Hosts: Vincent Racaniello and Dickson Despommier
Guest: Aidan Racaniello
Vincent, Dick, and Aidan discuss how viral infections play prominent roles in notable video games. Three games are discussed: World of Warcraft, Pandemic II, and Bioshock.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
An article on how World of Warcraft became a model for the transmission of virus infections was published in Lancet Infectious Diseases. The title of the article is “The untapped potential of virtual game worlds to shed light on real world epidemics.”
After we did the netcast we learned of a game for the iPhone called ‘Virus’. In this game your body is infected with a virus, and you must clear the infection by controlling white blood cells. The game is at the iTunes App store.
Science podcast pick of the week: MicrobiologyBytes.
TWiV is now part of Sciencepodcasters.
Download TWiV #7 (23.1 MB .mp3)
Episode transcript (pdf)
Subscribe to TWiV in iTunes or by the RSS feed.
