Curious about the latest biomedical findings but need a brief, easy-to-understand introduction? Look no further than our Research section, which is dedicated to breaking down new studies that are sure to peak your interest.
The Growing Power of Machine Learning: Combating CNS TumorsWritten by Haylie Wilcox
Edited by Khushi Shah April 5th, 2024 Inside the operating room, a neurosurgeon confronts one of the most challenging moments of their career. Their patient lies unconscious on the surgical table, concealing a central nervous system (CNS) tumor within their brain. These tumors pose a significant threat, especially to children, making them one of the deadliest forms of cancer (Vermeulen et al., 2023).
A Guide to Fertility Preservation for Transgender IndividualsWritten by Varsha Vijayakartik
Edited by Numa Islam April 5th, 2024 Transgender individuals constitute a relatively small proportion of the U.S. population, but their social presence seems to be growing ever larger and more influential - especially in popular culture and social media. Despite the increase in transgender representation in these kinds of media, gender health in medical institutions is largely underdeveloped. In U.S. healthcare, the lack of emphasis on providing transgender patients with the appropriate tools and information to take control of their health during and after transitional procedures makes this reduced demographic even more vulnerable.
Pharmacologic Therapies for Type I DiabetesWritten by Khushi Shah
Edited by Numa Islam September 27, 2023 Type 1 diabetes is a chronic condition, typically beginning in childhood or adolescence, in which the pancreas produces little to no insulin. Insulin is a vital hormone which plays a role in regulating the blood glucose levels in the bloodstream. Type 1 diabetics rely on insulin treatments because the Beta cells, responsible for insulin production, are lacking in function. The American Diabetes Association (ADA) has come up with newer, more promising treatment recommendations for these individuals. They believe that Type 1 diabetics should be treated with multiple injections of insulin, use rapid-acting insulin analogs (compounds with a structure similar to that of another) to reduce the risk of hypoglycemia (low blood glucose levels), and receive education on how to match their insulin doses to carbohydrate intake, pre-meal blood glucose, and anticipated physical activity (ADA, 2021).
Metabolic Mastery: Unveiling the Molecular Symphony of Caloric Restriction for Enhanced Muscle Health and Healthy AgingWritten by Gurveen Dosanjh
Edited by Carolyn Chiu April 5th, 2024 Calorie restriction involves consuming food and nutrients in meals with small amounts of calories in a consistent manner that does not impact the body to the point of malnutrition. Scientists have experimented with calorie restriction in animal models and have shown calorie restriction to help slow down the development of diseases in aging.
A Guide to Fertility Preservation for Transgender IndividualsWritten by Varsha Vijayakartik
Edited by Numa Islam April 5th, 2024 Transgender individuals constitute a relatively small proportion of the U.S. population, but their social presence seems to be growing ever larger and more influential - especially in popular culture and social media. Despite the increase in transgender representation in these kinds of media, gender health in medical institutions is largely underdeveloped. In U.S. healthcare, the lack of emphasis on providing transgender patients with the appropriate tools and information to take control of their health during and after transitional procedures makes this reduced demographic even more vulnerable.
Pharmacologic Therapies for Type I DiabetesWritten by Khushi Shah
Edited by Numa Islam September 27, 2023 Type 1 diabetes is a chronic condition, typically beginning in childhood or adolescence, in which the pancreas produces little to no insulin. Insulin is a vital hormone which plays a role in regulating the blood glucose levels in the bloodstream. Type 1 diabetics rely on insulin treatments because the Beta cells, responsible for insulin production, are lacking in function. The American Diabetes Association (ADA) has come up with newer, more promising treatment recommendations for these individuals. They believe that Type 1 diabetics should be treated with multiple injections of insulin, use rapid-acting insulin analogs (compounds with a structure similar to that of another) to reduce the risk of hypoglycemia (low blood glucose levels), and receive education on how to match their insulin doses to carbohydrate intake, pre-meal blood glucose, and anticipated physical activity (ADA, 2021).
Get Psyched! Psychedelic-Induced Neuroplasticity as a Therapeutic for Mental IllnessWritten by Kalyani Seshan
Edited by Carolyn Chiu April 5th, 2024 Psychedelic drugs like psilocybin, LSD, and ayahuasca are known for their hallucinogenic properties that alter perception, cognition, and mood1. Recreational, spiritual and therapeutic uses of these drugs have existed throughout history, but current research is focused on their therapeutic potential in mental illness, especially depression. Our brains contain millions of neurons with complex, branching structures called dendrites designed to receive signals like serotonin (5-HT) from other cells.
A Guide to Fertility Preservation for Transgender IndividualsWritten by Varsha Vijayakartik
Edited by Numa Islam April 5th, 2024 Transgender individuals constitute a relatively small proportion of the U.S. population, but their social presence seems to be growing ever larger and more influential - especially in popular culture and social media. Despite the increase in transgender representation in these kinds of media, gender health in medical institutions is largely underdeveloped. In U.S. healthcare, the lack of emphasis on providing transgender patients with the appropriate tools and information to take control of their health during and after transitional procedures makes this reduced demographic even more vulnerable.
Pharmacologic Therapies for Type I DiabetesWritten by Khushi Shah
Edited by Numa Islam September 27, 2023 Type 1 diabetes is a chronic condition, typically beginning in childhood or adolescence, in which the pancreas produces little to no insulin. Insulin is a vital hormone which plays a role in regulating the blood glucose levels in the bloodstream. Type 1 diabetics rely on insulin treatments because the Beta cells, responsible for insulin production, are lacking in function. The American Diabetes Association (ADA) has come up with newer, more promising treatment recommendations for these individuals. They believe that Type 1 diabetics should be treated with multiple injections of insulin, use rapid-acting insulin analogs (compounds with a structure similar to that of another) to reduce the risk of hypoglycemia (low blood glucose levels), and receive education on how to match their insulin doses to carbohydrate intake, pre-meal blood glucose, and anticipated physical activity (ADA, 2021).
The Use of 3D-Printed Tissue to Further Brain Tissue Implantation TechniquesWritten by Adhvaith Balakrishnan
Edited by Kriti Iyer April 5th, 2024 Imagine you feel a strong headache. You get your brain scanned and find out that you have damaged brain tissue leading to a deadly disease. Would you rather undergo life-threatening brain surgery or possibly have that tissue replaced by a 3D-printed tissue in a faster, safer process?
Pharmacologic Therapies for Type I DiabetesWritten by Khushi Shah
Edited by Numa Islam September 27, 2023 Type 1 diabetes is a chronic condition, typically beginning in childhood or adolescence, in which the pancreas produces little to no insulin. Insulin is a vital hormone which plays a role in regulating the blood glucose levels in the bloodstream. Type 1 diabetics rely on insulin treatments because the Beta cells, responsible for insulin production, are lacking in function. The American Diabetes Association (ADA) has come up with newer, more promising treatment recommendations for these individuals. They believe that Type 1 diabetics should be treated with multiple injections of insulin, use rapid-acting insulin analogs (compounds with a structure similar to that of another) to reduce the risk of hypoglycemia (low blood glucose levels), and receive education on how to match their insulin doses to carbohydrate intake, pre-meal blood glucose, and anticipated physical activity (ADA, 2021).
Disparities in Violence in Neighborhoods in the United States during the COVID-19Written by Miriam Bermejo
Edited by Numa Islam September 27, 2023 The violence present in less privileged communities already existed but the COVID-19 pandemic has further sharpened the disparity by furthering economic and housing instability and reducing access to support services and other resources. Researchers with the Violence Prevention Research Program in the Department of Emergency Medicine at the University of California, Davis seek to show in which social groups the burden of violence was highest and in which cities to see who is affected and the environmental conditions that may contribute to risk.
Pharmacologic Therapies for Type I DiabetesWritten by Khushi Shah
Edited by Numa Islam September 27, 2023 Type 1 diabetes is a chronic condition, typically beginning in childhood or adolescence, in which the pancreas produces little to no insulin. Insulin is a vital hormone which plays a role in regulating the blood glucose levels in the bloodstream. Type 1 diabetics rely on insulin treatments because the Beta cells, responsible for insulin production, are lacking in function. The American Diabetes Association (ADA) has come up with newer, more promising treatment recommendations for these individuals. They believe that Type 1 diabetics should be treated with multiple injections of insulin, use rapid-acting insulin analogs (compounds with a structure similar to that of another) to reduce the risk of hypoglycemia (low blood glucose levels), and receive education on how to match their insulin doses to carbohydrate intake, pre-meal blood glucose, and anticipated physical activity (ADA, 2021).
Sniffer Dogs On The Fight Against CancerWritten by Elyse Ehlert
Edited by Chloe Chou September 27, 2023 In today’s modern world, researchers and scientists have only become more and more innovative in their approaches to worldwide medical issues such as cancer and heart disease. According to a German study published in 2021, dogs too may soon be joining the fight (Feil et al., 2021). Between 2016 and 2017, researchers trained dogs to identify breath and urine samples taken from lung cancer patients, and the results were striking. Overall, the dogs were able to correctly detect cancer 97.6% of the time. As the World Health Organization states, lung cancer is one of the most prevalent newly diagnosed cancers each year (2.2 million worldwide in 2020), so a noninvasive testing approach such as this could be a game-changing tool in early detection (WHO, 2022). As a reference, current tests such as CT scans or surgical biopsies are often costly and invasive (NHS, 2022).
Cats Know Their Names!Written by Sam Leyva
Edited by Khushi Shah September 27, 2023 If you’re a cat person, it’s no secret that a cat café – a café that houses plenty of cats for customers to hang out with – is heaven on earth. If you’re a researcher, a cat café is a perfect place to do some research on cat behavior. These kitties are the perfect subjects to test if cats can differentiate their names from other words! During a particular study, four different experiments were performed to test a cat’s ability to hear phonetic differences in words to thus recognize their own name.
Sexual Deviance: What Causes Pedophilia?Written by Mariam Feleyeh
Edited by Jasmine Jeon January 5, 2023 For the last few centuries, Pedophilia has long been a source of interest for behavioral psychologists, forensic experts, and the general public. According to scientists, pedophilia is “the abnormal attraction to children by an adult for sexual purposes.” Because of its nature, it is highly stigmatized to admit one's attraction to children. Behavioral scientists and forensic experts alike are curious about the act of pedophilic sexual deviance. It is debated in the scientific community if pedophilia is a genetic disorder and individuals are not to blame for their pedophilic attraction, or if pedophilia is a result of outside stressors.
Why you might remember the things you do wrong more than the things you do right?Written by Andrea Martinez Vera
Edited by Cindy Ho January 5, 2023 Many studies have found a relationship between stress and recalling emotional memories. Why might this be? These studies found that memories can be connected to both positive and negative emotional triggers. Emotional memories can be both negative like walking by a barking dog and positive like watching your favorite movie. Apart from emotional memories, neutral memories can also be made by triggers that do not enact an emotion, such as being asked to remember a phone number.
A Glass of Cranberry Juice A Day Keeps Heart Disease AwayWritten by Elyse Ehlert
Edited by Jasmine Jeon January 5, 2023 You may have heard the old wives’ tale that cranberry juice can help treat UTIs, but have you heard that they might be good for your heart health? In a study from the Nutritional Sciences Departments of the University of Arizona, Tucson and Pennsylvania State University, researchers investigated the effects of cranberry juice on cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors.
Meditation Is The Key To Living LongerWritten by Emily Tseng
Edited by Priya Ram February 9th, 2023 Humans have always obsessed over the notion of living longer. Technological advancements throughout history have drastically increased life expectancy by decades. For example, in the United States, life expectancy has nearly doubled in the last century due to the decline in premature deaths and infectious diseases. Scientists have primarily focused on proving that maintaining physical health, through measures like eating healthy and being physically active, can contribute to increased lifespan. However, a new field of research suggests that maintaining our mental health through mindfulness-based interventions could be the new key to living longer.
Feeling Anxious Before Surgery? Try Scrolling through Tik TokWritten by Natalie Madrigal
Edited by Christine Yee February 9th, 2023 When you hear ‘Tik Tok’ what comes to mind? If you’ve been on the internet long enough, you’re probably thinking about viral dancing trends or whipped coffee. And while the debate surges on as to whether it qualifies as a genuine form of entertainment or simply another waste of time, researchers in China believe that Tik Tok has found its place in the operating room.
Could Regulating Gut Microbe Functions Fight Obesity?Written by Victoria Stewart
Edited by Emily Fucarino February 9th, 2023 In the past few decades, researchers have traced links between the gut microbial communities in healthy individuals and those that often found in obese individuals. Much of contemporary anti-obesity research focuses on the impact of changing the make-up of these communities to improve gut function and potentially treat obesity. However, researchers at the Cleveland Clinic have proposed an alternative: controlling the constituents of the gut microbes via targeting the function of specific obesity-linked microbes themselves.
Vector Control and Insecticide ResistanceWritten by Maggie Bauer
Edited by Tanishq Vaidya February 9th, 2023 What do you think of when you hear the word mosquito? Most people would think about the annoying buzzing sound or the bug bites that result, but they can also have much more harmful effects. Mosquitos are one of the most well known and widespread vectors of disease for many common illnesses such as malaria and zika. A vector is a species that transmits diseases between hosts and includes mosquitos, flies, ticks, and many other organisms (2). Their potential for causing an outbreak has raised concerns for epidemiologists worldwide.
Our Competitive Behavior Comes From the Frontal Cortex?Written by Anisha Chikkareddy
Edited by Christine Yee February 9th, 2023 Competitive behavior has always driven humanity - it has driven us to better ourselves and achieve the impossible, but it has also created class divides and power imbalances. Scientists have consistently tried to pinpoint exactly what makes us competitive and the associated inner workings within the brain – and knowing how will have vast implications for society and humanity. A group of researchers in the Department of Neurosurgery at Massachusetts General Hospital (Harvard) decided to study competitive behavior in a group of mice in order to find out how exactly the brain deals with competition.
Making Chronic Disease Treatment Natural: Phytocompounds and Rheumatoid ArthritisWritten by Justin Gambill
Edited by Khushi Shah February 9th, 2023 Autoimmune diseases are common medical issues that exist without prior knowledge of their origins; the cellular mechanisms are often complex, and thus treatment options often are absent. Rheumatoid Arthritis is one of the most of these diseases, with new methods of treatment are always constantly entering the medical sphere . For instance, new research shows that lactate (a common byproduct of metabolism), is the main cause of Rheumatoid Arthritis symptoms, where natural plant-produced compounds could be a new source of treatment (1).
Vision Epigenetics: The New Fountain of YouthWritten by Avantika Gokulnatha
Edited by Chloe Chou February 9th, 2023 Time is fleeting. In a society obsessed with youth, we have serums, treatments, creams, and lotions all with the goal of preventing external aging. But we are also faced with the darker toll that a long life poses: disease, chronic pain, and feebleness which prevent us from living life as we once did. Groundbreaking research conducted at Harvard Medical School provides new insight into the biological basis of aging, and amazingly, how it can be reversed.
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Addressing the Environmental Sustainability of BiochemicalsWritten by Shashank Deepak
Edited by Kriti Iyer April 5th, 2024 Think of substances with a plethora of uses that are used everyday in every corner of the globe, in nearly every physical form and yet their existence is taken for granted. Sound familiar? These substances are biochemicals. The biochemical industry is one of the largest industries in the world, whose products often make up the essentials of modern living. However, their production and environmental consequences are aspects that are often ignored.
Climate Change Affects the Fish You Eat, TooWritten by Andrea Liu
Edited by Srinidhi Viswanathan April 5th, 2024 A polar bear swims through cold blue arctic waters. They can no longer rely on hunting seals on ice because, in the last few decades, sea ice has been melting at a rapid pace.
This is a story we’re all familiar with: a story of climate change and how it’s been affecting animals. However, polar bears live far in the Arctic, and it can be difficult to understand how melting ice shelves affect our own everyday lives. Early Detection: How a Biomarker Could Redefine Parkinson's DiagnosisWritten by Keerti Varada
Edited by Kriti Iyer April 5th, 2024 Parkinson’s disease is a long-term neurological disorder that inhibits movement. This disorder involves a progressive loss of neurons that produce dopamine, a chemical messenger, in regions of the brain. Reduced dopamine levels affect motor functions, including balance and coordination. Related disorders, termed “Parkinsonian disorders,” share similar conditions, but may differ in their causes.
Immunology and the Brain: Possible Cancer TreatmentsWritten by Pallavi Venkatesh
Edited by Elyse Ehlert April 5th, 2024 The brain is responsible for running all the processes of the human body, an organized chaos of hundreds of moving parts in need of direction. Each part has an extremely specific function that fits into a large mechanism of interacting parts, with the brain at the head, running the show. For a long time, researchers believed that the brain had something called immune privilege, in other words, no immune presence. This theory is supported by the fact that the brain does not have a large number of lymphocytes, the body’s first defenders.
The Debate on β Blockers: To Use or Not To Use?Written by Shanmathi Murugesan
Edited by Elyse Ehlert April 5th, 2024 Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in the US, with hypertension (or high blood pressure), being the main contributor to the disease. While there are many ways to combat hypertension with dietary and other lifestyle interventions, medications prove to be the most effective.
Not So Automatic: Why POTS might be more than just an Autonomic Nervous System DisorderWritten by Jane Crosby
Edited by Sam Leyva September 27, 2023 You might not have even heard of POTS, but if you have, it’s probably been described as a type of dysautonomia, a dysfunction of the autonomic nervous system. But what if it’s more than this? A review of Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS) by Dr. Svetlana Blitshteyn, Associate Professor of Neurology at the University of Buffalo Jacobs School of Medicine and Director of Dysautonomia Clinic investigates the possibility of Central Nervous System (CNS) involvement.
When Alcohol Meets CannabisWritten by Jaishree Ramamoorthi
Edited by Chloe Chou September 27, 2023 It’s no secret that many college students engage in simultaneous alcohol and marijuana (SAM) use even when warned against its negative implications. However, many students use these substances for various motives, insinuating that the solution is more nuanced than simply avoiding substance use. Researchers from the Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies at Brown University School of Public Health and the Center of Alcohol and Substance Studies at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, investigate the specific motives and manner of SAM use by identifying the relationships between different motives and consequences, as well as whether the motive influences the number of alcohol and cannabis products consumed.
Standing Up to POTSWritten by Jane Crosby
Edited by Miriam Bermejo September 27, 2023 Isn’t eating too much salt bad for you? For most, the recommended sodium intake is around 2,300mg/day, but for the 1,000,000+ [1] Americans living with Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS), a high sodium diet can improve symptoms and increase quality of life. POTS is a type of dysautonomia, or autonomic nervous system dysfunction, that causes tachycardia, migraine, dizziness, shaking and sweating, nausea, digestive issues, and fatigue, among other things, all of which are worsened by standing. A high sodium diet is a recommended treatment for POTS but proof that it definitively works is not available. This gap led researchers at the Vanderbilt Autonomic Dysfunction center to investigate the efficacy of a high sodium diet.
Growing Up With A PandemicWritten by Srinidhi Viswanathan
Edited by Avantika Gokulnatha September 27, 2023 It’s not hard to see how most of our lives have been uprooted, disrupted, and completely changed since the COVID-19 pandemic became a central part of our lives in early 2020. New studies have shown that this is especially true for adolescents. Ages spanning from 15-20 are vital in the development of the human brain (Konrad et al., 2013). A new study from Stanford University explored the effects of stress and other impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on those transitioning from adolescence to adulthood. Results of this study are particularly alarming.
Managing Depressive Disorders with Artificial IntelligenceWritten by Jaishree Ramamoorthi
Edited by Cindy Ho January 5, 2023 As one of the most common psychiatric illnesses in the world, research on the management of depressive disorders has increased rapidly over the years. A significant amount of this research is through the application of artificial intelligence (AI). Using AI in medicine has been of notable interest since the surge of technological advancements in the field. With the potential to diagnose and determine therapeutic plans rapidly, using AI in medicine can decrease the overall processing times that patients face.
The Brains of Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)Written by Sasinathaya Aphichatphokhin
Edited by Kriti Iyer January 5, 2023 We often hear about the behavioral characteristics of autistic individuals, but seldom hear how these behaviors are associated with their brain structures. Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are associated with brain structural changes that often impact an individual’s social interaction with others, and may cause an individual to develop repetitive and restricted behaviors or interests. Known causes of ASD include genetics, but there exist unknown environmental factors that researchers are still figuring out. This raises the question of how much of the brain structural changes are due to genetics, and how much is due to other unknown factors.
Fish Skin For Burns?Written by Lillian Brinkmann
Edited by Tanishq Vaidya February 9th, 2023 You’ve probably been through it before: you touched a hot pan handle, spilled some coffee…whatever the circumstances, we all know what it’s like to get a burn. We’ll likely agree that no matter the case, burns are a nuisance. Even small ones are painful, and a third degree burn can be debilitating. We are around burn-inducing elements every day, so it’s important that we have effective treatments for when things go awry. Ironically, one of our most promising burn remedies may lie in an unlikely place: underwater. Indeed, recent studies suggest that fish skin is the key to effective burn recovery.
You Are What You SmokeWritten by Sarena Yang
Edited by Priya Ram February 9th, 2023 Our intestines play such an important role in our everyday lives – they provide us with nutrients and digest our food. Unfortunately, a common type of cancer can occur in the intestines, specifically in the colon and the rectum. Colorectal cancer (CRC) is when cells in the colon or rectum grow out of control (What Is Colorectal Cancer?). It typically begins as harmless growths called polyps; however, in certain cases they can grow uncontrollably (What Is Colorectal Cancer?).
Can You Be Vegan and Pregnant?Written by Erica Wang
Edited by Emily Moran February 9th, 2023 Are vegetarian and vegan diets safe for pregnant women? Researchers in Israel conducted an online survey to collect data about omnivorous, vegetarian, and vegan mothers’ birth outcomes. With plant-based diets becoming more popular, especially in young women, it raises the question of safety and health, for both the mother and unborn child (Melina et al., 2016; Israel Central Bureau of Statistics, 2016).
Quality of Life Helps Cancer OutcomesWritten by Laurel Geraci
Edited by Sameeha Salman February 9th, 2023 It’s no surprise that life for a cancer patient would be harder than life for an average healthy person. But did you know the illness is more than just physical? According to researchers, social disparities and mental health are intrinsically linked–which may seem obvious without further explanation. However, these difficulties are especially significant in the context of a medical environment, where 90% of the kidney patients in this study experienced psychological disorders. Furthermore, the longer the treatment period for patients, the more likely they were to develop serious psychological symptoms (Chawla et al., 2013). What about their demographics make the results so different?
What Factors Make Primary Care Providers Better at Caring for Children with Overweight or Obesity?Written by Thin Han
Edited by Emily Moran February 9th, 2023 In general, people shy away from talking about topics such as being overweight or obese. It is seen as something negative that should be worked on privately. However, the tendency to shy away from these topics does not mean the quality of healthcare toward people who are overweight or obese should decrease in any way. This is especially true for the quality of healthcare toward children who are overweight or obese as treatments toward them in childhood can have detrimental and lasting effects on them. In order to maintain the quality of healthcare of these children, it is important to not only identify the factors of the primary care providers, or PCP, that can provide that level of quality, but also to identify outside factors that can help PCP provide better care.
Everything Is Good In Moderation, Even AlcoholWritten by Emily Tseng
Edited by Jasmine Jeon February 9th, 2023 You have probably heard the phrase “everything in moderation,” referring to the idea that too much of a good thing could become detrimental. It’s probably no surprise that this applies to alcohol. Researchers and physicians have long known that heavy alcohol consumption is associated with increased risk of heart failure. However, studies conducted within the last two decades have shown that lighter alcohol consumption can actually reduce one’s risk of heart failure, as compared to non-drinkers.
How A Product Made with Activated Charcoal Can Protect Gut Health from AntibioticsWritten by Miriam Bermejo
Edited by Jasmine Jeon February 9th, 2023 The creation of antibiotics is one of the most crucial medical advancements in history. Antibiotics are medicine used to target bacterial infections. As a result, bacteria-causing diseases became easily treatable and mortality rates decreased, but this ability came with unintended consequences. When antibiotics are administered orally, non-absorbed antibiotic residue makes its way to the intestine and colon which can disrupt the health of the microbiome present. Short-term impacts due to the disruption include diarrhea, the rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, and a connection to allergy and obesity in the long term.
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Do We Really Need Blue Light Filtering Glasses to Protect Our Eyes?
Written by Theint Aung
Edited by Yasmine Jeon and Carolyn Chiu
Dec 11, 2022
In the age of COVID-19, public health and social measures to limit the transmission of the virus have resulted in a drastic increase in screen time. A recent study reported that on average adolescents spend 7.70 hours per day on their screens, an increase from 3.8 hours per day before the pandemic (Nagata et al., 2022). This increase is dangerous since research shows that prolonged screen use can result in a condition known as computer vision syndrome (CVS) which involves several eye-related problems such as blurred vision, dry eye, redness, and headache (Singh et al., 2021).
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A Glass of Cranberry Juice a Day Keeps Heart Disease Away
Written by Elyse Ehlert
Edited by Jasmine Jeon
January 5, 2023
You may have heard the old wives’ tale that cranberry juice can help treat UTIs, but have you heard that they might be good for your heart health? In a study from the Nutritional Sciences Departments of the University of Arizona, Tucson and Pennsylvania State University, researchers investigated the effects of cranberry juice on cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors.
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The Genetics Behind Differences in Taste
Written by Sukanya Chandrasekaran
Edited by Carolyn Chiu
March 21, 2022
Taste receptors located on the taste cells of taste buds present on our tongue function as one of the main guides that helps us distinguish between flavors. The central processing of taste comprises taste cells, nerves, and brain structures. The taste receptors are organized in taste buds located on the tongue, which detect proteins then send excitations to the brain via the nerves to evoke the perception of taste.
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Xenotransplanted Heart with Increased Survivability
Written by Rency Dhaduk
Edited by Emily Moran
March 21, 2022
For patients who are unable to get heart transplantation in time before heart failure, genetically modified pig hearts are the new source of transplant for end-stage failure. Xenograft transplant is when organs or tissues are transplanted among two different species, such as from animals to humans.
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Cognitive Effects in Chiari Malformation Type 1
Written by Maggie Bauer
Edited by Aaron Wright
March 21, 2022
Have you ever heard of Chiari Malformation? Neither had I until I was diagnosed with it two years ago. But in reality, Chiari Malformation is quite common. According to recent statistics, Chiari Malformation affects around “50,000 to 350,000 persons in the United States”. Chiari Malformation is a disorder in which the cerebellum of the brain descends into the brain stem, restructuring cerebrospinal fluid and putting pressure on the brain.
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Preventing Pregnancy Prevents Cancer
Written by Laurel Geraci
Edited by Chloe Chou
March 21, 2022
It’s no surprise that more than 80% of women in the western world have used oral contraceptives before (Brynhildsen, 2014)–but did you know there could be even more benefits than just preventing pregnancy? According to new studies by scientists at Uppsala University, long term users of oral contraceptives have significantly lower risks of ovarian and endometrial cancer than women who have never used them!
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Zoonotic Diseases at the Zoo: How Big Cats Became Infected with SARS-CoV-2 at the Bronx Zoo
Written by Erica Wang
Edited by Justin Gambill
March 21, 2022
Unsurprisingly, human-to-human transmission of SARS-CoV-2 is at the forefront of research and public concern. It is believed that the virus originated from horseshoe bats [1,2] and then spread to humans. How easily could Covid-19 spread back to other non-human animals? This question was partially answered in March of 2020, when four tigers and three lions became infected with SARS-CoV-2 at the Bronx Zoo in New York [3]. Previously, there have been instances of infected domestic dogs, cats, and farmed mink [4-6], but these big cats were the first nondomestic animals to test positive for the virus. Analysis of the specific mutations in the SAR-CoV-2 viral DNA sequence showed that the tigers had been infected by their keepers.
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Biochar, The Filter of the Future
Written by Anna Feerick
Edited by Kelly Chau
March 21, 2022
The magic material here to clear your skin, flourish your crops, and keep pollutants out of your drinking water: biochar. For those unfamiliar, biochar is what remains after burning biological matter under low-oxygen conditions and is a cheap, green alternative for filtering out carbon-based pollutants. Many organic pollutants require the use of costly environmental remediation methods (e.g., reverse osmosis and activated carbon), limiting wastewater treatment plants’ options for removal. With strong absorbance and degradation properties, biochar makes an attractive addition to the normal treatment process.
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Is Keto the Best Diet for Weight Loss?
Written by Pamela Gomez
Edited by Christine Yee
Jan 23rd, 2022
Robert C. Atkins, cardiologist and creator of the Atkins diet claimed that decreasing carbohydrate consumption is a key component of weight loss. After his beliefs and diet gained popularity, many other varieties of his diet were created. People believed that by limiting carbohydrate intake, weight loss would follow. Despite lack of evidence on the effectiveness of a low-carbohydrate diet for weight loss, people around the world continue to follow these diets. But what does science say?
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Aiding Chemotherapy Treatment with Ginseng
Written by Nathan Tran
Edited by Emily Moran
Jan 23rd, 2022
Chemotherapy, being one of the few possible treatments cancer patients undergo, aims to fight cancer and prevent its spread. Usually, it is in the form of medication that has been found to combat and obstruct the spread of cancerous cells in the body, which divide and spread unhindered due to mutations or other causes. Those chemotherapy medications must target the mechanisms by which a cell divides and prevent them from doing that in a harmful way. However, such risky treatment does not come without adverse side effects to other parts of the body. One such example is cisplatin, and using it commonly leads to memory impairment and cognitive disability, which are common symptoms in neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. If that is the case, what can be done to minimize these side effects when it is a necessary treatment for some patients?
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Saving Wild Fish Populations and the Search for Sustainable Omega-3 Sources
Written by Victoria Stewart
Edited by Tanishq Vaidya
Jan 23rd, 2022
In today's food industry, the demand for omega-3 fatty acids, naturally found in fish, has placed a massive toll on the world's fisheries, as the beneficial nutrients contribute to the global crisis of overfishing and disregard for ocean life. Over 100 species of wild fish, utilized in the past by consumers for this demand, have been declared extinct or endangered (Adarme-Vega, 2014). But what makes omega-3 fatty acids so valuable that it would trigger this devastation to natural fisheries?
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Chimeras and Autoimmunity
Written by Vicky Diep
Edited by Justin Gambill
Jan 23rd, 2022
In 1865, Gregor Mendel, an abbot who is known today as the “father of genetics,” published his findings on the mechanisms of inheritance. However, it was not until after his death that his ideas gained more traction within the scientific community. Today, Mendel's laws of segregation and independent assortment are an essential component of any genetics curriculum.
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Coffee on the Mind
Written by Jacob Gomez
Edited by Jasmine Jeon
Jan 23rd, 2022
Coffee is indisputably one of the world’s most popular beverages. Go look on any street corner and you can see at least one Starbucks, Peet’s Coffee, or Dutch Bros shop with a long line forming around it. At least, this is true for anyone living near a college campus around midterm season. But why is coffee so popular? Is it the taste? The aroma? Or, is it the fact that coffee contains a compound called trimethylxanthine, or caffeine, for most people?
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Manuka Honey: Sweet to Us, Bitter to Bacteria
Written by Erica Wang
Edited by Christine Yee
Jan 23rd, 2022
Honey is a great sweet treat, but what if it could also be used to treat wounds and kill bacteria? Manuka honey, a medical grade honey made from the nectar of tea trees in New Zealand and Australia, can do just that. While honey normally gains some antibacterial properties from hydrogen peroxide production, manuka honey obtains most of its antibacterial properties from a chemical known as methylglyoxal (Barrell, 2017). With the rise of antibiotic resistance in bacteria, alternatives to traditional antibiotics need to be looked into. Researchers from Cardiff Metropolitan University sought to understand the mechanisms that make manuka honey effective against methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), a notoriously difficult bacteria to treat (Jenkins et al., 2013).
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How contaminated are our countertops?
Written by Theint Aung
Edited by Aaron Wright
Jan 23rd, 2022
With the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have all become more conscious of the microbes in our environment. We have wiped down countertops more than ever with the purpose of protecting ourselves from different bacteria and viruses. But how much of these indoor pollutants are deposited on surfaces? And how effective is it to clean them?
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Eating Disorders- Could it be your Gut?
Written by Ritika Jhawar
Edited by Claire Fargeix
August 1st, 2021
Eating disorders are one of the strongest, yet ill-perceived mental illnesses that have become increasingly prevalent throughout society— especially with influenceable teenage girls. Eating disorders, as defined by the American Psychiatric Association, are a “group of mental illnesses that manifest with disturbance to feeding behaviors and body weight regulation” (2013). There are numerous diagnoses within this category, but many share the same symptoms of binging, purging, and calorie restriction. Previously, scientists looked at neurological and physiological alterations as the sole causes for the development of an eating disorder, but new research is now pointing to the importance of physiological traits too.
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Candida auris: An emerging fungal threat?
Written by Emily Fucarino
Edited by Michelle Wong
August 1st, 2021
When you think of the microbes that cause infectious diseases, what do you think of? Viruses? Bacteria? While both of these groups are highly relevant in public health, they aren’t the only culprits. Fungi also have the capacity to be pathogenic—that is, to cause disease—and although they are less prolific, they are no less capable. New pathogens are constantly emerging and posing novel threats to public health, including Candida auris, a member of the notorious Candida fungal family (Du et al., 2020). As a whole, Candida species are responsible for the majority of fungal infections acquired in a hospital setting, and can cause fatal infections in the bloodstream (Brown et al., 2020). C. auris is a relatively new species and was only identified for the first time in 2009 (Du et al., 2020) but it is already causing scientists to worry.
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Weight Loss That Sticks
Written by Natalie Hopkins
Edited by Priya Ram
August 1st, 2021
For those struggling with obesity, it can be difficult to find medical solutions that give long term results without the lengthy list of potential side effects, making the “solution” appear more harmful than beneficial. A group of medical physicians have gathered data on subcutaneous semaglutide -- a drug meant to increase the speed of sugar metabolism -- to support healthy weight loss in obsese individuals that will remain long term.1 Though subcutaneous semaglutide is perhaps a novel term, it is a medication for type two diabetes generally accepted by both physicians and the public. In this experiment, the medication is tested based on its holistic properties.
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Don’t Stress Out- Especially If You’re Going Into Surgery!
Written by Maggie Bauer
Edited by Connie Quan
August 1st, 2021
These days, it seems like everyone is stressed. People of all ages and stages of life struggle with stress. But, could these feelings of anxiety manifest themselves into physical symptoms? One possible link is pain perception. Persistent pain after surgery is common amongst patients, affecting around “50%”, with about “5-10%” suffering from severe pain. Usually, doctors prescribe medication to help manage this pain, but opioids and other drugs can be addictive and come with serious side effects. Recently, there has been more interest in the factors leading to higher rates of pain-related disorders. By recognizing and providing interventions to help reduce the presence of risk factors, the prevalence of postoperative pain disorders can be reduced.
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Could Coral Bleaching Combat Global Malnutrition?
Written by Victoria Stewart
Edited by Benjamin Blue
March 21, 2022
In recent years, the detrimental warming effects of climate change have been felt throughout the globe, and the oceans are no exception. But in a research study by Robinson et al., researchers are looking into how such impacts can instead provide a possible opportunity to address malnutrition for global human populations.
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Are Males more susceptible to Asthma than Females?
Written by Ritika Jhawar
Edited by Jasmine Jeon
March 21, 2022
Breathing is one of the most basic and essential human processes required to survive. Yet, many of us take it for granted when exercising, playing on sports teams, or even just going up a staircase. For some though, these seemingly simple tasks are actually much more difficult due to asthma. Asthma is defined as a condition in which your airways are narrow/swelled, causing an increased difficulty to breathe. This leads to cells producing extra mucus, and signs of coughing/wheezing.
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OCD and ADHD are Potentially Related?
Written by Natalie Hopkins
Edited by Aaron Wright
March 21, 2022
Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are two of the most common mental diseases in youth. While both have their individual set of behaviors, they share a genetic link. OCD is described as intrusive thoughts, often disturbing, and leading to repetitive, compulsory behaviors.
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Remyelination and Multiple Sclerosis
Written by Lillian Brinkmann
Edited by Sameeha Salman
March 21, 2022
Have you ever noticed the outer layer of insulation on wires and cables? The purpose of this layer is to help conduct electrical currents quickly and efficiently. As it turns out, we have something similar in our own brain cells! A pivotal foundation of our bodily functions is the electrical impulses that run through our nervous system, which do everything from allowing us to feel sensations to letting us move our muscles.
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Say Goodbye to Dog Allergies?
Written by Carlos Rendon
Edited by Emily Moran
March 21, 2022
As of 2018, around 38% of households had dogs, which are also the most popular pets in the United States. As the saying goes, the lovable canines are truly man’s best friend. Unfortunately, as many as 3 out of every 10 people in the United States suffer from dog allergies, and about 5-10% of the worldwide population suffer from severe allergic reactions from dogs. People that have allergic reactions to dogs often are unable to keep them as pets even if they would like to.
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A New Treatment for Adolescent Depression?
Written by Anisha Chikkareddy
Edited by Connie Quan
March 21, 2022
Is there a way to treat adolescents with depression in a world under the control of a global pandemic? In 2020, the world was thrown into a tailspin by COVID-19. Pressing mental health crises worsened, and younger members of society were not immune to the virus. Right now, there are a lot of challenges with classical treatments for depression such as requiring different treatments, having up to 59% of patients drop out of the treatment plans, and a large accessibility problem (March et al., 2007).
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The Plasma Solution for a Biopsy-Free Lung Cancer Diagnosis
Written by Daphne Crum
Edited by Minjae Yoo
Jan 23rd, 2022
An individual exhibits signs of non-small cell lung cancer, a rapidly progressive illness. Their oncologist wants to confirm a diagnosis as soon as possible, but asking the patient to undergo a biopsy to run tests is a tall order. If only physicians could provide an alternative test for lung cancer that was less invasive and just as accurate, if not better, than a tissue biopsy.
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Could We Really Save The Fertility Crisis?
Written by Laurel Geraci
Edited by Connie Quan
Jan 23rd, 2022
With the rise of modern day medicine, food, and water accessibility, it’s no wonder that our current life expectancy is 40 years longer than it was 150 years ago. While this is certainly a statistic worth celebrating, the sad fact is that the age at which natural menopause (ANM) begins has not changed much. With our society progressing towards starting a family later in life, freezing eggs seems like a viable option to keep the “good” eggs alive-yet the likelihood of achieving pregnancy with thawed eggs is only 6.5% (Argyle et al.). So how can we combat the ANM to preserve fertility?
With the rise of modern day medicine, food, and water accessibility, it’s no wonder that our current life expectancy is 40 years longer than it was 150 years ago. While this is certainly a statistic worth celebrating, the sad fact is that the age at which natural menopause (ANM) begins has not changed much. With our society progressing towards starting a family later in life, freezing eggs seems like a viable option to keep the “good” eggs alive-yet the likelihood of achieving pregnancy with thawed eggs is only 6.5% (Argyle et al.). So how can we combat the ANM to preserve fertility?
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Can Bacteria and Fungi Control Tumors?
Written by Aditi Mahajan
Edited by Carolyn Chiu
Jan 23rd, 2022
Cancer is the second leading cause of death in the United States of America. Different cancer treatments include: chemotherapy, immunotherapy, surgery, and radiation. Previous research has found that the efficacy of both chemotherapy and immunotherapy are related to the gut microbiome of the patient. The gut microbiome is composed of a large variety of bacteria, fungi, viruses, and archaea. However, little has been studied about how our microbiome responds to radiation therapy. Dr. Shiao and his colleagues at the Department of Biomedical Sciences in Los Angeles, CA sought to remedy this.
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A Change of Heart: Heart Transplants and the Nervous System
Written by Lillian Brinkmann
Edited by Kelly Chau
Jan 23rd, 2022
Ever had a change of heart? For some people, a change of heart can be a pretty big deal, involving hefty medical intervention and life-long consequences. You don’t have to be a cardiac surgeon to know that heart transplants are no joke. But what goes into replacing this vital organ? As outlined in this article from the European Heart Journal, the balance between our cardiac and nervous systems is thrown off when a new heart comes into play.
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Spice It Up...It Will Save You From Both Bland Food and Chronic Illness
Written by Maggie Bauer
Edited by Jasmine Jeon
Jan 23rd, 2022
Could something as simple as adding spices potentially ward off some of the most deadly diseases? A category of disease labeled chronic illness is responsible for approximately “60%” of all deaths worldwide. These are called chronic illnesses because they are difficult to cure so they persist; examples include “Alzheimer's disease, arthritis, cancer, cardiovascular disease,” etc. and are believed to be caused by chronic inflammation in different areas of the body.
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Ring-Vaccination Strategy: Does it work?
Written by Ritika Jhawar
Edited by Charan Karthik
Jan 23rd, 2022
As defined by the CDC, cholera is “an acute diarrheal illness caused by infection of the intestine with Vibrio cholerae bacteria”. One can get infected by eating/drinking water that is contaminated, and symptoms range from mild to life-threatening. Some of these symptoms include: vomiting, restlessness, low blood pressure, etc. One of the biggest problems after getting infected is the risk of dehydration. If left untreated, this can lead to further complications such as strokes, or even death. Luckily, once patients receive treatment, they recover without any long-term effects. They are still at risk of getting sick if exposed again though, as the infectious bacteria is no longer in their body.
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Invasive Honey Locust Trees as Natural Wound Dressings
Written by Victoria Stewart
Edited by Kelly Chau
August 1st, 2021
In the woody Balkan regions of Eastern Europe as well as regions in North America, Gleditsia triacanthos or the Honey Locust exists as a resilient, invasive plant species. Able to grow in nutrient poor environments, the tree actively clogs streams, dominates the local ecosystem with dense roots, and inhibits any potential plant diversity. At first glance, the tree seems impossible to view in a positive light. However, at the University of Bucharest a study has instead considered the invasive species as an opportunity. Rather than attempting to weed out the dominating trees, researchers have looked further into the interesting properties of the woody seed pods as well as the leaves, which combined could be promising substitutes for wound dressings.
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Can Vitamin D Predict the Severity of COVID-19 Symptoms in Children?
Written by Nathan Tran
Edited by Jada Co
August 1st, 2021
Ever since the onset of the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic in early 2020, outdoor activities have decreased due to the need to minimize risks of contracting infection. With this state of lockdown that has been ongoing for over a year, many children and students have been lacking in physical activity and exposure to sunlight. Exposure to sunlight is especially important as vitamin D, an essential nutrient, is produced by the body when skin comes into contact with UV light. Although it has been shown that symptoms of COVID-19 are less severe in children than in other infected age groups, they can evolve into a much more serious complication known as Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children (MIS-C). From this, can lower vitamin D levels be a possible predictor for the prevalence and severity of MIS-C along with using it as a supplement lead to clinical outcomes?
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Biological Omens
Written by Minjae Yoo
Edited by Emily Moran
August 1st, 2021
Advances in medical technology have brought forth not only new cures to illnesses, but equally importantly, new predictive and diagnostic methods. One of the most notable is the widespread use of biomarkers—biological substances and processes that measure an individual’s various medical conditions and susceptibility to diseases. Countless biomarkers have been documented and are in use today, but there remains ongoing research to both uncover new, as well as to reexamine and update existing ones. Indeed, as we improve our understanding of human biology, it is crucial to continuously reassess the validity and accuracy of established biomarkers.
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Hope for Alzheimer’s Treatment: Cholinesterase Inhibitors
Written by Lillian Brinkmann
Edited by Kelly Chau
August 1st, 2021
How can we stop Alzheimer’s? A well-known beast, this disease affects 24.3 million people worldwide and impairs vital skills like “decision making, language, memory,” and more. However, a class of drugs called cholinesterase inhibitors can mitigate the effects of the disease. Although they aren’t perfect, scientists continue to research these drugs with the hopes of effectively treating this devastating illness.
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Melatonin: More Than Just A Good Night’s Rest
Written by Janelle Nieva
Edited by Sameeha Salman
August 1st, 2021
With today’s booming popularity of everything encompassing wellness, you may have passed by the health aisle at Target and saw a jar of melatonin gummies for sale among all the other vitamins and nutritional supplements. So what exactly is melatonin, and how does it help us?
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Recreating Neanderthal Brain Structures with Stem Cells
Written by Kacey Zimmerman
Edited by Sameeha Salman
August 1st, 2021
Out of all human-like species that once walked this earth, Neanderthals had the closest relation to modern humans. They lived across Europe and most of Asia approximately 500,000 to 40,000 years ago and spent most of this time in close proximity to our ancient ancestors. This is why many theorize that competition with humans and inbreeding both likely contributed to Neanderthal extinction. In fact, many people carry around 2% Neanderthal DNA in their genome (Hendry, n.d.).
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Vitamin A Can Help You Get A’s
Written by Carolyn Chiu
Edited by Priya Ram
August 1st, 2021
How the brain learns is a fundamental question for neuroscientists. Studying the brain’s capability to remember is crucial to treating patients with cognitive dysfunction. Vitamin A is not a magic pill, but it can increase our brain’s capability to store new information. The brain responds to new information and forms memories by reorganizing synapses, a property called neuroplasticity. Synapses are the connections between any two nerve cells. Yes, that means your brain is constantly changing!
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Mind Manipulation by Toxoplasma gondii
Written by Erica Wang
Edited by Rachel Larson
August 1st, 2021
Can a parasite control your mind? The manipulation hypothesis suggests that a parasite can alter the behavior of its host when it is favorable for the parasite’s reproduction or transmission (Webster, 2001). Although this parasite can live in a wide variety of vertebrates, it is most well known for its association with rats, cats, and humans. Alteration in behavior due to toxoplasmosis, the disease associated with T. gondii, has been well documented in rats and mice, but for humans it is still unclear.
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The Shaping of Our Gut Microbiome
Written by Aditi Mahajan
Edited by Mckenna Ma
August 1st, 2021
Human microbiome research has shown that our microbial composition can influence our level of health. An important element to understanding how our microbiomes function is understanding the factors that influence their formation. This means answering the question: what microbes are in our gut and what causes different people to have different gut microbiomes?
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Spit at the Pitch-Side: How Saliva Could Be Used to Diagnose Concussions
Written by Daria Beniakoff
Edited by Mckenna Ma
August 1st, 2021
Concussions and head injuries are a major concern in sports and are typically diagnosed through self-reported symptoms. A large percentage of concussions may be misdiagnosed or remain unidentified which leads to possible long-term effects on the health of athletes. Biomarkers could be useful in new, objective diagnostic tests to pick up on missed diagnoses of concussions or confirm clinical diagnoses.
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Can We Use Lithium as a Treatment for Alzheimer’s?
Written by Thin Han
Edited by Tanishq Vaidya
May 2, 2021
Rivaling the death rates of cancer and heart disease, Alzheimer’s is an incurable disease that continues to ruin patients’s lives. Particularly, Alzheimer’s is one of the many diseases in the dementia family, and affects patients by destroying long-term memories and weakening their immune systems thus making them more vulnerable to other diseases. However, there is hope on the horizon for treatment in the form of a simple salt. Lithium salt has been used as a treatment for mental health problems, specifically bipolar disorder, since the 2nd century AD (Schioldann, 2009). However, more recently, there is evidence that long-term exposure to it can reduce the symptoms of dementia, specifically Alzheimer’s disease.
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Triple Negative Breast Cancer and Obesity Walk Hand in Hand
Written by Chloe Chou
Edited by Christine Yee
August 1st, 2021
It might be time to put down those delicious burgers and refreshing soft drinks—they’re increasing your risk of developing triple negative breast cancer. Triple negative breast cancer is considered a more aggressive form of breast cancer due to its lack of treatment choices. While frightening and not previously not well researched, scientists have recently discovered a tenable link between obesity and higher incidences of triple negative breast cancer. Research is still ongoing to determine exactly how obesity may increase rates of triple negative breast cancer, however a promising connection seems to point toward diabetes associated insulin resistance, and tumor growth.
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Challenges Mexican Immigrants and Migrants Face when Seeking Healthcare
Written by Patricia Moreno
Edited by Kriti lyer
May 2, 2021
There are nearly 12 million Mexican-born immigrants and migrants (im/migrants) in the US, yet less than 60% of them have access to health coverage (Israel & Batalova, 2020). Across the migration spectrum, Mexican im/migrants experience serious challenges that make it difficult for this population to receive quality healthcare services, like obtaining community resources and receiving patient-centered care. The migration process consists of pre-departure, transit, destination, deportation, and return, which imposes significant changes and challenges in healthcare rights, therefore, greatly increasing health disparities (Zimmerman, 2011). Research was conducted in Tijuana, Mexico from 2007 to 2015 to study and identify the gaps in healthcare access for Mexican immigrants and social determinants were identified that lead to many health inequities (Martinez-Donate, 2017).
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Hibernating Cancer Cells
Written by Chloe Chou
Edited by Vicky Diep
May 2, 2021
Cancer cells can “hibernate like bears” to evade the harshness of chemotherapy? This may seem like a nightmare for a disease that already takes far too many lives every year, especially now that researchers at the University of Toronto and the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre have discovered that all cancer cells have this ability to hibernate.
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Nutrients that Make Me Smarter?
Written by Rui Yun
Edited by Emily Moran
May 2, 2021
Did you know that the brain takes 2 percent of your body weight, but it can consume 20 percent of your daily calories (Raichle & Gusnard, 2002)? Have you wondered what food or nutrients are good for brain health? Researchers from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign conducted research on the NBPs, the nutrient biomarkers pattern from the Mideterrean diet, and they found out monounsaturated fatty acid can affect a specific brain network connectivity which supports general intelligence.
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To Sleep Or Not To Sleep: Understanding Sleep From An Evolutionary Perspective
Written by Akshaya Karthikeyan
Edited by Caleigh Donnelly
May 2, 2021
An average person sleeps around 26 years of their lifetime. Sleep plays a critical role in development as well as in the maintenance of our physical and mental health. However, not all organisms sleep. Sleep consumes time used for eating and reproducing and increases chances of predation. Given this information, you may be wondering: how did sleep evolve to become such a big part of our lives?
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An Eye-Opening Solution?
Written by Theodore Do
Edited by Audrey Bantug
May 2, 2021
Worldwide, approximately 75 million people are affected by glaucoma, making this disease the leading cause of irreversible blindness. Glaucoma is a condition in which the optic nerve is damaged and is often associated with elevated intraocular pressure (IOP), or high pressure in the eye. A team of researchers at Georgia Tech have developed a possible efficient treatment to reduce eye pressure, which may be a solution in glaucoma prevention.
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How Thoughts Manifest in Young Children
Written by Hsuan Chen
Edited by Michelle Wong
May 2, 2021
What is the stuff of thought? Where does thought originate? How does thinking occur during early childhood and through what mechanisms? How do children interpret others’ thoughts and emotions? To answer these questions, ancient Egyptians would say the heart is the key to mental processes, which is why it is the only organ embalmed in mummification. Conversely Hippocrates would say the brain is the seat of the mind; it is what makes us humans, highly social animals. Today, technology advancement in the twenty-first century gives us leeway into better visualization of children’s brains as they generate thoughts, which helps us acknowledge that children as young as 3 years of age follow specific thought processes.
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Sharing is Caring: Plant Cells Exchange Organelles
Written by Kacey Zimmerman
Edited by Emily Moran
May 2, 2021
All organisms participate in the exchange of genetic information, which is fundamental to maintaining diversity within species. Generally, this exchange takes place in a vertical transfer, from parents to offspring. However, horizontal transfers-- from one organism to another through a process separate from reproduction-- are extremely important too. In some organisms, like bacteria, the genetic material transferred is small collections of DNA. In plants, however, it was shown that entire organelles can be passed from one organism to another.
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The Not So New Super Drug
Written by Jacob Gomez
Edited by Kelly Chau
May 2, 2021
Diabetes is a health disorder caused by an inability to maintain healthy blood sugar levels, and, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 34.2 million Americans are diabetic, with an additional 88 million at high risk of developing diabetes (CDC, 2020). In order to help patients improve their lifestyles, doctors typically prescribe anti-diabetic medications like metformin. Metformin works by suppressing the release of sugars from the liver, resulting in a decrease in glucose levels in the body. However, as more studies have been conducted, it appears that metformin does have other beneficial functions such as preventing different cancers through a variety of possible mechanisms.
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Bad Knees From Bad Genes: The Impact of Genetic Factors on ACL Injuries
Written by Daria Beniakoff
Edited by Mckenna Ma
May 2, 2021
Do your genes contribute to the likelihood of you getting injured? Anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) ruptures are a tear of a ligament in the knee joint are common injuries in contact sports. From a review of previous studies, risk factors of an ACL injury are the bone structure, alignment, and looseness of the knee joint. These factors vary from person to person as inherited genetic differences contribute to the variation in anatomical structure of knees.
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Prescription Video Games
Written by Erica Wang
Edited by Priya Ram
May 2, 2021
Imagine finishing your doctor’s appointment and walking down to the pharmacy to pick up your prescription video games. Recent research has shown certain video games to be a promising new treatment for amblyopia, commonly known as lazy eye. As exciting as this seems, medical professionals and psychologists are still deciding if the benefits of this treatment are worth the risk of video game addiction. Researchers wrote about the pros and cons of this new treatment in their paper [1].
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A Dead End or Room for Improvement on Parkinson's Medication
Written by Samantha Strom
Edited by Aryss Hearne
May 2, 2021
Research has estimated that by 2030, there will be more than one million people with Parkinson’s disease in the US alone (Marras et al., 2018). As the country’s elderly slowly outnumber the young, the increase in age-related diseases like Parkinson’s will pose a significant problem for healthcare, and it may be difficult to give patients adequate care (Marras et al., 2018; Smetanin et al., 2009). Levodopa (LD or L-Dopa) was first used in 1967 and still remains the best short-term Parkinson’s medication (Hornykiewicz, 2010; Poewe et al., 2010). However, L-Dopa can have debilitating side effects that are similar to symptoms of the disease itself like involuntary jerking and shaking. New research from Uppsala University might help shed light on this phenomenon.
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Can Carrots Help With Muscle Weakness?
Written by Diksha Kudlamath
Edited by Aaron Wright
May 2, 2021
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is an illness that has severe negative health effects on the lungs. The cause of this disease is known to come from long-term exposure to toxic gases such as cigarette smoke. One of the consequences of having damaged lungs is that it causes muscle decay (Osaka City University, 2020). This makes it challenging for patients to participate in physical activities which eventually impairs their overall physical and mental health. Could there be a possible natural remedy for this disease?
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Fate, It’s in Your Genes
Written by Claire Fargeix
Edited by Priya Ram
May 2, 2021
Why are some people more affected than others by infectious diseases? Why do some have minor symptoms while others never recover? These are questions that investigators Jean-Laurent Casanova and Laurent Abel seek to answer in their article, “The human genetic determinism of life-threatening infectious diseases: genetic heterogeneity and physiological homogeneity?”
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How the Brain Creates Spatial Awareness
Written by Kriti Iyer
Edited by Aaron Wright
May 2, 2021
Many of us feel completely lost when we arrive in a new location for the first time, so naturally, navigating through traffic in order to find a destination in a timely manner may seem like an unimaginable task. As time progresses, our brains start to recognize certain spaces that we pass by frequently and enable us to remember locations through a mental map of sorts. A recent discovery by researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, attests to this phenomenon and sheds light on how our brain can remember areas and create spatial awareness.
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Anti-Aging, More than a Myth?
Written by Minjae Yoo
Edited by Charan Karthik
May 2, 2021
In a world’s first clinical study, researchers at the Tel Aviv University and The Sagol Center for Hyperbaric Medicine and Research at Shamir Medical Center in Israel have demonstrated potential methods to reverse cellular aging in human patients. Biologically, aging occurs at the level of cells and their DNA. When humans develop or sustain injuries, our cells proliferate as a means of growth or damage repair. Cell proliferation entails generating an exact replica of a cell, including all of its contents like DNA, through complex biological mechanisms. Nothing is ever perfect, however, and even such remarkably precise cellular processes have their flaws.
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Diamond-Studded Silk Dressings for Luxury Wound Care
Written by Daphne Crum
Edited by Kelly Chau
May 2, 2021
Are diamond-studded silk bandages too luxurious to be true? Think again! These alternative wound coverings might sound unnecessarily over-the-top, but hybrid nanodiamond-silk dressings could function as healthful and cost-effective solutions for treating serious wounds. Physicians redress wounds over and over again to check on the patient’s healing progress and to monitor the damaged tissues for infections. Hiding the swelling, heat, and redness associated with infection, standard bandages have to be removed to check for these symptoms, ultimately irritating the healing skin further and exposing the wound to even more bacteria circulating through a hospital.
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Can Music Predict Emotions?
Written by Alissya Yuen
Edited by Christine Yee
May 2, 2021
Do you usually find yourself feeling much happier after listening to your favorite song? Ever wondered what your brain is doing when you’re watching a sad movie? Scientists have often questioned why these activities can have such large impacts on our moods and recent studies have provided instrumental clues to understanding what goes on in the brain.
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Soy Milk and Ulcerative Colitis
Written by Emily Fucarino
Edited by Jada Co
May 2, 2021
Soy milk: it's in the drinks of major coffee chains and in most major grocery stores. But could it also be used medicinally? While currently this is just a hypothesis, the research exploring soy milk as a treatment for inflammatory disease offers insight into future study methodologies and current evidence supporting this hypothesis.
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How Cancers Hide From Our Immune Response
Written by Lance Jimenez
Edited by Hannah Parducho
May 2, 2021
Our immune system is our body’s security system: it monitors and protects our body from bacteria, viruses, and even cancer! It detects and removes these disease-causing agents to keep us happy and healthy. Though it works hard, this system is not perfect, so we get sick from time to time. The problem arises when certain disease-causing agents, such as cancer cells, become sneaky and avoid our bodies’ defenses. Cancer has become an increasingly concerning disease with approximately 158.3 deaths per 100,000 affected people and an expected 39.5% of people being diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime (National Cancer Institute, 2020).
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Rogue Gene Increases Cancer Risk
Written by Carolyn Chiu
Edited by Theodore Do
May 2, 2021
When we mention evolution, we usually think of improvement. This definition is not necessarily true in the context of biology. Take humans, the closest evolutionary relative of chimps. Although we are certainly more intelligent than our hairier counterparts, we also have a higher genetic predisposition for developing carcinoma cancers.
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Always at the Right Place: The Brain with Space and Time
Written by Janelle Nieva
Edited by Hannah Parducho
May 2, 2021
Do you ever wonder how you can easily remember the way from your house to the local grocery store, or simply distinguish where the bathroom is from the bedroom? It might seem like common sense to remember all these locations we encounter in our day-to-day lives, but the neurons in our brain are hard at work and firing rapidly to make sure we get to the right place at the right time.
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A New Decade; a New Class of Antibiotic
Written by Rachel Larson
Edited by Sameeha Salman
May 2, 2021
Ever since the invention of the first antibiotic in 1928, humans have been in an evolutionary arms race with the infectious bacteria that are the cause of so many illnesses. While scientists discover clever ways to kill these harmful parasites, bacteria continue to evolve novel mechanisms to build resistance to our drugs.
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Squid-Based Proteins Can Repair Your Clothes
Written by Audrey Bantug
Edited by Tanishq Vaidya
May 2, 2021
What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word “protein”? You probably think of meat or possibly even enzymes. Proteins also play important roles as structural components in living things, such as in hair, skin, and nails. How can this one type of molecule have so many different functions? It’s all because proteins consist of a chain of amino acids, which interact with each other in various ways to form a unique overall structure. These different structures can then result in specific functions that have inspired novel applications in modern technology.
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A Step Towards a Cure for Cancer
Written by Carlos Rendon
Edited by Connie Quan
May 2, 2021
Evolution is both a blessing and a curse. Just as it has improved the survival of humanity, it has also decreased our life expectancy because cancer continues to evolve along with us. Cancer has been researched extensively, yet there has not been a definitive way to treat it at the moment. Current research is investigating how to deliver anticancer drugs more effectively to tumor cells as a treatment.
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Are Your Migraines an Early Sign of Dementia?
Written by Ritika Jhawar
Edited by Christine Yee
May 2, 2021
Are your Migraines an Early Sign of Dementia? Everyone has experienced a headache before– and many of us blame it on lack of sleep, water, movement, or even a combination of the three. But are there deeper meanings as to why some of us get persistent headaches? Multiple studies have shown that migraines could have a positive relationship with dementia, but it remains difficult to tell whether these studies are biased or not. A UK study analyzing this association relies on information compiled from the Disease Analyzer database (IQVIA), a computerized system used by medical practitioners for arranging medical and demographic data (Karel Kostev et. al., 2019).
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Regenerative Dentistry
Pet rodents and pesky rats alike seem to chew through everything. Did you know that this behavior is spurred by the need to routinely file their teeth? Like our nails, rodent teeth grow continuously throughout their lifetime. Although the habit would be impractical for humans, applying this biology to damaged or lost teeth can revolutionize dental treatment.
Written by Carolyn Chiu
Edited by Mateo Cepeda
Jan 31, 2021
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Why Women Need Menstrual Synchrony
Written by Laurel Geraci
Edited by Pooja Dandekar
May 2, 2021
We’ve all heard the myth that women who live together are more likely to have synchronized menstrual cycles--but is there any truth to it? In terms of media representation, menstrual synchrony is an established phenomenon that unites women who bleed together. While scientists have neither proven nor disproven this theory, there is certainly a social motivation to believe it is true: the idea of gender collectivism and solidarity. Even if female roommates, relatives, or couples can’t magically sync up their menstrual cycles, banding together through complaints about PMS evidently erases embarrassment around menstruation and strengthens present-day sisterhood*.
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Gene Editing: The Cure for Cancer?
Written by Claire Fargeix
Edited by Audrey Bantug
Jan 31, 2021
Yes, you can literally edit your genes! CRISPR, which stands for “clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats,” is a system that came from a defense mechanism in bacteria, but is now being used by scientists for gene editing. Essentially, it is a complex of proteins that are guided to a specific region of DNA where they can cut out some genetic material. This system was an amazing discovery because it had large implications for human health, specifically for personalized medicine. While humans do share most of our DNA with each other, it is ultimately unique to each of us. Gene editing can therefore be fine-tuned to each person to help with their specific needs. The human diseases whose treatments with CRISPR are under development include dementia, cancer, muscular dystrophy, AIDS, sickle cell disease, hemophilia, and autism.
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Attacking Cancer Undercover
Written by Megan Abrams
Edited by Michelle Wong
Jan 31, 2021
Cancer treatment is thought of as a panic-inducing procedure that not only kills cancerous cells, but also normal, healthy cells. However, what if there was a way to destroy cancerous cells while leaving living healthy cells alone and unharmed? This seemingly impossible task may have been accomplished by a few scientists at Nanyang Technological University.
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A Bacterial Toxin That Hurts and Heals
Written by Tammy Chan
Edited by Cindy Ho
Jan 31, 2021
What is Staphylococcus aureus, and why even care about its toxins? Staphylococcus aureus is a type of bacteria found in the environment and in human areas such as skin and mucous membranes. Although S. aureus is often harmless, this bacteria can turn pathogenic, leading to various infections or inflammation. In the worst cases, sepsis can develop. Sepsis is a life-threatening medical emergency caused by the body’s extreme and overactive response to an infection; this severe response triggers a series of changes that can damage multiple organ systems. Without quick treatment, sepsis can lead to tissue damage, organ failure, and even death. To better understand S. aureus infections, let’s examine one of the bacterial toxins secreted by S. aureus– ∝-hemolysin.
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Holistic Wellness for Bipolar Disorder
Written by Natalie Hopkins
Edited by Sameeha Salman
Jan 31, 2021
Does the idea of bipolar disorder make you think of “highs” and “lows” in your moods? Have you ever considered associating “medication” and “therapy”? Most often, when one thinks of bipolar disorder treatment, the main focus is on a strict and well maintained medication plan, yet the use of varying types of therapy is found to be equally as important. Attending therapy, whether that be regularly or every month, is critical for mental health, and recently has even shown positive effects for those with bipolar disorder, a mental illness involving diagnosed periods of elation and depression. A study conducted by researchers at UCLA has analyzed the effects of pairing familial, group therapies with the standard medication regimen to observe the outcome of this novel approach on bipolar disorder treatment.
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The Link Between Our Gut and Alzheimer's
Written by Akshaya Karthikeyan
Edited by Theodore Do
Jan 31, 2021
We have all heard the old saying, “Food is Medicine.” In recent years, there have been many speculations about the important role of gut microbiota in disease control. Our gut microbiota influences many aspects of our health. Since our gut microbiota is heavily influenced by the food we eat, this saying may not be far from the truth.
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New Biodegradable Packaging Keeps Your Food and The Environment Fresh
Written by Mateo Cepeda
Edited by Caleigh Donnelly
Jan 31, 2021
When was the last time you got sick after eating something? A metric from the World Health Organization (WHO) found that, every year, hundreds of thousands of deaths and millions of infections come from foodborne illnesses. The use of plastic packaging helps prevent bacteria from growing on our food, but this plastic is often thrown in the waste after we are done with it. With the impacts of the plastic industry changing global temperatures and harming marine ecosystems, researchers from Harvard are exploring new and unique ways to limit this harm. Innovative scientists have found a way to tackle both of these issues: biodegradable food packaging!
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The Future of Drug Delivery
Written by Lance Jimenez
Edited by Connie Quan
Jan 31, 2021
A detailed painting requires different brush sizes. Precision is required for the finer parts and using a thick brush could smear the area around it, thus ruining the painting. Increasingly smaller brushes allow for finer details to be implemented. Similarly, pharmaceutical drugs benefit from precise tools, and methods involving them continue to be developed now. Currently, drugs meant for the brain have to travel through the blood.. As a drug flows through the blood, it gets distributed to non-target areas of the body, often causing side effects. Like the thick brush, the inability to bring the drug to specific areas can be problematic for our bodies. To solve this, a novel drug-delivery method is currently being researched, and it is demonstrating promising results.
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Finally, Something to Like About Wasps
Written by Kacey Zimmerman
Edited by Madeleine Lu
Jan 31, 2021
Though wasps technically do provide pollination and insect control, they are most popularly known as the unfortunate cousins to bees for their aggressive behavior and painful sting. Surprisingly, there is an upside to their venom: scientists have been able to isolate toxins and develop them into antimicrobial molecules!
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The Invisible Threat
Written by Minjae Yoo
Edited by Sameeha Salman
Jan 31, 2021
With COVID-19 headlines dominating the spotlight, you may have heard of the term “asymptomatic carrier”. But what exactly does this phrase mean, and what implications does it have on how we approach the novel coronavirus?
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Does Human Personality Affect Pet Ownership?
Written by Erica Wang
Edited by Aaron Wright
Jan 31, 2021
Cats, dogs, and other pets are common in American households. Owners everywhere dote on their beloved pets. A study conducted by Gretchen Reevy and Mikel Delgado from California State University: East Bay and the University of California at Berkeley respectively, seeks to learn more about the human-pet bond and how to improve pet ownership. They explore how being a Dog Person, Cat Person, both, or neither correlates to personality and attachment style.
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The World of Mini Bugs
Written by Susie Schaffer
Edited by Janelle Nieva
Jan 31, 2021
The Coronavirus pandemic has brought the world’s attention towards the significantly formidable impact of all the millions of tiny, indiscernible microbes constantly living among us. The microworld, the systems of microscopic organisms consisting of bacteria, viruses, archaea, protozoa, and fungi, is all around us, from the depths of the ocean to the interiors of the human body (Human Health Is Bound to Microbiomes). Recently, microbiota has had a bad wrap. While bacteria and viruses sound frightening, they are necessary for the world to work. The sphere of microbiota is vast and plays many roles in the world.
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Fixing Cancer Treatments: Can Scientists Bypass a Broken Immune Response?
Written by Daria Beniakoff
Edited by Aryss Hearne
Jan 31, 2021
Immunotherapy is an effective cancer treatment, but some patients develop resistance to it. What can scientists do when immunotherapies become ineffective?
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Radiotherapy: A Breast Cancer Solution for Some, but Not All
Written by Daphne Crum
Edited by Emily Moran
Jan 31, 2021
Radiation therapy is the most common form of breast cancer treatment after mastectomies, but about 20% of patients who undergo radiotherapy suffer serious side effects (Borrego-Soto, “Ionizing Radiation-Induced DNA Injury and Damage Detection in Patients with Breast Cancer”). Worsening symptoms result from the failure to avoid damaging healthy cells while using radiation to eliminate cancer cells, and unlucky patients whose cells fail to repair their own DNA strand breakages suffer the most. How is a doctor to know a patient’s tolerance for radiation before undergoing treatment?
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A Minor Change For a Healthier Life
Written by Hsuan Chen
Edited by Kelly Chau
Jan 31, 2021
Busy balancing life, school, and work that you cannot remember the last time you ate or what you ate? You mind what you put into your body—at least you think you are—yet you feel this constant discomfort in the abdomen? Chronic gastritis (CG) is a commonly overlooked disease that usually inflicts stomach pain due to varying degrees of inflammatory response over time. Previous studies have shown that typical yet often neglected symptoms, such as vomiting, loss of appetite, and stomach discomfort, are reasons for CG’s poor recognition as stomach lesion. Although these symptoms may seem insignificant at first, continuously ignoring their effects on the body could lead to rupturing and bleeding of the stomach and consequently stomach cancer.
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Multitasking a Good Idea?
Written by Thin Han
Edited by Janelle Nieva
Jan 31, 2021
You tell yourself you are good at multitasking. You can watch lectures while scrolling through Twitter. You can do your readings with your favorite show blaring in the background. Sadly, the truth is that no one is a good multitasker, not even your straight A friend who watches lecture videos at 2x speed while playing Among Us. All those things are complex tasks that overwork the prefrontal cortex part of your brain, and, ultimately there is a steep price of having a bad impact on your learning. Doing a brain dump for your exams is fine for the time being, but what will you do if you have to take classes that build on the knowledge of prior classes, and you end up not remembering anything?
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Autism: Causes and How to Help
Written by Laurel Geraci
Edited by Priya Ram
Jan 31, 2021
With the recent arguments presented by the anti-vaccination communities, talks about autism and its origins have been appearing more frequently in mainstream media. There is no scientific evidence or correlation to suggest that vaccines cause autism and medical professionals are still unsure of just how many genes contribute to an autism diagnosis. Looking at studies of identical twins show that autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) have an extremely high heritability, estimated at about 90%, yet we struggle to pinpoint what genes are responsible for ASDs. The answer is not quite simple.
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Tricking Cells into Accepting a Foreign Transplant
Written by Tanishq Vaidya
Edited by Pooja Dandekar
Jan 31, 2021
As reported by Donate Life America, over 8000 people die each year due to the rampant organ shortage in today’s medical industry. In the USA, while the number of people that require organ donation is continually rising, there is still a huge disparity between the number donated versus the number needed. As such, scientists are intently searching for an alternate means of procuring the organs needed. One particularly interesting solution is xenotransplantation, or the transplantation of organs between species (for example, between pigs and humans). However, there are challenges in such procedures since each animal has specialized markers on its cells that make it recognizable to its own immune system.
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Cognitive Difficulties–What is Happening in the Brain?
Written by Alissya Yuen
Edited by McKenna Ma
Jan 31, 2021
When you think of a cognitive difficulty and the effects it has on the brain, what is the first thing that comes to mind? Cognitive difficulties, such as learning difficulties, are not that uncommon and there are many students who struggle with a type of learning difficulty that requires additional support. For many years, researchers have had little success identifying specific areas of the brain affected by learning difficulties such as cognitive and/or behavioral problems. For instance, ADHD has been associated with many brain regions, such as the parietal lobe and prefrontal cortex. Researchers identified that the underlying cause of learning difficulties is that these are associated with poor connectivity of regions in the brain, instead of a specific brain region itself.
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Lung Disease Is No Minor Problem
Written by Aditi Mahajan
Edited by Madeleine Lu
Jan 31, 2021
What if the simple act of going to work increased your chances of getting a life threatening disease? Imagine being forced to breathe in dangerous fine particles everyday in your place of work. This is the shocking reality for many American workers today, especially those in the mining industry. Miners work in environments that put their lungs at risk. Cases of work related lung disease have been increasing this past decade and show no signs of slowing down.
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Prenatal Cannabis Use
Written by Diksha Kudlamath
Edited by Mateo Cepeda
Jan 31, 2021
The use of cannabis has become extremely popular whether it is used recreationally, medically, or even in several beauty products. Cannabis has become legalized in some states in America for both medical and recreational use. However, there is still some research to be done regarding the long-term effects that cannabis can have on people, especially teenagers and children. For example, did you know that pregnant women who are exposed to cannabis can cause the offspring to have altered behavior in their adult life?
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The Power of Perspiration
Written by Justin Arguel
Edited by Tiffany Yuen
Jan 18, 2021
Smartwatches and other electronic wearables have continued to grow in popularity in recent years. Being able to monitor your health at the flick of your wrist is looking less like some futuristic dream, and more like a present-day reality. However, the main issue at the moment is making sure these devices last us throughout the day without needing to be charged constantly. Researchers at the California Institute of Technology may have found the perfect solution.
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Diabetes and Microwaves?
Written by Chloe Chou
Edited by Hannah Parducho
Jan 18, 2021
Microwaving the diabetes away? This may sound far-fetched, but researchers at the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine have evidence that this isn't too far from the truth. The answer lies in electromagnetic fields, or EMFs. These invisible fields of energy are everywhere! In fact, you probably spend hours gazing into an important EMF emitter without even realizing it. EMFs are emitted by many common electronic devices including microwaves, radios, navigational devices, and our beloved mobile devices. EMFs are also on track to help diabetics manage their blood sugar levels less invasively compared to current diabetes management methods that require several painful injections daily. Researchers studying metabolism and diabetes stumbled upon this discovery when they realized that the mice borrowed from the EMF research group, which were expected to be diabetic, had normal blood sugar levels.
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Just a Breath Away: A New Way to Detect Cancer
Written by Rachel Larson
Edited by Aaron Wright
Jan 18, 2021
One of the most important predictors in cancer survival is early detection. Patients whose cancer was detected early often experience vastly better outlooks and easier recoveries than their counterparts, and so one major focus of cancer researchers is to find easy-to-use and non-invasive ways to detect cancer. For example, mucosal head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) is a type of cancer that appears as lumps in the mouth and neck of patients. Detection of this cancer requires a doctor to stick a camera down the patient's esophagus, as well as a biopsy of any suspicious lumps, which is both extensive and uncomfortable. However, researchers in Australia recently published a finding in the British Journal of Science that proposes an exciting and far less invasive method to catching HNSCC: using a breathalyzer.
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Exercise Your Mind!
Written by Carlos Rendon
Edited by Kelly Chau
Jan 18, 2021
Exercise--some people love it; others hate it. Without a doubt, it is an important part of leading a healthy and balanced lifestyle. Regular exercise can help with weight loss, maintaining strong bones and muscles, and decreasing the risk of chronic illnesses. Capable of improving your mood, regular exercise also promotes a positive mental well-being. As one grows older, and the body begins to age, so does the mind as memory deteriorates over time. Just as exercise can help maintain a healthier body for a longer time, would you believe that it could also improve your memory?
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High Hopes for a Smoother Journey to Alcohol Recovery
Written by Patricia Moreno
Edited by Charan Karthik
Jan 18, 2021
Alcohol addiction is a very complicated mental illness that requires multiple approaches with numerous roadblocks in seeking recovery. At one point in their lives, alcoholism affects approximately one-third of US adults, but there is a large treatment gap for alcohol use disorders (AUD). This can be due to many factors, with the most common ones being, refusal to seek treatment, high cost of services, and stigma. Currently, there are different recovery treatment options for people with AUD including medication, therapy, and self-awareness interventions. In spite of these services, this addictive substance continues to greatly affect the well being of those with AUD. Making sure that people have better access to treatment services will improve the lives of many, bettering our community.
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Brain Differences Linked to Teen Weight
Written by Sameeha Salman
Edited by Hannah Parducho
Jan 18, 2021
We often attribute weight gain to making unhealthy food choices and a lack of physical activity.
This is partially true, but the reason why people chose to eat excessive amounts of junk food and to refrain from exercising remained largely unknown. Today, researchers find that there are differences in a particular region of the brain that cause some people to be more predisposed to obesity than others.
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Special Contact Lens to Help Colour Blindness
Written by Theint Aung
Edited by Caleigh Donnelly
Jan 18, 2021
Can contact lenses help color blind patients? Even though color blindness is one of the most common vision disorders, there is no cure for it yet. Color filtering tinted spectacles exist to help increase the color perception of affected patients, but they are bulky and incompatible with other vision correction glasses. Researchers from the University of Birmingham have demonstrated the possibility of using dyed contact lenses to increase the color perception.
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Sensory Nerves vs. Autism–Are There Any Ties?
Written by Ritika Jhawar
Edited by Priya Ram
Jan 18, 2021
Every day begins with you smelling, tasting, sensing, touching, or hearing something. These are your five basic senses that allow you to interact with the world. Depending on each person, these five forms of perception have multiple degrees of variability; some people have better eyesight, others can hear more, etc. How do neurological disorders like autism change the way someone perceives the world?
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Is It a Mole or a Tumor?
Written by Vicky Diep
Edited by Audrey Bantug
Jan 18, 2021
ABCDE - these comprise not just the first five letters of the alphabet, but also a rule of thumb for identifying whether a mole might be cancerous or not. A stands for asymmetry; B stands for border; C stands for color; D stands for diameter; and E stands for evolving. That is to say, moles that appear uneven (asymmetrical as opposed to a symmetric circle or oval shape), have raised edges or multiple colors, are larger than a pencil eraser, and seem to be “evolving” (changing in shape, color, or suddenly bleeding or feeling itchy) are red flags for skin cancer. How is it that some moles are just normal, benign markings on our skin while others can actually be dangerous tumors? What is the biology that underlies these differences?
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Shedding Light on a Pumpkin Pathogen
Written by Emily Fucarino
Edited by Cindy Ho
Jan 18, 2021
Cucurbits are members of the gourd family, and include melons, cucumbers, gourds, and a fall favorite—pumpkins. Cucurbits are among the many types of plants susceptible to a powdery mildew disease but are among the most severely affected (Pérez-García et al.). Powdery mildew of cucurbits significantly reduces crop yield and is caused by the fungal plant pathogen Podosphaera xanthii. As an obligate parasite, P. xanthii relies on its host in order to grow and reproduce; and in order to become parasitic, it must first develop fungal structures called haustoria. Haustoria are responsible for transferring plant nutrients to the fungus and for releasing proteins that suppress host defense mechanisms, making them crucial for attaining and sustaining a parasitic state within a host.
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Written by Theint Aung
Edited by Yasmine Jeon and Carolyn Chiu
Dec 11, 2022
In the age of COVID-19, public health and social measures to limit the transmission of the virus have resulted in a drastic increase in screen time. A recent study reported that on average adolescents spend 7.70 hours per day on their screens, an increase from 3.8 hours per day before the pandemic (Nagata et al., 2022). This increase is dangerous since research shows that prolonged screen use can result in a condition known as computer vision syndrome (CVS) which involves several eye-related problems such as blurred vision, dry eye, redness, and headache (Singh et al., 2021).
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A Glass of Cranberry Juice a Day Keeps Heart Disease Away
Written by Elyse Ehlert
Edited by Jasmine Jeon
January 5, 2023
You may have heard the old wives’ tale that cranberry juice can help treat UTIs, but have you heard that they might be good for your heart health? In a study from the Nutritional Sciences Departments of the University of Arizona, Tucson and Pennsylvania State University, researchers investigated the effects of cranberry juice on cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors.
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The Genetics Behind Differences in Taste
Written by Sukanya Chandrasekaran
Edited by Carolyn Chiu
March 21, 2022
Taste receptors located on the taste cells of taste buds present on our tongue function as one of the main guides that helps us distinguish between flavors. The central processing of taste comprises taste cells, nerves, and brain structures. The taste receptors are organized in taste buds located on the tongue, which detect proteins then send excitations to the brain via the nerves to evoke the perception of taste.
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Xenotransplanted Heart with Increased Survivability
Written by Rency Dhaduk
Edited by Emily Moran
March 21, 2022
For patients who are unable to get heart transplantation in time before heart failure, genetically modified pig hearts are the new source of transplant for end-stage failure. Xenograft transplant is when organs or tissues are transplanted among two different species, such as from animals to humans.
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Cognitive Effects in Chiari Malformation Type 1
Written by Maggie Bauer
Edited by Aaron Wright
March 21, 2022
Have you ever heard of Chiari Malformation? Neither had I until I was diagnosed with it two years ago. But in reality, Chiari Malformation is quite common. According to recent statistics, Chiari Malformation affects around “50,000 to 350,000 persons in the United States”. Chiari Malformation is a disorder in which the cerebellum of the brain descends into the brain stem, restructuring cerebrospinal fluid and putting pressure on the brain.
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Preventing Pregnancy Prevents Cancer
Written by Laurel Geraci
Edited by Chloe Chou
March 21, 2022
It’s no surprise that more than 80% of women in the western world have used oral contraceptives before (Brynhildsen, 2014)–but did you know there could be even more benefits than just preventing pregnancy? According to new studies by scientists at Uppsala University, long term users of oral contraceptives have significantly lower risks of ovarian and endometrial cancer than women who have never used them!
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Zoonotic Diseases at the Zoo: How Big Cats Became Infected with SARS-CoV-2 at the Bronx Zoo
Written by Erica Wang
Edited by Justin Gambill
March 21, 2022
Unsurprisingly, human-to-human transmission of SARS-CoV-2 is at the forefront of research and public concern. It is believed that the virus originated from horseshoe bats [1,2] and then spread to humans. How easily could Covid-19 spread back to other non-human animals? This question was partially answered in March of 2020, when four tigers and three lions became infected with SARS-CoV-2 at the Bronx Zoo in New York [3]. Previously, there have been instances of infected domestic dogs, cats, and farmed mink [4-6], but these big cats were the first nondomestic animals to test positive for the virus. Analysis of the specific mutations in the SAR-CoV-2 viral DNA sequence showed that the tigers had been infected by their keepers.
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Biochar, The Filter of the Future
Written by Anna Feerick
Edited by Kelly Chau
March 21, 2022
The magic material here to clear your skin, flourish your crops, and keep pollutants out of your drinking water: biochar. For those unfamiliar, biochar is what remains after burning biological matter under low-oxygen conditions and is a cheap, green alternative for filtering out carbon-based pollutants. Many organic pollutants require the use of costly environmental remediation methods (e.g., reverse osmosis and activated carbon), limiting wastewater treatment plants’ options for removal. With strong absorbance and degradation properties, biochar makes an attractive addition to the normal treatment process.
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Is Keto the Best Diet for Weight Loss?
Written by Pamela Gomez
Edited by Christine Yee
Jan 23rd, 2022
Robert C. Atkins, cardiologist and creator of the Atkins diet claimed that decreasing carbohydrate consumption is a key component of weight loss. After his beliefs and diet gained popularity, many other varieties of his diet were created. People believed that by limiting carbohydrate intake, weight loss would follow. Despite lack of evidence on the effectiveness of a low-carbohydrate diet for weight loss, people around the world continue to follow these diets. But what does science say?
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Aiding Chemotherapy Treatment with Ginseng
Written by Nathan Tran
Edited by Emily Moran
Jan 23rd, 2022
Chemotherapy, being one of the few possible treatments cancer patients undergo, aims to fight cancer and prevent its spread. Usually, it is in the form of medication that has been found to combat and obstruct the spread of cancerous cells in the body, which divide and spread unhindered due to mutations or other causes. Those chemotherapy medications must target the mechanisms by which a cell divides and prevent them from doing that in a harmful way. However, such risky treatment does not come without adverse side effects to other parts of the body. One such example is cisplatin, and using it commonly leads to memory impairment and cognitive disability, which are common symptoms in neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. If that is the case, what can be done to minimize these side effects when it is a necessary treatment for some patients?
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Saving Wild Fish Populations and the Search for Sustainable Omega-3 Sources
Written by Victoria Stewart
Edited by Tanishq Vaidya
Jan 23rd, 2022
In today's food industry, the demand for omega-3 fatty acids, naturally found in fish, has placed a massive toll on the world's fisheries, as the beneficial nutrients contribute to the global crisis of overfishing and disregard for ocean life. Over 100 species of wild fish, utilized in the past by consumers for this demand, have been declared extinct or endangered (Adarme-Vega, 2014). But what makes omega-3 fatty acids so valuable that it would trigger this devastation to natural fisheries?
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Chimeras and Autoimmunity
Written by Vicky Diep
Edited by Justin Gambill
Jan 23rd, 2022
In 1865, Gregor Mendel, an abbot who is known today as the “father of genetics,” published his findings on the mechanisms of inheritance. However, it was not until after his death that his ideas gained more traction within the scientific community. Today, Mendel's laws of segregation and independent assortment are an essential component of any genetics curriculum.
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Coffee on the Mind
Written by Jacob Gomez
Edited by Jasmine Jeon
Jan 23rd, 2022
Coffee is indisputably one of the world’s most popular beverages. Go look on any street corner and you can see at least one Starbucks, Peet’s Coffee, or Dutch Bros shop with a long line forming around it. At least, this is true for anyone living near a college campus around midterm season. But why is coffee so popular? Is it the taste? The aroma? Or, is it the fact that coffee contains a compound called trimethylxanthine, or caffeine, for most people?
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Manuka Honey: Sweet to Us, Bitter to Bacteria
Written by Erica Wang
Edited by Christine Yee
Jan 23rd, 2022
Honey is a great sweet treat, but what if it could also be used to treat wounds and kill bacteria? Manuka honey, a medical grade honey made from the nectar of tea trees in New Zealand and Australia, can do just that. While honey normally gains some antibacterial properties from hydrogen peroxide production, manuka honey obtains most of its antibacterial properties from a chemical known as methylglyoxal (Barrell, 2017). With the rise of antibiotic resistance in bacteria, alternatives to traditional antibiotics need to be looked into. Researchers from Cardiff Metropolitan University sought to understand the mechanisms that make manuka honey effective against methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), a notoriously difficult bacteria to treat (Jenkins et al., 2013).
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How contaminated are our countertops?
Written by Theint Aung
Edited by Aaron Wright
Jan 23rd, 2022
With the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have all become more conscious of the microbes in our environment. We have wiped down countertops more than ever with the purpose of protecting ourselves from different bacteria and viruses. But how much of these indoor pollutants are deposited on surfaces? And how effective is it to clean them?
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Eating Disorders- Could it be your Gut?
Written by Ritika Jhawar
Edited by Claire Fargeix
August 1st, 2021
Eating disorders are one of the strongest, yet ill-perceived mental illnesses that have become increasingly prevalent throughout society— especially with influenceable teenage girls. Eating disorders, as defined by the American Psychiatric Association, are a “group of mental illnesses that manifest with disturbance to feeding behaviors and body weight regulation” (2013). There are numerous diagnoses within this category, but many share the same symptoms of binging, purging, and calorie restriction. Previously, scientists looked at neurological and physiological alterations as the sole causes for the development of an eating disorder, but new research is now pointing to the importance of physiological traits too.
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Candida auris: An emerging fungal threat?
Written by Emily Fucarino
Edited by Michelle Wong
August 1st, 2021
When you think of the microbes that cause infectious diseases, what do you think of? Viruses? Bacteria? While both of these groups are highly relevant in public health, they aren’t the only culprits. Fungi also have the capacity to be pathogenic—that is, to cause disease—and although they are less prolific, they are no less capable. New pathogens are constantly emerging and posing novel threats to public health, including Candida auris, a member of the notorious Candida fungal family (Du et al., 2020). As a whole, Candida species are responsible for the majority of fungal infections acquired in a hospital setting, and can cause fatal infections in the bloodstream (Brown et al., 2020). C. auris is a relatively new species and was only identified for the first time in 2009 (Du et al., 2020) but it is already causing scientists to worry.
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Weight Loss That Sticks
Written by Natalie Hopkins
Edited by Priya Ram
August 1st, 2021
For those struggling with obesity, it can be difficult to find medical solutions that give long term results without the lengthy list of potential side effects, making the “solution” appear more harmful than beneficial. A group of medical physicians have gathered data on subcutaneous semaglutide -- a drug meant to increase the speed of sugar metabolism -- to support healthy weight loss in obsese individuals that will remain long term.1 Though subcutaneous semaglutide is perhaps a novel term, it is a medication for type two diabetes generally accepted by both physicians and the public. In this experiment, the medication is tested based on its holistic properties.
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Don’t Stress Out- Especially If You’re Going Into Surgery!
Written by Maggie Bauer
Edited by Connie Quan
August 1st, 2021
These days, it seems like everyone is stressed. People of all ages and stages of life struggle with stress. But, could these feelings of anxiety manifest themselves into physical symptoms? One possible link is pain perception. Persistent pain after surgery is common amongst patients, affecting around “50%”, with about “5-10%” suffering from severe pain. Usually, doctors prescribe medication to help manage this pain, but opioids and other drugs can be addictive and come with serious side effects. Recently, there has been more interest in the factors leading to higher rates of pain-related disorders. By recognizing and providing interventions to help reduce the presence of risk factors, the prevalence of postoperative pain disorders can be reduced.
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Could Coral Bleaching Combat Global Malnutrition?
Written by Victoria Stewart
Edited by Benjamin Blue
March 21, 2022
In recent years, the detrimental warming effects of climate change have been felt throughout the globe, and the oceans are no exception. But in a research study by Robinson et al., researchers are looking into how such impacts can instead provide a possible opportunity to address malnutrition for global human populations.
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Are Males more susceptible to Asthma than Females?
Written by Ritika Jhawar
Edited by Jasmine Jeon
March 21, 2022
Breathing is one of the most basic and essential human processes required to survive. Yet, many of us take it for granted when exercising, playing on sports teams, or even just going up a staircase. For some though, these seemingly simple tasks are actually much more difficult due to asthma. Asthma is defined as a condition in which your airways are narrow/swelled, causing an increased difficulty to breathe. This leads to cells producing extra mucus, and signs of coughing/wheezing.
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OCD and ADHD are Potentially Related?
Written by Natalie Hopkins
Edited by Aaron Wright
March 21, 2022
Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are two of the most common mental diseases in youth. While both have their individual set of behaviors, they share a genetic link. OCD is described as intrusive thoughts, often disturbing, and leading to repetitive, compulsory behaviors.
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Remyelination and Multiple Sclerosis
Written by Lillian Brinkmann
Edited by Sameeha Salman
March 21, 2022
Have you ever noticed the outer layer of insulation on wires and cables? The purpose of this layer is to help conduct electrical currents quickly and efficiently. As it turns out, we have something similar in our own brain cells! A pivotal foundation of our bodily functions is the electrical impulses that run through our nervous system, which do everything from allowing us to feel sensations to letting us move our muscles.
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Say Goodbye to Dog Allergies?
Written by Carlos Rendon
Edited by Emily Moran
March 21, 2022
As of 2018, around 38% of households had dogs, which are also the most popular pets in the United States. As the saying goes, the lovable canines are truly man’s best friend. Unfortunately, as many as 3 out of every 10 people in the United States suffer from dog allergies, and about 5-10% of the worldwide population suffer from severe allergic reactions from dogs. People that have allergic reactions to dogs often are unable to keep them as pets even if they would like to.
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A New Treatment for Adolescent Depression?
Written by Anisha Chikkareddy
Edited by Connie Quan
March 21, 2022
Is there a way to treat adolescents with depression in a world under the control of a global pandemic? In 2020, the world was thrown into a tailspin by COVID-19. Pressing mental health crises worsened, and younger members of society were not immune to the virus. Right now, there are a lot of challenges with classical treatments for depression such as requiring different treatments, having up to 59% of patients drop out of the treatment plans, and a large accessibility problem (March et al., 2007).
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The Plasma Solution for a Biopsy-Free Lung Cancer Diagnosis
Written by Daphne Crum
Edited by Minjae Yoo
Jan 23rd, 2022
An individual exhibits signs of non-small cell lung cancer, a rapidly progressive illness. Their oncologist wants to confirm a diagnosis as soon as possible, but asking the patient to undergo a biopsy to run tests is a tall order. If only physicians could provide an alternative test for lung cancer that was less invasive and just as accurate, if not better, than a tissue biopsy.
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Could We Really Save The Fertility Crisis?
Written by Laurel Geraci
Edited by Connie Quan
Jan 23rd, 2022
With the rise of modern day medicine, food, and water accessibility, it’s no wonder that our current life expectancy is 40 years longer than it was 150 years ago. While this is certainly a statistic worth celebrating, the sad fact is that the age at which natural menopause (ANM) begins has not changed much. With our society progressing towards starting a family later in life, freezing eggs seems like a viable option to keep the “good” eggs alive-yet the likelihood of achieving pregnancy with thawed eggs is only 6.5% (Argyle et al.). So how can we combat the ANM to preserve fertility?
With the rise of modern day medicine, food, and water accessibility, it’s no wonder that our current life expectancy is 40 years longer than it was 150 years ago. While this is certainly a statistic worth celebrating, the sad fact is that the age at which natural menopause (ANM) begins has not changed much. With our society progressing towards starting a family later in life, freezing eggs seems like a viable option to keep the “good” eggs alive-yet the likelihood of achieving pregnancy with thawed eggs is only 6.5% (Argyle et al.). So how can we combat the ANM to preserve fertility?
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Can Bacteria and Fungi Control Tumors?
Written by Aditi Mahajan
Edited by Carolyn Chiu
Jan 23rd, 2022
Cancer is the second leading cause of death in the United States of America. Different cancer treatments include: chemotherapy, immunotherapy, surgery, and radiation. Previous research has found that the efficacy of both chemotherapy and immunotherapy are related to the gut microbiome of the patient. The gut microbiome is composed of a large variety of bacteria, fungi, viruses, and archaea. However, little has been studied about how our microbiome responds to radiation therapy. Dr. Shiao and his colleagues at the Department of Biomedical Sciences in Los Angeles, CA sought to remedy this.
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A Change of Heart: Heart Transplants and the Nervous System
Written by Lillian Brinkmann
Edited by Kelly Chau
Jan 23rd, 2022
Ever had a change of heart? For some people, a change of heart can be a pretty big deal, involving hefty medical intervention and life-long consequences. You don’t have to be a cardiac surgeon to know that heart transplants are no joke. But what goes into replacing this vital organ? As outlined in this article from the European Heart Journal, the balance between our cardiac and nervous systems is thrown off when a new heart comes into play.
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Spice It Up...It Will Save You From Both Bland Food and Chronic Illness
Written by Maggie Bauer
Edited by Jasmine Jeon
Jan 23rd, 2022
Could something as simple as adding spices potentially ward off some of the most deadly diseases? A category of disease labeled chronic illness is responsible for approximately “60%” of all deaths worldwide. These are called chronic illnesses because they are difficult to cure so they persist; examples include “Alzheimer's disease, arthritis, cancer, cardiovascular disease,” etc. and are believed to be caused by chronic inflammation in different areas of the body.
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Ring-Vaccination Strategy: Does it work?
Written by Ritika Jhawar
Edited by Charan Karthik
Jan 23rd, 2022
As defined by the CDC, cholera is “an acute diarrheal illness caused by infection of the intestine with Vibrio cholerae bacteria”. One can get infected by eating/drinking water that is contaminated, and symptoms range from mild to life-threatening. Some of these symptoms include: vomiting, restlessness, low blood pressure, etc. One of the biggest problems after getting infected is the risk of dehydration. If left untreated, this can lead to further complications such as strokes, or even death. Luckily, once patients receive treatment, they recover without any long-term effects. They are still at risk of getting sick if exposed again though, as the infectious bacteria is no longer in their body.
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Invasive Honey Locust Trees as Natural Wound Dressings
Written by Victoria Stewart
Edited by Kelly Chau
August 1st, 2021
In the woody Balkan regions of Eastern Europe as well as regions in North America, Gleditsia triacanthos or the Honey Locust exists as a resilient, invasive plant species. Able to grow in nutrient poor environments, the tree actively clogs streams, dominates the local ecosystem with dense roots, and inhibits any potential plant diversity. At first glance, the tree seems impossible to view in a positive light. However, at the University of Bucharest a study has instead considered the invasive species as an opportunity. Rather than attempting to weed out the dominating trees, researchers have looked further into the interesting properties of the woody seed pods as well as the leaves, which combined could be promising substitutes for wound dressings.
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Can Vitamin D Predict the Severity of COVID-19 Symptoms in Children?
Written by Nathan Tran
Edited by Jada Co
August 1st, 2021
Ever since the onset of the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic in early 2020, outdoor activities have decreased due to the need to minimize risks of contracting infection. With this state of lockdown that has been ongoing for over a year, many children and students have been lacking in physical activity and exposure to sunlight. Exposure to sunlight is especially important as vitamin D, an essential nutrient, is produced by the body when skin comes into contact with UV light. Although it has been shown that symptoms of COVID-19 are less severe in children than in other infected age groups, they can evolve into a much more serious complication known as Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children (MIS-C). From this, can lower vitamin D levels be a possible predictor for the prevalence and severity of MIS-C along with using it as a supplement lead to clinical outcomes?
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Biological Omens
Written by Minjae Yoo
Edited by Emily Moran
August 1st, 2021
Advances in medical technology have brought forth not only new cures to illnesses, but equally importantly, new predictive and diagnostic methods. One of the most notable is the widespread use of biomarkers—biological substances and processes that measure an individual’s various medical conditions and susceptibility to diseases. Countless biomarkers have been documented and are in use today, but there remains ongoing research to both uncover new, as well as to reexamine and update existing ones. Indeed, as we improve our understanding of human biology, it is crucial to continuously reassess the validity and accuracy of established biomarkers.
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Hope for Alzheimer’s Treatment: Cholinesterase Inhibitors
Written by Lillian Brinkmann
Edited by Kelly Chau
August 1st, 2021
How can we stop Alzheimer’s? A well-known beast, this disease affects 24.3 million people worldwide and impairs vital skills like “decision making, language, memory,” and more. However, a class of drugs called cholinesterase inhibitors can mitigate the effects of the disease. Although they aren’t perfect, scientists continue to research these drugs with the hopes of effectively treating this devastating illness.
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Melatonin: More Than Just A Good Night’s Rest
Written by Janelle Nieva
Edited by Sameeha Salman
August 1st, 2021
With today’s booming popularity of everything encompassing wellness, you may have passed by the health aisle at Target and saw a jar of melatonin gummies for sale among all the other vitamins and nutritional supplements. So what exactly is melatonin, and how does it help us?
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Recreating Neanderthal Brain Structures with Stem Cells
Written by Kacey Zimmerman
Edited by Sameeha Salman
August 1st, 2021
Out of all human-like species that once walked this earth, Neanderthals had the closest relation to modern humans. They lived across Europe and most of Asia approximately 500,000 to 40,000 years ago and spent most of this time in close proximity to our ancient ancestors. This is why many theorize that competition with humans and inbreeding both likely contributed to Neanderthal extinction. In fact, many people carry around 2% Neanderthal DNA in their genome (Hendry, n.d.).
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Vitamin A Can Help You Get A’s
Written by Carolyn Chiu
Edited by Priya Ram
August 1st, 2021
How the brain learns is a fundamental question for neuroscientists. Studying the brain’s capability to remember is crucial to treating patients with cognitive dysfunction. Vitamin A is not a magic pill, but it can increase our brain’s capability to store new information. The brain responds to new information and forms memories by reorganizing synapses, a property called neuroplasticity. Synapses are the connections between any two nerve cells. Yes, that means your brain is constantly changing!
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Mind Manipulation by Toxoplasma gondii
Written by Erica Wang
Edited by Rachel Larson
August 1st, 2021
Can a parasite control your mind? The manipulation hypothesis suggests that a parasite can alter the behavior of its host when it is favorable for the parasite’s reproduction or transmission (Webster, 2001). Although this parasite can live in a wide variety of vertebrates, it is most well known for its association with rats, cats, and humans. Alteration in behavior due to toxoplasmosis, the disease associated with T. gondii, has been well documented in rats and mice, but for humans it is still unclear.
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The Shaping of Our Gut Microbiome
Written by Aditi Mahajan
Edited by Mckenna Ma
August 1st, 2021
Human microbiome research has shown that our microbial composition can influence our level of health. An important element to understanding how our microbiomes function is understanding the factors that influence their formation. This means answering the question: what microbes are in our gut and what causes different people to have different gut microbiomes?
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Spit at the Pitch-Side: How Saliva Could Be Used to Diagnose Concussions
Written by Daria Beniakoff
Edited by Mckenna Ma
August 1st, 2021
Concussions and head injuries are a major concern in sports and are typically diagnosed through self-reported symptoms. A large percentage of concussions may be misdiagnosed or remain unidentified which leads to possible long-term effects on the health of athletes. Biomarkers could be useful in new, objective diagnostic tests to pick up on missed diagnoses of concussions or confirm clinical diagnoses.
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Can We Use Lithium as a Treatment for Alzheimer’s?
Written by Thin Han
Edited by Tanishq Vaidya
May 2, 2021
Rivaling the death rates of cancer and heart disease, Alzheimer’s is an incurable disease that continues to ruin patients’s lives. Particularly, Alzheimer’s is one of the many diseases in the dementia family, and affects patients by destroying long-term memories and weakening their immune systems thus making them more vulnerable to other diseases. However, there is hope on the horizon for treatment in the form of a simple salt. Lithium salt has been used as a treatment for mental health problems, specifically bipolar disorder, since the 2nd century AD (Schioldann, 2009). However, more recently, there is evidence that long-term exposure to it can reduce the symptoms of dementia, specifically Alzheimer’s disease.
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Triple Negative Breast Cancer and Obesity Walk Hand in Hand
Written by Chloe Chou
Edited by Christine Yee
August 1st, 2021
It might be time to put down those delicious burgers and refreshing soft drinks—they’re increasing your risk of developing triple negative breast cancer. Triple negative breast cancer is considered a more aggressive form of breast cancer due to its lack of treatment choices. While frightening and not previously not well researched, scientists have recently discovered a tenable link between obesity and higher incidences of triple negative breast cancer. Research is still ongoing to determine exactly how obesity may increase rates of triple negative breast cancer, however a promising connection seems to point toward diabetes associated insulin resistance, and tumor growth.
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Challenges Mexican Immigrants and Migrants Face when Seeking Healthcare
Written by Patricia Moreno
Edited by Kriti lyer
May 2, 2021
There are nearly 12 million Mexican-born immigrants and migrants (im/migrants) in the US, yet less than 60% of them have access to health coverage (Israel & Batalova, 2020). Across the migration spectrum, Mexican im/migrants experience serious challenges that make it difficult for this population to receive quality healthcare services, like obtaining community resources and receiving patient-centered care. The migration process consists of pre-departure, transit, destination, deportation, and return, which imposes significant changes and challenges in healthcare rights, therefore, greatly increasing health disparities (Zimmerman, 2011). Research was conducted in Tijuana, Mexico from 2007 to 2015 to study and identify the gaps in healthcare access for Mexican immigrants and social determinants were identified that lead to many health inequities (Martinez-Donate, 2017).
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Hibernating Cancer Cells
Written by Chloe Chou
Edited by Vicky Diep
May 2, 2021
Cancer cells can “hibernate like bears” to evade the harshness of chemotherapy? This may seem like a nightmare for a disease that already takes far too many lives every year, especially now that researchers at the University of Toronto and the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre have discovered that all cancer cells have this ability to hibernate.
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Nutrients that Make Me Smarter?
Written by Rui Yun
Edited by Emily Moran
May 2, 2021
Did you know that the brain takes 2 percent of your body weight, but it can consume 20 percent of your daily calories (Raichle & Gusnard, 2002)? Have you wondered what food or nutrients are good for brain health? Researchers from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign conducted research on the NBPs, the nutrient biomarkers pattern from the Mideterrean diet, and they found out monounsaturated fatty acid can affect a specific brain network connectivity which supports general intelligence.
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To Sleep Or Not To Sleep: Understanding Sleep From An Evolutionary Perspective
Written by Akshaya Karthikeyan
Edited by Caleigh Donnelly
May 2, 2021
An average person sleeps around 26 years of their lifetime. Sleep plays a critical role in development as well as in the maintenance of our physical and mental health. However, not all organisms sleep. Sleep consumes time used for eating and reproducing and increases chances of predation. Given this information, you may be wondering: how did sleep evolve to become such a big part of our lives?
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An Eye-Opening Solution?
Written by Theodore Do
Edited by Audrey Bantug
May 2, 2021
Worldwide, approximately 75 million people are affected by glaucoma, making this disease the leading cause of irreversible blindness. Glaucoma is a condition in which the optic nerve is damaged and is often associated with elevated intraocular pressure (IOP), or high pressure in the eye. A team of researchers at Georgia Tech have developed a possible efficient treatment to reduce eye pressure, which may be a solution in glaucoma prevention.
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How Thoughts Manifest in Young Children
Written by Hsuan Chen
Edited by Michelle Wong
May 2, 2021
What is the stuff of thought? Where does thought originate? How does thinking occur during early childhood and through what mechanisms? How do children interpret others’ thoughts and emotions? To answer these questions, ancient Egyptians would say the heart is the key to mental processes, which is why it is the only organ embalmed in mummification. Conversely Hippocrates would say the brain is the seat of the mind; it is what makes us humans, highly social animals. Today, technology advancement in the twenty-first century gives us leeway into better visualization of children’s brains as they generate thoughts, which helps us acknowledge that children as young as 3 years of age follow specific thought processes.
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Sharing is Caring: Plant Cells Exchange Organelles
Written by Kacey Zimmerman
Edited by Emily Moran
May 2, 2021
All organisms participate in the exchange of genetic information, which is fundamental to maintaining diversity within species. Generally, this exchange takes place in a vertical transfer, from parents to offspring. However, horizontal transfers-- from one organism to another through a process separate from reproduction-- are extremely important too. In some organisms, like bacteria, the genetic material transferred is small collections of DNA. In plants, however, it was shown that entire organelles can be passed from one organism to another.
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The Not So New Super Drug
Written by Jacob Gomez
Edited by Kelly Chau
May 2, 2021
Diabetes is a health disorder caused by an inability to maintain healthy blood sugar levels, and, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 34.2 million Americans are diabetic, with an additional 88 million at high risk of developing diabetes (CDC, 2020). In order to help patients improve their lifestyles, doctors typically prescribe anti-diabetic medications like metformin. Metformin works by suppressing the release of sugars from the liver, resulting in a decrease in glucose levels in the body. However, as more studies have been conducted, it appears that metformin does have other beneficial functions such as preventing different cancers through a variety of possible mechanisms.
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Bad Knees From Bad Genes: The Impact of Genetic Factors on ACL Injuries
Written by Daria Beniakoff
Edited by Mckenna Ma
May 2, 2021
Do your genes contribute to the likelihood of you getting injured? Anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) ruptures are a tear of a ligament in the knee joint are common injuries in contact sports. From a review of previous studies, risk factors of an ACL injury are the bone structure, alignment, and looseness of the knee joint. These factors vary from person to person as inherited genetic differences contribute to the variation in anatomical structure of knees.
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Prescription Video Games
Written by Erica Wang
Edited by Priya Ram
May 2, 2021
Imagine finishing your doctor’s appointment and walking down to the pharmacy to pick up your prescription video games. Recent research has shown certain video games to be a promising new treatment for amblyopia, commonly known as lazy eye. As exciting as this seems, medical professionals and psychologists are still deciding if the benefits of this treatment are worth the risk of video game addiction. Researchers wrote about the pros and cons of this new treatment in their paper [1].
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A Dead End or Room for Improvement on Parkinson's Medication
Written by Samantha Strom
Edited by Aryss Hearne
May 2, 2021
Research has estimated that by 2030, there will be more than one million people with Parkinson’s disease in the US alone (Marras et al., 2018). As the country’s elderly slowly outnumber the young, the increase in age-related diseases like Parkinson’s will pose a significant problem for healthcare, and it may be difficult to give patients adequate care (Marras et al., 2018; Smetanin et al., 2009). Levodopa (LD or L-Dopa) was first used in 1967 and still remains the best short-term Parkinson’s medication (Hornykiewicz, 2010; Poewe et al., 2010). However, L-Dopa can have debilitating side effects that are similar to symptoms of the disease itself like involuntary jerking and shaking. New research from Uppsala University might help shed light on this phenomenon.
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Can Carrots Help With Muscle Weakness?
Written by Diksha Kudlamath
Edited by Aaron Wright
May 2, 2021
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is an illness that has severe negative health effects on the lungs. The cause of this disease is known to come from long-term exposure to toxic gases such as cigarette smoke. One of the consequences of having damaged lungs is that it causes muscle decay (Osaka City University, 2020). This makes it challenging for patients to participate in physical activities which eventually impairs their overall physical and mental health. Could there be a possible natural remedy for this disease?
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Fate, It’s in Your Genes
Written by Claire Fargeix
Edited by Priya Ram
May 2, 2021
Why are some people more affected than others by infectious diseases? Why do some have minor symptoms while others never recover? These are questions that investigators Jean-Laurent Casanova and Laurent Abel seek to answer in their article, “The human genetic determinism of life-threatening infectious diseases: genetic heterogeneity and physiological homogeneity?”
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How the Brain Creates Spatial Awareness
Written by Kriti Iyer
Edited by Aaron Wright
May 2, 2021
Many of us feel completely lost when we arrive in a new location for the first time, so naturally, navigating through traffic in order to find a destination in a timely manner may seem like an unimaginable task. As time progresses, our brains start to recognize certain spaces that we pass by frequently and enable us to remember locations through a mental map of sorts. A recent discovery by researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, attests to this phenomenon and sheds light on how our brain can remember areas and create spatial awareness.
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Anti-Aging, More than a Myth?
Written by Minjae Yoo
Edited by Charan Karthik
May 2, 2021
In a world’s first clinical study, researchers at the Tel Aviv University and The Sagol Center for Hyperbaric Medicine and Research at Shamir Medical Center in Israel have demonstrated potential methods to reverse cellular aging in human patients. Biologically, aging occurs at the level of cells and their DNA. When humans develop or sustain injuries, our cells proliferate as a means of growth or damage repair. Cell proliferation entails generating an exact replica of a cell, including all of its contents like DNA, through complex biological mechanisms. Nothing is ever perfect, however, and even such remarkably precise cellular processes have their flaws.
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Diamond-Studded Silk Dressings for Luxury Wound Care
Written by Daphne Crum
Edited by Kelly Chau
May 2, 2021
Are diamond-studded silk bandages too luxurious to be true? Think again! These alternative wound coverings might sound unnecessarily over-the-top, but hybrid nanodiamond-silk dressings could function as healthful and cost-effective solutions for treating serious wounds. Physicians redress wounds over and over again to check on the patient’s healing progress and to monitor the damaged tissues for infections. Hiding the swelling, heat, and redness associated with infection, standard bandages have to be removed to check for these symptoms, ultimately irritating the healing skin further and exposing the wound to even more bacteria circulating through a hospital.
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Can Music Predict Emotions?
Written by Alissya Yuen
Edited by Christine Yee
May 2, 2021
Do you usually find yourself feeling much happier after listening to your favorite song? Ever wondered what your brain is doing when you’re watching a sad movie? Scientists have often questioned why these activities can have such large impacts on our moods and recent studies have provided instrumental clues to understanding what goes on in the brain.
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Soy Milk and Ulcerative Colitis
Written by Emily Fucarino
Edited by Jada Co
May 2, 2021
Soy milk: it's in the drinks of major coffee chains and in most major grocery stores. But could it also be used medicinally? While currently this is just a hypothesis, the research exploring soy milk as a treatment for inflammatory disease offers insight into future study methodologies and current evidence supporting this hypothesis.
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How Cancers Hide From Our Immune Response
Written by Lance Jimenez
Edited by Hannah Parducho
May 2, 2021
Our immune system is our body’s security system: it monitors and protects our body from bacteria, viruses, and even cancer! It detects and removes these disease-causing agents to keep us happy and healthy. Though it works hard, this system is not perfect, so we get sick from time to time. The problem arises when certain disease-causing agents, such as cancer cells, become sneaky and avoid our bodies’ defenses. Cancer has become an increasingly concerning disease with approximately 158.3 deaths per 100,000 affected people and an expected 39.5% of people being diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime (National Cancer Institute, 2020).
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Rogue Gene Increases Cancer Risk
Written by Carolyn Chiu
Edited by Theodore Do
May 2, 2021
When we mention evolution, we usually think of improvement. This definition is not necessarily true in the context of biology. Take humans, the closest evolutionary relative of chimps. Although we are certainly more intelligent than our hairier counterparts, we also have a higher genetic predisposition for developing carcinoma cancers.
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Always at the Right Place: The Brain with Space and Time
Written by Janelle Nieva
Edited by Hannah Parducho
May 2, 2021
Do you ever wonder how you can easily remember the way from your house to the local grocery store, or simply distinguish where the bathroom is from the bedroom? It might seem like common sense to remember all these locations we encounter in our day-to-day lives, but the neurons in our brain are hard at work and firing rapidly to make sure we get to the right place at the right time.
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A New Decade; a New Class of Antibiotic
Written by Rachel Larson
Edited by Sameeha Salman
May 2, 2021
Ever since the invention of the first antibiotic in 1928, humans have been in an evolutionary arms race with the infectious bacteria that are the cause of so many illnesses. While scientists discover clever ways to kill these harmful parasites, bacteria continue to evolve novel mechanisms to build resistance to our drugs.
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Squid-Based Proteins Can Repair Your Clothes
Written by Audrey Bantug
Edited by Tanishq Vaidya
May 2, 2021
What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word “protein”? You probably think of meat or possibly even enzymes. Proteins also play important roles as structural components in living things, such as in hair, skin, and nails. How can this one type of molecule have so many different functions? It’s all because proteins consist of a chain of amino acids, which interact with each other in various ways to form a unique overall structure. These different structures can then result in specific functions that have inspired novel applications in modern technology.
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A Step Towards a Cure for Cancer
Written by Carlos Rendon
Edited by Connie Quan
May 2, 2021
Evolution is both a blessing and a curse. Just as it has improved the survival of humanity, it has also decreased our life expectancy because cancer continues to evolve along with us. Cancer has been researched extensively, yet there has not been a definitive way to treat it at the moment. Current research is investigating how to deliver anticancer drugs more effectively to tumor cells as a treatment.
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Are Your Migraines an Early Sign of Dementia?
Written by Ritika Jhawar
Edited by Christine Yee
May 2, 2021
Are your Migraines an Early Sign of Dementia? Everyone has experienced a headache before– and many of us blame it on lack of sleep, water, movement, or even a combination of the three. But are there deeper meanings as to why some of us get persistent headaches? Multiple studies have shown that migraines could have a positive relationship with dementia, but it remains difficult to tell whether these studies are biased or not. A UK study analyzing this association relies on information compiled from the Disease Analyzer database (IQVIA), a computerized system used by medical practitioners for arranging medical and demographic data (Karel Kostev et. al., 2019).
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Regenerative Dentistry
Pet rodents and pesky rats alike seem to chew through everything. Did you know that this behavior is spurred by the need to routinely file their teeth? Like our nails, rodent teeth grow continuously throughout their lifetime. Although the habit would be impractical for humans, applying this biology to damaged or lost teeth can revolutionize dental treatment.
Written by Carolyn Chiu
Edited by Mateo Cepeda
Jan 31, 2021
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Why Women Need Menstrual Synchrony
Written by Laurel Geraci
Edited by Pooja Dandekar
May 2, 2021
We’ve all heard the myth that women who live together are more likely to have synchronized menstrual cycles--but is there any truth to it? In terms of media representation, menstrual synchrony is an established phenomenon that unites women who bleed together. While scientists have neither proven nor disproven this theory, there is certainly a social motivation to believe it is true: the idea of gender collectivism and solidarity. Even if female roommates, relatives, or couples can’t magically sync up their menstrual cycles, banding together through complaints about PMS evidently erases embarrassment around menstruation and strengthens present-day sisterhood*.
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Gene Editing: The Cure for Cancer?
Written by Claire Fargeix
Edited by Audrey Bantug
Jan 31, 2021
Yes, you can literally edit your genes! CRISPR, which stands for “clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats,” is a system that came from a defense mechanism in bacteria, but is now being used by scientists for gene editing. Essentially, it is a complex of proteins that are guided to a specific region of DNA where they can cut out some genetic material. This system was an amazing discovery because it had large implications for human health, specifically for personalized medicine. While humans do share most of our DNA with each other, it is ultimately unique to each of us. Gene editing can therefore be fine-tuned to each person to help with their specific needs. The human diseases whose treatments with CRISPR are under development include dementia, cancer, muscular dystrophy, AIDS, sickle cell disease, hemophilia, and autism.
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Attacking Cancer Undercover
Written by Megan Abrams
Edited by Michelle Wong
Jan 31, 2021
Cancer treatment is thought of as a panic-inducing procedure that not only kills cancerous cells, but also normal, healthy cells. However, what if there was a way to destroy cancerous cells while leaving living healthy cells alone and unharmed? This seemingly impossible task may have been accomplished by a few scientists at Nanyang Technological University.
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A Bacterial Toxin That Hurts and Heals
Written by Tammy Chan
Edited by Cindy Ho
Jan 31, 2021
What is Staphylococcus aureus, and why even care about its toxins? Staphylococcus aureus is a type of bacteria found in the environment and in human areas such as skin and mucous membranes. Although S. aureus is often harmless, this bacteria can turn pathogenic, leading to various infections or inflammation. In the worst cases, sepsis can develop. Sepsis is a life-threatening medical emergency caused by the body’s extreme and overactive response to an infection; this severe response triggers a series of changes that can damage multiple organ systems. Without quick treatment, sepsis can lead to tissue damage, organ failure, and even death. To better understand S. aureus infections, let’s examine one of the bacterial toxins secreted by S. aureus– ∝-hemolysin.
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Holistic Wellness for Bipolar Disorder
Written by Natalie Hopkins
Edited by Sameeha Salman
Jan 31, 2021
Does the idea of bipolar disorder make you think of “highs” and “lows” in your moods? Have you ever considered associating “medication” and “therapy”? Most often, when one thinks of bipolar disorder treatment, the main focus is on a strict and well maintained medication plan, yet the use of varying types of therapy is found to be equally as important. Attending therapy, whether that be regularly or every month, is critical for mental health, and recently has even shown positive effects for those with bipolar disorder, a mental illness involving diagnosed periods of elation and depression. A study conducted by researchers at UCLA has analyzed the effects of pairing familial, group therapies with the standard medication regimen to observe the outcome of this novel approach on bipolar disorder treatment.
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The Link Between Our Gut and Alzheimer's
Written by Akshaya Karthikeyan
Edited by Theodore Do
Jan 31, 2021
We have all heard the old saying, “Food is Medicine.” In recent years, there have been many speculations about the important role of gut microbiota in disease control. Our gut microbiota influences many aspects of our health. Since our gut microbiota is heavily influenced by the food we eat, this saying may not be far from the truth.
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New Biodegradable Packaging Keeps Your Food and The Environment Fresh
Written by Mateo Cepeda
Edited by Caleigh Donnelly
Jan 31, 2021
When was the last time you got sick after eating something? A metric from the World Health Organization (WHO) found that, every year, hundreds of thousands of deaths and millions of infections come from foodborne illnesses. The use of plastic packaging helps prevent bacteria from growing on our food, but this plastic is often thrown in the waste after we are done with it. With the impacts of the plastic industry changing global temperatures and harming marine ecosystems, researchers from Harvard are exploring new and unique ways to limit this harm. Innovative scientists have found a way to tackle both of these issues: biodegradable food packaging!
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The Future of Drug Delivery
Written by Lance Jimenez
Edited by Connie Quan
Jan 31, 2021
A detailed painting requires different brush sizes. Precision is required for the finer parts and using a thick brush could smear the area around it, thus ruining the painting. Increasingly smaller brushes allow for finer details to be implemented. Similarly, pharmaceutical drugs benefit from precise tools, and methods involving them continue to be developed now. Currently, drugs meant for the brain have to travel through the blood.. As a drug flows through the blood, it gets distributed to non-target areas of the body, often causing side effects. Like the thick brush, the inability to bring the drug to specific areas can be problematic for our bodies. To solve this, a novel drug-delivery method is currently being researched, and it is demonstrating promising results.
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Finally, Something to Like About Wasps
Written by Kacey Zimmerman
Edited by Madeleine Lu
Jan 31, 2021
Though wasps technically do provide pollination and insect control, they are most popularly known as the unfortunate cousins to bees for their aggressive behavior and painful sting. Surprisingly, there is an upside to their venom: scientists have been able to isolate toxins and develop them into antimicrobial molecules!
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The Invisible Threat
Written by Minjae Yoo
Edited by Sameeha Salman
Jan 31, 2021
With COVID-19 headlines dominating the spotlight, you may have heard of the term “asymptomatic carrier”. But what exactly does this phrase mean, and what implications does it have on how we approach the novel coronavirus?
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Does Human Personality Affect Pet Ownership?
Written by Erica Wang
Edited by Aaron Wright
Jan 31, 2021
Cats, dogs, and other pets are common in American households. Owners everywhere dote on their beloved pets. A study conducted by Gretchen Reevy and Mikel Delgado from California State University: East Bay and the University of California at Berkeley respectively, seeks to learn more about the human-pet bond and how to improve pet ownership. They explore how being a Dog Person, Cat Person, both, or neither correlates to personality and attachment style.
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The World of Mini Bugs
Written by Susie Schaffer
Edited by Janelle Nieva
Jan 31, 2021
The Coronavirus pandemic has brought the world’s attention towards the significantly formidable impact of all the millions of tiny, indiscernible microbes constantly living among us. The microworld, the systems of microscopic organisms consisting of bacteria, viruses, archaea, protozoa, and fungi, is all around us, from the depths of the ocean to the interiors of the human body (Human Health Is Bound to Microbiomes). Recently, microbiota has had a bad wrap. While bacteria and viruses sound frightening, they are necessary for the world to work. The sphere of microbiota is vast and plays many roles in the world.
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Fixing Cancer Treatments: Can Scientists Bypass a Broken Immune Response?
Written by Daria Beniakoff
Edited by Aryss Hearne
Jan 31, 2021
Immunotherapy is an effective cancer treatment, but some patients develop resistance to it. What can scientists do when immunotherapies become ineffective?
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Radiotherapy: A Breast Cancer Solution for Some, but Not All
Written by Daphne Crum
Edited by Emily Moran
Jan 31, 2021
Radiation therapy is the most common form of breast cancer treatment after mastectomies, but about 20% of patients who undergo radiotherapy suffer serious side effects (Borrego-Soto, “Ionizing Radiation-Induced DNA Injury and Damage Detection in Patients with Breast Cancer”). Worsening symptoms result from the failure to avoid damaging healthy cells while using radiation to eliminate cancer cells, and unlucky patients whose cells fail to repair their own DNA strand breakages suffer the most. How is a doctor to know a patient’s tolerance for radiation before undergoing treatment?
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A Minor Change For a Healthier Life
Written by Hsuan Chen
Edited by Kelly Chau
Jan 31, 2021
Busy balancing life, school, and work that you cannot remember the last time you ate or what you ate? You mind what you put into your body—at least you think you are—yet you feel this constant discomfort in the abdomen? Chronic gastritis (CG) is a commonly overlooked disease that usually inflicts stomach pain due to varying degrees of inflammatory response over time. Previous studies have shown that typical yet often neglected symptoms, such as vomiting, loss of appetite, and stomach discomfort, are reasons for CG’s poor recognition as stomach lesion. Although these symptoms may seem insignificant at first, continuously ignoring their effects on the body could lead to rupturing and bleeding of the stomach and consequently stomach cancer.
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Multitasking a Good Idea?
Written by Thin Han
Edited by Janelle Nieva
Jan 31, 2021
You tell yourself you are good at multitasking. You can watch lectures while scrolling through Twitter. You can do your readings with your favorite show blaring in the background. Sadly, the truth is that no one is a good multitasker, not even your straight A friend who watches lecture videos at 2x speed while playing Among Us. All those things are complex tasks that overwork the prefrontal cortex part of your brain, and, ultimately there is a steep price of having a bad impact on your learning. Doing a brain dump for your exams is fine for the time being, but what will you do if you have to take classes that build on the knowledge of prior classes, and you end up not remembering anything?
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Autism: Causes and How to Help
Written by Laurel Geraci
Edited by Priya Ram
Jan 31, 2021
With the recent arguments presented by the anti-vaccination communities, talks about autism and its origins have been appearing more frequently in mainstream media. There is no scientific evidence or correlation to suggest that vaccines cause autism and medical professionals are still unsure of just how many genes contribute to an autism diagnosis. Looking at studies of identical twins show that autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) have an extremely high heritability, estimated at about 90%, yet we struggle to pinpoint what genes are responsible for ASDs. The answer is not quite simple.
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Tricking Cells into Accepting a Foreign Transplant
Written by Tanishq Vaidya
Edited by Pooja Dandekar
Jan 31, 2021
As reported by Donate Life America, over 8000 people die each year due to the rampant organ shortage in today’s medical industry. In the USA, while the number of people that require organ donation is continually rising, there is still a huge disparity between the number donated versus the number needed. As such, scientists are intently searching for an alternate means of procuring the organs needed. One particularly interesting solution is xenotransplantation, or the transplantation of organs between species (for example, between pigs and humans). However, there are challenges in such procedures since each animal has specialized markers on its cells that make it recognizable to its own immune system.
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Cognitive Difficulties–What is Happening in the Brain?
Written by Alissya Yuen
Edited by McKenna Ma
Jan 31, 2021
When you think of a cognitive difficulty and the effects it has on the brain, what is the first thing that comes to mind? Cognitive difficulties, such as learning difficulties, are not that uncommon and there are many students who struggle with a type of learning difficulty that requires additional support. For many years, researchers have had little success identifying specific areas of the brain affected by learning difficulties such as cognitive and/or behavioral problems. For instance, ADHD has been associated with many brain regions, such as the parietal lobe and prefrontal cortex. Researchers identified that the underlying cause of learning difficulties is that these are associated with poor connectivity of regions in the brain, instead of a specific brain region itself.
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Lung Disease Is No Minor Problem
Written by Aditi Mahajan
Edited by Madeleine Lu
Jan 31, 2021
What if the simple act of going to work increased your chances of getting a life threatening disease? Imagine being forced to breathe in dangerous fine particles everyday in your place of work. This is the shocking reality for many American workers today, especially those in the mining industry. Miners work in environments that put their lungs at risk. Cases of work related lung disease have been increasing this past decade and show no signs of slowing down.
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Prenatal Cannabis Use
Written by Diksha Kudlamath
Edited by Mateo Cepeda
Jan 31, 2021
The use of cannabis has become extremely popular whether it is used recreationally, medically, or even in several beauty products. Cannabis has become legalized in some states in America for both medical and recreational use. However, there is still some research to be done regarding the long-term effects that cannabis can have on people, especially teenagers and children. For example, did you know that pregnant women who are exposed to cannabis can cause the offspring to have altered behavior in their adult life?
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The Power of Perspiration
Written by Justin Arguel
Edited by Tiffany Yuen
Jan 18, 2021
Smartwatches and other electronic wearables have continued to grow in popularity in recent years. Being able to monitor your health at the flick of your wrist is looking less like some futuristic dream, and more like a present-day reality. However, the main issue at the moment is making sure these devices last us throughout the day without needing to be charged constantly. Researchers at the California Institute of Technology may have found the perfect solution.
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Diabetes and Microwaves?
Written by Chloe Chou
Edited by Hannah Parducho
Jan 18, 2021
Microwaving the diabetes away? This may sound far-fetched, but researchers at the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine have evidence that this isn't too far from the truth. The answer lies in electromagnetic fields, or EMFs. These invisible fields of energy are everywhere! In fact, you probably spend hours gazing into an important EMF emitter without even realizing it. EMFs are emitted by many common electronic devices including microwaves, radios, navigational devices, and our beloved mobile devices. EMFs are also on track to help diabetics manage their blood sugar levels less invasively compared to current diabetes management methods that require several painful injections daily. Researchers studying metabolism and diabetes stumbled upon this discovery when they realized that the mice borrowed from the EMF research group, which were expected to be diabetic, had normal blood sugar levels.
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Just a Breath Away: A New Way to Detect Cancer
Written by Rachel Larson
Edited by Aaron Wright
Jan 18, 2021
One of the most important predictors in cancer survival is early detection. Patients whose cancer was detected early often experience vastly better outlooks and easier recoveries than their counterparts, and so one major focus of cancer researchers is to find easy-to-use and non-invasive ways to detect cancer. For example, mucosal head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) is a type of cancer that appears as lumps in the mouth and neck of patients. Detection of this cancer requires a doctor to stick a camera down the patient's esophagus, as well as a biopsy of any suspicious lumps, which is both extensive and uncomfortable. However, researchers in Australia recently published a finding in the British Journal of Science that proposes an exciting and far less invasive method to catching HNSCC: using a breathalyzer.
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Exercise Your Mind!
Written by Carlos Rendon
Edited by Kelly Chau
Jan 18, 2021
Exercise--some people love it; others hate it. Without a doubt, it is an important part of leading a healthy and balanced lifestyle. Regular exercise can help with weight loss, maintaining strong bones and muscles, and decreasing the risk of chronic illnesses. Capable of improving your mood, regular exercise also promotes a positive mental well-being. As one grows older, and the body begins to age, so does the mind as memory deteriorates over time. Just as exercise can help maintain a healthier body for a longer time, would you believe that it could also improve your memory?
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High Hopes for a Smoother Journey to Alcohol Recovery
Written by Patricia Moreno
Edited by Charan Karthik
Jan 18, 2021
Alcohol addiction is a very complicated mental illness that requires multiple approaches with numerous roadblocks in seeking recovery. At one point in their lives, alcoholism affects approximately one-third of US adults, but there is a large treatment gap for alcohol use disorders (AUD). This can be due to many factors, with the most common ones being, refusal to seek treatment, high cost of services, and stigma. Currently, there are different recovery treatment options for people with AUD including medication, therapy, and self-awareness interventions. In spite of these services, this addictive substance continues to greatly affect the well being of those with AUD. Making sure that people have better access to treatment services will improve the lives of many, bettering our community.
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Brain Differences Linked to Teen Weight
Written by Sameeha Salman
Edited by Hannah Parducho
Jan 18, 2021
We often attribute weight gain to making unhealthy food choices and a lack of physical activity.
This is partially true, but the reason why people chose to eat excessive amounts of junk food and to refrain from exercising remained largely unknown. Today, researchers find that there are differences in a particular region of the brain that cause some people to be more predisposed to obesity than others.
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Special Contact Lens to Help Colour Blindness
Written by Theint Aung
Edited by Caleigh Donnelly
Jan 18, 2021
Can contact lenses help color blind patients? Even though color blindness is one of the most common vision disorders, there is no cure for it yet. Color filtering tinted spectacles exist to help increase the color perception of affected patients, but they are bulky and incompatible with other vision correction glasses. Researchers from the University of Birmingham have demonstrated the possibility of using dyed contact lenses to increase the color perception.
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Sensory Nerves vs. Autism–Are There Any Ties?
Written by Ritika Jhawar
Edited by Priya Ram
Jan 18, 2021
Every day begins with you smelling, tasting, sensing, touching, or hearing something. These are your five basic senses that allow you to interact with the world. Depending on each person, these five forms of perception have multiple degrees of variability; some people have better eyesight, others can hear more, etc. How do neurological disorders like autism change the way someone perceives the world?
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Is It a Mole or a Tumor?
Written by Vicky Diep
Edited by Audrey Bantug
Jan 18, 2021
ABCDE - these comprise not just the first five letters of the alphabet, but also a rule of thumb for identifying whether a mole might be cancerous or not. A stands for asymmetry; B stands for border; C stands for color; D stands for diameter; and E stands for evolving. That is to say, moles that appear uneven (asymmetrical as opposed to a symmetric circle or oval shape), have raised edges or multiple colors, are larger than a pencil eraser, and seem to be “evolving” (changing in shape, color, or suddenly bleeding or feeling itchy) are red flags for skin cancer. How is it that some moles are just normal, benign markings on our skin while others can actually be dangerous tumors? What is the biology that underlies these differences?
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Shedding Light on a Pumpkin Pathogen
Written by Emily Fucarino
Edited by Cindy Ho
Jan 18, 2021
Cucurbits are members of the gourd family, and include melons, cucumbers, gourds, and a fall favorite—pumpkins. Cucurbits are among the many types of plants susceptible to a powdery mildew disease but are among the most severely affected (Pérez-García et al.). Powdery mildew of cucurbits significantly reduces crop yield and is caused by the fungal plant pathogen Podosphaera xanthii. As an obligate parasite, P. xanthii relies on its host in order to grow and reproduce; and in order to become parasitic, it must first develop fungal structures called haustoria. Haustoria are responsible for transferring plant nutrients to the fungus and for releasing proteins that suppress host defense mechanisms, making them crucial for attaining and sustaining a parasitic state within a host.
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