This Week in Microbiology

Author: Vincent Racaniello

This Week in Microbiology is a podcast about unseen life on Earth hosted by Vincent Racaniello and friends. Following in the path of his successful shows 'This Week in Virology' (TWiV) and 'This Week in Parasitism' (TWiP), Racaniello and guests produce an informal yet informative conversation about microbes which is accessible to everyone, no matter what their science background.
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Language: en

Genres: Life Sciences, Natural Sciences, Science

Contact email: Get it

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366: Our Vanishing Ancient Gut Microbes
Episode 366
Sunday, 25 October, 2026

TWiM explains a bacterial antiviral defense system that uses a noncoding RNA template to build tandem-repeat DNA through a mechanism that parallels how eukaryotic telomerase extends telomeres, and genome sequencing of the Tsimane of Bolivia and the Hadza of Tanzania which reveals over a thousand gut bacterial species shared between the two populations, many now vanishing from industrialized humans, suggesting they co-migrated with our ancestors out of Africa and into the Americas. Become a patron of TWiM. Links for this episode: Antiviral immunity via telomerase-like reverse transcription in bacteria (Nature) Prehistoric global migration of vanishing gut microbes with humans (Nature) Music used on TWiM is composed and performed by Ronald Jenkees and used with permission. Send your microbiology questions and comments to twim@microbe.tv