Three times recently, the topic of IVF has come up for me ( Read more... )

If you are currently pregnant or expect to be ever in the future, please consider reading at least the end of this entry.

Just recently, I became the uncle of my first niece, E., my brother-in-law S. and his wife C.'s daughter. Since, sadeyedartist and I are the closest, we were the first family to be able to see the baby, and we were able to arrive at the ( Read more... )

I don't have much to say on this topic, but I cannot understand why the selling of body parts, say, kidneys, should be illegal ( Read more... )

For my last group meeting presentation, I presented on a newly-discovered knockout mouse (which was actually made known to me by ubersecret -- thanks!) able to regenerate body parts, including limbs, heart, liver, and brain. That a single gene mutation was able to produce such an amazing ability in a mammal to me is extremely fascinating ( Read more... )

It is rather fascinating to me how technology is such that we can make the same things smaller and smaller than we could in the past. I find this a grand achievement of engineering and science. For the most part, there are huge benefits to this: computers of the same size being faster and smarter; hearing aids being less cumbersome; radios and ( Read more... )

Continuing from my last entry, I feel that our culture wrongly associates sexuality as a fundamental aspect of being human ( Read more... )

I read an interesting article the other day in one of my science magazines. I am used to reading countless articles about how horrible "right wing" Christians are to science and how they must be stopped at any cost. It is pretty scary reading the vehemence with which these scientists write, and I am getting sick of it. (Now, while I think that most ( Read more... )

(a.k.a. "false pregnancy")

another short entry -- writer's block again

I recently shared what I learned of blindsight[1], an example of "mind over matter" with scientific backing, which I learned from reading the awesome book on neuroscience, Phantoms in the Brain. Well, now my increased amazement continues in learning of false pregnancies ( Read more... )

returning from an LJ vacation and a trip to Maine...

So often today, we hear of people having such-and-such a disorder, e.g., ADD. Many more conservative (I am not using the term politically) thinkers have doubted such an idea from the start. Yet plenty of cases have shown there to be a real problem. Some people, despite good discipline and good ( Read more... )

Generally, it is a good thing. I have always been strongly in favor of as many tests possible even if one does not have any symptoms of a disease. However, a few weeks ago, at mmeguilotn's house (with sadeyedartist), I was discussing with her father, a physician, this, particularly regarding MRIs. He changed my view on it. He was sharing how human beings are very unique ( Read more... )