Humanity – Page 129

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No Pain, No Gain Explained: Lactic Acid Supercharges Your Engines

April 21, 2006

The old paradigm: lactic acid buildup during exercise is like poison to your muscles, producing stiffness and agony. The new paradigm: lactic acid is your friend, a fuel additive that helps keep your mitochondrial motors in top-notch condition. Read all about it in a press release from UC Berkeley. What are you waiting for? It’s […]

Cell Biology

Misfolded Proteins Cause Cascade of Harmful Effects

March 12, 2006

There are a myriad ways a polypeptide chain could collapse into a shapeless mass.

Amazing Facts

In Praise of Fat

March 6, 2006

Well, great balls of fat. Cells have spherical globs of lipid (fat) molecules that never had gotten much attention nor respect. They have been called lipid droplets, oil bodies, fat globules and other names suggesting they were just the beer bellies of the cell. Not any more. Scientists have been taking a closer look at […]

Amazing Facts

Why You Have Snail Shells in Your Ears

February 28, 2006

The inner ear has a part, the cochlea, that resembles a snail shell. Why is that? First, let’s talk about iPods and stereos. In recent years, manufacturers have hyped “mega-bass” and other buzzwords that boast about how their devices beef up the bass frequency for that sound that rocks. Scientists have wondered if the cochlea […]

Human Body

Space Travel Too Hazardous for Humans

February 1, 2006

Astronomy magazine’s March 2006 issue contains a couple of sobering articles for those who like to dream of humans mastering the universe. Asking “Will moon dust stop NASA?”, Trudy E. Bell described the dangers of space dust: “it sticks to spacesuits, wreaks havoc on equipment, and may be physically harmful,” she wrote, citing the experiences […]

Early Man

Where Did Humans Learn Geometry?

January 22, 2006

In Plato’s dialogue Meno, Socrates illustrated his view that certain foundations of knowledge are innate rather than learned.1 He took an untutored slave boy and, with a series of sketches in the sand, got the boy to deduce the Pythagorean Theorem by his own reasoning (see Encarta). In a modern version, Harvard scientists […]

Amazing Facts

Why Your Brain Has Gray Matter, and Why You Should Use It

January 13, 2006

Vertebrate brains have an outer layer of “gray matter” over the inner “white matter.” Why is this? “By borrowing mathematical tools from theoretical physics,” a press release from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory announced, two researchers found out. Based on no fewer than 62 mathematical equations and expressions, the theory provides a possible explanation for the […]

Human Body

These Feet Were Made for Walking (and Running)

January 5, 2006

We usually walk or run. When walking, we roll from heel to arch to toe and rock our arms back and forth. When running, we bounce up and down slightly while pumping our arms. Did you know that many other gaits are possible? Why do we use only two? A team of specialists in bio-robotics […]

Amazing Facts

Health Depends on Robust Cell Machinery

January 5, 2006

When we think of health, we typically visualize the big things: firm muscles, energy, lack of a protruding stomach and the like. Cell biology, though, is showing us how our health depends on the proper functioning of countless myriads of molecular machines. Here are some recent samples from the science journals: Heroic Underdogs in the […]

Health

Abortion Pill Can Kill

December 28, 2005

An ugly secret has come out of the abortion drug mifepristone known as RU486. It can kill normal, healthy women, and its approval by the FDA involved procedural violations that overlooked known safety concerns at the time. Source: Annals of Pharmacotherapy news release (see also EurekAlert). The research paper by Margaret M. Gary, MD and […]

Health

Health from Unlikely Sources: Poison and Scum

December 27, 2005

“Everything in moderation,” health professionals remind us during the holidays. Some things, however, none of us would have wanted at all – till scientists found there was treasure in them. Botulinum toxin (botox), for instance, is one of the deadliest of biological poisons, but by now everyone knows it is being put to […]

Education

How to Overcome Student Objections to Evolution

December 21, 2005

Biology teachers face increasing difficulty from students coming into class with bad feelings about evolution (11/30/2005, 08/30/2005). Many pro-evolution teachers will be attracted to methods that have a demonstrable track record of relieving tensions and facilitating the process of getting students to accept Darwin’s theory. David Sloan Wilson (Binghamton U, NY) has just the thing. […]

Health

Stem Cell Achievement a Possible Fraud

December 16, 2005

South Korean stem cell researcher Woo Suk Hwang has reason for stress and fatigue, as news reports show him escorted by bodyguards on the way to the office. His landmark paper in Science1 last July that announced the creation of stem cells matching the donor’s DNA (05/23/2005) has been called into question on two fronts. […]

Health

Wine for Your Heart? Think Again

December 6, 2005

“Any heart gains from drinking alcohol in moderation are likely outweighed by the harm, say researchers.” That’s how a story on BBC News begins that warns that alleged benefits of alcohol for heart health may not be trustworthy. A New Zealand team investigated earlier scientific studies that purported to show benefits of drinking in moderation, […]

Human Body

How You Tune In

December 5, 2005

Studies on rats have shown there are certain neurons that respond to changes in the background sound (see LiveScience story on MSNBC News). We humans probably have these, too. Rather than firing continuously, they search for changes in the auditory landscape that might be of interest: changes in pitch, loudness or duration in single sounds […]

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