Up to one fifth of airline passengers become sick with colds or flus. Are there ways to decrease these infections? Yes. A new Finnish study points out the problems and perils of airport security in a peculiarly microbiological way. The Study Researchers from The National Finnish Institute of Health and Welfare and the University of […]
Humanity Goes Viral
Lots of people want their work to go “viral” – to propagate everywhere and anywhere, to infect and affect the whole of humanity. Internet virality is one of the ways that information now spreads. Biological information often operates differently from what you find on the internet. It’s a lot older – nearly four billion years […]
Why Diets Don’t Work (2/18/14)
The Short Answer: Because we don’t understand enough of how the body works. That includes why we weigh what we do. Throwing more money at the problem (diets are a $66 billion dollar industry in the US; food vastly larger) has so far led to a bigger population. For every success, there are many […]
Deep Living (9/16/13)
Deep Life How slow can life go? How deep? At what point does biology become geology? Dig down and you will find some answers. If you go to the bottom of the ocean, first drill and drill and drill until you reach a further 2.5 kilometers. Smack through rock that has lain there 100 million […]
Alert – Bacteria Are Reprogramming Your DNA (2/6/13)
Nerves Into Stem Cells Nerve cells are remarkably reprogrammable. The proof? Leprosy bacteria can take Schwann cells – the stuff that wraps nerve cells axon in white, fatty sheaths so they transmit faster – convert them into stem cells, then use them to flummox the immune system and infect the whole body. Which is rather […]