Podcast For Progress

In this episode, I talk about the science fiction movie ANYA with its creators, Anthropologist Dr. Carylanna Taylor, and Jacob Okada of First Encounter Productions (not a sponsor). The plot of ANYA could happen today! It all starts with a couple in New York that has difficulty having a baby. The groom is a member of the Narval People who keep to themselves - mostly because they think there is a curse that prohibits them from having children with anyone but other members of the community. They bring in a geneticist to find out why they are having problems procreating, and this is where the story becomes interesting. Listen to the Full Conversation on Patreon! As his assistant accidentally analyzes the genome of Marco (Gil Perez-Abraham), an expert in neanderthal genomes Seymour (Motell Foster) finds a mutation that may explain the problem. The change in the genome happened in an "Ultra-Conserved Element", a real genetic phenomenon where certain regions in a gene never change. His hypothesis is th