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Tattoos: Unlikely but Plausible Friends of the Immune System
“Humans have marked their bodies with tattoos for thousands of years. These permanent designs—sometimes plain, sometimes elaborate, always personal—have served as amulets, status symbols, declarations of love, signs of religious beliefs, adornments and even forms of punishment.” Until a few decades ago, the earliest known tattoos were those found on several Egyptian female mummies dated to 2000 B.C. However, the discovery of the Ötzi, an ancient mummified human body found by a German tourist on the Italian-Austrian border in 1991, provided the first evidence that tattoos have been around for more than 5,000 years. Using imaging techniques, anthropologists have mapped 61 tattoos on the mummified Ötzi. The tattoos were made…
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The unexpected gift of a strong immune system: we’re more attractive
By Roberta Attanasio Why are we attracted to one face over another? What makes a face attractive and another one less attractive? “Research finds that features such as clear skin, prominent cheekbones, bright eyes, and full, red lips have been deemed attractive throughout recorded human history Research also finds a consistent preference for symmetrical and average faces. Although some argue that standards of beauty are primarily the product of Western media exposure, research suggests these standards transcend age and cultural boundaries, being demonstrated in infants, as well as in those living in societies with little exposure to Western media.” Evolutionary theories propose that our preferences for certain facial features evolved…
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How COVID-19 sets off ravaging inflammation in some people
By Roberta Attanasio Back in March 2020, Jane Brody wrote in The New York Times “While most people focus, as they should, on social distancing, face coverings, hand washing and even self-isolation to protect against the deadly coronavirus now ravaging the country, too few are paying serious attention to two other factors critically important to the risk of developing a Covid-19 infection and its potential severity. Those factors are immunity, which should be boosted, and inflammation, which should be suppressed.” However, major efforts were already underway at that time not only to develop a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine, but also to understand how the virus triggers a blizzard of uncontrolled inflammatory immune…
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Why you should sleep with lights off during the night
By Roberta Attanasio In cities and towns all around the world, the nighttime glow of artificial light obscures views of the cosmos and contributes to an environmental problem called “light pollution.” Light pollution can also be present at smaller scale, for example in neighborhoods, or in homes. Often, this problem is caused by superfluous light. Solutions such as covering streetlights to direct beams downward or turning off unnecessary lights can be very effective. But why do we need to think about solutions? “For billions of years, biology evolved in a world where light and dark was controlled by the length of the day. When the sun went down, celestial sources…
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Breastfeeding regulates the immune system and improves babies’ health
By Roberta Attanasio “As long as there have been babies, there have been breastfeeding mothers, providing infants with basic, essential nutrition. But for a surprisingly long time, there have also been baby bottles, used to feed infants when mothers couldn’t. ‘We talk about the golden age where everybody breastfed, and that age never happened,’ says Suzanne Barston, author of Bottled Up: How the Way We Feed Babies has Come to Define Motherhood, and Why it Shouldn’t.” Although the way we feed babies should not define motherhood, and mothers should decide what works best for them in their own situation, it is well established that breastfeeding is one of the most…
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New evidence for a link between Epstein-Barr virus and multiple sclerosis
By Roberta Attanasio For years, Epstein-Barr virus has been a prime suspect in the effort to identify the cause of multiple sclerosis, a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nearly 1 million people in the United States and an estimated 2.8 million people worldwide. A recently published study shows that, indeed, Epstein-Barr virus is the likely cause of multiple sclerosis—an inflammatory disease of the central nervous system. In people with multiple sclerosis, the immune system attacks the myelin sheaths protecting neurons in the brain and spinal cord, disrupting communication within the brain, and between the brain and body. The interruption of communication signals causes unpredictable symptoms such as numbness, tingling, mood…
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Bone loss? Osteoporosis? Don’t forget your prunes
By Roberta Attanasio “I like a good prune. I mean, when it’s soft and sweaty like a candy bar on a hot day. When it’s a sinister Disney-villain shade of brownish purple, and it tastes of nothing but honey and caramel, what’s not to like?” Prunes are dried plums, rich in phenolic compounds. Carried from China along the Silk Road thousands of years ago, plum trees flourished all over the Mediterranean basin under the aegis of the Greeks and Romans. The fruits were dried in the sun or in bakers’ ovens, depending on the region, transforming them into prunes. Because of their high nutritional values and long shelf life, prunes…
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Pythagoras, fava beans, and favism
By Roberta Attanasio Pythagoras—a cloak-wearing mystical leader with a handsome beard—lived about 2,500 year ago in a community that cherished numbers. He was a native of the Aegean Island of Samos, but later in his life migrated westward and founded a school in Kroton (now Crotone) in South Italy. The school was called the “Semicircle of Pythagoras” and followed a code of secrecy. It was a cradle of mathematical research, but it had also an ascetic and religious character. Notably, Pythagoras’ philosophical views influenced both Plato and Aristotle. Although his famous theorem about right-angled triangles was likely developed by the Babylonians, Pythagoras is considered the first mathematician and a philosophical…
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A new way of thinking about ice packs for sore muscles
By Roberta Attanasio We all know ice packs—many of us reach for them soon after an injury to reduce pain or inflammation. Think of strained muscles, sprained ankles, and so on. But is this the right approach to accelerate healing? A 2019 article from The Washington Post states: “Today, ice packs have become as ubiquitous as aspirin—they’re a fixture in every athletic training facility and sold in drugstores throughout the country. Cold baths and ice tubs have also become one of sport’s most popular recovery aids. Nearly every high school, college and pro trainer’s room has at least one ice tub, and over the last 10 or 15 years they’ve…
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Spending time in nature may improve emotional wellbeing during the COVID-19 pandemic
By Roberta Attanasio The toll that the COVID-19 pandemic is taking on mental health, for both children and adults, is unequivocal. An article published in The New York Times in February 2021 highlights a dire situation: “Since the first coronavirus case was confirmed in the United States more than a year ago, the number of people in need of mental health services has surged. But many say that they are languishing on waiting lists, making call after call only to be turned away, with affordable options tough to find. Providers, who have long been in short supply, are stretched thin.” According to an article published at about the same time in…
