Posted on Oct 11, 2014 | Comments Off on Weekend Science: Coffee Drinker? Maybe You Hit The Genetic Powerball
A recent genome-wide meta-analysis has identified a biological commonality among 120,000 regular coffee drinkers - 6 new genetic variants related to caffeine metabolism, lipid and glucose metabolism, and its psychoactive effects, found among about 2.5 million variants in the genome.
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Posted on Oct 10, 2014 | Comments Off on Orthorexia Nervosa – Do GMO Opponents Have A Psychological Disorder?
Some people are so obsessed with their food it smacks of zealotry. They might eat only a certain kind of fish cooked on a certain piece of wood. They might even believe that they can taste the difference between a strawberry processed at an organic farm and one processed at a conventional one. When it becomes truly bizarre, it affects family and friends. Writing at Genetic Literacy...
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Posted on Oct 10, 2014 | Comments Off on VSV-EBOV: The Race For An Ebola Vaccine Heats Up
Canada, which has roughly 1,500 vials of an ebola vaccine called VSV-EBOV, has offered 1,000 vials to the World Health Organization and said the rest would be used for upcoming clinical trials in 5 locations: two in the United States, and one each in Germany, Switzerland and a non-Western-African country that isn't battling ebola.
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Posted on Oct 9, 2014 | Comments Off on Is Chess The New Texas Hold ‘Em?
Credit: Millionaire Chess tournamentWhen I was a kid, no one outside Texas played Texas Hold 'Em. We played Stud, we played Draw, we played Liar's, but not Hold 'Em.Like Esther Williams movies and organic food, some things just make their way into pop culture and there is no rational reason why. Texas Hold 'Em is now the most popular card game in the country, every month or so our neighborhood...
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Posted on Oct 9, 2014 | Comments Off on Synthetic Biology: GMOs Without The Cultural Drama
Credit: ShutterstockOne thing certain about nature - it sure isn't efficient. Just take a look at the human male reproductive system and you get the idea that if it was designed, it was designed by fish, and on a dare. It is a problem waiting to happen, but evolution is about the survival of the fitter, not the fittest - and then we add in some random walks and mutations.
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