Archive: Apr 2013

Presented by Marshall Thomas Every day, a program of cell death called apoptosis destroys millions of cells in our bodies. Though it sounds morbid and scary, apoptosis is critical for keeping us healthy by removing old and damaged cells. This staves off…

Meditation has ancient, religious roots, but it has also become a secular practice, implemented to promote wellbeing and to treat depression and anxiety. Skeptics might be wary of this jump from spiritual origins to medical treatment, but mounting…

You may have recently heard about cases of acute lymphoid leukemia (ALL) being cured in a few adults and children using a new type of cell therapy [1]. In these studies, scientists took a patient’s own immune cells, altered their genetic material so that…

They say that the key to a man’s heart is through his stomach. A more biologically accurate metaphor would be that your gut holds several keys—not to your heart, but to your brain. Remarkably, the gut is capable of altering the brain’s ability to process…

Scientists can study stress by observing people who suffer from it. What are the physiological changes these people undergo, if any? Is their appetite normal? And what about the heart rate? Lots of observations are possible, meaning there a lot of ways…