{"podcast":{"title":"This Week in Microbiology","slug":"this-week-in-microbiology-1045713","podcast_index_feed_id":1045713,"rss_url":"https://twimshow.libsyn.com/rss","website_url":"http://www.asm.org/twim/","image_url":"https://static.libsyn.com/p/assets/a/4/a/b/a4ab14edd084774e16c3140a3186d450/TWiM_2026-1400.jpg","author":"American Society for Microbiology","episode_count":360,"summary":"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.","last_synced_at":"2026-07-19T06:19:00.683301+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/this-week-in-microbiology-1045713"},"episode":{"title":"337: Lifestyles of the Plasmids","slug":"337-lifestyles-of-the-plasmids","published_at":"2025-07-31T10:00:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/this-week-in-microbiology-1045713/337-lifestyles-of-the-plasmids","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/this-week-in-microbiology-1045713","url":"https://www.microbe.tv/twim/twim-337/","audio_url":"https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/twimshow/TWiM337.mp3?dest-id=53322","summary":"TWiM explains a study that examines pathogen presence in ancient humans and concludes that zoonoses emerged 6500 years ago with the domestication of livestock, and determination of universal rules that govern plasmid copy number. Hosts: Vincent Racaniello , Michael Schmidt , Michele Swanson , and Petra Levin Guests: Mark O. Martin Become a patron of TWiM. Links for this episode: Human pathogens in ancient Eurasia (Nature) What once ailed us (NY Times) Rules of plasmid copy number (Nature Comm) Scaling laws of plasmids (Nature Comm) 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","meta_description":"TWiM explains a study that examines pathogen presence in ancient humans and concludes that zoonoses emerged 6500 years ago with the domestication of lives…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":3884,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/this-week-in-microbiology-1045713/episodes/337-lifestyles-of-the-plasmids/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/this-week-in-microbiology-1045713/337-lifestyles-of-the-plasmids.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}