Eclectic Living
Robert Lustig has been espousing the view for years that sugar is the new cocaine. I've only done cocaine once, and I can safely say that it had a little bit more of an effect on me than sugar does. But the cumulative effects of all the sugar inundating our society are no doubt more... Continue Reading →
Philosophy attempts to answer some of the most profound questions: what is truth, what is beauty, what is the meaning of life, how do you know that you believe you have socks on? Well, maybe the latter question wasn't foremost on the mind of Socrates. But, in a New York Times article, Professor Quassim Cassam... Continue Reading →
I think of memories as a continuous complex chemical cycle in which neurons relay information from an event to one another. Over time, the cycle fades, sometimes disappearing completely. When we recall an event, new neural connections are made, and the cycle is refreshed, but details may be missing or have even changed - what... Continue Reading →
Some scientists get to have a lot of fun. "Hey, let's do an experiment where we get to shock people - there are endless possibilities here. Oh, and maybe we'll learn some stuff." These scientists determined that people would sacrifice a certain amount of pay not to be shocked (no surprise there), but they would sacrifice... Continue Reading →
I committed a double homicide this week. Two of the little suckers in one trap, the promise of some yummy peanut butter just millimeters away. We tried to give them every opportunity to avail themselves of the no-kill traps, but after one of their brethren found himself so incarcerated (he was later released at the... Continue Reading →
Which statement most closely describes how you feel: 1. I care about all people (even if they're from another country), the environment, and the future of our planet. 2. I care about people (especially people from my country and people like me), the environment (especially my environment), and my kids. 3. I care about middle class Americans... Continue Reading →
Linnaeus probably couldn't have guessed that we would one day be able to classify organisms by sequencing and comparing large chunks of their genomes (since he didn't know what a genome was). That's what phylogenomics does, and it's leading to rapid advances in our understanding of how life evolved. In the late '90s, my dad... Continue Reading →
According to this Science blurb, American children are prescribed antibiotics 57% of the time for respiratory infections, which are only 27% bacterial, resulting in 11 million unwarranted antibiotic prescriptions each year. This is increasing antibiotic resistance and, the article fails to mention, wreaking unnecessary havoc with our good microbes.
Not to be too much of a grotesque, but even flu vaccines are affected by our gut microbiota. Science reports that certain bacteria in the gut increase the efficacy of the flu vaccine. Keep those guts healthy!
Score one for conspiracy theorists. Our minds are being controlled by outside forces - but Obama and DARPA aren't to blame.* In keeping with the theme that little critters have a lot more to do with our world than we thought, at least two of these (a protozoan and a virus) are widespread in humans and... Continue Reading →
Poppa's Cottage 