Double X Science - It's In Your Genes

Search Results for: label/Mars

  • Can the body handle a Mars trip?

    …volved observation and over 90 experiments on six men who volunteered to spend 520 days in a simulation experiment in Russia. The results of the study weren’t surprising. Confined to their spaceship-like environment for 17 months, their sleeping patterns got out of whack and they became less active. They slept more, turned the light on less and were less alert during cognitive tests. Four of the six men reported problems with their sleep qu…

    Authored by on January 30, 2013

  • Welcome to the 21st century and welcome to MARS

    …f our ancient Zenith television, including one of an Earth-bound Walter Cronkite (I still miss that man) wiping his face in disbelief. As someone who was born in the mid-20th century and knew and lived with people born in the 1800s, I am in awe of what I’m seeing today in the second decade of the 21st century. You can relive that moment from 43 years ago in the video below. You might even recognize the real-life versions of some of the cha…

    Authored by on August 6, 2012

  • Friday Roundup: Crabs and Lady Gaga, exploring Mars, female orgasm, gift lists, and more!

    Find these great women-in-science ornaments here. Women in science, women and science Here’s what was missing from your life: A recording of what happens in the female brain during orgasm. Yep, one of the things women will do for science is, well, *that* in an MRI machine.  Female students encouraged to break stereotype , but stereotypes are made out of a very resilient, tough-to-break material. Science can be pink and equa…

    Authored by on December 9, 2011

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

    …e X Extra: A triglyceride can have up to three different fatty acids attached to it. Canola oil, for example, consists primarily of oleic acid, linoleic acid, and linolenic acid, all of which are unsaturated fatty acids with 18 carbons in their chains. Why do we take in fat anyway? Fat is a necessary nutrient for everything from our nervous systems to our circulatory health. It also, under appropriate conditions, is an excellent way to store up…

    Authored by on June 8, 2012

  • After Newtown missteps, journalists get guidelines

    Protip: Don’t diagnose based on speculation. by Jessica Wright                Attention journalists: If you’ve been calling people “nuts” or “deranged” in your stories, the Associated Press is recommending that it’s time you stopped. This guideline — along with the common-sense assertion that writers shouldn’t diagnose individuals with a mental illness based entirely on speculation — is part of a new recommendation added to the AP styleboo…

    Authored by on March 27, 2013

  • Why is the sky pink?

    On Mars, the sky is pink during the day, shading to blue at sunset. What planet did you think I was talking about? On Earth, the sky is blue during daytime, turning red at as the sun sinks toward night. Scattering light Well, it’s not quite as simple as that: if you ignore your dear sainted mother’s warning and look at the Sun, you’ll see that the sky immediately around the Sun is white, and the sky right at the horizon (i…

    Authored by on March 12, 2012

  • Friday Roundup: Sex, math, sugar bombs, and vocal fry

    Via Wikimedia Commons. This is a picture of a whole lot of sugar. Women and men and science Vocal fry: I (Emily) am a biologist. This phrase makes me think of tiny, loudmouthed fish. But it’s really about a vocal tic. Do you do this when you speak? It’s all the rage among young XXers these days. Decaying hoods, premature birth: living in among dilapidated buildings linked to higher risk of premature childbirth.  Do you know w…

    Authored by on December 16, 2011

  • Autism and the DSM-5

    …questions in the context of these criteria. I’ve expanded on a couple of these reports at length elsewhere, as have others with an interest in the subject. The short version is that studies overall indicate that at the least, 10% of people who would currently have an autism diagnosis under the DSM-IV-TR criteria would lose that diagnosis under the DSM-5, and some studies go as high as 55% in their estimates. Even more troubling? The committee’s s…

    Authored by on April 23, 2013

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

    …nt 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 used with mammography. Approval of a device of this nat…

    Authored by on September 21, 2012

  • Depressing genes

    …ch experience — yet it was obvious he didn’t have the knack for it. This student’s dogged pursuit of a mental health career made me wonder what kind of emotional turmoil he experienced which would make him think, at age 19, that psychiatry was the only vocation worth working towards. Then there were the two graduate students who both worked incredibly hard and were both prone to obsess about their experiments. Each burned off stress in quit…

    Authored by on May 17, 2013

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