Stay ConnectedPodcast interviews with genius-level (top .1%) practitioners, scientists, researchers, clinicians and professionals in Cancer, 3D Bio Printing, CRISPR-CAS9, Ketogenic Diets, the Microbiome, Extracellular Vesicles, and more.
Subscribe today for the latest medical, health and bioscience insights from geniuses in their field(s).
Copyright: © Richard Jacobs
Is it possible to breed a species of bee with total viral immunity? Maybe, and the research being done in Michelle Flenniken's lab could pave the way for it to happen.
Tune in to discover:
Michelle Flenniken is Assistant Professor in the Plant Sciences Department and Co-Director of the Pollinator Health Center at Montana State University whose primary research is focused not only on understanding the impact of viruses on honeybees, but on the molecular mechanisms that bees have evolved to combat viral infections.
Longitudinal monitoring projects looking at the prevalence and abundance of 16 pathogens across several bee colonies over time have led to interesting and useful findings. For instance, Flenniken's lab has shown that bees that are infected with viruses have perturbation in the genes that are important for metabolic processes, and that even in so-called asymptomatic bees, there are more than a billion copies of RNA viruses per bee. The hypothesis that follows this finding is that this viral load could be energetically taxing on bees—even if the bees appear phenotypically normal.
More recent research in Flenniken's lab has shown that a bee's immune response is stimulated by double-stranded RNA, which is a molecule that viruses produce when replicating; this molecule stimulates RNA interference in bees—an antiviral mechanism. This has shown to be true also in bumblebees, but is not the case in the fruit fly, which is the go-to model for studying insect immunity. This has opened the door to more exciting and new research that Flenniken and her lab are gearing up to conduct.
If antiviral mechanisms in bees can be fully understood, then it may be possible to identify the genes associated with fighting off viral infection, which would make it possible to breed honeybees that are resistant or immune to viral infections.
Flenniken discusses the details of all this and more, including viral transmission in bees and across species, whether different castes of bees are differentially impacted by viruses, host-pathogen interaction studies, and which viruses most commonly impact bees.
Check out https://plantsciences.montana.edu/directory/faculty/1524085/michelle-flenniken to learn more.
Take advantage of a 5% discount on Ekster accessories by using the code FINDINGGENIUS. Enhance your style and functionality with premium accessories. Visit bit.ly/3uiVX9R to explore latest collection.
Available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2Os0myK
Honey bees are one of the most fascinating and complex social organisms on our planet. Scientists like Gene Robinson research how their genomics play a central role in this behavior and how their environment in turn affects their genes.
Listen and learn
Gene Robinson is the director of the Carl R.Woese Institute for Genomic Biology, an institute that practices team science within a multi-disciplinary scheme. He's been studying entomology and different species of bees for over 45 years. In this conversation, he shares some fascinating notes about honey bee behavior with listeners.
His group in the institute in particular looks at their social behavior mechanisms and evolution from a genomics perspective.
Interestingly, he says that studies indicate layers of individuality and adaptability in bee society—not only are they not all "marching to the same orders," they can change behavior depending on what is happening with the colony.
In one study, his lab monitored the entry and exit of the hive and found that a minority of the hive worked as foragers. In addition, a small group within the foragers took on a significant 50% of the work. However, when they removed those power-house foragers, the colony did not collapse. Rather, the other bees "upped their foraging game" and made up for the loss.
"So while labor is apportioned, it's not fixed and there's flexibility," adds Robinson.
He describes other remarkable modes of flexibility, from pheromone releasing and withholding to determine maturity rates to how a hive survives a queen loss. Along the way he explains how the history of genomics has rearranged how biologists look at bee behavior and development from transcriptomic studies. In fact, dramatic changes are evident in bee brain gene activity depending on their rearing conditions. Based on these studies, their genome is very sensitive to the environment.
For more, see the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology and Gene Robinson's lab website.
Take advantage of a 5% discount on Ekster accessories by using the code FINDINGGENIUS. Enhance your style and functionality with premium accessories. Visit bit.ly/3uiVX9R to explore latest collection.
Episode also available on Apple Podcasts: http://apple.co/30PvU9
"…Their society and community is so complicated, that in fact you cannot really have a straight answer for why something is happening. You need to see it from a global perspective, and look at it from different angles…it's the complexity that makes it fascinating for me," says Dr. Fani Hatjina of bees, which have been the subject of her work for her entire professional life. She focuses specifically on social honey bees, and joins the show to discuss her current research goals and insights.
Press play to discover:
Dr. Hatjina is Director of the Institute of Animal Science & Department of Apiculture in Greece. After completing her PhD on the pollination behavior of bees, she went on to pursue additional research.
Currently, her focus is on finding ways of increasing the resistance of local honey bee populations against a primary pest (the varroa mite), searching for alternative methods of controlling disease without chemicals, improving and preserving the local population of honey bees in Greece for the benefit of the species and for beekeepers, and studying the effects of pesticides and other environmental stressors on bees, such as the presence of heavy metals, and even chemicals that are used by beekeepers inside bee colonies.
Dr. Hatjina explains 'pollination behavior,' which includes the way bees move inside the colony and on flowers or crops, how efficiently they transport pollen, and when they transport pollen. The idea is that by gaining a deeper understanding of this behavior, pollination efficiency can be increased.
She also comments on the "many gaps in knowledge" when it comes to understanding what triggers the increase of pathogens and bee mortality in winter. Sensors inside or underneath bee colonies are being implemented in order to gain a better idea of the possible variables contributing to it, as well as generate some sort of image of what is going on within a bee hive during winter months. Infrared light can also be used to gather valuable information about the heat generated by the bees, the size of the swarm inside a colony, the position of bees inside a colony, and how these things can change according to the external temperature.
Interested in learning more? Tune in for the full conversation and check out Dr. Hatjina's publications at https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Fani_Hatjina.
Take advantage of a 5% discount on Ekster accessories by using the code FINDINGGENIUS. Enhance your style and functionality with premium accessories. Visit bit.ly/3uiVX9R to explore latest collection.
Episode also available on Apple Podcasts: http://apple.co/30PvU9
Bees can generate five pounds of honey a day under prime nectar-gathering conditions.
Numerous factors make that possible and researchers like William Meikle work on modeling honey bee populations, keeping track of how different stressors might affect honey bee colony health.
Listen and learn
Willliam G. Meikle is a research entomologist with the United States Department of Agriculture. He studies the colony-level behavior of bees through placing sensors on colonies and monitoring them over long periods of time. This can gather evidence for how they might respond to sub lethal pesticides and other stressors. He's therefore constantly measuring things like hive weight, temperature, CO2, and internal humidity. These measures are akin to numbers from a monitor your doctor might have used to check your health. Various measures might indicate your activity, from sleeping to eating to drinking a cup of coffee.
No, bees don't drink coffee, but they do get exposed to neonicotinoids, which are a common type of agriculture insecticide affecting bees. Even at low amounts, he says he can see some sort of impact. Higher levels seem to cause bees to stop foraging, for example. Temperature is another abiotic factor he monitors. Bees have an amazing ability to keep the center area, the brood area, quite warm and constant.
Bee social behavior is more than just an inclination. Rather, they work as a superorganism, teaming up and taking turns to use their thoracic muscle movement to warm the center of the hive one by one. A healthy brood is dependent on this constant warmth, and bee population increase can only happen with successful brood rearing.
Listen in for more indications of bee colony health.
For more about his work, see the USDA Honey Bee web page.
Take advantage of a 5% discount on Ekster accessories by using the code FINDINGGENIUS. Enhance your style and functionality with premium accessories. Visit bit.ly/3uiVX9R to explore latest collection.
Episode also available on Apple Podcasts: http://apple.co/30PvU9
Pesticides, poor nutrition, pests, and parasites: these are the four factors influencing bee health around the world, and the amount of information we have about each—how exactly they impact bees, whether each relates to the others, and what can be done about them—is constantly growing.
Press play to learn:
Priyadarshini Chakrabarti Basu is a postdoctoral research associate at Oregon State University Honey Bee Lab, and for over a decade now, she's been studying environmental impacts on bee populations.
Basu's current work focuses on two specific areas within this field of research: pesticides and poor nutrition. She's not only investigating each individually, but exploring the ways in which they may be interconnected.
When it comes to nutrition, she explains that most research to date has looked into the macronutrients required by bees, which are primarily carbohydrates and proteins. Only recently have a couple of research groups—including hers—put their focus on the importance of micronutrients required by bees.
Phytosterols are a group of molecules similar to cholesterol that are a required micronutrient for bees, as they fulfill several functions, including the production of important hormones and the maintenance of cell membrane integrity. Bees source phytosterols naturally from plant pollens, so Basu and the OSU Honey Bee Lab team is trying to collect as many types of pollen as possible in order to look at the phytosterol spectrum available to bees, and determine how they might be able to add this critical micronutrient to the diet of bees that are lacking it.
Basu is also involved in a project which is being carried out in collaboration with growers and beekeepers with the goal of following hives across multiple cropping systems in order to evaluate colony health and growth, as well as assess individual bee physiology.
The ins and outs of the research being done at the OSU Honey Bee Lab are brought to light in today's episode, along with many other informative and interesting aspects of bee health, types of apiculture (beekeeping), commercial crop production, methods of pollination (including cross-pollination and self-pollination), and more.
Tune in and visit https://honeybeelab.oregonstate.edu/.
Take advantage of a 5% discount on Ekster accessories by using the code FINDINGGENIUS. Enhance your style and functionality with premium accessories. Visit bit.ly/3uiVX9R to explore latest collection.
Episode also available on Apple Podcasts: http://apple.co/30PvU9
As we look back on the pandemic, there are clear ways in which our public health strategies failed. From the quarantine to vaccines, understanding the pitfalls in our response will enable us to do better in the future. But who's brave enough to step forward and identify these issues? Dr. Martin Kulldorff joins the podcast to shed some light on the subject…
Dr. Kulldorff is an epidemiologist, a biostatistician, and a founding fellow at Hillsdale College's Academy for Science and Freedom. He has also been a Professor of Medicine at Harvard University for thirteen years. As the co-author of the Great Barrington Declaration, he advocated for a pandemic strategy of focused protection instead of lockdowns during the 2020 health crisis.
Dr. Kulldorff is an expert in infectious disease outbreaks who researches surveillance methods for post-market drug and vaccine safety and early detection and monitoring. How has his perspective shifted the conventional pandemic narrative? Tune in now to find out!
In this conversation, we dive into:
You can learn more about Dr. Kulldorff and his work by following his Twitter!
Want to find out more about Michael and his research? Click here to view his Stanford profile, and here to purchase his latest book!
Take advantage of a 5% discount on Ekster accessories by using the code FINDINGGENIUS. Enhance your style and functionality with premium accessories. Visit bit.ly/3uiVX9R to explore latest collection.
Episode also available on Apple Podcasts: http://apple.co/30PvU9
Dr. Michael Marmor, Professor Emeritus of Ophthalmology at Stanford University, delves into the captivating realm of the human eye in this thought-provoking podcast episode. Focusing on the profound impact of eyes on various facets of human experience, Dr. Marmor shares his insights and expertise on this intriguing topic — particularly in the realm of art.
Dr. Marmor's research interests cover several areas, including the physiology and pathophysiology of retina and pigment epithelium, electrophysiological retinal and RPE function tests, and newer electroretinographic techniques such as multifocal ERG recording. Additionally, he is interested in the relationship between human vision and art, music, history, literature, and sports…
Tune in now to uncover:
Whether you're interested in eye health or the science of art, this conversation promises to captivate and educate. Don't miss out on this engaging discussion that sheds light on the wonders of the human eye and its significance in shaping our perception of the world around us! Want to find out more about Michael and his research? Click here to view his Stanford profile, and here to purchase his latest book! Episode also available on Apple Podcasts: http://apple.co/30PvU9
Bonnie J. Kaplan, Professor Emerita at the Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary, Canada, and author of The Better Brain: Overcome Anxiety, Combat Depression, and Reduce ADHD and Stress with Nutrition, expresses bewilderment at the reluctance of people to explore a subject so fundamental to our biology. What she's referring to is the intricate relationship between nutrition and brain function, which significantly impacts mental health and overall well-being.
Despite common misconceptions, Dr. Kaplan asserts that nutrition is crucial to brain health, mental stability, and life quality. Throughout her career, she has faced numerous challenges in advocating for the use of nutrients in treating mental health issues, emphasizing the biological underpinnings of behavior, and highlighting the impact of nutrition on brain development and function.
Intrigued? Dive deeper into:
Interested in learning more?
Tune in for the entire conversation, check out the book The Better Brain: Overcome Anxiety, Combat Depression, and Reduce ADHD and Stress with Nutrition, and visit Bonnie J Kaplan, Ph.D.
Take advantage of a 5% discount on Ekster accessories by using the code FINDINGGENIUS. Enhance your style and functionality with premium accessories. Visit bit.ly/3uiVX9R to explore latest collection.
Episode also available on Apple Podcasts: http://apple.co/30PvU9
In this episode, we sit down with Jason P. Dworkin to discuss the cosmos in unprecedented ways. Always interested in the origin of life, Jason is a Senior Scientist for Astrobiology at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center who uses meteoritics, astrobiology, and analytical chemistry to observe our universe and uncover its hidden mysteries.
Currently, Jason is working on the OSIRIS-REx mission as a project scientist, contamination science lead, and sample analyst. This mission has several major objectives:
How does Jason's work explore life's origin and early evolution while also focusing on the extraterrestrial input and the origin of various molecules? From modern analytical methods to laboratory models of ancient environments, he takes on an intriguing journey into the heart of his research…
To learn more about Jason and his work, click here now!
Take advantage of a 5% discount on Ekster accessories by using the code FINDINGGENIUS. Enhance your style and functionality with premium accessories. Visit bit.ly/3uiVX9R to explore latest collection.
Episode also available on Apple Podcasts: http://apple.co/30PvU9
Valuable insights and resources shared by Jason P. Dworkin:
More information:
Today, we connect with Thomas Licker to discuss his decades of experience managing biohazard investigations and remediations. As a certified bio-environmental infection control remediator and recovery master, Thomas serves as the president of the American Bio-Recovery Association. Here, he has helped create and publish the Bio Recovery Site Risk Assessment (BSRA) guidance document and the Restoration Industry Association (RIA) Environmental Risk Specialist (ERS) program.
Thomas studied environmental science in college. After researching soil, brown water, air, and industrial hygiene, he found himself working for the US Environmental Protection Agency as a contractor — remediating some of the nation's worst sites. Now, he is in the biohazard response industry full-time, a field of work he has discovered a deep passion for…
In this conversation, we cover:
To learn more about Thomas and his work, click here now!
Take advantage of a 5% discount on Ekster accessories by using the code FINDINGGENIUS. Enhance your style and functionality with premium accessories. Visit bit.ly/3uiVX9R to explore latest collection.
Episode also available on Apple Podcasts: http://apple.co/30PvU9
Our TOPPODCAST Picks 
