Tiny Vampires: Recent Episodes
Raven Forrest Fruscalzo
Ever wonder how we genetically modify mosquitoes? Curious about the parasites? Have questions about how tick bites cause meat allergies? Tiny Vampires is a show about insects that transmit disease and the scientists that are fighting them. Each episode is guided by questions sent in by listeners. The question is answered with background information and the story of how scientists were able to shine a light on that particular mystery.
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Happy Halloween everyone!! And welcome to the Tiny Vampires Agoraphobia special. Every year I put together a story written from an insect’s perspective. This year is a horror story from the deadliest war in history and even though it is obviously a work of fiction, the facts are true. So even though we’re just having a little festive fun, you’ll still get your dose of insect science you come to count on from Tiny Vampires.
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For thousands of years Egypt, India, China, the Middle East, Europe, and the US, one after another all saw leeches as the answer to their problems. They were exercisers of demons, relievers of pain, bringers of balance, and a source of income.
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Anyone growing up in the United States during the 1950s or 60s has memories of chasing trucks down the road as they doused the neighborhood in a mosquito-killing fog. The story of that fog is part of the broader epic of the insecticide DDT. With a cast ranging from Dr. Suess, the entire population of Naples, peregrine falcons, to a trendy shade of green.
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Blood is vital, transporting hormones, nutrients, and oxygen, and removing waste products but for all its complexity some animals see it simply as food. While we grow up learning to protect our precious fluid from blood-suckers like vampire bats, leeches, and bed bugs they don’t have a monopoly on their gory craving. Unexpected animals from snails to birds to moths have come to join the feast.
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Join me and more than 40 of your other favorite independent podcasters at the Intelligent Speech Conference. Get 10% off your ticket price when you use the offer code
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When we call mosquitoes “the deadliest animals on earth” we aren’t just talking about human deaths. Mosquitoes have played a major role in Hawaii’s infamous designation as the endangered species capital of the world.
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We all believe that we have the capacity to completely change ourselves, but at what cost?
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An entirely new perspective on the infamous black death.
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We’ll kick-off this Halloween special with “The Passenger” a tale of control, desire, and the monster within.
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Most of the time when we get sick we expect to suffer through it and end up rewarded with immunity to disease, or at least the knowledge that it won’t hit so hard if you get it a second time. A bout with the Dengue virus, also known as break-bone fever, is very different. It can actually increase the chance that a second encounter with the virus will end in hemorrhagic fever.
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The African continent was declared polio-free just a couple of days ago, which means that we are, once again, coming close to eradicating it from the globe. Yet, in 2014 children started to go limp, losing control over their arms and legs over the course of weeks, this polio-like condition is called Acute Flaccid Myelitis. Since then, there has been a larger and larger outbreak of the condition every other year, and that’s not the only strange thing about it.
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The CDC has a catalog of 537 viruses that are transmitted by insects or their relatives around the world. This number can be overwhelming and scary but the more we learn about the world of obscure viruses the better we’re equipped to fight them.
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The symbol for medicine, a serpent wrapped around a staff, is displayed on everything from the World Health Organization logo to your doctor’s name tag, depicts the treatment of a single disease, the removal of a Guinea Worm from the patient by slowly wrapping it around a stick over the course of days. This disease is famous for another reason, it is about to be the second disease eradicated from the face of the earth.
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A truck slowly drives by your house at night with a cloud of fog coming out from behind it. It might seem creepy but that fog is effectively synthetic chrysanthemums water that is engineered to target mosquitoes based on their flight patterns.
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Bloodsuckers can be hijacked by viruses and parasites, but some ticks are lethal all on their own. The Australian Paralysis tick paralyzes 10 thousand dogs and cats a year. We didn’t know how their venom worked until some researchers squirted some mouthwash on some ticks and made a discovery.
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Author and fly researcher Dr. Erica McAlister helps bust myths about mosquitoes and other flies
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Who needs bug spray when you have phone apps, bug zappers, barbecue grill sized rigs to keep the mosquitoes away? Mosquito control devices might hurt your bank account but their worth it...right?
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You may have heard of mosquitoes, ticks, fleas, and lice but there are other blood suckers out there, like tsetse flies, floor maggots, toe fleas, and kissing bugs. The race of the victims may have everything to do with the reason you have never heard of them.
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After a little girl was bit by a new, exotic, and dangerous insect in Delaware the media began to speculate, but after a closer look we find there is a much mundane story, that has a lot to do with insect feces.
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The lives of organisms in an ecosystem are intimately intertwined. When an entire tropical forest is chopped down the ripple from that destruction can end with new diseases being introduced into humanity.
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Deep inside the cells of an Australian mosquito are bacteria that kill deadly viruses by starving them to death. The death of these viruses could mean life for anyone bitten by them.
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You may have joked with your friends about using a tapeworm to lose weight thinking it was a diet of the past but today people are purposely infecting themselves with worms for reasons ranging from weight loss to asthma.
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The rumors are true, certain types of mosquitoes are more enticed to bite pregnant people than people who aren’t. It's not just a weird fact, it has dire consequences.
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Salvage logging is a way to get a silver lining out of a natural disaster like a wildfire or a hurricane, but how does it change our chances of getting Lyme disease. Learn about the connection between ticks, mice, and fallen logs.
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For an unlucky few in the American South, Northern Europe, and Australia one bite from a tick can change everything from the food they eat to the types of cancer medications they can be prescribed. These areas, known for their love of all things meat, are also the home of ticks that can cause a meat allergy so bad it can kill.
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We all know that person who never gets a single mosquito bite, while the rest of us get eaten alive. What is there secret? Or secrets? You’ll find it has a lot to do with their particular brand of body odor.
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There are giant mosquitoes that wantonly kill their prey even if they aren’t hungry, and they are going to be your new favorite insects.
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A bacteria that infects insects held some secrets until a team of researchers started looking closer at its amazing powers. Wolbachia might just be capable of saving thousands of human lives.
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Stomach bot flies live most of their lives inside the stomachs of horses. They have adapted to this harsh environment by breathing is a very strange way. Guest co-host Erin Updyke from "This Podcast Will Kill You" comes on to talk fly infestations.
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There is a vaccine for the number one vector-borne disease in the US and Europe, but only for dogs. We explore why there is no Lyme disease vaccine available for humans and how the vaccine certification process is different when you are a dog.
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We have been hearing about the development of the malaria vaccine for years but there still isn’t one publicly available. Discover the history of, and current plans for, the RTS,S vaccine, currently our best hope for saving children and babies all over the African continent.
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We hate fleas and love our cats but are flea and tick medications safe? Learn about the history of permethrin based medications, how they work on a cellular level, and how to keep your kitty from a potentially fatal overdose.
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Carpenter ants are highly destructive costing millions of dollars in damage every year. Learn how we figured out how to control viruses to stop their destruction. Biological control to the rescue!
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On the spot interviews with the marchers at the South Bend Indiana March for Science
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Urban planners use the history of Lyme disease and the ecology of the ticks that carry it to impact the infection rates. What they learned might change how you look at your own backyard.
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This is part 2 of a very special crossover with Benjamin Jacobs from Wittenberg to Westphalia Podcast. In this final part we discuss how tiny insects and bad water killed more medieval soldiers than fighting.
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This is part 1 of a very special crossover with Benjamin Jacobs from Wittenberg to Westphalia Podcast. In this first part we discuss how the horrible diet of medieval soldiers resulted in serious health concerns.
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Urban planning is more than just deciding where to put new roads. This is the first in a two part series on how urban planners work with public health workers to reduce or even prevent disease outbreaks. In this episode we investigate the surprising connection between snails and dams, eye worms and irrigation, and malaria and canals.
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Unlike most diseases transmitted by blood feeders, the Zika virus can also be transmitted sexually. Find out how this surprising fact was discovered, what it has to do with the 1975 Nobel prize, and how it shapes public health recommendations.
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Insects have studied for many years, but it wasn’t until this year that we began to understand why DEET repels ticks. In the process we find that ticks have a different system of smelling than both humans and insects.
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DEET has been the gold standard of insect repellents for more than 50 years. Her is what we know about its history, how it works, and why we need something to replace it.
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Why mosquitoes require blood is a fundamental question, but the answer may surprise you. Meet your new favorite mosquito and find out what makes your blood so great.
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With West Nile infections popping up from Michigan to Mumbai how many people are interested in how West Nile is transmitted. It goes from mosquito to human, but can it go back again?
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Interactions between mosquitoes and plants lead to interesting questions about what mosquitoes are doing when they aren’t biting people. Could it be that animals aren’t the only victims of these vectors of disease?
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Does the news about parasites in sushi have you avoiding your favorite restaurants? Learn all about the worms and how to avoid them.
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Tiny Vampires has joined the Agora Podcast Network! I am very excited to have joined such a supportive team and really look forward to learning from them. My goal is always to bring more of the science you want to you and I really feel Agora will help me towards that goal.
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The paper discussed in this episode was "Diphyllobothrium nihonkaiense Tapeworm Larvae in Salmon from North America"
Just a few of the news outlets that reported on the problem of parasites in sushi discussed in this episode: CNN, BBC, WebMD, New York Daily News, Business Insider, and Bug Bitten.
FAQ about tape worms
The Life cycle of tapeworms
How medical doctors treat Japanese broad tape worm infections. -
Other sushi borne diseases: Anisakiasis, Salmonella, and MMWR
The music for this podcast is by http://www.bensound.com/badass
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Videos about the Kite mosquito repellent stickers have been making their way around social media and news outlets. In this episode the host explains how the chemicals in these patches physically interact with the mosquito to change their behavior.
The advertisement that the listener posted with questions about if these patches work and how.
More detailed information about how neurons work.
The paper discussed in this episode is "Ultra-prolonged activation of CO2-sensing neurons disorients mosquitoes"
News articles about the research and the company from Huffington Post, University of California Riverside Today, The Press Enterprise, University of California Riverside Newsroom, and Bloomberg
If you are interested in more about how insects of many types (bees, ants, mosquitoes, ect) use CO2, read The role of carbon dioxide in host-finding by mosquitoes (Diptera: Culicidae): a review . Which was used for a source for this episode.
The music for this podcast is by http://www.bensound.com/badass
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A special companion episode to the “Outbreak” episode of the Beyond the Big Screen Podcast. The story of the development of the Ebola vaccine and the trails to determine if it really works. Details on different types of vaccines, the many ways they are tested, and ethical issues during an outbreak.
The paper we discussed in this episode was Efficacy and effectiveness of an rVSV-vectored vaccine in preventing Ebola virus disease: final results from the Guinea ring vaccination, open-label, cluster-randomised trial
The press release from the World Health Organization about this research.
An audio press briefing with one of the primary investigators (PIs), Dr Marie -Paule Kieny, WHO Assistant Director-General gives lots of background information about why they chose to do this study and how it was unusual.
More information about Ebola.
General information about vaccines, how they work, and their development.
More detailed information about different types of vaccines.
The music for this podcast is by http://www.bensound.com/badass
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The risks in traveling to the Amazon rainforest: How travelers can find out if the trip is worth risk, including resources for anyone thinking about traveling anywhere in the world and an introduction to the connection between leishmaniasis and tourism.
CDC's quick visual guide to help travelers pack Zika-smart for a trip to South America.
This Episodes scientific paper was by Fernandes Brilhante et al "Epidemiological aspects of American cutaneous leishmaniasis (ACL) in an endemic area of forest extractivist culture in western Brazilian Amazonia"
The World Health Organization travel warning for Brazil.
The Center for Disease Control and Prevention travel information on Brazil, Yellow Fever, and Zika.
The Center for Disease Control and Prevention Yellow Book.
The State Departments information about what to do if you get sick while abroad.
The music for this podcast is by http://www.bensound.com/badass
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Gene drives and Mosquitoes: A new technology could save us from the deadliest parasite in the world today, but we aren't using it. Here's why.
The episode thumbnail image this month is a microscope image of human blood cells infected by Plasmodium falciparum the parasite that kills millions. Its transmission could possibly be stopped by a gene drive system but their release is halted to ensure that the technology is safe and desired by the public.
This weeks scientific paper describing the creation of these gene drive mosquitoes was headed by Dr. Anthony James. He did an interview on the National Academy of Sciences Podcast talking about his work and the challenges of being a mixed race scientist. He also was a guest on the NPR radio show All Things Considered.
The Technology Review wrote a news article on genetic modification and its use in forced extinctions.
The music for this podcast is by http://www.bensound.com/badass
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Mosquitoes and Sound: Love is in the air and there is more to that buzz than you might expect, but can you really use your phone as a mosquito repellent?
This male mosquito is glued to a pin in the same manor as in the cantor study. This video is part of the art installation "Truce: Strategies for Post-Apocalyptic Comptation" by Robin Meier and Ali Momeni - http://robin.meier.free.fr/site/?page_id=38
One of the really great things about the studies that I present in this episode are that the researchers created these fantastic videos with interviews and demonstrations of how they actually conducted the experiments. They also published media that went along with their study.
Check out the tone generator I used to demonstrate the mosquito sounds.
If you are interested in the use of ultrasound as a mosquito repellent, the BBC did a story on it.
The music for this podcast is by http://www.bensound.com/badass
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Information on the genetically modified mosquitoes the residence of the Florida Keys voted to release. Including what modifications were done, how the modifications will control the mosquito population, and some of the scientific investigation on the effectiveness of the lethal gene.
Howard Hues Medical Institute video summary on how OX513A works.
Learn the process by which a line of genetically modified mosquitoes was engineered to reduce populations of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes in the wild. Viruses like Dengue, chickungunya, yellow fever, and Zika virus are spread by a species of mosquitoes called Aedes aegypti. To reduce the number of infections, health officials use various methods aimed at reducing mosquito populations.
All about the fluorescent proteins that were used in the GM mosquitoes.
Another video, this one was produced by Oxitec to demonstrate how they rear millions of mosquitoes and separate the males from the females.
The background on the vote in the Florida Keys.
The Third World Network wrote a piece on GM mosquitoes "Genetically Modified Mosquitoes: ongoing Concerns”
The US Food and Drug Administration's environmental assessment can be read here.
More information about the Screw Worm eradication in North Africa.
The music for this podcast is by http://www.bensound.com/badass
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An overview of the ecological importance of mosquitoes, the pros and cons of their eradication along with an example of how they change the number of birds in France.
Articles used for the podcast are:
Red flag for green spray: adverse trophic effects of Bti on breeding birds by Brigitte Poulin, Gaetan Lefebvre and Leire Paz
A WORLD WITHOUT MOSQUITOES: Eradicating any organism would have serious consequences for ecosystems — wouldn’t it? Not when it comes to mosquitoes, finds Janet Fang by Janet Fang
Mosquitoes: schemes to render them extinct are impracticable by Stephen M. Smith
Mosquitoes: first evaluate impacts of eradicating them by Jon D. Hoekstra
Mosquitoes: retain an ex situ population for ecological insurance by Ben Phalan
Mosquitoes: just how much biodiversity does humanity need? by Fern Wickson
Here's Why It's a Very Bad Idea to Wipe Mosquitoes Off the Face of the Earth by Michael Casey
Note: the mosquito pictured in the Vice article is a male elephant mosquito, which is of both the species and the sex which do not take blood.The idea of eradicating mosquitoes is a very old one, but even if we could do it, should we? Vector biologists and ecologists struggle with the data that we have and look for more but the decision is ultimately in the hands of our political leaders who decide whether or not to give the go ahead to eradication campaigns like the one in Florida.
The music for this podcast is by http://www.bensound.com/badass
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An introduction to vector competence and medical geography. How researcher discovered the vector of the Zika virus and how those mosquitoes arrived in the US.
Articles used for the podcast are:
ZIKA VIRUS I). ISOLATIONS AND SEROLOGICAL SPECIFICITY by G. W. A. DICK
HISTORY OF DOMESTICATION AND SPREAD OF AEDES AEGYPTI- A REVIEW by Jeffrey R Powell and Walter J Tabachnick
FIRST DETECTION OF NATURAL INFECTION OF AEDES AEGYPTI WITH ZIKA VIRUS IN BRAZIL AND THROUGHOUT SOUTH AMERICA by Anielly Ferreira-de-Brito et al
Medical geography has a very interesting history and close links with epidemiology. Much of the Zika virus work CDC medical geographers have done has been focused on its potential spread. As you can see from the maps they include both Aedes species to be as cautious as possible with the potential range.
Music for this podcast is by http://www.bensound.com/badass
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An introduction to your host, some podcast philosophy, and some key phrases you’ll need to know for future episodes.
Music by http://www.bensound.com/badass
Photo by Raven Forrest Fruscalzo: Larval kissing bugs during a behavior experiment
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