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 [...]

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 [...]

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. [...]

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

Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club

CNN has an interesting article on social isolation in the US. Despite being a modern country of nearly 300 million that prides itself on its technological connectivity, this nation has an increasing number of lonely people. Chronic loneliness can be a serious condition, and is a major risk factor for depression, high blood pressure, herat [...]

Curry power

Scientists at the National University of Singapore have discovered that curry eating enhances cognitive performance in the elderly. [Via] The compound curcurin found in turmeric (a staple ingredient of curry), is an antioxidant that may inhibit buildup of plaques in people with Alzheimer’s. Hmmm. I have two questions:
Has it been shown Alzheimer’s occurs less frequently [...]

Power of thinking without thinking

Instinct is a strong word, poorly defined. Personally, it manifests as a strong sense of one set of choices being right. It’s also usually accompanied by a racing heart, sweaty palms and my brain groaning against what it thinks is a ’stupid’ decision. There is an overwhelming sense of something feeling like the right thing [...]

A green future

The School of Nursing at the UT Health Science Center here in Houston is a wonderful example of green architecture, and has been selected as one of the top 10 green projects for 2006.
The building happens to be adjacent to my school, and one of my first public health courses was taught there. It was [...]

Bottled blues

There are two remarkable facts regarding drinking water that I have observed as a newcomer to the US.
One is that tap water is perfectly drinkable. This may seem unremarkable to all Americans, but it is an abolute marvel to folks from developing countries where safe drinking water is a precious commodity. Certainly, all Indian households [...]

Paranoid about Hurricanes

As a Houston resident who had a traumatising evacuation when Rita came around last year, I was immediately freaked out by the possibility of ‘Hurricane’ Chris. I started tracking her (or is it his ? Chris is a pretty gender neutral name …) progress immediately, watching the weather news any chance I got, and refreshing [...]