Yesterday, General Mills expanded its flour recall due to four more reported illnesses from eating raw dough or batter produced from flour produced last fall. The company announced a flour recall in May 31, 2016 after multiple E. coli outbreaks that are potentially linked to their flour products (Gold Medal, Wondra, and Signature Kitchens). Federal and […]
Last week, a proposal representing the first use of CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats) in humans passed a key federal review. The Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee at the U.S. National Institutes of Health, which a federal safety and ethics panel, unanimously approved the experiment. CRISPR is a genome-editing tool that allows researchers to […]
When I was watching Finding Dory last weekend, one character caught my eye: Hank the octopus (or septopus—you will understand this reference when you see the movie). Throughout the movie, Hank uses his ability to blend into his surroundings, a skill that is very useful for Dory’s plan to reunite with her parents. Many cephalopods—which […]
About a hundred years ago, in his theory of general relativity Albert Einstein predicted the existence of gravitational waves, “ripples” in the fabric of space and time as a result of the universe’s violent and energetic processes, like a collision and merger of black holes or a collapse of supernova. Gravitational waves are difficult to […]
If you are a “Game of Thrones” series fan like I am, upon looking at the picture of green flame you might think: wildfire. Although you don’t find green-colored fire often in real life, it is possible to make the fire green with a disinfectant or insecticide containing boric acid. So sorry fellow GoT fans, green […]
Climate change refers to the fluctuation of the climate system caused by the energy entering and leaving Earth. The greenhouse effect, which refers to how greenhouse gases (GHGs) act like a blanket and prevent the loss of Earth’s heat to space, has occurred naturally throughout Earth’s history. However, since the Industrial Revolution, human activities have […]
Microbes—usually bacteria, fungi, or protists—made a big splash of news when the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy announced the new National Microbiome Initiative (NMI) last month. The NMI’s aim is to advance the understanding of microbiome, which refers to all the microbes in a particular environment. The initiative particularly focuses on restoring […]
Migraine headaches, or migraines, are defined as an intense throbbing or a pulsing sensation in one area of the head, usually with nausea, vomiting, and sensitivity to light and sound. Migraines are prevalent globally, as 30% or more people worldwide who struggle with headaches report suffering from migraines. Although migraines themselves are not lethal (if […]
In a study published in online journal npj Schizophrenia, Johns Hopkins researchers found that a history of Candida yeast infections was more common in a group of subjects with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder than in those without these disorders. The researchers caution that their findings do not establish a cause-and-effect relationship between mental illness and yeast infections, but […]
