“Have we fallen into a mesmerized state that makes us accept as inevitable that which is inferior or detrimental, as though having the will or vision to demand that which is good? Such thinking, in the words of the ecologist Paul Shepard, ‘idealizes life only with its head out of water, inches above the limits […]
I’m not old enough that I actually remember ads for “Lickable Lead Paint” like the one above. And as a disclaimer, I’m not even sure this particular ad isn’t a spoof (lead acetate/lead paint taste sweet) of the very real “Dutch Boys Lead Party Book” which came out in the early twenties. I am old […]
Ever think about zooplankton? Yea, me neither. Heck, until recently I had only a vague understanding of what these creatures were. I thought they were sea plants of some sort. Perhaps the ‘zoo’ in the name should have clued me in. It didn’t. Go ahead, you can laugh. My knowledge of fifth grade ocean biology […]
“The Earth is badly Floxed.”I’m not sure if the person who wrote that meant it literally or figuratively, but, I agree – both literally and figuratively – the earth is badly floxed. (“Floxed” is short-hand for suffering from fluoroquinolone toxicity – an adverse reaction to cipro/ciprofloxacin, levaquin/levofloxacin, avelox/moxifloxacin or any of the other fluoroquinolone antibiotics. […]
It’s funny sometimes how a solitary clue can lead one on a remarkable journey of discovery. That happened last week when the good folks from the Endometriosis Research Center posted an abstract on social media about a potential new biomarker to diagnose endometriosis. Published in the Journal of Cell Physiology, researchers found that women with […]
The combined APS (American Physiological Society) and EB (Experimental Biology) conference was full of excitement for me. This was my first migraine-associated presentation to scientists, MDs, and premed students. I have never presented a poster at any conference—I have usually given lectures. I was concerned. Will my posters catch any interest? Then I arrived at […]
The morning after I picked up my discharge papers from the Marine Corps, I boarded a plane bound for Peru. After 4 years of being told where, when and what to do, I decided that the best plan was to have no plan. Against the advice of my direct supervisor, parents and a lot of […]
Between 1940 and about 1980, millions of pregnant women were given high doses of the artificial estrogen DES in a misguided attempt to prevent miscarriages, a drug that’s been shown to cause female development in biological males across a wide range of animal species.While both the mothers given the drug and their daughters who were […]