Sci got an email from one of her lovely readers recently about an article that appeared in Scientific American. I usually have a lot of respect for Scientific American, but I have to say I feel they really dropped the ball on this one. So today, I present to you: what Sci Am said, the […]
Welcome to my post on the Women’s Health Writeup! I at first didn’t see much I could do in this article on cheating (is fidelity obsolete?), but the more I read, the more I saw to write. Sci isn’t an ethicist or sociologist and thus cannot really comment on the question of cheating in those […]
Let it be known to the masses (all two of you, hi!) that Sci LOVES Diet Coke. I mean, not as much as coffee or Pumpkin Spice Lattes, but it’s a close second. And I always heard what I’m sure everyone has heard, about how Diet Coke is HORRIBLE for you and the ASPARTAME!! The […]
Sci saw this paper. She’s going to start with some caveats. She thinks the paper is cool. BUT, it appears to be one of those papers that is HIGHLY subject to overinterpretation and possible panic. So Don’t Panic. And now we’re going to talk about oxytocin. And parenting. In humans. It ain’t just for voles […]
You all may recall that I posted recently about cocaine escalation in rats. Drugmonkey has also been posting some interesting stuff about addiction and…EXERCISE. And of course, Sci can’t see that and leave it alone. So I’m going back to a paper that really galvanized the idea of exercise in treating addiction. Cosgrove, Hunter, Carroll. […]
Sci deeply considered titling this post “Becoming Lindsay Lohan: Cocaine Escalation in Rats”. But then I thought…nah…too much. 🙂 Anyway, a post over at Drugmonkey yesterday got Sci to thinking about drug self-administration in rats, and more particularly, HOW we use it to model cocaine addiction in humans. Because, like other models, drug self-administration in […]
I’m sure everyone here has heard of self-inflicted harm, or self-injurious behavior. The common word for it is “cutting”, and professionals and parents often worry about its presence in adolescent populations. But the population in which self-injurious behavior is most prevalent is actually in patients (adult or adolescent) with borderline personality disorder. Borderline personality disorder […]
You all may remember when a certain political candidate made a comment concerning fruit fly research. It seemed like half the world reacted with “yeah, fruit fly research is dumb! Let’s cure cancer!” while the other half went “hey, I think that’s probably important…” and tried to come up with examples. And while we’ve obviously […]
It’s electric. (Sci would like to note that she does a GREAT Electric Slide. I am quite the hit at weddings.) Action potentials are special to me. They are special to me because action potentials are what got me into science in the first place. Well, ok, they didn’t really get me in to science. […]
This is post 5 in my ongoing, now-approaching-behemoth-size series of posts on depression. I’ve got other posts available on the etiology of depression, the current pharmacotherapies, studying depression in the lab, and the serotonin theory of depression, which of course you can read and refer to if you’re curious. This post will be on what […]