Category: This Mortal Coil

Fukushima Revisited – Science for The People

sftp-fullsize-redbgIn the most recent episode of Science for The People*, host Rachelle Saunders discusses the Fukushima nuclear accident with nuclear energy expert Charles Ferguson and Rob Tarzwell, a medical doctor with focuses on nuclear medicine and psychiatry. The interview provides a nuanced view of the disaster – helping the rest of us to understand what happened, why it happened, and how things stand for the future.

The guest discuss the idea that we do not really know what constitutes a “safe” level of radiation exposure and how what impacts our decisions – mass evacuations around Fukushima may have killed more people than exposure would have. They also talk about what this disaster will mean for nuclear power use and how that will impact efforts to increase use of clean energy sources.

If you want a clear understanding of the events at Fukushima and their ongoing context, make some time to listen to Rachelle Saunders, Charles Ferguson, and Rob Tarzwell on Science for the People (Episode #236).

*Disclosure: I provide research assistance to Science for The People. So, while my opinion is inarguably correct, it is biased.

Baby’s First Genome

Human_genomeSomeday in the future each child that is born will have a file of their genome sequence prepared at birth. For some newborns in Boston, Kansas City, San Fransisco, and Chapel Hill the future is now. The National Institutes of Health is funding a new initiative to examine how the early availability of a child’s genome  will affect medical care decisions and the families. $25 million dollars over 5 years is to be allocated between research sites. Each location is approaching the issue of infant genomes slightly differently. Continue reading “Baby’s First Genome”

Making mouse diseases more like human diseases

mouseIt is almost impossible to study basic cellular mechanisms in humans. This is why scientists spend so much time trying to find animal models for human diseases. Sometimes, there is a naturally occurring disease in animals that is analogous to  a human condition. Other times, the animal’s genome can be modified to replicate mutations that are found in human diseases. However, despite the best efforts of many scientists, models often fail to faithfully replicate all aspects of human disease.

This led to the creation of a new mouse model of spontaneously developing Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) by the Lindquist lab at MIT. Continue reading “Making mouse diseases more like human diseases”

John Snow and the Broad Street Pump

2013-08-24 16.14.10In the summer of 1854, the central London neighbourhood of Soho was struck by a sudden cholera epidemic. Local physician John Snow identified the Broad Street pump as the source of the outbreak, preventing further spread of the disease. These days, the affected neighbourhood is home to many pubs and cake shops, prompting my friends to organise a “cholera and cake” pub crawl with out-of-town visitors this past weekend.

The Broad Street pump is not longer there, but in 1992 a symbolic pump was placed across the street from the John Snow pub, which is thought to have been the original location of the pump.

2013-08-24 16.14.55

Locating the source of the cholera epidemic was an especially impressive feat because the prevailing medical opinion at the time was that cholera was caused by “bad air”, and not by something you can find and eliminate. Germ theory hadn’t yet caught on, but John Snow was skeptical of the “bad air” theory, and suspected that there was something else.  He talked to lots of people in the affected area and in neighbouring streets, and he started to notice a pattern. Continue reading “John Snow and the Broad Street Pump”

You carry your GPS with you

NDrive_GPS

Somehow, when you get out of bed in the middle of the night, you manage to remember where the end of the bed is, how far it is to the bathroom and where the light switch is. You have developed a complex spatial memory of your house, and our brains are filled with countless other spatial maps (maybe some of us have fewer….cough, cough). How exactly does your brain encode this specific spatial information?

It turns out that is it using cells called grid cells, which work much like their name suggests. These neurons are spread out in a grid pattern in your brain and will generate an electrical spike in a pattern related to the direction you are moving. While this has been known about rats, mice and bats it has only recently been confirmed in humans. While fMRI experiments have suggested the existence of such cells, the only way to confirm that individual cells are spiking in response to a directional task is to make electrical recordings from them.

Continue reading “You carry your GPS with you”