Big Picture Science for Aug 12, 2019 - Granting Immunity

Big Picture Science - Granting Immunity

“Diversity or die” could be your new health mantra. Don’t boost your immune system, cultivate it! Like a garden, your body’s defenses benefit from species diversity.  Find out why multiple strains of microbes, engaged in a delicate ballet with your T-cells, join internal fungi in combatting disease. Plus, global
ecosystems also depend on the diversity of its tiniest members; so what happens when the world’s insects bug out?

Guests:

• Matt Richtel – Author, most recently, of “An Elegant Defense: The Extraordinary New Science of The Immune System”
• Rob Dunn – Biologist and professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at North Carolina State University. Author of “Never Home Alone”
• David Underhill – Professor of medicine, Cedars-Sinai Hospital, Los Angeles, California
• Anne Sverdrup-Thygeson – Professor in conservation biology at the Institute for Ecology and Nature Management at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences.  Author of “Buzz, Sting, Bite: Why We Need Insects”

This podcast will be released this coming Monday at - http://bigpicturescience.org

You can listen to this and other episodes at http://bigpicturescience.org/, and be sure to check out Blog Picture Science, the companion blog to the radio show.