Ep 147 Tasmanian Devil Facial Tumor Disease: Sympathy for the Devil

Ep 147 Tasmanian Devil Facial Tumor Disease: Sympathy for the Devil

Think of an infectious disease. What comes to mind? A viral infection like influenza? Or a bacterial illness like cholera? Maybe some of you thought of a fungal pathogen or a parasite. But how many of you thought of a cancer? In this episode, we explore the bizarre, stranger than fiction story of devil facial tumor disease (DFTD), a transmissible cancer that has devastated Tasmanian devil populations over the past few decades. And when we say transmissible cancer, we don’t mean a cancer caused by a virus - we mean the cancer itself is transmissible. How is that possible? What does it do to the devils? What are Tasmanian devils like? What role do they play in the ecosystem? What does the future hold for these adorable creatures? Tune in for a lively discussion all about these devils and their disease, featuring Dr. Rodrigo Hamede, Senior Lecturer at the University of Tasmania and DFTD expert. This episode will have you looking up pictures of baby devils, listening to their wide range of sounds, and rethinking the lines between contagious and non-contagious disease.

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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...

10 Maalis 1h 18min

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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