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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_44973\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2012/09/25/science-and-the-flu-a-little-learning-is-a-dangerous-thing/bernt_notke_danse_macabre/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-44973\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/09/Bernt_Notke_Danse_Macabre.jpg\" alt=\"Bernt Notke's Danse Macabre\" title=\"Bernt_Notke_Danse_Macabre\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" class=\"size-full wp-image-44973\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/39/2012/09/Bernt_Notke_Danse_Macabre.jpg 640w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/39/2012/09/Bernt_Notke_Danse_Macabre-400x225.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Bernt Notke's Danse Macabre\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The first sniffles of flu season are upon us: a friend of mine was struck down, and couldn't join me in attending a science dialogue on Sunday night. This was darkly humorous, as the topic of the evening was pandemics.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Provocatively titled \"\u003ca href=\"http://wonderfest.org/most-effective-bioterrorist/\" title=\"Wonderfest - Bioterrorism\">Is Nature or Man the Most Effective Bioterrorist?\u003c/a>\", the free event was co-hosted by \u003ca href=\"http://wonderfest.org/\" title=\"wonderfest\">Wonderfest\u003c/a> (The Bay Area Beacon of Science) and \u003ca href=\"http://www.askascientistsf.com/\" title=\"Ask A Scientist SF\">Ask A Scientist\u003c/a> (a lecture series for curious humans). The speakers hailed from Stanford: two-time Nobel nominee \u003ca href=\"http://cmgm.stanford.edu/micro/fac/falkow.html\" title=\"Stanford - Falkow\">Stanley Falkow\u003c/a>, professor of microbiology and immunology, and \u003ca href=\"https://sites.google.com/site/davidrelmanlab/people-2/david-relman\" title=\"David Relman\">David Relman\u003c/a>, professor of medicine and chair of the \u003ca href=\"http://www.iom.edu/Activities/PublicHealth/MicrobialThreats.aspx\" title=\"Forum on Microbial Threats\">Forum on Microbial Threats\u003c/a> (really!).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Falkow opened by summarizing the natural history of human-microbe interactions, from chronic \"heritage diseases\" like herpes--with us since hunter-gatherer days--to acute \"crowd diseases\" like measles that cropped up (see what I did there?) when people began to settle in larger populations to farm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_44970\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 391px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2012/09/25/science-and-the-flu-a-little-learning-is-a-dangerous-thing/1918fluvictimsstlouis/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-44970\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/09/1918FluVictimsStLouis-391x253.jpg\" alt=\"1918 flu victim and members of the American Red Cross\" title=\"1918FluVictimsStLouis\" width=\"391\" height=\"253\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-44970\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">1918 flu victim and members of the American Red Cross\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Human history has seen some pretty scary pandemics, from the \u003ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Death\" title=\"Black Death - Wikipedia\">Black Death\u003c/a> in Europe to \u003ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smallpox#Human_history\" title=\"Smallpox - Wikipedia\">smallpox in the New World\u003c/a>. But we survived long enough to invent vaccines and antibiotics, and mortality due to infectious disease has plummeted. The \u003ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_flu_pandemic#Epidemiology\" title=\"2009 flu mortality - Wikipedia\">2009 flu pandemic\u003c/a> was a ghost of \u003ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1918_flu_pandemic#Mortality\" title=\"Wikipedia - 1918 flu mortality\">1918\u003c/a>. Does nature even have a chance anymore of winning \"most effective bioterrorist\"?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It might. We live in an ever more crowded, ever more connected world, and pathogens adapt to human behavior--right down to evolving antibiotic resistance. In 2007, says Falkow, \"I thought nature had done a hell of a good job, and it was going to be hard to beat.\" \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But he changed his mind when he realized that human genetic engineers can do something nature can't: keep the losers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That may not sound so worrisome, until you realize that hypervirulent pathogens are usually losers. If you kill your hosts off too quickly, you don't get a chance to multiply and spread, and you end up knocking yourself out of the gene pool. Some naturally occurring pathogens have actually evolved control genes that keep their infections mild. Curious scientists have knocked out these genes--and created deadly bugs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_44969\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 386px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2012/09/25/science-and-the-flu-a-little-learning-is-a-dangerous-thing/h1n1_navbox/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-44969\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/09/H1N1_navbox-386x253.jpg\" alt=\"H1N1 viruses\" title=\"H1N1_navbox\" width=\"386\" height=\"253\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-44969\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Aww, look at the cute little flu viruses! (photo by Cybercobra at en.wikipedia)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>And that was even before all the recent excitement over H5N1, a.k.a \u003ca href=\"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0004522/\" title=\"Avian influenza - NIH\">bird flu\u003c/a>. H5N1 is surprisingly virulent in humans, with a 50-60% mortality rate--but you can't catch it from another human. You have to catch it from a bird. A couple of different scientists wondered if this virus could ever be capable of mammal-to-mammal transmission, and a bit of genetic engineering \u003ca href=\"http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v486/n7403/full/nature10831.html\" title=\"Nature - H5N1\">provided\u003c/a> an \u003ca href=\"http://www.sciencemag.org/content/336/6088/1534.abstract\" title=\"Science - H5N1\">answer\u003c/a>: yes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Relman presented their research with a kind of restrained horror. Are there some experiments, he asked, that simply shouldn't be done? If so, how do you keep people from doing them?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Regulation is one choice. But Relman says, \"I think it's a lost cause--and counterproductive. [Regulation] makes it difficult to evolve and adapt to very fast-moving science.\" Falkow suggests that the real solution will come from improved dialogue between scientists and the public. \"I believe science has a contract with society,\" he says. \"It's a question of whether the public agrees their money should be invested and whether it's safe.\" Later, he added, \"I think one of the great failures of science is the inability to communicate with the public.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The evening's discussion was certainly one step toward turning that failure into success.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_44973\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2012/09/25/science-and-the-flu-a-little-learning-is-a-dangerous-thing/bernt_notke_danse_macabre/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-44973\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/09/Bernt_Notke_Danse_Macabre.jpg\" alt=\"Bernt Notke's Danse Macabre\" title=\"Bernt_Notke_Danse_Macabre\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" class=\"size-full wp-image-44973\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/39/2012/09/Bernt_Notke_Danse_Macabre.jpg 640w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/39/2012/09/Bernt_Notke_Danse_Macabre-400x225.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Bernt Notke's Danse Macabre\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The first sniffles of flu season are upon us: a friend of mine was struck down, and couldn't join me in attending a science dialogue on Sunday night. This was darkly humorous, as the topic of the evening was pandemics.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Provocatively titled \"\u003ca href=\"http://wonderfest.org/most-effective-bioterrorist/\" title=\"Wonderfest - Bioterrorism\">Is Nature or Man the Most Effective Bioterrorist?\u003c/a>\", the free event was co-hosted by \u003ca href=\"http://wonderfest.org/\" title=\"wonderfest\">Wonderfest\u003c/a> (The Bay Area Beacon of Science) and \u003ca href=\"http://www.askascientistsf.com/\" title=\"Ask A Scientist SF\">Ask A Scientist\u003c/a> (a lecture series for curious humans). The speakers hailed from Stanford: two-time Nobel nominee \u003ca href=\"http://cmgm.stanford.edu/micro/fac/falkow.html\" title=\"Stanford - Falkow\">Stanley Falkow\u003c/a>, professor of microbiology and immunology, and \u003ca href=\"https://sites.google.com/site/davidrelmanlab/people-2/david-relman\" title=\"David Relman\">David Relman\u003c/a>, professor of medicine and chair of the \u003ca href=\"http://www.iom.edu/Activities/PublicHealth/MicrobialThreats.aspx\" title=\"Forum on Microbial Threats\">Forum on Microbial Threats\u003c/a> (really!).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Falkow opened by summarizing the natural history of human-microbe interactions, from chronic \"heritage diseases\" like herpes--with us since hunter-gatherer days--to acute \"crowd diseases\" like measles that cropped up (see what I did there?) when people began to settle in larger populations to farm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_44970\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 391px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2012/09/25/science-and-the-flu-a-little-learning-is-a-dangerous-thing/1918fluvictimsstlouis/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-44970\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/09/1918FluVictimsStLouis-391x253.jpg\" alt=\"1918 flu victim and members of the American Red Cross\" title=\"1918FluVictimsStLouis\" width=\"391\" height=\"253\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-44970\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">1918 flu victim and members of the American Red Cross\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Human history has seen some pretty scary pandemics, from the \u003ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Death\" title=\"Black Death - Wikipedia\">Black Death\u003c/a> in Europe to \u003ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smallpox#Human_history\" title=\"Smallpox - Wikipedia\">smallpox in the New World\u003c/a>. But we survived long enough to invent vaccines and antibiotics, and mortality due to infectious disease has plummeted. The \u003ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_flu_pandemic#Epidemiology\" title=\"2009 flu mortality - Wikipedia\">2009 flu pandemic\u003c/a> was a ghost of \u003ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1918_flu_pandemic#Mortality\" title=\"Wikipedia - 1918 flu mortality\">1918\u003c/a>. Does nature even have a chance anymore of winning \"most effective bioterrorist\"?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It might. We live in an ever more crowded, ever more connected world, and pathogens adapt to human behavior--right down to evolving antibiotic resistance. In 2007, says Falkow, \"I thought nature had done a hell of a good job, and it was going to be hard to beat.\" \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But he changed his mind when he realized that human genetic engineers can do something nature can't: keep the losers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That may not sound so worrisome, until you realize that hypervirulent pathogens are usually losers. If you kill your hosts off too quickly, you don't get a chance to multiply and spread, and you end up knocking yourself out of the gene pool. Some naturally occurring pathogens have actually evolved control genes that keep their infections mild. Curious scientists have knocked out these genes--and created deadly bugs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_44969\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 386px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2012/09/25/science-and-the-flu-a-little-learning-is-a-dangerous-thing/h1n1_navbox/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-44969\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/09/H1N1_navbox-386x253.jpg\" alt=\"H1N1 viruses\" title=\"H1N1_navbox\" width=\"386\" height=\"253\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-44969\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Aww, look at the cute little flu viruses! (photo by Cybercobra at en.wikipedia)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>And that was even before all the recent excitement over H5N1, a.k.a \u003ca href=\"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0004522/\" title=\"Avian influenza - NIH\">bird flu\u003c/a>. H5N1 is surprisingly virulent in humans, with a 50-60% mortality rate--but you can't catch it from another human. You have to catch it from a bird. A couple of different scientists wondered if this virus could ever be capable of mammal-to-mammal transmission, and a bit of genetic engineering \u003ca href=\"http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v486/n7403/full/nature10831.html\" title=\"Nature - H5N1\">provided\u003c/a> an \u003ca href=\"http://www.sciencemag.org/content/336/6088/1534.abstract\" title=\"Science - H5N1\">answer\u003c/a>: yes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Relman presented their research with a kind of restrained horror. Are there some experiments, he asked, that simply shouldn't be done? If so, how do you keep people from doing them?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Regulation is one choice. But Relman says, \"I think it's a lost cause--and counterproductive. [Regulation] makes it difficult to evolve and adapt to very fast-moving science.\" Falkow suggests that the real solution will come from improved dialogue between scientists and the public. \"I believe science has a contract with society,\" he says. \"It's a question of whether the public agrees their money should be invested and whether it's safe.\" Later, he added, \"I think one of the great failures of science is the inability to communicate with the public.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The evening's discussion was certainly one step toward turning that failure into success.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"disqusTitle": "Is Nail Biting a Pathology? Or Just a Bad Habit?",
"title": "Is Nail Biting a Pathology? Or Just a Bad Habit?",
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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_44025\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 450px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/09/OCD-Mice.jpg\">\u003cimg class=\"size-medium wp-image-44025\" title='\"OCD\" Mice' src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/09/OCD-Mice-450x253.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"450\" height=\"253\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mice bred with a Slitrk5 mutation groom themselves compulsively. Video still courtesy of Nature and Francis Lee\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The field of psychiatry is going through major changes this year. For the first time in almost two decades, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM, as people in the field call it, is getting \u003ca href=\"http://www.dsm5.org/about/Pages/DSMVOverview.aspx\">an overhaul\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Among the proposed changes: a new category called \u003ca href=\"http://www.dsm5.org/proposedrevision/Pages/Obsessive-CompulsiveandRelatedDisorders.aspx\">Obsessive Compulsive and Related Disorders\u003c/a>. It would include not just OCD, but other, more common, disorders, including one I know all too well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’m a nail biter. And I can tell you the exact moment I became one. I was six years old, watching my mom get dressed for work. As she paused to mull something over, she chewed on the nail of her index finger. How cool! How grown-up, I thought. I think I’ll try it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I never stopped. In fact, for 30 years, I bit them to the nubs. It was embarrassing. For me, it’s like wearing your neuroses on your sleeve. At parties, I learned to wrap my fingers all the way around my wine glass, so that my nails faced my chest. I hated filling out forms in public places.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then, recently, something happened that made me finally quit biting my nails. I’ll get to that in a bit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But I was feeling pretty pleased with myself when I spread my hands out in front of Carol Matthews. She’s a psychiatrist at the University of California San Francisco.\u003cbr>\n\u003cstrong>\u003cbr>\n\"Pathological Grooming\"\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Well, I can see you’re a nail biter,” she told me. Your cuticles are pushed back and you have the bumpiness you see with chronic nail biters. But it’s not bad. It looks like you’re a recovered nail biter, is what I’d say.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Matthews specializes in pathological grooming, a group of behaviors that includes nail biting, although nail biters rarely come in for treatment. She says the patients she sees the most are the trichotillomaniacs, people who pull their hair out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“\u003ca href=\"http://www.trich.org/\">Trichotillomania\u003c/a> is the most socially visible,” says Matthews. “It's much harder to hide the fact that you don't have eyebrows or that you have a big bald spot, so it’s much more distressing to people. Skin picking comes next.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a sense, these behaviors stem from a normal, evolutionarily adaptive behavior: grooming. But in pathological groomers, those behaviors go haywire. Instead of being triggered by, say, a hangnail, a pathological nail-biter will be triggered by all sorts of things: driving, reading a book, or feeling anxious.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>From \"Not-Otherwise Classified\" to \"Obsessive-Compulsive Spectrum\"\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Until recently these pathological grooming behaviors were classified almost as an afterthought in the DSM: “Impulse-Control Disorders Not Otherwise Classified.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the new DSM, the DSM-5, proposes \u003ca href=\"http://www.dsm5.org/proposedrevision/Pages/Obsessive-CompulsiveandRelatedDisorders.aspx\">something different. \u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It creates a category called Obsessive Compulsive and Related Disorders that includes classic OCD behaviors, people who wash their hands compulsively or have to line up their shoes a certain way. The idea is to expand this group so that it includes not just OCD, but pathological grooming, as well as hoarding and several other disorders.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This does not mean that insurance companies are going to raise premiums on nail biters, or issue policy-mandated manicures. (In fact nail biting, itself, isn’t even specifically mentioned in the DSM-5, because in the vast majority of cases, it’s not disabling enough to count as a “disorder.”)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the new classification does give nail biters – and psychiatrists – another way to think about something that used to be considered simply a bad habit. And that raises some questions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For one, says Mathews, “There’s always the worry of are we over-pathologizing normal behaviors. That’s always a worry with the DSM.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And does this grouping make sense?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cbr>\nNail biting? It's a little bit fun. \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After all, there are real differences between OCD and those of us who pick, pull, or bite, including one big one.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In OCD,” says Matthews, “the compulsion is really unwanted.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>People with OCD don’t want to be washing their hands, or checking the stove over and over again, she says. They’re terrified that if they don’t do it, something bad will happen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the biters hair pullers and skin pickers? They tell a different story. Matthews says she hears this from her pathological groomers all the time: They enjoy it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It's rewarding. It feels good,” she says. “When you get the right nail, it feels good. It’s kind of a funny sense of reward, but it’s a reward.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another consideration for the drafters of the DSM-5, when cataloguing all these disorders, is genetics. Are there genetic signatures that help explain both OCD and pathological grooming? Do the two behaviors share any genetic markers? And to what extent are these behaviors hereditary?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meet the OCD mouse\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Francis Lee is a neuroscientist at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York. He studies mice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A few years ago, a colleague – another mouse guy -- came to Lee with a mystery: a mouse, bred with a specific gene mutation, that was behaving very oddly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I was dumbstruck,” he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The mouse was doing something Lee instantly recognized from his work as a psychiatrist, studying people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9X88bMINXWs\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was hunched over,” Lee says, “repetitively moving its front paws over its eyes and ears.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In mice, as in many animals, such grooming behaviors are normal and healthy. But these mice were doing it at a completely different scale. Whereas normal mice might groom themselves for a couple of seconds, mice with this genetic mutation – the Slitrk5 deficiency – groom in bursts of 30 seconds or longer, then start all over again just seconds later.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In fact, the mice groom so much, they give themselves bald spots.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They remove the hair from around their eyes. They actually look like they have little white rings around their eyes,” says Lee\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To Lee, who \u003ca href=\"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=slitrk5%20deficiency\">published this work\u003c/a> in Nature Medicine in 2010, this mouse-brand of pathological grooming looks like OCD: a repetitive behavior that the mice are compelled to do. And just like people with OCD, these mice, he says, often exhibit high levels of anxiety and fearfulness. In fact, they’re some of the most fearful, risk-averse mice he’s ever seen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lee’s work shows that in mice, a single gene tweak can cause OCD-like symptoms, including over-grooming. Now, scientists are trying to find out whether the same mutations might contribute to OCD, or pathological-grooming, in people.\u003cbr>\n\u003cstrong>\u003cbr>\nThe (bitten) apple never falls far from the tree\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Which brings me to the reason that I finally quit. My daughter Cora, age 3, recently started biting her own nails.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When I asked her about it, she explained, “I don’t want to put my fingers in my mouth. I just do it even though I don’t want to.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/09/OCD-Mouse_close-up.jpg\">\u003cimg class=\"alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-44026\" title=\"OCD Mouse\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/09/OCD-Mouse_close-up-300x169.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\">\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I felt terrible about this. Either I’d waited too long to stop biting my nails and Cora had learned from watching me -- the same way I had, with my own mother -- or I'd passed on some pathological grooming gene that had her doomed from the start.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Worse, I was making her feel bad about it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m gonna stop doing it,” she told me. “Why?” I asked. “Because you don’t like me to, remember?\" she replied.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In many ways, these questions the DSM is grappling with are the same ones we parents have about our kids. Are our genes their destiny? What’s a bad habit, and what’s a pathology?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The newly revised DSM-5 will be \u003ca href=\"http://www.mdconferencefinder.com/US/California/San+Francisco/Medical-Conferences-2012/166th+Annual+Meeting+of+the+American+Psychiatric+Association+APA+2013-2402.html\">released \u003c/a>in San Francisco in May 2013. Maybe around the time Cora’s own kids start biting their nails, she’ll have better answers than we do now.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Nail biting -- like skin picking and hair tending -- stems from an evolutionarily adaptive behavior: grooming. But in \"pathological groomers,\" as they're known in in the world of psychiatry, that healthy urge goes haywire. ",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_44025\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 450px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/09/OCD-Mice.jpg\">\u003cimg class=\"size-medium wp-image-44025\" title='\"OCD\" Mice' src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/09/OCD-Mice-450x253.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"450\" height=\"253\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mice bred with a Slitrk5 mutation groom themselves compulsively. Video still courtesy of Nature and Francis Lee\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The field of psychiatry is going through major changes this year. For the first time in almost two decades, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM, as people in the field call it, is getting \u003ca href=\"http://www.dsm5.org/about/Pages/DSMVOverview.aspx\">an overhaul\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Among the proposed changes: a new category called \u003ca href=\"http://www.dsm5.org/proposedrevision/Pages/Obsessive-CompulsiveandRelatedDisorders.aspx\">Obsessive Compulsive and Related Disorders\u003c/a>. It would include not just OCD, but other, more common, disorders, including one I know all too well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’m a nail biter. And I can tell you the exact moment I became one. I was six years old, watching my mom get dressed for work. As she paused to mull something over, she chewed on the nail of her index finger. How cool! How grown-up, I thought. I think I’ll try it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I never stopped. In fact, for 30 years, I bit them to the nubs. It was embarrassing. For me, it’s like wearing your neuroses on your sleeve. At parties, I learned to wrap my fingers all the way around my wine glass, so that my nails faced my chest. I hated filling out forms in public places.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then, recently, something happened that made me finally quit biting my nails. I’ll get to that in a bit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But I was feeling pretty pleased with myself when I spread my hands out in front of Carol Matthews. She’s a psychiatrist at the University of California San Francisco.\u003cbr>\n\u003cstrong>\u003cbr>\n\"Pathological Grooming\"\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Well, I can see you’re a nail biter,” she told me. Your cuticles are pushed back and you have the bumpiness you see with chronic nail biters. But it’s not bad. It looks like you’re a recovered nail biter, is what I’d say.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Matthews specializes in pathological grooming, a group of behaviors that includes nail biting, although nail biters rarely come in for treatment. She says the patients she sees the most are the trichotillomaniacs, people who pull their hair out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“\u003ca href=\"http://www.trich.org/\">Trichotillomania\u003c/a> is the most socially visible,” says Matthews. “It's much harder to hide the fact that you don't have eyebrows or that you have a big bald spot, so it’s much more distressing to people. Skin picking comes next.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a sense, these behaviors stem from a normal, evolutionarily adaptive behavior: grooming. But in pathological groomers, those behaviors go haywire. Instead of being triggered by, say, a hangnail, a pathological nail-biter will be triggered by all sorts of things: driving, reading a book, or feeling anxious.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>From \"Not-Otherwise Classified\" to \"Obsessive-Compulsive Spectrum\"\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Until recently these pathological grooming behaviors were classified almost as an afterthought in the DSM: “Impulse-Control Disorders Not Otherwise Classified.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the new DSM, the DSM-5, proposes \u003ca href=\"http://www.dsm5.org/proposedrevision/Pages/Obsessive-CompulsiveandRelatedDisorders.aspx\">something different. \u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It creates a category called Obsessive Compulsive and Related Disorders that includes classic OCD behaviors, people who wash their hands compulsively or have to line up their shoes a certain way. The idea is to expand this group so that it includes not just OCD, but pathological grooming, as well as hoarding and several other disorders.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This does not mean that insurance companies are going to raise premiums on nail biters, or issue policy-mandated manicures. (In fact nail biting, itself, isn’t even specifically mentioned in the DSM-5, because in the vast majority of cases, it’s not disabling enough to count as a “disorder.”)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the new classification does give nail biters – and psychiatrists – another way to think about something that used to be considered simply a bad habit. And that raises some questions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For one, says Mathews, “There’s always the worry of are we over-pathologizing normal behaviors. That’s always a worry with the DSM.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And does this grouping make sense?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cbr>\nNail biting? It's a little bit fun. \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After all, there are real differences between OCD and those of us who pick, pull, or bite, including one big one.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In OCD,” says Matthews, “the compulsion is really unwanted.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>People with OCD don’t want to be washing their hands, or checking the stove over and over again, she says. They’re terrified that if they don’t do it, something bad will happen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the biters hair pullers and skin pickers? They tell a different story. Matthews says she hears this from her pathological groomers all the time: They enjoy it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It's rewarding. It feels good,” she says. “When you get the right nail, it feels good. It’s kind of a funny sense of reward, but it’s a reward.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another consideration for the drafters of the DSM-5, when cataloguing all these disorders, is genetics. Are there genetic signatures that help explain both OCD and pathological grooming? Do the two behaviors share any genetic markers? And to what extent are these behaviors hereditary?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meet the OCD mouse\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Francis Lee is a neuroscientist at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York. He studies mice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A few years ago, a colleague – another mouse guy -- came to Lee with a mystery: a mouse, bred with a specific gene mutation, that was behaving very oddly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I was dumbstruck,” he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The mouse was doing something Lee instantly recognized from his work as a psychiatrist, studying people.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/9X88bMINXWs'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/9X88bMINXWs'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>“It was hunched over,” Lee says, “repetitively moving its front paws over its eyes and ears.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In mice, as in many animals, such grooming behaviors are normal and healthy. But these mice were doing it at a completely different scale. Whereas normal mice might groom themselves for a couple of seconds, mice with this genetic mutation – the Slitrk5 deficiency – groom in bursts of 30 seconds or longer, then start all over again just seconds later.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In fact, the mice groom so much, they give themselves bald spots.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They remove the hair from around their eyes. They actually look like they have little white rings around their eyes,” says Lee\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To Lee, who \u003ca href=\"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=slitrk5%20deficiency\">published this work\u003c/a> in Nature Medicine in 2010, this mouse-brand of pathological grooming looks like OCD: a repetitive behavior that the mice are compelled to do. And just like people with OCD, these mice, he says, often exhibit high levels of anxiety and fearfulness. In fact, they’re some of the most fearful, risk-averse mice he’s ever seen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lee’s work shows that in mice, a single gene tweak can cause OCD-like symptoms, including over-grooming. Now, scientists are trying to find out whether the same mutations might contribute to OCD, or pathological-grooming, in people.\u003cbr>\n\u003cstrong>\u003cbr>\nThe (bitten) apple never falls far from the tree\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Which brings me to the reason that I finally quit. My daughter Cora, age 3, recently started biting her own nails.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When I asked her about it, she explained, “I don’t want to put my fingers in my mouth. I just do it even though I don’t want to.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/09/OCD-Mouse_close-up.jpg\">\u003cimg class=\"alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-44026\" title=\"OCD Mouse\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/09/OCD-Mouse_close-up-300x169.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\">\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I felt terrible about this. Either I’d waited too long to stop biting my nails and Cora had learned from watching me -- the same way I had, with my own mother -- or I'd passed on some pathological grooming gene that had her doomed from the start.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Worse, I was making her feel bad about it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m gonna stop doing it,” she told me. “Why?” I asked. “Because you don’t like me to, remember?\" she replied.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In many ways, these questions the DSM is grappling with are the same ones we parents have about our kids. Are our genes their destiny? What’s a bad habit, and what’s a pathology?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_40297\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/06/XrayMicroscope_Day2_Scope_LeGros1.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/06/XrayMicroscope_Day2_Scope_LeGros1.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"XrayMicroscope_Day2_Scope_LeGros\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" class=\"size-full wp-image-40297\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/39/2012/06/XrayMicroscope_Day2_Scope_LeGros1.jpg 640w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/39/2012/06/XrayMicroscope_Day2_Scope_LeGros1-400x225.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Physicist Mark LeGros spent three years building this microscope which uses x-rays to take 3-D images of biological cells. \u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Mark LeGros, who spent three years building the world's first x-ray microscope dedicated to cell biology, greeted me at the \u003ca href=\"http://www.lbl.gov/\">Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory \u003c/a>(LBNL) with a hearty handshake, effusive smile and an accent reminiscent of his New Zealand roots. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I spent an hour in April talking with him about the challenges and rewards of creating a powerful, state-of-the art microscope which can capture a truer, more accurate picture of a whole cell and its nucleus, mitochondria and other tiny, essential cellular structures. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I asked him to take me back to that moment in 2009 when he and the diverse team of researchers, including biologists, physicists, chemists and computer scientists, who comprise the \u003ca href=\"http://ncxt.lbl.gov\">National Center of X-ray Tomography\u003c/a> at LBNL, powered up the microscope and waited anxiously for the first x-ray images of a yeast cell, the biological specimen they chose to test the capabilities of their new imaging tool. \u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_40309\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/06/XrayMicroscope_Day2_MarkLeGros1.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/06/XrayMicroscope_Day2_MarkLeGros1-300x169.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"XrayMicroscope_Day2_MarkLeGros\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-40309\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Physicist Mark LeGros smiles for the camera while Bertrand Cinquin, a postdoctoral researcher, waits outside the lab containing the x-ray microscope. Photo by Sheraz Sadiq / QUEST.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\"I wasn’t sure exactly just how well this was gonna work out. But it turned out that it was beautiful...and everybody associated with the project was stunned with the degree of detail that it revealed about the internal structure of a cell and the chromatin, which is the genetic material of the cell,\" he said. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It's important to note that this powerful device does not render obsolete other imaging techniques, including \u003ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_microscope\">light microscopy\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron_microscope\">electron microscopy\u003c/a>. For one thing, the cell sample is frozen to hold the structures in place and protect them from the x-rays which have much greater penetrating power than visible light because x-rays have shorter wavelengths than light rays. So it can't capture dynamic activity of cells moving in real-time, unlike an optical or light microscope. Also, while the resolution possible with the x-ray microscope is five times greater than a light microscope, an electron microscope, which uses electrons to penetrate ultra-thin sections of cells, provides better resolution than the x-ray microscope. \u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_40298\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/06/XrayMicroscope_Day2_Larabell_Scope1.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/06/XrayMicroscope_Day2_Larabell_Scope1-300x169.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"XrayMicroscope_Day2_Larabell_Scope\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-40298\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Carolyn Larabell looks at images taken with the x-ray microscope while Bertrand Cinquin loads a sample of cells into the microscope. Photo by Sheraz Sadiq / QUEST.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Nonetheless, unlike an electron microscope, the x-ray microscope allows scientists to image a whole cell in its native state, with the only preparation being the freezing of the cell sample. Also, many of the classic textbook images of cells that were taken with electron microscopes which required the cells to be dehydrated and stained with heavy metals to bind the electrons to the cell and generate a rather grainy image. Since a cell is 70% water, dehydration and staining can degrade delicate cellular structures and thus make it hard to accurately visualize them. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition, the x-ray microscope uses the technique of tomography to faithfully reconstruct the volume of a cell in three dimensions, instead of a flat, 2-D image of it. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here, a sample of cells is placed in the microscope and rotated 360 degrees. While it rotates, x-rays illuminate the carbon and nitrogen present in all biological cells and black and white images then display the absorption of the x-rays by the organic material in every part of the cell. All of this happens in about 30 seconds. Computer software then allows the team to process, in a mere five to ten minutes, the individual x-ray images and reconstruct a 3-D portrait of the cell which is possible since the cell has been imaged from every conceivable angle, allowing not only the shapes of its structures to be seen but also the amount of biological material such as the DNA packed into the cell's nucleus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_40394\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/07/CLarabell_olfactory-neuron.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/07/CLarabell_olfactory-neuron-300x169.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"CLarabell_olfactory neuron\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-40394\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A cross-section of stacked x-ray images taken of a mouse olfactory neuron, with the dark regions indicating the inactive genetic material and the light regions indicating the active genetic material within the nucleus. Image courtesy of Carolyn Larabell, PhD.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>This novel form of 3-D imaging is revealing new insight into the organization of the active genes - the euchromatin - and the silenced genes - the heterochromatin - in the nucleus. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"So we can see now for the first time that the heterochromatin, or those silenced genes, are more crowded than the euchromatin regions. And we can actually quantify that and say that it’s 28% more crowded,\" said \u003ca href=\"http://www.lbl.gov/wonder/larabell.html\">Carolyn Larabell\u003c/a>, a microbiologist and the Director of the National Center for X-ray Tomography. \u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_40303\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/06/605B_CLarabell_mouse_olfactory_neuron.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/06/605B_CLarabell_mouse_olfactory_neuron-300x169.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"605B_CLarabell_mouse_olfactory_neuron\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-40303\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The stack of x-ray images taken of the mouse olfactory neuron is then processed by computer software and turned into this striking 3-D illustration of the cell, with the nucleus shown in blue. Image courtesy of Carolyn Larabell, PhD.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>So why is it important to quantify the amount of active genes versus silenced genes in a cell's nucleus? For one thing, in certain diseases like cancer, previously silenced genes become active and the nucleus grows larger. So perhaps this new level of insight can shed light on the progression of cancer and perhaps even offer an early tool for its onset, well before symptoms appear. A three-dimensional window into cells may also lead to the development of better designed and consequently, more effective drug treatments. \u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_40325\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/06/XrayMicroscope_Day1_Larabell1.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/06/XrayMicroscope_Day1_Larabell1-300x169.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"XrayMicroscope_Day1_Larabell\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-40325\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Carolyn Larabell is a microbiologist and the Director of the National Center of X-ray Tomography at LBNL. Photo by Sheraz Sadiq / QUEST. \u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\"It’s important to see these structures in 3-D (because) you want to test drugs on cells to see if they’re having the effect that you think they are,\" said Larabell. \"If you get a single section, you have just a very thin window on what might be happening to that cell. (So) you want to see what’s happening throughout the entire cell,\" she added. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Whether it's the life cycle of the deadly malaria parasite or the breakdown of sugars from plants in the production of biofuels, this exciting new imaging tool is providing a richer understanding of important biological processes. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But as ingenious as this microscope is, it can't compare to the ingenuity and complexity of the microscopic world of cells which we've strained to bring into lucid focus for hundreds of years, ever since Robert Hooke's 17th-century descriptions of the tiny structures in a section of cork, which he likened to the modest chambers, or cells, of pious monks. \u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "At the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, scientists are using a cutting-edge microscope, the first of its kind in the world, to image whole cells in 3-D with the penetrating power of x-rays. The new images generated by the microscope are offering a deeper, more precise understanding of cellular structures and how they change with diseases. ",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_40297\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/06/XrayMicroscope_Day2_Scope_LeGros1.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/06/XrayMicroscope_Day2_Scope_LeGros1.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"XrayMicroscope_Day2_Scope_LeGros\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" class=\"size-full wp-image-40297\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/39/2012/06/XrayMicroscope_Day2_Scope_LeGros1.jpg 640w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/39/2012/06/XrayMicroscope_Day2_Scope_LeGros1-400x225.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Physicist Mark LeGros spent three years building this microscope which uses x-rays to take 3-D images of biological cells. \u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Mark LeGros, who spent three years building the world's first x-ray microscope dedicated to cell biology, greeted me at the \u003ca href=\"http://www.lbl.gov/\">Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory \u003c/a>(LBNL) with a hearty handshake, effusive smile and an accent reminiscent of his New Zealand roots. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I spent an hour in April talking with him about the challenges and rewards of creating a powerful, state-of-the art microscope which can capture a truer, more accurate picture of a whole cell and its nucleus, mitochondria and other tiny, essential cellular structures. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I asked him to take me back to that moment in 2009 when he and the diverse team of researchers, including biologists, physicists, chemists and computer scientists, who comprise the \u003ca href=\"http://ncxt.lbl.gov\">National Center of X-ray Tomography\u003c/a> at LBNL, powered up the microscope and waited anxiously for the first x-ray images of a yeast cell, the biological specimen they chose to test the capabilities of their new imaging tool. \u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_40309\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/06/XrayMicroscope_Day2_MarkLeGros1.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/06/XrayMicroscope_Day2_MarkLeGros1-300x169.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"XrayMicroscope_Day2_MarkLeGros\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-40309\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Physicist Mark LeGros smiles for the camera while Bertrand Cinquin, a postdoctoral researcher, waits outside the lab containing the x-ray microscope. Photo by Sheraz Sadiq / QUEST.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\"I wasn’t sure exactly just how well this was gonna work out. But it turned out that it was beautiful...and everybody associated with the project was stunned with the degree of detail that it revealed about the internal structure of a cell and the chromatin, which is the genetic material of the cell,\" he said. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It's important to note that this powerful device does not render obsolete other imaging techniques, including \u003ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_microscope\">light microscopy\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron_microscope\">electron microscopy\u003c/a>. For one thing, the cell sample is frozen to hold the structures in place and protect them from the x-rays which have much greater penetrating power than visible light because x-rays have shorter wavelengths than light rays. So it can't capture dynamic activity of cells moving in real-time, unlike an optical or light microscope. Also, while the resolution possible with the x-ray microscope is five times greater than a light microscope, an electron microscope, which uses electrons to penetrate ultra-thin sections of cells, provides better resolution than the x-ray microscope. \u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_40298\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/06/XrayMicroscope_Day2_Larabell_Scope1.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/06/XrayMicroscope_Day2_Larabell_Scope1-300x169.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"XrayMicroscope_Day2_Larabell_Scope\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-40298\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Carolyn Larabell looks at images taken with the x-ray microscope while Bertrand Cinquin loads a sample of cells into the microscope. Photo by Sheraz Sadiq / QUEST.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Nonetheless, unlike an electron microscope, the x-ray microscope allows scientists to image a whole cell in its native state, with the only preparation being the freezing of the cell sample. Also, many of the classic textbook images of cells that were taken with electron microscopes which required the cells to be dehydrated and stained with heavy metals to bind the electrons to the cell and generate a rather grainy image. Since a cell is 70% water, dehydration and staining can degrade delicate cellular structures and thus make it hard to accurately visualize them. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition, the x-ray microscope uses the technique of tomography to faithfully reconstruct the volume of a cell in three dimensions, instead of a flat, 2-D image of it. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here, a sample of cells is placed in the microscope and rotated 360 degrees. While it rotates, x-rays illuminate the carbon and nitrogen present in all biological cells and black and white images then display the absorption of the x-rays by the organic material in every part of the cell. All of this happens in about 30 seconds. Computer software then allows the team to process, in a mere five to ten minutes, the individual x-ray images and reconstruct a 3-D portrait of the cell which is possible since the cell has been imaged from every conceivable angle, allowing not only the shapes of its structures to be seen but also the amount of biological material such as the DNA packed into the cell's nucleus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_40394\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/07/CLarabell_olfactory-neuron.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/07/CLarabell_olfactory-neuron-300x169.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"CLarabell_olfactory neuron\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-40394\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A cross-section of stacked x-ray images taken of a mouse olfactory neuron, with the dark regions indicating the inactive genetic material and the light regions indicating the active genetic material within the nucleus. Image courtesy of Carolyn Larabell, PhD.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>This novel form of 3-D imaging is revealing new insight into the organization of the active genes - the euchromatin - and the silenced genes - the heterochromatin - in the nucleus. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"So we can see now for the first time that the heterochromatin, or those silenced genes, are more crowded than the euchromatin regions. And we can actually quantify that and say that it’s 28% more crowded,\" said \u003ca href=\"http://www.lbl.gov/wonder/larabell.html\">Carolyn Larabell\u003c/a>, a microbiologist and the Director of the National Center for X-ray Tomography. \u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_40303\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/06/605B_CLarabell_mouse_olfactory_neuron.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/06/605B_CLarabell_mouse_olfactory_neuron-300x169.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"605B_CLarabell_mouse_olfactory_neuron\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-40303\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The stack of x-ray images taken of the mouse olfactory neuron is then processed by computer software and turned into this striking 3-D illustration of the cell, with the nucleus shown in blue. Image courtesy of Carolyn Larabell, PhD.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>So why is it important to quantify the amount of active genes versus silenced genes in a cell's nucleus? For one thing, in certain diseases like cancer, previously silenced genes become active and the nucleus grows larger. So perhaps this new level of insight can shed light on the progression of cancer and perhaps even offer an early tool for its onset, well before symptoms appear. A three-dimensional window into cells may also lead to the development of better designed and consequently, more effective drug treatments. \u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_40325\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/06/XrayMicroscope_Day1_Larabell1.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/06/XrayMicroscope_Day1_Larabell1-300x169.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"XrayMicroscope_Day1_Larabell\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-40325\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Carolyn Larabell is a microbiologist and the Director of the National Center of X-ray Tomography at LBNL. Photo by Sheraz Sadiq / QUEST. \u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\"It’s important to see these structures in 3-D (because) you want to test drugs on cells to see if they’re having the effect that you think they are,\" said Larabell. \"If you get a single section, you have just a very thin window on what might be happening to that cell. (So) you want to see what’s happening throughout the entire cell,\" she added. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Whether it's the life cycle of the deadly malaria parasite or the breakdown of sugars from plants in the production of biofuels, this exciting new imaging tool is providing a richer understanding of important biological processes. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But as ingenious as this microscope is, it can't compare to the ingenuity and complexity of the microscopic world of cells which we've strained to bring into lucid focus for hundreds of years, ever since Robert Hooke's 17th-century descriptions of the tiny structures in a section of cork, which he likened to the modest chambers, or cells, of pious monks. \u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"disqusTitle": "The Results Are In For My Genetics Quiz ",
"title": "The Results Are In For My Genetics Quiz ",
"headTitle": "QUEST | KQED Science",
"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_43106\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2012/09/10/the-results-are-in-for-my-genetics-qui/quiz1image/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-43106\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-43106\" title=\"Quiz1Image\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/08/Quiz1Image.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"369\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/39/2012/08/Quiz1Image.jpg 640w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/39/2012/08/Quiz1Image-400x231.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Lots of right answers from clever QUEST respondents!\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In my \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2012/08/20/arm-yourselves-for-the-upcoming-genetics-revolution/\" target=\"_blank\">last blog entry\u003c/a>, I wrote a quiz that tested some basic knowledge about genetics that experts have found the public struggles with. What I found from the responses I received is that the QUEST public doesn’t struggle with them or, more likely, people only answer quizzes like this if they are pretty confident in the first place. The ten respondents did very well indeed!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I also learned that I need to work on my question writing skills. In my efforts to be brief and to the point, I ended up writing the occasional question that had more than one correct answer. Of course once I realized that I scored either of the correct answers as correct.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What I’ll do below is go over each question in a bit more detail. I’ll talk about why I asked it and what the answer is.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>1) Should you necessarily be scared if you find out you are 10 times more likely to get a rare cancer?\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The answer to this one is no, you should not be scared. Everyone got this one right.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If 1 in a million people get a certain cancer, the increase to 1 in 100,000 is pretty minimal. It is equivalent to \u003ca href=\"http://www.funny2.com/odds.htm\">the difference between\u003c/a> getting struck by lightning and dating a supermodel. Neither is at all likely!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The reason I included this question is that \u003ca href=\"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2945403/\">one of the studies\u003c/a> suggested that this is a pretty common problem for people getting genetic counseling. They struggle with the idea of absolute vs. relative risk. In other words, the difference between how much more likely I am to get a disease compared to you versus how likely I am to get a disease period.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_43125\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 150px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2012/09/10/the-results-are-in-for-my-genetics-qui/motherdaughter/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-43125\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-43125\" title=\"MotherDaughter\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/08/MotherDaughter.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"141\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Just because you look like mom that doesn't mean you'll necessarily end up with her family's diseases.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>2) If you look like your mom, are you more likely to get the diseases that run in her family or your dad’s family?\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The answer to this one is no as well. Nine out of ten respondents got this one right.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The few genes associated with looks have very little to do with disease risk. Just because you and your mom have blue eyes, this has nothing to do with whether you have your mom’s increased risk for type 2 diabetes. There are different genes associated with each and they are independent of one another.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here is another example. Let’s say Huntington’s disease runs in your dad’s family and your dad has the version of the huntingtin gene that will lead to him getting the disease. Your chances of getting the disease are 50% whether or not you have mom’s blue eyes and blonde hair or dad’s brown eyes and hair. The disease and the traits are caused by different genes...they do not come as a package deal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the exceptions would be red hair and fair skin. These traits, which are caused by certain versions of the MC1R gene, do increase a person’s risk for skin cancer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I included this question because of the multitude of similar questions about this that I have received at \u003ca href=\"http://genetics.thetech.org/ask-a-geneticist\">Ask a Geneticist\u003c/a> and because it is mentioned in the \u003ca href=\"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2945403/\">genetics counseling study\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>3) If you have the recessive disease sickle cell anemia, should your kids be tested to see if they are carriers?\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the way I was thinking about the question, the answer would be no. Only one out of ten people got this right but I suspect that may have to do with how I wrote the question.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What I was trying to get at is if you have a recessive disease, then all of your kids will almost certainly be carriers of that disease. So there isn’t really any need for genetic testing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Remember, we have two copies of each of our genes and for a recessive trait to be seen, both copies have to be the recessive version. Also remember that people pass one of their two copies of each gene to their child.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What this means is people with sickle cell anemia have to pass a version of the hemoglobin gene that can lead to sickle cell anemia down to each of their kids. All their kids will be carriers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So a genetic test probably isn’t necessary for the kids because they are undoubtedly carriers. Now that doesn’t mean the other partner shouldn’t be tested. He or she definitely should be tested to determine his or her carrier status. This will affect their chances for having a child with sickle cell anemia.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I included this question because both the \u003ca href=\"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2945403/\">genetic counseling\u003c/a> and the \u003ca href=\"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19039252\">Australian\u003c/a> study showed that the idea of dominant and recessive traits was a confusing one. This also bears out in our list of \u003ca href=\"http://genetics.thetech.org/ask-a-geneticist\">Ask a Geneticist\u003c/a> questions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_43115\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 250px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2012/09/10/the-results-are-in-for-my-genetics-qui/cuteredheadedbaby/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-43115\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-43115\" title=\"CuteRedheadedBaby\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/08/CuteRedheadedBaby.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"250\" height=\"188\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sometimes to look like one parent, you need genes from both! Red hair is one of these.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>4) If you look like your dad, did you get more of his DNA?\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The answer here is a definite no. People almost always get half their DNA from their mom and half from their dad no matter who they look like. (Click \u003ca href=\"http://genetics.thetech.org/ask/ask289\">here\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"http://genetics.thetech.org/ask-a-geneticist/paternal-grandmothers-dna\">here \u003c/a>and \u003ca href=\"http://genetics.thetech.org/ask/ask435\">here \u003c/a>for some exceptions to this rule.) Eight out of ten people got this question right.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Again we have the issue where what we look like comes from only a few genes. Looking like your dad might mean you happened to get 20 or 50 of his genes related to physical appearance. This is out of the 25,000 or so genes we all have.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In fact, there are even some traits where you look like one parent because both parents contributed the right DNA. Let’s say you and your dad are a redhead. It is very unlikely you have red hair only because of him because red hair is a recessive trait and usually has to come from both sides of the family. In other words, mom had to pass you a red hair version of MC1R so you could look like your dad!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>5) If you flip a coin and get heads ten times in a row, what are the chances that the next flip will be a head?\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The answer is 50%. Each coin flip is independent so what came before cannot affect the next flip. The coin doesn’t remember on which side it landed before. Nine out of ten got this one right.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It is a very common misconception that if you flip a coin and get ten heads in a row, the next flip is more likely to be a tail (it is due!). Heck, my dad plays the craps tables in Las Vegas by looking for tables where a seven hasn’t come up in a while and places his bets at that table. This is no way to win.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In genetics this mostly becomes an issue in predicting a child’s traits based on the children that came before. If two parents have four girls, they might think that a boy is more likely next time around. And if both parents are carriers for cystic fibrosis (CF), they might feel that if they’ve already had a child with CF, the risk is decreased for the next child. After all, that Punnett square showed that 1 in 4 of their kids would have CF, right? Well, no.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Punnett square was used to calculate the risk that each child has for getting CF. If your first child has CF, your second still has a 1 in 4 chance for getting CF. Just because your first got it, that does not affect your second child’s chances.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_43120\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 100px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2012/09/10/the-results-are-in-for-my-genetics-qui/dna/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-43120\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-43120\" title=\"DNA\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/08/DNA.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"100\" height=\"250\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Cells look different because they use different parts of the same DNA.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>6) True or false: Each cell in your body has the same DNA.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>OK, this is the question I messed up on big time. By trying to keep it short and sweet, I didn’t ask the right question. What I should have asked was:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>A muscle and a brain cell have the same DNA. True or False\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The answer to that question is “True” and we could have a nice discussion about how most of the cells in our body have the exact same DNA even though they look different. And then I’d go on to talk about how the differences come from the fact that each cell uses a different subset of genes. Sort of like following a single recipe in a cookbook to make cookies instead of following every recipe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But alas, I asked the wrong question and most of the respondents correctly noted the exceptions to the “every cell has the same DNA” idea. They noted that sperm and eggs have half the usual amount of DNA. And that because of mutations, various cells in our bodies have small differences from one another. They also mentioned that we are actually composed of our cells plus the trillions of bacteria that we all carry. (No one mentioned mature red blood cells which have no DNA.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I hope you enjoyed the quiz and that you’ll enjoy the book, \u003ca href=\"http://genetics.thetech.org/book-titles\">When Will Broccoli Taste Like Chocolate?\u003c/a>. I am happy to do more quizzes like this in the future if people are interested. Any suggestions on genetics topics?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>More scary news:\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2012/09/10/the-results-are-in-for-my-genetics-qui/yikes/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-43256\">\u003cimg class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-43256\" title=\"Yikes\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/09/Yikes.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"434\" height=\"552\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/39/2012/09/Yikes.jpg 434w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/39/2012/09/Yikes-400x509.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 434px) 100vw, 434px\">\u003c/a> Click \u003ca href=\"http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=465671563453860&set=a.456449604376056.98921.367116489976035&type=1&theater\">here \u003c/a>for source.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"description": "In my last blog entry, I wrote a quiz that tested some basic knowledge about genetics that experts have found the public struggles with. What I found from the responses I received is that the QUEST public doesn’t struggle with them or, more likely, people only answer quizzes like this if they are pretty confident",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_43106\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2012/09/10/the-results-are-in-for-my-genetics-qui/quiz1image/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-43106\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-43106\" title=\"Quiz1Image\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/08/Quiz1Image.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"369\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/39/2012/08/Quiz1Image.jpg 640w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/39/2012/08/Quiz1Image-400x231.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Lots of right answers from clever QUEST respondents!\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In my \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2012/08/20/arm-yourselves-for-the-upcoming-genetics-revolution/\" target=\"_blank\">last blog entry\u003c/a>, I wrote a quiz that tested some basic knowledge about genetics that experts have found the public struggles with. What I found from the responses I received is that the QUEST public doesn’t struggle with them or, more likely, people only answer quizzes like this if they are pretty confident in the first place. The ten respondents did very well indeed!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I also learned that I need to work on my question writing skills. In my efforts to be brief and to the point, I ended up writing the occasional question that had more than one correct answer. Of course once I realized that I scored either of the correct answers as correct.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What I’ll do below is go over each question in a bit more detail. I’ll talk about why I asked it and what the answer is.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>1) Should you necessarily be scared if you find out you are 10 times more likely to get a rare cancer?\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The answer to this one is no, you should not be scared. Everyone got this one right.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If 1 in a million people get a certain cancer, the increase to 1 in 100,000 is pretty minimal. It is equivalent to \u003ca href=\"http://www.funny2.com/odds.htm\">the difference between\u003c/a> getting struck by lightning and dating a supermodel. Neither is at all likely!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The reason I included this question is that \u003ca href=\"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2945403/\">one of the studies\u003c/a> suggested that this is a pretty common problem for people getting genetic counseling. They struggle with the idea of absolute vs. relative risk. In other words, the difference between how much more likely I am to get a disease compared to you versus how likely I am to get a disease period.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_43125\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 150px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2012/09/10/the-results-are-in-for-my-genetics-qui/motherdaughter/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-43125\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-43125\" title=\"MotherDaughter\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/08/MotherDaughter.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"141\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Just because you look like mom that doesn't mean you'll necessarily end up with her family's diseases.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>2) If you look like your mom, are you more likely to get the diseases that run in her family or your dad’s family?\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The answer to this one is no as well. Nine out of ten respondents got this one right.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The few genes associated with looks have very little to do with disease risk. Just because you and your mom have blue eyes, this has nothing to do with whether you have your mom’s increased risk for type 2 diabetes. There are different genes associated with each and they are independent of one another.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here is another example. Let’s say Huntington’s disease runs in your dad’s family and your dad has the version of the huntingtin gene that will lead to him getting the disease. Your chances of getting the disease are 50% whether or not you have mom’s blue eyes and blonde hair or dad’s brown eyes and hair. The disease and the traits are caused by different genes...they do not come as a package deal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the exceptions would be red hair and fair skin. These traits, which are caused by certain versions of the MC1R gene, do increase a person’s risk for skin cancer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I included this question because of the multitude of similar questions about this that I have received at \u003ca href=\"http://genetics.thetech.org/ask-a-geneticist\">Ask a Geneticist\u003c/a> and because it is mentioned in the \u003ca href=\"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2945403/\">genetics counseling study\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>3) If you have the recessive disease sickle cell anemia, should your kids be tested to see if they are carriers?\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the way I was thinking about the question, the answer would be no. Only one out of ten people got this right but I suspect that may have to do with how I wrote the question.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What I was trying to get at is if you have a recessive disease, then all of your kids will almost certainly be carriers of that disease. So there isn’t really any need for genetic testing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Remember, we have two copies of each of our genes and for a recessive trait to be seen, both copies have to be the recessive version. Also remember that people pass one of their two copies of each gene to their child.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What this means is people with sickle cell anemia have to pass a version of the hemoglobin gene that can lead to sickle cell anemia down to each of their kids. All their kids will be carriers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So a genetic test probably isn’t necessary for the kids because they are undoubtedly carriers. Now that doesn’t mean the other partner shouldn’t be tested. He or she definitely should be tested to determine his or her carrier status. This will affect their chances for having a child with sickle cell anemia.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I included this question because both the \u003ca href=\"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2945403/\">genetic counseling\u003c/a> and the \u003ca href=\"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19039252\">Australian\u003c/a> study showed that the idea of dominant and recessive traits was a confusing one. This also bears out in our list of \u003ca href=\"http://genetics.thetech.org/ask-a-geneticist\">Ask a Geneticist\u003c/a> questions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_43115\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 250px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2012/09/10/the-results-are-in-for-my-genetics-qui/cuteredheadedbaby/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-43115\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-43115\" title=\"CuteRedheadedBaby\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/08/CuteRedheadedBaby.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"250\" height=\"188\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sometimes to look like one parent, you need genes from both! Red hair is one of these.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>4) If you look like your dad, did you get more of his DNA?\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The answer here is a definite no. People almost always get half their DNA from their mom and half from their dad no matter who they look like. (Click \u003ca href=\"http://genetics.thetech.org/ask/ask289\">here\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"http://genetics.thetech.org/ask-a-geneticist/paternal-grandmothers-dna\">here \u003c/a>and \u003ca href=\"http://genetics.thetech.org/ask/ask435\">here \u003c/a>for some exceptions to this rule.) Eight out of ten people got this question right.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Again we have the issue where what we look like comes from only a few genes. Looking like your dad might mean you happened to get 20 or 50 of his genes related to physical appearance. This is out of the 25,000 or so genes we all have.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In fact, there are even some traits where you look like one parent because both parents contributed the right DNA. Let’s say you and your dad are a redhead. It is very unlikely you have red hair only because of him because red hair is a recessive trait and usually has to come from both sides of the family. In other words, mom had to pass you a red hair version of MC1R so you could look like your dad!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>5) If you flip a coin and get heads ten times in a row, what are the chances that the next flip will be a head?\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The answer is 50%. Each coin flip is independent so what came before cannot affect the next flip. The coin doesn’t remember on which side it landed before. Nine out of ten got this one right.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It is a very common misconception that if you flip a coin and get ten heads in a row, the next flip is more likely to be a tail (it is due!). Heck, my dad plays the craps tables in Las Vegas by looking for tables where a seven hasn’t come up in a while and places his bets at that table. This is no way to win.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In genetics this mostly becomes an issue in predicting a child’s traits based on the children that came before. If two parents have four girls, they might think that a boy is more likely next time around. And if both parents are carriers for cystic fibrosis (CF), they might feel that if they’ve already had a child with CF, the risk is decreased for the next child. After all, that Punnett square showed that 1 in 4 of their kids would have CF, right? Well, no.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Punnett square was used to calculate the risk that each child has for getting CF. If your first child has CF, your second still has a 1 in 4 chance for getting CF. Just because your first got it, that does not affect your second child’s chances.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_43120\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 100px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2012/09/10/the-results-are-in-for-my-genetics-qui/dna/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-43120\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-43120\" title=\"DNA\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/08/DNA.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"100\" height=\"250\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Cells look different because they use different parts of the same DNA.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>6) True or false: Each cell in your body has the same DNA.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>OK, this is the question I messed up on big time. By trying to keep it short and sweet, I didn’t ask the right question. What I should have asked was:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>A muscle and a brain cell have the same DNA. True or False\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The answer to that question is “True” and we could have a nice discussion about how most of the cells in our body have the exact same DNA even though they look different. And then I’d go on to talk about how the differences come from the fact that each cell uses a different subset of genes. Sort of like following a single recipe in a cookbook to make cookies instead of following every recipe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But alas, I asked the wrong question and most of the respondents correctly noted the exceptions to the “every cell has the same DNA” idea. They noted that sperm and eggs have half the usual amount of DNA. And that because of mutations, various cells in our bodies have small differences from one another. They also mentioned that we are actually composed of our cells plus the trillions of bacteria that we all carry. (No one mentioned mature red blood cells which have no DNA.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I hope you enjoyed the quiz and that you’ll enjoy the book, \u003ca href=\"http://genetics.thetech.org/book-titles\">When Will Broccoli Taste Like Chocolate?\u003c/a>. I am happy to do more quizzes like this in the future if people are interested. Any suggestions on genetics topics?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>More scary news:\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"disqusTitle": "Is Organic Food Better For Consumers' Health? – 9/4 KQED Science News Roundup",
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"content": "\u003cp>Here's today's roundup of science, nature and environment news from the Bay Area and beyond.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv>\n\u003cdiv class=\"embedly\">News from The Associated PressWASHINGTON (AP) -- Patient after patient asked: Is eating organic food, which costs more, really better for me? Unsure, Stanford University doctors dug through reams of research to find out - and concluded there's little evidence that going organic is much healthier, citing only a few differences involving pesticides and antibiotics.\n\u003cdiv class=\"embedly-clear\">\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"embedly-powered\" style=\"float: right\">\u003ca title=\"Powered by Embedly\" href=\"http://embed.ly?src=anywhere\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cimg src=\"//static.embed.ly/images/logos/embedly-powered-small-light.png\" alt=\"Embedly Powered\">\u003c/a>\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"media-attribution\">\u003cspan>via \u003c/span>\u003ca class=\"media-attribution-link\" href=\"http://hosted.ap.org\" target=\"_blank\">Ap\u003c/a>\u003c/div>\n\u003cdiv class=\"embedly-clear\">\u003c/div>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003cdiv>\n\u003cdiv class=\"embedly\">\u003cimg class=\"thumb embedly-thumbnail-small\" src=\"http://www.kcet.org/news/rewire/assets_c/2012/08/Capitol-HDR-Sacramento-8-31-12-thumb-autox100-35314.jpeg\" alt=\"\">\u003ca class=\"embedly-title\" href=\"http://ow.ly/dseNd\">Solar Bills Pass California Legislature | Government | ReWire | KCET\u003c/a>Three bills designed to make it easier for Californians to join the solar world passed the California legislature this week. Though fairly technical in nature, the bills streamline and simplify the process of hooking up to solar power generation for California residents and businesses.\n\u003cdiv class=\"embedly-clear\">\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"embedly-powered\" style=\"float: right\">\u003ca title=\"Powered by Embedly\" href=\"http://embed.ly?src=anywhere\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cimg src=\"//static.embed.ly/images/logos/embedly-powered-small-light.png\" alt=\"Embedly Powered\">\u003c/a>\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"media-attribution\">\u003cspan>via \u003c/span>\u003ca class=\"media-attribution-link\" href=\"http://www.kcet.org\" target=\"_blank\">Kcet\u003c/a>\u003c/div>\n\u003cdiv class=\"embedly-clear\">\u003c/div>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003cdiv>\n\u003cdiv class=\"embedly\">News from The Associated PressPASADENA, Calif. (AP) -- Thirty-five years after leaving Earth, Voyager 1 is reaching for the stars. Sooner or later, the workhorse spacecraft will bid adieu to the solar system and enter a new realm of space - the first time a manmade object will have escaped to the other side.\n\u003cdiv class=\"embedly-clear\">\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"embedly-powered\" style=\"float: right\">\u003ca title=\"Powered by Embedly\" href=\"http://embed.ly?src=anywhere\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cimg src=\"//static.embed.ly/images/logos/embedly-powered-small-light.png\" alt=\"Embedly Powered\">\u003c/a>\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"media-attribution\">\u003cspan>via \u003c/span>\u003ca class=\"media-attribution-link\" href=\"http://hosted.ap.org\" target=\"_blank\">Ap\u003c/a>\u003c/div>\n\u003cdiv class=\"embedly-clear\">\u003c/div>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003cdiv>\n\u003cdiv class=\"embedly\">\u003cimg class=\"thumb embedly-thumbnail-small\" src=\"http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/common/icons/t_wb_75.gif\" alt=\"\">\u003ca class=\"embedly-title\" href=\"http://ow.ly/dsfWK\">New Tick-Borne Heartland Virus Has Scientists Puzzled\u003c/a>For a year and a half, scientists have been swarming over a 100-acre farm in northwestern Missouri, catching ticks and drawing blood from raccoons, possums, turkeys and deer. \"They even bled my horses, and my dogs and cats,\" the owner of the farm said. \"They got to looking at me, and I said, 'I already gave.'\n\u003cdiv class=\"embedly-clear\">\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"embedly-powered\" style=\"float: right\">\u003ca title=\"Powered by Embedly\" href=\"http://embed.ly?src=anywhere\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cimg src=\"//static.embed.ly/images/logos/embedly-powered-small-light.png\" alt=\"Embedly Powered\">\u003c/a>\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"media-attribution\">\u003cspan>via \u003c/span>\u003ca class=\"media-attribution-link\" href=\"http://www.nytimes.com\" target=\"_blank\">Nytimes\u003c/a>\u003c/div>\n\u003cdiv class=\"embedly-clear\">\u003c/div>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003cdiv>\n\u003cdiv class=\"embedly\">\u003ca class=\"embedly-title\" href=\"http://ow.ly/dsgPq\">UK paraplegic woman first to take robotic suit home\u003c/a>LONDON (Reuters) - A British woman paralyzed from the chest down by a horse riding accident has become the first person to take home a robotic exoskeleton that enables her to walk. Although bionic exoskeletons have been used in hospitals and rehabilitation centers, Claire Lomas is the first to take the ReWalk suit home for everyday use.\n\u003cdiv class=\"embedly-clear\">\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"embedly-powered\" style=\"float: right\">\u003ca title=\"Powered by Embedly\" href=\"http://embed.ly?src=anywhere\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cimg src=\"//static.embed.ly/images/logos/embedly-powered-small-light.png\" alt=\"Embedly Powered\">\u003c/a>\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"media-attribution\">\u003cspan>via \u003c/span>\u003ca class=\"media-attribution-link\" href=\"http://www.reuters.com\" target=\"_blank\">Reuters\u003c/a>\u003c/div>\n\u003cdiv class=\"embedly-clear\">\u003c/div>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Here's today's roundup of science, nature and environment news from the Bay Area and beyond.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv>\n\u003cdiv class=\"embedly\">News from The Associated PressWASHINGTON (AP) -- Patient after patient asked: Is eating organic food, which costs more, really better for me? Unsure, Stanford University doctors dug through reams of research to find out - and concluded there's little evidence that going organic is much healthier, citing only a few differences involving pesticides and antibiotics.\n\u003cdiv class=\"embedly-clear\">\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"embedly-powered\" style=\"float: right\">\u003ca title=\"Powered by Embedly\" href=\"http://embed.ly?src=anywhere\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cimg src=\"//static.embed.ly/images/logos/embedly-powered-small-light.png\" alt=\"Embedly Powered\">\u003c/a>\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"media-attribution\">\u003cspan>via \u003c/span>\u003ca class=\"media-attribution-link\" href=\"http://hosted.ap.org\" target=\"_blank\">Ap\u003c/a>\u003c/div>\n\u003cdiv class=\"embedly-clear\">\u003c/div>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003cdiv>\n\u003cdiv class=\"embedly\">\u003cimg class=\"thumb embedly-thumbnail-small\" src=\"http://www.kcet.org/news/rewire/assets_c/2012/08/Capitol-HDR-Sacramento-8-31-12-thumb-autox100-35314.jpeg\" alt=\"\">\u003ca class=\"embedly-title\" href=\"http://ow.ly/dseNd\">Solar Bills Pass California Legislature | Government | ReWire | KCET\u003c/a>Three bills designed to make it easier for Californians to join the solar world passed the California legislature this week. Though fairly technical in nature, the bills streamline and simplify the process of hooking up to solar power generation for California residents and businesses.\n\u003cdiv class=\"embedly-clear\">\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"embedly-powered\" style=\"float: right\">\u003ca title=\"Powered by Embedly\" href=\"http://embed.ly?src=anywhere\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cimg src=\"//static.embed.ly/images/logos/embedly-powered-small-light.png\" alt=\"Embedly Powered\">\u003c/a>\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"media-attribution\">\u003cspan>via \u003c/span>\u003ca class=\"media-attribution-link\" href=\"http://www.kcet.org\" target=\"_blank\">Kcet\u003c/a>\u003c/div>\n\u003cdiv class=\"embedly-clear\">\u003c/div>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003cdiv>\n\u003cdiv class=\"embedly\">News from The Associated PressPASADENA, Calif. (AP) -- Thirty-five years after leaving Earth, Voyager 1 is reaching for the stars. Sooner or later, the workhorse spacecraft will bid adieu to the solar system and enter a new realm of space - the first time a manmade object will have escaped to the other side.\n\u003cdiv class=\"embedly-clear\">\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"embedly-powered\" style=\"float: right\">\u003ca title=\"Powered by Embedly\" href=\"http://embed.ly?src=anywhere\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cimg src=\"//static.embed.ly/images/logos/embedly-powered-small-light.png\" alt=\"Embedly Powered\">\u003c/a>\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"media-attribution\">\u003cspan>via \u003c/span>\u003ca class=\"media-attribution-link\" href=\"http://hosted.ap.org\" target=\"_blank\">Ap\u003c/a>\u003c/div>\n\u003cdiv class=\"embedly-clear\">\u003c/div>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003cdiv>\n\u003cdiv class=\"embedly\">\u003cimg class=\"thumb embedly-thumbnail-small\" src=\"http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/common/icons/t_wb_75.gif\" alt=\"\">\u003ca class=\"embedly-title\" href=\"http://ow.ly/dsfWK\">New Tick-Borne Heartland Virus Has Scientists Puzzled\u003c/a>For a year and a half, scientists have been swarming over a 100-acre farm in northwestern Missouri, catching ticks and drawing blood from raccoons, possums, turkeys and deer. \"They even bled my horses, and my dogs and cats,\" the owner of the farm said. \"They got to looking at me, and I said, 'I already gave.'\n\u003cdiv class=\"embedly-clear\">\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"embedly-powered\" style=\"float: right\">\u003ca title=\"Powered by Embedly\" href=\"http://embed.ly?src=anywhere\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cimg src=\"//static.embed.ly/images/logos/embedly-powered-small-light.png\" alt=\"Embedly Powered\">\u003c/a>\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"media-attribution\">\u003cspan>via \u003c/span>\u003ca class=\"media-attribution-link\" href=\"http://www.nytimes.com\" target=\"_blank\">Nytimes\u003c/a>\u003c/div>\n\u003cdiv class=\"embedly-clear\">\u003c/div>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003cdiv>\n\u003cdiv class=\"embedly\">\u003ca class=\"embedly-title\" href=\"http://ow.ly/dsgPq\">UK paraplegic woman first to take robotic suit home\u003c/a>LONDON (Reuters) - A British woman paralyzed from the chest down by a horse riding accident has become the first person to take home a robotic exoskeleton that enables her to walk. Although bionic exoskeletons have been used in hospitals and rehabilitation centers, Claire Lomas is the first to take the ReWalk suit home for everyday use.\n\u003cdiv class=\"embedly-clear\">\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"embedly-powered\" style=\"float: right\">\u003ca title=\"Powered by Embedly\" href=\"http://embed.ly?src=anywhere\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cimg src=\"//static.embed.ly/images/logos/embedly-powered-small-light.png\" alt=\"Embedly Powered\">\u003c/a>\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"media-attribution\">\u003cspan>via \u003c/span>\u003ca class=\"media-attribution-link\" href=\"http://www.reuters.com\" target=\"_blank\">Reuters\u003c/a>\u003c/div>\n\u003cdiv class=\"embedly-clear\">\u003c/div>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"disqusTitle": "Should Men Get A PSA Blood Test To Screen For Prostate Cancer?",
"title": "Should Men Get A PSA Blood Test To Screen For Prostate Cancer?",
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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_43147\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/08/OlderManDraw_JointBaseLewisMcChord_Flickr_640x360.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/08/OlderManDraw_JointBaseLewisMcChord_Flickr_640x360.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"OlderManDraw_JointBaseLewisMcChord_Flickr_640x360\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" class=\"size-full wp-image-43147\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/39/2012/08/OlderManDraw_JointBaseLewisMcChord_Flickr_640x360.jpg 640w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/39/2012/08/OlderManDraw_JointBaseLewisMcChord_Flickr_640x360-400x225.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photograph courtesy of Joint Base Lewis McChord via Creative Commons\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>My brother-in-law was seemingly the healthiest person I knew. He regularly hiked steep hills as part of his job and kayaked intense oceans as part of his weekend play. He never even got a cold, so he rarely saw the doctor. Luckily he finally got a complete checkup when he turned 50, because it turned out that he had aggressive prostate cancer. This standard screening for prostate cancer in people who don’t have symptoms allowed him to be treated in time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The basic check-up consists of a digital (finger) rectal exam to feel for prostate abnormalities and a simple blood test to measure the amount of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) in the blood. PSA is a protein produced by the prostate gland that's present in small quantities for healthy men, but it's generally evaluated for men with prostate cancer and other prostate disorders. The goal of PSA screening is to detect prostate cancer early, so that it's easier to treat and more likely to be cured. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So why has PSA screening recently become so controversial when it’s just a simple blood test? The main issue is that PSA screening isn’t good at distinguishing between aggressive life-threatening prostate cancer and slow-growing prostate cancer that may never spread. It can lead to unnecessary side effects from overtreatment of slow-growing prostate cancer, including a risk of incontinence and impotence. But it can also help find aggressive prostate cancer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This controversy escalated in May 2012 when a government panel of health experts called the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) \u003ca href=\"http://annals.org/article.aspx?articleid=1166176\" title=\"Screening for Prostate Cancer: USPSTF Recommendation Statement\">recommended\u003c/a> against PSA-based screening for prostate cancer for men of any age, stating that the benefits of screening don’t outweigh the harms of overtreatment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The USPSTF based its recommendation primarily on two large published randomized clinical trials that evaluated the effectiveness of PSA screening. The first is the U.S. Prostate, Lung, Colorectal and Ovarian (PLCO) Cancer Screening Trial in which 76,685 men aged 55 to 74 years were randomly assigned to receive either annual PSA screening or “usual care.” The study found that slightly more prostate cancers were found in the PSA screened group, but the number of people that died from prostate cancer were about the same for both groups -- raising the question of whether men were harmed from overtreatment of cancers that weren’t life threatening. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, this \u003ca href=\"http://annals.org/article.aspx?articleid=1166178\" title=\"Response to USPSTF Recommendation\">PLCO study is inherently flawed\u003c/a> because 52% of the “usual care” control group also received PSA screening and 40% of the study participants received PSA screening before enrollment in the trial. In addition, there were compliance issues –- many patients with abnormal screening tests didn’t have a prompt biopsy as instructed. Since so many men in the “usual care” control group received PSA screening, it isn't surprising that the prostate cancer mortality rates were the same for both groups.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The USPSTF also based its recommendation on the European Randomized Study of Screening for Prostate Cancer (ERSPC) that randomly assigned 162,243 men aged 55 to 69 years to either PSA screening once every 4 years or an unscreened control group. This study initially found that prostate cancer deaths were reduced by 21% in the PSA screened group compared to the control group. After correcting for patients that did not follow the protocol-prescribed screening procedures, the \u003ca href=\"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19660851\" title=\"ERSPC results with data adjustments\">ERSPC found \u003c/a>that PSA screening actually reduced the risk for dying of prostate cancer by 31%. Many argue that this is a significant reduction. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>An ad hoc group of nationally recognized prostate cancer medical experts have argued against the USPSTF recommendations. This \u003ca href=\"http://annals.org/article.aspx?articleid=1166178\" title=\"Response to USPSTF recommendation\">group states\u003c/a>, “We believe that eliminating reimbursement for PSA testing would take us back to an era when prostate cancer was often discovered at advanced and incurable stages.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The view of this group is supported by a \u003ca href=\"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22847578\" title=\"PSA Screening: Analysis of Trends Over Time\">journal article\u003c/a> published in the July 2012 issue of Cancer. Researchers at the University of Rochester Medical Center estimated the total number of men in the current U.S. population who would have metastatic prostate cancer at initial diagnosis if PSA screening weren’t used. Such metastatic prostate cancer is usually \u003ca href=\"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22006014\" title=\"Prostate cancer: frequency of advanced disease at presentation and disease-specific mortality\">rapidly fatal\u003c/a> with a median survival of less than 1 year to 2.6 years, depending on age. The researchers used data from the \u003ca href=\"http://seer.cancer.gov/\" title=\"SEER\">Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results \u003c/a>Program to compute the number of men that had metastatic prostate cancer at first presentation for the years 1983 to 2008. The pre-PSA incidence rate was calculated for 1983-1985, the years just before the FDA approved PSA screening. This pre-PSA rate was then extrapolated onto the U.S. population for 2008. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The study found that the there would be three times more men first presenting with metastatic prostate cancer today without the use of PSA screening. Specifically, they estimated that there would have been 25,000 men presenting with metastatic disease in 2008 in the absence of PSA-screening, instead of the 8,000 men that were actually observed using PSA-screening. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So the uncertainty and controversy about PSA screening continues despite extensive research. Since I work in the field of prostate cancer research, friends and family members have asked my opinion. It seems to me that the new screening guidelines against PSA testing assume that ignorance is less stressful than having faith in your doctor; specifically, it's better to not even perform a simple PSA blood test because patients with low PSA levels are often over-treated. Why not just change how to treat patients with low PSA levels and repeat the blood test in 6 months to a year to see how quickly the PSA level rises -- since prostate cancer is more likely to cause a rapid rise in PSA levels? Is this common practice of “watchful waiting” by your doctor really more stressful than not having the blood test at all? For some, that simple blood test could also indicate that you have aggressive prostate cancer that has spread and needs immediate treatment. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, I'm not a medical physician so it's important to speak about your health with your doctor. The \u003ca href=\"http://www.cancer.org/Cancer/news/News/task-force-recommends-against-routine-prostate-cancer-screenin\" title=\"American Cancer Society recommendation\">American Cancer Society\u003c/a> recommends that men discuss the possible risks and benefits of prostate cancer screening with their doctor before deciding whether to be screened. For men of average risk, testing typically begins at age 50. Men at higher risk (African-American men and men with a family history of prostate cancer), testing begins at age 45. Men need to make their own informed decision until researchers find a biomarker for prostate cancer that is better than PSA.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Medical experts disagree on whether prostate-specific antigen (PSA) blood tests are an effective screening technique for prostate cancer. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends against PSA screening for men of any age, but recent research disagrees with this assessment. ",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_43147\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/08/OlderManDraw_JointBaseLewisMcChord_Flickr_640x360.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/08/OlderManDraw_JointBaseLewisMcChord_Flickr_640x360.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"OlderManDraw_JointBaseLewisMcChord_Flickr_640x360\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" class=\"size-full wp-image-43147\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/39/2012/08/OlderManDraw_JointBaseLewisMcChord_Flickr_640x360.jpg 640w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/39/2012/08/OlderManDraw_JointBaseLewisMcChord_Flickr_640x360-400x225.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photograph courtesy of Joint Base Lewis McChord via Creative Commons\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>My brother-in-law was seemingly the healthiest person I knew. He regularly hiked steep hills as part of his job and kayaked intense oceans as part of his weekend play. He never even got a cold, so he rarely saw the doctor. Luckily he finally got a complete checkup when he turned 50, because it turned out that he had aggressive prostate cancer. This standard screening for prostate cancer in people who don’t have symptoms allowed him to be treated in time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The basic check-up consists of a digital (finger) rectal exam to feel for prostate abnormalities and a simple blood test to measure the amount of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) in the blood. PSA is a protein produced by the prostate gland that's present in small quantities for healthy men, but it's generally evaluated for men with prostate cancer and other prostate disorders. The goal of PSA screening is to detect prostate cancer early, so that it's easier to treat and more likely to be cured. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So why has PSA screening recently become so controversial when it’s just a simple blood test? The main issue is that PSA screening isn’t good at distinguishing between aggressive life-threatening prostate cancer and slow-growing prostate cancer that may never spread. It can lead to unnecessary side effects from overtreatment of slow-growing prostate cancer, including a risk of incontinence and impotence. But it can also help find aggressive prostate cancer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This controversy escalated in May 2012 when a government panel of health experts called the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) \u003ca href=\"http://annals.org/article.aspx?articleid=1166176\" title=\"Screening for Prostate Cancer: USPSTF Recommendation Statement\">recommended\u003c/a> against PSA-based screening for prostate cancer for men of any age, stating that the benefits of screening don’t outweigh the harms of overtreatment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The USPSTF based its recommendation primarily on two large published randomized clinical trials that evaluated the effectiveness of PSA screening. The first is the U.S. Prostate, Lung, Colorectal and Ovarian (PLCO) Cancer Screening Trial in which 76,685 men aged 55 to 74 years were randomly assigned to receive either annual PSA screening or “usual care.” The study found that slightly more prostate cancers were found in the PSA screened group, but the number of people that died from prostate cancer were about the same for both groups -- raising the question of whether men were harmed from overtreatment of cancers that weren’t life threatening. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, this \u003ca href=\"http://annals.org/article.aspx?articleid=1166178\" title=\"Response to USPSTF Recommendation\">PLCO study is inherently flawed\u003c/a> because 52% of the “usual care” control group also received PSA screening and 40% of the study participants received PSA screening before enrollment in the trial. In addition, there were compliance issues –- many patients with abnormal screening tests didn’t have a prompt biopsy as instructed. Since so many men in the “usual care” control group received PSA screening, it isn't surprising that the prostate cancer mortality rates were the same for both groups.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The USPSTF also based its recommendation on the European Randomized Study of Screening for Prostate Cancer (ERSPC) that randomly assigned 162,243 men aged 55 to 69 years to either PSA screening once every 4 years or an unscreened control group. This study initially found that prostate cancer deaths were reduced by 21% in the PSA screened group compared to the control group. After correcting for patients that did not follow the protocol-prescribed screening procedures, the \u003ca href=\"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19660851\" title=\"ERSPC results with data adjustments\">ERSPC found \u003c/a>that PSA screening actually reduced the risk for dying of prostate cancer by 31%. Many argue that this is a significant reduction. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>An ad hoc group of nationally recognized prostate cancer medical experts have argued against the USPSTF recommendations. This \u003ca href=\"http://annals.org/article.aspx?articleid=1166178\" title=\"Response to USPSTF recommendation\">group states\u003c/a>, “We believe that eliminating reimbursement for PSA testing would take us back to an era when prostate cancer was often discovered at advanced and incurable stages.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The view of this group is supported by a \u003ca href=\"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22847578\" title=\"PSA Screening: Analysis of Trends Over Time\">journal article\u003c/a> published in the July 2012 issue of Cancer. Researchers at the University of Rochester Medical Center estimated the total number of men in the current U.S. population who would have metastatic prostate cancer at initial diagnosis if PSA screening weren’t used. Such metastatic prostate cancer is usually \u003ca href=\"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22006014\" title=\"Prostate cancer: frequency of advanced disease at presentation and disease-specific mortality\">rapidly fatal\u003c/a> with a median survival of less than 1 year to 2.6 years, depending on age. The researchers used data from the \u003ca href=\"http://seer.cancer.gov/\" title=\"SEER\">Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results \u003c/a>Program to compute the number of men that had metastatic prostate cancer at first presentation for the years 1983 to 2008. The pre-PSA incidence rate was calculated for 1983-1985, the years just before the FDA approved PSA screening. This pre-PSA rate was then extrapolated onto the U.S. population for 2008. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The study found that the there would be three times more men first presenting with metastatic prostate cancer today without the use of PSA screening. Specifically, they estimated that there would have been 25,000 men presenting with metastatic disease in 2008 in the absence of PSA-screening, instead of the 8,000 men that were actually observed using PSA-screening. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So the uncertainty and controversy about PSA screening continues despite extensive research. Since I work in the field of prostate cancer research, friends and family members have asked my opinion. It seems to me that the new screening guidelines against PSA testing assume that ignorance is less stressful than having faith in your doctor; specifically, it's better to not even perform a simple PSA blood test because patients with low PSA levels are often over-treated. Why not just change how to treat patients with low PSA levels and repeat the blood test in 6 months to a year to see how quickly the PSA level rises -- since prostate cancer is more likely to cause a rapid rise in PSA levels? Is this common practice of “watchful waiting” by your doctor really more stressful than not having the blood test at all? For some, that simple blood test could also indicate that you have aggressive prostate cancer that has spread and needs immediate treatment. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, I'm not a medical physician so it's important to speak about your health with your doctor. The \u003ca href=\"http://www.cancer.org/Cancer/news/News/task-force-recommends-against-routine-prostate-cancer-screenin\" title=\"American Cancer Society recommendation\">American Cancer Society\u003c/a> recommends that men discuss the possible risks and benefits of prostate cancer screening with their doctor before deciding whether to be screened. For men of average risk, testing typically begins at age 50. Men at higher risk (African-American men and men with a family history of prostate cancer), testing begins at age 45. Men need to make their own informed decision until researchers find a biomarker for prostate cancer that is better than PSA.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"disqusTitle": "In Defense of Science: An Interview with NCSE’s Eugenie Scott",
"title": "In Defense of Science: An Interview with NCSE’s Eugenie Scott",
"headTitle": "QUEST | KQED Science",
"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_42894\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2012/08/22/in-defense-of-science-an-interview-with-ncse%e2%80%99s-eugenie-scott/p1020007-2/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-42894\">\u003cimg class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-42894\" title=\"Eugenie Scott\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/08/genie2-300x169.jpg\" alt=\"Eugenie Scott\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Eugenie Scott, president of the Bay Area Skeptics and executive director of the National Center for Science Education. A physical anthropologist by training, Scott has spent the past three decades defending sound science and the teaching of evolution in schools. (Photo: Liza Gross)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>A few weeks ago \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2012/08/08/doubt-and-denialism-vaccine-myths-persist-in-the-face-of-science/\">I wrote about what happens\u003c/a> when people respond to well-established science with disbelief or mistrust. As I noted, this is an occupational risk for researchers who work on vaccines (and journalists who write about them), which is why I told a cautionary tale about rejecting science in the face of super-bugs. The piece resonated with readers, but not in the way I’d hoped. Of nearly 220 comments, the vast majority opposed vaccination, for various reasons, rejecting the science.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As I considered how to respond, I wondered how science educators might deal with the chasm between scientific facts and public opinion. Then it struck me: who better to consider rebukes of mainstream science than the Bay Area’s own \u003ca href=\"http://ncse.com/evolution/eugenie-scott-wins-stephen-jay-gould-prize\">Eugenie Scott\u003c/a>?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of America’s most revered science guardians, Scott has long taught rational thought and “science as a way of knowing” as president of the \u003ca href=\"http://www.baskeptics.org/about\">Bay Area Skeptics \u003c/a>and as executive director of the Oakland-based \u003ca href=\"http://ncse.com/about\">National Center for Science Education\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Best-known for defending the teaching of evolution in public schools, Scott led NCSE into the climate wars in January, when the center launched its \u003ca href=\"http://ncse.com/about\">climate change education initiative\u003c/a> to help educators under attack for teaching students about climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I spoke with Scott last week about the challenges of communicating science when evidence runs headlong into ideology, belief, and denial.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gross:\u003c/strong> One thing I noticed in some of the comments last week was a tendency to glom onto rare events, like adverse reactions to vaccines, to reject an entire body of science. NCSE hasn’t taken on the anti-vaccination issue, but do you see something similar with those who reject evolution and climate change?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott:\u003c/strong> This kind of anomaly mongering is something that we’ve dealt with for decades with evolution. We’re starting to learn more about it with climate change. One such anomaly is the fact that 1998 was an unusually warm year. So if you measure from 1998 to 2008--the line goes down--cooling has happened, therefore global warming is not taking place. Now, this is exactly parallel to the kind of anomaly mongering you get with creationism. Where they’ll point to the live mollusk that carbon 14 dating indicated had been dead for 3,000 years, and say, therefore radioisotopic dating is not valid, therefore the Earth is young, therefore, evolution didn’t take place. It’s a logical series of arguments in one sense except the premises are all wrong because these are anomalies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_42909\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 267px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2012/08/22/in-defense-of-science-an-interview-with-ncse%e2%80%99s-eugenie-scott/editorial_cartoon_depicting_charles_darwin_as_an_ape_1871/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-42909\">\u003cimg class=\"size-large wp-image-42909\" title=\"Editorial_cartoon_depicting_Charles_Darwin_as_an_ape_(1871)\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/08/Editorial_cartoon_depicting_Charles_Darwin_as_an_ape_1871-267x360.jpg\" alt=\"Darwin as ape\" width=\"267\" height=\"360\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">This satirical cartoon depicting Charles Darwin as an ape, published in 1871, following the publication of Darwin's \"The Descent of Man,\" typified reactions of those who rejected Darwin's contention that humans and apes shared common ancestry.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In the case of the 1998 year, that’s cherry picking the data in a most egregious fashion, because if you pick just about any other year, you’ll find that the climate is getting warmer. And with the living mollusk, \u003ca href=\"http://www.bcin.ca/Interface/openbcin.cgi?submit=submit&Chinkey=64152\">that article was not an attack upon radioisotopic dating\u003c/a>, but a methodology article showing the difference between carbon absorption in lacustrine [lake] versus riverine environments and how you must consider the source of your sample.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You find the same thing with people who object to vaccines. They’ll pick some anomalous observation and say, “See, see, we told you vaccines are dangerous,” or “We told you they’re ineffective,” or something along those lines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To understand this phenomenon you really have to dig deeper into what is motivating people. First of all, I’d like to distinguish between the people who lead these movements versus the people who follow them. They’re not the ones generating the vaccine anomaly, so to speak, but they’ve read this literature and they’re parroting what they’ve heard. And your heart goes out to them. They’re concerned about their children. They don’t want their kids to get sick. But as many admit, they don’t fully understand the science. And your decisions are obviously going to be influenced by your emotions. We’re human beings, not automatons. But you need to temper them with good information, empirical information, dare I say scientific information, in order to make the best decisions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gross:\u003c/strong> Another parallel with the evolution and climate change denial narrative, which seems to relate to motivation, is the changing rationale for doubting the science. The reasons change but the doubt doesn’t, as if doubt itself is a motivation. How do you counter doubt with science?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott:\u003c/strong> Well, I think one of the things to remember is that, like Gaul [\u003ca href=\"http://classics.mit.edu/Caesar/gallic.1.1.html\">Julius Caesar’s Gallic conquest\u003c/a>], the public is divided into three parts. You have the people who are perfectly okay with vaccines. You have the people who are really, really concerned about vaccines, and you have the vast majority of Americans who are in the middle. They haven’t thought about it very much. They are reachable with information.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I think we are unwise as scientists or as people who want to help the public understand science to ignore motivation. But we have to remember that different audiences are open to a different kinds of information. And I just can’t imagine that knowledge and information and the empirical evidence and the results of good studies are immaterial, especially for that middle group. They may be less likely to persuade the people in the category of, “I’ve got my fingers stuck in my ears and I don’t want to listen,” who have a really strong emotional, ideological investment in a position.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>NCSE has always aimed at that big middle. In the case of evolution, the people who are not conservative Christians, who don’t have a religious or ideological reason to object to evolution but who just don’t know very much about it and who are reachable. I think with vaccines that should be the target for those of us who want to improve the understanding of vaccines and help communicate the importance of why you need to vaccinate your child.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gross:\u003c/strong> How do you reach the people in the middle when organized groups routinely perpetuate the myths? For a nonscientist it’s very difficult to figure out what to think, especially when the so-called “debates” on these issues become so emotionally charged. How do you cut through the emotions to help people think rationally?\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_42942\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 340px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2012/08/22/in-defense-of-science-an-interview-with-ncse%e2%80%99s-eugenie-scott/misconceptions_flawedtheory/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-42942\">\u003cimg class=\"size-large wp-image-42942\" title=\"misconceptions_flawedtheory\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/08/misconceptions_flawedtheory-340x360.gif\" alt=\"UCMP evolution creationism cartoon\" width=\"340\" height=\"360\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">(Credit: University of California Museum of Paleontology - Understanding Evolution - www.berkeley.edu)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott:\u003c/strong> Our experience with the evolution and climate change issues has been to recognize that there is a huge amount of dichotomous thinking going on. In the case of evolution you’re either a good guy Christian creationist or you’re a bad guy evolutionist atheist. Those are the packages that many students come into classrooms with. So breaking apart these dichotomies is very important because they’re false dichotomies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With Christians, there’s really a huge range of views about evolution from the most extreme creationists to theistic evolution, which is a position that God created [humans] through evolution. This is actually mainstream Christianity. The most extreme creationism goes from flat-Earthism through geocentrism to young-Earth creationism to old-Earth creationism to theistic evolution.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s also dichotomous thinking going on in terms of climate change that doesn’t have anything to do with the science but with ideologies that prevent people from listening to the science. You’re either a good Republican, anti-global-warming person or you’re a pro-big-government, political liberal, global warming accepter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Finding the people who think ideologically but still accept the science is what we would like to do. Our job at NCSE, at least in global warming and evolution, has been to point out that these dichotomies are false. And to find the people in intermediate positions who hold those ideological positions, find the conservative Christians who accept evolution, find the Republicans who accept global warming, find the libertarians who accept global warming and say, “See, you don’t need to let ideology get in the way to accept the science.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gross:\u003c/strong> There seems to be a similar dichotomy with vaccination.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott:\u003c/strong> Well, it’s different. It’s people protecting their kids. That’s the ideology. Go back to motivation. Why is it that people are rejecting vaccination for their kids? It’s obviously an emotional thing, I’m not criticizing that. People love their kids but they’re just hyper, hyper worried. I think that’s probably the motivator. So, when they hear something that is on the other side of standard science, they don’t know whether it’s credible or not but the more things they read they talk themselves into believing it. And, yes, there’s this kind of dichotomous reasoning: \"You’re either a good guy who really loves your kid or you’re a dogmatic scientist trying to cram this stuff down our throats.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The intermediate position that we try to invoke in the other two controversies we deal with is in this case people whose children have autism or perhaps other conditions people ascribe to vaccines but who still support vaccination. They have a credibility with other parents that scientists don’t. A scientist who is a parent can obviously wear two hats, but parents who can speak the language, so to speak, parents who are coping with an autistic child or a child who has suffered one of the diseases that are attributed to vaccinations can have more credibility.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Again, I think we shouldn’t abandon the people who are in that one segment of society who are bound and determined not to accept vaccinations but we should really focus our attention more on keeping people from slipping down into that category. Certainly, that’s what we’ve done with evolution and that’s what we are likely to be doing with climate change as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gross:\u003c/strong> Do you think the fact that scientists argue over some aspects of science, like when to get mammograms, feeds into people’s doubts, so they think scientists don’t really know any more than they do?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott:\u003c/strong> I think so much of what people misunderstand about science is this balance between science being very reliable in explaining the natural world yet it’s expandable. It’s the idea of core ideas of science, of frontier ideas, and then fringe ideas. We can expand our understanding of nature by testing new ideas against nature and throwing out the ones that don’t work, tentatively keeping the ones that do work because we need more and more tests before that tentative explanation goes into the core. But once we get that consensus, once scientists have arm wrestled over this new explanation and we’ve tested it up one side and down another and it goes into that core, then we stop arguing about it. This is where we are with evolution and climate change and the basic theory of vaccination—the basic understanding of antigens and antibodies and how you can prevent antigens from causing disease by zapping them with antibodies, which you acquire by getting a vaccination or getting the disease. Which do you want? Believe me, a vaccination is much more benign.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That basic understanding about what makes vaccinations work is a core idea of science. We’re just not debating whether that works or not any more than we’re debating whether living things have common ancestors or the planet’s getting warmer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GXPQzY58bs]\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Eugenie Scott, longtime director of Oakland's National Center for Science Education, has won numerous awards for helping the public understand science and defending evolution, especially against threats to replace it with “creation science” in public schools. She shares her thoughts on the challenges of communicating science in a climate of denial.",
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"description": "Eugenie Scott, longtime director of Oakland's National Center for Science Education, has won numerous awards for helping the public understand science and defending evolution, especially against threats to replace it with “creation science” in public schools. She shares her thoughts on the challenges of communicating science in a climate of denial.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_42894\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2012/08/22/in-defense-of-science-an-interview-with-ncse%e2%80%99s-eugenie-scott/p1020007-2/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-42894\">\u003cimg class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-42894\" title=\"Eugenie Scott\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/08/genie2-300x169.jpg\" alt=\"Eugenie Scott\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Eugenie Scott, president of the Bay Area Skeptics and executive director of the National Center for Science Education. A physical anthropologist by training, Scott has spent the past three decades defending sound science and the teaching of evolution in schools. (Photo: Liza Gross)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>A few weeks ago \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2012/08/08/doubt-and-denialism-vaccine-myths-persist-in-the-face-of-science/\">I wrote about what happens\u003c/a> when people respond to well-established science with disbelief or mistrust. As I noted, this is an occupational risk for researchers who work on vaccines (and journalists who write about them), which is why I told a cautionary tale about rejecting science in the face of super-bugs. The piece resonated with readers, but not in the way I’d hoped. Of nearly 220 comments, the vast majority opposed vaccination, for various reasons, rejecting the science.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As I considered how to respond, I wondered how science educators might deal with the chasm between scientific facts and public opinion. Then it struck me: who better to consider rebukes of mainstream science than the Bay Area’s own \u003ca href=\"http://ncse.com/evolution/eugenie-scott-wins-stephen-jay-gould-prize\">Eugenie Scott\u003c/a>?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of America’s most revered science guardians, Scott has long taught rational thought and “science as a way of knowing” as president of the \u003ca href=\"http://www.baskeptics.org/about\">Bay Area Skeptics \u003c/a>and as executive director of the Oakland-based \u003ca href=\"http://ncse.com/about\">National Center for Science Education\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Best-known for defending the teaching of evolution in public schools, Scott led NCSE into the climate wars in January, when the center launched its \u003ca href=\"http://ncse.com/about\">climate change education initiative\u003c/a> to help educators under attack for teaching students about climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I spoke with Scott last week about the challenges of communicating science when evidence runs headlong into ideology, belief, and denial.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gross:\u003c/strong> One thing I noticed in some of the comments last week was a tendency to glom onto rare events, like adverse reactions to vaccines, to reject an entire body of science. NCSE hasn’t taken on the anti-vaccination issue, but do you see something similar with those who reject evolution and climate change?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott:\u003c/strong> This kind of anomaly mongering is something that we’ve dealt with for decades with evolution. We’re starting to learn more about it with climate change. One such anomaly is the fact that 1998 was an unusually warm year. So if you measure from 1998 to 2008--the line goes down--cooling has happened, therefore global warming is not taking place. Now, this is exactly parallel to the kind of anomaly mongering you get with creationism. Where they’ll point to the live mollusk that carbon 14 dating indicated had been dead for 3,000 years, and say, therefore radioisotopic dating is not valid, therefore the Earth is young, therefore, evolution didn’t take place. It’s a logical series of arguments in one sense except the premises are all wrong because these are anomalies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_42909\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 267px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2012/08/22/in-defense-of-science-an-interview-with-ncse%e2%80%99s-eugenie-scott/editorial_cartoon_depicting_charles_darwin_as_an_ape_1871/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-42909\">\u003cimg class=\"size-large wp-image-42909\" title=\"Editorial_cartoon_depicting_Charles_Darwin_as_an_ape_(1871)\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/08/Editorial_cartoon_depicting_Charles_Darwin_as_an_ape_1871-267x360.jpg\" alt=\"Darwin as ape\" width=\"267\" height=\"360\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">This satirical cartoon depicting Charles Darwin as an ape, published in 1871, following the publication of Darwin's \"The Descent of Man,\" typified reactions of those who rejected Darwin's contention that humans and apes shared common ancestry.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In the case of the 1998 year, that’s cherry picking the data in a most egregious fashion, because if you pick just about any other year, you’ll find that the climate is getting warmer. And with the living mollusk, \u003ca href=\"http://www.bcin.ca/Interface/openbcin.cgi?submit=submit&Chinkey=64152\">that article was not an attack upon radioisotopic dating\u003c/a>, but a methodology article showing the difference between carbon absorption in lacustrine [lake] versus riverine environments and how you must consider the source of your sample.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You find the same thing with people who object to vaccines. They’ll pick some anomalous observation and say, “See, see, we told you vaccines are dangerous,” or “We told you they’re ineffective,” or something along those lines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To understand this phenomenon you really have to dig deeper into what is motivating people. First of all, I’d like to distinguish between the people who lead these movements versus the people who follow them. They’re not the ones generating the vaccine anomaly, so to speak, but they’ve read this literature and they’re parroting what they’ve heard. And your heart goes out to them. They’re concerned about their children. They don’t want their kids to get sick. But as many admit, they don’t fully understand the science. And your decisions are obviously going to be influenced by your emotions. We’re human beings, not automatons. But you need to temper them with good information, empirical information, dare I say scientific information, in order to make the best decisions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gross:\u003c/strong> Another parallel with the evolution and climate change denial narrative, which seems to relate to motivation, is the changing rationale for doubting the science. The reasons change but the doubt doesn’t, as if doubt itself is a motivation. How do you counter doubt with science?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott:\u003c/strong> Well, I think one of the things to remember is that, like Gaul [\u003ca href=\"http://classics.mit.edu/Caesar/gallic.1.1.html\">Julius Caesar’s Gallic conquest\u003c/a>], the public is divided into three parts. You have the people who are perfectly okay with vaccines. You have the people who are really, really concerned about vaccines, and you have the vast majority of Americans who are in the middle. They haven’t thought about it very much. They are reachable with information.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I think we are unwise as scientists or as people who want to help the public understand science to ignore motivation. But we have to remember that different audiences are open to a different kinds of information. And I just can’t imagine that knowledge and information and the empirical evidence and the results of good studies are immaterial, especially for that middle group. They may be less likely to persuade the people in the category of, “I’ve got my fingers stuck in my ears and I don’t want to listen,” who have a really strong emotional, ideological investment in a position.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>NCSE has always aimed at that big middle. In the case of evolution, the people who are not conservative Christians, who don’t have a religious or ideological reason to object to evolution but who just don’t know very much about it and who are reachable. I think with vaccines that should be the target for those of us who want to improve the understanding of vaccines and help communicate the importance of why you need to vaccinate your child.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gross:\u003c/strong> How do you reach the people in the middle when organized groups routinely perpetuate the myths? For a nonscientist it’s very difficult to figure out what to think, especially when the so-called “debates” on these issues become so emotionally charged. How do you cut through the emotions to help people think rationally?\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_42942\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 340px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2012/08/22/in-defense-of-science-an-interview-with-ncse%e2%80%99s-eugenie-scott/misconceptions_flawedtheory/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-42942\">\u003cimg class=\"size-large wp-image-42942\" title=\"misconceptions_flawedtheory\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/08/misconceptions_flawedtheory-340x360.gif\" alt=\"UCMP evolution creationism cartoon\" width=\"340\" height=\"360\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">(Credit: University of California Museum of Paleontology - Understanding Evolution - www.berkeley.edu)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott:\u003c/strong> Our experience with the evolution and climate change issues has been to recognize that there is a huge amount of dichotomous thinking going on. In the case of evolution you’re either a good guy Christian creationist or you’re a bad guy evolutionist atheist. Those are the packages that many students come into classrooms with. So breaking apart these dichotomies is very important because they’re false dichotomies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With Christians, there’s really a huge range of views about evolution from the most extreme creationists to theistic evolution, which is a position that God created [humans] through evolution. This is actually mainstream Christianity. The most extreme creationism goes from flat-Earthism through geocentrism to young-Earth creationism to old-Earth creationism to theistic evolution.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s also dichotomous thinking going on in terms of climate change that doesn’t have anything to do with the science but with ideologies that prevent people from listening to the science. You’re either a good Republican, anti-global-warming person or you’re a pro-big-government, political liberal, global warming accepter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Finding the people who think ideologically but still accept the science is what we would like to do. Our job at NCSE, at least in global warming and evolution, has been to point out that these dichotomies are false. And to find the people in intermediate positions who hold those ideological positions, find the conservative Christians who accept evolution, find the Republicans who accept global warming, find the libertarians who accept global warming and say, “See, you don’t need to let ideology get in the way to accept the science.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gross:\u003c/strong> There seems to be a similar dichotomy with vaccination.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott:\u003c/strong> Well, it’s different. It’s people protecting their kids. That’s the ideology. Go back to motivation. Why is it that people are rejecting vaccination for their kids? It’s obviously an emotional thing, I’m not criticizing that. People love their kids but they’re just hyper, hyper worried. I think that’s probably the motivator. So, when they hear something that is on the other side of standard science, they don’t know whether it’s credible or not but the more things they read they talk themselves into believing it. And, yes, there’s this kind of dichotomous reasoning: \"You’re either a good guy who really loves your kid or you’re a dogmatic scientist trying to cram this stuff down our throats.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The intermediate position that we try to invoke in the other two controversies we deal with is in this case people whose children have autism or perhaps other conditions people ascribe to vaccines but who still support vaccination. They have a credibility with other parents that scientists don’t. A scientist who is a parent can obviously wear two hats, but parents who can speak the language, so to speak, parents who are coping with an autistic child or a child who has suffered one of the diseases that are attributed to vaccinations can have more credibility.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Again, I think we shouldn’t abandon the people who are in that one segment of society who are bound and determined not to accept vaccinations but we should really focus our attention more on keeping people from slipping down into that category. Certainly, that’s what we’ve done with evolution and that’s what we are likely to be doing with climate change as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gross:\u003c/strong> Do you think the fact that scientists argue over some aspects of science, like when to get mammograms, feeds into people’s doubts, so they think scientists don’t really know any more than they do?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott:\u003c/strong> I think so much of what people misunderstand about science is this balance between science being very reliable in explaining the natural world yet it’s expandable. It’s the idea of core ideas of science, of frontier ideas, and then fringe ideas. We can expand our understanding of nature by testing new ideas against nature and throwing out the ones that don’t work, tentatively keeping the ones that do work because we need more and more tests before that tentative explanation goes into the core. But once we get that consensus, once scientists have arm wrestled over this new explanation and we’ve tested it up one side and down another and it goes into that core, then we stop arguing about it. This is where we are with evolution and climate change and the basic theory of vaccination—the basic understanding of antigens and antibodies and how you can prevent antigens from causing disease by zapping them with antibodies, which you acquire by getting a vaccination or getting the disease. Which do you want? Believe me, a vaccination is much more benign.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That basic understanding about what makes vaccinations work is a core idea of science. We’re just not debating whether that works or not any more than we’re debating whether living things have common ancestors or the planet’s getting warmer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"disqusTitle": "Arm Yourselves for the Upcoming (Genetics) Revolution",
"title": "Arm Yourselves for the Upcoming (Genetics) Revolution",
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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_42745\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2012/08/20/arm-yourselves-for-the-upcoming-genetics-revolution/stanfordatthetech/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-42745\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-42745\" title=\"StanfordAtTheTech\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/08/StanfordAtTheTech.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"367\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/39/2012/08/StanfordAtTheTech.jpg 640w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/39/2012/08/StanfordAtTheTech-400x229.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A multipronged approach to increasing genetics understanding.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In the not too distant future, we’ll all have a map of our DNA in our hands. And lots of studies show that most of us are woefully unprepared for this latest genetic revolution. (See the links at the end for a selection of these studies.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As a nation, we aren’t teaching the right genetics in our schools. And for those of us out of school, the situation is, if anything, even worse. By and large we lack the fundamental knowledge needed to properly interpret the avalanche of data headed our way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Without this kind of knowledge, we are sure to get bamboozled by hucksters out there willing to sell us the “right” snake oil based on our DNA data. Even scarier, we may not make the right health decisions based on our DNA. And don’t necessarily count on your doctor for help navigating your way through these data. They are often as unprepared as the rest of us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_42768\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 150px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/08/blaschkos_lines.jpg\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-42768\" title=\"blaschkos_lines\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/08/blaschkos_lines.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"200\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Chimeras are so cool! Sometimes these lines become apparent in chimeras under UV light.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>This is a big reason that the \u003ca href=\"http://genetics.stanford.edu/outreach/tech.html\">Stanford at The Tech program\u003c/a> has decided to publish the book, \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"http://genetics.thetech.org/book-titles\">When Will Broccoli Taste like Chocolate?\u003c/a>\u003c/em> (you can buy it from Amazon \u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1477578714/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1477578714&linkCode=as2&tag=staatthetec-20\">here\u003c/a>). It is a book that teaches genetics in a fun way by focusing on interesting cases and explaining the genetics behind them. Without even trying, you’ll get the solid footing you need to interpret your DNA. Or at the very least understand other people’s interpretations!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of my favorite parts is the section on chimeras. Chimeras are fraternal twins who fused together at a very early stage of development. They are a single person who has one set of cells (and so one set of DNA) from one twin and another set of cells (and DNA) from the other twin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These chimeras don’t have two heads and four arms or anything like that. In fact, their differences are usually so subtle that they are invisible to the naked eye. They are often revealed only after they take some sort of genetic test (like a \u003ca href=\"http://www.mymultiplesclerosis.co.uk/misc/chimera.html\">paternity test\u003c/a> or a \u003ca href=\"http://www.katewerk.com/chimera.html\">tissue typing test\u003c/a> to find a new organ). And then what a revelation! Often the tests come back saying the chimera is not the parent of his or her children.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chimeras are a great way to learn about DNA, genes, genetic tests and so on. And as you’ll see in the excerpt below, once you add in a link to a \u003ca href=\"http://www.csiguide.com/episodedetail.aspx?csi=157\">CSI episode\u003c/a> where a rapist almost gets away because he is a chimera, you end up with a fascinating read.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2012/08/20/arm-yourselves-for-the-upcoming-genetics-revolution/excerpt500wwbtlc/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-42744\">\u003cimg class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-42744\" title=\"Excerpt500WWBTLC\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/08/Excerpt500WWBTLC.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"755\">\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The story goes on to explain why a chimera isn't torn apart by its immune system, other ways besides chimeras to have multiple DNAs and lots more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For parents and parents-to-be, there is a section on eye and hair color so they can understand how their children ended up with the coloring they got. For example, blue-eyed parents can breathe a sigh of relief if they have a green or brown eyed child because we show that despite what your high school biology teacher told you, this can and does happen. Parents-to-be can even use this information to predict what hair and eye color their children are most likely to have!\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_42769\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 150px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2012/08/20/arm-yourselves-for-the-upcoming-genetics-revolution/browneye/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-42769\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-42769\" title=\"BrownEye\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/08/BrownEye.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/39/2012/08/BrownEye.jpg 150w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/39/2012/08/BrownEye-32x32.jpg 32w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/39/2012/08/BrownEye-64x64.jpg 64w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/39/2012/08/BrownEye-96x96.jpg 96w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/39/2012/08/BrownEye-128x128.jpg 128w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/39/2012/08/BrownEye-75x75.jpg 75w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">This person could have had blue eyed parents.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>For people who want to know how embryos from different species decide whether to be a boy or a girl, there is a great section on Nemo the clownfish. And there is a cool section on all the genetic information we can get from poop. And...\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Add to this book our \u003ca href=\"http://genetics.stanford.edu/outreach/tech.html\">Stanford at The Tech\u003c/a> program that provides hands-on activities at \u003ca href=\"http://www.thetech.org/\">The Tech Museum\u003c/a> in San Jose (as well as at other venues) and our \u003ca href=\"http://genetics.thetech.org/\">Understanding Genetics\u003c/a> website, and you get a full frontal assault on the lack of genetics knowledge out there. We aim to demystify genetics and show how entertaining and interesting it really is. Perhaps a better title for the book might have been, \u003cem>When Will Genetics be like a Day at Disneyland?\u003c/em>. That day may be here sooner than you think.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For fun, here is a quick quiz I whipped up to test your genetics IQ. To make things interesting, the first person to get them all right gets a free copy of \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"http://genetics.thetech.org/book-titles\">When Will Broccoli Taste like Chocolate?\u003c/a>\u003c/em>. You can answer here, on \u003ca href=\"http://www.facebook.com/UnderstandGenetics\">Facebook\u003c/a> or, if you’re like me and you’d rather use email, send your answers to askageneticist@thetech.org. Good luck and enjoy!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>1) Should you necessarily be scared if you find out you are 10 times more likely to get a rare cancer?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>2) If you look like your mom, are you more likely to get the diseases that run in her family or your dad’s family?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>3) If you have the recessive disease sickle cell anemia, should your kids be tested to see if they are carriers?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>4) If you look like your dad, did you get more of his DNA?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>5) If you flip a coin and get heads ten times in a row, what are the chances that the next flip will be a head?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>6) True or false: Each cell in your body has the same DNA.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Studies cataloging the public’s lack of genetics knowledge:\u003c/strong>\u003cem>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19039252\">\u003cbr>\nAustralian study on public knowledge of human genetics and health\u003c/a>.\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20512408\">\u003cbr>\nMisunderstandings concerning genetics among patients confronting genetic disease.\u003c/a>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18245328\">Essay contest reveals misconceptions of high school students in genetics content\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21885828\">A comprehensive analysis of high school genetics standards: are states keeping pace with modern genetics?\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You can buy the book from Amazon \u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1477578714/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1477578714&linkCode=as2&tag=staatthetec-20\">here\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "As a nation, we aren’t teaching the right genetics in our schools. And for those of us out of school, the situation is, if anything, even worse. By and large we lack the fundamental knowledge needed to properly interpret the avalanche of data headed our way. ",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_42745\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2012/08/20/arm-yourselves-for-the-upcoming-genetics-revolution/stanfordatthetech/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-42745\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-42745\" title=\"StanfordAtTheTech\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/08/StanfordAtTheTech.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"367\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/39/2012/08/StanfordAtTheTech.jpg 640w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/39/2012/08/StanfordAtTheTech-400x229.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A multipronged approach to increasing genetics understanding.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In the not too distant future, we’ll all have a map of our DNA in our hands. And lots of studies show that most of us are woefully unprepared for this latest genetic revolution. (See the links at the end for a selection of these studies.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As a nation, we aren’t teaching the right genetics in our schools. And for those of us out of school, the situation is, if anything, even worse. By and large we lack the fundamental knowledge needed to properly interpret the avalanche of data headed our way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Without this kind of knowledge, we are sure to get bamboozled by hucksters out there willing to sell us the “right” snake oil based on our DNA data. Even scarier, we may not make the right health decisions based on our DNA. And don’t necessarily count on your doctor for help navigating your way through these data. They are often as unprepared as the rest of us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_42768\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 150px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/08/blaschkos_lines.jpg\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-42768\" title=\"blaschkos_lines\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/08/blaschkos_lines.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"200\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Chimeras are so cool! Sometimes these lines become apparent in chimeras under UV light.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>This is a big reason that the \u003ca href=\"http://genetics.stanford.edu/outreach/tech.html\">Stanford at The Tech program\u003c/a> has decided to publish the book, \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"http://genetics.thetech.org/book-titles\">When Will Broccoli Taste like Chocolate?\u003c/a>\u003c/em> (you can buy it from Amazon \u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1477578714/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1477578714&linkCode=as2&tag=staatthetec-20\">here\u003c/a>). It is a book that teaches genetics in a fun way by focusing on interesting cases and explaining the genetics behind them. Without even trying, you’ll get the solid footing you need to interpret your DNA. Or at the very least understand other people’s interpretations!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of my favorite parts is the section on chimeras. Chimeras are fraternal twins who fused together at a very early stage of development. They are a single person who has one set of cells (and so one set of DNA) from one twin and another set of cells (and DNA) from the other twin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These chimeras don’t have two heads and four arms or anything like that. In fact, their differences are usually so subtle that they are invisible to the naked eye. They are often revealed only after they take some sort of genetic test (like a \u003ca href=\"http://www.mymultiplesclerosis.co.uk/misc/chimera.html\">paternity test\u003c/a> or a \u003ca href=\"http://www.katewerk.com/chimera.html\">tissue typing test\u003c/a> to find a new organ). And then what a revelation! Often the tests come back saying the chimera is not the parent of his or her children.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chimeras are a great way to learn about DNA, genes, genetic tests and so on. And as you’ll see in the excerpt below, once you add in a link to a \u003ca href=\"http://www.csiguide.com/episodedetail.aspx?csi=157\">CSI episode\u003c/a> where a rapist almost gets away because he is a chimera, you end up with a fascinating read.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2012/08/20/arm-yourselves-for-the-upcoming-genetics-revolution/excerpt500wwbtlc/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-42744\">\u003cimg class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-42744\" title=\"Excerpt500WWBTLC\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/08/Excerpt500WWBTLC.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"755\">\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The story goes on to explain why a chimera isn't torn apart by its immune system, other ways besides chimeras to have multiple DNAs and lots more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For parents and parents-to-be, there is a section on eye and hair color so they can understand how their children ended up with the coloring they got. For example, blue-eyed parents can breathe a sigh of relief if they have a green or brown eyed child because we show that despite what your high school biology teacher told you, this can and does happen. Parents-to-be can even use this information to predict what hair and eye color their children are most likely to have!\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_42769\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 150px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2012/08/20/arm-yourselves-for-the-upcoming-genetics-revolution/browneye/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-42769\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-42769\" title=\"BrownEye\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/08/BrownEye.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/39/2012/08/BrownEye.jpg 150w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/39/2012/08/BrownEye-32x32.jpg 32w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/39/2012/08/BrownEye-64x64.jpg 64w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/39/2012/08/BrownEye-96x96.jpg 96w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/39/2012/08/BrownEye-128x128.jpg 128w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/39/2012/08/BrownEye-75x75.jpg 75w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">This person could have had blue eyed parents.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>For people who want to know how embryos from different species decide whether to be a boy or a girl, there is a great section on Nemo the clownfish. And there is a cool section on all the genetic information we can get from poop. And...\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Add to this book our \u003ca href=\"http://genetics.stanford.edu/outreach/tech.html\">Stanford at The Tech\u003c/a> program that provides hands-on activities at \u003ca href=\"http://www.thetech.org/\">The Tech Museum\u003c/a> in San Jose (as well as at other venues) and our \u003ca href=\"http://genetics.thetech.org/\">Understanding Genetics\u003c/a> website, and you get a full frontal assault on the lack of genetics knowledge out there. We aim to demystify genetics and show how entertaining and interesting it really is. Perhaps a better title for the book might have been, \u003cem>When Will Genetics be like a Day at Disneyland?\u003c/em>. That day may be here sooner than you think.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For fun, here is a quick quiz I whipped up to test your genetics IQ. To make things interesting, the first person to get them all right gets a free copy of \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"http://genetics.thetech.org/book-titles\">When Will Broccoli Taste like Chocolate?\u003c/a>\u003c/em>. You can answer here, on \u003ca href=\"http://www.facebook.com/UnderstandGenetics\">Facebook\u003c/a> or, if you’re like me and you’d rather use email, send your answers to askageneticist@thetech.org. Good luck and enjoy!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>1) Should you necessarily be scared if you find out you are 10 times more likely to get a rare cancer?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>2) If you look like your mom, are you more likely to get the diseases that run in her family or your dad’s family?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>3) If you have the recessive disease sickle cell anemia, should your kids be tested to see if they are carriers?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>4) If you look like your dad, did you get more of his DNA?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>5) If you flip a coin and get heads ten times in a row, what are the chances that the next flip will be a head?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>6) True or false: Each cell in your body has the same DNA.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Studies cataloging the public’s lack of genetics knowledge:\u003c/strong>\u003cem>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19039252\">\u003cbr>\nAustralian study on public knowledge of human genetics and health\u003c/a>.\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20512408\">\u003cbr>\nMisunderstandings concerning genetics among patients confronting genetic disease.\u003c/a>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18245328\">Essay contest reveals misconceptions of high school students in genetics content\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21885828\">A comprehensive analysis of high school genetics standards: are states keeping pace with modern genetics?\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You can buy the book from Amazon \u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1477578714/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1477578714&linkCode=as2&tag=staatthetec-20\">here\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"disqusTitle": "Doubt and Denialism: Vaccine Myths Persist in the Face of Science",
"title": "Doubt and Denialism: Vaccine Myths Persist in the Face of Science",
"headTitle": "QUEST | KQED Science",
"content": "\u003cp>As a science journalist, I’m often confronted with the unsettling fact that a sizable portion of my audience rejects what scientists know is true.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Take two classic cases, climate change and evolution. Even though \u003ca href=\"http://environment.yale.edu/climate/files/Climate-Beliefs-March-2012.pdf\">two-thirds of Americans believe global warming is happening\u003c/a> (up 3% from last year), less than half think we’re to blame. Just 15% of Americans believe humans evolved over millions of years from archaic species, \u003ca href=\"http://www.gallup.com/poll/155003/Hold-Creationist-View-Human-Origins.aspx\">while 46% think God created us pretty much as-is\u003c/a> sometime within the past 10,000 years. That’s right, 46%—a figure that’s barely budged since Gallup started asking the question 30 years ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But it’s yet another evidence-impervious belief that I find most troubling. Last year, a Harris Interactive/HealthDay poll found that \u003ca href=\"http://www.harrisinteractive.com/newsroom/pressreleases/tabid/446/mid/1506/articleid/674/ctl/readcustom%20default/default.aspx\">18% of Americans think vaccines cause autism\u003c/a>—a theory that has no basis in scientific reality, doesn’t even have a plausible biological basis, and has been knocked down more times than a metal duck in a shooting gallery. (Nearly a third aren’t sure if there’s any connection, while just over half think none exists.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The blithe rejection of scientific knowledge in favor of, well, fantasy has become so common that it now has a name: “denialism.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Denialism can take many forms, but most scholars agree that simply raising doubt about an issue can undercut the legitimacy of an entire corpus of scientific evidence in the public’s mind. And \u003ca href=\"http://www.lastwordonnothing.com/2012/04/25/the-impasse-when-the-truth-wins-assumption-fails/\">tactics for raising doubt\u003c/a> abound. Those identified by infectious disease experts in a \u003ca href=\"http://eurpub.oxfordjournals.org/content/19/1/2.full\">2009 commentary\u003c/a> include charges of conspiracy—for example, accusing vaccine advocates of profiting from the “vaccine-industrial complex”—and creating impossible expectations of what science can do—“absolute proof” that vaccines are safe, most recently raised by one-time “Saturday Night Live” cut-up Rob Schneider in a \u003ca href=\"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/01/rob-schneider-links-autism-vaccines_n_1641922.html\">bizarre interview\u003c/a>. I must point out that in \u003ca href=\"http://blogs.plos.org/thepanicvirus/2012/07/18/apparently-rob-schneider-thinks-all-caps-is-a-substitute-for-having-a-clue-a-lower-cased-fact-based-rebuttal/\">peddling his vaccine-autism insanity\u003c/a>, Schneider noted that autism was “nearly unheard of in the 1930s.” No joke. I guess he didn’t realize the syndrome wasn’t described until 1943.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Opportunistic Pathogens\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nIn a way, that 18% still believe vaccines cause autism shows progress—down from 25% just two years ago. But unlike the idea that humans spontaneously appeared through an act of God, believing against all evidence that vaccines cause autism (or ill-defined harm) can have dangerous consequences.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last month, CDC officials reported more than 18,000 cases of whooping cough (or pertussis) across the country—a rate of infection they hadn’t seen so early in the year since 1959. So far, nine babies have died.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California had its own epidemic in 2010, with more than 9,100 cases and 10 infant deaths.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pertussis is a vaccine-preventable disease. But prevention depends on public compliance. And people like Schneider who doubt vaccine safety tend to consider their children’s vaccinations optional. In the 2011 poll, 86% of doubters opted out of some or all of their kids’ scheduled shots. That’s why some blame vaccine skeptics for the current epidemic. With just 84% of toddlers fully vaccinated, it’s likely skeptics play some role.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But CDC officials aren’t sure what’s behind the epidemic, or why even vaccinated teenagers are getting sick. It’s possible that the \u003ca href=\"http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/08/pertussis-vax-effectiveness/\">vaccine isn’t as effective as researchers hoped\u003c/a> or has been \u003ca href=\"http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/health/jan-june11/pledge_03-16.html\">targeting the wrong pathogen strains\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_42266\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 296px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2012/08/08/doubt-and-denialism-vaccine-myths-persist-in-the-face-of-science/polio_vaccine_poster/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-42266\">\u003cimg class=\"size-large wp-image-42266\" title=\"Polio_vaccine_poster\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/08/Polio_vaccine_poster-296x360.jpg\" alt=\"polio vaccine poster\" width=\"296\" height=\"360\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The CDC’s national symbol of public health, the \"Wellbee\", appears in this 1963 poster to encourage the public to get the oral polio vaccine. (Image: CDC/ Mary Hilpertshauser)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>What officials do know is that \u003ca href=\"http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6128a1.htm\">unvaccinated kids are eight times as likely to get pertussis as vaccinated kids\u003c/a>. And when vaccinated kids do contract the disease, it’s much milder, doesn’t last as long, and tends to be less infectious.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s why public officials are \u003ca href=\"http://blogs.plos.org/bodypolitic/2012/07/26/a-forgotten-but-crucial-cause-for-the-pertussis-epidemic/\">urging adults, especially pregnant women, to get boosters\u003c/a> to protect children still too young to be fully vaccinated. Kids get the first of five pertussis shots (plus a later booster) at 2 months. Most pertussis deaths claim children younger than 3 months old. Nine of the 10 children who died in California during the 2010 outbreak were under 8 weeks old.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Separating Fears from Facts\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nAll this weighed heavily on my mind last week, when I \u003ca href=\"http://blogs.plos.org/biologue/2012/07/31/could-vaccines-breed-super-virulent-malaria/\">wrote about new research\u003c/a> that could conceivably feed vaccine doubts. \u003ca href=\"http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pbio.1001368\">The study\u003c/a>, a fascinating investigation of experimental evolution in lab mice, found that vaccines can favor the evolution of more virulent malaria parasites.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Vicki Barclay (a postdoc in evolutionary biologist \u003ca href=\"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvXc9aMF6CA\">Andrew Read\u003c/a>’s group at Penn State University) vaccinated mice with a malaria protein found in several vaccines now in clinical trials. She mimicked natural disease transmission by using needles instead of mosquitoes and letting parasites grow in one mouse before infecting the next one. (She did the same thing with unvaccinated mice.) Parasites that evolved in immunized mice caused more severe disease symptoms than those that evolved in unvaccinated mice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Inevitably, some will misconstrue these results to confirm their belief that vaccines aren’t safe. Except the findings don’t say anything about vaccine safety. They show that, from a pathogen’s point of view, medical technologies act like any other selective pressure. We spend billions to develop the most powerful drugs science can muster only to discover we’re outnumbered, outgunned, and outmaneuvered. Millions of years of evolution have endowed pathogens with survival strategies we’ve yet to imagine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lest you delude yourself into thinking we humans have an edge in this evolutionary battle, consider this: Scientists have managed to wipe out just one human pathogen. Ever. After Edward Jenner discovered a smallpox vaccine in 1798, it took nearly 200 years and an all-out international effort to eradicate this disfiguring disease.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As Read and Barclay’s study shows, when you try to kill pathogens, they fight back. And when vaccines don’t destroy all the parasites (like the \u003ca href=\"http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/335354/title/Malaria_vaccine_yields_protection\">malaria vaccine now in clinical trials)\u003c/a> or fail to provide lifelong immunity (like the pertussis vaccine), the survivors can evolve. And they might come back even stronger.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I know that most people who shun government vaccine schedules \u003ca href=\"http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.1000114\">have their children’s best interests at heart\u003c/a>. Some truly worry that vaccines may somehow cause irreversible damage to their child—and if it happened, how could they ever forgive themselves?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But anyone who chooses not to vaccinate their kids is missing something critical: the pathogens vaccine researchers are trying so desperately to control are formidable opponents. And though scientists still have a lot to learn about how pathogens adapt to our efforts to control them, they’re sure of this much: vaccines aren’t the enemy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Vaccines rarely provide 100% protection. But they’re the state-of-the-art defense against infectious disease.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What’s more, if vaccine-preventable diseases like pertussis become more virulent, and there’s \u003ca href=\"http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/15/8/pdfs/08-1511.pdf\">some evidence that this may be true\u003c/a>, those who refuse vaccination will have little recourse when their kids—or their neighbors’ kids—take ill.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Public health officials often say that parents who reject vaccination will realize they’ve made a terrible mistake only when these once rare childhood diseases, long controlled by vaccination, return, with tragic consequences. Why on earth would anyone want to help a deadly agent hell-bent on survival get the upper hand?\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Many people continue to doubt the evidence for climate change, evolution, and vaccine safety, even though the scientific consensus on these issues is rock solid. Among the most troubling evidence-resistant theories is the long-debunked yet persistent myth that vaccines cause autism—a completely unfounded belief--leading to general doubts about vaccine safety, with dangerous public health consequences.\r\n\r\n\r\n",
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"description": "Many people continue to doubt the evidence for climate change, evolution, and vaccine safety, even though the scientific consensus on these issues is rock solid. Among the most troubling evidence-resistant theories is the long-debunked yet persistent myth that vaccines cause autism—a completely unfounded belief--leading to general doubts about vaccine safety, with dangerous public health consequences.\r\n\r\n\r\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>As a science journalist, I’m often confronted with the unsettling fact that a sizable portion of my audience rejects what scientists know is true.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Take two classic cases, climate change and evolution. Even though \u003ca href=\"http://environment.yale.edu/climate/files/Climate-Beliefs-March-2012.pdf\">two-thirds of Americans believe global warming is happening\u003c/a> (up 3% from last year), less than half think we’re to blame. Just 15% of Americans believe humans evolved over millions of years from archaic species, \u003ca href=\"http://www.gallup.com/poll/155003/Hold-Creationist-View-Human-Origins.aspx\">while 46% think God created us pretty much as-is\u003c/a> sometime within the past 10,000 years. That’s right, 46%—a figure that’s barely budged since Gallup started asking the question 30 years ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But it’s yet another evidence-impervious belief that I find most troubling. Last year, a Harris Interactive/HealthDay poll found that \u003ca href=\"http://www.harrisinteractive.com/newsroom/pressreleases/tabid/446/mid/1506/articleid/674/ctl/readcustom%20default/default.aspx\">18% of Americans think vaccines cause autism\u003c/a>—a theory that has no basis in scientific reality, doesn’t even have a plausible biological basis, and has been knocked down more times than a metal duck in a shooting gallery. (Nearly a third aren’t sure if there’s any connection, while just over half think none exists.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The blithe rejection of scientific knowledge in favor of, well, fantasy has become so common that it now has a name: “denialism.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Denialism can take many forms, but most scholars agree that simply raising doubt about an issue can undercut the legitimacy of an entire corpus of scientific evidence in the public’s mind. And \u003ca href=\"http://www.lastwordonnothing.com/2012/04/25/the-impasse-when-the-truth-wins-assumption-fails/\">tactics for raising doubt\u003c/a> abound. Those identified by infectious disease experts in a \u003ca href=\"http://eurpub.oxfordjournals.org/content/19/1/2.full\">2009 commentary\u003c/a> include charges of conspiracy—for example, accusing vaccine advocates of profiting from the “vaccine-industrial complex”—and creating impossible expectations of what science can do—“absolute proof” that vaccines are safe, most recently raised by one-time “Saturday Night Live” cut-up Rob Schneider in a \u003ca href=\"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/01/rob-schneider-links-autism-vaccines_n_1641922.html\">bizarre interview\u003c/a>. I must point out that in \u003ca href=\"http://blogs.plos.org/thepanicvirus/2012/07/18/apparently-rob-schneider-thinks-all-caps-is-a-substitute-for-having-a-clue-a-lower-cased-fact-based-rebuttal/\">peddling his vaccine-autism insanity\u003c/a>, Schneider noted that autism was “nearly unheard of in the 1930s.” No joke. I guess he didn’t realize the syndrome wasn’t described until 1943.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Opportunistic Pathogens\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nIn a way, that 18% still believe vaccines cause autism shows progress—down from 25% just two years ago. But unlike the idea that humans spontaneously appeared through an act of God, believing against all evidence that vaccines cause autism (or ill-defined harm) can have dangerous consequences.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last month, CDC officials reported more than 18,000 cases of whooping cough (or pertussis) across the country—a rate of infection they hadn’t seen so early in the year since 1959. So far, nine babies have died.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California had its own epidemic in 2010, with more than 9,100 cases and 10 infant deaths.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pertussis is a vaccine-preventable disease. But prevention depends on public compliance. And people like Schneider who doubt vaccine safety tend to consider their children’s vaccinations optional. In the 2011 poll, 86% of doubters opted out of some or all of their kids’ scheduled shots. That’s why some blame vaccine skeptics for the current epidemic. With just 84% of toddlers fully vaccinated, it’s likely skeptics play some role.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But CDC officials aren’t sure what’s behind the epidemic, or why even vaccinated teenagers are getting sick. It’s possible that the \u003ca href=\"http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/08/pertussis-vax-effectiveness/\">vaccine isn’t as effective as researchers hoped\u003c/a> or has been \u003ca href=\"http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/health/jan-june11/pledge_03-16.html\">targeting the wrong pathogen strains\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_42266\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 296px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2012/08/08/doubt-and-denialism-vaccine-myths-persist-in-the-face-of-science/polio_vaccine_poster/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-42266\">\u003cimg class=\"size-large wp-image-42266\" title=\"Polio_vaccine_poster\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/08/Polio_vaccine_poster-296x360.jpg\" alt=\"polio vaccine poster\" width=\"296\" height=\"360\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The CDC’s national symbol of public health, the \"Wellbee\", appears in this 1963 poster to encourage the public to get the oral polio vaccine. (Image: CDC/ Mary Hilpertshauser)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>What officials do know is that \u003ca href=\"http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6128a1.htm\">unvaccinated kids are eight times as likely to get pertussis as vaccinated kids\u003c/a>. And when vaccinated kids do contract the disease, it’s much milder, doesn’t last as long, and tends to be less infectious.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s why public officials are \u003ca href=\"http://blogs.plos.org/bodypolitic/2012/07/26/a-forgotten-but-crucial-cause-for-the-pertussis-epidemic/\">urging adults, especially pregnant women, to get boosters\u003c/a> to protect children still too young to be fully vaccinated. Kids get the first of five pertussis shots (plus a later booster) at 2 months. Most pertussis deaths claim children younger than 3 months old. Nine of the 10 children who died in California during the 2010 outbreak were under 8 weeks old.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Separating Fears from Facts\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nAll this weighed heavily on my mind last week, when I \u003ca href=\"http://blogs.plos.org/biologue/2012/07/31/could-vaccines-breed-super-virulent-malaria/\">wrote about new research\u003c/a> that could conceivably feed vaccine doubts. \u003ca href=\"http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pbio.1001368\">The study\u003c/a>, a fascinating investigation of experimental evolution in lab mice, found that vaccines can favor the evolution of more virulent malaria parasites.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Vicki Barclay (a postdoc in evolutionary biologist \u003ca href=\"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvXc9aMF6CA\">Andrew Read\u003c/a>’s group at Penn State University) vaccinated mice with a malaria protein found in several vaccines now in clinical trials. She mimicked natural disease transmission by using needles instead of mosquitoes and letting parasites grow in one mouse before infecting the next one. (She did the same thing with unvaccinated mice.) Parasites that evolved in immunized mice caused more severe disease symptoms than those that evolved in unvaccinated mice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Inevitably, some will misconstrue these results to confirm their belief that vaccines aren’t safe. Except the findings don’t say anything about vaccine safety. They show that, from a pathogen’s point of view, medical technologies act like any other selective pressure. We spend billions to develop the most powerful drugs science can muster only to discover we’re outnumbered, outgunned, and outmaneuvered. Millions of years of evolution have endowed pathogens with survival strategies we’ve yet to imagine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lest you delude yourself into thinking we humans have an edge in this evolutionary battle, consider this: Scientists have managed to wipe out just one human pathogen. Ever. After Edward Jenner discovered a smallpox vaccine in 1798, it took nearly 200 years and an all-out international effort to eradicate this disfiguring disease.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As Read and Barclay’s study shows, when you try to kill pathogens, they fight back. And when vaccines don’t destroy all the parasites (like the \u003ca href=\"http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/335354/title/Malaria_vaccine_yields_protection\">malaria vaccine now in clinical trials)\u003c/a> or fail to provide lifelong immunity (like the pertussis vaccine), the survivors can evolve. And they might come back even stronger.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I know that most people who shun government vaccine schedules \u003ca href=\"http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.1000114\">have their children’s best interests at heart\u003c/a>. Some truly worry that vaccines may somehow cause irreversible damage to their child—and if it happened, how could they ever forgive themselves?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But anyone who chooses not to vaccinate their kids is missing something critical: the pathogens vaccine researchers are trying so desperately to control are formidable opponents. And though scientists still have a lot to learn about how pathogens adapt to our efforts to control them, they’re sure of this much: vaccines aren’t the enemy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Vaccines rarely provide 100% protection. But they’re the state-of-the-art defense against infectious disease.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What’s more, if vaccine-preventable diseases like pertussis become more virulent, and there’s \u003ca href=\"http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/15/8/pdfs/08-1511.pdf\">some evidence that this may be true\u003c/a>, those who refuse vaccination will have little recourse when their kids—or their neighbors’ kids—take ill.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_41736\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2012/08/06/making-new-eggs/ovary/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-41736\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/08/Ovary.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"Ovary\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" class=\"size-full wp-image-41736\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/39/2012/08/Ovary.jpg 640w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/39/2012/08/Ovary-400x225.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Ovaries like this one have a few cells that still have the potential to become eggs.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Everyone knows that women are born with all the eggs they can ever make, right? Well, a recent \u003ca href=\"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22366948\">study \u003c/a>shows that everyone just might be wrong. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This doesn’t just change how we think about reproductive biology. It has real world implications for lots of infertile women too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A woman makes all of her eggs while she is still in the womb. The way it works is that a group of cells called germ cells divides until they are nearly mature. These 400,000 or so cells then wait around until the woman is born and enters puberty. Then, around one cell per month matures and is released. By menopause, the average woman has released about 400 mature eggs. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scientists thought for a long time that once ovaries made their batch of immature eggs, they lost this ability forever. They were mistaken. This study showed that a woman’s ovaries still have a few cells that retain their potential to become eggs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These researchers not only identified these oogonial stem cells (or OSCs), but also managed to collect a few and to coax them into becoming immature oocytes in a petri dish. They then matured these immature oocytes in a mouse’s ovary. These scientists had created new eggs from cells found in a woman’s ovaries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And they didn’t stop there. These scientists showed that mouse OSCs created the same way were capable of being fertilized and growing into healthy pups. The eggs made from these OSCs appear to be fully functional and like eggs in every way. (At least the mouse ones are.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This changes how we think about egg biology. And more importantly, about how we might treat infertility in women in the near future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many women are infertile because there is something wrong with their eggs. Except in a few \u003ca href=\"http://genetics.thetech.org/ask/ask70\">rare cases\u003c/a>, this has meant that these women could not have children that shared their DNA. This new finding gives them hope.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If scientists can somehow get OSCs from an infertile woman, they will be able to turn it into an egg. Then a doctor would just follow the standard protocols of in vitro fertilization and nine months later, a baby.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since these cells won’t be easy to get, an even better possibility would be to somehow encourage the cells into becoming eggs within the woman’s ovaries. Now she’d just be making eggs like she used to.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This might also help older women conceive. Older women’s eggs tend to have lower quality DNA which makes getting pregnant more difficult. If OSCs suffer less DNA damage, then perhaps this technique can be used to give older women a better chance at getting pregnant.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_41736\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2012/08/06/making-new-eggs/ovary/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-41736\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/08/Ovary.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"Ovary\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" class=\"size-full wp-image-41736\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/39/2012/08/Ovary.jpg 640w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/39/2012/08/Ovary-400x225.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Ovaries like this one have a few cells that still have the potential to become eggs.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Everyone knows that women are born with all the eggs they can ever make, right? Well, a recent \u003ca href=\"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22366948\">study \u003c/a>shows that everyone just might be wrong. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This doesn’t just change how we think about reproductive biology. It has real world implications for lots of infertile women too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A woman makes all of her eggs while she is still in the womb. The way it works is that a group of cells called germ cells divides until they are nearly mature. These 400,000 or so cells then wait around until the woman is born and enters puberty. Then, around one cell per month matures and is released. By menopause, the average woman has released about 400 mature eggs. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scientists thought for a long time that once ovaries made their batch of immature eggs, they lost this ability forever. They were mistaken. This study showed that a woman’s ovaries still have a few cells that retain their potential to become eggs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These researchers not only identified these oogonial stem cells (or OSCs), but also managed to collect a few and to coax them into becoming immature oocytes in a petri dish. They then matured these immature oocytes in a mouse’s ovary. These scientists had created new eggs from cells found in a woman’s ovaries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And they didn’t stop there. These scientists showed that mouse OSCs created the same way were capable of being fertilized and growing into healthy pups. The eggs made from these OSCs appear to be fully functional and like eggs in every way. (At least the mouse ones are.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This changes how we think about egg biology. And more importantly, about how we might treat infertility in women in the near future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many women are infertile because there is something wrong with their eggs. Except in a few \u003ca href=\"http://genetics.thetech.org/ask/ask70\">rare cases\u003c/a>, this has meant that these women could not have children that shared their DNA. This new finding gives them hope.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If scientists can somehow get OSCs from an infertile woman, they will be able to turn it into an egg. Then a doctor would just follow the standard protocols of in vitro fertilization and nine months later, a baby.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since these cells won’t be easy to get, an even better possibility would be to somehow encourage the cells into becoming eggs within the woman’s ovaries. Now she’d just be making eggs like she used to.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This might also help older women conceive. Older women’s eggs tend to have lower quality DNA which makes getting pregnant more difficult. If OSCs suffer less DNA damage, then perhaps this technique can be used to give older women a better chance at getting pregnant.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_42120\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/08/stemcell-researchers640x360.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/08/stemcell-researchers640x360.jpg\" alt=\"UCB researchers exam vascular stem cells in the microscope\" title=\"stemcell-researchers640x360\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" class=\"size-full wp-image-42120\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/39/2012/08/stemcell-researchers640x360.jpg 640w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/39/2012/08/stemcell-researchers640x360-400x225.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Zhenyu Tang (seated at microscope) examines vascular stem cells in culture along with Aijun Wang (left) and Song Li (right). (Zoey Huang photo.)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Odds are that you know someone who’s had a heart attack. One American suffers a coronary event \u003ca href=\"http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/125/1/e2.full.pdf\" title=\"prevalence of atherosclerosis\">every 25 seconds and about every minute\u003c/a> someone dies from one. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Doctors thought they understood artery-hardening diseases, such as \u003ca href=\"http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/health-topics/topics/atherosclerosis/\" title=\"about atherosclerosis\">atherosclerosis\u003c/a>, that lead to heart attacks, strokes and death. But these generally accepted theories are contradicted by new research performed at the University of California, Berkeley. According to a \u003ca href=\"http://www.nature.com/ncomms/journal/v3/n6/full/ncomms1867.html\" title=\"Song Li journal article in Nature Communications\">new study\u003c/a> published in \u003cem>Nature Communications\u003c/em>, a previously unknown type of stem cell is actually the underlying cause for clogged arteries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For decades, scientists believed that heart disease was caused by the smooth muscle cells that line artery walls. It was thought that bad (LDL) cholesterol damaged the arteries and triggered smooth muscle cells to rapidly reproduce. This led to a build up of fibrous scar tissue that narrowed and hardened the arteries, restricting blood flow. As a result, most therapies focus on physically widening the inside of the blood vessels or replacing the damaged area with a graft.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These beliefs are challenged by new research performed by principle investigator Song Li, a professor of bioengineering and researcher at the Berkeley Stem Cell Center, and his colleagues.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For the first time, we are showing evidence that vascular diseases are actually a kind of stem cell disease,” said Song Li in a university news release. “This work should revolutionize therapies for vascular diseases because we now know that stem cells rather than smooth muscle cells are the correct therapeutic target.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Analyzing cells from arteries and veins of transgenic mice, the researchers were able to trace the lineage of the cells that rapidly reproduced in the vessel walls to prove that they were not smooth muscle cells as current theory predicted. Further experiments discovered that they are actually multipotent vascular stem cells, meaning that they can become various specialized cells – smooth muscle, nerve, cartilage, bone and fat cells. The same type of stem cells were also identified in human blood vessels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This explains why previous studies mistook the multipotent vascular stem cells as smooth muscle cells. It also explains how a soft artery can calcify and harden, since the multipotent stem cells can also form bone and cartilage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_42124\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 319px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/08/stemcell-schematic350.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/08/stemcell-schematic350-319x253.jpg\" alt=\"Within walls of blood vessels are smooth muscle cells and newly discovered vascular stem cells. The stem cells are able to differentiate into smooth muscle cells, fat, cartilage and bone cells. UC Berkeley researchers provide evidence that these stem cells are contributing to clogged and hardened arteries.\" title=\"stemcell-schematic350\" width=\"319\" height=\"253\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-42124\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Within the walls of blood vessels are smooth muscle cells and newly discovered vascular stem cells. The stem cells are able to differentiate into smooth muscle, fat, cartilage and bone cells. UC Berkeley researchers provide evidence that these stem cells are contributing to clogged and hardened arteries. (Song Li illustration)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>When new research dramatically challenges existing scientific beliefs, often people resist the new ideas. Dr. Jill Helms, a professor in the Department of Surgery at Stanford School of Medicine and co-author of the study, explained in an \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/2012/06/08/154587990/identifying-the-real-culprit-behind-killer-vascular-diseases\" title=\"Jill Helms NPR Science Friday interview\">NPR interview\u003c/a>, “There is resistance oftentimes, but there can be moments where there’s great clarity and I think Song’s work certainly falls within that category.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, the research still needs to be repeated by other research groups, as well as verified in other animals and humans. Song Li’s collaboration is already studying human cells from healthy and diseased arteries. They are also developing techniques to rapidly screen drugs that specifically target these stem cells without affecting the normal (endothelial) cells that line a blood vessel, which could ultimately lead to new therapies.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Scientists thought they understood how arteries hardened and clogged, but they may have been wrong. New research indicates that a previously unknown type of stem cell is actually the underlying cause of clogged arteries. If confirmed, it could lead to new therapies.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_42120\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/08/stemcell-researchers640x360.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/08/stemcell-researchers640x360.jpg\" alt=\"UCB researchers exam vascular stem cells in the microscope\" title=\"stemcell-researchers640x360\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" class=\"size-full wp-image-42120\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/39/2012/08/stemcell-researchers640x360.jpg 640w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/39/2012/08/stemcell-researchers640x360-400x225.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Zhenyu Tang (seated at microscope) examines vascular stem cells in culture along with Aijun Wang (left) and Song Li (right). (Zoey Huang photo.)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Odds are that you know someone who’s had a heart attack. One American suffers a coronary event \u003ca href=\"http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/125/1/e2.full.pdf\" title=\"prevalence of atherosclerosis\">every 25 seconds and about every minute\u003c/a> someone dies from one. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Doctors thought they understood artery-hardening diseases, such as \u003ca href=\"http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/health-topics/topics/atherosclerosis/\" title=\"about atherosclerosis\">atherosclerosis\u003c/a>, that lead to heart attacks, strokes and death. But these generally accepted theories are contradicted by new research performed at the University of California, Berkeley. According to a \u003ca href=\"http://www.nature.com/ncomms/journal/v3/n6/full/ncomms1867.html\" title=\"Song Li journal article in Nature Communications\">new study\u003c/a> published in \u003cem>Nature Communications\u003c/em>, a previously unknown type of stem cell is actually the underlying cause for clogged arteries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For decades, scientists believed that heart disease was caused by the smooth muscle cells that line artery walls. It was thought that bad (LDL) cholesterol damaged the arteries and triggered smooth muscle cells to rapidly reproduce. This led to a build up of fibrous scar tissue that narrowed and hardened the arteries, restricting blood flow. As a result, most therapies focus on physically widening the inside of the blood vessels or replacing the damaged area with a graft.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These beliefs are challenged by new research performed by principle investigator Song Li, a professor of bioengineering and researcher at the Berkeley Stem Cell Center, and his colleagues.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For the first time, we are showing evidence that vascular diseases are actually a kind of stem cell disease,” said Song Li in a university news release. “This work should revolutionize therapies for vascular diseases because we now know that stem cells rather than smooth muscle cells are the correct therapeutic target.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Analyzing cells from arteries and veins of transgenic mice, the researchers were able to trace the lineage of the cells that rapidly reproduced in the vessel walls to prove that they were not smooth muscle cells as current theory predicted. Further experiments discovered that they are actually multipotent vascular stem cells, meaning that they can become various specialized cells – smooth muscle, nerve, cartilage, bone and fat cells. The same type of stem cells were also identified in human blood vessels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This explains why previous studies mistook the multipotent vascular stem cells as smooth muscle cells. It also explains how a soft artery can calcify and harden, since the multipotent stem cells can also form bone and cartilage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_42124\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 319px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/08/stemcell-schematic350.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/08/stemcell-schematic350-319x253.jpg\" alt=\"Within walls of blood vessels are smooth muscle cells and newly discovered vascular stem cells. The stem cells are able to differentiate into smooth muscle cells, fat, cartilage and bone cells. UC Berkeley researchers provide evidence that these stem cells are contributing to clogged and hardened arteries.\" title=\"stemcell-schematic350\" width=\"319\" height=\"253\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-42124\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Within the walls of blood vessels are smooth muscle cells and newly discovered vascular stem cells. The stem cells are able to differentiate into smooth muscle, fat, cartilage and bone cells. UC Berkeley researchers provide evidence that these stem cells are contributing to clogged and hardened arteries. (Song Li illustration)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>When new research dramatically challenges existing scientific beliefs, often people resist the new ideas. Dr. Jill Helms, a professor in the Department of Surgery at Stanford School of Medicine and co-author of the study, explained in an \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/2012/06/08/154587990/identifying-the-real-culprit-behind-killer-vascular-diseases\" title=\"Jill Helms NPR Science Friday interview\">NPR interview\u003c/a>, “There is resistance oftentimes, but there can be moments where there’s great clarity and I think Song’s work certainly falls within that category.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, the research still needs to be repeated by other research groups, as well as verified in other animals and humans. Song Li’s collaboration is already studying human cells from healthy and diseased arteries. They are also developing techniques to rapidly screen drugs that specifically target these stem cells without affecting the normal (endothelial) cells that line a blood vessel, which could ultimately lead to new therapies.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"disqusTitle": "Prescription Drug Disposal: Who Should Foot the Bill?",
"title": "Prescription Drug Disposal: Who Should Foot the Bill?",
"headTitle": "QUEST | KQED Science",
"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_41613\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2012/08/01/prescription-drug-disposal-who-should-foot-the-bill/novomycin-resize/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-41613\">\u003cimg class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-41613\" title=\"novomycin resize\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/07/novomycin-resize-300x169.jpg\" alt=\"antibiotics\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Credit:{link url=\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Last week, the Alameda County Board of Supervisors passed an ordinance requiring pharmaceutical companies to pay for prescription drug take-back programs in the county. The legislation is the \u003ca href=\"http://www.calpsc.org/assets/press/2012/2012-07-24_SupervisorMileyPressRelease.pdf\">first of its kind in the country\u003c/a>, though the industry has voluntarily contributed to a pilot drug disposal program currently running in San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Supporters say the new rules will help prevent prescription drug abuse and will protect our waterways from being polluted by unused medicine flushed down a toilet. A representative for the industry group \u003ca href=\"http://www.phrma.org/\">Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"http://www.calpsc.org/assets/products/2012/2012-07-05_PhRMALetterofOpposition.pdf\"> says the group disagrees\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s debate over whether take-back programs \u003ca href=\"http://www.conservationmagazine.org/2012/05/junk-medicine/\">really are environmentally friendly\u003c/a>. But I’ll leave the environmental and public health discussion for another time. This new regulation, if it stands, is about money. And it’s part of a larger movement to shift responsibility for waste disposal from local governments to companies that make products like paint and batteries. Manufacturers then add the disposal costs to a product’s purchase price.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pharmaceutical companies already pay for medicine disposal in the Canadian province of British Columbia, under requirements set by provincial legislation passed in 1997. Last year, \u003ca href=\"http://www.medicationsreturn.ca/\">the take-back program\u003c/a> collected about 76 tons of medicine from more than 1000 drop-off locations around the province. Containers, collection and medication incineration for the province \u003ca href=\"http://www.calpsc.org/assets/products/2012/2012-04-23_BC%20Case%20Study.pdf\">cost about $430,000\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Drug take-back programs here in the U.S. are nothing new. Since September 2010, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Association has sponsored four nationwide medicine collection events. In the Bay Area, pharmacies and police stations\u003ca href=\"http://www.savesfbay.org/pharmaceutical-disposal-sites\"> from San Jose to Petaluma\u003c/a> regularly accept drugs for disposal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But it’s harder to find \u003ca href=\"http://www.takebacknetwork.com/local_efforts.html\">drop-off locations in other parts of the country\u003c/a>, especially those that accept controlled substances like narcotic painkillers. Cash-strapped city and county governments struggle to fund these programs within complicated federal, state and local regulations for medicine collection and disposal -- let alone pay staff members to administer the programs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A federal law designed to carefully track potentially abused medicines, with the goal of reducing the possibility that they end up in the wrong hands, inadvertently limits collection locations. The U.S. Controlled Substances Act strictly limits who can accept unused narcotics. Only law enforcement officers can collect medicines recognized by this act, including steroids, sleeping pills and antidepressants. It’s turned into a big headache for pharmaceutical take-back program organizers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Convenience matters when choosing locations for pharmaceutical disposal sites, and a police station may not be the best choice. People tend to return medicine to a pharmacy where they first picked it up, but the current law prevents pharmacists from accepting controlled substances unless a police officer is present.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Secure and Responsible Drug Disposal Act, signed by President Barak Obama in October 2010, addresses this legal restriction. This new law gives the U.S. Attorney General power to modify the Controlled Substances Act and extend collection privileges to people other than law enforcement officers. However, the DEA hasn’t released the new regulations yet, and disposal program organizers hope the new rules will appear soon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But even once the federal regulations are changed, there are state and local waste regulations to consider. In California, for example, medicines in a home are considered residential waste and exempt from any state disposal laws. But once drugs are combined in the same bin at a business or collection site, \u003ca href=\"http://www.calrecycle.ca.gov/homehazwaste/Medications/Business.htm\">voluntary state guidelines effective until January 2013\u003c/a> recommend treating it as medical waste. The new Alameda County ordinance requires it to be incinerated, and there are no medical or hazardous waste incinerators in the state. That means pharmaceutical waste must be shipped across state lines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s an added wrinkle for controlled substances. If the collection bin contains any of these drugs, federal law requires it to remain the property of law enforcement or specially registered waste haulers until it is destroyed. In California, police officers accompany these collection bins to waste-to-energy incinerators in Los Angeles and Stanislaus County, says Bill Pollock, program manager of the Alameda County Household Hazardous Waste Program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pharmaceutical disposal programs know how to work within these regulations, says Stevan Gressitt, one of the founders of the Institute for Pharmaceutical Safety, a collaboration of clinicians from several Maine universities. But running such a program requires consistant funding to cover medicine collection, disposal and staff training and time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the public asks for medicine take-back programs, local governments struggle to fund them, says Heidi Sandborn, executive director of the \u003ca href=\"http://www.calpsc.org/index.html\">California Product Stewardship Council\u003c/a>. That spurs legislation like the new Alameda County ordinance requiring the pharmaceutical industry share the responsibility for disposing of waste medicine. A stable source of funding means that collection sites can expand to convenient locations for more Alameda County residents, like pharmacies and hazardous waste drop off sites, Pollock says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This regulation is in the same spirit as \u003ca href=\"http://www.calrecycle.ca.gov/epr/PolicyLaw/Paint.htm\">one signed by the governor in 2010\u003c/a> requiring paint companies to pay for disposal of leftover paint. Paint sold in California will soon have a surcharge to cover its disposal, Pollock says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Unlike paint, the challenges of funding a medicine disposal program may not be over yet. A representative for PhRMA, the pharmaceutical industry group, \u003ca href=\"http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Calif-county-makes-industry-pay-to-toss-Rx-pills-3729594.php\"> told the Associated Press\u003c/a> that she questioned the county’s ability to require the industry to pay for such programs, although no legal challenge has been considered.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you're looking to get rid of unused medicine and there are no take-back programs near you, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has \u003ca href=\"//www.fda.gov/downloads/Drugs/ResourcesForYou/Consumers/BuyingUsingMedicineSafely/UnderstandingOver-the-CounterMedicines/ucm107163.pdf%E2%80%9D\">guidelines\u003c/a> for its disposal. When directed by the manufacturer, flush some medicine down the toilet. Otherwise, mix the drugs with coffee grounds or other unpalatable things and throw it away.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>UPDATE 8/1/12: The article was corrected to reflect the fact that household medicines combined in a bin at a collection site are not classified as medical waste, as was originally stated, but voluntarily handled as such.\u003c/em>\u003cbr>\n\u003cbr clear=\"all\">\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "A new ordinance in Alameda County requires the pharmaceutical industry to pay for disposal of extra medicine. The regulation is part of a larger movement to shift responsibility for waste disposal from local governments to companies that make products like paint, medicine and batteries.",
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"description": "A new ordinance in Alameda County requires the pharmaceutical industry to pay for disposal of extra medicine. The regulation is part of a larger movement to shift responsibility for waste disposal from local governments to companies that make products like paint, medicine and batteries.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_41613\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2012/08/01/prescription-drug-disposal-who-should-foot-the-bill/novomycin-resize/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-41613\">\u003cimg class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-41613\" title=\"novomycin resize\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/07/novomycin-resize-300x169.jpg\" alt=\"antibiotics\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Credit:{link url=\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Last week, the Alameda County Board of Supervisors passed an ordinance requiring pharmaceutical companies to pay for prescription drug take-back programs in the county. The legislation is the \u003ca href=\"http://www.calpsc.org/assets/press/2012/2012-07-24_SupervisorMileyPressRelease.pdf\">first of its kind in the country\u003c/a>, though the industry has voluntarily contributed to a pilot drug disposal program currently running in San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Supporters say the new rules will help prevent prescription drug abuse and will protect our waterways from being polluted by unused medicine flushed down a toilet. A representative for the industry group \u003ca href=\"http://www.phrma.org/\">Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"http://www.calpsc.org/assets/products/2012/2012-07-05_PhRMALetterofOpposition.pdf\"> says the group disagrees\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s debate over whether take-back programs \u003ca href=\"http://www.conservationmagazine.org/2012/05/junk-medicine/\">really are environmentally friendly\u003c/a>. But I’ll leave the environmental and public health discussion for another time. This new regulation, if it stands, is about money. And it’s part of a larger movement to shift responsibility for waste disposal from local governments to companies that make products like paint and batteries. Manufacturers then add the disposal costs to a product’s purchase price.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pharmaceutical companies already pay for medicine disposal in the Canadian province of British Columbia, under requirements set by provincial legislation passed in 1997. Last year, \u003ca href=\"http://www.medicationsreturn.ca/\">the take-back program\u003c/a> collected about 76 tons of medicine from more than 1000 drop-off locations around the province. Containers, collection and medication incineration for the province \u003ca href=\"http://www.calpsc.org/assets/products/2012/2012-04-23_BC%20Case%20Study.pdf\">cost about $430,000\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Drug take-back programs here in the U.S. are nothing new. Since September 2010, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Association has sponsored four nationwide medicine collection events. In the Bay Area, pharmacies and police stations\u003ca href=\"http://www.savesfbay.org/pharmaceutical-disposal-sites\"> from San Jose to Petaluma\u003c/a> regularly accept drugs for disposal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But it’s harder to find \u003ca href=\"http://www.takebacknetwork.com/local_efforts.html\">drop-off locations in other parts of the country\u003c/a>, especially those that accept controlled substances like narcotic painkillers. Cash-strapped city and county governments struggle to fund these programs within complicated federal, state and local regulations for medicine collection and disposal -- let alone pay staff members to administer the programs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A federal law designed to carefully track potentially abused medicines, with the goal of reducing the possibility that they end up in the wrong hands, inadvertently limits collection locations. The U.S. Controlled Substances Act strictly limits who can accept unused narcotics. Only law enforcement officers can collect medicines recognized by this act, including steroids, sleeping pills and antidepressants. It’s turned into a big headache for pharmaceutical take-back program organizers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Convenience matters when choosing locations for pharmaceutical disposal sites, and a police station may not be the best choice. People tend to return medicine to a pharmacy where they first picked it up, but the current law prevents pharmacists from accepting controlled substances unless a police officer is present.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Secure and Responsible Drug Disposal Act, signed by President Barak Obama in October 2010, addresses this legal restriction. This new law gives the U.S. Attorney General power to modify the Controlled Substances Act and extend collection privileges to people other than law enforcement officers. However, the DEA hasn’t released the new regulations yet, and disposal program organizers hope the new rules will appear soon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But even once the federal regulations are changed, there are state and local waste regulations to consider. In California, for example, medicines in a home are considered residential waste and exempt from any state disposal laws. But once drugs are combined in the same bin at a business or collection site, \u003ca href=\"http://www.calrecycle.ca.gov/homehazwaste/Medications/Business.htm\">voluntary state guidelines effective until January 2013\u003c/a> recommend treating it as medical waste. The new Alameda County ordinance requires it to be incinerated, and there are no medical or hazardous waste incinerators in the state. That means pharmaceutical waste must be shipped across state lines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s an added wrinkle for controlled substances. If the collection bin contains any of these drugs, federal law requires it to remain the property of law enforcement or specially registered waste haulers until it is destroyed. In California, police officers accompany these collection bins to waste-to-energy incinerators in Los Angeles and Stanislaus County, says Bill Pollock, program manager of the Alameda County Household Hazardous Waste Program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pharmaceutical disposal programs know how to work within these regulations, says Stevan Gressitt, one of the founders of the Institute for Pharmaceutical Safety, a collaboration of clinicians from several Maine universities. But running such a program requires consistant funding to cover medicine collection, disposal and staff training and time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the public asks for medicine take-back programs, local governments struggle to fund them, says Heidi Sandborn, executive director of the \u003ca href=\"http://www.calpsc.org/index.html\">California Product Stewardship Council\u003c/a>. That spurs legislation like the new Alameda County ordinance requiring the pharmaceutical industry share the responsibility for disposing of waste medicine. A stable source of funding means that collection sites can expand to convenient locations for more Alameda County residents, like pharmacies and hazardous waste drop off sites, Pollock says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This regulation is in the same spirit as \u003ca href=\"http://www.calrecycle.ca.gov/epr/PolicyLaw/Paint.htm\">one signed by the governor in 2010\u003c/a> requiring paint companies to pay for disposal of leftover paint. Paint sold in California will soon have a surcharge to cover its disposal, Pollock says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Unlike paint, the challenges of funding a medicine disposal program may not be over yet. A representative for PhRMA, the pharmaceutical industry group, \u003ca href=\"http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Calif-county-makes-industry-pay-to-toss-Rx-pills-3729594.php\"> told the Associated Press\u003c/a> that she questioned the county’s ability to require the industry to pay for such programs, although no legal challenge has been considered.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you're looking to get rid of unused medicine and there are no take-back programs near you, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has \u003ca href=\"//www.fda.gov/downloads/Drugs/ResourcesForYou/Consumers/BuyingUsingMedicineSafely/UnderstandingOver-the-CounterMedicines/ucm107163.pdf%E2%80%9D\">guidelines\u003c/a> for its disposal. When directed by the manufacturer, flush some medicine down the toilet. Otherwise, mix the drugs with coffee grounds or other unpalatable things and throw it away.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>UPDATE 8/1/12: The article was corrected to reflect the fact that household medicines combined in a bin at a collection site are not classified as medical waste, as was originally stated, but voluntarily handled as such.\u003c/em>\u003cbr>\n\u003cbr clear=\"all\">\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
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"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
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"mindshift": {
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"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
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"order": 12
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"info": "For decades, the process for how police police themselves has been inconsistent – if not opaque. In some states, like California, these proceedings were completely hidden. After a new police transparency law unsealed scores of internal affairs files, our reporters set out to examine these cases and the shadow world of police discipline. On Our Watch brings listeners into the rooms where officers are questioned and witnesses are interrogated to find out who this system is really protecting. Is it the officers, or the public they've sworn to serve?",
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"tagline": "Politics from a personal perspective",
"info": "Political Breakdown is a new series that explores the political intersection of California and the nation. Each week hosts Scott Shafer and Marisa Lagos are joined with a new special guest to unpack politics -- with personality — and offer an insider’s glimpse at how politics happens.",
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"possible": {
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"title": "Possible",
"info": "Possible is hosted by entrepreneur Reid Hoffman and writer Aria Finger. Together in Possible, Hoffman and Finger lead enlightening discussions about building a brighter collective future. The show features interviews with visionary guests like Trevor Noah, Sam Altman and Janette Sadik-Khan. Possible paints an optimistic portrait of the world we can create through science, policy, business, art and our shared humanity. It asks: What if everything goes right for once? How can we get there? Each episode also includes a short fiction story generated by advanced AI GPT-4, serving as a thought-provoking springboard to speculate how humanity could leverage technology for good.",
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"pri-the-world": {
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"title": "PRI's The World: Latest Edition",
"info": "Each weekday, host Marco Werman and his team of producers bring you the world's most interesting stories in an hour of radio that reminds us just how small our planet really is.",
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"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-World-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
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},
"radiolab": {
"id": "radiolab",
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"info": "A two-time Peabody Award-winner, Radiolab is an investigation told through sounds and stories, and centered around one big idea. In the Radiolab world, information sounds like music and science and culture collide. Hosted by Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich, the show is designed for listeners who demand skepticism, but appreciate wonder. WNYC Studios is the producer of other leading podcasts including Freakonomics Radio, Death, Sex & Money, On the Media and many more.",
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},
"reveal": {
"id": "reveal",
"title": "Reveal",
"info": "Created by The Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX, Reveal is public radios first one-hour weekly radio show and podcast dedicated to investigative reporting. Credible, fact based and without a partisan agenda, Reveal combines the power and artistry of driveway moment storytelling with data-rich reporting on critically important issues. The result is stories that inform and inspire, arming our listeners with information to right injustices, hold the powerful accountable and improve lives.Reveal is hosted by Al Letson and showcases the award-winning work of CIR and newsrooms large and small across the nation. In a radio and podcast market crowded with choices, Reveal focuses on important and often surprising stories that illuminate the world for our listeners.",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.revealnews.org/episodes/",
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},
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