Living Well Missing a Part of Your Brain: Three Women’s Stories

Image found at https://www.ninds.nih.gov I am fascinated by neuroplasticity: the brain’s remarkable ability to adapt after it suffers from illness or injury. Recently, I came across two stories of women whose ability to function had not been severely affected by the absence of chunks of their brain. Both stories are documented in the scientific literature. … Continue reading Living Well Missing a Part of Your Brain: Three Women’s Stories →

Our Cyborgian Future

Photo by Rodrigo on Pexels.com To my cautious, risk-averse self, the concept of rock climbing is beyond the beyond. I am fascinated, however, by those who’ll go where I would never tread. I’m also fascinated by the amazing world of biotech, which continually presses against the limits of human health and capabilities—and often extends them … Continue reading Our Cyborgian Future →

A Millipede Has How Many Legs? (Caution: Trick Question)

And why should we care? If curiosity and learning for learning’s sake aren’t enough, I found this story suggestive of the sweep of history and millipedes’—and our—places within it. Please accompany me on this creepy-crawly journey that, despite the overly ambitious topic, I’ve tried to keep mercifully brief.

“I’m Coming to Your Lab and I’ll Be Your Guinea Pig: I Want My Foot Back”

Developmental biologist Michael Levin is doing some cutting-edge research that may be yet another way to learn the secrets of life--with potentially far-reaching implications.

“Space Rocks”–Indeed!

Some people are amazingly good at a great many things. Brian May, founder of the rock group Queen, is also an astrophysicist and inventor. I found an interview with him fascinating.

Those Prize-Winning “Genetic Scissors” May Revolutionize Disease Treatment

In October, 2020, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to two women for their discovery of a method in the field of genetics with far-ranging applications. The Nobel Committee, in its announcement, called their effort: “Genetic scissors: a tool for rewriting the code of life”

A Doctor’s Mask Worn Awry Leads Me to Promising New COVID-19 Research

I had an appointment with a substitute doctor this week. Attesting to his renown, his office walls were crowded with yearly awards demonstrating his leadership in his field.

He is a hematologist/oncologist. I was there to receive one of the twice-yearly injections I receive for osteoporosis. The same medication is given in greater strength and frequency to cancer patients to prevent bone fractures.

As he leaned forward to give me the injection, his mask was comfortably positioned beneath his nose.

I was distressed by his apparent carelessness: the man deals with cancer patients all day long, for goodness sake.

How One Woman’s Breast Cancer Experience May Revolutionize Cancer Care

I love to write about good news. I especially enjoy elaborating on advances in the world of science during these times when science is too often attacked. This story shares some happy qualities with my recent post about the extraordinary Nobel Prize Winners in Physiology or Medicine.

Like the Nobel discovery, this one seems destined to save lives and dramatically reduce suffering. It’s the result of one brilliant woman’s using her own status as a breast cancer survivor to create potentially dramatic changes in the detection and treatment of the disease.