011 - Genetics with Heather Ritchie and Johanna Weston

Alan is stranded out in the Pacific and Thom is left to present a show on genetics, a topic so confusing to him it may as well be magic. Luckily, friends of the show are on hand. Dr Heather Ritchie is tricked into co-hosting and we talk to Dr Johanna Weston about the things we can learn about the deep sea from genetic analysis.

 

Alan has found a way to get audio logs to us (pretty sure a Holtzman Wave isn’t a thing) and shares what he has been up to out at sea – it turns out, a lot! Listen in for lots of exclusives. This includes an interview with sub-pilot Tim Macdonald from inside the Limiting Factor at over 10,000 m depth. We are pretty sure this is the world deepest interview. The Deep-Sea Podcast lives up to its name, the deepest podcast around.

 

In recent news we discuss how our immune system doesn’t recognise deep-sea bacteria (and how that may be a good thing) and Thom gushes about his new favourite thing… blackwater photography.

Don Walsh tells us about inspecting ex-soviet reactors and discovering he is standing on top of a running one and Thom and Heather tell the tale of acquiring a -80 ℃ freezer in New Caledonia.

 

Feel free to get in touch with us with questions or you own tales from the high seas on:

podcast@armatusoceanic.com

 

Read the show notes and find out more about us at:

www.armatusoceanic.com

 

Links

Deep-sea bacterial invisible to human immune system

Blackwater photography article

Blackwater photography paper

‘The Code’ - INTERNATIONAL CODE OF ZOOLOGICAL NOMENCLATURE

The genetic code database – GenBank

You can track where Alan currently is here

 

Glossary
Morphology – the shape of somethings body
Molecular – Sometimes we say ‘molecular data’ when talking about DNA and RNA genetic data
Taxonomy – The science of classifying living things