Vaccines are incredibly effective- maybe one of the most effective medicines that science has ever created.

Listen to understand what you need to know about how to make the right decisions for you and your family.

Disclosure: This episode was made using AI to generate the podcast hosts. All other steps; gather the information, reviewing information for accuracy, reviewing the script and post-production were performed by a scientist.

Vaccines offer profound health and economic benefits for individuals and communities. Globally, vaccines have saved an estimated 150 million children over the last 50 years, notably reducing infant mortality by 40%. Measles vaccination alone averted over 60 million deaths from 2000-2023.

For young adults, staying current with immunizations is vital for maintaining personal health and independence, preventing dangerous diseases and their severe complications like brain damage or death.

Vaccination also protects vulnerable individuals who cannot be immunized, fostering community immunity.Economically, routine childhood immunizations in the U.S. for those born 1994-2023 are projected to prevent 508 million illnesses and 1.1 million deaths, leading to net societal savings of $2.7 trillion—an estimated $11 saved for every $1 invested. Beyond direct prevention, vaccines contribute to improved cognition and school attainment, enhancing long-term economic productivity. Emerging evidence also suggests certain vaccines, like the shingles vaccine, may reduce dementia risk.

Welcome back to the podcast. Episode 1 of this seasom starts a new educational series "What You Need to Know"

IMPORTANT DISCLOSURE:

This episode has AI generate hosts. We felt that the back and forth was a better way to create a conversations that feel real to listeners.

We want to be very clear that all evidence and information used to curate the script was exclusively from published, peer-reviewed sources. All 12 sources were each reviewed and the podcast itself was then reviewed for accuracy.

More about Medical Marijuana:

We are tackling one of the fastest growing over the counter medicines in North America; Cannabis AKA Weed, Bud- just to name a few names.

The new "TASE" website will be dedicated to educational resources that are based on the medical communities insight to help all of use make good decisions.

Learn more here: Through A Scientist's Eyes- Learn About Science page

For our Youtube page we have a related video that delves into Cannabis from another angle.

What Should You Do Before Using?

If you're thinking about trying cannabis for health reasons, here are some smart steps:

1. Talk to Your Doctor: This is the most important step! Your doctor can review your health history, discuss other treatment options, and help you understand how cannabis might interact with any medicines you're already taking.
2. "Go Low and Slow": If you decide to try it, start with a very small dose. Slowly increase it over time until you find what helps your symptoms with the fewest side effects. This helps your body get used to it.
3. Keep a Diary: Write down how much you take, when, and how it affects your symptoms and any side effects. If it's not helping after a few weeks, it might not be the right choice for you.
4. Get Reliable Information: Don't just rely on what you hear from friends or see online. Look for trusted, science-backed sources.

Cannabis and its parts (THC and CBD) might offer some relief for certain conditions, especially pain, MS spasms, and some cancer-related symptoms. However, it's really important to be careful. The effects can vary, there are potential side effects and drug interactions, and the products aren't always regulated.

BOTTOM LINE:

Always talk to a healthcare professional before you start using cannabis for any health reason. They can help you make an informed decision that's best for your health.

How do explore the question of how to make a brain? How did genomic sequencing and genetic manipulation change the nature and speed of the research. This episode goes through my journey as a brain scientist as the human genome project was just in its infancy.

There is an intimate relationship between gene expression, developmental biology and the environment. In this episode we will discuss how this plays out to shape humans using a thought experiment: getting the human species ready to survive on other planets.

It is the science behind an on-going SciFi short story that I have been writing for a few years now: Acchret's Children

How do you translate signals into action? How do you remember your actions? 

For the cell, similar to a computer, it is a series of additive changes- in this case to the packaging of DNA that make it either easier or more difficult for the DNA to be accessed by RNA polymerase, the ultimate control of gene expression.

How did normal cell biology let scientists come up with mRNA vaccines "so fast"...about 80 years of research went into these overnight vaccines.

These brand new vaccines are built an enormous amount of data on vaccines here are a few of the ones I read:

https://www.sciencefriday.com/articles/the-origin-of-the-word-vaccine/https://www.immunology.org/celebrate-vaccines/public-engagement/guide-childhood-vaccinations/how-vaccines-work

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3253346/

https://vk.ovg.ox.ac.uk/vk/how-do-vaccines-work

Video explanation of immunity and vaccines  and More detailed medical term one

NCBI- Pubmed findable science articles on the history of mRNA for vaccinces

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3597572/

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fimmu.2019.00594/full

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41541-020-0159-8

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMcibr2009737

CDC information on the current mRNA viruses for COVID19

https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/covid-19/hcp/mrna-vaccine-basics.html

https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/covid-19/info-by-product/pfizer/index.html

https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/covid-19/info-by-product/moderna/index.html

How do we regulate a gene? In this episode I'll go through some of the experimental biology that lead us to understand the "Who, What, When and Why" of a gene. This will be a deep dive that takes the basic question of how do DNA, RNA and Protein relate and provide some "meat" on the bones.

Some related videos and sites that visualize some of these concepts:

"Strawberry Experiment"

"Biology4Kids.com: Cell Structure" 

Videos on Gene Expression

Sci Eyes Blog

As we start our journey together, I think it's important to start with something that's topical and as you can imagine the most topical thing for most of us in 2021 is the pandemic. If want to dig deeper here are some resources

"mRNA vaccines — a new era in vaccinology | Nature Reviews Drug Discovery" https://www.nature.com/articles/nrd.2017.243

"Three decades of messenger RNA vaccine development - ScienceDirect" https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1748013219301483

Katalin Karikó spent the 1990s collecting rejections.

"Essentials of Cell Biology | Learn Science at Scitable" https://www.nature.com/scitable/ebooks/essentials-of-cell-biology-14749010/contents/

Lewis Thomas

Search for more videos on Cell Biology "search for Introduction to Cell Biology"

Specific YouTube channels me or my kids use for science learning:

https://youtube.com/c/inanutshell

Khan academy (website or Youtube channel)

Biology4kids (website or Youtube channel)

This episode is a quick introduction to who I am and what this series is about: 

A weekly exploration of the process of science, working back from something that the average person knows and exploring the Iceberg of facts, experiments and failure that went into shaping that Iceberg