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When things get nasty in a particular environment, organisms that call it home have got to come up with ways to cope. Animals are mobile and tend to migrate to an environment where the proverbial grass is greener. However, if you are a sedentary organism – a plant for example – you must find other [...]

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) now causes more deaths per year in the U.S. than AIDS. MRSA’s tendency to resist treatment by common antibiotics has predictably earned it the nickname “Superbug” in the lay press. But beyond the press hype is the foundation of a true epidemic. Staphylococcus species of bacteria are fairly benign and are [...]

There was an article that came out yesterday in BBC News citing a study that claims that breast fed children with a certain allele (variant) of a gene involved in fatty acid metabolism scored seven points higher in IQ tests than formula fed babies. This is one of those studies that I’ve suddenly become interested [...]

“I love you more than I did the week before
I discovered alcohol
O Alcohol, would you please forgive me?
For while I cannot love myself
I’ll use something else…”
-Barenaked Ladies – “Alcohol”
Alcoholism is a disease with major world health implications. There are over 15 million people in the U.S. suffering from alcoholism resulting in over 100,000 deaths a [...]

Neanderthals are our hominid relatives with whom we shared the Mediterranean region for several thousand years before began to be supplanted by modern man around 45,000 years ago and became extinct shortly thereafter. There are a number of questions regarding their fate, the biggest being why modern humans were ultimately more successful than neanderthals. Some [...]

“There’s no map
To human behaviour
They’re terribly moody
Then all of a sudden turn happy…”
Bjork – “Human Behavior”
Evolution of species is driven by selective forces, usually changes in the environment that require a species to adapt or to die out. For example, a plant may be living happily in a marshy environment, perfectly adapted to a wet [...]

[tag]Breast cancer[/tag] is the leading cause of [tag]cancer[/tag] death among women world wide. Like all types of cancer it is notoriously difficult to cure because it is not a simple disease – like a bacterial infection – rather it is a complex failure in cell regulation. This failure results in a single rogue cell that [...]

My training as a scientist is in [tag]plant genetics[/tag], but my [tag]Science[/tag] Tuesday posts to date have all been medical in nature. This is because science that has a direct impact on people is “sexier”. This week, however, I’ve started feeling some guilt about spurning my botanical roots (pun intended) in favor of the glamour [...]

“The sea is a very easy place to disappear
To drift away, to fall in love or make your peace…”
-Porno for Pyros – “Tahitian Moon”
It’s pretty amazing to think that humans had colonized most of the far flung islands of the [tag]Pacific[/tag] by 900 AD without the aid of modern navigation tools. I have been fascinated [...]

“I only know what I know
The passing years will show
You kept my love so young
So new…”
-Styne & Cahn – “Time After Time”
Sometimes science is about quantifying or providing evidence to support a hypothesis that is fairly obvious. Some people call this “no duh” science; my boss is a bit more colorful – she calls such [...]