Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe

Parasites can have amazingly complicated life cycles - moving through a series of host species, and looking quite different while residing within each type of host. Frankly, this stumped scientists for a long time. In today's episode, Daniel and Kelly take a stroll through the history of science to explore how we finally started to figure parasite life cycles out.

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Daniel and Kelly explain the nature of the quantum vacuum, whether its real or philosophical, and if it's possible to use to make your toast.

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Daniel and Kelly explain how cells in a fetus or in an adult know what they're supposed to do, and discuss whether opposable thumbs are necessary for the development of tools and technology.

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Daniel and Kelly talk to Dr. Steve Brusatte about his new book "The Story of Birds". We discuss if chickens are really dinosaurs, if we know what color dinosaur feathers were, and why birds survived the devastating asteroid collision with Earth while pterosaurs didn't.

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Daniel and Kelly explain the role of AI in physics and speculate about its future impact on discoveries and curiosity.

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Daniel and Kelly answer questions about Odderon particles, Langerhans cells, and black holes within black holes.

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Daniel, Kelly, and Katrine talk about biofilms, and how they can be delicious, adorable, and bad. For the bad ones, we discuss current tactics for overcoming them.

Show links:

1. Nature's cutest symbiosis: The Bobtail Squid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ivMSCi-Y2Q

2. The Joyful Microbe's guide to Kombucha: https://joyfulmicrobe.com/kombucha/(Notice the lighthearted joy, no fear mongering here!)

3. Beautiful image of a phenazine mutant of Pseudomonas: https://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/883781

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Daniel and Kelly discuss whether ideas from science fiction have inspired real scientific or technological progress.

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Daniel and Kelly answer questions about innate behaviors and what it means to "decode" a genome with help from Dr. Benjamin de Bivort.

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If a rattlesake bit an octopus, would its venom have any effect? Daniel and Kelly bring venom expert Dr. Matt Giorgianni on to the show to answer this listener question, and to talk about the evolution of snake venom.

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