July 2008 - Posts - Lab Rats

July 2008 - Posts

Is voting in your genes?

Posted by Seema Singh at 
This isn't a question our politicians would have asked last week after some table tipping cross voting in the high political drama, but it's a question many sociologists and psephologists ask every time there's a general election and the voter turn out is poor -- Is voting in our genes? Given how much behaviour geneticists love to correlate...

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Where does arsenic in West Bengal water come from?

Posted by Seema Singh at 
Unsafe levels of arsenic in drinking water are common in several parts of West Bengal and other south-east Asian regions . The levels are so high that they are now impacting staple crops like rice . Where does this arsenic come from? It is agreed that arsenic contamination in the ground water of south and south-east Asia is a consequence of arsenic...

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A dash of lime...for CO2 reduction?

Posted by Seema Singh at 
A dash of lime can make your drink; lift a bland pudding or make idlis fluffy; but a dash of lime for carbon sequestration? Yes, that's what scientists are proposing in today's issue of Chemistry & Industry , journal of Society of Chemical Industry. A dash of lime in seawater has the potential to dramatically reverse CO2 accumulation in...

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Nanotech: science of small needs big attention

Posted by Seema Singh at 
There was some nanotechnology buzz today. Sabeer Bhatia's famous Nano City project had an equity investor; Parsvnath Developers Limited picked up 38% stake in this Haryana-based highly ambitious project. When I had spoken to Bhatia in April 2006, soon after he annouced his project, he had said, "Just development of real-estate in this venture...

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Scientists’ love-hate relationship with media

Posted by Seema Singh at 
Recently, a biotech company’s chief scientific officer told me, “One of these days, over beer, I’d like to ask you why science writing is so bad in India” and then mercifully added, “by and large in most other places as well”. He, however, clarified a little later that he was referring mostly to breaking news from the labs and journals where findings...

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Innovative launch of a book on innovation

Posted by Seema Singh at 
It was a rather innovative launch of a book on innovation – a sports commentator trying to impress upon the audience how important The New Age of Innovation , by CK Prahalad and MS Krishnan, was even though he didn’t quite belong to the world of business academe. It showed; and would’ve been better if instead of a mouthful of niceties Charu Sharma had...

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Sex does get better with age

Posted by Seema Singh at 
Contrary to popular belief, sex -- like wine, friendship, certain brain functions like managing personal finance, cooking, driving etc -- gets better with age, says a new research in the British Medical Journal today. (By the way, these analogies are not from this research paper.) Researchers from the Institute of Neuroscience and Physiology, University...

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Accountability in (stem) cell therapies

Posted by Seema Singh at 
After Mint published this story (http://www.livemint.com/2008/07/02002032/Reliance-Life-readies-stem-cel.html), I got some queries if such therapies are really being offered or are just rumour. It’s not rumour, but it does raise some issues which patients should be aware of when seeking such treatments. A genuinely informed patient can make tremendous...

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Green tea for healthier heart

Posted by Seema Singh at 
The ancient Chinese tradition of drinking green tea has now been validated in hundreds of labs across the world for having properties to fight cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, cardiovascular diseases and other indications. This week there's fresh evidence of beneficial effects of green tea -- on risk factors for heart disease. Researchers report in...

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