SUBJECTIVE

We've made it to the end of season 2! In the final episode of this season, we're dipping into the world of iZombie to talk about Romeros, misguided proteins, and an unexpected reason why you shouldn't mix drugs and energy drinks.. Now that you know how to make zombies and unmake them, how do you keep one fed and happy? Or at least just fed. There's only so much you can do about undead happiness levels.

OBJECTIVE

Resources, Citations, and Mentions:

• "Why Is It That Zombies Eat Brains?" by Karl Smallwood, Today I Found Out, Gizmodo, December 2014
• "George A. Romero: 'Who Says Zombies Eat Brains?'" by Eric Spitznagel, Vanity Fair, May 2010
• TV Tropes - Brain Food, accessed Oct 2020
• iZombie Wiki - Zombie, accessed Oct 2020
• "Why Don't We Eat (More) Brains?" by Alan Jasanoff, Lit Hub, March 2018
• "Thought for Food" by Heather Arndt Anderson, Taste, December 2017
• "When People Ate People, A Strange Disease Emerged" by Rae Ellen Bichell, NPR: The Salt, September 2016
• Whitfield, Jerome T et al. “Mortuary rites of the South Fore and kuru.” Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences vol. 363,1510 (2008): 3721-4.
• "How a history of eating human brains protected this tribe from brain disease" by Sarah Kaplan, The Washington Post, June 2015
• Asante, E., Smidak, M., Grimshaw, A. et al. A naturally occurring variant of the human prion protein completely prevents prion disease. Nature 522, 478–481 (2015).
• Hosszu, L.L.P., Conners, R., Sangar, D. et al. Structural effects of the highly protective V127 polymorphism on human prion protein. Commun Biol 3, 402 (2020).

ASSESSMENT

• Deepa: 3 out of 5 for pneumothorax corner, 5 out of 10 tainted Utopium vials
• Jen: 3 out of 5 lack of stethoscopes for pneumothorax corner, 5 out of 10 cans of Max Rager

PLAN

And that's a wrap for season 2! We'll be taking a short break before coming back with season 3. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you next time!

Subscribe to our medical ramblings on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts! Rate, review, and tell your friends!

Got a question or suggestion? Find us on Twitter @DocsWatchPod, or visit us at docswatchpod.com.

Theme Music and SFX: Kevin MacLeod (CC BY) - RetroFuture Clean, Danse Macabre-Big Hit 2

SUBJECTIVE

Now that we've talked about making a zombie, let's talk about unmaking one. In the second of our three zombie episodes, we'll discuss lone microbiologists, dried scab powder, and the power of therapeutic stabbing. Sure, manufacturing a zombie cure from your own blood is impressive, but unless you have detailed lab notes, it basically didn't happen. We're looking at you, Will Smith.

OBJECTIVE

Resources, Citations, and Mentions:

• I Am Legend Wiki - Krippin Virus, accessed October 2020
• "Opinion: The Slave Who Helped Boston Battle Smallpox" by Lashyra Nolen, Undark, Apr 2020
• "How an African Slave in Boston Helped Save Generations from Smallpox" by Erin Blakemore, History, Feb 2019
• "Better Know a Plague: Smallpox" by Brooke Borel, Popular Science, May 2014
• "Facial Masking for Covid-19 — Potential for “Variolation” as We Await a Vaccine" by Monica Gandhi and George W. Rutherford, New England Journal of Medicine, Sep 2020
• CDC - Measles (Rubeola), last reviewed October 2019, accessed Oct 2020
• "I Am Legend's Alternate Ending Explained: What Happens & Why It Was Cut" by Michael Kennedy, Screen Rant, Dec 2019

ASSESSMENT

• Deepa: 1 out of 10 congealed tubes of Will Smith's blood
• Jen: 0 out of 10 missing lab notebooks

PLAN

Subscribe to our medical ramblings on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts! Rate, review, and tell your friends!

Got a question or suggestion? Find us on Twitter @DocsWatchPod, or visit us at docswatchpod.com.

Theme Music and SFX: Kevin MacLeod (CC BY) - RetroFuture Clean, Danse Macabre-Big Hit 2

SUBJECTIVE

It's spooky season, which means it's time to talk about spooky things! Like the LIVING UNDEAD! (I want you to picture a clap of thunder and flash of lightning here.) As with vampires, "zombies" is just too broad a topic to cover in one episode, so we're giving you three! In the first episode of our zombie trilogy, we're going to talk about how you make a zombie. Or at least, how Cambridge scientists made zombies and also destroyed all of the UK in 28 days. We'll discuss not-living-not-dead pathogens, RAGE, and why no one should use Ebola as a viral vector for gene therapy.

OBJECTIVE

Resources, Citations, and Mentions:

• "Zoinks! Tracing The History Of 'Zombie' From Haiti To The CDC" by Lakshmi Gandhi, NPR Code Switch, Dec 2013
• "The Tragic, Forgotten History of Zombies" by Mike Mariani, The Atlantic, Oct 2015
• "Response to 'I Walked with a Zombie'" by Amy Wilentz, version appeared in Harper's in Dec 2011
• "A Zombie Is a Slave Forever" by Amy Wilentz, New York Times, Oct 2012
• "How the zombie represents America’s deepest fears" by Zachary Crockett and Javier Zarracina, Vox, Oct 2016
• 28 Days Later Wiki - Rage Virus, accessed October 2020
• Lundstrom, Kenneth. “Viral Vectors in Gene Therapy.” Diseases (Basel, Switzerland) vol. 6,2 42. May 2018
• IDSA Ebola Facts - Infectious Diseases Society of America, accessed October 2020
• Science Mag "What does Ebola actually do?" by Kelly Servick, August 2014
• "One doctor's nearly real, totally believable zombie apocalypse scenario" by Gemma Zigman, Hub at Johns Hopkins University, Oct 2012

ASSESSMENT

How 28 Days Later makes zombies

• Deepa: 3 out of 10 product placement Pepsi cans
• Jen: 1 out of 10 infected eye blood drops

PLAN

Subscribe to our medical ramblings on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts! Rate, review, and tell your friends!

Got a question or suggestion? Find us on Twitter @DocsWatchPod, or visit us at docswatchpod.com.

Theme Music and SFX: Kevin MacLeod (CC BY) - RetroFuture Clean, Danse Macabre-Big Hit 2