Who are you? Human or a group of microbes? Mark discusses this with this with Dr. Seth Bordenstein of Penn State. Seth teaches Mark about a new word, holobiont, and the most successful pandemic in history (of invertebrates) that may help in the fight against malaria, Wolbachia! Finally, Seth discusses his team outreach efforts to teach critical thinking and STEM in students with Discover the Microbes Within.

Host: Mark O. Martin

Guest: Seth Bordenstein

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Links for this episode

• Maggie Middleton’s (the “Vexed Muddler”)  art website.
• Seth Bordenstein’s lab website.
• Discover the Microbes Within website.
• A useful review of the holobiont concept from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
• A recent and philosophical  review of the holobiont concept from Frontiers in Psychology.
• Another review of the holobiont concept from the American Society for Microbiology.
• Wood rats, creosote, and the microbiome via Kevin Kohl in Frontiers in Microbiology.
• Evidence that the microbiome can impact drug effectiveness in Gut.
•  A review on Wolbachia and the effect it has on hosts in Nature Reviews in Microbiology.
• An article describing how Wolbachia can be used to fight viral diseases in Frontiers in Immunology.

Intro music is by Reber Clark

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