Archive for January, 2008

Proof that the body is amazing…

This afternoon during lunch, one of my colleagues tipped me off to a story about a girl who had switched blood types after a liver transplant. Let that sink in for a minute. Now, here's the reality: normally, when one receives an organ from a donor, an immune response is mounted. Recall that the MHC [...]

Stem cells, for the win

So this morning as I was hurriedly getting ready for school (since I'd accidentally turned off my alarm), I was rushing through my living room when I heard a story teaser about scientists growing a heart in the lab on "Good Morning America." Now it's not every day you hear about people growing entire [...]

The price of corn could go down again soon…

A few weeks ago, I posted a story about the use of corn as the plant of choice in the production of ethanol. Scientific American is reporting that several Central U.S. states--Nebraska and the Dakotas, to name a few--are planting large fields of a native grass called switchgrass. Switchgrass is being touted [...]

Study Frenzy!

Just a general announcement: What: Study session When: Sunday, January 13 Where: Escape, from 1 pm-3 pm Why: Because you have a test coming up that could make or break some of you for the six weeks. And to sweeten the pot for some of you...since there will be no free response on this upcoming test, [...]

The fountain of youth?

When we learned about mitosis gone awry a few weeks ago, we talked about how cancer cells do not display density-dependent inhibition, nor do they display contact inhibition. In short, cancer cells are not familiar with the concept of personal space, nor do they realize they're hogging the space they're in. A new [...]