The top 10

New Scientist compiles life’s top ten greatest inventions. Fun stuff !

Cramps

For other curious women who have also wondered about the biological necessity for menstrual cramps, here’s an explanation from the FDA :

… is a result of the normal production of prostaglandins by cells in the lining of the uterus. The lining of the uterus–which has built up and thickened during the early stages of the menstrual cycle–breaks up and is sloughed off at the end of the cycle and releases prostaglandins…
The prostaglandins, in turn, make the uterus contract more strongly than at any other time of the cycle. They can even cause it to contract so much that the blood supply is cut off temporarily, depriving the uterine muscle of oxygen and thus causing pain. Women who suffer painful contractions may be producing excessive amounts of prostaglandins. Or, it may be that some women are just more sensitive to them

Nobel Facts

33 Nobel Laureates are women and 730 are men. 2 Nobel Laureates have declined the Nobel Prize ! 4 Nobel Laureates have been forced by authorities to decline the Nobel Prize !

Check out more Nobel Laureate facts at the official Nobel website.

Technorati Tags: Nobel Laureates, Nobel Prize

Footprints in the sands of time

Here’s an interesting exercise to measure your ecological footprint. I did a similar but more professional quiz for my class on Environment Assessment last fall.
The world has only 4.5 biologically productive acres/person. This particular quiz reports my footprint to be 18 acres/person, mainly because I reported the average distance I drive every week to be 100-200 miles (I drive up to my fiance’s place on alternate weekends). The average footprint for the US is 24 acres/person. The quiz tells me that if everyone in the world lived like me, we’d need 4 planets. A sobering thought indeed.

You can learn more about ways to reduce your footprint at the Redefining Progress site.

Green & leafy

Emily Bazilon, writes in Slate, about what we can learn from the recent E.coli outbreak in spinach.

In the wake of the E. coli disaster, food-safety experts have been pushing for more regulation—more money for government inspectors to patrol produce, tighter rules for water quality and workplace sanitation. By all means, clean up the fields. But here’s what I also wish for: a grocery store, within a 10-minute drive of my house (OK, I’d take 15), that sells local produce whenever possible and tells me where the rest of the fruit and vegetables come from so I can decide when to break the eat-local rule. This store would forgo silly luxuries like tasteless strawberries in January. It would sell the staples I need for my kids’ school lunches (soy butter, whole-wheat bread, granola bars, and those kid-sized yogurt containers). It would favor free-range meat and poultry and eggs. Oh, and be home to a great bakery, too.

Technorati Tags: spinach, E.coli, farmer’s market

Zoning fast food

A number of sunny small towns in California have a zoning ordinance against fast food resturants.  A New York Councilman wants to enact a simialar ordinance. The NY Times article reports the pros and cons on the issue. Resturant representatives rightly claim that obesity stems from nutrition diet and personal responsibility. But wouldn’t you say the same of smoking ? And public bans on smoking went a long way in curbing smoking. Could we do the same with the obesity epidemic ?

What’s Nature worth ?

When I took the ‘Environment & Population Assement’ class last year, we had an economic professor from Rice University come in and give a guest lecture on the economics of environmental policy-making. To be honest, he went a little too in-depth into economic theories for a public health class. But I did learn about the basic economics that influence decision making. And one of the fundamental difficulties is putting a value to the benefits provided by nature.

Breath in. The air is free. But we’d all agree it’s not worthless. So, what’s the price tag on benefits provided by nature? In 1997, the University of Vermont’s Robert Costanza and his co-authors put the answer at $33 trillion per year in a now-famous paper in the journal Nature. In the decade following, the science of “ecosystem services” has bloomed. This young discipline studies how nature–through climate regulation, soil formation, crop pollination, flood protection, and so on–supports human welfare, and estimates its value in economic terms.

A sizeable grant from the Gordon & Betty Moore Foundation is helping fund a project to “create a set of computer models and tools that will give a sophisticated portrait of the ecosystem dynamics and value for any spot on earth“. If it is successful, it will certainly provide a fast way for policy makers to comprehend the impacts of their decisions.

Technorati Tags: economics, ecosystem services, environment

How Toxoplasma changed human culture

Here’s a fascinating story on how the parasite Toxoplasma gondii could have influenced (partly) the manner in which people from different parts of the world developed along different cultural lines.

When the parasite infects the brains of rats and mice, it alters their behavior, making them more reckless than normal–reckless enough that they don’t avoid cats the way good sense would dictate. As a result, they’re devoured, at which point the micro-organisms are able to reproduce–something they can only do in felines…

Humans eat toxoplasma too, in such things as unwashed vegetables …

… But while we don’t go running out to find a mountain lion or other big cat to play with, it could well be that humans experience subtler behavioral changes than a rat would–a mild increase in the tendency to be adventurous, say. And because toxoplasma infection is actually quite common in humans, and varies from one region to another–about a third of Americans show antibodies to the parasite, but in Brazil the number rises to nearly 70%, while in South Korea it’s under 5%.

Wierd ! But as the Time writer put it,

… it’s a little horrifying that cultural diversity could be a symptom of parassitic infection.

Technorati Tags: Toxoplasma gondii, culture

Leaving on a Jet Plane

Most travelers resort to tackling jet lag with melatonin or sedatives and caffeine pills. But the most useful solutions to jet lag are actually napping and caffeine.

“Using a combination of nap and caffeine is better than using them separately, if you can believe it. It takes 15 to 30 minutes for caffeine to kick in. So you do the two together. All it takes is a cup of coffee — not even a pill. By the time the caffeine is working, your nap is over.”

Technorati Tags: jet lag, caffeine, naps, melatonin, sedatives

Don’t worry, be happy

Everyone knows that stress is detrimental to health, and new research shows that stress hormones can remodel the brain and also harm the immune system.

A good fix for mental stress is exercise. Now, if only we could find the time and energy !

Technorati Tags: stress, immune system, brain