Lesson 6: Microbes and Our Personal Histories
learning outcomes
By the end of this lesson, students should be able to:
Describe some aspects of the relationship between humans and smallpox
Think about how to use prior personal experience with illness, to gain deeper access to relationship with the smalls
Describe the viral aspects of the human genome
Additional Resources
Additional resources are posted here for your general interest - the following aren’t integral to the learning but may be supportive. They include music, articles, interviews, writing, and primary scientific literature which you may (or may not) find interesting.
Podcasts
This Week in Virology 386: The dolphins did it
Ted and Welkin inform the TWiV team how the evolution of ancient retroviruses can be inferred by studying their sequences in the genomes of modern mammals, and join in a discussion of virus dispersal during different methods for drying hands.
This Week in Virology 762: SARS-CoV-2 origins with Robert Garry
Robert Garry joins TWiV to explain how the molecular biology of SARS-CoV-2 shows that it came from Nature and not a lab, including the receptor binding domain, the furin cleavage site, and the two lineages circulating in Wuhan wildlife markets.
This Week in Virology 760: SARS-CoV-2 origins with Peter Daszak, Thea Kølsen Fischer, Marion Koopmans
Peter Daszak, Thea Kølsen Fischer, and Marion Koopmans, members of the WHO team investigating the origins of SARS-CoV-2 join TWiV to explain the work done by the committee during phase one, their conclusions, and the extent of work that remains to be done in phase two.
scientific papers and articles
Paleovirology - Modern Consequences of Ancient Viruses
Traces of a smallpox epidemic in the family of Ramesses V of the Egyptian 20th dynasty
What does it take to wipe out a disease?
Poxvirus Viability and Signatures in Historical Relics
Respectfully eating or not eating: putting food at the centre of Religious Studies (Graham Harvey)
Molecular and regulatory properties of a public good shape the evolution of cooperation