Double X Science - It's In Your Genes

Search Results for: label/Joe Scarborough

  • Mental illness, autism, and mass murder, and why Joe Scarborough needs to stop talking

    …vulnerable developmental periods like adolescence and early adulthood. Not only does autism not fit here simply by virtue of its lifelong presence, but also, it’s not something that just kinda shows up when a man turns 24 years old.  The man who destroyed so many lives showed several signs of extreme stress prior to his murderous rampage. Were these stressors the trigger for him? That I cannot say. But I can say that stress does not bring…

    Authored by on July 23, 2012

  • Biology Explainer: The big 4 building blocks of life–carbohydrates, fats, proteins, and nucleic acids

    …molecules themselves break down into a surprisingly small number of building blocks. The proteins that make up all of the living things on this planet and ensure their appropriate structure and smooth function consist of only 20 different kinds of building blocks. Nucleic acids, specifically DNA, are even more basic: only four different kinds of molecules provide the materials to build the countless different genetic codes that translate into all…

    Authored by on June 8, 2012

  • After Newtown missteps, journalists get guidelines

    …almost twice as likely to say that they don’t want to live or work near a person with mental illness if they read an article about a person with mental illness involved in a mass shooting, according to a study published March 20 in the American Journal of Psychiatry. Interestingly, this tendency is the same even if the article avoids any mention of mental illness. This may be because this link between violence and mental illness is deeply engrain…

    Authored by on March 27, 2013

  • Shmeat and Potatoes: The dinner of the future?

    …t on this petri dish to kitchen dish phenomenon. The shmeaty deets When it comes to producing shmeat, scientists are taking advantage the extensive cell culture technologies that have been developed over the course of the 20th century (for a brief history of these developments, check this out).  Because of what we have learned, we can easily determine the conditions under which cells grow best, and swiftly turn a few cells into a few million…

    Authored by on July 20, 2012

  • Childbirth and C-sections in pre-modern times

    …y down the pelvic canal, with its skull bones eventually sliding around and overlapping to get through the pelvis.  Culturally, we have another way to deliver these large babies: the so-called caesarean section . Up until the 20th century, childbirth was dangerous.  Even today, in some less developed countries, roughly 1 maternal death occurs for every 100 live births, most of those related to obstructed labor or hemorrhage ( WHO Fact Sheet 2010…

    Authored by on July 2, 2012

  • DoubleXpressions — Nazneen Rahman, Cancer Doctor and Jazz Singer

    …t last year I posted some of my songs online and had a really positive response, which was unexpected and lovely. I now have over 1000 followers and have been inspired to make an album which I am hoping to release sometime in 2013. My songs tend be stories about the complexities of life, with lush harmonies, quite a jazzy feel and I have a fondness for a slinky bass line. DXS:  Do you find that your scientific background informs your creativity,…

    Authored by on February 28, 2013

  • Double Xpressions: Jennifer Canale, the self-proclaimed "Flamboyant Scientist"

    …Girl Scouts, I was sent to dance school (but, much to my amazement, I enjoyed that until I was 17).  My parents started giving in around 3rdgrade, and I got the panda bear-shaped calculator I wanted, as well as the robot toy 2XL featuring the 8-track tape. My mom would beg me to watch Little House On the Prairie, but I preferred Star Trek (the original Kirk version), Lost in Space (Danger Will Robinson), and Land of the Lost. Of course this was…

    Authored by on November 30, 2012

  • Depressing genes

    Can depression be a matter of genetic fate? by Siobhan Mitchell          [This post is the latest installment in our I Am Mental Illness series.] What if you could know if you were fated to be depressed? With the rise of personal genotyping services such as 23andme, almost can find out what their psychiatric ‘fate’ will be, but what do you do with this information once you have it? When I first considered testing myself for depressio…

    Authored by on May 17, 2013

  • Is the bar high enough for screening breast ultrasounds for breast cancer?

    …n controversial. What’s new is the “Are You Dense?” patient movement and legislation to inform women that they have dense breasts. Merits and pitfalls of device approval The approval of breast ultrasound hinges on a study of 200 women with dense breast evaluated retrospectively at 13 sites across the United States with mammography and ultrasound. The study showed a statistically significant increase in breast cancer detection when ultrasound was…

    Authored by on September 21, 2012

  • Autism and the DSM-5

    …ial social aspect of this change, and the one thing that might, when it comes to autism, elevate the DSM-5 above the level of doorstop. [Image credit: Dave Bullock, UK, via Wikimedia Commons under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 generic license.]…

    Authored by on April 23, 2013

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