Kinda looks like....

...an upside-down heart?

Love means sacrifice....

:-)

Weights and measures...

...are critical elements for doing good science.
We in the U.S. are at a disadvantage in this regard in that we refuse to use the metric system, which keeps our children from being fluent
in this important language.
For example, normal body temperature is 37C;
water freezes at 0C and boils at 100C.
On the Fahrenheit scale these numbers are 98.6, 32, and 212 respectively.
Is that irrational or what?
The inability of our students to think in Celsius
is a serious, and willful, weakness.
Go metric!

Organic does NOT really mean "without pesticides"....

...it means "containing carbon".

And, as revealed in STAR TREK, we are carbon-based life forms. This is "because" carbon is, with hydrogen and oxygen, one of the most common elements in the universe. Also, carbon has the unique ability to form four stable bonds, and therefore the combinations and molecules it can create are essentially infinite.
"Life" as we define it is the activity of carbon-based chemicals--proteins, nucleotides, lipids, and carbohydrates. But the the total is more than the sum of its parts in our case--none of these compounds are "alive" but when they work together in the precisely modulated way that has evolved over billions of years, we have the "Holy Grail"--homeostasis!
Make sure you are homeostatic today!

The "father" of anatomy....

...Andreas Vesalius--with friend.

Dissection of the human body was illegal, in most cases, up until the 19th century. Anatomists had to "acquire" specimens in various ways, usually through grave robbing. In some locations it was legal to dissect criminals who had been executed; this made for some rather macabre post-hanging or -beheading scenes in which the anatomists' agents would fight over still-warm corpses (and in some cases heads) at the foot of the scaffold or gibbet. It's not hard to imagine situations in which pieces of the bodies would be "parceled out"--for a price.

Things got so bad in Victorian England that families posted guards at graves. As might be expected, this often expedited the "disappearance" of the bodies as the anatomists paid the guards more than the families did....

The history of science is filled with people who took chances in order to extend knowledge. In the end we should be grateful that they did, and still do. We are the beneficiaries.

A real heart can't be "beat"....

Yet!

A short break for us all!

The brain's resting symphony....

True love means....

...sacrifice!

Ode to Prevention

Oh, preventive care we love thee,
("Preventative" is not the word!)
Thy benefits are very clear to us
If we be bias free.

Vaccines are really good for kids
No matter what the dumb may say,
And if you yield to these stupid folk,
Disease may carry thy offspring away.

Not doing harmful things is good
And will of cert prolong thy life,
Smoke and drink oft' destroy thy bod
And may offend the wife.

Avoiding bad disease is cheap
At least compared to death,
Tobacco smoke is poison
And makes for rancid breath.

So start prevention early
If full benefits thou would gain
And live life to its fullest
Instead of filled with pain.

Epigenetics

The real news and future in genetics is not the genome itself, as important as that is. I cringe when I hear biologists say that the majority of DNA is "junk" or "gibberish." It is a sign of our continued arrogance that just because we don't know what this material does it we think it must do "nothing".
In fact, it appears that much of this DNA is probably involved in moderating the expression of the core genome. Turning genes on, turning them off, and modulating the intensity and degree of their expression are all probably what really make each individual unique. This process seems to be highly correlated with environmental factors--toxins, nutrition, etc.--and explains much of the relationship between nature and nurture.
This phenomenon is called "epigenetics" and it is the real science of evolution, development.
Mark my words, folks--epigenetics is the real future of biology and medicine.

Takes a lot of stuff....

...to build a baby.
From the beginning, where fertilization relies on calcium blocking a second sperm from entering the egg, to delivery, where blood clotting depends on mother and baby having sufficient Vitamin K,
gene-directed protein synthesis demands adequate, or even MORE than adequate, nutrition. A major cause of neonatal mortality in the world is malnutrition. We have enough food in the world to prevent this, but political realities and poverty prevent us from giving all children their best chance.
Do something for a mother's nutrition today!

Women...

...grow and develop, too!

It's not magic...

...it's common sense.
As a species, our nutritional needs evolved hundreds of thousands of years ago. Therefore, we have certain innate signals that guide us toward a diet that is healthy:
Thirst--drinking water is good for you!
Cravings--often specifically responsive to a developing deficiency;
Feeling "stuffed"--if you feel it you probably have eaten too much, in calories as well as volume;
Hunger--research shows that people who ONLY eat when they are hungry tend not to be overweight and people who eat based on external cues --time of day, emotions, peer pressure--often are;
Your body will usually not lie to you, but others things may. Trust your "gut"--and maybe you won't get one!

Ode to Hormones

Oh, hormones how we love thee
And trust us to thy care,
You make us sad and happy,
Take emotions here and there.

When good thou makest wonder
Of the simple things we do,
But bad thou make us grumpy,
And angry though and through.

But we would never toss you out
E'en on days you miss the cup,
Cuz those sweet hormones raging
Make us want to cuddle up!

I have the secret to losing weight and/or keeping it off....

Here it is:
Expend more calories each day than you consume.
That will be $4,845,769.43, please.

ZYGOTE!

1 + 1 = 1