Rising infections from a dusty devil, and nailing down when our ancestors became meat eaters

Science Magazine Podcast

Science Podcast

News Commentary, News, Science

4.2 • 791 Ratings

🗓️ 16 January 2025

⏱️ 31 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

First up this week, growing numbers of Valley fever cases, also known as coccidioidomycosis, has researchers looking into the disease-causing fungus. They’re exploring its links to everything from drought and wildfires to climate change and rodent populations. Staff Writer Meredith Wadman joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss her visit to a Valley fever research site in the desert near Bakersfield, California, where researchers are sampling air and soil for the elusive fungus. Next up, scientists are trying to pin down when meat eating became a habit for human ancestors. It’s long been hypothesized that eating meat drove big changes in our family tree—such as bigger brains and more upright posture. Tina Lüdecke, a group leader at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry and honorary research fellow at the Evolutionary Studies Institute at the University of the Witwatersrand, investigated the diet of our ancient hominin relatives Australopithecus. Her team used nitrogen isotope ratios from the tooth enamel in seven Australopithecus individuals in South Africa to determine what predominated in their diets at the time—meat or veg. This week’s episode was produced with help from Podigy. About the Science Podcast Authors: Sarah Crespi; Meredith Wadman https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.zulg8oo

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is the science podcast for January 17, 2025.
0:09.0	I'm Sarah Crespi.
0:11.0	First this week, growing numbers of valley fever cases have researchers looking into its cause,
0:16.0	a desert-loving fungus.
0:18.0	Staff writer Meredith Wadman joins me to talk about the fungus's potential
0:21.9	links to everything from drought and wildfires to climate change and rodent populations.
0:28.1	Next, it's long been hypothesized that eating meat drove big changes in our family tree,
0:33.1	like bigger brains and more upright posture. I talked with the researcher,ina Ludaker, who looked at nitrogen and tooth enamel from our
0:41.7	ancient relatives astrophicus to see if they preferred meat or veg.
0:51.7	Now we have staff news writer Meredith Wadman.
0:53.9	She wrote this week about Valley Fever, a fungal
0:56.5	infection that's on the rise in some of the driest parts of the United States. Hi, Meredith. Welcome back to the podcast.
1:02.7	Hi, Sarah. It's great to be here with you. Yeah, there is so much going on in the story. I think we should
1:08.3	start with what we know about this link between Valley
1:12.7	Fever, which is a fungal infection, and the weather and climate. And then we can kind of get
1:16.9	into the complexity of the disease and the researchers trying to take it on. So what do we know
1:22.2	about Valley Fever and the weather? Well, Valley Fever is caused by a fungus that lives in the soil, and it likes
1:29.2	hot, dry, dusty climates like the American Southwest. That allows it to outcompete other soil
1:36.2	dwelling bugs that don't do so well in hot, dry situations. So for decades, Valley Fever has been
1:43.3	really largely confined to two states where it's endemic,
1:47.7	Arizona and California.
1:49.8	But now as the desertification and heating up of the U.S. West proceeds, it is likely to spread to almost the entire western half of the nation is what people who model
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