Double X Science - It's In Your Genes

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  • 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

  • The degendering effect of social networks and why that might be OK

    [Ed. note: I (Emily) just attended the National Association of Science Writers annual conference in Raleigh, NC, where I moderated a session on managing the information deluge that can overwhelm those of us who deeply engage in social media. During the session, Tinker Ready noted the all-woman makeup of our panel and asked about the role of social media in helping women in science. She also asked me a few questions after the session. Below is a...

    Authored by on November 5, 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

  • The Women in ‘Modern Men of Science’

    cientists highlighted in 1966 among the “modern men,” seven were women. By then, 11 women had earned the Annie Jump Cannon Award in Astronomy  (and even with an award named after her, she isn’t in the collection), 23 women had achieved the Garvan Medal in Chemistry, and 10 had won a Nobel Prize (one of them twice – she also doesn’t appear in this collection.) Some of these awards overlap. However, by 1966, there were clearly mor…

    Authored by on April 11, 2013

  • Are children today really suffering nature deficit disorder (TM)?

    …7;t have television to keep them indoors, they also didn’t have child labor laws. The result was that children who once might have been at work at age 4 in a field were now at work at age 3 or 4 in a factory, putting in 12 or so hours a day before stepping out into the coal-smoked, animal-dung-scented air of the city.  Child labor wasn’t something confined to Industrial Revolution Britain, and it continues today, both for agriculture…

    Authored by on April 30, 2012

  • Happy belated birthday, Mary Anning!

    shop permanently. By what he calls a “curious stroke of luck,” he has all of the 18th century papers of his great-great-great-great (that’s four) grandfather, including diaries, accounts, letters, and even shopping lists. In 2011, he published the story of this ancestor’s life as a social history, “The Life of a Georgian Gentleman,’ and thus, a blog was also born. We thank Mike for having graciously given us permission to publish his post here b…

    Authored by on May 25, 2012

  • Anorexia nervosa, neurobiology, and family-based treatment

    sume eating. If they were still alive. Bruch’s observations dictated eating-disorders treatments for decades, treatments that led to spectacularly ineffective results. Only about 35% of people with anorexia recovered; another 20% died, of starvation or suicide; and the rest lived with some level of chronic illness for the rest of their lives. Not a great track record, overall, and especially devastating for women, who suffer from anorexia at a ra…

    Authored by on August 10, 2012

  • Raising the Profile of Women in Science

    By Adrienne Roehrich, Chemistry Editor One of the goals of Double X Science is to raise the profile of women in science. When others are doing this exact same things, we like to let our readers know. Here’s a few recent efforts to expand the public’s knowledge of women scientists: As always, we have our Notable Women in Science series . We cover women in science who have been notable historically and currently. We also have our Double Xpre…

    Authored by on December 14, 2012

  • 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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