Slanted Science

Archive for the ‘Epidemiology’ Category

It’s a pandemic, but not – so far – a particularly deadly one. Health officials are still concerned, though, that the H1N1 influenza virus may acquire the right mutations during this initial period of infection to make it a much more formidable foe during the next year.

Which is why scientists are still working feverishly (forgive the pun) on finding out how the human body responds to H1N1 infection, and whether an individual’s chances of surviving it can be improved.

Their latest discovery is that a family of proteins called IFITMs contribute to resistance to H1N1, as well as West Nile and Dengue viruses. Read the rest of this entry »

“I’ve got thyroid problems.”
“I’m just big boned.”
“I eat way more calories than I need, even if I were to run two marathons every single day of my life. That is why rolls of my abdominal fat are spilling over the armrest onto your seat.”

People use all sorts of excuses to justify their weight problems (though admittedly, the third example above – honesty – is a rare one). Well, scientists are now reporting that they have found a gene whose loss is associated with compulsive eating an obesity. Expect to hear it used some time very soon. Read the rest of this entry »

Bacteria, eh? Nasty little things.

Strutting around, with their tiny little genomes, doing nothing but bringing misery to mankind: food poisoning; meningitis; halitosis and…obesity? That’s the theory being put forward in a new paper published in the journal Science Translational Medicine. Read the rest of this entry »

The scientific and religious worlds are soon to collide in an unusual way (that is, one which doesn’t involve Richard Dawkins, a Southern minister, and several tedious hours spent shouting questions at each other about the shape of giraffe’s intestines and the discovery of fish fossils on mountaintops). No, this time the stakes are rather higher than a bruised ego: they could include the welfare of millions of citizens during the winter months.

The reason is that muslims are about to perform their divine duty, and gather together in Mecca, Saudi Arabia to…well, whatever it is that religious people do when they arrive in the most magical of their magic places. Take drugs and smile stupidly, if our experience at the Led Zeppelin reunion gig is anything to go by.

Anyway, here is how this mass gathering may impact the entire world. Read the rest of this entry »