One Person – Several Genomes You probably think you possess a single genome – one set of genes. Mom meets Dad, sperm penetrates egg, nine months later you appear. And your life is marked by a single set of genetic instructions that let you enjoy cartoons and ten food commercials every day, master calculus and […]
Secrets of Jet Lag (9/23/13)
Aging in Flight You fly business class from LA to Beijing, sacrificing a college tuition payment for sixteen inches of leg room. Whisked to your hotel room you fall into bed and repeat attempted slumber. When you wake you feel thirty years older. Then you open the blinds, look out on the smog, and drop […]
Wild Type Humans Like Moving (9/5/13)
Walk on the Wild Side You have been part of a great biological experiment. You did not sign up for it. Yet it has changed the way you walk, the way you sleep, how you talk and socialize. Pretty much everything you do, in fact. In laboratories scientists make a major distinction between species born […]
Bugs in the Brain (8/25/13)
Gums Want to avoid cardiovascular disease? One way is to keep your gums healthy. Teeth gnash, bite, rip and shred the foodstuffs that let us live. And the gums that support them are necessary to keep the critters in those foods from making us sick. But gums also become ill. About 30% of adults have […]
Going FAR to Prevent Diabetes (7/8/13)
Moving and Eating Walk after meals. Stand and move after you eat. You’ve probably heard this advice somewhere. But does it really work? If the goal is preventing diabetes, it seems to prove true – at least for a group of folks studied at George Washington University. The Study People 60 and over at risk […]