Each of our cells can become cancerous. It’s an uncomfortable, yet unavoidable truth. Nor is it a truth restricted to our species - cancer is a consequence of complex life. The features that make a cell cancerous are those that, under other circumstances, are beneficial, essential even, for an individual’s growth and survival. How is that possible? In the second installment in our series, we’re putting cancer under the microscope to consider the qualities that underlie a cancer cell’s success in our body. By placing cancer in an evolutionary framework, we can not only understand why cancer is so darn prevalent, but we can also leverage that knowledge to devise new approaches to treatment - working with evolution rather than against it. If you’ve ever wondered why we haven’t come up with a cure for all cancer or why some animals get cancer more than others, this is the episode for you.

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Cancer has touched every one of us in some capacity, and learning of a diagnosis inspires many more questions than it answers. In this four-part series on cancer, we aim to lay a foundation of knowledge that will help make sense of this multifaceted disease. We begin our four-part series on cancer by asking a deceptively simple question: what is cancer? As we’ll discover over the course of these episodes, there is not one answer but many. After all, cancer is not one disease but many. In this first episode, we examine the clinical definitions of cancer - when someone receives a cancer diagnosis, how is that determined, and what does that mean? Viewing that question through a historical lens reveals our changing understanding of cancer and how that knowledge filters into the public perception of this disease. With cancer diagnoses on the rise, it’s tempting to label cancer a disease of the 20th or 21st centuries. But is that the case? Tune in to find out.

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What happens if you put a bunch of rats in an enclosure and provision them with unlimited food and water? Researcher John B. Calhoun was committed to finding out. Results from Calhoun’s “rat utopia” experiments from the mid-20th century revealed a behavioral dark side that emerged as space grew increasingly limited, ultimately leading to complete population collapse. As headlines conveyed dire warnings about global overpopulation, Calhoun’s work served to reinforce those fears and shape our understanding of the importance of personal space. In this week’s TPWKY book club episode, Jon Adams and Edmund Ramsden join me to discuss their book, Rat City: Overcrowding and Urban Derangement in the Rodent Universes of John B. Calhoun. Tune in for a fascinating a tour through Calhoun’s bizarre and influential research, which even inspired a beloved (if a little creepy) children’s book and movie, Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH.

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Poop is an incredibly valuable and massively underutilized resource. However, most of us don’t see it that way because of our evolutionarily ingrained disgust towards poop. Flush toilets and intricate sewer systems have revolutionized health and hygiene by whisking our poop far away where we don’t have to think about it. But that poop has gotta go somewhere, and eventually, not thinking about it isn’t going to be an option. Similarly, not thinking about our individual poop is asking for disaster, since what we produce can reveal a great deal about our gut and overall health. In this episode, we explore the problems that poop can cause on both the individual and population level. From constipation to fiber, and the Great Stink to communal poop sponges, we’re continuing our journey into the curiously fascinating world of poop.

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It might be stinky and it might be unpleasant to behold, but we all do it. For many of us, our poop is out of sight, out of mind once we flush it away. But for the next hour and fifteen minutes or so, we’re going to bring it back into mind as we delve into the rich world of poop. This episode, the first of a two-part miniseries on poop, features a wide cast of characters all with some role in the production or management of poo, like our intestinal tract with its sphincters and microbiota, dung beetles that perform the duties so crucial for ecosystem function, and the sperm whale that produces a revered substance used in perfumes. We’re going behind the scenes to understand how the sausage really gets made (in a manner of speaking) and why we need a big perspective shift to stop seeing poop as waste and start seeing it as a resource.

Correction: EW says that elephants poop 15 pounds a day, but in reality it’s more like 10x that - 150-200 pounds! Sorry for the mistake - we noticed it while listening through.

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For much of the world, refrigeration is such a commonplace technology that we rarely stop to wonder at the many ways it has transformed our lives. From the foods we grow to where we grow them, from how they taste to what we eat, refrigeration has dramatically - and quite recently - changed our relationship to food, our health, and the environment. As Nicola Twilley describes in Frostbite: How Refrigeration Changed our Food, Our Planet, and Ourselves, progress, as it so often does, comes at a cost. Twilley, who also cohosts the award-winning food podcast Gastropod, joins us in this week’s TPWKY book club episode to discuss the surprising history and tenuous future of refrigeration. You’ll never look at your fridge the same way again.

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Now that we know just how critical sleep is, we’re all making sure we get the amount we need, right? Unfortunately no. One-third to one-half of Americans are not getting enough sleep, according to public health guidelines. Why is that? Hypotheses abound, but many point the finger of blame at different aspects of modern society such as screen time, artificial light, a sedentary lifestyle. These narratives suggest that sleep in industrialized societies today is not just different but worse than in centuries past. Is that the truth? How did humans sleep in yesteryear, and what can that tell us about sleep today? In the conclusion to our sleep two-parter, we explore the many ways that humans sleep and the wide array of consequences when we don’t get enough (or too much) of it.

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Sleep is a universal experience. It’s not just the lion that sleeps tonight - it’s also the butterfly, the chicken, the jellyfish, the dog, the snake, the worm, and of course the human. What is this widespread physiological process whose spell we are all under? What purpose (or purposes) does it serve? Why do we sleep the way we do? These are just some of the questions we’re going to get into in this week’s episode, the first half of our two-parter on sleep. We break down the different components of sleep in humans before diving deep into how animals sleep and what drives the different patterns we see. Night owl or daybird? Light sleeper or deep slumberer? Frequent naps or one big chunk? One eye open or both eyes closed? Tune in as we unravel some of the mysteries of sleep.

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The widespread use of leaded gasoline in the 20th century led to one of the world’s biggest public health and environmental disasters, the effects of which are still present today. Since its development in the 1920s, leaded gasoline has been linked to premature death, cognitive impairment, and behavioral issues in millions around the globe. How was such a toxic substance permitted to be sold, despite the tireless efforts of industrial medicine warriors like Alice Hamilton? In American Poison: A Deadly Invention and the Woman Who Battled for Environmental Justice, award-winning author and historian Daniel Stone tells the story of leaded gasoline - its heroes, its villains, and the lessons we can learn. What will emerge as this generation’s leaded gasoline? PFAS? Microplastics? Something else entirely? History doesn’t have to repeat, but it will unless we heed the lessons of the past. Tune in for a fascinating episode!

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Ah, the new year. After the last month and a half of indulgent food and drink, disrupted schedules, and laying around the house, who doesn’t feel like they’re in need of a whole-body cleanse? There are plenty of companies who are more than happy to provide that product or service that promises to flush away toxins from your skin, gut, blood, brain, you name it. But what exactly are they selling you? In this episode, we explore the deep roots of the ever-expanding detox industry and the concept behind its billions of dollars in revenue: detoxification. What does detoxification even mean? Is there any truth to the claims that a certain diet or superfood or supplement or colonic or drink or enema or chelation therapy can “detoxify” you? Tune in to find out how many synonyms for scam we can come up with.

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This episode originally aired on January 11th, 2022.

Chances are you know someone with endometriosis, or perhaps you’re affected yourself. But despite its incredibly high prevalence, endo remains almost criminally understudied, undertreated, and underacknowledged. In this episode, we aim to shed light on many aspects of endometriosis, first by examining the “what” and “how” of this disease: what’s actually going on inside your body with endometriosis and how does it cause the symptoms that it does? Then we turn our sights to the why, exploring not only the possible evolutionary origins of this disease but also the deep historical roots contributing to the struggle many people still face today in obtaining a diagnosis. We discuss how although hysteria is no longer a valid medical diagnosis, it has left its mark on medicine in the form of implicit bias that leaves many people feeling unlistened to and unbelieved. We then wrap up the episode with a look at endometriosis by the numbers and some current research that leaves us feeling slightly more hopeful about the growing awareness of this disease and the need for effective treatments.

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