New Insights on Apicomplexa Biology

Although viruses and bacteria currently get the lion’s share of research money and media attention, parasitic diseases kill millions of people each year.  Why are they overlooked so frequently?  They largely don’t affect Americans.  It’s the sad, but true, world of science and journalism and research funding.

However, in the most recent edition of PLoS Pathogens, researchers from the University of Georgia and the University of Montana (among others) released a ground-breaking study on Apicomplexa biology.  Hadn’t heard of Apicomplexa?  Neither had I.  But they are a phylum that consists of many of the parasites that have plauged humans for millennia, such as Toxoplasma gondii, Cryptosporidia, and Plasmodium sp., the latter of which cause malaria in hundreds of millions of people each year. 

Kitchen Science (or why you should quit smoking)

A group of Japanese scientists did this little home experiement that they captured on video

A dramatic view of why smoking gives you cancer.


Still Smoking? Watch This !! – video powered by Metacafe

When I was a student at the School of Public Health at the University of Michigan, there were always a few students in every class who continued to smoke. I understand addiction in my own little way, but still. When the first example in your epidemiology class is working on the stats of lung cancer and smoking, it made me wonder if they should flunk that class. Just, you know, on the spot.

The link comes by way of Scientist, Interrupted (Living the Scientific Life).