Behavior
Emotions, perception and the biological processes of living organisms
Flu Shots for (Nearly) All
Should you get vaccinated for the flu this year? Yes, says the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and they have fewer qualifiers than usual for that recommendation.Until now, the CDC has recommended the vaccine only for people in specific "high-risk" groups (such as children, the elderly a...
August 24, 2010 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Cholera, John Snow and the Grand Experiment
I started reading about cholera over the weekend after hearing that health officials had confirmed several cases of the disease among victims of the recent Pakistani floods. Cholera is a bacterial disease that produces diarrhea and vomiting; people with the disease can die within hours if they don'...
August 18, 2010 |
By Sarah Zielinski
The Truth Behind Beer Goggles
The Urban Dictionary defines beer goggles as the "phenomenon in which one's consumption of alcohol makes physically unattractive persons appear beautiful." This doesn't happen for everyone, as the Mythbusters found when they tested themselves on the question of whether being tipsy or drunk led them...
August 17, 2010 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Whooping Cough on the Rise in Several States
Seven infants in California have died so far this year from pertussis, a.k.a. whooping cough. The state's outbreak is the largest in decades; it has had a six-fold rise in the disease compared with last year. Arizona, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, upstate New York, Ohio, Oregon, Texas, South Caro...
August 04, 2010 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Three Classes Wannabe Doctors Should Take Before Med School
Last week, the New York Times published an article about a little known practice of at least one medical school: accepting students who have not taken courses in science—biology, chemistry, organic chemistry and physics—or the MCAT entrance exam.The students apply in their sophomore or junior years...
August 02, 2010 |
By Sarah Zielinski
George Lopez on Comedy and Race
The late-night talk show host discusses how America's changing demographics will affect what makes people laugh
August 2010 |
By Lorenza Muñoz
Laurie Anderson on the Sounds of the Future
The multi-faceted artist sees a future in which artists change our auditory experiences
August 2010 |
By Jamie Katz
New Technology Could Let Disabled Communicate by Sniffing
If you're paying attention, there can be an awful lot of information encoded in a series of nose sniffs. In and out, long and short, strong and shallow. One sniff, two sniffs, three sniffs. Now engineers at the Weizmann Institute in Israel have capitalized on that variety of sniffs and created a de...
July 27, 2010 |
By Sarah Zielinski
An Unbelievable Accent
If I told you that "ants don't sleep," would you believe me? What if I were speaking with a foreign accent?Researchers at the University of Chicago have found that we judge non-native speakers to be less believable, though not because of any bias against foreigners. Instead, they say, it's simply b...
July 21, 2010 |
By Sarah Zielinski
A Medical Lab on a Postage Stamp
In the magazine's 40th anniversary issue, one of the 40 things you need to know about the future is both revolutionary and unreal: "A medical laboratory will fit on a postage stamp."The idea behind Google—boiling down vast stores of knowledge into an elegant little package—is also the idea behind t...
July 19, 2010 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Please Cover Your Mouth When You Sneeze
We've still got a few months until flu season starts here in the United States, so that should give us plenty of time to review proper cold and flu procedures. Why? Well, it appears that a number of you are just not getting it right. Yesterday I read a complaint from someone whose co-worker preferr...
July 13, 2010 |
By Sarah Zielinski
In Search of a Tuberculosis Vaccine
When I told a co-worker yesterday that I was going on a tour of a tuberculosis vaccine research facility, she asked, "is TB still a problem?" Here in the United States, the disease is rare—only 12,904 cases were reported in 2008—and generally treatable with antibiotics. Outside of North America, Au...
July 01, 2010 |
By Sarah Zielinski
You Don't Know the Back of Your Hand
Here's an experiment you can try (right now if you're sitting at a desk or table): take your left hand (or right hand if you're left-handed) and place it palm towards the floor beneath the table surface. Now place a piece of paper on top where your hand is. Draw 10 dots representing where you think...
June 21, 2010 |
By Sarah Zielinski
A Spoonful of Pickle Juice...Helps Muscle Cramps Go Down
Midway across the pool, my calf muscle seized up. I grabbed hold of the lane line, pulled my toes back towards my shin and waited for the charley horse to release.Unfortunately for me, the experience has become a familiar one. It seems that whenever I’m in the thick of training for a road race (and...
June 16, 2010 |
By Megan Gambino
Vuvuzela: The Buzz of the World Cup
Deafening to fans, broadcasters and players, the ubiquitous plastic horn is closely tied to South Africa’s soccer tradition
June 08, 2010 |
By Jim Morrison
A Puffin Comeback
Atlantic puffins had nearly vanished from the Maine coast until a young biologist defied conventional wisdom to lure them home
June 2010 |
By Michelle Nijhuis
Wearing a Water Filter
Water is something that's easy to take for granted, especially in a developed country where the taps run clean and clear. But the story is very different in the rest of the world, where nearly one billion individuals lack access to clean and safe water, and women and children can spend hours each d...
May 24, 2010 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Mestizos and Medicinas: Race-Based Medicine in Latin America
“At my age and with so much mixed blood I no longer know for sure where I belong. Nobody knows it in these lands ... and I believe it will take centuries to know it,” Colombian writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez once wrote. He was referring, of course, to the mixing of genomes that took place in Latin ...
May 13, 2010 |
By Brendan Borrell
Clean Hands, Clear Conscience
It's human nature to regret our decisions. Make a choice and you're likely to think you made the wrong one. But not if you wash your hands, say scientists from the University of Michigan in a new study from Science.In the experiment, 40 participants were asked to select and rank 10 music CDs. They ...
May 10, 2010 |
By Sarah Zielinski
For Wildebeests, Danger Ahead
Africa's wildebeest migration pits a million thundering animals against a gantlet of perils, even—some experts fear—climate change
May 2010 |
By Robert M. Poole
