sciencetolife | April 22, 2008
This post from one of my favorite blogs, AfriGadget, highlights interesting ways that Africans are modifying cell phones for their unique technological needs. It is based on the author's (Erik Hersman) conversation with Jan Chipchase, a design and usability ethnographer for Nokia, who travels around the world to explore how mobile phones are used worldwide and then reports his findings back to Nokia's design team. He explains:
While exploring in Africa [Jan] found a booming market of hackers and mobile phone mechanics who are doing all kinds of interesting things such as creating new mobile…
sciencetolife | April 17, 2008This NPR report describes how researchers in Oregon have adapted a technique to administer citywide drug tests using sewage. The research team, led by Dr. Jennifer Field, is part of a relatively new field of science called "sewage epidemiology".
The purpose of this kind of research is to figure out which illegal drugs are being used by residents of different neighborhoods and create a map of illegal drug use across the state. Their technique can detect such illegal drugs as cocaine, methamphetamines, heroin, LSD and ecstasy.
The researchers believe that studies like this can help people at…
sciencetolife | April 14, 2008Researchers at Penn State have concluded that satisfactory sexual intercourse for couples lasts from three to 13 minutes, contrary to popular fantasy about the need for hours of sexual activity. They arrived at these conclusions by conducting a survey of U.S. and Canadian sex therapists and published their findings in the May issue of the Journal of Sexual Medicine.
In this blog entry, Val Willingham, Medical Producer at CNN, echoes my feelings about this type of research:
"I realize sex studies will continue," he says. "But wouldn't it be nice if the money they put into this kind of…
sciencetolife | April 14, 2008The largest road safety research project ever launched in Europe will usher in a series of powerful road-safety systems for European cars. But, in the long term, its basic, experimental research could lead to a car that is virtually uncrashable.
Read the rest of this Science Daily article.
ICT Results (2008, April 12). Road Safety: The Uncrashable Car?. ScienceDaily. Retrieved April 14, 2008, from http://www.sciencedaily.com
sciencetolife | April 8, 2008I recently co-founded a group called the Science Writers Association of Emory (SWAE). It was created out of an overwhelming interest in science journalism and medical writing among Emory graduate students.
We were lucky enough to get the support of our Graduate Division of Biological and Biomedical Sciences as well as the Journalism Department.
With their support we decided to create (write, edit & publish) a science magazine that would provide Emory grad students the opportunity to showcase their science writing skills and build up their writing portfolios.
To date, we have organized…
sciencetolife | March 26, 2008
The March 2008 issue of Nature has a great editorial piece on the current (and future) state of science in news media. The article draws heavily on new information released by The Pew Research Center in a report called The State of the News Media 2008.
It discusses the glaringly evident problem of waning science coverage in news media.
Here are the main points:
1.Apparently, science coverage has never been very high in news media. It hovered around 4-6% (of total news coverage) from the mid-1970s until 2001 and is currently down to about 2%.
2.The problem doesn't appear to be just with…
sciencetolife | March 21, 2008The death of a euthanasia-advocate, who suffered from a debilitating cancer that ate away at her face, has re-kindled the debate over doctor-assisted suicide in France. A French law adopted in 2005 allows terminally ill people to refuse treatment in favor of death but stops short of allowing active euthanasia, says this CNN article. Interestingly, active euthanasia is legal in some neighboring countries like Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and Switzerland. Read more here.
sciencetolife | March 18, 2008
Two MIT pharmaceutical industry experts believe that the mounting U.S. drug price crisis can be contained and eventually reversed by separating drug discovery from drug marketing and by establishing a non-profit company to oversee funding for new medicines.
The experts are Stan Finkelstein, M.D., senior research scientist in MIT's Engineering Systems Division, and Peter Temin, Elisha Gray II Professor of Economics and they detail their proposal in their new book, "Reasonable Rx: Solving the Drug Price Crisis" (published by Financial Times Press).
Drawing on recent history, they propose…
sciencetolife | March 12, 2008Bora Zivkovic, my fellow SciBling from 'A Blog Around the Clock', was gracious enough to interview me as part of his interview series from the 2008 North Carolina Science Blogging Conference. Check it out here.
sciencetolife | March 6, 2008
Parts of the Southeastern U.S (where I live) have been experiencing severe drought conditions for months. Droughts can have significant environmental and economic impacts on a community.
According to this press release, aridity is on the increase across the globe, as is the world population, and it is important that increasingly dry areas should be taken into cultivation to ensure food production.
Researchers from the University of Helsinki and the University of California in San Diego have discovered a plant gene that could help in the development of drought-tolerant crops.
Here's a…
sciencetolife | February 28, 2008This fun article by Christina Laun at BootStrapper explains 100 weird, wacky, and interesting facts about the human body. Here are a few of my favorites:
1.The largest cell in the human body is the female egg and the smallest is the male sperm.
2. The brain is much more active at night than during the day.
3. During your lifetime, you will produce enough saliva to fill two swimming pools.
4. Your nose can remember 50,000 different scents.
5. Women's hearts beat faster than men's.
6. Your eyes are always the same size from birth (but your nose and ears never stop growing).
7. On any given day…
sciencetolife | February 21, 2008
After four years of deliberation, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced today that meat from cloned animals and their offspring is safe to eat.
Read more in this Wired article.
Image: Matt Batchelder
sciencetolife | February 15, 2008What some are calling "Wiihab" is fast becoming a craze in rehabilitation centers across the country.
Wiihab is the use of Nintendo's Wii video game system as a physical therapy tool for patients recovering from strokes, broken bones, surgery and even combat injuries. The gaming system is said to provide patients with improved endurance, strength, coordination and entertainment all at the same time.
Wii games (especially sports games like baseball, bowling, boxing, golf and tennis) appear to be useful in physical therapy because they require body movements similar to traditional therapy…
sciencetolife | February 12, 2008
ScienceDebate2008, an initiative calling for a presidential debate on science and technology policy, today announced that it has formally invited the presidential candidates to a debate on April 18 at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, four days before the Pennsylvania Primary.
ScienceDebate2008, is spearheaded by ScienceBloggers Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum, among others, and has garnered over 10,000 supporters to date including endorsements from the National Academy of Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
Click here to learn more about…
sciencetolife | February 6, 2008
Scientists are using T-Ray technology in a new way-to help uncover murals that have been hidden under layers of plaster or paint in old buildings.
T-Rays (which are pulses of terahertz radiation that were previously used in space shuttle devices) have now been applied to this new technology by a team of researchers that includes scientists at the University of Michigan and the Louvre Museum.
Their findings are published in a paper entitled "Terahertz imaging for non-destructive evaluation of mural paintings," in the February 2008 edition of Optics Communications.
"Terahertz is a…
sciencetolife | February 3, 2008
NASA recently signed an agreement with the Indian Space Research Organization to continue collaborating with each other in the exploration and use of outer space for peaceful purposes.
"This agreement will allow us to cooperate effectively on a wide range of programs of mutual interest. India has extensive space-related experience, capabilities and infrastructure, and will continue to be a welcome partner in NASA's future space exploration activities," said NASA Administrator Michael Griffin.
This new agreement aims to extend a similar agreement first signed in 1997 to foster bilateral…
sciencetolife | January 30, 2008
Andrea Gawrylewski from "The Scientist" has written a nice blog post describing new research that addresses whether adult brains learn by neurogenesis (the birth of new neurons).
In the blog she writes:
While researchers agree that the birth of new neurons plays an important role in the adult brain, they have long debated to which aspects of learning, memory and behavior the process contributes. A new study published today (January 30) in Nature has used a gene knockout approach to link adult neurogenesis to spatial learning. The paper showed that adult mice that were deficient for a…
sciencetolife | January 28, 2008
This weekend I attended the NHL All-Star game in Atlanta and was impressed to learn about the Hockey Fights Cancer program.
Hockey Fights Cancer is a joint initiative founded in
December 1998 by the National Hockey League and the
National Hockey League Players' Association to raise
money and awareness for hockey's most important fight.According to the Hockey Fights Cancer website, the organization has raised over $6 million to support cancer research through fund-raising initiatives such as the annual Hockey Fights Cancer On-Line Charity Auction.
If you want to help in the fight against…
sciencetolife | January 23, 2008
New research from the University of Bristol shows that by
suppressing one of the genes that normally switches on in wound
cells, wounds can heal faster and reduce scarring.
This has major implications not just for wound victims but also
for people who suffer organ tissue damage through illness or
abdominal surgery. Read more here.
Image: Treating skin wounds (blue) with osteopontin antisense DNA (bottom) reduces the size of wound granulation tissue (area between arrows) and results in reduced scarring. Photo by Dr Ryoichi Mori
sciencetolife | January 16, 2008
Men develop liver cancer at twice the rate of women in the United States, according to the American Cancer Society. Considering that the liver is a non-reproductive organ, this is quite a difference.
A research team led by Dr. Arlin Rogers, an experimental pathologist at MIT, looked at the gender differences in hepatocellular carcinoma, a male-predominant liver cancer that is associated with chronic hepatitis.
It turns out that: Male and female livers are inherently different, with most of the differences arising during puberty when male livers are exposed to periodic bursts of growth…