Thanksgiving Week

 

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/11/17/opinion/sunday/What-if-You-Knew-Alzheimers-Was-Coming-for-You.html?_r=0 An article from the Sunday Review section about a blood test for the ApoE4 gene variant that has been associated with Alzheimers Disease. A person who's genotype includes two copies of this variant is likely to develop late-onset Alzheimers. Since this blood test is not available yet, to determine your potential to develop AD would require a (PET) brain scan or a spinal tap (not the rock group). Scientists putative goal is to develop tests for the disease prior to the development of symptoms. Bill Gates, who has AD in his family, has devoted $100 million dollars to the cause of early diagnosis. If an individual has one of the gene variants instead of two, what does that mean? AD is also linked to many factors such as poor diet, sedentary lifestyle, chronic inflammation, exposure to chemicals in the environment and genetics.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/26/us/politics/alex-azar-senate-confirmation-hearing-hhs.html?_r=0 Article from the NYT about the former Lilly pharma executive who is Trump's picl to head the Health and Human Services agency, Alex Azar.  He raised prices on Insulin and other drugs but says that he would "take on the greed of the pharmaceutical industry." He is against the ACA and has experience privatizing the Medicare drug benefit under contract with the government. He joined the Bush administration as general counsel to the Department of HHS. He thinks that patients are paying too much for drugs; example is the price of insulin which has tripled in the last decade (as it also became cheaper to produce, author's statement.) Good money has it that drug prices will increase.



https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/19/us/retro-report-evolution-science.html
An article in NYT about new tactics being used by organizations including the Seattle-based Discovery Institute to put evolution under examination in the classroom (again.) Groups like this have become emboldened in the Trump administration.In addition to rejecting evolution, climate change and the human contribution to global warming are also being presented as questionable and not supported by facts.The most recent court case in which the teaching of Intelligent Design was rejected was "Kitzmiller v. Dover", in the Kansas schools. The Discovery Institute in Louisiana is another one of these backward-thinking groups that influenced the Science Education Act of 2008 which permits teaching of "the controversy." Tennessee passed a comparable law to the Louisiana law.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/23/health/bacteria-colon-cancer.html This is an article from NYT about a report in the journal Science about fusobacerium nucleatum, a bacterium found in up to half of colon tumors, which travels with its spread. These bacteria normally inhabit the mouth, but looking at colon cancers that had metastasized to liver, they found the bacteria, but not when they looked at liver cancer that had metastasized to colon. Questions that could be raised: could a vaccine directed against these bacteria cure colon cancer? Bert Vogelstein, a hero of mine, suggests that the bacteria might be altering patients' immune responses.

 

Daylight Savings

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/04/opinion/sunday/relax-you-dont-need-to-eat-clean.html?_r=0
This is an opinion piece about food prohibitions "in the guise of science." Written by a Pediatrics professor who talks about the poorly substantiated arguments behind such things as the demonization of salt, and now the gluten-free frenzy. 1 in 5 Americans routinely chooses gluten-free foods according to a 2015 poll even though fewer than 1% of people in the USA have wheat allergies and fewer than 1% have celiac disease. Besides this, gluten sensitivity is not well-defined and most people who claim the distinction don't meet the criteria.




https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/26/obituaries/isabella-l-karle-dead-findings-on-molecules-helped-husband-win-nobel.html  This is an obit from the NYT announcing the death of Isabella L Karle, an xray crystallographer and chemist. Her husband Jerome Karle along with  Herbert Hauptmann, won the Nobel Prize for extending the crystallographic interpretations to large, 3-dimensional biological molecules like drugs, steroids and toxins, helped substantially by Isabella Karle, who was self-taught in cystallography.




http://www.philly.com/philly/health/health-news/ancestry-dna-genes-23andme-genetics-20171012.html This is a Philly Inquirer piece about people who buy kits for analyzing their DNA. The writer reports that he and his sister had their DNA analyzed and different ancestry was reported for each of them. The results are conveyed via charts and graphs as percentages which, according to the writer, cannot be determined with certainty. Most companies compare snippets of a person's DNA to the company's database of DNA markers from people in various regions of the world. This is where the inaccuracy comes in because in order to find otu where your ancestors lived 500 years ago you would need to compare your DNA to a data base of DNA from people who lived 500 years ago, according to the article.