Is your mother to blame for your constant anxiety? For decades, Sigmund Freud made it popular belief that all mental health problems were products of how your parents raised you. Although this idea fizzled out by the 1980’s, it still influences the way many clinicians treat their patients. However, your mother is not necessarily to blame for your anxiety, especially in a society where socioeconomic challenges can have a huge impact on parenting.
Storytelling is vital to successful science communication. However, our inner scientist can often get in the way of telling a good science story. I read Don’t Be Such a Scientist by Randy Olson to learn more about what I can do to improve my storytelling.
Graduate student Nycole Copping works as a researcher in Dr. Jill Lynn Silverman’s lab at the UC Davis MIND Institute, a center dedicated to developing treatments for and spreading awareness of neurodevelopmental disorders. Neurodevelopmental disorder research often involves investigating behaviours of inbred mouse models for disorders such as autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and Angelman syndrome (AS).
In recent years, stem cell therapy has garnered a significant amount of attention. Are stem cell based-therapies for regenerative medicine the answer to an aging and ailing population? First, we should discuss what stem cells are, and why researchers want to use them in medicine. Then how could stem cells be used in the future, and what major step the healthcare industry, as a whole, will need to take to use stem cells for therapeutic solutions on a mass scale.
When discussing the most desired advancements in healthcare, a common phrase thrown around is “finding a cure for cancer.” However, it is unlikely there will be a single miracle drug developed to be a global cure-all for such a deadly and ubiquitous disease. Cancer is multi-faceted and varies widely from person-to-person, where in the body it affects the patient, and when it is detected. While there won’t be one solution to “cure cancer” there are several things that the healthcare industry can improve on in order to bring the dream of “curing cancer” closer to a reality.
As a graduate student I cannot tell you how many times I have been asked “what is it that you do exactly?” The answer to this question varies widely based on which degree you are pursuing (PhD, Masters, EdD, MBA, etc.), the field you are getting your advanced degree in, and where you attend graduate school. There are, however, a few facts that I would love to share about my experiences over the last 5 years as a PhD student in Biomedical Engineering at a large university in California.
Have you ever been shopping in the grocery store and had a hard time determining if you are getting a fair price for the products you need? You see something relatively inexpensive, like lettuce, but there are several different options, all with different prices. There is your typical iceberg lettuce for $1.35, or organic iceberg lettuce for $3.50, or a large sign that proclaims Non-GMO iceberg lettuce for only $3.00. Which should you choose? You want to be healthy, but you also need to be budget-conscious.
With the recent release of the Netflix original docuseries “Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes” and the dramatized crime narrative “Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile,” serial killers seem to be one of the hottest media topics these days. These are only the latest contributions to countless TV shows and movies about serial killers, but what causes this widespread fascination with true crime and is it wrong to be interested in true occurrences of gruesome depravity?
More than 2,500 years ago, the first evidence for a spherical Earth was discovered by the Ancient Greeks. Around 500 BC, Pythagoras noted that the moon was a sphere and reasoned the Earth was as well. A few hundred years later, Greek mathematician Eratosthenes used simple geometry to estimate the circumference of Earth. He had surveyors measure the heights of shadows cast by sticks in the ground.
I recently heard one of my favorite journalists, Mona Chalabi, discuss one of my least favorite subjects: how men are often encouraged to date younger women. It's true the effect of age on women's reproductive success is widely known. We've all heard of the "biological clock ticking" metaphor, and there's over a century of data to correlate advanced maternal age with increased risk of genetic abnormalities in children.
Having unprotected sex can have legitimate consequences. If you are female, you may get pregnant. And no matter your biological sex, you are at risk for numerous sexual transmitted infections. Both of these risks can be mitigated by use of contraceptives. But, should you fear your partners’ DNA persisting inside of you for the rest of your life? No.
Typically, science communication seminars or workshops spend a lot of time convincing participants why science communication is important. I am beyond this point. And, furthermore, I think we as a scientific community are beyond this point. We know the importance of science communication for science literacy, scientific funding, and science policy. Scientists will either get on board or be left behind.
