaker 1: tell them about parasites. It's a good way to dissuade people.

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Speaker 1: From certain bad behaviors, no doubt.

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Speaker 3: All right, So, since we're being personal, what is the

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Speaker 3: grossest parasite you've been infected by?

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Speaker 1: Oh, gosh, that I've been infected by. Well, I guess

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Speaker 1: if my parasite we're including viruses and bacteria, I guess

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Speaker 1: anything that makes me puke. But I haven't been infected

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Speaker 1: by anything that gross. But now, I had an antibiotic

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Speaker 1: resistant wound near my ankle once and that was gross

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Speaker 1: because I just wouldn't go away, and that was kind

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Speaker 1: of scary, and I was super stressed, which I think

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Speaker 1: was like suppressing my immune system too, and so it

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Speaker 1: was bad news.

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Speaker 3: What about you, Well, to me, being infected by a

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Speaker 3: little microbe, isn't that gross? It's like, yeah, that's invisible.

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Speaker 3: The bigger it is, the weirder it is, the more

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Speaker 3: gross it is. Like being infected by something that's like

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Speaker 3: actually a worm size to me is creepy. It's like

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Speaker 3: crawling around inside you. And so like, imagine being infected

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Speaker 3: by something larger, you know, baseball sized or like football size,

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Speaker 3: that would be like, oh, that's nightmare fuel for me.

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Speaker 3: But yeah, I don't know that I've ever had a

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Speaker 3: worm inside me. But apparently Kelly things that I have,

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Speaker 3: So maybe I am a wormy.

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Speaker 1: I don't actually know that you have me. I'm sure

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Speaker 1: your hygiene is impeccable and that is probably kept you safe.

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Speaker 1: But now there's some pretty nasty like as grade worms,

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Speaker 1: which maybe we'll talk about at some point. They are

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Speaker 1: really big, and when you see surgeries where people are

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Speaker 1: like trying to remove many of them from someone's that

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Speaker 1: even grosses me out. I can't eat pasta for days exactly.

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Speaker 3: Well, I appreciate you giving me the benefit of doubt.

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Speaker 3: Although physicists are not exactly famous for their hygiene. You know,

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Speaker 3: that's not like top ten ways you become a physicist

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Speaker 3: or things we're famous for. But you know, I appreciate it.

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Speaker 3: I do try to keep clean. Thank you very much.

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Speaker 1: You're welcome. I was thinking about you as a human

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Speaker 1: being and not really a physicist in particular.

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Speaker 4: You know.

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Speaker 3: That doesn't work in my favor. Yeah, all right, but

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Speaker 3: today we are not talking about Daniel's hygiene. We're talking

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Speaker 3: about humans more generally.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and we're talking about them because we got a

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Speaker 1: great question from a listener named Patrick, And let's go

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Speaker 1: ahead and listen to that question.

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Speaker 3: Now, how many parasites are living in all of us,

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Speaker 3: how common are the bad ones? And where do we

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Speaker 3: pick them up? Oh? Man, it sounds to me like

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Speaker 3: Patrick is looking for nightmares.

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Speaker 1: Oh it sounds to me like Patrick is giving me

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Speaker 1: my Christmas present early by allowing me to talk about parasites.

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Speaker 1: And so, you know, at the intro, I talked about

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Speaker 1: how in nineteen forty seven there was this estimate that

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Speaker 1: there's two point two billion parasitic infections and a population

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Speaker 1: of under two point two billion people. So some people

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Speaker 1: are infected by more than one parasite. And I wasn't

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Speaker 1: actually able to find a comparable estimate for now, And

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Speaker 1: I think partly that's because the way he grouped parasites

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Speaker 1: together is not really a biologically relevant category that people

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Speaker 1: care about anymore, and so I wasn't able to find

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Speaker 1: a comparable number. But I am going to go through

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Speaker 1: some of the main parasitic infections that have plagued humans

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Speaker 1: in our recent past, but we managed to get rid of,

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Speaker 1: and then some that are still a problem today in

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Speaker 1: the United States and in other parts of the world.

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Speaker 1: But I figured today we would start with a success story.

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Speaker 3: That's good because I was afraid that the message of

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Speaker 3: this episode was going to be like, there's parasites everywhere,

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Speaker 3: all up in your eyeballs and in your earballs and

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Speaker 3: in your noseballs and everything.

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Speaker 1: Well, you know, especially if you live in the United

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Speaker 1: States and you're lucky enough to be in an area

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Speaker 1: where there's really good sanitation, you probably are pretty safe.

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Speaker 1: But you know that's not necessarily true in other parts

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Speaker 1: of the world. We're very lucky here.

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Speaker 3: All right, Well, let's dive in, because I want to

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Speaker 3: know by the end of this episode how likely am

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Speaker 3: I to have worms living inside me? Right now?

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Speaker 1: Well, we're only talking about one worm. And I was

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Speaker 1: interested in figuring out what people know about this worm,

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Speaker 1: because at least in the United States, infections are very

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Speaker 1: uncommon these days, About fifteen cases of infection with this

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Speaker 1: parasite are recorded per year for a disease that once

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Speaker 1: infected one out of six Americans. So we've made a

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Speaker 1: lot of progress, and so I was wondering have people

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Speaker 1: heard about this before? So I asked our audience, what

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Speaker 1: is trick andilosis?

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Speaker 3: Right? And if you would like to play on this

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Speaker 3: segment of the podcast in the future, please don't be

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Speaker 3: shy we'd love to have your voice. Write to us

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Speaker 3: to questions at Danielankelly dot org. So before you hear

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Speaker 3: these answers, think to yourself, do you know what trick

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Speaker 3: andilosis is?

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Speaker 1: Also known as trick and osis?

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Speaker 3: Uh no idea the osis at the end.

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Speaker 5: It sounds like it could be some kind of disease

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Speaker 5: or medical conditions.

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Speaker 2: I'm too excited for words. This isn't about cats and

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Speaker 2: uncertainty and quantum mechanics and things I don't understand. This

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Speaker 2: is a worm. It's a parasite. It grows in pork mainly.

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Speaker 2: I grew up in India and it was a real

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Speaker 2: risk that we'd get this, So we had pork that

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Speaker 2: was like leather. You could have put it on your

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Speaker 2: feet and worn it as a shoe.

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Speaker 4: Disease associated with a parasitic infection of a round worm

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Speaker 4: from cysts from muscle from undercooked meat, pork and other

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Speaker 4: animals as well. I believed.

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Speaker 5: By bacteria. Worms go drinkinglysis is an infection drinking alact

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Speaker 5: could be a gear or maybe a braasite. I'm not sure.

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Speaker 5: Trichinosis is a human disease caused by a pair of

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Speaker 5: worm in pork.

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Speaker 6: I think tricknosis is a disease that one can contract

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Speaker 6: from eating undercooked meat. I don't know if it's a parasite.

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Speaker 6: If Kelly's involved, I assume that it must be.

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Speaker 3: Though no idea. Sounds like a bacterium. Trichinosis sounds like

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Speaker 3: the disease that happens to my third chin, and I

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Speaker 3: don't know anything more about it.

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Speaker 4: I have no idea what trickynosis is. However, taking a

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Speaker 4: stub in the dark, I'm going to say parasite, but

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Speaker 4: only because the email asking the question came from Kelly.

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Speaker 4: If the email asking the questions coming Daniel, I would

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Speaker 4: have took a stub in the dock and said a particle.

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Speaker 4: There we go.

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Speaker 3: Tricenosis involves a trial by a tricycle and tragedy.

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Speaker 1: So, Daniel, it is so clear to me that our

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Speaker 1: audience has us totally figured out it is about a

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Speaker 1: parasitic worm.

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Speaker 3: And you know, just because the email doesn't come for

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Speaker 3: me doesn't mean it wasn't particles. I mean, I assume

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Speaker 3: these parasites are made to particles. They're not like fundamental

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Speaker 3: parasites in the universe or anything. These aren't string theory parasites.

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Speaker 1: Are they not posts quantum gravity parasites, nothing like that.

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Speaker 1: These are actual parasites. And I am always so amused

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Speaker 1: by the wonderful answers you all give when you don't

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Speaker 1: know the answer, like probably it's goblins and that was great.

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Speaker 3: All right, So give us the context. Take us back

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Speaker 3: in history. When did we first learn about this particular worm.

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Speaker 1: Well, the first documented case where someone figured out that

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Speaker 1: this worm was causing an infection was from eighteen thirty five,

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Speaker 1: So we're in London at Saint Bartholomew's Hospital. Back then,

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Speaker 1: the way that a bunch of the medical students learned

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Speaker 1: about infections was that an autopsy or a surgery would

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Speaker 1: be happening in the middle of essentially what looks like

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Speaker 1: a theater. Like imagine you're sitting down to watch a play,

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Speaker 1: but instead you're watching an autopsy.

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Speaker 3: The first five rows may be splashed, yes, yeah.

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Speaker 1: And this was back before there was anesthesia, so like

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Speaker 1: amputations were oh through some turns my stomach, that about it.

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Speaker 1: But it was an autopsy and it was a man

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Speaker 1: who had died of tuberculosis. And the surgeons in the

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Speaker 1: middle of the operating theater, they had their scalpels, and

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Speaker 1: they were trying to like get through the body, and

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Speaker 1: the scalpels kept dulling, and they were feeling really frustrated.

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Speaker 1: And when they finally got inside, they got to the

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Speaker 1: diaphragm and one of the surgeons said, I knew it

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Speaker 1: a case of sandy diaphragm.

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Speaker 3: Sandy diaphragm, sandy diaphragm.

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Speaker 1: And so one of the guys who was in the audience,

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Speaker 1: his name was John Paget, He was a medical student,

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Speaker 1: and he said, what causes sandy diaphragm? And this is

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Speaker 1: the thing that was dulling their scalpels. And the surgeons

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Speaker 1: were like, we don't know. Let's go to life.

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Speaker 3: Well, what was the general state of medical knowledge? Like

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Speaker 3: was the inside of the human body a total mystery?

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Speaker 3: And we mostly figured out like the circulatory system and

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Speaker 3: the digestive system and all that. What did we sort

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Speaker 3: of know about the workings of the human body almost

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Speaker 3: two hundred years ago?

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Speaker 1: I think that if you went to a surgeon, it

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Speaker 1: was like a fifty to fifty chance the surgeon made

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Speaker 1: things worse. We'd a medical historian, so maybe the odds

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Speaker 1: were better or worse. I don't really know. We knew

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Speaker 1: a fair bit, you know, Like we knew that if

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Speaker 1: someone had a cancerous growth, you'd try to cut it

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Speaker 1: off real fast. But we didn't have anesthesia, so sometimes

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Speaker 1: you'd get an infection and you'd die from that. It

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Speaker 1: was a dicey time to be someone who needed the

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Speaker 1: help of a professional.

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Speaker 3: And this is before germ theory, right, So we didn't

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Speaker 3: understand there could be microscopic organisms infecting or was this

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Speaker 3: after germ theory.

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Speaker 1: Luayne Hook had been able to see his little animacules,

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Speaker 1: so we knew that there were like tiny little organisms

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Speaker 1: in the world. I don't think we had germ theory,

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Speaker 1: and Lister hadn't figured out ways to establish antiseptic technique.

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Speaker 1: That is all off the top of my head. And

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Speaker 1: maybe we should have like Lindsay Fitzharris, who's this amazing

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Speaker 1: historian of like surgeries and stuff on the show, to

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Speaker 1: give some background there.

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Speaker 3: Because I thought that like middle of this century, we

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Speaker 3: still have folks like going from cadavers to delivering babies

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Speaker 3: and wondering like, hey, why are so many women dying

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Speaker 3: in childbirth? What a mystery? And maybe we should wash

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Speaker 3: our hands.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, No, that is where we were yeah. Okay, we're

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Speaker 1: still before the germ theory. Okay, yeah, yeah, And I

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Speaker 1: think that you know, if they amputated someone's limb, they'd

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Speaker 1: kind of like wipe it off with the napkin maybe,

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Speaker 1: and then amputate the next person's limb. There were lots

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Speaker 1: of microbes being shared between people at this time.

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Speaker 3: All right, But sandy diaphragm is not due to microbes, right,

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Speaker 3: It's due to actual visible worms.

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Speaker 1: It's due to actual visible worms. They are not easy

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Speaker 1: to see. So what Paget did was he took a

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Speaker 1: sample and he used a hand lens and he squished

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Speaker 1: it between two glass slides, and he looked at it

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Speaker 1: with the hand lens, and he thought he saw something

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Speaker 1: kind of wormy, but he wanted to get a better

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Speaker 1: look at it, so he brought it over to the

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Speaker 1: British Museum of Natural History, and he actually knocked on

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Speaker 1: the door of the guy who came up with Brownie

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Speaker 1: and the idea behind Brownie in Motion. So he knocked

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Speaker 1: on Brown's door, and he had a microscope. He let

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Speaker 1: Paget use it, and Paget noted that there was actually

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Speaker 1: a worm there. Some of the worms were moving and

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Speaker 1: some were not, and the ones that were not had

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Speaker 1: been calcified by the human body and that's what was

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Speaker 1: causing the sandy diaphragm. So when these worms die, the

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Speaker 1: immune system responds by sort of like creating like a

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Speaker 1: calcified casket to like walllet off from everything else, and

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Speaker 1: over time that creates like hard structures, and that is

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Speaker 1: what the scalpels were dulling on. So he goes and

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Speaker 1: he tells a group of medical students about his finding,

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Speaker 1: but he doesn't take the important next step of publishing

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Speaker 1: and sharing his results more widely. The same cadaver, a

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Speaker 1: sample of it, got sent to this other guy named

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Speaker 1: Richard Owen, and we don't need to get into too

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Speaker 1: much detail here, but he also from the same cadaver,

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Speaker 1: ended up looking and seeing these worms. He wrote it up,

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Speaker 1: he gave a public lecture. He's the one who got

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Speaker 1: the credit. But this one cadaver produced two different people

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Speaker 1: who were the first to notice that actually there were

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Speaker 1: these little, tiny worms, and so it used to be

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Speaker 1: called traquina. I think what which is a word for

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Speaker 1: like tiny hair and spiralis is, you know, like the

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Speaker 1: spiral shape, and so these are hair shaped worms that

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Speaker 1: curl up in a spiral inside of cells like direphram cells.

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Speaker 1: But Trickina also was a genus of flies, and so

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Speaker 1: they went with Trickinella to avoid confusion. So hair like

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Speaker 1: spirally things.

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Speaker 3: And take us back also scientifically, like if you find

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Speaker 3: worms in a body, at that point, do you have

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Speaker 3: to assume that somehow the people have eaten them or

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Speaker 3: they've invaded the body, or are we still in a

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Speaker 3: place where like we don't understand whether life can be

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Speaker 3: generated spontaneously.

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Speaker 1: So we and Hook and Pasture I think they had

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Speaker 1: already done their experiments at this point where you know

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Speaker 1: that there's little things and you know that those little

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Speaker 1: things aren't generated spontaneously, because Pasture and I think some

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Speaker 1: other people as well had done those experiments where they

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Speaker 1: had made those flasks that had the like bendy mouth

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Speaker 1: parts so that the air couldn't sort of get in.

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Speaker 1: And whenever air can't get in and you had like

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Speaker 1: a nutrient broth, nothing would grow in it. But if

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Speaker 1: air could get in, you would get growth. And so

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Speaker 1: it's not arising spontaneously. You have to have something seating

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Speaker 1: the living things. I'm sure that people had seen parasitic

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Speaker 1: worms before but I don't think we had a very

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Speaker 1: good handle on life cycles.

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Speaker 3: All right, What exactly was new and novel about this?

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Speaker 3: What did this tell us about parasites and humans and

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Speaker 3: all that kind of stuff.

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Speaker 1: So I don't think that this is the first parasitic

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Speaker 1: disease that was ever discovered, but I think this is

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Speaker 1: a problem that was attributed to a parasitic disease at

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Speaker 1: this point. So like this person in particular had died

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Speaker 1: of tuberculosis. I think it was a while before we

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Speaker 1: realized that this was something that could kill people as

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Speaker 1: opposed to just something that's a pain in the rear

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Speaker 1: end when you're trying to run a scalpel through a

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Speaker 1: dead person's body. But even today, if you get infected

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Speaker 1: by too many of these all at once, you can die.

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Speaker 1: So let's talk a little bit more about what they

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Speaker 1: actually discovered when we get back from the break. Okay,

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Speaker 1: So what they had discovered was trick and ellis barrellis.

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Speaker 1: This is a nematode. So they've got like a hard cuticle.

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Speaker 1: They kind of look like earthworms, but without the segments

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Speaker 1: and the ones that we're talking about, the ones that

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Speaker 1: cause trick and e loosis they're very tiny, so they're

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Speaker 1: much smaller than normal earthworms. Do you feel like you've

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Speaker 1: got that image in your head.

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Speaker 3: I'm imagining something that looks basically like a human hair

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Speaker 3: and it's curled up. Yeah, and if you zoom in

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Speaker 3: on it, it looks sort of like a worm.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it comes to points at either end, but yes,

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Speaker 1: kind of like a human hair, except points at the ends.

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Speaker 1: And so what happens is if you eat meat that's

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Speaker 1: infected by this parasite and that meat's not cooked through

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Speaker 1: all the way, the parasites burst out of the cells

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Speaker 1: that they've been living in. So as your body is

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Speaker 1: digesting the food, it also digests the cells they've been

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Speaker 1: living in and that releases them.

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Speaker 3: So they've been living inside the cells. Like I'm eating pork.

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Speaker 3: Then these worms are inside the cells the pig, not

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Speaker 3: swimming around between the cells.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and this is not something that's super common for

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Speaker 1: wormy parasites to do, but this is something that this

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Speaker 1: particular species does. They live inside the cells, and they

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Speaker 1: can live inside the cells for like thirty years, like

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Speaker 1: incredible amounts of time.

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Speaker 3: So they're smaller than like a pig cell.

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Speaker 1: And they get into the pig cell, they expand the

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Speaker 1: size of that cell. Oh well, get there. I'm so

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Speaker 1: sorry about the next few years of your life, Daniel.

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Speaker 1: And so they burst out of the cells, they find mates,

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Speaker 1: they produce live smaller worms, and the smaller worms get

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Speaker 1: into your bloodstream or the circulation for your lymph, and

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Speaker 1: then they end up all over your body. But they

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Speaker 1: can only move in and live into skeletal muscle cells.

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Speaker 1: And so when they end up in like your heart

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Speaker 1: or your brain, they try burrowing into those cells and

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Speaker 1: then they're like, oh, this isn't home, and they borrow

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Speaker 1: back out again.

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Speaker 3: Because we have two different kinds of muscle cells, right,

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Speaker 3: smooth and skeletal. Is that right?

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Speaker 1: Three types cardiac, skeletal and smooth.

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Speaker 3: Oh all right, cool? So why can they only live

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Speaker 3: in one particular kind of muscle? Is the shape of

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Speaker 3: the cell, the size of the cell, the kind of

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Speaker 3: food they get inside or.

401
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Speaker 1: I don't think we know the answer to that. But

402
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Speaker 1: they do end up manipulating these cells. They are born

403
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Speaker 1: about a week after you eat the infected meat, and

404
00:20:24,720 --> 00:20:26,920
Speaker 1: they're going on this journey. And so about a week

405
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Speaker 1: after you eat the infected meat, this is when you're

406
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Speaker 1: at the highest risk of dying because if you ate

407
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Speaker 1: a lot of parasites in that meat, they're all having babies,

408
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Speaker 1: they're all releasing babies, and those babies are like maybe

409
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Speaker 1: if they end up in your brain, destroying a bunch

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Speaker 1: of brain cells or destroying a bunch of cardiac cells.

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Speaker 1: And at this point you're often given medication to reduce inflammation,

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Speaker 1: because that's a big part of what is causing trouble here,

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Speaker 1: the inflammation as a result of the parasites moving around,

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Speaker 1: And sometimes you're given anti parasite medication. But this is

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Speaker 1: the most dangerous phase of the process.

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Speaker 3: And in order to be a risk of like dyeing,

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Speaker 3: you must need to have lots and lots of these parasites.

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Speaker 3: Can one worm or two worms generate like an avalanche

419
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Speaker 3: of these things? Or do you need to eat a

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Speaker 3: lot of the meat you have like a big initial population.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, the more that you eat initially, the worst shape

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Speaker 1: you're going to be in. So if you just happen

423
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Speaker 1: to eat one or two cells that have the parasite,

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Speaker 1: you're probably gonna be fine.

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Speaker 3: You're still going to have parasites inside you. You're just

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Speaker 3: not going to die. That's what you call it fine.

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Speaker 1: I mean, for most of our revolutionary history, that would

428
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Speaker 1: have been lucky, just one or two parasites in you.

429
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Speaker 1: But yes, it won't be a dire situation, I guess.

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Speaker 1: But so when these parasites do find the cells, they're

431
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Speaker 1: looking for the skeletal muscles they burrow in and now

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Speaker 1: this is when they start manipulating the cell. So they

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Speaker 1: call the cell a neur cell. They like secrete some

434
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Speaker 1: stuff that gets rid of the parts of the cell

435
00:21:49,240 --> 00:21:52,439
Speaker 1: that they don't need. They start growing and expanding. The

436
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Speaker 1: cell starts getting bigger, and then around the cell, I

437
00:21:56,200 --> 00:21:58,680
Speaker 1: think it doesn't recruit the kind of vessels that bring

438
00:21:58,920 --> 00:22:02,040
Speaker 1: oxygenated blood because inside the cell you end up with

439
00:22:02,080 --> 00:22:04,919
Speaker 1: an anaerobic environment. I don't know why that's necessary, But

440
00:22:05,000 --> 00:22:07,800
Speaker 1: so they start bringing the kinds of cells that take

441
00:22:08,280 --> 00:22:12,280
Speaker 1: deoxygenated blood away. But in this way, the nurse cell

442
00:22:12,480 --> 00:22:17,080
Speaker 1: delivers nutrients and removes waste, and so the parasites are

443
00:22:17,119 --> 00:22:20,400
Speaker 1: able to manipulate the cells to become nice homes and

444
00:22:20,680 --> 00:22:22,959
Speaker 1: to do things like remove waste and feed them. So

445
00:22:23,200 --> 00:22:25,960
Speaker 1: we don't really understand how this happens, but it does.

446
00:22:26,040 --> 00:22:28,840
Speaker 1: And Dixon de Pomier wrote this book called Parasites People

447
00:22:28,840 --> 00:22:31,760
Speaker 1: in Plowshares, where he argues that if we could understand

448
00:22:31,760 --> 00:22:34,880
Speaker 1: how nurse cells work, we could maybe understand like better

449
00:22:34,880 --> 00:22:37,800
Speaker 1: ways of like delivering insulin and stuff like that. And

450
00:22:37,840 --> 00:22:41,040
Speaker 1: so he's really interested in trying to like physiologically understand

451
00:22:41,040 --> 00:22:43,119
Speaker 1: what's happening here. But it's a complicated system.

452
00:22:43,240 --> 00:22:46,359
Speaker 3: So they really have taken over the cell and refashioned

453
00:22:46,400 --> 00:22:48,000
Speaker 3: it for their own use. It's no longer doing the

454
00:22:48,040 --> 00:22:50,440
Speaker 3: original thing you had that cell for. It's not basically

455
00:22:50,520 --> 00:22:52,800
Speaker 3: just like a homestead for these worms.

456
00:22:53,000 --> 00:22:55,919
Speaker 1: Yep, it's kind of amazing. I think that they've managed to, like,

457
00:22:55,960 --> 00:22:57,040
Speaker 1: you know, evolve to do this.

458
00:22:57,200 --> 00:22:59,920
Speaker 3: I think it's super amazing when they manipulate their environment

459
00:23:00,160 --> 00:23:03,359
Speaker 3: respond in a certain way to take advantage of it. Obviously,

460
00:23:03,440 --> 00:23:05,359
Speaker 3: you know this is just evolutionary, right, there's no like

461
00:23:05,520 --> 00:23:08,680
Speaker 3: intentional design here. They're not like engineers where they're thinking

462
00:23:08,680 --> 00:23:12,560
Speaker 3: about what to do. But they found this strategy. Why

463
00:23:12,600 --> 00:23:15,960
Speaker 3: haven't humans responded in an evolutionary sort of way to

464
00:23:16,040 --> 00:23:18,840
Speaker 3: create new defenses, Like, obviously this is bad if it

465
00:23:18,920 --> 00:23:20,920
Speaker 3: kills you, or even if it doesn't kill you, it

466
00:23:20,960 --> 00:23:23,479
Speaker 3: must be bad for you because it's sapping your energy.

467
00:23:24,040 --> 00:23:26,439
Speaker 3: Do humans have defenses against this or we just like

468
00:23:26,480 --> 00:23:27,919
Speaker 3: total suckers for these worms.

469
00:23:28,240 --> 00:23:30,480
Speaker 1: Well, so some of the worms die and the ones

470
00:23:30,520 --> 00:23:33,520
Speaker 1: that die they get calcified. And I think probably some

471
00:23:33,600 --> 00:23:36,960
Speaker 1: of them are dying because of an appropriate immune response.

472
00:23:37,119 --> 00:23:39,159
Speaker 3: I'm glad to here's something's happening in the inside to

473
00:23:39,200 --> 00:23:39,560
Speaker 3: push back.

474
00:23:39,880 --> 00:23:42,280
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, we're doing something. But y know, so for

475
00:23:42,400 --> 00:23:45,560
Speaker 1: a lot of parasites, the deal is that they, through

476
00:23:45,560 --> 00:23:47,879
Speaker 1: this evolutionary arms race, have just found ways to evade

477
00:23:47,920 --> 00:23:49,880
Speaker 1: the immune system, to just make the immune system things

478
00:23:49,920 --> 00:23:52,280
Speaker 1: it's not even there. And then other times it's more

479
00:23:52,320 --> 00:23:54,720
Speaker 1: about like and I'm going to make this sound super anthropomorphic,

480
00:23:55,240 --> 00:23:57,320
Speaker 1: and it's not like a decision that the body's making,

481
00:23:57,359 --> 00:23:58,919
Speaker 1: like it's thinking about it like a person. But this

482
00:23:59,000 --> 00:24:02,240
Speaker 1: is a process overtionary time. But so these worms that

483
00:24:02,280 --> 00:24:04,520
Speaker 1: are living in the nurse cells, is it worse for

484
00:24:04,560 --> 00:24:07,560
Speaker 1: the body to deliver a tiny amount of energy to

485
00:24:07,600 --> 00:24:10,679
Speaker 1: these teeny tiny little worms or to kill the worms

486
00:24:10,680 --> 00:24:13,560
Speaker 1: and calcify it. And if it's in your diaphragm, you know,

487
00:24:13,600 --> 00:24:15,800
Speaker 1: so like that sandy diaphragm. Yeah, it's a problem for

488
00:24:15,840 --> 00:24:19,480
Speaker 1: the scalpel. But probably a diaphragm that's that hard, isn't

489
00:24:19,520 --> 00:24:22,600
Speaker 1: doing a very good job of like helping you breathe.

490
00:24:23,080 --> 00:24:24,520
Speaker 1: And so if you end up with all of these

491
00:24:24,560 --> 00:24:27,840
Speaker 1: calcified muscles, and when a parasite dies, it usually kicks

492
00:24:27,880 --> 00:24:32,200
Speaker 1: off an inflammatory response. And so I think over evolutionary time,

493
00:24:32,440 --> 00:24:35,719
Speaker 1: the trick isn't attack all the parasites that you have

494
00:24:35,760 --> 00:24:39,680
Speaker 1: with your maximum mobility, because when you initiate an immune response,

495
00:24:40,000 --> 00:24:42,600
Speaker 1: that often causes damage to the host as well. And

496
00:24:42,640 --> 00:24:44,520
Speaker 1: so I think it's a balancing act between what do

497
00:24:44,600 --> 00:24:47,239
Speaker 1: I just ignore and what do I have all out

498
00:24:47,320 --> 00:24:47,919
Speaker 1: war against.

499
00:24:48,080 --> 00:24:49,960
Speaker 3: I don't know, Kelly, I think you're just a shill

500
00:24:49,960 --> 00:24:52,439
Speaker 3: for big parasite. I mean, you're telling me I should

501
00:24:52,760 --> 00:24:56,440
Speaker 3: happily live along with these things that have like squatting

502
00:24:56,520 --> 00:24:59,080
Speaker 3: in my cells. You're like, isn't it just best for

503
00:24:59,119 --> 00:25:01,959
Speaker 3: everybody if you you just give in and give up

504
00:25:02,000 --> 00:25:04,640
Speaker 3: some of your energy. Like, I don't know, I think

505
00:25:04,680 --> 00:25:06,280
Speaker 3: we're in all out war with these things.

506
00:25:06,480 --> 00:25:08,600
Speaker 1: There are some unpleasant people in my life, and I

507
00:25:08,600 --> 00:25:11,159
Speaker 1: think my life is better for ignoring them than for

508
00:25:11,440 --> 00:25:13,760
Speaker 1: like trying to attack back. And you know, I don't

509
00:25:13,760 --> 00:25:15,919
Speaker 1: think it's that different with the worms and you know,

510
00:25:15,960 --> 00:25:18,040
Speaker 1: we should have a whole episode one day on this

511
00:25:18,200 --> 00:25:21,560
Speaker 1: old friends or hygiene hypothesis. Are you familiar with this idea?

512
00:25:21,800 --> 00:25:22,119
Speaker 3: Yeah.

513
00:25:22,280 --> 00:25:24,760
Speaker 1: The idea is basically that, like, we've had these organisms

514
00:25:24,760 --> 00:25:28,679
Speaker 1: in our body through enough evolutionary time that our immune

515
00:25:28,680 --> 00:25:30,560
Speaker 1: systems have come to sort of like expect them to

516
00:25:30,560 --> 00:25:32,800
Speaker 1: be there, and now they're sort of used as cues

517
00:25:32,840 --> 00:25:34,639
Speaker 1: for how our immune systems should work and how our

518
00:25:34,680 --> 00:25:38,200
Speaker 1: immune system identifies self from not self. These things don't

519
00:25:38,200 --> 00:25:40,520
Speaker 1: always go in the direction you'd think I wouldn't want

520
00:25:40,560 --> 00:25:42,439
Speaker 1: to have any worms in my body, but you know

521
00:25:42,480 --> 00:25:44,679
Speaker 1: it's also positible. My body is just like it's not

522
00:25:44,760 --> 00:25:46,439
Speaker 1: worth the effort you just ignore.

523
00:25:46,720 --> 00:25:50,200
Speaker 3: Yeah, and Katrina is big on not classifying microbes, some

524
00:25:50,240 --> 00:25:52,360
Speaker 3: of them as good or bad because they all play

525
00:25:52,400 --> 00:25:56,000
Speaker 3: different roles and it's complicated, and you know, you might

526
00:25:56,040 --> 00:25:58,760
Speaker 3: imagine you don't want to be infected, but obviously lots

527
00:25:58,800 --> 00:26:01,320
Speaker 3: of microbes are essential for your life, the fermentation that

528
00:26:01,320 --> 00:26:03,840
Speaker 3: happens in your gut, all that kind of stuff. Is

529
00:26:03,880 --> 00:26:07,320
Speaker 3: it possible that parasites like these worms are playing some

530
00:26:07,480 --> 00:26:10,080
Speaker 3: positive role that we're benefiting from. I mean, you call

531
00:26:10,119 --> 00:26:12,600
Speaker 3: them a parasite, which implies that we're not getting anything.

532
00:26:12,840 --> 00:26:16,440
Speaker 3: There's no commensural reaction here. But are there any benefits

533
00:26:16,520 --> 00:26:18,160
Speaker 3: to having these worms live inside of us?

534
00:26:18,520 --> 00:26:21,040
Speaker 1: I don't think there's any documented benefit from having Trickenellis

535
00:26:21,040 --> 00:26:24,919
Speaker 1: barrellus inside of you. There are some other parasites that

536
00:26:24,960 --> 00:26:29,280
Speaker 1: people have been experimenting with where when you infect people,

537
00:26:29,520 --> 00:26:33,480
Speaker 1: like their hay fever symptoms go away, or their crone's

538
00:26:33,520 --> 00:26:37,160
Speaker 1: disease symptoms become less severe, or their MS goes into

539
00:26:37,320 --> 00:26:39,520
Speaker 1: remission or whatever the right word is for that. But

540
00:26:40,560 --> 00:26:44,960
Speaker 1: those studies are super complicated. Sometimes you get good results,

541
00:26:44,960 --> 00:26:47,320
Speaker 1: sometimes you don't. It seems to depend on the parasite

542
00:26:47,359 --> 00:26:50,240
Speaker 1: genome or maybe the exact person's genome and the exact

543
00:26:50,320 --> 00:26:52,840
Speaker 1: kind of problem they have. And I think science is

544
00:26:52,960 --> 00:26:55,679
Speaker 1: like really working through digging through that right now, and

545
00:26:55,800 --> 00:26:59,040
Speaker 1: right now we're at a like what is happening phase,

546
00:26:59,480 --> 00:27:01,280
Speaker 1: But we should invite an expert on one day to

547
00:27:01,320 --> 00:27:01,920
Speaker 1: talk about that.

548
00:27:02,119 --> 00:27:04,080
Speaker 3: I'm just trying to get mentally prepared because you know,

549
00:27:04,280 --> 00:27:06,280
Speaker 3: I've learned now the bacteria it can be good for you,

550
00:27:06,359 --> 00:27:08,440
Speaker 3: and even leeches can be good for you. So hey,

551
00:27:08,960 --> 00:27:12,159
Speaker 3: maybe in the future we'll all be intentionally injecting worms

552
00:27:12,200 --> 00:27:13,040
Speaker 3: into our children.

553
00:27:13,359 --> 00:27:15,880
Speaker 1: There are a community of people who are intentionally infecting

554
00:27:15,920 --> 00:27:18,520
Speaker 1: themselves with parasites right now. I think most of them

555
00:27:18,560 --> 00:27:21,840
Speaker 1: are not doing that to their children, I hope. But

556
00:27:22,040 --> 00:27:24,120
Speaker 1: in my mind, the ideal thing isn't that we all

557
00:27:24,160 --> 00:27:26,880
Speaker 1: take like five hookworms for breakfast and call it a day,

558
00:27:26,880 --> 00:27:30,040
Speaker 1: but that we figure out what cues the parasites are

559
00:27:30,080 --> 00:27:32,520
Speaker 1: giving our immune system, and then we can like take

560
00:27:32,560 --> 00:27:36,160
Speaker 1: a probiotic pill or something that like replicates those cues

561
00:27:36,160 --> 00:27:37,840
Speaker 1: so we don't actually have to have the parasites there.

562
00:27:37,920 --> 00:27:40,080
Speaker 1: But I agree with Katrina that I think we are

563
00:27:40,119 --> 00:27:43,120
Speaker 1: at a point where dichotomizing things as good and bad,

564
00:27:43,240 --> 00:27:45,960
Speaker 1: we're realizing sometimes it's a little bit more complicated and

565
00:27:46,000 --> 00:27:47,080
Speaker 1: it depends on context.

566
00:27:47,680 --> 00:27:49,600
Speaker 3: And I think the point you made is really interesting

567
00:27:49,880 --> 00:27:52,600
Speaker 3: that we can learn from them how to manipulate our

568
00:27:52,640 --> 00:27:55,720
Speaker 3: own bodies. Like if they have spent millions of years

569
00:27:55,840 --> 00:27:59,840
Speaker 3: evolving strategies to pull chemical levers inside the body, we

570
00:28:00,119 --> 00:28:02,119
Speaker 3: can take advantage of that, right. If we understand the

571
00:28:02,160 --> 00:28:05,560
Speaker 3: techniques that they have stumbled into, we can maybe use

572
00:28:05,600 --> 00:28:08,040
Speaker 3: them intentionally to understand the workings of our own system.

573
00:28:08,280 --> 00:28:11,159
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, sometimes the parasites that manipulate host behavior. We

574
00:28:11,200 --> 00:28:15,040
Speaker 1: sometimes refer to them as evolutionary neuroscientists. And there's you know,

575
00:28:15,200 --> 00:28:17,320
Speaker 1: like a whole group of people like me who write

576
00:28:17,320 --> 00:28:19,879
Speaker 1: our NSF grants about how we can understand host behavior

577
00:28:19,920 --> 00:28:22,399
Speaker 1: better by trying to figure out what parasites have quote

578
00:28:22,480 --> 00:28:26,199
Speaker 1: unquote learned through natural selection. All of this across all

579
00:28:26,200 --> 00:28:26,680
Speaker 1: these years.

580
00:28:26,720 --> 00:28:29,520
Speaker 3: So these guys set up a home in these nurse cells,

581
00:28:29,840 --> 00:28:33,199
Speaker 3: make them work for them. How long do they hang out? Like,

582
00:28:33,280 --> 00:28:35,199
Speaker 3: do they live as long as the cells live? Do

583
00:28:35,240 --> 00:28:39,680
Speaker 3: they have like generations and generations of worms inside one cell?

584
00:28:39,840 --> 00:28:41,640
Speaker 3: Or does a single worm last a long time?

585
00:28:42,080 --> 00:28:44,960
Speaker 1: So there's no reproduction happening at this stage. But worms

586
00:28:45,000 --> 00:28:47,480
Speaker 1: can live it looks like for twenty five plus years.

587
00:28:47,800 --> 00:28:51,080
Speaker 3: Twenty five years. Oh yeah, gosh, so they can vote

588
00:28:51,120 --> 00:28:52,800
Speaker 3: and you know, buy alcohol and stuff like this.

589
00:28:53,080 --> 00:28:55,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, because that's what they're doing. But no, they

590
00:28:55,440 --> 00:28:56,960
Speaker 1: live for a really long time. And I mean they've

591
00:28:57,000 --> 00:28:58,600
Speaker 1: got like a nice setup. You know, food is being

592
00:28:58,600 --> 00:29:01,160
Speaker 1: delivered to them, their wastes are being removed, so yeah,

593
00:29:01,160 --> 00:29:02,560
Speaker 1: they can live for a really long time. But they're

594
00:29:02,560 --> 00:29:06,800
Speaker 1: not reproducing. They're just like biding their time until the

595
00:29:06,880 --> 00:29:09,360
Speaker 1: muscles that they live in get eaten by something else.

596
00:29:09,800 --> 00:29:12,000
Speaker 3: And are they squirming around a lot? Because for some

597
00:29:12,040 --> 00:29:13,960
Speaker 3: reason that makes them a lot worse. Like if you're

598
00:29:14,040 --> 00:29:17,560
Speaker 3: just quietly hanging out inside my cell and stealing some food, okay,

599
00:29:17,560 --> 00:29:20,160
Speaker 3: but if you're like squirming around, then it's Oh, I

600
00:29:20,240 --> 00:29:21,200
Speaker 3: just can't tolerate that.

601
00:29:21,360 --> 00:29:23,440
Speaker 1: You know, I would like to exercise every day. So

602
00:29:23,480 --> 00:29:25,480
Speaker 1: I guess I hope that they're like running laps and

603
00:29:25,520 --> 00:29:27,880
Speaker 1: their little nurse cells. But I think they're generally not

604
00:29:28,000 --> 00:29:30,280
Speaker 1: moving much. And if they are, you're not feeling it.

605
00:29:30,640 --> 00:29:33,840
Speaker 3: See, you're pro parasite. There you are again like advising

606
00:29:33,880 --> 00:29:36,200
Speaker 3: the parasites how to live their best life inside people.

607
00:29:36,440 --> 00:29:40,200
Speaker 1: Well, you know, we all need to stay healthy. So

608
00:29:40,320 --> 00:29:42,200
Speaker 1: you know, you might be asking yourself, if you want

609
00:29:42,240 --> 00:29:45,960
Speaker 1: to avoid being a track for parasites, how do you

610
00:29:46,000 --> 00:29:46,280
Speaker 1: do that?

611
00:29:46,560 --> 00:29:47,200
Speaker 3: Yes, tell me.

612
00:29:47,400 --> 00:29:49,560
Speaker 1: For a long time it was difficult. So most of

613
00:29:49,600 --> 00:29:53,920
Speaker 1: us get this parasite from pork, and so pigs get infected.

614
00:29:53,960 --> 00:29:56,360
Speaker 1: It's in the pigs muscles. And if you eat pork

615
00:29:56,400 --> 00:29:59,320
Speaker 1: that hasn't been cooked through enough, that's how you get infected.

616
00:29:59,480 --> 00:30:02,200
Speaker 1: And pork, you know, in the eighteen eighties, the United

617
00:30:02,240 --> 00:30:05,120
Speaker 1: States was like a world exporter of pork. It was

618
00:30:05,160 --> 00:30:07,719
Speaker 1: a huge industry for US, and it ended up being

619
00:30:07,760 --> 00:30:11,040
Speaker 1: a big problem for US because Europeans decided that because

620
00:30:11,040 --> 00:30:14,000
Speaker 1: we weren't checking for trick and ella, we weren't checking

621
00:30:14,000 --> 00:30:16,600
Speaker 1: for this parasite, that we were causing a bunch of

622
00:30:16,840 --> 00:30:19,680
Speaker 1: trick and alsis outbreaks in Europe. And so for a

623
00:30:19,720 --> 00:30:24,040
Speaker 1: while they stopped importing pork from US, and this was

624
00:30:24,040 --> 00:30:26,960
Speaker 1: a big problem for our industry. Some Americans went over

625
00:30:27,000 --> 00:30:29,640
Speaker 1: there and they were like, no, and they figured out that, like, no,

626
00:30:30,200 --> 00:30:33,120
Speaker 1: it's not necessarily our pork that's causing the problem. Like

627
00:30:33,160 --> 00:30:36,000
Speaker 1: maybe maybe sometimes it's American pork that's the problem, but

628
00:30:36,080 --> 00:30:38,240
Speaker 1: like it's not like all of our pork is wormy.

629
00:30:38,840 --> 00:30:40,480
Speaker 1: But you know, it was a good goal to try

630
00:30:40,520 --> 00:30:43,680
Speaker 1: to reduce the worminess of our meat. And so how

631
00:30:43,680 --> 00:30:44,280
Speaker 1: did we do that?

632
00:30:44,440 --> 00:30:46,880
Speaker 3: But wait, hold on a second, why pork? Like do

633
00:30:46,960 --> 00:30:50,280
Speaker 3: these parasites prefer pig cells to cow cells for some reason?

634
00:30:50,520 --> 00:30:53,160
Speaker 3: Do cows have the kind of muscles that they can't

635
00:30:53,160 --> 00:30:54,680
Speaker 3: get inside? Why pork?

636
00:30:54,920 --> 00:30:56,120
Speaker 1: Okay, so part of it has to do with the

637
00:30:56,120 --> 00:31:00,240
Speaker 1: animal's diet. So pigs eat everything like a thing of

638
00:31:00,280 --> 00:31:02,040
Speaker 1: getting pigs on our farm so that all of our

639
00:31:02,040 --> 00:31:04,520
Speaker 1: food waste goes into pigs. But then I couldn't turn

640
00:31:04,520 --> 00:31:06,600
Speaker 1: them into bacon because they'd be like friends. I'd probably

641
00:31:06,640 --> 00:31:10,840
Speaker 1: name them wilburm. So pigs eat everything, including other pigs.

642
00:31:11,000 --> 00:31:12,240
Speaker 3: Pigs are cannibals, yep.

643
00:31:12,280 --> 00:31:15,000
Speaker 1: Pigs are cannibals. Yep. I need to be excited about that.

644
00:31:15,520 --> 00:31:18,400
Speaker 1: So when a pig dies, another pig will eat its

645
00:31:18,400 --> 00:31:21,440
Speaker 1: infected muscles, and then they'll get infected. Oh, so part

646
00:31:21,480 --> 00:31:22,920
Speaker 1: of it has to do with diet. There were also

647
00:31:23,000 --> 00:31:26,120
Speaker 1: some like rodents, who would eat dead pigs, and then

648
00:31:26,160 --> 00:31:28,120
Speaker 1: other pigs would eat the rodents, and so for a while,

649
00:31:28,240 --> 00:31:32,640
Speaker 1: rodents were part of the transmission cycle here. Cows tend

650
00:31:32,720 --> 00:31:36,320
Speaker 1: to not eat meat, but like horses, can get infected.

651
00:31:36,320 --> 00:31:40,600
Speaker 1: And horses don't usually eat meat, but sometimes they will,

652
00:31:40,800 --> 00:31:42,479
Speaker 1: so like a lot of animals that we think of

653
00:31:42,600 --> 00:31:45,400
Speaker 1: as non meat eaters, will eat meat every once in

654
00:31:45,440 --> 00:31:46,880
Speaker 1: a while if you give it to them and they're

655
00:31:46,880 --> 00:31:48,880
Speaker 1: in the right mood. And so there have been cases

656
00:31:48,880 --> 00:31:50,640
Speaker 1: of horses getting infected.

657
00:31:50,880 --> 00:31:53,760
Speaker 3: We even learned on the podcast recently that bees sometimes

658
00:31:53,840 --> 00:31:54,720
Speaker 3: eat meat, right.

659
00:31:54,680 --> 00:31:58,680
Speaker 1: That's right, yes, yes, meat, honey, m m yeah, And

660
00:31:58,680 --> 00:32:00,520
Speaker 1: so I think the reason that cows often don't get

661
00:32:00,560 --> 00:32:03,240
Speaker 1: infected is because they're just not eating meat. So trick

662
00:32:03,280 --> 00:32:06,840
Speaker 1: Andella spiralis is one trick and Ella species. There are

663
00:32:06,920 --> 00:32:09,720
Speaker 1: other trick and Ella species that seem to specialize on

664
00:32:09,800 --> 00:32:13,680
Speaker 1: other animals. There's like in the United States, bears and

665
00:32:13,840 --> 00:32:17,760
Speaker 1: moose and wild boars, some of them can get infected

666
00:32:17,760 --> 00:32:20,360
Speaker 1: by trick and Ella spurrells. But there's also other trick

667
00:32:20,360 --> 00:32:23,640
Speaker 1: and Ella species that are more common in nature that

668
00:32:23,680 --> 00:32:25,720
Speaker 1: they can get infected with. But then we can get

669
00:32:25,720 --> 00:32:28,240
Speaker 1: infected by those if we don't cook the meat through.

670
00:32:28,880 --> 00:32:31,960
Speaker 1: And so there is some chance that I carry some

671
00:32:32,120 --> 00:32:34,880
Speaker 1: trick and Ella in me because I ate bear once

672
00:32:34,920 --> 00:32:36,200
Speaker 1: that I don't think was cooked through.

673
00:32:36,080 --> 00:32:38,800
Speaker 3: All the way you ate a bear? What I had

674
00:32:38,840 --> 00:32:41,840
Speaker 3: to hear that story? When did you have a bear not.

675
00:32:41,840 --> 00:32:45,600
Speaker 1: A whole bear? I was working with some folks in

676
00:32:45,600 --> 00:32:48,120
Speaker 1: the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and they were nice

677
00:32:48,200 --> 00:32:51,840
Speaker 1: enough to invite us to their annual social gathering and

678
00:32:52,000 --> 00:32:54,400
Speaker 1: a bunch of people brought stuff that they had hunted,

679
00:32:54,880 --> 00:32:58,840
Speaker 1: and there was barbecue bear. And so I mean, I've

680
00:32:58,840 --> 00:33:01,880
Speaker 1: eaten bear. I'm gonna assume they cooked it through all

681
00:33:01,920 --> 00:33:06,080
Speaker 1: the way. But I've also eaten smoked moose heart. Oh,

682
00:33:06,120 --> 00:33:08,000
Speaker 1: but it shouldn't be in the cardiac muscles, so that

683
00:33:08,000 --> 00:33:10,000
Speaker 1: should be fine because it's in skeleton muscles.

684
00:33:10,080 --> 00:33:12,240
Speaker 3: Yeah, there you go, it's smoked moose heart.

685
00:33:12,400 --> 00:33:13,600
Speaker 1: Knowing is half the battle.

686
00:33:13,840 --> 00:33:14,000
Speaker 4: You know.

687
00:33:14,040 --> 00:33:15,719
Speaker 1: The smoked moose heart was gross, Like when it got

688
00:33:15,800 --> 00:33:19,080
Speaker 1: pulled out of the bag, it still had like fat

689
00:33:19,120 --> 00:33:21,000
Speaker 1: on top of the heart. But it was like a

690
00:33:21,040 --> 00:33:23,640
Speaker 1: collaborator of mine who was from a part of the

691
00:33:23,640 --> 00:33:26,600
Speaker 1: world where this was. Anyway I pushed.

692
00:33:26,360 --> 00:33:28,880
Speaker 3: Through, You're going to turn me into a vegetarian killing.

693
00:33:28,800 --> 00:33:32,200
Speaker 1: Again, right back to your vegetarian root exactly.

694
00:33:32,280 --> 00:33:32,800
Speaker 3: Here we go.

695
00:33:33,080 --> 00:33:34,920
Speaker 1: So let's back up. Okay, so you know you can

696
00:33:34,920 --> 00:33:36,600
Speaker 1: get it from pork, but you don't get it from

697
00:33:36,640 --> 00:33:39,520
Speaker 1: pork in the United States much anymore. So what's changed.

698
00:33:40,080 --> 00:33:44,120
Speaker 1: So in the nineteen fifties, we made it so that

699
00:33:44,200 --> 00:33:48,200
Speaker 1: people were no longer allowed to feed their farmed pigs

700
00:33:48,360 --> 00:33:52,320
Speaker 1: uncooked garbage, which is such a gross phrase to hear.

701
00:33:52,520 --> 00:33:54,600
Speaker 3: I think you have to cook your garbage if you're

702
00:33:54,600 --> 00:33:55,480
Speaker 3: going to feed it to pigs.

703
00:33:55,560 --> 00:33:58,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, So, like you know, nowadays, factory farms don't feed

704
00:33:58,240 --> 00:34:00,960
Speaker 1: pigs anything you would just call garbage. I mean, I

705
00:34:00,960 --> 00:34:02,800
Speaker 1: guess maybe people would want to call it garbage, but

706
00:34:02,800 --> 00:34:05,040
Speaker 1: it's not actually garbage the way these animals were being

707
00:34:05,080 --> 00:34:07,440
Speaker 1: fed garbage before. But for a while the change was

708
00:34:07,480 --> 00:34:08,719
Speaker 1: just you had to cook it through, and if you

709
00:34:08,719 --> 00:34:11,200
Speaker 1: cook it through enough, then any of the effective stages

710
00:34:11,239 --> 00:34:13,920
Speaker 1: of the parasites are dead. And so that was a

711
00:34:13,960 --> 00:34:14,920
Speaker 1: stage of improvement.

712
00:34:15,280 --> 00:34:18,240
Speaker 3: All right, So barbecued garbage is okay, or slow roasted

713
00:34:18,280 --> 00:34:19,479
Speaker 3: garbage as.

714
00:34:19,440 --> 00:34:21,960
Speaker 1: Long as the internal temperature in the middle of the

715
00:34:22,000 --> 00:34:24,920
Speaker 1: garbage reaches one hundred and sixty five degrees fahrenheit, yes,

716
00:34:24,960 --> 00:34:25,839
Speaker 1: you're probably fine.

717
00:34:26,080 --> 00:34:28,640
Speaker 3: Maybe a souvied then, because that's really good temperature control.

718
00:34:28,960 --> 00:34:31,320
Speaker 3: Souvid garbage that's where they serve at pig restaurants.

719
00:34:31,360 --> 00:34:35,160
Speaker 1: Oh so disgusting. So like, up until nineteen eighty five,

720
00:34:35,200 --> 00:34:38,440
Speaker 1: we weren't really sure how pigs were mostly getting infected.

721
00:34:38,440 --> 00:34:41,240
Speaker 1: But you know, we've talked about how cannibalism and rats

722
00:34:41,719 --> 00:34:45,440
Speaker 1: contribute to infection. That was also like, sometimes if pigs

723
00:34:45,440 --> 00:34:48,240
Speaker 1: and wildlife were interacting, I think most often the pigs

724
00:34:48,239 --> 00:34:51,240
Speaker 1: were infecting the wildlife, but sometimes the wildlife could infect

725
00:34:51,280 --> 00:34:53,799
Speaker 1: the pigs. But once we sort of figured all of

726
00:34:53,840 --> 00:34:56,640
Speaker 1: this stuff out, we were able to say, like, Okay,

727
00:34:56,719 --> 00:34:58,880
Speaker 1: first of all, you have to make sure your pigs

728
00:34:58,920 --> 00:35:01,479
Speaker 1: aren't able to eat the other pigs if they die.

729
00:35:01,960 --> 00:35:04,120
Speaker 1: You have to make sure you don't have any rats

730
00:35:04,400 --> 00:35:06,479
Speaker 1: in with your pigs, which I'm sure is hard.

731
00:35:06,719 --> 00:35:08,680
Speaker 3: Yeah, that sounds hard because rats are everywhere.

732
00:35:08,760 --> 00:35:10,520
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh. Yes, we live on a farm. Rats

733
00:35:10,560 --> 00:35:12,440
Speaker 1: are everywhere. It's hard to keep them out, but you

734
00:35:12,560 --> 00:35:13,920
Speaker 1: need to make a good effort to do it.

735
00:35:14,239 --> 00:35:15,759
Speaker 3: Well, let me ask you, how do you feel about

736
00:35:15,760 --> 00:35:18,600
Speaker 3: the rats? Because I have this policy no rats inside

737
00:35:18,640 --> 00:35:21,319
Speaker 3: the house, but outside the house. Like, hey, you guys

738
00:35:21,320 --> 00:35:22,920
Speaker 3: were here before us. What am I going to do

739
00:35:23,000 --> 00:35:24,799
Speaker 3: kill all the rats? That's impossible?

740
00:35:25,080 --> 00:35:27,359
Speaker 1: Well, okay, so the rats that we had in our

741
00:35:27,440 --> 00:35:31,919
Speaker 1: chicken coop were an invasive species, so they didn't really

742
00:35:31,920 --> 00:35:34,640
Speaker 1: belong there. These were like the lab rats, Norwegian rats

743
00:35:34,640 --> 00:35:38,160
Speaker 1: that had gotten out, and rats like usually I agree,

744
00:35:38,160 --> 00:35:41,279
Speaker 1: but so that we have really stupid chickens, and like

745
00:35:41,360 --> 00:35:43,200
Speaker 1: the chickens would be eating at their feeder and the

746
00:35:43,280 --> 00:35:45,200
Speaker 1: rats would be like right next to them eating and

747
00:35:45,239 --> 00:35:47,080
Speaker 1: they just kind of look at them and be like hey, Frank,

748
00:35:47,400 --> 00:35:49,319
Speaker 1: and they wouldn't do anything. But so then the rats

749
00:35:49,320 --> 00:35:52,160
Speaker 1: were living in the rafters above and they were just

750
00:35:52,280 --> 00:35:54,200
Speaker 1: like defecating an incredible amount.

751
00:35:55,040 --> 00:35:55,640
Speaker 3: They do that.

752
00:35:55,880 --> 00:35:58,160
Speaker 1: They do that, and there are some diseases you can

753
00:35:58,200 --> 00:36:02,320
Speaker 1: get from rat feces and from mouth hauntavirus. Yeah, right, exactly.

754
00:36:02,360 --> 00:36:05,040
Speaker 1: And so if it's just like, yeah, I try to

755
00:36:05,080 --> 00:36:08,360
Speaker 1: never kill wildlife, because I agree you were here first.

756
00:36:08,719 --> 00:36:10,560
Speaker 1: But when it's like, well, if my daughter goes out

757
00:36:10,600 --> 00:36:12,840
Speaker 1: to bring the chickens food and she's gonna get haunt virus,

758
00:36:13,360 --> 00:36:15,759
Speaker 1: like we've crossed the line and we have to get

759
00:36:15,840 --> 00:36:16,440
Speaker 1: rid of the rats.

760
00:36:16,560 --> 00:36:18,839
Speaker 3: Also, wait, you live in Virginia, which is not that

761
00:36:19,000 --> 00:36:23,400
Speaker 3: far from the NIH, right, and you're talking about rats

762
00:36:23,400 --> 00:36:26,520
Speaker 3: that have escaped from labs. Are you basically living the

763
00:36:26,600 --> 00:36:28,960
Speaker 3: rats of nim That was.

764
00:36:28,960 --> 00:36:31,520
Speaker 1: A great movie. These rats, they are the species that

765
00:36:31,560 --> 00:36:33,520
Speaker 1: we use in the lab. I don't know that they

766
00:36:33,760 --> 00:36:36,480
Speaker 1: escaped from the lab. They could have just like come

767
00:36:36,520 --> 00:36:37,640
Speaker 1: off of ships or something.

768
00:36:37,880 --> 00:36:40,480
Speaker 3: Keep telling yourself that science has made.

769
00:36:40,280 --> 00:36:42,279
Speaker 1: Some mistakes, no doubt about it. I'll own up to that.

770
00:36:43,200 --> 00:36:46,280
Speaker 3: Well, we had rats as pets once, and rats are wonderful,

771
00:36:46,360 --> 00:36:50,560
Speaker 3: wonderful pets. They're smart, they're affectionate, they're really cute. They

772
00:36:50,560 --> 00:36:53,320
Speaker 3: do poop everywhere though, Yeah, that is definitely a problem.

773
00:36:53,480 --> 00:36:55,680
Speaker 1: I also had rats as pets when I was a kid,

774
00:36:55,719 --> 00:36:58,000
Speaker 1: and I thought about getting one again the other day

775
00:36:58,040 --> 00:36:59,640
Speaker 1: because I did. Used to love just having like a

776
00:36:59,640 --> 00:37:03,120
Speaker 1: little on my shoulder and they make this cute little noises. Yeah,

777
00:37:03,160 --> 00:37:04,080
Speaker 1: I like rats a lot.

778
00:37:04,400 --> 00:37:06,480
Speaker 3: My daughter would bike around the neighborhood with a rat

779
00:37:06,520 --> 00:37:09,279
Speaker 3: in her hood of her hood, riding along with her.

780
00:37:09,320 --> 00:37:12,680
Speaker 3: It was super cute. Yeah, anyway, you're saying, if you

781
00:37:12,680 --> 00:37:14,759
Speaker 3: have pigs and rats, try to keep the pigs from

782
00:37:14,760 --> 00:37:15,520
Speaker 3: eating the rats.

783
00:37:15,719 --> 00:37:17,319
Speaker 1: Yes, try to keep the pigs from eating the rats.

784
00:37:17,320 --> 00:37:20,640
Speaker 1: And so once we figured this stuff out, it became

785
00:37:20,719 --> 00:37:23,680
Speaker 1: clear what you needed to do to keep the pigs

786
00:37:23,680 --> 00:37:26,400
Speaker 1: from getting infected. And once you knew what you needed

787
00:37:26,440 --> 00:37:28,799
Speaker 1: to do, you could pass laws to make sure that

788
00:37:28,840 --> 00:37:31,200
Speaker 1: people are doing these things. And by putting in the

789
00:37:31,280 --> 00:37:34,520
Speaker 1: right sort of like procedures in place and then coming

790
00:37:34,600 --> 00:37:36,839
Speaker 1: up with some better ways to test meat to see

791
00:37:36,880 --> 00:37:40,400
Speaker 1: if it's working, we have managed to mostly eradicate this

792
00:37:40,520 --> 00:37:46,480
Speaker 1: parasite in pork from factory farm amazing, but there's still

793
00:37:46,480 --> 00:37:48,480
Speaker 1: some ways that you can get it, which we'll talk

794
00:37:48,480 --> 00:37:49,239
Speaker 1: about after the break.

795
00:37:50,880 --> 00:37:52,600
Speaker 3: More nightmere fuel, don't worry.

796
00:37:52,680 --> 00:38:11,399
Speaker 1: That's right. We were just talking about how pigs from

797
00:38:11,440 --> 00:38:14,359
Speaker 1: factory farms in the United States tend to not have

798
00:38:14,400 --> 00:38:17,399
Speaker 1: this parasite anymore. And actually in twenty twenty four there

799
00:38:17,440 --> 00:38:21,920
Speaker 1: was a study where they sampled three million pigs and

800
00:38:22,040 --> 00:38:25,319
Speaker 1: none of those pigs from factory farms had trichinella.

801
00:38:25,680 --> 00:38:26,160
Speaker 3: Amazing.

802
00:38:26,400 --> 00:38:28,400
Speaker 1: Wow, that is incredible. Like if you think that we

803
00:38:28,480 --> 00:38:32,640
Speaker 1: have gone from one in six people in New England

804
00:38:32,680 --> 00:38:36,560
Speaker 1: having this parasite infection, which can kill you sometimes, to

805
00:38:37,520 --> 00:38:39,480
Speaker 1: testing three million pigs and none of them have it,

806
00:38:40,160 --> 00:38:41,480
Speaker 1: that's an incredible decline.

807
00:38:41,800 --> 00:38:44,640
Speaker 3: That means all those people who were infected when they died,

808
00:38:44,960 --> 00:38:48,160
Speaker 3: nobody ate them and then absorbed the infection, right, including

809
00:38:48,200 --> 00:38:48,640
Speaker 3: the pigs.

810
00:38:48,920 --> 00:38:50,600
Speaker 1: That's right. Yes, I should have known you were going

811
00:38:50,680 --> 00:38:53,680
Speaker 1: to go there. My bad, But yes, that means that

812
00:38:53,719 --> 00:38:56,600
Speaker 1: there's not a lot of human cannibalism going on. Good news.

813
00:38:56,880 --> 00:38:58,920
Speaker 3: And of course I'm going to ask if pigs can

814
00:38:59,000 --> 00:39:01,080
Speaker 3: get from eating other pigs, that means humans could get

815
00:39:01,080 --> 00:39:03,879
Speaker 3: it from eating other humans, right yep, yeah, okay, one

816
00:39:03,880 --> 00:39:05,720
Speaker 3: more reason not to eat your children.

817
00:39:05,840 --> 00:39:08,560
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, well, you know, if they're young enough, maybe

818
00:39:08,560 --> 00:39:11,440
Speaker 1: they haven't been exposed and they move it on.

819
00:39:11,640 --> 00:39:13,080
Speaker 3: When their meat is still so tender.

820
00:39:13,239 --> 00:39:15,680
Speaker 1: Oh God, why do we do this?

821
00:39:16,480 --> 00:39:16,879
Speaker 2: All? Right?

822
00:39:17,320 --> 00:39:19,879
Speaker 1: So, now there's about fifteen confirmed cases in the United

823
00:39:19,920 --> 00:39:22,719
Speaker 1: States a year, which is an incredible drop, and there's

824
00:39:22,760 --> 00:39:26,879
Speaker 1: about ten thousand cases recorded throughout the world per year.

825
00:39:27,360 --> 00:39:29,480
Speaker 1: And I think a lot of those cases are in

826
00:39:29,600 --> 00:39:33,000
Speaker 1: places like China where they eat a lot of pork,

827
00:39:33,480 --> 00:39:36,000
Speaker 1: but maybe they don't have the same sort of procedures

828
00:39:36,040 --> 00:39:38,319
Speaker 1: in place to make sure that the pigs aren't eating

829
00:39:38,320 --> 00:39:40,719
Speaker 1: each other or being exposed to rats. And so there

830
00:39:40,719 --> 00:39:42,439
Speaker 1: are other places in the world that you can go

831
00:39:43,320 --> 00:39:45,960
Speaker 1: where if you eat pork you could get infected.

832
00:39:46,040 --> 00:39:48,239
Speaker 3: So how's it happening in the US if there were

833
00:39:48,400 --> 00:39:51,200
Speaker 3: no examples in all of those pigs where people get

834
00:39:51,239 --> 00:39:53,080
Speaker 3: and they're just getting it from the wild again, or

835
00:39:53,120 --> 00:39:56,280
Speaker 3: they're eating weird smoked moose hearts or something.

836
00:39:57,880 --> 00:39:59,400
Speaker 1: So I think a lot of people do get it

837
00:39:59,440 --> 00:40:02,080
Speaker 1: from animal that they hunt. So you can get it

838
00:40:02,080 --> 00:40:03,400
Speaker 1: from bears, you can get it from moods, you can

839
00:40:03,440 --> 00:40:06,359
Speaker 1: get it from wild boar. And also, you know, if

840
00:40:06,360 --> 00:40:09,799
Speaker 1: people have pigs in their backyard, they are not necessarily

841
00:40:09,840 --> 00:40:14,320
Speaker 1: following all of the rules that like the USDA mandates.

842
00:40:14,680 --> 00:40:17,760
Speaker 1: So it could be that their pigs are encountering wild

843
00:40:17,800 --> 00:40:20,520
Speaker 1: animals that they're eating or then eating each other, and

844
00:40:20,520 --> 00:40:23,000
Speaker 1: so you could get it from like backyard pigs. The

845
00:40:23,040 --> 00:40:27,480
Speaker 1: good news is if you cook your meat where the

846
00:40:27,480 --> 00:40:30,240
Speaker 1: inside reaches I think it's one hundred and forty five

847
00:40:30,280 --> 00:40:34,440
Speaker 1: degrees fahrenheit, then the parasite dies. The bad news is

848
00:40:35,120 --> 00:40:38,320
Speaker 1: if you freeze the meat, even for something like two months,

849
00:40:38,800 --> 00:40:40,880
Speaker 1: that doesn't necessarily kill Trick.

850
00:40:40,640 --> 00:40:43,000
Speaker 3: And Ella w Yeah, can survive freezing.

851
00:40:43,160 --> 00:40:45,360
Speaker 1: It's amazing. Yeah, So like there have been cases where

852
00:40:45,960 --> 00:40:48,040
Speaker 1: meat has been frozen and two months later it's come

853
00:40:48,040 --> 00:40:50,200
Speaker 1: out of the freezer and when it thaws, those worms

854
00:40:50,200 --> 00:40:54,200
Speaker 1: start moving around again. This is mostly the wild strains

855
00:40:54,239 --> 00:40:57,920
Speaker 1: or the wild species. Maybe it's not too surprising because

856
00:40:57,920 --> 00:41:00,919
Speaker 1: like bears can hibernate, they get really cold. But still,

857
00:41:00,960 --> 00:41:03,040
Speaker 1: the fact that they can freeze, that's amazing because bears

858
00:41:03,040 --> 00:41:04,680
Speaker 1: aren't freezing through when they're hibernating.

859
00:41:04,840 --> 00:41:07,080
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I thought that most cells when they freeze,

860
00:41:07,080 --> 00:41:10,640
Speaker 3: they burst because water expands as it freezes. So how

861
00:41:10,719 --> 00:41:11,799
Speaker 3: do these guys survive it?

862
00:41:12,000 --> 00:41:14,040
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm guessing some of them do have nurse

863
00:41:14,040 --> 00:41:16,960
Speaker 1: cells that burst and they die. But most of the

864
00:41:17,040 --> 00:41:20,920
Speaker 1: food that we plan on eating we freeze quickly because

865
00:41:20,960 --> 00:41:23,680
Speaker 1: when those cells burst, that food doesn't taste as good.

866
00:41:24,040 --> 00:41:27,040
Speaker 1: And so like you want to freeze your food quickly

867
00:41:27,080 --> 00:41:29,600
Speaker 1: so the cells don't burst, because that's a better way

868
00:41:29,600 --> 00:41:32,960
Speaker 1: to eat a hamburger or a bear steak. So I think,

869
00:41:32,960 --> 00:41:35,680
Speaker 1: you know, the parasites are benefiting from that and they

870
00:41:35,680 --> 00:41:39,560
Speaker 1: can survive. And then also if you prepare jerky out

871
00:41:39,560 --> 00:41:42,600
Speaker 1: of bear meat, that processes preparing the jerky doesn't always

872
00:41:42,760 --> 00:41:45,880
Speaker 1: kill the parasites. These parasites, you think about it, like

873
00:41:45,960 --> 00:41:49,319
Speaker 1: they transmit when the animal that they die in gets

874
00:41:49,360 --> 00:41:52,120
Speaker 1: eaten by something else, and that doesn't always happen immediately.

875
00:41:52,160 --> 00:41:53,840
Speaker 1: So they need to be able to like survive the

876
00:41:53,880 --> 00:41:56,080
Speaker 1: death of the animal for a while and persist in

877
00:41:56,120 --> 00:41:59,439
Speaker 1: the environment to increase the probability that they get eaten

878
00:41:59,480 --> 00:42:01,960
Speaker 1: by something. Yes, yeah, so most of the cases in

879
00:42:02,000 --> 00:42:05,000
Speaker 1: the United States come from wild animals that have been

880
00:42:05,400 --> 00:42:07,239
Speaker 1: killed and then not cooked through all the way. In

881
00:42:07,280 --> 00:42:08,759
Speaker 1: other parts of the world, you can get it from

882
00:42:08,800 --> 00:42:12,759
Speaker 1: pork because they don't have the like public health procedures

883
00:42:12,800 --> 00:42:14,840
Speaker 1: that we have in place here in the United States.

884
00:42:15,320 --> 00:42:18,440
Speaker 1: But I'm excited about this system because it's a pretty

885
00:42:18,440 --> 00:42:21,840
Speaker 1: clear example where doing the basic work to understand the

886
00:42:21,880 --> 00:42:25,120
Speaker 1: life cycle of the parasite and then putting that information

887
00:42:25,160 --> 00:42:27,319
Speaker 1: in the hands of people who can like set up

888
00:42:27,360 --> 00:42:31,279
Speaker 1: procedures was able to save I think many many lives, Yeah,

889
00:42:31,440 --> 00:42:33,799
Speaker 1: and also just be less creepy, Like maybe not a

890
00:42:33,800 --> 00:42:35,640
Speaker 1: lot of people were going to die, but it's really

891
00:42:35,719 --> 00:42:38,160
Speaker 1: nice to know that we don't have like parasites running

892
00:42:38,239 --> 00:42:40,520
Speaker 1: laps in our diaphragms in the United States.

893
00:42:43,719 --> 00:42:47,080
Speaker 3: So you're a parasitologist, you know, the cutting edge of

894
00:42:47,280 --> 00:42:51,759
Speaker 3: parasite science. We've mostly told the historical story today, but like,

895
00:42:52,200 --> 00:42:54,200
Speaker 3: what are people working on right now? If you go

896
00:42:54,239 --> 00:42:57,200
Speaker 3: to trichinosis conference, what are the presentations about, what are

897
00:42:57,200 --> 00:42:58,840
Speaker 3: the questions that people are asking.

898
00:42:59,400 --> 00:43:03,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, so one of the main topics here is trying

899
00:43:03,040 --> 00:43:06,080
Speaker 1: to figure out when an outbreak happens. So there are

900
00:43:06,120 --> 00:43:08,560
Speaker 1: still outbreaks. I was listening to someone's talk the other

901
00:43:08,640 --> 00:43:11,120
Speaker 1: day and it was somewhere in Scandinavia there was an

902
00:43:11,160 --> 00:43:14,480
Speaker 1: outbreak on farms and it showed up in a couple

903
00:43:14,560 --> 00:43:18,319
Speaker 1: different farms, and so they were collecting samples of the

904
00:43:18,360 --> 00:43:20,759
Speaker 1: parasite and then they were genotyping it. So they were

905
00:43:20,800 --> 00:43:23,880
Speaker 1: getting like the whole genome of the parasite, and they

906
00:43:23,880 --> 00:43:26,719
Speaker 1: were trying to use that information to find out did

907
00:43:26,760 --> 00:43:30,080
Speaker 1: the parasite jump from a wild animal, you know, where

908
00:43:30,080 --> 00:43:31,640
Speaker 1: the pig's able to go out in the field one

909
00:43:31,680 --> 00:43:33,440
Speaker 1: day and they ate a wild animal and that's how

910
00:43:33,480 --> 00:43:37,760
Speaker 1: they got infected. But by figuring out what species or strain,

911
00:43:38,719 --> 00:43:40,640
Speaker 1: then they can try to figure out like where the

912
00:43:40,680 --> 00:43:43,280
Speaker 1: procedure for keeping this parasite out of our food system,

913
00:43:43,360 --> 00:43:46,000
Speaker 1: like where that broke down. And so they're using genetic

914
00:43:46,040 --> 00:43:48,759
Speaker 1: information to sort of do the tracing stuff here. They're

915
00:43:48,800 --> 00:43:53,240
Speaker 1: also still trying to figure out how this nurse cell works,

916
00:43:53,800 --> 00:43:55,919
Speaker 1: you know, how does it manage to manipulate the human

917
00:43:55,960 --> 00:43:58,880
Speaker 1: body into essentially like waiting on it hand and foot

918
00:43:59,040 --> 00:44:02,600
Speaker 1: without killing it. And you know, also like wildlife ecologists

919
00:44:02,600 --> 00:44:04,520
Speaker 1: are probably interested in what trick and ella is doing

920
00:44:04,560 --> 00:44:06,960
Speaker 1: to like wild bear populations and stuff like that. So

921
00:44:07,080 --> 00:44:10,080
Speaker 1: I think those are the main topics we're dealing with

922
00:44:10,200 --> 00:44:10,640
Speaker 1: right now.

923
00:44:10,680 --> 00:44:13,360
Speaker 3: So this all sounds surprisingly positive. You're saying this is

924
00:44:13,400 --> 00:44:16,680
Speaker 3: a success story. Is this typical killing or is the

925
00:44:16,680 --> 00:44:19,200
Speaker 3: wider world of parasites a darker world?

926
00:44:19,680 --> 00:44:22,760
Speaker 1: Well, the wider world of parasites can be pretty dark.

927
00:44:23,040 --> 00:44:25,560
Speaker 1: So this was a nice case where we figured out

928
00:44:25,560 --> 00:44:27,640
Speaker 1: how the parasite was transmitted. It was pretty clear what

929
00:44:27,680 --> 00:44:29,520
Speaker 1: we needed to do, and it wasn't that hard to

930
00:44:29,520 --> 00:44:33,440
Speaker 1: implement the changes. But there's other parasites where we know

931
00:44:33,600 --> 00:44:37,759
Speaker 1: what it would take to eradicate the infection. But like

932
00:44:37,800 --> 00:44:41,439
Speaker 1: for example, bringing the appropriate sanitation measures to the people

933
00:44:41,480 --> 00:44:43,600
Speaker 1: who need it has just proven to be something that

934
00:44:43,640 --> 00:44:46,040
Speaker 1: we can't seem to do yet. And so the next

935
00:44:46,040 --> 00:44:48,680
Speaker 1: time we talk about this wormy world of ours, we're

936
00:44:48,680 --> 00:44:50,919
Speaker 1: gonna be talking about nematodes. And today we talked about

937
00:44:50,920 --> 00:44:53,520
Speaker 1: anematode too, but we're gonna be talking about nematodes that

938
00:44:53,560 --> 00:44:56,520
Speaker 1: you can get because they burrow through your skin when

939
00:44:56,560 --> 00:44:59,400
Speaker 1: you're walking in soil that's carrying these effective stages.

940
00:44:59,560 --> 00:45:02,640
Speaker 3: Oh no, you don't even need to make bad eating decisions.

941
00:45:02,680 --> 00:45:03,680
Speaker 3: You can just be going.

942
00:45:03,520 --> 00:45:06,040
Speaker 1: For a walk, or you can be gardening. They're able

943
00:45:06,040 --> 00:45:08,440
Speaker 1: to just sort of burrow through your skin. So we

944
00:45:08,480 --> 00:45:12,640
Speaker 1: will talk about soil transmitted helmets which have been stubborn

945
00:45:12,640 --> 00:45:15,319
Speaker 1: and hard to eradicate. The next time we visit this

946
00:45:15,440 --> 00:45:16,440
Speaker 1: warming world.

947
00:45:16,640 --> 00:45:21,640
Speaker 3: There's always more nightmare fuel waiting for you in Biology.

948
00:45:20,520 --> 00:45:21,920
Speaker 1: And Kelly's got it ready for you.

949
00:45:23,760 --> 00:45:25,399
Speaker 3: Thanks everyone, tune in next time.

950
00:45:32,800 --> 00:45:36,600
Speaker 1: Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe is produced by iHeartRadio. We

951
00:45:36,640 --> 00:45:39,080
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952
00:45:39,239 --> 00:45:42,000
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00:45:42,200 --> 00:45:43,880
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954
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957
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958
00:45:54,160 --> 00:45:56,560
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959
00:45:56,440 --> 00:45:58,439
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960
00:45:58,560 --> 00:46:02,560
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961
00:46:02,640 --> 00:46:04,920
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962
00:46:05,360 --> 00:46:06,360
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963
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