RECENT POSTS 
I recently volunteered to help organise an event run by the Canadian Science Policy Centre that looked at the status of women in science and technology. To be frank, I was mightily fearful about participating in such an event. I had the idea that it would quickly degenerate into a depressing evening of man-bashing. Yet, as it turned out, it was actually a wonderfully empowering, evidence-based look at women working in STEM fields (or maybe I just thought so because... Read more
These days, we have a pretty serious problem when it comes to our ability to kill resistant bacteria causing serious illness. People petition governments to urge action, while drug companies lament over how those pesky bacteria evolved to defeat their beautiful antibiotics - and their projected profit margins. Yet, it's not all bad. There are a few little ways that us humans can fortify our bodies with a sturdy shield against nasty bugs. Nurture good bacteria Keeping your good bacteria,... Read more
I read a Nature News article recently about gun control in the USA that horrified me so much that I now have to write a bit about this horrifying topic myself. It goes without saying that there is a huge problem in America that stems from people who should never have access to guns being able to get access to guns. In many states, people with criminal records can get a gun. People with mental health issues can get a... Read more
Stem cell therapies are taking off, in a surprisingly unregulated way. While most humans have to go to places like South Korea to receive them, horses, dogs, cats, pigs and tigers are already being treated in North America. The most overzealous stem cell companies bluster about their currently unlicensed ability to beat down cancer, diabetes, blindness and a whole raft of other diseases, a stretch given the paucity of clinical data available, yet such therapies are nevertheless generating a new... Read more
When it comes to knowing whether eating too much salt is a bad thing, there is a surprising lack of "verified-by-science" information available*. A certain level of salt, or sodium chloride, is a biological necessity that keeps muscles pumping and nerves firing off electronic signals. Yet lots of studies have suggested that high levels of dietary salt could contribute to problems with blood pressure and heart disease, which is why the CDC (and probably your mum) tells you to reduce... Read more
Most of us are quite content to share our beds with a partner or a kitty, but are less inclined to extend the same warm welcome to the common bedbug, Cimex lectularius. These parasitic insects, which feed exclusively on blood, have undergone a population explosion since the mid-1990's, with infestations recently hitting the headlines all over the globe. Buildings full of warm and cosy human nests, such as blocks of flats and hotels, are enticing bedbug havens. Although pesticide sprays... Read more
Regenerating the human body by growing whole new organs or patching up damaged ones from just a few cells scraped from your own tissues is a fascinating area of science known as bioengineering. Every living cell in such an organ is sustained by the blood, which supplies food and gases and flows through a conduit network of hollow vessels. Successful organ bioengineering relies on establishing such a system of blood flow capable of reaching and supporting the energy demands of... Read more
The illicit trade in elephant ivory has been a ridiculous problem since the 1980's, when Asian and African elephants were decimated to such a level that they made it onto Appendix One ("most endangered species") of CITES. While all trade in their ivory was banned in 1989, poaching is still a huge issue, especially in the dense forests of Africa that camouflage a multitude of illegal activities. Large seizures of black market ivory have been made over the years, but... Read more
I love cheese. Oh, how I do. Hard cheese, soft cheese, hole-y cheese, crumbly cheese, squidgy cheese - all of them will find a warm and welcoming home in my mouth. While deliciousness alone seals the place of cheese at my table, historically, converting milk into a processed dairy product like cheese had a lot of benefits. Cheese kept a lot longer without going off (a big deal when you didn't have any way to keep food cool and fresh),... Read more
Repairing or replacing damaged cells keeps our organs in tip top working condition. For a long time, we thought that only the incredibly rare stem cells in adult organs were able to create brand new cells to replace injured ones and fix damaged areas. Yet some tissues definitely don't conform to this autocratic model: following liver damage, for example, mature hepatocyte cells that normally exist in a semi-retired state re-engage their cell cycle and undergo a huge amount of cellular... Read more
The explosion of reactor number four of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in 1986 is widely regarded as the worst radiation disaster in human history. The radioactive fallout spread from Northern Ukraine throughout Northern Europe, dispersing large quantities of radioactive elements, including two caesium isotopes, Cs-134 and Cs-137. In the United Kingdom, this radiocaesium-laden cloud mingled with heavy rain falling in mountainous areas of North Wales and Cumbria, depositing substantial quantities of radioisotopes in uplands areas and introducing radioactivity into... Read more
For me, there are three extremely good reasons never to go to Australia - huge furry-bodied poisonous spiders, venomous lightning fast snakes and sharks with great mouthfuls of serrated teeth. After reading a recent article, I am now happy to add a fourth to the list: the Australian box jellyfish. Your average run-of-the-mill jellyfish sting is definitely an unwelcome arrival, delivering a sharp, searing pain and leaving your skin all red and puckered, but it doesn't usually require medical intervention.... Read more
These days, most people are aware of the increasing development of antibiotic resistance in bacteria that cause human disease, which is at least partially driven by the overprescription of antibiotics. Even our most robust antibiotics, active against a wide range of bacterial species, are not up to the task of controlling certain infections, making the push to develop new ones - or antibiotic alternatives - particularly compelling. One exceptionally well-publicised antibiotic-insensitive bacteria is the methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), which spreads... Read more
Even though I've never been pregnant, I've lived in the world long enough to have absorbed random nuggets of wild information, like there are lots of ways to try and bring on labour in women at the end of their pregnancies - eating tinned pineapple or really spicy curries being among the more popular. Most of these theories are passed on as old wives tales, and haven't really been rigorously tested by science. Then again, when you're 37 weeks into... Read more
Perhaps one of the most incredibly effective vaccines ever used, against smallpox, has completely eradicated a terribly nasty human disease. Yet the way in which vaccinia virus, the live poxvirus contained in the smallpox vaccine, actually orchestrates a protective immune response is still mostly unknown. The live virus component is a major reason why the smallpox vaccine is so good - instead of having some crusty bit of dried up dead protein in there, there is a real virus that... Read more
The parasite, Schistosoma mansoni, is a remarkably cunning and efficient worm. It spends the first part of its life infecting freshwater snails, where it vigorously multiplies to bulk up numbers. This parasite army then marches out of the snail and into the river, encounters an unsuspecting human, latches on to their skin and burrows its way inside, more often than not through a hair follicle. Schistosomes infect more than 200 million people a year, in many parts of the world,... Read more
Human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, only emerged in humans relatively recently, yet already represents a big public health threat. When HIV enters the human body, often through sexual contact or the sharing of needles between drug users, it shows a remarkably focussed preference for infecting a certain population of immune cells, known as CD4+ T cells. Since these cells usually play a major role in vanquishing a viral foe, this is the perfect spot for HIV to hide out, since... Read more
These days, most doctor's are acutely aware of the problems of overprescribing antibiotics. Historically given as more of a placatory gesture - 'I have to prescribe something, else this patient will think I'm an incompetent buffoon' - their overuse almost single-handedly drove the rapid development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, like MRSA. Yet we're becoming more and more aware that antibiotics don't only drive huge reactive changes in the bugs that we're trying to kill, but also in our own bodies. Because... Read more
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