Base by Base - Music

This release contains only the music track from Base by Base Episode 462.

Song title: Along the Vessels
Original Base by Base episode: 462: A vessel gene tied to AMD dims low-light vision in mice

Article metadata:
Article title: Genetic evidence and cross-species functional characterization implicate CNN2 in age-related macular degeneration susceptibility
Journal: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2533682123
Reference: Cheng, F.-F., Mou, H., Liu, Z., Zhang, C.-J., Zhuang, Y.-Y., Wu, Z., Wen, X.-R., Xue, A., Zhang, X., Yang, J., and Jin, Z.-B. (2026). Genetic evidence and cross-species functional characterization implicate CNN2 in age-related macular degeneration susceptibility. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 123(36), e2533682123. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2533682123

Lyrics:
Verse 1
They traced the dimming of the aging eye to sixty-three old doors,
But behind so many of those doors the culprit was unsure,
They matched the blood against the risk and whittled it to nine,
And four held true inside the eye, like lanterns down the line.

Pre-Chorus
They brought the four to little fish and quieted each one,
And two of them left smaller eyes that turned away from sun,
Then they gave the message back again, and most of it was won.

Chorus
It's a gene that lives along the vessels, not within the light,
But take it from the mouse and watch the dusk slip out of sight,
The faint grey lines run into one, the finer shadings fade,
Though bold black stripes still find the eye, and daylight isn't frayed.

Verse 2
By three months and by five, the layer that catches light grew thin,
The cones grew sparse, the signals dropped, as something wore within,
Yet the gene was hardly in those cells; it kept the vessel walls,
The quiet keepers of the blood that run behind the halls.

Bridge
Now did it starve the light from back, or strike those cells alone?
The mice can't say, the fish can't say, the answer isn't known,
And neither has the center spot where human sight is sown,
So they call it a suspect now, not a verdict set in stone.

Final Chorus
It's a gene that lives along the vessels, not within the light,
But take it from the mouse and watch the dusk slip out of sight,
The faint grey lines run into one, the finer shadings fade,
And in the aging eye, they ask, if that is how dusk is made.

This release contains only the music track from Base by Base Episode 461.

Song title: Dimmer Underneath
Original Base by Base episode: 461: Adult Ank3 loss quiets neurons and lowers a myelin protein

Article metadata:
Article title: Ank3 loss in adult forebrain excitatory neurons disrupts behavior, neuronal activity, membrane proteome, and myelination
Journal: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2606900123
Reference: Yoon, S., Dos Santos, M., Khalatyan, N., Savas, J.N., and Penzes, P. (2026). Ank3 loss in adult forebrain excitatory neurons disrupts behavior, neuronal activity, membrane proteome, and myelination. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 123(35), e2606900123. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2606900123

Lyrics:
Verse 1
They pulled the scaffold from the inside of the wire,
Took out the rungs that held the current to the fire.
The rooms upstairs went quiet, one switch at a time,
Still lit, still humming, just below the line.

Pre-Chorus
Out on the street I'm moving faster than before,
Every door is open and I'm not afraid anymore,
But the signal in the walls is running thin.

Chorus
Running on the surface, dimmer underneath,
A city wide awake with a lower heat,
Turned down, not off, beneath the neon rain,
Running on the surface, dimmer in the frame.

Verse 2
The coil around the cable came in sparse and light,
On floors two, three and four, but five was wound up tight.
The wrap is spun by strangers in a different room,
And no one knows yet how the quiet reached them through the gloom.

Bridge
Then a pale salt glowing in a glass of rain
Laid one strip of silver back along the lane,
But the other pieces scattered on the floor
Stayed right where they landed, same as before.

Final Chorus
Running on the surface, dimmer underneath,
A city wide awake with a lower heat,
One seam mended in the neon rain,
Running on the surface, dimmer in the frame.

This release contains only the music track from Base by Base Episode 460.

Song title: Same Dial
Original Base by Base episode: 460: The lupus variant that also sharpens antiviral defense

Article metadata:
Article title: A highly prevalent lupus risk haplotype increases IRF7-dependent induction of IFN-α, enhancing antiviral defense and exacerbating autoimmunity
Journal: The American Journal of Human Genetics
DOI: 10.1016/j.ajhg.2026.08.016
Reference: Virolainen, S.J., Creighton, K., Dashtiahangar, M., et al., Waggoner, S.N., Weirauch, M.T., and Kottyan, L.C. (2026). A highly prevalent lupus risk haplotype increases IRF7-dependent induction of IFN-α, enhancing antiviral defense and exacerbating autoimmunity. The American Journal of Human Genetics 113, 1-22. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajhg.2026.08.016

Lyrics:
Verse 1
Two letters in a single gene.
Most of the world is carrying them.
Not the rare thing. The common thing.

Mantra
Turn it up.
The virus falls.
Turn it up.
The body turns.

Verse 2
Into the nucleus faster.
Onto the DNA tighter.
More interferon out the other side.

Mantra
Same dial.
Both ways.
Same dial.
Both ways.

Verse 3
In the mouse lung, less virus by morning.
In the same mouse, antibodies against its own DNA.
Nobody got to choose one without the other.

Bridge
Older than the plagues we wrote down.
Already common before the counting started.
It was never waiting to become useful.
It already was.

Mantra
Turn it up.
The virus falls.
Turn it up.
The body turns.

Outro
One point one eight.
A small risk, carried by almost everyone.
Same dial.
Both ways.
Same dial.

This release contains only the music track from Base by Base Episode 459.

Song title: Five Hundred Names
Original Base by Base episode: 459: Cerebral palsy genetics: 515 candidate genes, evidence for 89

Article metadata:
Article title: A phenotypic paradigm for cerebral palsy genetics
Journal: The American Journal of Human Genetics
DOI: 10.1016/j.ajhg.2026.08.007
Reference: Arterbery, A.S., Gargano, M.A., et al., and Robinson, P.N. (2026). A phenotypic paradigm for cerebral palsy genetics. The American Journal of Human Genetics 113, 1972-1986. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajhg.2026.08.007

Lyrics:
Verse 1
Five hundred names on the page.
Each one found in someone's child.
Each one written down as the reason.

Mantra
Found is not the same as known.
Found is not the same as known.

Verse 2
Count everyone who carries it.
Count how many of them have the palsy.
Hold that against how often it comes anyway,
two or three in every thousand births.

Mantra
Weigh it.
Weigh it slow.

Verse 3
Eighty-nine names grew heavier when the numbers were laid down beside them, and the rest did not grow lighter, they only stayed unproven, still waiting on the scale for more children, more pages, more time.

Bridge
Four hundred sixty children.
Sixty genes.
Sixteen with the weight behind them.

Mantra
Found is not the same as known.
But known begins with found.

Outro
Five hundred names.
Eighty-nine that hold.
The rest are only waiting.
Weigh it slow.
Weigh it slow.

This release contains only the music track from Base by Base Episode 458.

Song title: Half Means Home
Original Base by Base episode: 458: Somatic or inherited? Reading TP53 risk from shared DNA

Article metadata:
Article title: Shared inheritance reveals landscape of somatic and germline cancer risk in TP53
Journal: The American Journal of Human Genetics
DOI: 10.1016/j.ajhg.2026.07.011
Reference: MacGregor, H.A.J., Blundell, J.R., and Easton, D.F. (2026). Shared inheritance reveals landscape of somatic and germline cancer risk in TP53. The American Journal of Human Genetics 113, 1916-1928. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajhg.2026.07.011

Lyrics:
Verse 1
Blood draw, letter back.
Same word my family feared.
Four hundred sixty-nine thousand read
and the line I thought I had disappeared.

Pre-Chorus
Don't read the name.
Read how much of me it is.
Half of every cell is one thing.
A rising sliver is another business.

Chorus
HALF MEANS HOME — it came down the line.
LESS MEANS MINE — I grew it on my own time.
HALF MEANS HOME. LESS MEANS MINE.
Same letters on the page,
different sign.

Verse 2
Fifty-five of them turned up.
Only six were passed down.
The rest climbed with the birthdays —
two point three a decade, going up, never down.

Pre-Chorus
The six that ran in blood of kin
sat soft, sat partial, sat halfway in.
The loud ones, the famous ones,
nobody handed me those. I made them.

Chorus
HALF MEANS HOME — it came down the line.
LESS MEANS MINE — I grew it on my own time.
HALF MEANS HOME. LESS MEANS MINE.
Same letters on the page,
different sign.

Bridge
Not the bone. Not the breast.
It's the marrow keeping score.
Sixteen times the blood.
That old name don't live here anymore.
Shared the segment, shared the street —
that's how we told them apart.
Not the spelling. The inheritance.
Not the letter. The start.

Outro
Half means home.
Less means mine.
Count the fraction.
Read the line.
Half means home.
Less means mine.

This release contains only the music track from Base by Base Episode 457.

Song title: One Less, One More
Original Base by Base episode: 457: A deletion that raises Alzheimer risk, a duplication that lowers it

Article metadata:
Article title: Exome analysis of 22,319 individuals links extremely rare copy-number variants and 22q11.21 dosage to Alzheimer risk
Journal: The American Journal of Human Genetics
DOI: 10.1016/j.ajhg.2026.07.013
Reference: Quenez O, Schramm C, Cassinari K, Nicolas A, Groeneveld J, Huguet G, et al. Exome analysis of 22,319 individuals links extremely rare copy-number variants and 22q11.21 dosage to Alzheimer risk. The American Journal of Human Genetics. 2026;113(10):1-19. doi:10.1016/j.ajhg.2026.07.013

Lyrics:
Verse 1
Twenty-two thousand read.
Every letter, every gap.
One little stretch of twenty-two
kept showing on the map.

Pre-Chorus
One side heading down.
One side climbing up.
Same short street, same short block —
different measure in the cup.

Chorus
ONE LESS — and the risk goes UP.
ONE MORE — and it settles DOWN.
Same little piece of the same little place
turning it around.
ONE LESS — only in the early years.
ONE MORE — easy in the crowd.
Same little piece, read it twice:
count it, count it out loud.

Verse 2
Not one deletion showed
in nine thousand walking free.
But the doubles kept on turning up
right where you want to be.

Chorus
ONE LESS — and the risk goes UP.
ONE MORE — and it settles DOWN.
Same little piece of the same little place
turning it around.

Bridge
Put the gene back in the cell —
it clears the plaque right up.
That's the piece we can see so far.
Rare is rare enough.
It ain't a shield. It's a lean.
It tilts you. It don't save.
Some who carried two of them
still came the harder way.

Final Chorus
ONE LESS — and the risk goes UP.
ONE MORE — and it settles DOWN.
Not a promise, just a tilt,
but you take it when it's found.
ONE LESS. ONE MORE.
Same little piece, both ways.
Count it once, then count again —
that's the whole thing, right there.

This release contains only the music track from Base by Base Episode 456.

Song title: Where the Light Is
Original Base by Base episode: 456: Beyond exons: where heritability hides as traits get more polygenic

Article metadata:
Article title: Beyond exons: Linking noncoding heritability and polygenicity across complex human traits and disorders
Journal: The American Journal of Human Genetics
DOI: 10.1016/j.ajhg.2026.08.012
Reference: Fuhrer J, Shadrin AA, Hughes T, Parker N, Hindley G, Frei E, Nguyen D, Smeland OB, Djurovic S, Andreassen OA, Dale AM, Frei O. Beyond exons: Linking noncoding heritability and polygenicity across complex human traits and disorders. The American Journal of Human Genetics. 2026;113(10):1-13. doi:10.1016/j.ajhg.2026.08.012

Lyrics:
Verse 1
We searched the lit part of the street, the small bright names we knew.
Two in a hundred, read out clean, and still it wouldn't come through.
The rest lay dark and open wide, too far to walk across,
so we filed it all as background and we counted it as loss.

Pre-Chorus
But it wasn't ever missing.
It was thin, and it was wide.

Chorus
It was never where the light is. It was scattered through the dark.
Not a single voice worth naming, just a million, faint and stark.
And the more it takes to make you, the further out it goes,
past the letters that we counted, into everything that flows.

Verse 2
For the body it stays closer: what you weigh and how you grow,
near a fifth still in the letters, in the part we thought we know.
But for the mind it wanders out, for the worry and the word,
down to one in eight, and drifting into all we never heard.

Bridge
And the middle never moved at all. It held its steady share.
Half of everything you are was always waiting there.
Not the bright part, not the far part, just the quiet in between,
the same in all of us, unchanged, the half we've never seen.

Final Chorus
It was never where the light is. It was scattered through the dark.
Not a single voice worth naming, just a million, faint and stark.
So we're learning where to look now. It was never in one place.
It was all of it, together, spread across the empty space.

This release contains only the music track from Base by Base Episode 455.

Song title: All Normal
Original Base by Base episode: 455: Agentic genomics: the bottleneck moves from code to judgment

Article metadata:
Article title: Agentic genomics: From pipeline automation to autonomous validation
Journal: Cell Genomics
DOI: 10.1016/j.xgen.2026.101305
Reference: Corpas M, Guio H, Fatumo S. Agentic genomics: From pipeline automation to autonomous validation. Cell Genomics. 2026;6(8):101305. doi:10.1016/j.xgen.2026.101305

Lyrics:
Verse 1
I gave it one sentence, no more than a line.
It picked all the tools and it never asked mine.
It hit a bad index, then patched its own break,
and handed me answers no human could make.

Pre-Chorus
So hand it a file with no data at all,
malformed and empty, no reads to recall.
If nothing goes wrong and it never once stalls,
then no one is checking. No one at all.

Chorus
IT SAID ALL NORMAL.
Fifty-one doses, and nothing was there.
IT SAID ALL NORMAL —
a confident answer from empty air.
Who checks the machine when the machine runs clean?
Who reads what it wrote when nobody's there?

Verse 2
It never crashes. That's the cruelest part.
It fails in a shape that looks clean from the start.
Two genome builds mixed, and the numbers all slide —
it passes each check with the meaning gone inside.

Bridge
The bottleneck moved, and it landed on us:
we make it in minutes, we read it for weeks.
It leans on whatever data it learned,
then hands the same score to whoever it meets.

Final Chorus
IT SAID ALL NORMAL.
Fifty-one doses, and nothing was there.
IT SAID ALL NORMAL —
a confident answer from empty air.
Somebody found it. Somebody read.
That's the whole job now — the part in your head.

This release contains only the music track from Base by Base Episode 454.

Song title: Remédio de Outra Guerra
Original Base by Base episode: 454: Efavirenz retarda a doença priônica mexendo no colesterol do cérebro [PT]

Article metadata:
Article title: Treatment with efavirenz extends survival in a Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease model by regulating brain cholesterol metabolism
Journal: JCI Insight
DOI: 10.1172/jci.insight.190296
Reference: Ali T, Cashion J, Hannaoui S, Ahmed-Hassan H, Schatzl H, Gilch S. Treatment with efavirenz extends survival in a Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease model by regulating brain cholesterol metabolism. JCI Insight. 2025;10(14):e190296. doi:10.1172/jci.insight.190296

Lyrics:
Verso 1
Ele nasceu pra outra briga,
numa guerra que já passou;
ficou guardado na prateleira
e o mundo nem reparou.

Mas tem porta que se abre
sem ninguém ter procurado:
o remédio de outra guerra
entrou por onde ninguém tinha olhado.

Pré-refrão
Não vem calar o que se diz,
não encosta no recado;
vem abrir o ralo velho
que o cérebro tinha fechado.

Refrão
REMÉDIO DE OUTRA GUERRA
chegou sem pedir licença!
REMÉDIO DE OUTRA GUERRA
quase nada já compensa —
não é cura, é tempo a mais,
e tempo aqui é o que faz diferença.

Verso 2
Não é dose de gigante,
é um tiquinho, quase nada:
trezentas vezes menor
que a receita de outra estrada.

E mesmo chegando tarde,
com a doença já plantada,
ainda sobrou caminho
pra segurar a jornada.

Ponte
No bicho que já trazia
a proteína pra estudar,
o que vinha muito rápido
começou a demorar.

E o que sai do colesterol
encontra por onde passar:
o cérebro se alivia
do que não conseguia limpar.

Refrão final
REMÉDIO DE OUTRA GUERRA
chegou sem pedir licença!
REMÉDIO DE OUTRA GUERRA
quase nada já compensa —
outra estrada pro mesmo lugar,
e é isso que faz diferença.

This release contains only the music track from Base by Base Episode 453.

Song title: Turn the Tide in My Brain
Original Base by Base episode: 453: Efavirenz slows sCJD progression by reshaping brain cholesterol

Article metadata:
Article title: Treatment with efavirenz extends survival in a Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease model by regulating brain cholesterol metabolism
Journal: JCI Insight
DOI: 10.1172/jci.insight.190296
Reference: Ali T, Cashion J, Hannaoui S, Ahmed-Hassan H, Schatzl H, Gilch S. Treatment with efavirenz extends survival in a Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease model by regulating brain cholesterol metabolism. JCI Insight. 2025;10(14):e190296. https://doi.org/10.1172/jci.insight.190296.

Lyrics:
Verse 1
In the quiet of a failing light,
Something twisted, running wild inside.
Pages blur, but I still can fight,
If there’s a switch that turns the dark aside.

Pre-Chorus
Low dose, late start, still a spark in the storm,
A hidden lever in the chemistry.
If the wheels can spin where they used to deform,
Then maybe time can bend for me.

Chorus
Turn the tide in my brain, let the current run clean,
Break the loop where the shadows remain.
If you move the cholesterol, you can change what’s unseen—
Hold the line, buy the days, ease the strain.

Verse 2
Bright screens, long nights, counting every sign,
Watching markers fall like ash in air.
Less of that resistant, jagged spine,
As the buildup loosens its grip in there.

Bridge
Wake the enzyme up, let it open the gate,
Send the excess out in a safer form.
Cool the signal that keeps feeding the weight,
Drain the droplets, quiet down the swarm.

Final Chorus
Turn the tide in my brain, let the current run clean,
From the first hard miles to the late-stage rain.
If you move the cholesterol, you can change what’s unseen—
Hold the line, steal the hours, break the chain.