Ep 130 Cocoliztli: We do love a salty dish

Ep 130 Cocoliztli: We do love a salty dish

In the 16th century, a series of deadly epidemics swept through much of the region of Mesoamerica known as the Aztec Empire, killing untold millions. By the start of the first of these epidemics, the area had become woefully accustomed to devasting epidemic disease, as the Spanish conquistadors had introduced smallpox, measles, typhus, and influenza, among other infections. But this disease, with its tendency to induce massive hemorrhage, fever, jaundice, and rapid death, seemed different from those now familiar infections, and so was given a new name: cocoliztli. People watched in horror as cocoliztli overtook town after town, village after village, sometimes killing as much as 80% of the population and leaving nothing but desolation in its wake. Hundreds of years after the epidemics ended, debate about the pathogen responsible for cocoliztli remains. In this episode, we’re going deep down the rabbit hole of this medical mystery, linking the spread and nature of these epidemics with the characteristics of the many pathogens that have been proposed over the years. We draw from contemporary accounts, ecological analyses, and even a recent ancient DNA study to make our evaluations, but do we ever get to the bottom of cocoliztli? Tune in to find out.

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Ep 205 Cancer Part 4: Where do things stand today?

Ep 205 Cancer Part 4: Where do things stand today?

For the entirety of our species’ history, our approach to cancer has largely been to react, to design new therapies and better combinations of treatments. This energy has certainly been well-spent, bu...

31 Maalis 1h 19min

Ep 204 Cancer Part 3: How do we treat it?

Ep 204 Cancer Part 3: How do we treat it?

A century and a half ago, the list of effective cancer treatments was essentially a single entry: surgery. Today, in 2026, you’d need pages to contain the number of treatments available, and multiple ...

24 Maalis 1h 32min

Special Episode: Lawrence Ingrassia & A Fatal Inheritance

Special Episode: Lawrence Ingrassia & A Fatal Inheritance

For centuries, physicians noticed that cancer sometimes ran in families, but until the 1960s, an answer to this mystery remained out of reach. Only then were scientists beginning to unlock the cellula...

17 Maalis 45min

Ep 203 Cancer Part 2: Why does it happen?

Ep 203 Cancer Part 2: Why does it happen?

Each of our cells can become cancerous. It’s an uncomfortable, yet unavoidable truth. Nor is it a truth restricted to our species - cancer is a consequence of complex life. The features that make a ce...

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Ep 202 Cancer Part 1: What is it?

Ep 202 Cancer Part 1: What is it?

Cancer has touched every one of us in some capacity, and learning of a diagnosis inspires many more questions than it answers. In this four-part series on cancer, we aim to lay a foundation of knowled...

3 Maalis 1h 36min

Special Episode: Jon Adams and Edmund Ramsden & Rat City

Special Episode: Jon Adams and Edmund Ramsden & Rat City

What happens if you put a bunch of rats in an enclosure and provision them with unlimited food and water? Researcher John B. Calhoun was committed to finding out. Results from Calhoun’s “rat utopia” e...

24 Helmi 56min

Ep 201 Poop Part 2: Flushed away

Ep 201 Poop Part 2: Flushed away

Poop is an incredibly valuable and massively underutilized resource. However, most of us don’t see it that way because of our evolutionarily ingrained disgust towards poop. Flush toilets and intricate...

17 Helmi 1h 21min

Ep 200 Poop Part 1: How the sausage gets made

Ep 200 Poop Part 1: How the sausage gets made

It might be stinky and it might be unpleasant to behold, but we all do it. For many of us, our poop is out of sight, out of mind once we flush it away. But for the next hour and fifteen minutes or so,...

10 Helmi 1h 11min

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