Continuing our narrative following anaerobic populations, we last left our friends at the following point:

• Vent 1 with anae1 (including anae1#101 genetic offspring) and anae 5 (anae1#564 but it has a mutation in a gene that determines the color of the outer membrane layer of the organism. It is now
… Read full post »

The first two parts of the Fictional Evolution series are here and here.

While contemplating the next steps for our little anaerobic friends, I feel the need to explain that there are some very important limitations to this experiment in narrative. 

First, we are only able to look at what… Read full post »

The Lancet has officially retracted the 1998 study by Wakefield that linked the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine with autism.

The retraction comes amidst pressure from another British medical journal in efforts to curb misunderstandings of the findings by the general public as well as upholding… Read full post »

When we last left our population of anaerobic friends, we had the beginning population (Anae1) and two offspring of the same individual (Anae1#101). Anae2#1 had an additional mutation that deactivated one enzyme, but was not phenotypically different from the parent population, and Anae3#1 had an addi… Read full post »

I've been attempting to moderate a battle between climate change enthusiasts (if they can be called enthusiastic about the decline of civilization by weather) and global warming deniers (I switch the terms to indicate that they don't disagree… Read full post »

When I think about evolution in my own mind to understand its effects on a particular topic (annual influenza, antibiotic resistant bacteria, alligator survival, human longevity) I play out a scenario of a fictional creature in a fictional population in a fictional environment, yet real enough to cor… Read full post »

This is a slight deviation from my health-oriented perspective for this blog, but hey, I'm a person, and I have feelings, too. Feelings that sometimes need to be addressed for my own sanity.

The news about Haiti is so depressing...70,000 unnamed buried in mass graves, medical supply shortage, roving… Read full post »

I was reading through an online conversation about science the other day that had become a Britain vs. U.S. argument about US-centricity and British socialism. Basically, the Brit felt the Americans in the conversation were badly representing their countrymen by being close-minded about scientific ev… Read full post »

Half plant - half animal? Yep...a green sea slug (Elysia chorotica) that steals the chloroplasts from the algae it eats, and then uses them for photosynthesis. But it doesn't stop there. It isn't merely the chloroplasts that are stolen, but the genes for photosynthesis. The sea slugs' offsprin… Read full post »

I'm squealing with delight at the moment. Not too long on the heels of the Royal Society releasing some of the most famous scientific articles to the public, the National Library of Medicine has released scans of some of the most beautifully illustrated science books! You can literally "turn the page… Read full post »

It's that time of year - the sniffling, sneezing, and all out painful head in the clouds season. Though the flu has been a hot topic and the common cold is often blamed for these ailments, there are literally hundreds of infections that could be behind what any… Read full post »

I've had an interest in prion diseases since college, around the same time they were initially described. So I naturally gravitated towards this summation of an article on a potential new prion in humans that may be associated with silent vCJD (variant Creutzfeld-Jacob Disease: the human variant of m… Read full post »

Mistletoe...usually it invokes thoughts of stolen smooches, or if you're a pet owner you may think of it as a no-no because it's toxic to most pets. But there are some who think of it as a therapeutic.

Last year around this time I researched the literature on mistletoe as an… Read full post »

To celebrate 350 years, the Royal Society of London has published 60 of its most trailblazing papers online. They include the 1667 descriptions of blood transfusion and artifical respiration, the original paper on smallpox inoculation, the discovery of aspirin (originally dried willow bark from which… Read full post »

It's at this time of year that diets are busted and families gather around tables to eat and pass out, lazily sleeping off the turkey.

But is turkey really bad for you? and does it really make you sleepy?

 These are two questions I've addressed on Thanksgivings past and… Read full post »

There's been a lot of buzz and dropped jaws this week due to new recommendations from a goverment panel regarding breast cancer screening (published in the Annals of Internal Medicine Nov 17) Previous recommendations were that women should have a mammogram every year starting at… Read full post »

Last night, the House of Representatives of the U.S. Congress passed their health care bill. 220 representatives, including 1 Republican (Cao of Louisiana), decided that the bill they had before them was what they wanted to contribute to health care reform in this country. The v… Read full post »

The House vote on health care reform, along with an amendment regarding federal subsidies to abortions and a Republican alternative, is happening right now. But you can see any time after now how your Reps voted by visiting the House of Representatives roll call. (Stupak was the abortion funding amen… Read full post »

DrugWonks, the blog for the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest, was the first to report that Dr. Peter Lurie, a painful thorn in the side of the FDA for many years and most recently the Deputy Director of Public Citizen's health research group, has been hired by the FDA.… Read full post »

The Public Library of Science (PLoS), an open scientific journal, has been part of an information gathering campaign to bring to light the extent of ghostwriting in journal publications. What they've uncovered shows a systematic abuse of the system to promote pharmaceuticals by… Read full post »

I wrote previously about Gardasil, the so-called cervical cancer vaccine. Stemming from that was a conversation with someone who actually works at Merck and worked with the vaccine. I truly believe and accept that the researchers are trying to help medicine and patients. I truly believe and accept th… Read full post »

I got my seasonal flu shot this morning. We went to our local pharmacy in a hurry because when I called yesterday to inquire about hours they said they only had 20 doses left. Normally I don't get the flu vaccine - I'm a relatively young and healthy… Read full post »

Work funded by the NIH is required to be available in an open access database within 6-12 months of publication. A bill that would require all research funded by 11 federal agencies to do the same is stalled in Congress....again.

 The Federal Research Public Access Act of… Read full post »

A hollywood secret (or not so secret) to produce tears on cue is to use tear replacement drops or some sort of lubricant to get the water works effect, but to really produce the eye response of tearing up an irritant is needed. Like that used by Fox News' Glenn Beck.… Read full post »

There are a number of videos on YouTube of news reports about health care workers refusing H1N1 or flu vaccinations this year. These are really big with the anti-vaccine, H1N1 was manmade, and "the gubment wants to kill me" crowds. I understand why. Here are the very people… Read full post »