Climate Change and the Rise and Spread of Pathogens

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The climate isn’t just warming—it’s reorganizing the rules of biology. We explore how rising temperatures, deforestation, wildfire smoke, and thawing permafrost are reshaping the risk landscape for malaria parasites, heat-trained fungi, spillover-prone viruses, and resilient bacteria. From Kenyan highlands that became friendlier to Anopheles mosquitoes, to urban heat islands that may condition fungi to tolerate our body temperature, to the sobering lesson of Siberia’s anthrax outbreak after unusual warmth, we connect data points to the lived reality of health systems on the front lines.

We dive into malaria’s life cycle and why vector capacity accelerates in warmer, deforested microclimates. We examine fungal threats, including how wildfire smoke can disperse spores, and why limited antifungal options raise the stakes. On viruses, we unpack Ebola’s reservoir ecology, the role of habitat loss and food insecurity in human–animal interfaces, and how language and stigma can undermine outbreak response. Finally, we look at bacterial risks within permafrost feedback loops and across water and food systems, where floods, droughts, and soil microbiome shifts threaten safety and yields.

Throughout, we keep solutions in focus: protecting forests and wetlands, cutting fossil fuels and air pollution, building climate-smart surveillance and diagnostics, and communicating with dignity so communities participate in prevention. Climate action is infection prevention—and it starts now. If this conversation sparked new questions or ideas, subscribe, share with a friend, and leave a review to help more people find the show. What solutions can you enact in your life to face the rising threat?

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Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_00 (00:07):
This is a podcast about one health.
The idea that the health ofhumans, animals, plants, and the
environment that we all shareare intrinsically linked.

SPEAKER_06 (00:15):
Coming to you from the University of Texas Medical
Branch and the GalvestonNational Laboratory.

SPEAKER_00 (00:19):
This is Infectious Science, where enthusiasm for
science is contagious.

SPEAKER_03 (00:29):
Hello, welcome back to the infectious science
podcast.
We are now completely online.
We are calling in from differentplaces.
We haven't seen each other in awhile.
Christina, I haven't seen you inlike months.
How are you?

SPEAKER_02 (00:44):
It's been a really long time.

SPEAKER_03 (00:46):
Where are you?
How are you doing?
How's med school treating youafter you just completely
disappeared?
What's going on in your life?

SPEAKER_02 (00:53):
So third year started basically.
We took our first licensingtest, step one, and then moved
on to third year.
And third year is typically justlike the most rigorous year of
med school.
So you're working full time, butyou're also studying full time,
and it's just it's a lot after awhile.
So just hanging in there.

(01:15):
But that's why I've disappearedoff the face of the earth this
year.
I do apologize, but it's so goodto be back.
It's so good to see you guystoo, and to get to record this
and also just learn from youguys and have fun and catch up.
So I'm excited to be here.

SPEAKER_03 (01:30):
I thought people always say that med school gets
easier the further you getthrough the coursework, no?

SPEAKER_02 (01:37):
I would say like first two years, I would say
that's consistent just becauseyou develop study habits that
really get you through the restof the pre-clinical years.
But then clinical years, thirdyear is definitely the hardest
year, and I would say that'stypically the hardest year of
the entire medical schoolcurriculum, just because of the

(01:58):
balance between working andstudying.

SPEAKER_03 (02:00):
Yeah.
And your studio looks a littlestudioed.
Your uh desk looks a littledifferent.
Are you calling in fromGalveston?
Uh where are you currently?

SPEAKER_02 (02:08):
I am.
I'm calling in from my home,which is in League City.
But I always just say Galvestonbecause I don't think a lot of
people know where League Cityis.
Yeah.
But yeah, I'm still local, but Iknow Miss Camille is not.
She got up and left.
Where are you at, girl?

SPEAKER_01 (02:25):
I am in upstate New York, which is beautiful.
It's autumn right now.
We're recording this towards theend of October, and it's
absolutely gorgeous.
The leaves are falling, andevery time I step outside, I
just inhale the smell of fallingleaves.
It's so good.
Yeah, I'm doing good.
And I'm loving that I haveaccess to apple orchards and
like apple cider again because Imiss those things in Texas.

SPEAKER_02 (02:47):
That sounds so wholesome as a Texanite.
I could not imagine that.
So Texanite.

SPEAKER_01 (02:54):
You've got to explore the north.
You've got to explore the north.
It's so gorgeous.
And I love being in themountains again.
I miss the mountains when I wasin Texas.
I could never go hiking inTexas.
I could only go like walking, atleast where I lived in Texas,
because it was just like soflat.

SPEAKER_05 (03:10):
That's something that's been so important about
the state.
I used to go hiking all the timewhen I was back in Reno in
Nevada because we were so closeto the Sierra Nevada and Lake
Tahoe, all those hiking trailsaround there.
Around here, if you get anelevation gain of more than 17
feet, I'll call it good.

SPEAKER_03 (03:31):
That is true.

SPEAKER_01 (03:32):
Yeah, the most elevation you gain in Galveston
is like going up a set ofstairs.
That's it.

SPEAKER_03 (03:39):
Very fair.
Agree.
Very true.
Alex, were you in Galvestonright now?

SPEAKER_05 (03:45):
Yes, I'm on Island.
So yeah, just in ensconced in myapartment at the moment.
And I must say, I I think I'vehad a chance to see you a little
more in recent weeks,considering now that I've been
collaborating with Dr.
Benta, which I've reallyenjoyed.
So I ended up moving in a bit ofa different direction after my
qualifying exams.
And so now I'm working with Dr.

(04:07):
Caitlin Cotter and Dr.
Courtney Wolsey.
And I am proud to say that Dr.
Benta is going to be on mycommittee indeed.
So I've got to be able to dothat.

SPEAKER_04 (04:16):
Oh exciting.
Oh, I know.

SPEAKER_03 (04:21):
Have you nailed on your topic yet?
Can you talk about it at thispoint?

SPEAKER_05 (04:25):
At this point, we're settling on the topic.
I still need to work on gettingmy candidates sleep proposal all
in order, but I think that thebroad scope of it at this point
is going to be a project that'suh looking at the intersection
between loss of virus diseaseand pregnancy, and looking at
that from an epidemiologicalperspective, right?
And also uh looking at thatusing actual patient serum

(04:48):
samples from Nigeria and lookingat some of the biomarkers that
are associated with severedisease in the pregnant
individuals.
Yeah, but still a work inprogress.

SPEAKER_03 (04:58):
Yeah, cool.
All right.
So today's topic is one of myfavorites.
It's climate change.
Can we say this word out loud?
Do you think we're gonna getlike immediately No?

SPEAKER_01 (05:13):
I it's I it is peppered throughout my notes for
this episode.
So we start us off with yeah,absolutely.
So I think it's really importantto begin this episode by
defining the anthropocene.
This is a period of time thatwe're currently living in.
So we're living in theAnthropocene right now, and it's

(05:33):
characterized by humans beingthe most influential species on
our planet.
And so it's really widelyaccepted that we, and by we I
mean humanity, have reallydeeply impacted our planet,
right?
So, particularly in the past 60years.
In the course of naturalhistory, humanity's actions are
pretty unnatural in how we'veaffected the world that we live

(05:56):
in.
And our current lifestylesreally rely on things like
natural resource extraction, andthat disrupts ecosystems.
We've seen unprecedented carbondioxide emissions, global
warming, acidification of ouroceans, and habitat destruction,
as well as massive extinctions.
And what we really want to focuson today in this episode,
against this really urgentchange is needed backdrop, is

(06:20):
the impact of the Anthropoceneon multiple classes of
pathogens.
So we're gonna talk about fungi,we're gonna talk about viruses,
bacteria, parasites.
But just super quickly before wejump into that, as many of them
are a really big reader andpost-PHD, I am like reading even
more because I actually havelike more brain space for
reading.
And I recently came across thiserasure poem of a news piece

(06:42):
that was documenting a funeralthat was held for a glacier in
Iceland.
And this is gonna be likerelevant later because I do talk
a lot about permafrost.
But what's really interesting isthat there was a plaque
dedicated during this funeralfor the glacier, and on it was
inscribed this.

So this is a direct quote (06:58):
a letter to the future.
Okay is the first Icelandicglacier to lose its status as a
glacier.
In the next 200 years, all ourglaciers are expected to follow
the same path.
This monument is to acknowledgethat we know what is happening
and what needs to be done.

(07:18):
Only you know if we did it.
I find that super poignant inthe current moment because the
undercurrent to all the concernswe're going to discuss in this
episode is that we really doknow what environmental problems
we have created.
And for the most part, we reallydo know how to resolve them.
And so I was actually recentlyreading a Natural History Museum
article, and it really outlineswhat steps do we have that we've

(07:41):
agreed on to like move towards abetter future.
And it's things like stoppingthe mining of fossil fuels and
transitioning to reliance onsustainable alternatives.
That's something we urgentlyneed.
So is reducing emission of airpollutants, right?
And those things can go hand inhand.
We also really concur that weneed to protect at-risk
ecosystems.
Those are things like wetlandsand coral reefs.

(08:01):
And we know that things likeeating less meat reduces
environmental strain.
And I say that as a kid who grewup on a beef farm.
So I don't know if anyone hasquestions about that.
And also, we know that shiftingeconomic goals and reducing
inequality and stabilizing theworld's population will also
help us move towards a betterfuture.
So I just want to note before wejump into everything in this

(08:23):
episode, these aren't easychanges to make, and so a lot of
them have not been made, becausethe systems, there aren't really
systems designed to supportpeople during these shifts that
we know need to be made so thatno one gets really unequitable
or punishing treatment as thechanges we need to avert
disaster are being made.
And so I just want to start offwith the anthropocene, and we

(08:45):
know what needs to be donebecause we know these are the
solutions we need to rapidlyenact.
And there just really isn'tenough being done in like a
corporate or a government ornecessarily an internationally
collaborative scale, which isoften where change is most
needed.
So then individual change cansort of gather weight within a
system that's already designedto reinforce it.
So that's the current crisis.

SPEAKER_03 (09:07):
And maybe if an if I can jump in and just make an
announcement to our listeners aswell, right?
This is a very complex topic.
And if you've listened to theprevious episodes, we always
take the lens of focusing onpathogens and not necessarily
only from the perspective ofpathogens, but this topic
climate change is obviously muchbroader than that, right?

(09:29):
There's an influence on plants,on humans.
It's just so broad.
I think we would have to have awhole season just to cover these
topics.
Now I want to uh do a quick plughere, I guess.
I took a class, an online classthat Yale offers.
It's called Health and Climate.
And it's an online course thatyou take, it's over a few

(09:51):
months, and I took so much awayfrom that.
And I think probably the keymessage for me is just how
complex and how interconnectedeverything is, and from heat
stress to losing water and soon.
So I just wanted to preface thisepisode by saying we're taking a
snapshot of certain aspects, butobviously this whole topic is

(10:12):
much, much broader.

SPEAKER_01 (10:13):
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
I for sure echo that.
And everything we're talkingabout today, these are things
that come up and we can justscratch the surface of.
But there's so much more to thistopic, and it can be hard to
engage with, right?
Because it can feel veryhopeless.
But I guess I wanted to prefaceit the way that I did because we
do know what needs to be done,and there are actions we can
take.
And so I think that's justalways an important thing to me

(10:34):
to set up when you talk aboutclimate change, is that we do
know what needs to be done, andthere are actions we can take,
and then get into like, allright, so what problems are we
facing?
So then we can think about howdo we move forward and why does
it matter that we do moveforward.
Alex, do you want to jump in?

SPEAKER_05 (10:49):
Absolutely, yeah.
Well, to that end, so I thinkI'll start out by talking a bit
about the genus of parasiteresponsible for causing malaria
and how your human-drivenclimate change has ultimately
impacted malaria prevalence andincidence.
So, just to give at first just abrief introduction about
malaria, so it's obviouslycaused by an infection with

(11:11):
parasites of the genusPlasmodium and the spread
through the bites of mosquitoesof the genus Anophiles.
And so there are 249 millioncases annually and about 608,000
deaths annually per the WorldHealth Organization as of 2022.
The vast majority of these wereconcentrated in sub-Saharan
Africa and were as a result ofinfection with Plasmodium
falciparum, which is the mostvirulent of the Plasmodium

(11:32):
pathogens in general.
And so, to give a basic overviewin terms of how malaria's
pathogenicity works exactly,there are various stages of life
of the malarial parasite that itgoes through.
And those stages can havediffering impacts on both the
human immune system as well asthey're intrinsically tied to a
replication within the Anophelesmosquitoes themselves.

SPEAKER_02 (11:55):
You gave such a great overview of basically
plasmodium and malaria and howit infects people and how it, I
guess, evolves within the body.
So just to synthesize what yousaid, malaria is, and correct me
if I'm wrong, okay?
I want to understand.
But basically, malaria is aparasitic infection that is

(12:16):
spread by the anophilesmosquito.
And so the mosquito bites, andit basically gives the parasites
to the victim of the bite, andthese parasites go to the liver,
right?
And that's where they mature,and then from the liver, they go
and they spread throughout thebody or and infect red blood

(12:36):
cells.
And so that's why malaria isreally dangerous, is because not
only are red blood cellsnecessary for carrying oxygen
throughout the body, but theseparasites essentially cause the
death of the red blood cells.
And so with fewer red bloodcells in the body, there's less
oxygen being sent throughout thebody, and there's also this
inflammatory reaction within thebody that can cause a lot of

(12:58):
other detrimental side effects.
Is that correct?

SPEAKER_05 (13:01):
Absolutely, yes.
That's a perfect summary.

SPEAKER_02 (13:03):
Okay, cool.
I just wanted to make sure,yeah.

SPEAKER_03 (13:06):
Alex, why did you pick malaria, just that of
interest as a disease?
Is it because of its globalimpact, or is it was it just a
disease of interest for you ingeneral, or why did you pick
that as the topic?

SPEAKER_05 (13:17):
A bit of both, a bit of both.
Because it was something thatwhen I was an undergrad, my
research had been characterizingthe interactions of this
crystalline toxin produced byBacillus therogensis, known as
Cryfor B, which had theseinsecticidal interactions with
the caterin receptor inside ofthe mid-gut of Anopheles

(13:38):
gambiae, which is the principalvector for plasmodium
falciparum, which is the mostlethal of the malarial agents.
And so I've always beeninterested in malaria for some
time after going and doing someof that research in undergrad,
but the scope of my research, ofcourse, never really touched the
parasite itself.
So I figured it'd be fun to uhlearn some more and talk about

(13:58):
it here.
But also, it's just, yeah, justsomething that absolutely, as
you mentioned, the global healthsignificance of it is just
something that's worth noting.
And so I figured may as wellcall attention to it and for
that too.

SPEAKER_02 (14:09):
Alex, before I interrupted you, sorry, you were
getting towards the whole topicof global warming and climate
change and how malaria ispotentially becoming more
prevalent because of the changethat we're seeing within our
global climate, is that correct?

SPEAKER_05 (14:23):
Absolutely, yes.
There have been significantissues when it comes to, yeah,
deforestation and forestdegradation being these really
big drivers of climate change.
They're ultimately estimated toconstitute about 12 to 20
percent of global greenhouse gasemissions annually.
And because you know, as you'rereleasing and removing these
carbon sinks rather from theglobal ecosystem, right, you're

(14:44):
releasing CO2 into theatmosphere, which can be deeply
problematic.
And a number of these changes,of course, are linked to changes
in land use, right?
Clearance of forest lands forsubsistence agriculture, as well
as for industrial farming.
And so these can help to, insome ways, resolve perhaps
issues of local food insecuritythat in and of themselves are

(15:05):
driven by climate changeindirectly or may contribute to
global markets, right?
But the issue though withdeforestation is that it has a
significant impact on also thenwarming these environments that
enable anophthalese mosquitoesto then better thrive, right?
So there was this 2006 studythat found that in these
deforested areas in the KenyanHighlands, that these areas were

(15:28):
about 1.2 degrees Celsius warmerin the dry season and 0.7
degrees Celsius warmer in thewet season.
And that doesn't sound likemuch, but these mosquitoes were
found to have considerableincreases then in their net
reproductive rate and in theirpopulational intrinsic growth
rate in these areas, which thusenabled an increase overall in
the vectorial capacity of thesemosquitoes to go about being

(15:50):
vectors of the malarialparasites themselves, thus
increasing the likelihood oftransmission to humans, right?
Because you have more mosquitoesand they reproduce at a higher
rate, you're just going to havea greater propensity for
potential mosquito-humaninteractions that could lead to
malarial infection, which isparticularly problematic.

SPEAKER_01 (16:09):
Yeah, if I could jump in, speaking of this kind
of interaction between humansand vector species, I don't know
if you found anything on this,but something that just popped
into my head as you're talkingabout this, because it's really
interesting, is not only may webe changing how land is being
used or the microclimates thatare available, but also if it's
really hot out, people might begoing outside to do work in

(16:29):
times where it's cooler parts ofthe day, like morning or
evening, where they might bemore likely to come in contact
with mosquitoes.
So I don't necessarily know thatI did not dive into malaria for
this episode, but this ideathat, you know, as things get
hotter, not only domicroclimates change and not
only do land use change, butalso people are trying to adapt
to that to do the work that theyneed to do, right?

(16:50):
If they're outside doingagricultural work in a prime
time when they might be bittenby mosquitoes, they might be
more likely to be exposed tomalaria.

SPEAKER_05 (16:56):
No, that's a that's an excellent point.
And Camille also, I think,raised a very good point there
in terms of just, yeah, changesin human behavior when it comes
to these warming environmentsand then potentially
participating in some of theseoutdoor activities at points in
the day when they are morelikely to be bitten by these
anophily mosquitoes isdefinitely a significant factor

(17:16):
as well.
Absolutely.
So that's a that's a greatpoint.
So as a result of the warmingclimate writ large as well, what
we've also seen is that some ofthese areas that have
historically been epicenters ofvalarial incidents, right?
Some of these equatorial regionsthat are historically hot and
humid and in a position tosupport a high anophaly's

(17:36):
population, is that we're seeinga number of these mosquitoes
instead move towards morehospitable environments as those
regions grow too hot to supportnecessarily their reproduction.
And so what we've seen is overthe past 30 years, increases in
the incidence of malariathroughout regions in which it
had been relatively low or evennon-existent, such as in the

(17:58):
Ethiopian islands.
And some of that has to do withgeopolitical and conflict issues
when it comes to especiallyEthiopia in particular, with
issues over the past few yearsin particular, but but also you
know, largely have to do withthese climate changes, and
that's uh a deep problem,absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 (18:15):
And the listeners are interested in human
conflict, uh war and conflict,go back to a couple episodes ago
when we talked about thepathogens and war, so go back to
that episode.
But Alex, my question for you isso you were talking about the
expansion of the mosquitoes intonew regions, northwards and
probably southwards as well.
But what we see with thetick-borne diseases is yes,

(18:39):
there's an expansion northwardsand southwards into new areas
because now they becomehabitable for ticks.
But we also see that certainareas that used to be good areas
now change their climate so muchthat they are not suitable
anymore for ticks.
So it's not just a continuousexpansion into all areas, but

(19:01):
almost like a contraction,right?
It goes up into a certain area,but like certain other areas
will the disease or the vectorwill disappear.
Did you read anything about thatwith malaria?

SPEAKER_05 (19:13):
Yes, indeed.
So that's exactly what hasfollowed as well, that there are
reductions in and projected tobe reductions in incidence of
malaria in some of theseequatorial regions in which it
has grown too hot to necessarilygo and support that same high
population of Anophelesmosquitoes.
And so, yes, that's a greatpoint, absolutely, because yeah,

(19:36):
it's definitely not a continuousexpansion, but it'll contract in
some of those historicalhotspots as well.
So it sounded like you've gotsome stuff for us too, Camille,
no?

SPEAKER_01 (19:46):
Yeah, absolutely.
But I don't want to cut Dennisoff and talking about ticks.
If you have anything more to addon ticks, now is the thing.

SPEAKER_03 (19:54):
This is your moment.
My moment to shine, yes.
Yeah, I think you know what theother parts, I think there's
certain themes that are thesame.
You do see an expansion of ticksinto new areas, quite a bit,
actually.
But what the difference is theway mosquitoes and ticks travel.

(20:16):
Like mosquitoes can fly, theyhave a range of hundreds of
meters, and ticks can only crawlso far.
They often use animals, cows,for example, imagine like
pastoralists, where you haveticks on a cow and they're
moving to new areas.
So they use almost otheranimals, wild animals, birds,

(20:36):
and so on, as tick taxis,basically, where they get to new
spaces.
So the transport into new areasis slightly different than some
of mosquitoes, and also theestablishment of ticks into new
areas is also very differentthan mosquito species.
But I think that the tendency,generally speaking, are the
same.
So similar picture with slightdifferences.

(20:58):
Does that answer your question,Camille?

SPEAKER_01 (21:00):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
I just wanted to give you amoment to talk about ticks.
We know how much you want toknow.

SPEAKER_03 (21:06):
And I never get to talk about ticks here.

SPEAKER_02 (21:08):
I do like a special tick episode for Dennis.
Oh no, it's gonna be 99.

SPEAKER_01 (21:13):
And you can just educate the rest of us.
I found a tick on me like theother day, like on my jeans, and
I immediately thought of youwhen I saw this tick.
It was like crawling up the kneeof my jeans, and I was
immediately like, oh, I waslike, Dennis would think that's
cool.

SPEAKER_03 (21:31):
Is this a good thing or a bad thing that you
immediately thought of me?

SPEAKER_01 (21:38):
It's I don't know.
Probably now.
I feel like our listenersprobably think of me whenever
they hear like the fungus amongus based on the episode that we
did.
And I am returning to fungus forthis episode.
So I'm gonna talk about fungi.
So if you like take it, you justget yeah, you just get
associated with the things thatyou're like really
intellectually curious andexcited about.

(21:59):
So I think let's talk aboutfungi.
Fungi and climate change is justsuch a cool topic, if you ask
me.
A former professor of mine oncebrought up how in the past
fungal pathogens really haven'tbeen major health concerns for
humans, the way like viral andbacterial pathogens have been.
And she really spoke about howthis was due to the fact that
the majority of, althoughcertainly not all, fungi don't

(22:22):
really thrive at the temperaturethe typical human body is at
because it's really too warm forthem.
You can probably see where I'mgoing with this because we're
talking about global warming.
So fungi that do infect humansusually only thrive pretty
superficially, right?
Like they're subcutaneous,they're on our skin, something
like that.
Because your internal bodytemperature really just isn't

(22:43):
like habitable for them.
So if someone's gonna get afungal infection, it's gonna be
something like athlete's foot orringworm, it's on the skin.
And similar to we've talkedabout something like bacterial
pathogens previously that alsodon't like super warm
temperatures.
We've talked about like on lepreand things like that ends up
surviving on like the tips ofthe fingers or the nose first or
something where it's a littlecooler.
And fungi are like that in a waythat we've been very fortunate

(23:06):
that a lot of fungi don'thappily exist at our body
temperature.
But that can easily change.
And that's actually somethingthat's being tracked right now
in real time, which I think isreally wild.
In the journal of PLOSPathogens, this is a direct
quote because I found it reallyinteresting.
For the vast majority of fungalspecies, the capacity to grow at
elevated temperatures limitstheir ability to infect and

(23:27):
establish in mammals.
However, fungi can be trained toevolve thermodolerance.
End quote.
So global warming is Christina,your eyes just got so big.
It's really, it's really, it'ssomething out of almost like out
of a horror movie, right?
Like it's just global warming isabsolutely giving fungal species

(23:48):
basically the training wheels onthe road to infect more humans.
And I think we should all beconcerned about that.
I think about this probably moreoften than the normal average
human does, but I just thinkpeople should know about it
because it's wildly interesting.
The planet is essentiallyfevered, right, with global
warming.
Like we've given it a fever.
And the freedom we havepreviously really enjoyed from
the threat of fungal pathogensmight be coming to an end

(24:11):
because of that.
And I was reading this papercalled Climate Change and the
Emergence of Fungal Pathogens.
And so this is a quote fromthat.
So gradual adaptation toincreasing temperature caused by
climate change could lead to anincrease of organisms that can
cause disease.
That makes sense, right?
It tracks.
We're increasing the temperatureof the entire planet.
So things need to adapt to liveat those temperatures.

(24:31):
And so warming the planet meansthat these fungal pathogens are
going to be adapting to surviveand thrive at higher
temperatures, which aretemperatures that are far closer
to a human's body temperaturethan we probably want to be
comfortable with.
And some scientists have alsoproceeded to warn that climate
change can increase thegeographic range of pathogenic
species or their vectors,leading to the emergence of

(24:52):
diseases in areas where they'vepreviously not been reported.
So, Alex, you just talked aboutthat with mosquitoes, but the
same also holds true for fungibecause of the way we've warmed
up the planet, but also othersort of wild weather events that
are happening.
What's concerning about this isthat fungi, there's currently no
vaccines for fungal pathogens.
There's some under development,but there's none approved.

(25:14):
And we have pretty limitedantifungal agents.
And what's also interesting whenyou consider a fungal pathogen
versus something like a virus ora bacterium is that fungi can
live sapotrophically.
So they can produce largequantities of infectious spores,
and they don't requirehost-to-host contact to
establish infection.
So they're really uniquelycapable.
This is a quote fungi seem to beuniquely capable of causing

(25:37):
complete host extinction, whichis like not a great idea to
think about.
But it's something that weshould be concerned about and
thoughtful of.
Because we have, I think, insome cases and in a lot of
academic journals, there's thesescientists that are sort of
ringing the alarm bells aboutglobal warming in fungi.
But I'm not really sure that'snecessarily hit like the broader
media of people thinking aboutthis.

(25:59):
Because beyond the developmentof thermal tolerance, one of
these articles has this sort ofwake-up call that a rapid
increase in human fungal diseaseunder climate change can be
caused by shifting precipitationpatterns.
And it can also be caused byother ecological disturbances.
And in some cases, there's evenprojections of like how might
this actually cause these shiftsand what might this look like.

(26:20):
And increased precipitation,which we're seeing a lot of
places and higher temperatures,as well as droughts.
So all things we're seeing rightnow could more than double the
endemic range of a fungalpathogen called cidiodomycosis,
which is the soil fungi.
It's colloquially known asvalley fever when it's an
infection.
So that could double by 2100,the year 2100.

(26:42):
So causing, so that's anincrease in cases by 50%.
So these are things that weshould be thinking about, but
that's a projection.
And so what I want to talk aboutis one kind of example to round
this out is that what'shappening do so we know what's
happening.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 (26:58):
Camille, can I interrupt you?
I just want to tell you thatnext time I see a fungus, next
time I see a fungus onsomething, I'm gonna think of
you.

SPEAKER_01 (27:06):
Oh, thank you.
I appreciate that.
That makes my heart happy.
I'm honored.

SPEAKER_03 (27:13):
Let's go and like fungi and think of it.
I'll be in fear that this funguswill just completely take over
the world.
And yeah, but I do uh disagreewith you though.
Look at the TV show The Last ofUs, which is focused on uh uh
fungus.
So I I think there's growingawareness that that fungi could

(27:36):
be could be a threat, right?
So do you think that's justreally a circle of a few
scientists that talk about this?

SPEAKER_01 (27:42):
So I I think that's true, but I guess what I say
what I mean, I don't think it'shit mainstream media in like a
realistic way, right?
It's almost like zombies, right?
Yeah, has it like hit thebroader spectrum of like media?
Oh, look what could happen.
But like it's again because it'sI feel like The Last of Us
really falls within that zombiepop cultural phenomenon.
People are like, oh, thatcouldn't happen.
And I'm like, oh, I don't thinkwe're gonna become like zombies.

(28:05):
You don't need to worry aboutbecoming a clicker.
I do think you need to bemindful of how these pathogens
might be spreading because ofhuman actions, which to me is
far scarier than like any sortof like horror show.

SPEAKER_02 (28:17):
And it's really interesting, Camille, because
like with the pattern that wesee with you would think, right,
that the warmer the planet isgetting, and these fungus are
not, I guess, evolved to survivein these warmer climates, you
would think that they would, ifanything, be dying off.
But the fact that they have thisability to adapt, that just

(28:38):
shows how like how not I guessevolutionized, but also how
persistent and just like thesurvivability of these fungus.
It's it's beyond what we evenreally consider when we think of
fungus.
And it's beyond what weunderstand, probably.

SPEAKER_01 (28:55):
Yeah, yeah, totally.
And I'm gonna talk more too uhin when I talk about bacteria,
I'm gonna talk about permafrostpathogens and how little we
know.
It's fascinating, anyways.
Go ahead, man.

SPEAKER_03 (29:06):
Before you go on, Camille, I just want to ask you
the same question that I askedAlex, and it's a question that
you probably have no answer.
I have no answer, but I'm justcurious to ask.
So, you know, you talked aboutlike that that the fungi are
mostly like infecting the skin,but they're also systemic
infection.
You mentioned belly fever,right?
There's candida albicans andthrush and so on.

(29:28):
And often when we have thesesystemic infections, typically,
rule of thumb, the body ispretty good at avoiding fungal
systemic infections unlessthere's some immunocompromised
state or a co infection or maybea poly trauma that reduces the
immune system, correct?
So now going back to the heatstress that humans will face in

(29:51):
certain areas, and maybe evenanimals, right?
Like we need to focus on humans.
Could you imagine that this heatstress that also leads to maybe
like immunocompromised statescould also increase the
susceptibility to thoseinfections.

SPEAKER_01 (30:06):
Yeah, that's a really interesting thought
question.
And it's not something that Iran into when I was looking into
this episode, but I think morethan just heat though, I worry
about other things that areoccurring that we don't even
think about.
An example that I didn't eventhink about.
So I said at the beginning ofthis episode, I'm up in upstate
New York, right?
At the beginning of the summer,we had smoke from the Canadian

(30:28):
wildfires, which it's not great.
You don't love it when you'reoutside and it's just being in a
bonfire.
But they did a study that inCalifornia hospitals between
2014 and 2018, research foundthat admissions for
coccidodomycosis increase by 20%in the month following exposure
to wildfire smoke because it candisperse fungal spores.

(30:50):
So not even just heat, but theseother climate change associated
events, something likewildfires, which more and more
people are being exposed to andthat smoke can carry and can
then disperse fungal spores withit.
Do I have any idea what kind offungi are chilling up in Canada?
None whatsoever.
Was I probably breathing some inwith the wildfire smoke?

(31:11):
Yeah.
But are you saying this isfortunate to be but that's not
necessarily the case and youwouldn't even think about it.
I know so many people who areexposed to like California
wildfire smoke.
A really good friend of minelost her whole house in the
wildfire that we had this pastsummer.
And that's utterly insane.
And that's not even somethingpeople think about.

(31:32):
They're just like, oh it'spollution right you're breathing
this in I've never heard anyonetalk about the fact that you
could be inhaling fungal sportsand that's going to increase
hospital admissions in a systemthat might already be taxed,
right?
Because you have people that arecoming in that are maybe have
other issues.
Are they even looking for fungi,right?
Is a 20% increase real or isthat underreported?
Because your first thoughtprobably is rarely fungi in

(31:56):
people because again, there'snot that many that infect us.
But particularly in a systemwhere maybe you've already seen
a ton of people because thepeople are shifting and then
there's stress and any otherkinds of conditions can flare,
you might not be thinking aboutit.
And so I think that that'ssomething I'm thinking about
beyond just heat, likewildfires, but also
deforestation.
Alex mentioned what happens tomosquito populations when

(32:17):
they're deforestation.
As far back as the 1990sdeforestation on Canada's
Vancouver Island may have drivenoutbreaks of cryptocarcosis
which is caused by the carcassgatty and it's due to logging
releasing fungal spores into theenvironment and that's wild,
right?
So this idea that when we startdisrupting nature, right, we run
up against things that we didn'tnecessarily expect to find or

(32:39):
didn't even think to thinkabout.
But back to your point on heat,because it's really interesting.
One of the emerging threatswhich you mentioned it's one
people might have heard of andthat's candidauris, which is
it's commonly associated withhospital outbreaks.
It's a type of yeast.
And it is actually though thefirst completely new fungal
species hypothesized to haveemerged due to climate change.

(33:00):
And that is because there wassimultaneous unexplained
emergence of three types ofCandidaoris on three continents
so at once.
And so that's why it'shypothesized to be because of
climate change.
So something that people werelike oh it's a hospital
infection but it's an infectionthat we all contributed to in
many ways.

SPEAKER_03 (33:18):
Camille sounds like it's not only the last episode
for you but also the lastepisode of this podcast because
we all gonna die off Canada.

SPEAKER_01 (33:31):
I don't mean it like that.
I want us to be aware but notlike to the point where we're
like oh fatalistic of the goingto hell in a basket.
Again like that's why I prefacethis episode with the small
little like list of hopefulthings we can do because it
matters, right?
But anyways to wrap up thefungal section, the last thing I
want to say is that it concernsurban environments, which we

(33:52):
haven't touched on yet, but theydo matter in regards to what
we're talking about with climatechange.
So urban environments havedocumented heat island effects
which I had never heard of untilI was researching this episode.
So that means they're severaldegrees warmer than their
surroundings due to factors likebuildings and traffic.
And so they might becontributing to the very
thermodance that we don't wantfungi to develop, which I

(34:14):
thought was really interesting.
So that's what I have on fungi.

SPEAKER_05 (34:17):
Yes.
That's really fascinatingespecially I just I I just want
to say I'm just still stuck onthe as somebody who for a long
time lived in northern Nevadaand was oftentimes downwind of
some of those fires in NorthernCalifornia now I'm just
wondering as far as all of thestuff I was exposed to like it
might not just be Camille's lastpodcast it might be mine too at

(34:38):
the night that we're going.

SPEAKER_03 (34:44):
You made it this far so it's all good.
But I was thinking about thesmoke and stuff like that.
Like you Christina you probablywould agree that not only does
smoke apparently carry fungalspores which is news to me to be
honest with you I know thatvirus particles can float on
dust but I didn't know this butuh don't you think that
Christina does that also thisinhaled smoke also causes damage

(35:07):
to your lungs and makes you moresusceptible for other
infections?

SPEAKER_02 (35:11):
That's what I was thinking of when Camille was
talking about the smoke andeverything and then I thought
that's where she was going withall of this but yeah she
surprised me with the turn shetook there.
I didn't realize that thosecolors were carried in the smoke
itself.
But what I was thinking of wasthe damage that the smoke does
to your lungs inevitably in thefuture if you're exposed to that

(35:31):
chronically if you're exposed toother insults chronically like
tobacco smoke or anything likethat will break down your lung
tissue and result in a sort ofnot immunocompromised state of
the lung but just result ininsults to the lung tissue that
will make it more susceptible toinfection with just pathogens

(35:52):
that we don't really think abouta lot or pathogens that healthy
lung tissue would be able tofight off on its own.
So yeah I thought that wasreally interesting.
I do want to say just as adisclaimer if you are a healthy
individual and you have healthylung tissue and you've inhaled
spores or something like thatfor the most part thankfully our
body's immune system isincredible and it's able to wall

(36:15):
off these infections or it itfights off the infection without
us really even knowing.
So for our listeners don't beafraid that we're all gonna die
but it is really focusing we'reworrying about just new
increased exposure to thesefungal pathogens that we're
being exposed to when we reallydidn't even think about it.

SPEAKER_01 (36:35):
Yeah absolutely yeah I wonder if it's like a double
insult to yeah the smoke isalready an insult to the lungs
and so maybe you're become moresusceptible but then also it's
what's in that smoke that'scarried right it's almost the
perfect storm right like you'vebecome more susceptible because
you're probably stressed there'sa wildfire near you you also are
inhaling that smoke which ispotentially quite damaging to

(36:57):
the lungs.
And then there's also what'scontained within that smoke as
far as something like fungalspores.

SPEAKER_02 (37:03):
So yeah.
That'd be a really interestingresearch project to do it's just
obviously it would be reallyhard to do because you have to
look at that population in thatthat moment but to see is that
immediate insult of high dosesof forest fire smoke and stuff
like that combined with theexposure to the spores does that
increase your chances even ifyou were a healthy individual

(37:25):
before of uh contracting activeinfections of these rare fungal
diseases is it's reallyinteresting.

SPEAKER_03 (37:32):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (37:33):
Christina you mentioned you wanted to also
talk about permafrost is thatcorrect I did not want to talk
about permafrost yeah I'm gonnatalk about permafrost what lurks
in the deep yeah but Alex isgoing to talk to us about
viruses first.

SPEAKER_05 (37:50):
Way more fun than fungus I think the permafrost
subject frankly is worth it.
I hope we can have enough timeto have another episode later in
the season on it because I wasreally intrigued by I'm really
excited to hear your bacterialsegment I'm gonna try to get
through my stuff on virusesquickly then um you have to have
to eat your vegetables beforethe dessert I'm here all day

(38:15):
yeah my PS always told me that Iwould do really well as a
comedian but only in reallyniche environments only if I was
telling jokes of actualconference like the American
Association of immunologistmedium like anything outside of
that good luck.

SPEAKER_03 (38:32):
Who said that to you?

SPEAKER_05 (38:33):
Okay tell us Alex tell us about the viruses about
the viruses all right alrightjust so for this I decided to
particularly focus on Ebola andon its links with climate change
and so I'm just gonna give a bitof an overview to Ebola virus

(38:54):
disease and then I'm going totalk a bit about some of those
linkages again similar to what Idid on the parasite side.
So yeah Ebola virus disease canbe caused by several members of
the genus Ebola virus which arethese negative stranded RNA
viruses that are within thefamily Phyloviridae.
Many of these can be transmittedperson to person secondarily but
these outbreaks typically stemfrom an initial contact between

(39:15):
a human and the animal reservoirfor these Ebola viruses.
So it's worth noting writ largethat members of the Ebola virus
genus are endemic to sub-SaharanAfrica and the natural
reservoirs of these viruses havenot been fully confirmed but
there are various species offruit bats, the pteropodidae
that have had Ebola virus RNAthat have been isolated from

(39:35):
them or have displayed zeropositivity and their an
experimental infection of fruitbats has indicated that
infection may persist in thosetheseptomatically for some time
which leads us to believe thatthen these are the likely
reservoirs of this virus.
And so either direct contactwith infected bats or with their
bodily fluids and this issomething that comes up with

(39:56):
NEPA virus, right?
But if you think of a bat that'sgoing and feeds on fruit tree,
right?
And it might salivate on thatpiece of fruit it may go and get
some of its secretions orexcretions onto it and
ultimately then you may not knowit.
It might be picked off later andit might be consumed.
That could be a potentialexposure pathway along with

(40:18):
something that is a big issueand that kind of ties in with
some of these climate changeissues is that of course the
climate change is a significantdriver of food insecurity and
bushmeat consumption has beensomething that's been increasing
and this could be a potentialproblem when it comes to an a
yolk as well as there are alsothese secondary reservoirs that
can be part of the infectiouscycle because other great apes

(40:40):
can be infected, right?
So these include say gorillas,chimpanzees and other such
animals and these similar to us,they end up experiencing
significant degrees of mortalityas a result of infection but
consumption of infected bushmeatof animals that maybe end up
secondarily infected also canlead to significant issues as
well and could lead to potentialinfection as well as just direct

(41:02):
interaction with some of thesebats, right?
The 2013 to 2016 Zaybola virusoutbreak in West Africa, which
was the deadliest and mostwidespread outbreak on record,
right?
There were tens of thousands ofcases associated with it.

SPEAKER_03 (41:16):
And that's probably what was said previously like
deforestation right like you yousaid the exposure of humans to
those bats, yes bushmeat, butalso deforestation so they don't
have a place to go and so theyprobably go more into like human
proximity that might be anotherfactor.
I remember from back then fromthat West Africa outbreak that

(41:38):
it's also the interconnectednessof people right like that people
are so mobile maybe not linkedtoo much to global change but
that because the human behaviorchanges so much and one person
can go and cross over to anothercountry very quickly I think
those were all things that werenot predicted.
I think nobody had an idea thatan outbreak would be so big but

(42:01):
because of all of thoseconfounding factors led to this
massive outbreak rightabsolutely I also would like to
jump in super quick.

SPEAKER_01 (42:08):
Oh yeah um so this is something that I actually
I've discussed with I believeMatt Dashu he's one of the the
originals of the podcast teamand he often joins us at night.
Yeah he always seat on the couchand we had this really really
fascinating discussion that wedon't like bushmeat as a term
because it's just meat.

(42:28):
And the reason I bring this upis that literally anywhere
people are hunting game in theUnited States, in Africa in
Europe in Asia anywhere, you candefinitely come in contact with
pathogens.
A great example of this issemi-recently in the United
States there was a hunter out inthe Midwest he was butchering a
deer obviously you open up thechest cavity of the deer and he

(42:49):
got tuberculosis.
And so I just want to push backa little on the use of the term
it's often used in academicliterature but I I don't think
we should just because I thinkit brings in something we talk
about a lot in infectiousscience, right?
Is othering, right?
It's like when we say wetmarkets, you probably have an
idea of what pops in your headwith a wet market, but there's
wet markets everywhere in theworld, right?

(43:10):
There's wet markets a couplehours from my house in New York
City, right?
I think these are things that Ijust want us to think more
about.
And there's so much nuance andthere's so much context.
And I just want to add that tothe conversation when we're
thinking about this becausethere's so much change going on.
And I think you bring up a greatpoint on food insecurity right
and kind of what I touched onthe intro is like there's this
sort of push that we have all ofthese changes that we know need

(43:33):
to be made but a lot of timesthe changes are going to end up
with a punishment or an inequityfor people that we just haven't
moved forward on a global orinternational scale to be like,
hey, by solving inequity, weactually make the world a better
safer place for everybody.
So that's always something thatI want to bring into the
conversation too.

SPEAKER_05 (43:50):
So I just wanted to make that little anecdote if I
can absolutely thank you bothfor that because I was planning
on getting to some of thosepoints as well about
deforestation that you raisedDr.
Benta because yeah that's acritical driver here of some of
these reservoir humaninteractions that could take
place.
And to your point Camilleabsolutely as somebody who has
just delved through some of thisliterature at times when it

(44:13):
comes to doing the research foran episode that's something that
I didn't know that there hadbeen that sort of discussion in
the field about that but itmakes perfect sense because I
think that in many ways theotherization and the
stigmatization of some of thesebehaviors that people engage in
as part of their day-to-daylives is deeply problematic when
it comes to public health andwhen it comes to controlling any

(44:36):
form of disease, infectious ornon-infectious because the fact
of the matter is that when yougo and you put limitations on or
otherwise distinguish thesebehaviors that people undertake,
it can be so detrimental tobeing able to actually reach
those people.
I remember seeing a while ago Iwas writing this paper comparing
and contrasting the US andBotswana and their responses to

(44:58):
their AIDS epidemics, right?
And something that was a keydistinguishing factor in many
ways between the two was thatthe US did not have laws on the
books that were banning same-sexactivity after 2003 with the
Supreme Court case of Lawrencev.
Texas and in general even priorto that had a more welcoming

(45:18):
ecosystem for LGBT folks atleast legally than Botswana did.
And so oftentimes that led tosignificant underreporting and
we see that even stillregardless throughout the rest
of the world because ofhistorical inequities when it
comes to the LGBT populationseeking healthcare but yeah
these big gaps when it comes tobeing able to go and reach out

(45:39):
to the men who were having sexwith men and and vulnerable
groups that were engaging inthese behaviors that are just
part of human existence, right?
But were otherwise for legal andvarious reasons classified as
other and thus stigmatized andthus those people may not have
always heard that message.
That's a really good point.

SPEAKER_01 (45:57):
Yeah and this is what I love about infectious
science.
We can always be learning andalso this is why I love the
field of infectious diseases asan entire field because there is
so much nuance and complexityand there's always something to
learn there's always somethingto dive into and there's always
a way to find a way to connectwith people and to learn from
the very human experience ofillness and othering and all of

(46:17):
these things that come togetherfor all of us in some way
throughout our lives.
You know, and there's so manydifferent ranges of severity
obviously but that this issomething that in a way what I
love most about infectiousdisease is how much it connects
us, right?
And it also shows us where weneed more connection because we
have fractures.
And so I think that's always Ifeel like what things come back

(46:38):
to with infectious science as apodcast but also just as a field
for me.
So yeah.

SPEAKER_03 (46:43):
We talked about fungi we talked about viruses
and we talked about the vectorsnot enough about ticks clearly
we need to have a separateepisode on that yeah we got our
own episode for that then wehear you there's there's one
thing missing right where arethe bacteria the bacteria and
the permafrost all right let'sdive into it I feel like you all

(47:06):
set this up so much.

SPEAKER_01 (47:07):
And I do have to say this section definitely only
scratches the surface ofpermafrost because you can talk
about viruses and the permafrostlike you can talk about so many
interesting things.
So I really do think we shouldprobably dedicate a whole
episode to it but I found it socool that I just had to do a
little bit of it for thissection of this episode.
There is a ton of ways thatglobal warming is impacting
bacteria and vice versa, right?

(47:28):
And so one really great exampleof that is our planet's
permafrost region.
So permafrost is a mix of frozensoil, ice and rock and it lies
under about a quarter of theland in the northern hemisphere,
which I did not know.
That's like a massive amount ofland.
What's really pretty wildthough, that I found out by you

(47:49):
know recent episode is that inSeptember of 2025, so very
recently, a group of scientistsfrom the University of Colorado
found out that if you thaw outpermafrost, like you take a
sample and you thaw it out, themicrobes in it aren't at all
past viability and will formcolonies that can break down
organic matter, which isabundant in the permafrost.

(48:11):
It's like a whole graveyard inthere of everything that's ever
died and been buried in ice.
And that releases carbon dioxideand methane which has the
potential to form a loop thatreally exacerbates global
warming.
So you have the global warmingcausing thawing right and as it
thaws these microbes can thenessentially come out of this
sort of, I don't really want tocall it a deep sleep that's
really anthropomorphizing them,but it's a good metaphor, I

(48:34):
guess.
And then start to break down theorganic matter that is already
in this layer and that canrelease more greenhouse gases
which warms things up furtherand so on and so forth.
And so you have the potential tohave a cycle that ends up being
really bad news for us.
And also in addition to thatsomething that I feel like a lot
of people have pointed out isthat we don't necessarily know

(48:57):
what we may be thawing out.
So there's always the potentialit's not zero that we have the
potential to thaw out diseasesthat we don't want to be exposed
to.
And according to a sciencearticle and I say that with
science like capital S, like anarticle in science who's titled
Lurking in the deep freeze thisis a direct quote.

(49:18):
So temperatures in the Arcticare rising twice as fast as the
rest of the world.
And so that's really wild tothink about twice as fast as the
rest of the world and there's somuch more damage that can be
done when the permafrost isthawed out.
And we know that at least oneepidemic has potentially already
been caused by global warmingand probably by this sort of

(49:38):
cycle of thawing out thepermafrost.
And so that is in 2016 Siberiahad an unusually warm summer and
Bacillus anthracis which isbetter known as anthrax is a
bacteria that's found in thesoil and it killed 2,649
reindeer and sickened 36 people,killing one 12 year old boy.

(50:00):
And so while we can't say forcertain that this epidemic was
driven by global warming asSiberia has previously
experienced outbreaks about acentury ago, it's definitely
plausible that this epidemic wasat least in some way mediated by
the rising global temperatures.
So it's definitely worthconsidering that there are
things in soil that definitelydo make us sick.

(50:20):
And if you thaw out soil andthen you know animals that are
up there that are definitelygoing to be more exposed to it,
there's something like grazingor whatever, or if you'd even
think about something likelivestock, right?
I think that this is somethingto think about that you know our
health has the potential to beimpacted in other ways than just
exposure to infections.
So for example a really hugepart of our food supply relies

(50:41):
on soil bacteria to aid plantgrowth.
This is something that we haveestablished if you've ever gone
through probably some basicbiocourses, you probably had to
go through this.
And a really recent study inNature Foods pivoting from this
permafrost idea was predictingthat fossil fuel dependence has
the potential to lead to asignificant decline in abundance
of plant beneficial bacteria ona global scale by the year 2100.

(51:05):
And this is really worryingbecause this change has really
the potential to threaten theglobal food supply.
If you suddenly have a decline,a significant decline in plant
beneficial bacteria, you'remaybe going to have issues with
crop growth you're gonna haveissues maybe with what you are
able to grow doesn't have asmuch nutrition in it because the
plant was struggling.
We also have all kinds of otherwild weather events that are

(51:26):
already influencing where we cangrow crops like droughts and we
also have things like wildfires,you know, that we've already
mentioned so bacteria reallymatter to us and not only is
like the food supply at riskfrom global warming, but things
like clean water are too rightaccording to the WHO if you have
extreme climate events likefloods and cyclones and droughts
all of which we have seen thisyear in multiple places around

(51:47):
the globe, those all impactaccess to clean water and that
can really create idealenvironment bacteria like
cholera to thrive or things likethat.
So I think that this is all justto say that there are so many
different ways that globalwarming and severe weather
events are really impacting thebacterial species that we might
come in contact with whetherthings are thawing out, whether

(52:09):
those things that are thawingout are increasing the cycle and
then allowing wild weatherevents to occur in other places
that could affect our access toclean water but also can impact
the growth of plant beneficialbacteria.
Like it's all so interconnectedand it's such a web and there's
so much nuance to it.
And there's definitely probablya lot of really cool permafrost

(52:29):
things that we can dive into inanother episode.
But this is really the gist ofwhat I wanted to bring up for
bacteria.
And I think it's just soimportant as we kind of wrap up
this episode to think about howeverything we've talked about
has some interconnection, right?
Because it's not just a dominoeffect.
It's so much more than that thatthere's basically this entire
web and every time we'replucking a string of it,
everything else is also movingwith it.

(52:50):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (52:51):
Yeah I think that's a beautiful way to summarize it
because really we've talkedabout so much in this one
episode.
We started talking about fungusand then we went to oh no we
started with parasitestechnically and then we went to
fungi and then we went toviruses and bacteria.
So yeah that is a really goodway to summarize things Camille
and just recognize howinterconnected everything is

(53:11):
which is what we talk about somuch in this podcast when it
comes down to it.

SPEAKER_01 (53:15):
Yeah yeah absolutely interconnectivity is I feel like
what we always come back to.

SPEAKER_05 (53:20):
Yeah there's just such a delicate equilibrium when
it comes to so many of thesefactors in the world and how
they come and interplay, no?
And that's something that Ithink you summed that up
absolutely beautifully Camillethis was a great note I think to
end the episode on and I hope weget a chance to dig in to more
about these permafrost pathogensbecause they're quite something

(53:40):
to behold all right.

unknown (53:41):
So um yeah.

SPEAKER_03 (53:43):
Sorry I miss that part it's just totally cut off.

SPEAKER_01 (53:46):
That's all right that's all right you'll have to
listen to it when it hits theSpotify and Apple Podcasts and
all that stuff.

SPEAKER_04 (53:53):
Yes.

SPEAKER_01 (53:54):
All right cool thank you everyone so much for joining
us for this episode ofInfectious Science.
We're glad to be here with youand we appreciate you listening.
Let us know what you want tohear about.
Feel free to reach out to us anduntil next time stay safe stay
healthy think about fungi andhow cool they are thinking to

(54:16):
contribute to meeting kind ofthe crisis of our time.

SPEAKER_06 (54:20):
Yeah totally absolutely I think one of the
big key takeaways that we gotfrom this episode is climate
change doesn't just affect thefuture generations it really
does affect us in the now andour health and I think that's
something that is important torecognize so if this episode
taught you anything let it bethat yeah thanks for listening

(54:41):
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SPEAKER_00 (54:51):
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SPEAKER_01 (55:09):
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