Journalism

Jan

2011

Drug Users Are Mining the Scientific Literature for “Legal Highs”

Discover, January 5 2011.

When it comes to recreational drugs, many assume that most of the dangerous compounds that people get high on are illegal. But drug makers, dealers, and users know better. They are mining the scientific literature for psychoactive drugs, making them in kitchen labs, and selling them to users on the street. And though this poses a real risk for users, it’s perfectly legal.

Purdue University chemist David Nichols says he’s haunted by the knowledge that his scientific research has led to unsafe–and sometimes even deadly–drug use. Read More >

Jan

2011

Astronomy Gets Adorable: Ten-Year-Old Girl Discovers Supernova

Discover, January 5 2011.

Most ten-year-olds don’t have the patience to sift through star images for thousands of hours. But Kathryn Aurora Gray was on a mission: She wanted to become the youngest person to discover a supernova.

And luckily for her, Kathryn’s work didn’t take thousands of hours–she discovered an exploded star about fifteen minutes after starting her career as an amateur astronomer. After looking through four of the 52 pictures provided by family friend and astronomer David Lane, she saw it. Read More >

Jan

2011

Power Balance: Our Product Is Backed by “No Credible Scientific Evidence”

Discover, January 5 2011.

In a completely shocking and unexpected turn of events, the company behind Power Balance wristbands has officially admitted that the product isn’t backed by any scientific studies–and that the company’s advertisements were misleading. And right after the holographic technology to improve “balance, strength and energy” was named CNBC’s Sports Product of 2010! Did you catch that? That was sarcasm.

And while we here at DISCOVER may have our own opinions, the product was endorsed by SHAQ (whose name is also spelled in all caps). SHAQ, how could you lie to us after we supported you through the Kazaam! days? Power Balance claims that the holograms (which are exactly like the ones in your credit cards) embedded in their wristbands or pendants have some sort of “energy flow” which can be manipulated to “resonate” with the body’s natural “energy flow.” Read More >

Jan

2011

What to Do With Troublesome Invasive Species: 1) Eat Them, 2) Wear Them

Discover, January 4 2011.

Sick of invasive snakes eating through your wiring and biting your babies? Don’t have any tylenol-doped mice to lob at them? You might be in luck, we have a few ideas of what to invasive species that insist on making pests of themselves.

Idea #1: Make Them Into Dinner

Become a part of the “invasivore” movement by ingesting some tasty lionfish (pictured) or asian carp, and by nomming on some kudzu or Japanese knotweed. One “almost serious” invasivore, Rachel Kesel, blogged on the subject and talked to The New York Times. Read More >

Jan

2011

Our Ancestors’ Big Babies May Have Shaped Human Evolution

Discover, January 4 2011.

Babies: As we reported yesterday, they just keep getting bigger. And while they haven’t always been trending towards obese, human babies have always been larger, relative to their mothers, than the infants of most other species. This make birth difficult and could have even changed the social structure of early hominids, steering human evolution.

Human babies are about 6.1 percent of their mother’s weight at birth, while chimp babies are about 3.3 percent. A new paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences takes a look at our extinct relatives to determine when this shift occurred, and suggests that it could even have encouraged our ancestors to come down from the trees and to form more complex social arrangements. Read More >

Oct

2010

Biotech on the Bayou

The Scientist magazine, October 2010.

Running from patient to patient while fielding calls from reporters, investors, biotech CEOs, and medical engineers, William Kethman isn’t your typical medical student. The calls are coming because of his second job: moonlighting as a medical device and biotech inventor in the thick of New Orleans’s burgeoning biotechnology economy.

With a jumpstart from Tulane University’s bioengineering innovation course, which teaches students how to shape their ideas into medical devices that can make a difference, Kethman and his partners have turned their undergraduate school project—an improved umbilical clamp they call the SafeSnip—into a brand new biotech medical devices company, known as NOvate Medical Technologies. Read More >

Oct

2010

The One True Path?

The Scientist magazine, October 2010.

Endocrinologist Kevin Niswender and neuroscientist Aurelio Galli hadn’t really kept in contact since they parted ways after beginning their respective careers at Vanderbilt University in the 1990s. But about 10 years ago, Niswender, who went to medical school at Vanderbilt, and Galli, who did a postdoc there, both landed faculty positions back at the Nashville, Tennessee, university. They rekindled their friendship and often discussed their research during convivial family dinners.

Niswender, who studies diabetes and metabolism, and Galli, who specializes in the neurobiology of addiction, had never collaborated scientifically. They can’t remember the exact moment they decided to do so, but gradually they realized that some of their research interests overlapped. The pair discussed a number of clinical hints that diabetes and mood disorders are related: Defects of the insulin pathway run in families with schizophrenia, diabetics are more likely to be depressed, and insulin signaling somehow affects dopamine levels in the brain. Read More >

Oct

2010

Dr. James’s Fever Powder, circa 1746

The Scientist magazine, October 2010.

Dr. James’s fever powder, patented by English physician Robert James, claimed to cure fevers and various other maladies, from gout and scurvy to distemper in cattle. Though its efficacy was often questioned, the powder had “a long tradition of usage,” from its introduction in 1746 well into the 20th century, says John Crellin, a professor of medical humanities at Memorial University of Newfoundland. It was even prescribed to King George III when he was suffering from cataracts, rheumatism and dementia at the end of his life. Read More >

Oct

2010

Shivering Shavenbaby

The Scientist magazine, October 2010.

The paper

N. Frankel et al., “Phenotypic robustness conferred by apparently redundant transcriptional enhancers,” Nature, 466:490-93, 2010.

The finding

Are redundant copies of noncoding DNA sequences due to poor genomic housekeeping, or do they function to improve the organism’s chances of survival? David Stern at Princeton University and colleagues attacked this question by looking at duplicate or “shadow” versions of enhancers, noncoding regions that regulate and promote gene expression. Read More >

Oct

2010

Ekaterina Heldwein: Crystallizing killers

The Scientist magazine, October 2010.

Structural virologist Ekaterina Heldwein, who goes by Katya, has followed a less-than-direct path to success in science. As a Russian chemistry undergraduate with a desire to live abroad but little money, she headed to the biochemistry graduate program at Oregon Health Sciences University (OHSU) in 1994. But she had to find it first.

“I was only worried she could find Portland,” said her graduate advisor, OHSU structural biologist Richard Brennan. While planning her trip, Heldwein had accidently bought a ticket to Portland, Maine, and didn’t notice her mistake until right before she boarded the plane in New York. Read More >