Friday, May 18, 2007
Loooong Week
My first week of my internship has been tons of fun, but very busy. Thus, here are a ton of quick-link type things to the many big important sciencey news stories that are going on:
American and Japanese people read faces very differently, the former focusing on the mouth and the latter on eyes. It makes for a very interesting contrast, and has interesting implications even beyond emoticons - :-) versus (^_^).
Taking tons of vitamin supplements may be linked to more malignant and fatal cancers: bloody eat your vegetables and take less pills people!
British food is notoriously tasteless: it may also be less nutritious! A Warwick study found that boiling brassicas (broccoli and the like) for 30 minutes severely reduces the amount of cancer-fighting glucosinolate in the meal. Why the fuck would you boil a vegetable for 30 minutes, even if you're English?!?!?
California researchers found that N-acetylglucosamine, which is similar to but is NOT the popular supplement glucosamine, may help block the autoimmune responses seen in multiple sclerosis and diabetes type I. Cool!
US still has worst, most expensive healthcare in the "industrialized world."
The US and DC have reached agreement on a plan to 'fix' St. Elizabeth's Hospital...including such lofty goals as halting patient abuse. This old place has been in trouble for so long, that it'll be really kinda weird if they ever do fix it up! But I hope they do, since aside from being necessary to help mental patients in DC, it's a gorgeous old campus.
And the NIH has given Erin Brockovich more to crow about. They've finally released findings that Chromium 6 may indeed cause cancer by ingestion, not just inhalation. Whether or not this means that the EPA will actually act to reduce its release into the environment is an entirely different issue.
American and Japanese people read faces very differently, the former focusing on the mouth and the latter on eyes. It makes for a very interesting contrast, and has interesting implications even beyond emoticons - :-) versus (^_^).
Taking tons of vitamin supplements may be linked to more malignant and fatal cancers: bloody eat your vegetables and take less pills people!
British food is notoriously tasteless: it may also be less nutritious! A Warwick study found that boiling brassicas (broccoli and the like) for 30 minutes severely reduces the amount of cancer-fighting glucosinolate in the meal. Why the fuck would you boil a vegetable for 30 minutes, even if you're English?!?!?
California researchers found that N-acetylglucosamine, which is similar to but is NOT the popular supplement glucosamine, may help block the autoimmune responses seen in multiple sclerosis and diabetes type I. Cool!
US still has worst, most expensive healthcare in the "industrialized world."
The US and DC have reached agreement on a plan to 'fix' St. Elizabeth's Hospital...including such lofty goals as halting patient abuse. This old place has been in trouble for so long, that it'll be really kinda weird if they ever do fix it up! But I hope they do, since aside from being necessary to help mental patients in DC, it's a gorgeous old campus.
And the NIH has given Erin Brockovich more to crow about. They've finally released findings that Chromium 6 may indeed cause cancer by ingestion, not just inhalation. Whether or not this means that the EPA will actually act to reduce its release into the environment is an entirely different issue.
Labels: autoimmune, cancer, chromium, culture, DC, diabetes, emotion, health, healthcare, mental health, science, St. Elizabeth's
Monday, March 26, 2007
Angry Sex and Chocolate
No, it's not (just) what I did last night. A Leeds PhD candidate has written reveals, in her forthcoming thesis, the blindingly obvious fact that people liked porn even before the modern era (anyone surprised by this should take a Japanese art history class). Her work focused on erotic literature published in the 1700's in England, and she found that public and group readings were not uncommon, and that even the poor (who were considered illiterate because they could not write, but could read) were at least as big fans as the gentry. She also found that much of the material was, er, not especially complimentary towards women.
What they didn't have in the 18th century, on the other hand, was oral contraception. Unfortunately, it seems that modern women may also stop having that too, thanks to a 2005 Medicare-budget-slash which stopped incentives for pharmaceutical companies to provide pill discounts to school health facilities.
Once all of our current college students have their babies, they will have to worry about caring for them. Science, unfortunately, is no help there: studies indicate that good-quality child care is both good and bad for kids. I wonder what the actual research publications say (as opposed to whatThe Weekly ReaderUSA Today says).
What goes with sex? Anger! And testosterone. A study has found that viewing angry faces stimulate learning and cognitive performance in people with high testosterone. This really has little to do with sex, but it was fun to try and make the association.
To have sex at all, you want to be in good health. What's good for you? Chocolate!!! Another study has found that eating dark chocolate improves circulatory health, and doesn't necessarily lead to weight gain. Also, blueberries might help prevent bowel cancer. And aren't chocolate-covered blueberries an aphrodisiac?
What they didn't have in the 18th century, on the other hand, was oral contraception. Unfortunately, it seems that modern women may also stop having that too, thanks to a 2005 Medicare-budget-slash which stopped incentives for pharmaceutical companies to provide pill discounts to school health facilities.
Once all of our current college students have their babies, they will have to worry about caring for them. Science, unfortunately, is no help there: studies indicate that good-quality child care is both good and bad for kids. I wonder what the actual research publications say (as opposed to what
What goes with sex? Anger! And testosterone. A study has found that viewing angry faces stimulate learning and cognitive performance in people with high testosterone. This really has little to do with sex, but it was fun to try and make the association.
To have sex at all, you want to be in good health. What's good for you? Chocolate!!! Another study has found that eating dark chocolate improves circulatory health, and doesn't necessarily lead to weight gain. Also, blueberries might help prevent bowel cancer. And aren't chocolate-covered blueberries an aphrodisiac?
Labels: anger, child care, chocolate, cognition, college, contraception, emotion, erotica, kids, medicare, porn, pregnancy, pron, sex, testosterone, women
Monday, December 04, 2006
Brain Dead Babies
When humans get mad cow disease, it's called variant Creutzfeldt Jakob disease (vCJD), and it kills them within about a year. What few treatments exist are ultimately ineffective. Research using RNA interference now suggests a possible way to slow the disease progress - treated mice lived much longer with a prion illness than did controls.
However, the mice had to be treated embryonically, so it's not clear how this will apply to humans, and it is possible that interfering with healthy prion production could have serious side effects. We shall see.
Speaking of brain damage: it seems that psychopaths do not process fearful faces the same way non-psychopaths do. Psychopathic subjects' brains were observed to 'light up' less than controls' when shown pictures of fearful faces, while they were the same for happy faces.
Miscarriage is an extremely traumatic event, and its causes are often utterly mysterious, but a study of 600 UK women whose pregnancies lasted more than 12 weeks suggests a number of factors that may play a role. First of all, underweight women are more likely to miscarry. No shock here, as being underweight is often associated with amenorrhea and fertility problems. Single women, and those who don't take vitamins or eat chocolate are also at increased risk. So ladies? Get thee to Godiva!
However, the mice had to be treated embryonically, so it's not clear how this will apply to humans, and it is possible that interfering with healthy prion production could have serious side effects. We shall see.
Speaking of brain damage: it seems that psychopaths do not process fearful faces the same way non-psychopaths do. Psychopathic subjects' brains were observed to 'light up' less than controls' when shown pictures of fearful faces, while they were the same for happy faces.
Miscarriage is an extremely traumatic event, and its causes are often utterly mysterious, but a study of 600 UK women whose pregnancies lasted more than 12 weeks suggests a number of factors that may play a role. First of all, underweight women are more likely to miscarry. No shock here, as being underweight is often associated with amenorrhea and fertility problems. Single women, and those who don't take vitamins or eat chocolate are also at increased risk. So ladies? Get thee to Godiva!
Labels: anorexia, chocolate, emotion, faces, fMRI, mad cow, miscarriage, pregnancy, prion, psychopathy, RNAi, vCJD
