Recent Episodes
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Otzi's Microbiome
Every time I write a new episode on Ötzi the iceman, I think this is it. Nope! Scientists have just completed the most comprehensive analysis of the mummy's microbiome, adding to the bacteria, fungi and yeasts they've identified in more than three decades of sampling.
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Hope for Pancreatic Cancer
Treatment for pancreatic cancer had been static for decades despite the money and effort to find answers. But a significant breakthrough came this spring. A trial of a new drug called Daraxonrasib involving 500 patients with advanced pancreatic cancer lived for an extra 13 months compared with those
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Liquid Biopsy for Cancer Detection
We're a long way from curing cancer, but one way to work toward this goal is to diagnose cancer early. It's key to surviving cancer or to living longer with it. Treating it early means cancer has less chance of growing and spreading. That's why we need a simple blood test to diagnose cancer.
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Trust in Science and Medicine
This year's Edelman Trust Barometer found nearly 70 percent of people surveyed from 16 countries embrace one or more medical conspiracy theories or believe misinformation about health, food, medicine or vaccines.
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Microbial Seeding of Newborns
We know that natural childbirth provides health and developmental advantages to babies. One happens when the baby encounters the mother's vaginal and intestinal microbiome. Good bacteria can colonize the newborn's intestinal tract to mature their gut immune system. Since Caesarian babies are not exposed to these microbes, scientists are studying whether swabbing the newborn's nose, mouth, and skin with the mother's vaginal fluids could have the same effect.
