Double X Science - It's In Your Genes

Search Results for: label/biology

  • 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

  • Old ovaries, new eggs? Hatching a debate

    …adling puts it: “You have a much better chance of actually helping someone with infertility if you know what the real biology is. Right now, we’re a ways from really understanding the full biology, but we’re making progress.” 1 Direct quote from the third edition of “Human Physiology: An Integrated Approach”, one published by Pearson Education in 2004 and used in medical school classes.  [Image credit: front page and thumbnail oocyte image, publi…

    Authored by on May 15, 2013

  • Biology Xplainer: Evolution and how it happens

    …he population will change over time. It will be adapted to its environment. It will evolve. Other mechanisms of evolution A pigeon depicted in Charles Darwin’sVariation of Animals and PlantsUnder Domestication, 1868. U.S.public domain image, via Wikimedia. When Darwin presented his idea of natural selection, he knew he had an audience to win over. He pointed out that people select features of organisms all the time and breed the…

    Authored by on January 29, 2012

  • Blog of the Week: PsiVid with Carin Bondar and Joanne Manaster

    This week’s blog selection comes to us via the Scientific American blog network. PsiVid, a “cross-section of science on the cyber-stream,” features two scientists and mothers, Carin Bondar and Joanne Manaster, both known for their work and expertise in sci-filmmaking. Over at their Scientific American blog, you’ll find all things sci-video related, including contest information, the Monday music video, and some commenta…

    Authored by on November 14, 2011

  • Think pink? I’d rather raise a stink

    …ctober belongs to all things pink, as high-profile outfits from the NFL to Ace Hardware set aside 31 days to raise awareness and money for Breast Cancer Awareness Month. (National Breast Cancer Awareness Month was launched in 1985 by CancerCare, a nonprofit cancer support group, and cancer-drug maker AstraZeneca.) But as women’s health advocate Dr. Susan Love says, awareness of the disease isn’t the issue. “When the NFL is wearing pink gloves, I…

    Authored by on October 8, 2012

  • Double Xpression: Meghan Groome

    …to learn when it’s appropriate to pull out my soap box and go full-out social justice to them. This is changing, but for a long time I kept my personality under wraps in a professional setting. It’s only now — with 10 years professional experience, great organizations on my resume, and a PhD — that I can be clever, confront those I disagree with, and even smile. Anyone who’s ever had a beer with me knows that I’m a goofball and w…

    Authored by on February 6, 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

  • 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

  • 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

  • Pregnancy 101: Peas made me puke, but not just in the morning

    …d picked up on my soaring level of discomfort and without missing a beat, ate all my peas when Diane wasn’t looking. We ended the evening with my stomach contents intact, but barely. The next morning, as I was preparing my 18 month-old daughter’s daycare lunch, I remembered that we were provided with a parting gift of sautéed peas. I took them out of the fridge and proceeded to aliquot them into containers more suitable for a toddler. As I rem…

    Authored by on February 14, 2012

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