This month's episode is about torture and it's a bit different than the usual in that it's a bit more on the legal rather than the medical side. We start out by talking briefly about the history of torture, mostly focusing on its legality and use and then talk about torture today, and some specific examples.

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Happy pride! In this episode we talk about the history of homosexuality, mostly how it was different from homosexuality today and how it was viewed in society. We also talk about the role that psychology played in its pathologization and the gay rights movement.

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Mia Mulder

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We've talked about blood transfusions, now it's time for its sister field: organ transplantations! Just like blood transfusions relied on ABO compatibility to work, organ transplantation scientists ran into the issue of immune system compatibility- something that is still giving us trouble. We talk about how the field evolved through time, and how the discovery of immunosuppressants contributed to safer transplants- kinda. We also discuss sketchy practices and practitioners, and the future of transplants in the form of immune cells, biopolymers or perhaps xenotransplants.

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Prions: what are they, how they were discovered, and what's their link with cannibalism? We talk about all of that in this month's episode.

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People have always known that blood plays an integral role in health and disease, and have developed lots of treatments around blood, including bloodletting. However, they quickly figured out that while getting blood out is easy, putting blood back in is a lot more difficult, partly because of the complexity of the circulatory system, because of a lack of tools, and lastly, because blood has a tendency to turn bad when you mix it improperly. But all is ahead: the field of transfusion medicine has much in store, plastic blood may become a reality in the future.

P.S. A quick correction: at the end, we talk about embryonic stem cells being collected from aborted fetuses. While fetal stem cells are also used in research, embryonic stem cells are actually collected from discarded, non-implanted embryos (typically obtained from clinics performing IVF procedures).

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In this episode we talk about opium (the OG drug) - how it works, how it's cultivated and how it spread in early history, as well as its political relevance in the 19th century.

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This month we are joined by Patrick Kelly, with whom we discuss the origins of pharmacy and the development of patent laws. We start out by going over the early roots of pharmacy and how the field evolved over time and eventually separated from medicine. Mia goes over some important public health disasters that led to the introduction of the stricter pharma regulations we have today, and lastly, we discuss how we came to implement patent law in regards to chemicals and medicine.

Here is Patrick's physiology Youtube channel and his medical history channel. Check them out!

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSriLWQC2J6wNeWXOGlIV4w

https://www.youtube.com/c/PatrickKellyMedicalHistory

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In this month's episode we talk about leprosy: the bacteria that cause it and how exactly they cause the disease, as well as the genetic risk factors involved (did you know that there is some overlap in the disease-causing pathways in leprosy and Alzheimer's?). We also cover the origin of the bacteria and their spread, early and modern treatments (wait till you hear about this one), leper colonies and eradication.

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Today we're talking about biowarfare. We do a quick overview and go through some early uses of bioweapons, then Mia talks about instances of biowarfare in WWI and WWII. This episode Salem also gets to talk about conspiracy theories, this time around bioweapons with a focus on Covid.

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