Mutant Proteins and Protein Evolution (starts 4:42) CU School of Medicine professor David Pollock explains why he has devised a new way to identify and predict both the evolution of proteins and disease causing protein mutations. Pollock’s highly technical model uses an analogy about a physical model called the Stokes Shift to help explain the biochemical properties of how proteins change, for better or worse. Pollock’s study has just been published in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution. Its title is “Sequence entropy of folding and the absolute rate of amino acid substitutions.” Additionally, he has written a “behind the paper” explanation for a more general audience to explain the concepts being explored in his ground-breaking research.
Soonish: Ten Emerging Technologies That’ll Improve and/or Ruin Everything (starts 15:00) Dr. Kelly Weinersmith is an adjunct assistant professor in the BioSciences Department at Rice University. She specializes in the study of parasites. But her curiosity has taken her well beyond parasites to ask all-encompassing questions, such as, what will the future will look like – the future of space research, medicine, robots, and, well, humans. These topics are all part of Weinersmith’s new funny-serious book. It’s called Soonish: Ten Emerging Technologies That’ll Improve and/or Ruin Everything. Weinersmith co-authored the book with her husband, Zach. They’ll be at book signings this week Denver and Boulder.
Hosts: Shelley Schlender, Susan Moran
Producer, Engineer: Shelley
Additional Contributions: Beth Bennett
Executive Producer: Beth Bennett
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 26:09 — 24.0MB)
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In 1963, the United States, the Soviet Union, and Great Britain signed the 
This week on How on Earth, Beth interviews Dr Martin Blaser of New York University who challenges the assumption that antibiotics are harmless drugs targeting only harmful pathogens. In his recent book, Missing Microbes, Blaser presents the evidence that antibiotics are causing the extinction of important bacteria in our microbiome. These microbes have co-evolved with us, so losing them puts us at risk of many of the rising diseases of our society: asthma, allergies, eczema and obesity. Check out his book: 
The 
This week on How on Earth we speak with Simon Melov, a biochemist at the Buck Institute for Aging. Dr Melov studies various aspects of aging in worms, mice and humans. The aging field is replete with new and exciting discoveries and Simon’s work epitomizes that.
Climate Change and Extinctions Following an Asteroid Impact (starts at 8:45) It has been hypothesized that the dinosaurs were killed off by a large asteroid that struck the Earth. The details of how the impact of a 10 kilometer diameter asteroid led to global scale extinction have remained elusive. Recently, climate researchers from the Boulder area published new climate model results that show how the asteroid impact ultimately leads to widespread cooling in the atmosphere and increased exposure to ultraviolet radiation. These drastic and rapid changes to the climate due to the asteroid impact may explain the global scale extinction.
