Speaker 1: Oh hey, it's the ghost of podcasts past Ali Ward.
Speaker 1: I am bringing you an early lost episode from twenty
Speaker 1: seventeen for today twenty twenty one. I never ever ever
Speaker 1: thought I had aired this one. This one was dead
Speaker 1: to me. It has been sealed tightly in a vault
Speaker 1: for three and a half years, in shame. It's one
Speaker 1: of the very very first interviews I ever did for Ologies,
Speaker 1: before the podcast even really existed, before there was like
Speaker 1: a format, before I figured my shit out, before any pandemics,
Speaker 1: and definitely before I knew how to use sound recording equipment.
Speaker 1: And so I need to warn you. If this is
Speaker 1: your very very first episode of Ologies you're ever listening to,
Speaker 1: please go away, just stop. Just put a pin in
Speaker 1: this episode, turn around, pick another episode. Okay, Ologites, people
Speaker 1: who have been around long enough to know all my
Speaker 1: secrets and call me Dad, this one's for you. This
Speaker 1: episode again dead and gone. Every time I thought about
Speaker 1: this interview, I cringe, and even like now, I literally
Speaker 1: got like tinkles up my spine and I shuddered one
Speaker 1: hundred percent honest. Okay, So here's what happened. It was
Speaker 1: June twenty seventeen, before I ever released the first Ologies episode,
Speaker 1: I went to London for work and I packed all
Speaker 1: my audio equipment just for this interview, and I met
Speaker 1: up at the Natural History Museum of London for an
Speaker 1: interview about parasitology. I did the mic check, not realizing
Speaker 1: that the two handheld microphones were picking up nothing and
Speaker 1: instead it was just the little built in mic capturing
Speaker 1: us talking. Now we're able to sweeten the sound, make
Speaker 1: it work a little bit. But before I tell you
Speaker 1: the rest, just a really quick thanks to all the
Speaker 1: folks on Patreon, Patreon dot com, Sashologies. Thank you everyone
Speaker 1: to everyone who rates and subscribes, especially people who write
Speaker 1: reviews such as this one from Hi my name is
Speaker 1: who listens while boiling coyote bones in a lab? They say,
Speaker 1: and they wrote, I'm truly in tears thinking about how
Speaker 1: Ologies has filled my heart and brain with excitement and
Speaker 1: joy while living some of my darkest days of this year.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Hi my name is, Please don't make me cry.
Speaker 1: So the topic is bill harziology and you're like, the
Speaker 1: fuck is that? Okay?
Speaker 2: So?
Speaker 1: Bilharzia are types of parasitic worms, and bill Harzia comes
Speaker 1: from the name of the guy who first identified these
Speaker 1: old critters a German dude named Theodore Bill Hars really
Speaker 1: the world's first Bill harzyologist, and because I was not
Speaker 1: great at interviewing it, the questions are all over the place.
Speaker 1: We talk about parasites, but mostly Bill Harzia, which cause schistosomiasis.
Speaker 1: So I checked Bill harzyology. Bam, one Google result. This
Speaker 1: word has been used one time before in a typewriter
Speaker 1: written nineteen sixty World Health Organization report in regard to
Speaker 1: Bill harziologists or scientists who study the disease caused by
Speaker 1: blood flukes. It's on. So this ologist has likely completely
Speaker 1: forgotten that they sat down for a twenty seventeen interview
Speaker 1: for a podcast that didn't exist yet, But in her
Speaker 1: email agreeing to do it, she promised, I will bring
Speaker 1: you some lovely slash nasty specimens, and that she did so.
Speaker 1: She is communications and program manager for the Global Schistasamiasis
Speaker 1: Alliance and her background is in tropical diseases and biomedical research.
Speaker 1: She did a postdoc at the Natural History Museum where
Speaker 1: she still does research. So curl up, put on your
Speaker 1: skinny genes from four years ago. I still wear mine
Speaker 1: and get ready to ingest some lost episode, vintage baby ologies,
Speaker 1: banter about curly worms, vials of vile creatures, snails, flatworm drama,
Speaker 1: febrile delirium, spooning, outmoded gender roles, historical weight loss, pills,
Speaker 1: unfortunate snacks, and some new therapies with parasite researcher and
Speaker 1: bilharziologist doctor Anuke Goubras.
Speaker 2: Well, we're recording, but again, Karl is out to take
Speaker 2: you on to test your levels.
Speaker 3: Okay, not entirely sure what to say, but it's good.
Speaker 4: Your level looks good.
Speaker 1: As it turns out, her levels were not good, and
Speaker 1: go Res got it. Also in twenty seventeen, I hadn't
Speaker 1: yet started asking the guest pronouns, but I checked in
Speaker 1: her Twitter bio, says she her.
Speaker 3: So, I currently I am the communications and program manager
Speaker 3: for an organization called the Global Shista Saisis Alliance, and
Speaker 3: that is going to require some explaining. So I'm based
Speaker 3: at the museum, but it's actually an independent body that
Speaker 3: looks at a particular parasite and a particular parasitic disease
Speaker 3: called schistasamisis that infects two hundred and fifty million people worldwide,
Speaker 3: particularly in some Soaran Africa. It's caused by a parasitic
Speaker 3: worm called shista selma or shist of selms, which I
Speaker 3: have some samples of here.
Speaker 5: And we're looking jars in front of us, and it
Speaker 5: looks like there's just squiggles, evil squiggles, evil white squiggles
Speaker 5: in the bottom of them.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they are evil white squiggles.
Speaker 2: What's the name s Where does that come from?
Speaker 4: Shista soma?
Speaker 3: I think it comes to describe the actual body of
Speaker 3: these worms. So they're quite unusual looking in that they.
Speaker 4: Look round like roundworms, but.
Speaker 3: They actually are flatworms that are curved in, or the
Speaker 3: males are. They're flat and curved in, and they create
Speaker 3: this little groove and the female worm who is around
Speaker 3: sits in that groove and it's sort of almost like
Speaker 3: a sort of split body. There's another stage, they're larval stage,
Speaker 3: which also has a split tail, so that also is
Speaker 3: like a shist.
Speaker 4: So a shist is a split.
Speaker 1: So shister split soma body. And though there are over
Speaker 1: twenty five recognized species, only a small handful infect humans,
Speaker 1: and the size varies depending on the species. But in
Speaker 1: their tiny jars in front of us, they look like short,
Speaker 1: errant threads picked off a cotton sweater. Now under a microscope,
Speaker 1: the paired couples looked kind of like a pink green
Speaker 1: bean slightly a jar and acting as a hammock for
Speaker 1: another much smaller pink green bean, which is just nestled
Speaker 1: in a sexy patriarchal groove that scientists call a gynocophoric canal.
Speaker 1: They're the couple engaged in uncomfortable PDA at a dinner party.
Speaker 1: Too close.
Speaker 2: What are the ladies doing curled up in that?
Speaker 4: So they're very traditional lifestyle.
Speaker 3: They pair up male and female and they actually reside
Speaker 3: in the blood system of mammals. And the male is
Speaker 3: strong and muscular, and he holds onto the vein wall
Speaker 3: and the feeds. The female protects the female, and the
Speaker 3: female sits there and produces eggs. She just sits in
Speaker 3: this grove that he's made for her, juice eggs.
Speaker 4: That's all she does.
Speaker 2: That's so like atomic family.
Speaker 4: Yes, that's way so traditional.
Speaker 2: What happened? These ladies aren't like getting out.
Speaker 3: They have been documented cases of evidence that they do
Speaker 3: swap partners, but the females actually cannot produce eggs and
Speaker 3: become quite stunted if they're not paired up with males,
Speaker 3: so they clearly they have to actually exist paired up
Speaker 3: with a male in order to be able to feed
Speaker 3: themselves at it adequately. So yeah, that's quite in very empowerful.
Speaker 4: No, it's not empowering at all.
Speaker 1: So I was wondering how they pick mates in the dark,
Speaker 1: sticky tunnels of our blood vessels, and luckily I found
Speaker 1: a two thousand and nine International Journal of Parasitology paper
Speaker 1: titled the Sex Lives of Parasites Investigating the Mating System
Speaker 1: and Mechanisms of Sexual Selection of the human pathogen Schistosoma manson,
Speaker 1: And it had everything I never knew I wanted. Okay,
Speaker 1: first off, they are mostly monogamous. Wait, mostly your soulmate
Speaker 1: lives in your body. Now, in this study, it was
Speaker 1: observed that the guys could stuff their groove with multiple
Speaker 1: ladies and only actually mate with one of them. Well,
Speaker 1: the other ones are just crammed in there like kind
Speaker 1: of sister worms. Wondering if they should have frozen some larvae. Now,
Speaker 1: does this mean that there are shy worms with no
Speaker 1: one to nap in their sex canal?
Speaker 6: Well?
Speaker 1: The study continues that quote male body size was positively
Speaker 1: related to reproductive success. So, wow, worms, I thought you
Speaker 1: were above it. But worm gossip is not over yet.
Speaker 1: So sometimes long term pairs get a divorce and the
Speaker 1: lady squirms out of the dude because there's another mate
Speaker 1: less related to her. So she's like, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for all the nutrients that you sucked from this person,
Speaker 1: but I got a piece because that guy is not
Speaker 1: my cousin like you are, and I wish you nothing
Speaker 1: but the best. Please do not text me now. Hopefully
Speaker 1: another mate will come along and catch their eye or whatever.
Speaker 3: They don't particularly have eyes or anything like that, so
Speaker 3: living in the blood system, it's all done by chemical cues.
Speaker 2: So they just slip it out.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so okay, now they are flatworms.
Speaker 3: Yes, so they're tramatodes or flatworms, so sort of like
Speaker 3: the liver fluke, but the liver fluke lives in the liver,
Speaker 3: whereas in schistosomes are blood flukes. They live in the
Speaker 3: blood system of mammals including humans and also birds. Actually
Speaker 3: you get some schistosomes that infect birds, not the same
Speaker 3: ones though different species. So even the evil squiggly worms
Speaker 3: I've got in tubes right here, we've got a couple.
Speaker 3: We have three different species that infect cattle in front
Speaker 3: of us and then this one here is the species
Speaker 3: that infects humans. It's called Schistosoma mansonai and it causes
Speaker 3: a disease called intestinal schistosomiasis, which can be fair found
Speaker 3: in a variety of countries, but mainly in Sub Saharan
Speaker 3: African countries and also in Brazil, and it's quite nasty.
Speaker 3: It can cause quite severe organ damage, but it's a
Speaker 3: very gradual disease, so it builds up over time and
Speaker 3: people get more and more infected, they get more and
Speaker 3: more damage to their organs, and so they get infected
Speaker 3: when they're maybe children, and then by the time they're
Speaker 3: the age of thirty, they have lots of complications organ complications,
Speaker 3: like they could potentially have the swollen liver and damaged liver,
Speaker 3: so their liver isn't functioning properly and it could lead
Speaker 3: to liver failure failure. But they can also get damage
Speaker 3: in the lungs, damage in the spleen, lots of complications
Speaker 3: that way. Another similar species, which is the Selma Hematobium,
Speaker 3: causes eurogenital shist of smisis and that is very painful,
Speaker 3: very nasty and can lead to bladder cancer, kidney failure,
Speaker 3: so it can cause sterility, can potentially increase HIV transmit
Speaker 3: and it's quite nasty.
Speaker 2: So how did you get what did you study? How
Speaker 2: did you get.
Speaker 7: Involved in parasites and shift aim because you're a parasitologist. Yes, right, yeah,
Speaker 7: I'm a parasitologist. I didn't start off as a parasitologist.
Speaker 7: So I always liked animals as a kid, and I
Speaker 7: always liked the marine.
Speaker 4: Sort of environment. So I first started doing marine.
Speaker 3: Zoology, studying animals of the sea, but we also had
Speaker 3: some general biology lectures and it was in one of
Speaker 3: those that we started learning about parasitic infections and it
Speaker 3: wasn't shift asilmes. It was a different parasite that we
Speaker 3: were learning about, one that's transmitted by insect bites, and
Speaker 3: I found it so fascinating, but suddenly decided that maybe
Speaker 3: I would pursue that a little bit more, and I
Speaker 3: started going to the parasite based lab sessions that they had.
Speaker 3: I then decided to do my masters in parasites and
Speaker 3: the Biology and Control of Parasites at the Liverpool School
Speaker 3: of Tropical Medicine.
Speaker 1: So yes, she got a back of Science at the
Speaker 1: University of Wales and a master's at the Liverpool School
Speaker 1: of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, and then her PhD from
Speaker 1: Imperial College London in the Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology.
Speaker 1: Now did she always have an aptitude for bill harziology?
Speaker 8: Was it in her blood?
Speaker 1: Proverbially?
Speaker 2: What was your gateway parasite? What was the one from insects?
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was.
Speaker 3: I think it must have been tripan asamiasis not long word.
Speaker 3: All these parasites have long words. Yeah, But it's also
Speaker 3: known as shagas disease. It occurs in South America and
Speaker 3: it's really nasty.
Speaker 2: I've heard of that.
Speaker 3: They're transmitted by these big kissing bugs or assassin bugs
Speaker 3: they're also called, and they can cause quite a lot
Speaker 3: of damage to people and gradually make them.
Speaker 4: Very very ill.
Speaker 3: Again, these are all sort of gradual diseases, but shaggers
Speaker 3: can be very fatal.
Speaker 2: Did Darwin possibly have that?
Speaker 4: Yes?
Speaker 3: He did, Actually he got There is this sort of
Speaker 3: myth that he even collected the insect that bit him,
Speaker 3: and it's in our collections. No, I wouldn't say that
Speaker 3: it's absolutely certain. It is a insect, one of these
Speaker 3: assassin bugs that he collected. Now, whether it's the one
Speaker 3: that bit him, I don't know.
Speaker 4: But yeah, and.
Speaker 2: So did he Did he die from it or did
Speaker 2: he suffer from from Shager's disease.
Speaker 3: It's a good question, Actually he did. I think he
Speaker 3: did suffer from it, but I don't know if that is.
Speaker 3: I don't think he died from it, but might be wrong.
Speaker 5: I remember a story of him being so excited about
Speaker 5: collecting bugs that he ran out of.
Speaker 2: Hands, and so he put one in his mouth.
Speaker 9: Oh no, okay, So I fact checked this.
Speaker 1: And aside from unraveling the mysteries of evolution, Darwin was
Speaker 1: also that friend you had who was always trying to
Speaker 1: figure out why they were sick. And this dude was
Speaker 1: out there on boats trying to collect creatures while also
Speaker 1: barfing after every meal. He had CVS, which is not
Speaker 1: a disorder of elongated cash register receipts, but rather cyclic
Speaker 1: vomiting syndrome.
Speaker 10: Oh, poor dude.
Speaker 1: As well as ailments that modern day physicians looking back
Speaker 1: suspect were each Pylori bacteria, which causes ulcers and yes,
Speaker 1: shagas disease, which may have led to heart problems that
Speaker 1: led to his death. Now, given the poor Chuck was
Speaker 1: prone to fits of upchuck, it is no wonder he
Speaker 1: penned my most favorite journal snippet in eighteen sixty one quote,
Speaker 1: I am very poorly today and very stupid, and I
Speaker 1: hate everybody and everything. That is some relatable content. Okay,
Speaker 1: Now back to schistosome's So.
Speaker 2: That was that quite interested?
Speaker 4: Yeah, that learning about how the.
Speaker 3: Control of this was controlling the disease in South America.
Speaker 2: And so what is it about?
Speaker 5: I mean, this isn't maybe a stupid question, but what
Speaker 5: is different from just being infected with so a bacteria
Speaker 5: versus a parasite?
Speaker 2: Like when does something become parasitic?
Speaker 4: Ah, that's a really good question.
Speaker 3: And so you know loads of people who will argue that,
Speaker 3: you know, maybe bacteria are also parasites and things like
Speaker 3: or viruses, but really parasites and they tend to be
Speaker 3: things like malaria. So it's like a protozoan, which is malaria.
Speaker 3: Malaria as a protozoon it's a sort of simple cell
Speaker 3: cellular organism that lives in the blood. But then you
Speaker 3: can get other parasites that are like these shistos worms.
Speaker 3: Which are clearly much more complicated, much bigger multicellular organisms.
Speaker 3: They have evolved very a very specific survival strategy.
Speaker 4: If you want.
Speaker 3: Parasites, it's more of a life strategy then a particular
Speaker 3: type of organism. So it very much has to do
Speaker 3: with anything that lives in or on another organism, taking
Speaker 3: nutrients and benefiting from that, but to the detriment of
Speaker 3: the host. So there will always be a host parasite relationship.
Speaker 3: Now that's why it's sort of Some people will argue
Speaker 3: that bacteria is similar to that, but there are a
Speaker 3: lot of free living bacteria and bacteria might may or
Speaker 3: may not cause you damage.
Speaker 1: So part of being a parasite is the effect that
Speaker 1: it has on the host, and dictionaries defined a parasite
Speaker 1: is something that lives off a host quote without making
Speaker 1: a useful or adequate return. So they're not just the
Speaker 1: ones who don't chip in on the big dinner bill,
Speaker 1: but they never chip in like you can rely on
Speaker 1: them to not be reliable to chip in.
Speaker 3: Yes, there's also an interesting relationship between the parasite and
Speaker 3: the host, and that it's not in the parasite's interest
Speaker 3: to kill you atright to kill the host outright. It
Speaker 3: wants the host to survive as long as possible so
Speaker 3: that it can reproduce, so it's not an a media
Speaker 3: killer like some other infections. Anthras, for example, will want
Speaker 3: the body to go straight back into the earth, so
Speaker 3: it'll kill straight away.
Speaker 1: Anthrax by the Bye is a thrash metal band from
Speaker 1: the eighties whose name was chosen because one of the
Speaker 1: members read about a spore releasing bacterium of the same
Speaker 1: name that, if weaponized and inhaled, kills eighty five to
Speaker 1: ninety percent of patients who don't get treatment. So the
Speaker 1: band said they liked the name anthrax because it sounded
Speaker 1: sufficiently evil, and now I agree with them.
Speaker 3: Whereas in the parasite wants actually the host to survive
Speaker 3: as long as possible so they can continue to reproduce
Speaker 3: and continue to send its offspring out there in whichever
Speaker 3: way it does, whether it's through another insect carrying its
Speaker 3: offspring off, or whether the offspring come out in the
Speaker 3: case of schistosounds with stool and urine entering the environment.
Speaker 3: There are different ways that parasites can transmit and continue
Speaker 3: their life cycle.
Speaker 2: Do you ever like overly apply.
Speaker 5: The strategies of parasites to like psychological things in your life.
Speaker 2: Are you ever like your roommate where you're like.
Speaker 5: Saying nutrients, like, do you ever does that ever relate
Speaker 5: to your psychology?
Speaker 6: No?
Speaker 4: I don't think so. I don't know that.
Speaker 3: I tend to not really think of parasites in terms
Speaker 3: of humans, but I think potentially some things I like
Speaker 3: in terms of yeah, maybe in terms of sort of relationships,
Speaker 3: particularly when it comes to what parasites and hosts do,
Speaker 3: which is in the evolutionary arms race based on also
Speaker 3: called the red Queen hypothesis. The red Queen hypothesis comes
Speaker 3: from Lewis Carroll in where you have to run as
Speaker 3: fast as you can in order.
Speaker 4: To stay in the same place.
Speaker 3: So the parasite is constantly finding ways to infect the host.
Speaker 3: The host is constantly trying to find ways to prevent
Speaker 3: s parasitic infections, so they constantly have this battle where
Speaker 3: every time the host finds another way to stop infections
Speaker 3: or to stop the parasite from spreading, the parasite will
Speaker 3: find another way to get past that hurdle. So they're
Speaker 3: both running as fast as they can stay in the
Speaker 3: same place. With the red Queen hypothesis, and that you
Speaker 3: can see in a lot of things and how the
Speaker 3: world works that we are constantly doing that.
Speaker 11: So it's actually yeah, yes, Like who would have thought
Speaker 11: that bials of these tiny curlial words would be could
Speaker 11: cause such drama?
Speaker 1: Who would have thought? Ali, Maybe the two hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty million people globally who have just a semiasis, or
Speaker 1: maybe the scientists who have dedicated their lives to finding
Speaker 1: treatments and cures. But yes, lady, who has never risked
Speaker 1: these parasitic flatworms spooning and boning in your life blood?
Speaker 1: They do cause trauma?
Speaker 3: Yeah, might be slightly being slightly focusing on the negative
Speaker 3: aspects of parasites.
Speaker 4: There are, believing or not some.
Speaker 3: Positive aspects of them as well, so you can use
Speaker 3: them in positive ways. That can you use them in
Speaker 3: positive ways?
Speaker 4: Okay?
Speaker 3: To give an example, I think our museum curator, for example,
Speaker 3: she sometimes gets called in with live animals that have
Speaker 3: been confiscated from people who brought them into the country
Speaker 3: or different countries. The people have confiscated these animals, they
Speaker 3: don't know if the animal has come from the.
Speaker 4: Wild or if it has indeed, as has.
Speaker 3: Been claimed by the paperwork, by the person bringing in
Speaker 3: being bred domestically and therefore can be traded we taging
Speaker 3: like baby tigers, or well not baby tigers, but Comeleians
Speaker 3: for example, Okay, like Madagascar comeleons, which people can have
Speaker 3: as a pet if they're bred domestically, but you can't
Speaker 3: collect them from the wild, and if you look at
Speaker 3: the parasites that live inside them, you can tell pretty
Speaker 3: quickly if it's a parasite that only exists in the wild.
Speaker 3: In Madagascar, you know, that chameleon couldn't possibly have been
Speaker 3: bread domestically, so it was adopted.
Speaker 4: It wasn't, you know, a real.
Speaker 3: Bread domestically bread comeleianon, because there's no way they could
Speaker 3: have picked up there was parasites anywhere else. So that
Speaker 3: that is one aspect for example. There's also another aspects
Speaker 3: where you get parasites that can control insects that damage crops,
Speaker 3: So that's another thing that you can potentially use parasites for.
Speaker 5: I'm still locking there's that the forensic science of chamelion
Speaker 5: parasites is a good thing.
Speaker 6: Chamelion, well, but our traveicking kindyt control it, yeah again,
Speaker 6: or you'll get really nasty parasites and you'll get parasites
Speaker 6: that aren't so nasty, So maybe the chameleon's like I
Speaker 6: don't like the parasite, but it's not completely messing up
Speaker 6: my life.
Speaker 1: So okay, again, this was an early interview, and we're
Speaker 1: talking about chameleon parasites right now, which then led me
Speaker 1: down a rabbit hole reading a two thousand and seven
Speaker 1: news article about a guy from Croatia who vacationed in Thailand.
Speaker 1: He was caught in customs with a wriggling suitcase that
Speaker 1: authorities discovered was filled with one hundred and seventy five chamellions.
Speaker 1: So let's not do that humans. But one thing we
Speaker 1: can do is donate to a charity of the ologists choosing.
Speaker 1: And this episode of so long ago, the benefit of
Speaker 1: your episode being on a shelf for three and a
Speaker 1: half years is now in honor of doctor Kuvrous, we're
Speaker 1: sending a donation to the Globalstas Mayuses Alliance, which is
Speaker 1: an alliance of partners working together to accelerate the progress
Speaker 1: toward Shistas Mayas's control and elimination. And you can find
Speaker 1: out more at Eliminateshisto dot org. That link is in
Speaker 1: the show notes. And that was made possible by sponsors
Speaker 1: of the show you may hear about now.
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Speaker 1: Okay, back to the blood flukes. Let's learn about the
Speaker 1: asses of the hour, Bill Harzia And no, there are
Speaker 1: not patreon questions because at the time I did not
Speaker 1: know what I was doing. And if you don't believe me,
Speaker 1: you just wait to see how this episode ends.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 3: Another thing that happens to these parasites, particularly things like worms,
Speaker 3: intestinal worms or blood flukes, they are incredible at manipulating
Speaker 3: the host immune system, so they will find ways to
Speaker 3: dampen the host response so that the host's immune system
Speaker 3: doesn't attack them, and that can have a secondary effect
Speaker 3: in that you won't get allergic reactions quite so strong.
Speaker 3: So they have been linked like worms have been linked
Speaker 3: to potentially dampening down the effect of like iritobal syndrome, chrons, disease,
Speaker 3: asthma and exima. Yeah, that kind of autoimmune stuff. So
Speaker 3: there does seem to be like a link between where
Speaker 3: you've got a lot of parasitic worms, you have less
Speaker 3: of these allergies, but areas where like here, where you
Speaker 3: don't have any of these worms. A lot more people
Speaker 3: are suffering from autoimmune seeds, and people are doing a
Speaker 3: lot of research looking at what it is exactly in
Speaker 3: the parasite worm that is dampening down this immune system,
Speaker 3: and is there a way of making it into a
Speaker 3: safe medicine for people to take.
Speaker 4: You could know.
Speaker 3: I would not advise people to go and infect themselves
Speaker 3: with worms. There are the risk of getting complications. Even
Speaker 3: if it's just one, one can be quite severe, particularly
Speaker 3: also for pregnancy. It can be quite dangerous as well.
Speaker 3: So yeah, I wouldn't say I go and infect yourself
Speaker 3: with worms. I know that there are people who will
Speaker 3: do that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, there were tapeworms were used as a deity.
Speaker 4: And like, yeah, exactly that as well.
Speaker 2: I remember seeing an all add from the.
Speaker 5: Twenties where take one of these tapeworms and then the
Speaker 5: takeworms just gobble of your for you.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, do you hear stories.
Speaker 5: I actually know a girl who had some dadsusually and
Speaker 5: ended up with like a legit tapeworm. Do people come
Speaker 5: to you because they know they're like, oh, we're going
Speaker 5: to have a choose deals with parasites.
Speaker 3: I don't I think I have had that once or
Speaker 3: twice ages ago, email saying like, oh my god, I
Speaker 3: think I have this parasite.
Speaker 4: What should I do.
Speaker 3: We're not allowed. We're not medic doctors. We're not allowed to,
Speaker 3: you know, tell them all you should go and take this.
Speaker 3: It's not we're not trained that way. We'll give advice about. Okay,
Speaker 3: there's the you know, the London Hospital of Tropical Medicine.
Speaker 3: Go there, tell them where you've been and they'll treat you.
Speaker 3: And they have a walk in clinic for people who
Speaker 3: just come back from traveling. But you do get cases
Speaker 3: as well, where it will be a museum staff member.
Speaker 3: And we've actually got a specimen from a museum staff
Speaker 3: member who got infected with the worm.
Speaker 4: Please tell me everything.
Speaker 3: Well, and after he took the treatment and like pooped
Speaker 3: it out, he cleaned it, he cleaned it and brought
Speaker 3: it in and we've got it preserved in some.
Speaker 4: Alcohol to work with it.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's very generous.
Speaker 4: Yeah, to know, that's like.
Speaker 2: Straight out of your buddy.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's nicer, nice collection.
Speaker 6: There.
Speaker 2: Have you gotten to do any field work at all?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 3: I do for my previous job at the museum, So
Speaker 3: I was a postdoctoral researcher on a particular project on Schistoston's.
Speaker 4: But for that.
Speaker 3: Project, which I did for five years, I traveled every
Speaker 3: year to a sub Saharan African country, Tanzania.
Speaker 4: To do field work.
Speaker 3: And before and for my PhD as well, I traveled
Speaker 3: to different African countries to do field work there, and
Speaker 3: that was definitely an attraction for me. In terms of
Speaker 3: parasitology as a discipline. You can if you're a field
Speaker 3: parasitologist like I am, you get to travel to lots
Speaker 3: of different countries and experience different cultures. But also whilst
Speaker 3: you're doing that, you get to help with a particular
Speaker 3: health problem in that in that country, and your research
Speaker 3: can feed into how that country and the Ministry of
Speaker 3: Health is dealing with that particular disease.
Speaker 4: I like the application side.
Speaker 3: How you can apply this parasite knowledge in the health area.
Speaker 1: Remember last episode of Baby Zygotologies, I still haven't even
Speaker 1: asked about schistos smias is really, so let's actually get
Speaker 1: into it.
Speaker 5: Give me a really brief rundown of just smyses and
Speaker 5: from what I understand.
Speaker 2: And I learn this in seventh grade and that still
Speaker 2: haunted me still they were drills into the foot. What
Speaker 2: does this work? Yeah?
Speaker 4: How does it? So?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's got a complicated life cycle. It's got a
Speaker 3: two host life cycle, right, So the human or the
Speaker 3: mammal is the main host where the male and female's
Speaker 3: pair up and they produce eggs. The eggs come out
Speaker 3: into the blood system, but then they pierce the barrier
Speaker 3: between the blood system and the urinary tract or the
Speaker 3: intestinal tract, pending which species they are. The eggs come
Speaker 3: out with urine and steel when person goes to the bathroom,
Speaker 3: and in a lot of the areas where they're where
Speaker 3: just smices occur, there are no infrastructure for toilets and
Speaker 3: sewage and things like that, so people will definicate urinate
Speaker 3: outdoors and often will go and wash themselves in a river,
Speaker 3: and that's how the eggs enter the river. And it's
Speaker 3: when they are in water that they will hatch out,
Speaker 3: and these larval stages or baby shift of zones will
Speaker 3: come out of the eggs and we'll start swimming around
Speaker 3: in the water. And they are actually looking for a
Speaker 3: very specific snail species to infects, so very complicated. You've
Speaker 3: got this snail species when when they find them, they
Speaker 3: go inside and they are able to multiply thousands of
Speaker 3: times inside the snail. Then they'll come out of the snail,
Speaker 3: and when somebody goes to wash themselves or their clothes
Speaker 3: or their dishes in that water body, this next stage
Speaker 3: that comes out of the snail will locate them again
Speaker 3: using chemical cues, or locate the human and pierce the skin.
Speaker 3: So it might be the foot, but it could be
Speaker 3: any other part of the body, and they have these
Speaker 3: they'll go down like a hair follicule, and then they
Speaker 3: have these all enzymes that they'll release which will break
Speaker 3: down the skin and they can just snip in into
Speaker 3: the blood system under the skin, and that's when they'll
Speaker 3: you know, travel around the body, getting bigger and bigger,
Speaker 3: and then finally pair up with their opposite sex and
Speaker 3: produce kids.
Speaker 2: That's selfish, little assholes. Yeah, why the snail? Why this
Speaker 2: particular snail is the snail? Like, why am I involved?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Absolutely, poor snail as well a lot of control programs
Speaker 3: also look at controlling the snail, so the snail gets
Speaker 3: killed off in order to prevent the parasite.
Speaker 1: Okay, so the schistosomes are boning in your blood vessels,
Speaker 1: and then the female blurbs out some eggs, which are
Speaker 1: called mirrorciitia, which sounds like a beachy town outside of
Speaker 1: San Diego. But those eggs get into snail tissue. The
Speaker 1: snail releases sircaria, which is a larval form that looks
Speaker 1: like an egg with a forked tail. It's kind of
Speaker 1: like a tiny swimming iud. But while they're still looking
Speaker 1: for a snail, those little baby eggs are watching the clock,
Speaker 1: just scrambling.
Speaker 4: These larval stages.
Speaker 3: They can't feed, so they don't survive very long in
Speaker 3: the water, maybe twenty four hours, and they get weaker
Speaker 3: and weaker, so they'll start getting desperate towards the end,
Speaker 3: and they'll try to infect anything, any snail species.
Speaker 4: But once they do that.
Speaker 3: They won't be able to overcome that other snail species
Speaker 3: immune system, so they won't they'll die inside the snail,
Speaker 3: whereas in this particular species they have evolved to adapt
Speaker 3: to that immune system and they can overrun it basically
Speaker 3: and just get away with using the snail as a
Speaker 3: big sex party.
Speaker 4: Well not quite. It's clonal. It's not sex. It's not
Speaker 4: correct pairings.
Speaker 1: You got breakups, spooning with your cousin someone get these
Speaker 1: worms a TLC show.
Speaker 2: Oh my god.
Speaker 5: So, okay, how do you do field work and not
Speaker 5: worry about these little.
Speaker 4: Dudes getting infected?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Well, because I'm an expert in schistosomes, I know how
Speaker 3: to avoid getting infected with schistosomes. Other parasites is another matter,
Speaker 3: but with shist to zemes, at least I can avoid
Speaker 3: getting them. So what we do when we do field work,
Speaker 3: we do two types of field work. We do one
Speaker 3: where we collect the snail, and that's where we're most
Speaker 3: likely to get infected. So collecting the snail involves going
Speaker 3: into the water body and we wear like you know,
Speaker 3: fishermen have these big, huge waders, So we wear these
Speaker 3: waders and depending how deep the water is, will either
Speaker 3: wear like wellies or waders that come up to your
Speaker 3: thighs or sometimes even chest waders. And you go in
Speaker 3: there with a like net, a special net, and you
Speaker 3: scoop around amongst all the vegetation and marshy habitat and
Speaker 3: pull out the loads of different snails. And you've got
Speaker 3: to pick out the snails that you know are the
Speaker 3: ones that can't get infected. And then another type of fieldwork.
Speaker 3: Which is worse is that I go into schools and
Speaker 3: this is working with local research institutes or ministries of health,
Speaker 3: ministries of education. So I'll go into schools and I'll
Speaker 3: ask like one hundred kids to provide school samples or
Speaker 3: urinary samples, and then I'll filter out the eggs in
Speaker 3: those infected kids.
Speaker 4: It's just quite grewesome work. It's not very glamorous. Do
Speaker 4: you have to keep the numbered or yeah, they.
Speaker 3: All have to have IDs. I shouldn't have access that.
Speaker 3: All the kids' data is pretty protected. These IDs, we
Speaker 3: can link that to what's the parasite species that we
Speaker 3: collected from this child? And then here at the museum
Speaker 3: we do a lot of parasite DNA work, so we
Speaker 3: can link that parasite DNA to that infection from that area.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 3: And it's actually quite useful to because we work alongside
Speaker 3: treatment programs. Anywhere we go where we do our research,
Speaker 3: anybody who's infected will get treated. So any school we
Speaker 3: go to to collect from infected children, those kids will
Speaker 3: then get treated afterwards by either the National Control Program
Speaker 3: or by various NGOs that we work with that will.
Speaker 4: Treat children too.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So at least I know those kids are being treated,
Speaker 3: which is great. The thing is that they'll go back
Speaker 3: in the water and get infected again. So something that
Speaker 3: we do is we monitor how the parasite might genetically
Speaker 3: might be changing with ongoing treatment programs.
Speaker 4: Is you know I told you about this.
Speaker 3: Evolutionary arms race, or one of the sort of selection
Speaker 3: pressures we're putting is that we're treating lots of people
Speaker 3: with this drug and it's our only drug, and the
Speaker 3: parasite might start resisting, getting resistance or being less sensitive
Speaker 3: to this drug, in which case we've got a massive problem.
Speaker 3: Because it's the only drug we have and it's currently
Speaker 3: being donated free. We don't want that drug to not
Speaker 3: work anymore. So you've really got to monitor what's going on.
Speaker 5: How does it work as it is.
Speaker 3: This is one of the embarrassing stories of research. Nobody knows.
Speaker 3: It was originally developed as a malaria treatment, but when
Speaker 3: they were testing it out, they say, it clearly doesn't
Speaker 3: stop malaria, but something's going on with schistosomiasis. So that's
Speaker 3: how they worked out that it does kill the schist
Speaker 3: of cell worms, but only the adult schist of cell worms,
Speaker 3: not the younger stages, and they think it's got something
Speaker 3: to do with the worms calcium channels that disrupts them
Speaker 3: and then the worm just sort of withers away and dies. Wow,
Speaker 3: but it's an accident and they're still trying to work
Speaker 3: out the exact mechanism. Loads of people are spending years
Speaker 3: researching in this aspect.
Speaker 1: And yeah, but that is still being investigated. And the
Speaker 1: drug has been given out for free by its maker Murk,
Speaker 1: which just crossed the one billion free tablets line, which
Speaker 1: has estimated to have treated four hundred million since two
Speaker 1: thousand and seven. But still two hundred thousand people every
Speaker 1: year globally die from this parasite. But I was looking
Speaker 1: for recent news on it, and in the Journal of
Speaker 1: ethno Pharmacology last week there was an article citing the
Speaker 1: anti parasitic effects of red propolis, which is be spit
Speaker 1: mixed with their bees wax and tree resins. So do
Speaker 1: I need an ethno pharmacology episode, Yes, I do now,
Speaker 1: as we're talking about eggs and pooh and willowy white worms.
Speaker 1: I just need you to know that I took a
Speaker 1: break to get a snack while researching this, and this
Speaker 1: week I was so on top of my snack game
Speaker 1: that I pre made some chia puddings, but I'm now
Speaker 1: sitting here eating some globby mush that contains a constellation
Speaker 1: of slimy chia seeds that look like eggs and also
Speaker 1: threads of shredded coconut that look like worms, and I
Speaker 1: need to tell you in context, it is not awesome. Okay,
Speaker 1: my sludge aside, back to research on therapies, which kind
Speaker 1: of has its own set of complications.
Speaker 3: So you try to use maybe light hamsters. It doesn't
Speaker 3: work very well and isn't very nice as well, but
Speaker 3: there's no way of keeping that parasite life cycle without.
Speaker 4: Having a host there.
Speaker 3: So it makes researching these sort of things a lot
Speaker 3: harder to do, both from a financial point of view
Speaker 3: also regulation point of view as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're like, hey, do you want to sign up
Speaker 2: for this study we're going to give you?
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3: You're very difficult to get that through like ethical approval,
Speaker 3: all that kind of thing.
Speaker 2: Like you get a gift card to Starbucks.
Speaker 4: Yes, don't people like no.
Speaker 1: Anook says that she's working on neglected tropical diseases, which,
Speaker 1: despite affecting one billion people annually, get very little funding
Speaker 1: and attention for all of the infuriating and heartbreaking reasons
Speaker 1: that you would suspect quite a lot.
Speaker 3: Of the time, because the people they infect tend to
Speaker 3: be poor and in poor communities, and also because they're
Speaker 3: not immediate killers like malaria is, for example, for children,
Speaker 3: that can kill kids pretty quickly, whereas in things like
Speaker 3: schistosomes that it builds up gradually and it just means
Speaker 3: that person is sick for a very long time and
Speaker 3: that will affect their physical growth but also their cognitive ability,
Speaker 3: and it will then impact on their economic ability, and
Speaker 3: eventually it will lead to being quite a causing quite
Speaker 3: a restraint on health systems that are already pretty weak
Speaker 3: in these poor communities. So it's like a gradual thing
Speaker 3: that happens with these neglected tropical diseases. But they're not
Speaker 3: like they're not sexy. That's the problem. They're not really
Speaker 3: sexy as a topic, So that's why they're called neglected.
Speaker 5: What kind of impact do you think your particular work has.
Speaker 3: Had so they're different who it's a good question. There's
Speaker 3: sort of a different streams of impact that our research
Speaker 3: can have.
Speaker 4: So one of them is that all.
Speaker 3: The research we do, the child gets treated or the
Speaker 3: person gets treated afterwards, So that's one impact, and that's great,
Speaker 3: and it could be that in those areas they wouldn't
Speaker 3: get treated, So that's one impact. An impact of the
Speaker 3: actual research that we do is that we're able to
Speaker 3: inform local governments and local ministries of health of what
Speaker 3: snail species they're dealing with, where that snail is predominantly found,
Speaker 3: and how best they could potentially control the snail. Whilst
Speaker 3: we train local researchers on this parasite how to identify
Speaker 3: this parasite and how to study it.
Speaker 1: They also store wild collected specimens for further research, like
Speaker 1: to see if a vaccine will work on it. And
Speaker 1: I was like, wait, thesets are alive, and no, they're
Speaker 1: not alive. They are very dead. But having dead ones
Speaker 1: on hand, or rather I guess in the vials is
Speaker 1: helpful because what.
Speaker 3: You can do is because a lot of these things
Speaker 3: are tested out on laboratory strains, and laboratory strains do
Speaker 3: not reflect the diversity of the parasite in the field.
Speaker 3: So you'll develop this great vaccine based on a particular
Speaker 3: part of the DNA of this parasite. Lab strain parasite. Yeah,
Speaker 3: this is great, This is going to work, and then
Speaker 3: you'll test it out on the field and it doesn't
Speaker 3: work at all because that part of the DNA doesn't
Speaker 3: is only a small fraction of population that's actually out there.
Speaker 3: So you can actually use these collections of the museum
Speaker 3: to look at how diverse field specimens are and get
Speaker 3: a better indication, a better idea of how effective your
Speaker 3: vaccine's going to be, if at all. As well as
Speaker 3: looking at the museum does a lot on evolution and
Speaker 3: looking at how parasites adapt to changing environments.
Speaker 4: For example, that's all done.
Speaker 5: With DNA work, and that's that they think about parasites
Speaker 5: is that they do adapt.
Speaker 4: Yeah, very very good at adapting. It's scary actually.
Speaker 1: Okay, And here's a whopper of a question I asked
Speaker 1: three years before a global pandemic.
Speaker 2: Are you kind of a germophobe at all?
Speaker 4: Because of your work?
Speaker 2: Are you less of a germophobe?
Speaker 3: I think I'm less of a germophobe. I know, I
Speaker 3: wouldn't say I'm less of a germophobe. I take precautions,
Speaker 3: so I get vaccinated.
Speaker 4: I love vaccinations. I have all of them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're available, I'll get it, but and I'll definitely
Speaker 3: be careful in terms of, you know, wearing gloves and
Speaker 3: wearing wellies and protecting myself. But I have a bit
Speaker 3: more of a like, well, you know, on the train,
Speaker 3: are you Likena?
Speaker 6: Like?
Speaker 2: Are you are you more or less likely to hold
Speaker 2: onto a rail?
Speaker 4: On the two?
Speaker 3: O'll hold on to a rail. I'll just wash my
Speaker 3: hands on or before I touch my eyes, for example.
Speaker 1: Such simple times when you could just gab face to
Speaker 1: face with a worm expert and also just leave your house.
Speaker 4: There are times when I've gotten sick.
Speaker 3: Everybody that does field it will get the stomach bug,
Speaker 3: gets on stage or another, and it's not fun. Ast
Speaker 3: travelers get it. I think I've had malaria as well,
Speaker 3: which wasn't a good experience. Do not recommend it. Definitely
Speaker 3: get lots of insect repellent.
Speaker 4: Did you have fever hallucinations? Yeah, yes, it was so.
Speaker 4: I was.
Speaker 3: I was doing my PhD and I had I was
Speaker 3: working in Kenya, and I remember the field work was
Speaker 3: really intense and we take preventative anti malarials to prevent
Speaker 3: us from getting malaria. But I think what happened was
Speaker 3: that the field work was so intense. I forgot to
Speaker 3: take the pill and if you forget it, you are
Speaker 3: not covered particularly well that day.
Speaker 4: It's got a very short half life.
Speaker 3: And I remember that I was bitten by a lot
Speaker 3: of mosquitoes as well, because I didn't have time to
Speaker 3: reapply and sex repellent, you know.
Speaker 4: So, but I didn't think about it.
Speaker 3: I thought, oh, I've beat to Africa lots of times,
Speaker 3: but I've got It'll be fine. And then when I came,
Speaker 3: I came back to the UK, I stayed for a week,
Speaker 3: and then I went to West Africa to Niger, and
Speaker 3: the day I arrived, I started feeling quite feverish. I thought, oh,
Speaker 3: I got the flu. So annoying, I've got the field work.
Speaker 3: It started getting progressively worse. I then had to let
Speaker 3: the teams go out to the school and I stayed
Speaker 3: behind in this you see, in this building that used
Speaker 3: to be a hospital, but the money had stopped, so
Speaker 3: it was just an empty building that was nearer the
Speaker 3: villages where we were, and we were in the middle
Speaker 3: of nowhere. So I stayed behind there and kind of
Speaker 3: like slipped on the ground and hallucinated a bit and
Speaker 3: had just felt so weak I wasn't quite aware, but
Speaker 3: the teams were getting really worried about me, and we
Speaker 3: I think we left the site early, but I.
Speaker 4: Already started feeling better, so I.
Speaker 3: Thought, oh, it must have been one of those you
Speaker 3: know bugs that I got, and I'm sure it's all
Speaker 3: going to be fine now. And the teams were thinking
Speaker 3: it looks like particularly this team leaders, it looks like malaria.
Speaker 3: But she's only just come from the UK. She can't
Speaker 3: possibly have had malaria. And I, of course didn't tell
Speaker 3: her that I was in Kenya weeks before. She eventually
Speaker 3: because I started feeling better, which is a cycle. Malaria
Speaker 3: happens in cycles. You hallucinate and get the fever, then
Speaker 3: you're a bit better, and then you get it even worse.
Speaker 3: I was better for a while and said, no, I'm fine,
Speaker 3: let's continue, went to the next place in the middle
Speaker 3: of nowhere, and suddenly started getting worse but really bad,
Speaker 3: and I couldn't really get up. That's when she this
Speaker 3: lady asked me are we in Africa recently?
Speaker 12: And I was like, oh, She told her, yeah, I
Speaker 12: was in Kenya without totally wearing insect repellent or taking
Speaker 12: all of the anti malarials.
Speaker 4: Why she gave.
Speaker 3: Me a look like I am going to kill you.
Speaker 4: Yeah, pretty much. And malaria has a two week.
Speaker 3: Period for it to develop in your body before you
Speaker 3: show symptoms, so she immediately they took a blood smear
Speaker 3: from me and looked under the microscope and apparently it
Speaker 3: was full of malaria parasites.
Speaker 4: And they were too scared.
Speaker 3: They were scared I was going to freak out, so
Speaker 3: they didn't tell me, and they and I was hallucinating
Speaker 3: anywhere what I was out of it, so I wouldn't
Speaker 3: have really known.
Speaker 4: Very weird ones just mixed up.
Speaker 3: But I couldn't quite I wasn't sure when it was
Speaker 3: day and when it was night, and then I'd think
Speaker 3: that I'd got up and done something, but in fact
Speaker 3: I hadn't.
Speaker 4: Just that kind of stuff.
Speaker 3: I'm just still lying down and I thought I'd got
Speaker 3: up and I don't know, got a drink of water,
Speaker 3: but in fact I.
Speaker 4: Hadn't moved, you know, that kind of thing.
Speaker 3: She put me immediately on treatment and just told me,
Speaker 3: you know, just take these cus.
Speaker 4: I just took the pills.
Speaker 3: And I started getting better, and that's when they told me,
Speaker 3: you have malaria.
Speaker 4: And apparently I went, oh, cool, are you serious?
Speaker 3: Because I knew that once you diagnosed it, you're out
Speaker 3: of the danger zone. And it's also that thing of
Speaker 3: knowing what you have, when you know that it's not.
Speaker 4: Going to kill you, you really relieved. Yeah, not cool.
Speaker 4: I think I said it in French tho, because I
Speaker 4: was in.
Speaker 2: Wow, Oh my god. So you asked to save the
Speaker 2: blood smear.
Speaker 4: Oh no, I didn't. I wish I had, but I didn't.
Speaker 3: And we were in a hospital out in the middle
Speaker 3: of nowhere, and they didn't really have a lot of facilities,
Speaker 3: so I think they probably just you know, cleaned the slide.
Speaker 4: Yeah, how do.
Speaker 5: You do that where you have a microscope and you're like,
Speaker 5: we might as well just look in here and see some.
Speaker 3: Of my like, my own stuff. No, I think that
Speaker 3: was probably the only time really I did that. She
Speaker 3: effectively saved my life.
Speaker 1: And that is where my batteries died. So we continue
Speaker 1: talking for another twenty minutes without me realizing that my
Speaker 1: batteries had just croaked mid conversation. So this is where
Speaker 1: our episode concludes, just with a lesson to travel across
Speaker 1: continents and oceans for answers asking smart people simple questions
Speaker 1: and also learn how to use your sound equipment before
Speaker 1: doing so. But also I want you to know the
Speaker 1: lesson here. No failure is as bad as you think
Speaker 1: it is. I mean, here we are. I thought this
Speaker 1: episode would never ever be heard, but.
Speaker 2: Here we are.
Speaker 12: I decided, you know what, let's.
Speaker 1: Just share this nugget of vintage ologies. I have plenty
Speaker 1: of episodes banked, but just having this one on this
Speaker 1: shelf has been gnawing at me for too long. So
Speaker 1: you can follow intrepid Bill Harzologist doctor Anook guvris on
Speaker 1: Twitter at say Anook and find more links to her
Speaker 1: work at aliward dot com, slash ologies slash Bill Harzology.
Speaker 1: Yes there is a link that in the show notes,
Speaker 1: and we are at ologies on Instagram and Twitter. I
Speaker 1: am at Ali Ward on Instagram and Twitter, so please
Speaker 1: do say hello there. If you listen to the end
Speaker 1: of the episode to last week's secret, there is more
Speaker 1: info on that secret on my Instagram. I'm at Ali Ward,
Speaker 1: so do say hi. Merch is available at aliward dot com.
Speaker 1: Thank you Shannon Felts and Bonnie Dutch of the Comedy
Speaker 1: podcast You are that for managing that. Thank you Aaron
Speaker 1: Talbert for admitting the big, huge group of listeners on
Speaker 1: the Ologies podcast Facebook page. Thank you to every single
Speaker 1: patron at patreon dot com slash Ologies for making the
Speaker 1: show possible. Thank you Emily White and all the transcribers
Speaker 1: for making transcripts available. Caleb Patten bleeps them and transcripts
Speaker 1: and bleeped versions are on the website for free. The
Speaker 1: link is in the show notes. Thank you to Noel
Speaker 1: Dilworth for doing so much scheduling and various life saving
Speaker 1: and of course to assistant editor and chief executive cheerleader
Speaker 1: Jared Sleeper, who has taken up quarantine workouts every morning
Speaker 1: at nine am Pacific on Twitch, so you can find
Speaker 1: him via my Instagram and just sweat along. Occasionally I
Speaker 1: do walk by with a coffee and a doc. And
Speaker 1: of course to the grooviest worm in the tube, Steven
Speaker 1: Ray Morris for helping us patch this together each week.
Speaker 1: And the theme song is by Nick Thorburn and if
Speaker 1: you like it, you should check out his band Islands.
Speaker 1: They're a good band. He also did the theme song
Speaker 1: for Cereal, which is nuts right Cereal with an ass
Speaker 1: not a sea. Now, if you stick around to the
Speaker 1: end of the episode you Know I tell you a secret,
Speaker 1: and this week it is a life hack from old
Speaker 1: dad word. I realized this this week and I'm too
Speaker 1: excited about it. But if your shower is vexed by soapscum,
Speaker 1: it is very gratifying to clean it with the edge
Speaker 1: of razor blade. You just glide the razor edge across
Speaker 1: it and all the gross stuff just peels off and curls.
Speaker 1: And if you're like wow, I actually have never had
Speaker 1: a lazy month or two where I ate a lot
Speaker 1: of spiced cakes and bald watching Christmas movies and watched
Speaker 1: government buildings being breached, so I don't have soaps gum.
Speaker 1: I'm really happy for you about that. And I will
Speaker 1: actually take your life hacks if you want to give
Speaker 1: them to me. Okay, be safe out there. Remember chin
Speaker 1: up masks on.
Speaker 10: We got this.
Speaker 8: Bye bye pacodermatology, homeology, cryptozoology, lithology and technology, meteorology, a typology, seriology, philology.
Speaker 9: I got worms.
Speaker 4: H