Printing Muscle
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In a small clean room tucked into the back of San Diego–based startup Organovo, Chirag Khatiwala is building a thin layer of human skeletal muscle. He inserts a cartridge of specially prepared muscle cells into a 3-D printer, which then deposits them in uniform, closely spaced lines in a petri dish. This arrangement allows the [...]
No Pulse: How Doctors Reinvented The Human Heart
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This article was fascinating from beginning to end. “Rare-earth magnets!” Cohn cried, straining to pull one free. He put it in my hand. It was the size of a pencil eraser, and when I loosened my grip, it shot like a bullet to the file cabinet with a clang. “Extremely powerful.” Cohn has pioneered the [...]
The Fat Trap
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A full year after significant weight loss, these men and women remained in what could be described as a biologically altered state. Their still-plump bodies were acting as if they were starving and were working overtime to regain the pounds they lost.
What’s Wrong With the Teenage Mind?
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The crucial new idea is that there are two different neural and psychological systems that interact to turn children into adults. Over the past two centuries, and even more over the past generation, the developmental timing of these two systems has changed. That, in turn, has profoundly changed adolescence and produced new kinds of adolescent woe.
Can your genes help create ‘designer’ diets?
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The studies question long-held beliefs about food selection and weight loss. For example, could 1,000 calories of turkey cause more weight gain in some people than 1,000 calories of cashews? If so, could a person lose weight through food selection without cutting total calories?
Drug Slims Down Obese Monkeys by Killing Fat Cells
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In a study that provides provocative support for a new approach to treating obesity, a drug that kills a particular type of fat cell by choking off its blood supply was shown to cause significant weight loss in obese monkeys.
After four weeks of treatment at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center …
Sugar, and candy, do not make kids hyper
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In my favorite of these studies, children were divided into two groups. All of them were given a sugar-free beverage to drink. But half the parents were told that their child had just had a drink with sugar. Then, all of the parents were told to grade their children’s behavior. …
Who wants to live forever?
Do you want to live for a long time, in decent health? If the rate of innovation in medical science doesn’t slow down, you just may be able to.
If Aubrey de Grey’s predictions are right, the first person who will live to see their 150th birthday has already been born. And the first …
High Fat Foods Don’t Appear to Cause High Cholesterol
As I think about losing weight (which I do (think about, that is) from time to time), I’m always interested in what kind of a diet would be most effective. I’m most convinced by what I’ve read about low-carb, high protein, high fat diets. But, inevitably, the first objection I’ll hear is that a diet …
Shyness: Evolutionary Tactic?
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An interesting overview of the importance of introverts, the ways in which our society is marginalizing introverts (possibly even describing introversion as a mental disease). We introverts should probably think about this article carefully, to ponder its ramifications. I doubt the extroverts will even see it though.
Once you know about sitters and rovers, …