The role of great sources
Though my writing life ranges from writing health stories for teens to writing about research topics and careers issues for scientists, the sources that I speak with for the former type of article generally don’t overlap with those for the latter. Until now. Last spring, I was working on an article about the common cold, [...]
Molecule of the Week: RNA
You have it, I have it. Many viruses are based on it. It’s RNA, which stands for ribonucleic acid. It’s DNA’s chemical cousin with just a few slight differences. While DNA serves as life’s genetic blueprint. RNA is more of a multitasker. DNA stores information in a kind of vault, and the cell makes RNA-based [...]
Molecule of the Week: Tamiflu
Okay, so I’m officially geeking out with a new idea for a regular blog feature. But here it is, Molecule of the Week! What you see before you is a ball and stick model of oseltamivir, the drug Tamiflu, your friendly neighborhood antiviral drug for influenza, including H1N1. How does this bad boy work? Flu [...]
Weekly Roundup: more interesting (swine) flu science
As swine flu concern seems to be simmering down a little, I want to highlight some of the interesting stories about science that should make a difference in infectious disease science, whether H1N1 turns out to be the next dangerous pandemic or not. 1. Why is the flu seasonal? Honestly, I was thinking about this [...]
Swine flu or H1N1: behind the virus pictures
Looking more closely at the some of the coverage of swine flu, I recognized the (probable) handiwork of a CDC researcher from a lecture I covered recently at the New York Academy of Sciences about biological imaging. Amazingly this technology (negative stained transmission electron micrograhs) actually dates back to the 1950s, but it’s fast and [...]
