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PODCAST

Petri Dish

Profane, insane, and 100% primo science, Petri Dish is a no-BS podcast that explores the wildest subjects in modern science with clarity and evil joy. Hosted by Sean Allen, a Nanoparticle/Immunology Researcher, and Nathan Allen, his "screenwriter" brother, Petri Dish fuses hard science with a freewheeling and madcap conversational style. Cannabinoids, Plague, Cats, the dreaded Candiru, and the even more dreaded Covid-19: all these and more are dissected with intellect and irreverence, dropping

science life sciences

All Episodes

00:27:17

Ep. 166 Coffee Pt 1: Species and History

Petri Dish ·

2022/10/03

The first episode on our three part series is on the history of human consumption of coffee (as far as we know) and the several species of plant that can produce those sweet, sweet beans! As a note, we are going to be taking a hiatus after Pt 2 next week for Nathan and Stacey to take a well-earned break and enjoy some time in Korea! We are going to do re-releases of older episodes, so if you haven't heard some of our older stuff, we hope you

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00:50:42

Ep. 165 Viral Hepatitis Pt 2: The Chronic

Petri Dish ·

2022/09/26

In our second and final episode on viral hepatitis, we discuss Hepatitis B and Hepatitis C! One has a vaccine, the other can be treated with antivirals, but both can be pretty serious and bad if you aren't protected or treated. Our sponsor is Athletic Greens, a really solid and easy way to get your vitamins if you're like me and are too silly/busy to cook proper meals every day and need to get those nutrients somehow! Check them out and get a free 1 year supply of Vitamin D and 5 travel packs by

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00:37:59

Ep. 164 Viral Hepatitis Pt 1: Acute But Not Cute

Petri Dish ·

2022/09/19

In our first episode of a two parter, we discuss what the liver does, what hepatitis is generally, and which hepatitis viruses cause acute issues! References: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00705-022-05375-0 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK13296/ https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0227670 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK482374/ https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/articles/21481-liver

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00:24:50

Ep. 163 Random Walks, Brownian Motion, and the...

Petri Dish ·

2022/09/12

Last week, we discussed a very big bacterium, one you can see with your naked eye! But back in high school we all learned that bacteria and prokaryotes in general were pretty simple cells and were definitely smaller than our cells. While we've found a lot of examples that push back against this idea, there is a fundamental truth behind it -- a simple cell has definite physical constraints on how big it can grow. What are those constraints? And how do these giant bacteria (and our own cells) get

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00:28:32

Ep. 162 Really Huge Bacteria

Petri Dish ·

2022/09/05

In today's episode, we discuss a recent discovery of a reaaaaaally big bacteria, like way big! Big enough that you can see it without a microscope! Longer than a fruit fly! BIG! How can a bacteria get so big? What is going on there? Let's discuss it! References: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abb3634 https://www.science.org/content/article/largest-bacterium-ever-discovered-has-unexpectedly-complex-cells

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00:41:56

Ep. 161 Monkeypox Pt 2: APOBEC3 and Microevolution

Petri Dish ·

2022/08/29

Sorry about the delay in this release folks! In this episode, we revisit the current unusual Monkeypox outbreak and dive into the DNA of this virus to try to understand why it is so much more global this time. Spoiler alert: the DNA currently doesn't have answers for us, but it seems to be mutating faster than

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00:36:56

Ep. 160 Caffeine Pt 2: Muscles and Sensitivity

Petri Dish ·

2022/08/22

In the second and final episode on our series on Caffeine, we dive into what acute caffeine toxicity can look like, along with other ways people can be sensitive to caffeine. We also discuss whether caffeine can be useful for giving you a boost while exercising! Our sponsor is Athletic Greens, a really solid and easy way to get your vitamins if you're like me and are too silly/busy to cook proper meals every day and need to get those nutrients somehow! Check them out and get a free 1 year supply of

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00:32:48

Ep. 159 Caffeine Pt 1: The Most Popular Psychoactive...

Petri Dish ·

2022/08/15

First episode of our two-parter on caffeine! For such a small and unassuming molecule, this drug is really popular, consumed all over the world for millennia! What is caffeine? How does it work? We'll even begin to discuss why some people are more sensitive to caffeine than other people. References: https://coffeeaffection.com/coffee-cherry/ https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214750018303275 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3603218/

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01:02:50

Ep. 158 Alzheimer's Redux: Lies, Fraud, and Misconduct

Petri Dish ·

2022/08/08

The world of Alzheimer's research has recently been rocked by very strong evidence of scientific misconduct and fraud, specifically relating to a historically relevant paper about amyloid beta oligomers as a potential cause of Alzheimer's Disease. There are a lot of nuances and complexities at play here, which we dive into! There are also some... not-nuances, like the fact that this fraud and wholesale fabrication of results was pretty brazen. Listen in and learn

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00:54:30

Ep. 157 Monkeypox

Petri Dish ·

2022/08/01

Hi folks! I know most people don't really want to hear it, but we have another disease running around the world besides COVID and the more you know the facts, the better you can do what you can to avoid it! Learn about monkeypox on this week's episode of Petri Dish! References: https://www.who.int/emergencies/disease-outbreak-news/item/2022-DON390 https://www.science.org/content/article/monkeypox-outbreak-questions-intensify-cases-soar https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3901482/

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00:47:56

Ep. 156 Venom Pt 3: Medicine and Mammals

Petri Dish ·

2022/07/25

The final episode in our series on venom, we discuss how venom can be used in modern medicine before discussing some venomous reptiles. Then we finish up by talking about the very few and very strange venomous mammals! References: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fevo.2019.00218/full https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/drugsatfda_docs/label/2011/020718s034lbl.pdf https://www.dsm.com/personal-care/en_US/products/skin-bioactives/syn-ake.html

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00:45:01

Ep. 155 Venom Pt 2: Animal Extravaganza

Petri Dish ·

2022/07/18

Part two of our series on venom! We start out talking about some venomous jellyfish and other cnidarians before moving on to arthropods, like some very venomous spiders! Then we go into treatment options for venom before finishing with some very strange venomous amphibians! Not just poisonous! Venomous! Our sponsor is Athletic Greens, a really solid and easy way to get your vitamins if you're like me and are too silly/busy to cook proper meals every day and need to get those nutrients somehow! Check

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00:25:51

Ep. 154 Venom Pt 1: Bites and Stings and Ouchie Things

Petri Dish ·

2022/07/11

Hi Everyone! Welcome to the first episode of our series on venom! We previously discussed toxic stuff, and venoms are a specific subset of toxic things that are introduced to the body by bite or injection rather than getting swallowed or inhaled or whatever. In this first episode we give a breakdown of the different kinds of venom, and in the following two episodes we'll talk about specific venomous animals! References: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32751897/

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00:30:22

Ep. 153 Hot Dogs and Nitrates

Petri Dish ·

2022/07/04

Happy 4th of July to all our listeners in the USA! In honor of the holiday, we're doing an episode on hot dogs and other cured meats, specifically regarding the health impacts of nitrates/nitrites! Our sponsor is Athletic Greens, a really solid and easy way to get your vitamins if you're like me and are too silly/busy to cook proper meals every day and need to get those nutrients somehow! Check them out and get a free 1 year supply of Vitamin D and 5 travel packs by heading over to

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00:47:08

Ep. 152 Doping Pt 2: Up For Debate

Petri Dish ·

2022/06/27

In our first episode on the topic, we introduced the idea and definition of doping. In this episode we dive into blood doping, gene and cell doping, and a little debate about whether doping really is all that bad. References: https://www.wada-ama.org/en/prohibited-list https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3547746/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30969231/ https://faculty.washington.edu/crowther/Misc/RBC/altitude.shtml

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00:37:01

Ep. 151 Doping Pt 1: Juicing

Petri Dish ·

2022/06/20

Hey folks! On this episode Sean and Nathan discuss sports doping, first defining what counts as doping then discussing a history of doping! Our sponsor is Athletic Greens, a really solid and easy way to get your vitamins if you're like me and are too silly/busy to cook proper meals every day and need to get those nutrients somehow! Check them out and get a free 1 year supply of Vitamin D and 5 travel packs by heading over to athleticgreens.com/emerging References:

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00:28:58

Ep. 150: Organic Poisons

Petri Dish ·

2022/06/13

We took a break from our series on poisons, but we're back now to chat about organic poisons! No, not like pesticide-free poisons, organic in this context just means they're molecules that have carbons and hydrogens in them! So no more chatting about metallic poisons, we're going to move on to stuff like

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00:49:23

Ep. 149 Sports Medicine: Whey

Petri Dish ·

2022/06/06

I promise Nathan doesn't say 'whey' weird the entire episode, it just takes a bit for him to stop. This week's episode is about whey protein! What is it? Does it actually provide any benefit over any other protein? Our sponsor is Athletic Greens, a really solid and easy way to get your vitamins if you're like me and are too silly/busy to cook proper meals every day and need to get those nutrients somehow! Check them out and get a free 1 year supply of Vitamin D and 5 travel packs by heading over to

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00:32:58

Ep. 148 Side Quests 1: Frenchmen and Killer High Schools

Petri Dish ·

2022/05/30

Hi Everyone! This is the first episode in a periodic series we're going to do called 'side quests'. Sometimes we come across science stories that aren't quite enough to do a full episode on, but are interesting and fun to talk about! So from now on we'll occasionally present them as a series of shorter stories within an episode! In this episode, we'll discuss a competitor of Louis Pasteur, a high school that appears to be the center of a cluster of brain tumors, and a historical example of unethical

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00:31:23

Ep. 147 Poisons Pt 3: Arsenic, The King of Poisons

Petri Dish ·

2022/05/23

Hi Folks! Part three of our poison series is on arsenic, the king of poisons and the poison of kings! Arsenic had a long history of being used to kill nobles, but after a reliable test for arsenic was developed in the 1800s it got a lot less popular for killing people. But in true human fashion, we continued to use arsenic for all kinds of things! References: https://jmvh.org/article/arsenic-the-poison-of-kings-and-the-saviour-of-syphilis/ https://www.asmalldoseoftoxicology.org/fowler

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