The Human Body
sciencetolife | June 23, 2008Nicholas Carr set out to explore how the ubiquity of text on the Internet is affecting our brains, after realizing that his increased Internet use may be affecting his ability to concentrate on reading long, detailed texts. His essay is published in the July/August issue of The Atlantic
"Over the past few years I've had an uncomfortable sense that someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain," he says. "The deep reading that use to come naturally has become a struggle."
As the Internet becomes a universal conduit for most of the information that flows through our eyes and…
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 | 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 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 | September 1, 2007
Sexuality in old age
Human beings are living longer, women more so than men. Among people 85 years of age and older, there are 4 men for every 10 women. What happens to sexuality in older age? Read more in this BBC News story or from the original NEJM paper.
Cut Calories and live longer-latest research
A University of Florida study shows just how much the body benefits when it "goes green," at least if you're a rat: Cutting calories helps rodents live longer by boosting cells' ability to recycle damaged parts so they can maintain efficient energy production.More from Science Daily.
New…
sciencetolife | August 25, 2007
Is depression overdiagnosed in today's society?
Yes, says Professor Gordon Parker in the August 18 2007 issue of the British Medical Journal.
Rates of diagnosis of depression have risen steeply in recent years. Parker, a scientia professor from the School of Psychiatry, University of New South Wales, believes this is because current criteria for diagnosis are medicalising emotions (like sadness) rather than true clinical depression.
Reasons for the overdiagnosis include lack of a reliable and valid diagnostic model and marketing of treatments beyond their true utility in a climate of…
sciencetolife | August 9, 2007The first report that gene therapy could enhance muscle in a mouse model was published in 2004.
Since then, it has become of increasing concern that some unscrupulous athletes may consider gene therapy as a viable alternative to steroid injection (a term called gene doping) in the quest to enhance their athletic ability.
Gene doping, as defined by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), is "the non-therapeutic use of cells, genes, genetic elements, or of the modulation of gene expression, having the capacity to improve athletic performance."
In the wake of recent Tour de France drug…
sciencetolife | July 23, 2007
Caution for bungee jumping enthusiasts!
The July "Images in Clinical Medicine" section of The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) presents a 25-year-old patient who went bungee jumping and developed a hemorrhage in the left eye. The image was contributed by Atul K. Jain, M.D. and Michael Gaynon, M.D. of Stanford University.
Here is an explanation taken directly from NEJM:
A 25-year-old woman with no clinically significant medical history and with normal coagulation and hematologic studies went bungee jumping from a vertical height of 150 ft (45.7 m). Immediately afterward, she…
sciencetolife | July 9, 2007
Researchers from Harvard University and McGill University are conducting research on a drug that appears to be able to "dampen" the psychological and physiological stress associated with remembering traumatic events.
The drug is called propranolol. It has been around for over two decades and the idea that it can be used to alter memory has been floating around for over a decade.
This is by no means a way to "erase" bad memories but the research is interesting nonetheless.
These latest research findings on how propranolol affects memories is published in the Journal of Psychiatric Research…
sciencetolife | March 14, 2007Autism is a complex and mysterious condition. It is a brain disorder that can affect a person's communication or social development skills but can also be related to extraordinary mental abilities such as those found in autistic savants.
With the creation of the Autism Genome Project in 2002, researchers around the world set out to collaborate and identify autism susceptibility genes.
In preliminary findings published in Nature Genetics Yale School of Medicine researchers Fred Volkmar, M.D. and Ami Klin have identified a gene called neurexin 1.
Neurexin 1 is part of a family of genes…
sciencetolife | March 8, 2007
I was recently invited to the screening of a new HBO documentary series called "Addiction". I had the pleasure of meeting the filmmakers as well as some of the medical experts, like Nora D. Volkow M.D. and Mark Willenbring M.D., who helped shed light on this phenomenon. I was quite amazed at what I learned about the science of addiction, its new perception as a 'chronic but treatable brain disease' and the many misconceptions surrounding it.
If addiction is a brain disease, I wondered: how does one 'get' the disease and why are some people more prone to 'get' it than others?
According to…
sciencetolife | February 12, 2007 Ever listen to a piece of music and get that "shiver-down-the-spine" feeling? Scientists in Canada are trying to understand this and other phenomena that connect music and the brain.
The researchers, based at the International Laboratory for Brain, Music, and Sound Research (BRAMS) in Montreal, have set out to understand how and why the human brain allows us to create and respond to music.
The relationship between music and language is one area the research team, headed by Dr. Isabelle Peretz, a neuropsychologist at the University of Montreal, and Dr. Robert Zatorre, an experimental…
sciencetolife | February 7, 2007Scientists have discovered that the bacterium that causes most cases of stomach ulcers has been hanging around in human guts for over 60,000 years. Read more.
sciencetolife | February 6, 2007 A cup of coffee or a nap? Which would you prefer to get you through the hump of a tiring workday?
While the cup of coffee may seem more practical, taking a midday nap is becoming more convenient in New York City.
The New York Times recently wrote about a spa in New York City (called Yelo) that has started selling 20-40 minute naps for stressed out professionals and executives from $12 a session.
While the idea of paying for a nap (which can be had for free) may be absurd, it begs the question:
Is there any health value to taking midday naps?
Some scientists agree, as I discovered in…
sciencetolife | January 26, 2007The BBC One television series Secrets of the Sexes scientifically explores the idea that men and women's brains are wired differently. Do you have a woman's brain or a man's brain? To find out what your brain sex is, take their Sex ID test.
The test is interesting and gives brief scientific explanations based on your score.
Not surprisingly, my brain sex is female.