Infectious Dose

S2E37 Every Clade, Everywhere, All at Once: The Strange Emergence of Candida auris

A fungus appears in hospitals on different continents. You assume it started somewhere and spread. Then scientists sequence it and discover that the story is much strange

S2E36 Because Mom Said So: The Infection Myths We Grew Up With

Put on a coat. Dry your hair. Don’t sit on that toilet seat. Green snot means antibiotics. And if food hits the floor, you have five seconds. But how much of the infecti

Outbreak Watch: August 28, 2026

In this Outbreak Watch, we return to the outbreaks and signals we’ve been tracking...and several have changed.  New genomic evidence is revealing the hidden early months

S2E35 Campfire Curiosities: The Can, the Crabs, and the Note

Somebody's roommate's cousin definitely knows the person this happened to. This month on Outbreak After Dark, pull up a chair for an evening of infectious-disease urban

S2E34 Night Hike: Following Microbes Into the Dark

What changes when the sun goes down? In the final episode of From Sunrise to Starlight, we're heading down a summer trail as dusk gives way to darkness, following the mi

S2E33 Afternoon Picnic: How Microbes Move Through a Summer Meal

It’s afternoon in our journey From Sunrise to Starlight, and we’re spreading out the picnic blanket. This week, we’re following the hidden microbial pathways running thr

Booster Dose - The Vaccine Executive Order: What You Need to Know

The guy in the white house signed a new executive order changing federal childhood vaccine policy. So what actually changed and what does it mean for families? In this b

Outbreak Watch: August 7, 2026

Ebola nears 4,000 confirmed cases in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, New World screwworm continues circulating in Texas, and the U.S. cyclosporiasis outbreak is exp

S2E32 Morning Swim: The Hidden Microbial World of Freshwater Lakes

A summer morning at the lake is about swimming, skipping stones, dragonflies, and family memories, but it's also the perfect opportunity to explore one of nature's most f

S2E31 For Medicinal Purposes: Whiskey, Jazz, and Germs

Medicine. Contraband. Comfort. Step inside a hidden 1920s speakeasy where the jazz is live, the whiskey is illegal, and one of the most surprising chapters in medical hi

S2E30 Do No Harm: The Birth of Infection Prevention

For much of history, entering a hospital could be one of the most dangerous decisions a person could make. Patients survived injuries and operations only to die from infe

Outbreak Watch: July 17, 2026

In this edition of Outbreak Watch, we provide a current briefing on the major outbreaks unfolding now, including Ebola in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda,

S2E29 A Shot in the Dark: The Science That Outsmarted Smallpox

For most of human history, epidemics were something people endured—not prevented. Smallpox alone killed hundreds of millions of people, leaving survivors scarred, blinded

S2E28 Holding the Line: How Prevention Became Military Strategy

For much of history, disease claimed more soldiers than combat. In this episode of Infectious Dose, we trace the evolution of military preventive medicine—from the Revol

S2E27 On the Fly: Lessons From a Screwworm

In the mid‑20th century, ranchers across the southern United States watched livestock being literally eaten alive by a flesh‑eating parasite: New World screwworm. This ep

S2E26 Dusk Hunters: The Anatomy of a Blood Meal

June's Summer Rain series wraps up with a tribute to Gulf Coast mosquitoes. In this episode of Outbreak After Dark, Heather and Kate explore the anatomy of a mosquito bi

Outbreak Watch: Line of Sight

Outbreak Watch returns with updates on three unfolding biological events and the systems responding to them. This week: • The Bundibugyo Ebola outbreak in the Democrati

S2E25 Listening for Rain: Microbes, Memories, and Summer Storms

You can smell rain before it arrives. The air changes. The wind shifts. And somehow, before the first drop falls, you already know a storm is coming. In this immersive

S2E24 The Tick, the Table, and the Timeline: How a Tick Bite Rewrites Dinner

In this episode of Infectious Dose, Heather explores one of the strangest allergic conditions modern medicine has ever identified: a syndrome in which a tick bite can tri

S2E23 Storm Surge: Microbes in the Wake of a Hurricane

In this episode of Infectious Dose, Heather explores the infectious disease risks that follow hurricanes, tropical storms, and flooding events. Learn how severe weather c