I’ve been trying to figure out the difference between heirloom plants and hybrid plants because I came across a story of a special tomato plant from West Virginia on public radio called the Mortgage Lifter. The creator of this plant was a man with the last name of Estler: William Estler. The funny thing is, the last name of one of my...
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The Human Genome Project has been the catalyst for thousands of research studies and exciting discoveries. One study in 2011 found a gene variant in a small group of French Canadians that researchers called a “fountain of youth” gene. This gene is called PCSK9Q152 — the superscript describes it as a variant of the gene PCSK9. In 2011,...
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Peggy Zuckerman has been trying to help others diagnosed with cancer but it’s not easy. “One of the hardest things is when patients get information that is old or might be incorrect. Things look far more grim than they need to be. It is important to get people to the right place quickly before they essentially despair.” When people...
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Last month, I mentioned in the Medivizor newsletter that I had lost a family member. This loved one feared seeking medical attention for a serious condition because of the risk of catching COVID-19 at a hospital or doctor’s office. Now, a dear friend’s parents received notification that they were exposed to the SARS-2 coronavirus by a...
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Katie McCurdy has myasthenia gravis, a rare autoimmune condition that she acquired when she was 13. This conditions affects the muscles of the body, but especially those that control eyes and eyelids, facial expression, swallowing and sometimes breathing. It’s been an ordeal for her, from diagnosis to now when she goes to the doctor and tries to...
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The homey aroma of fresh baked bread, the mouth-watering fragrance of chocolate chip cookies just out of the oven, the loamy scent of autumnal leaves raked into high piles: cells in our noses snatch chemicals in the air which fire neurons in a part of the brain called the olfactory bulb. From the bulb information zips to other areas of the brain. The...
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In June the CDC asked almost 10,000 respondents in the US the question, “Have you delayed or avoided medical care due to concerns related to COVID-19?” The survey question found that 41 percent answered yes to this statement. Twelve percent avoided urgent or emergency care and another 32 percent stated they had avoided routine care. Some of...
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CLL or Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia results from a mutation in B lymphocytes, a type of white blood cell that develops in the bone marrow. B-cells produce antibodies, an important part of the immune system. CLL can be slow growing, with small slow changes in the blood counts over years or fast growing, where cancerous B-lymphocytes crowd out the bone...
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When it comes to ovarian cancer, finding the right kind of doctor for your surgery impacts survival. Gynecologic oncologists are the surgeons of choice. In some studies when comparing general surgeons to gynecologic oncologist surgeons, having gynecologic oncologists improved survival rate significantly. The Foundation for Women’s Health can...
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Something unusual happened when Professor Andrew Sewell and the T-Cell Modulation Group at the University of Cardiff put the blood of a healthy donor in a petri dish with some cancer cells. What grew in the blood was a T-cell that no one had seen before. This T-cell attacked the cancer cells and destroyed them. Sewell and his team did what all bench...
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You may not believe this – after a summer with mosquitoes buzzing around you – but there are of these pesky insects that don’t bite humans specifically. They just aren’t that interested in us. Researchers at Princeton University wanted to know why. So they went to Africa to find Aedes aegypti aegypti, the mosquito that spreads yellow...
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Theories abound as we learn more about COVID-19 but one that makes a lot of sense has to do with viral dosage. There is a term “LD50” which is the virus dose at which fifty percent of those who are exposed, die. Research determining this dosage is done in experiments on animals, varying the dose of virus to calculate a dose-mortality curve. ...
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