Research results on drug-gene interactions are much less likely to be replicated if they are performed by hierarchical communities or close-knit groups of frequent collaborators who use similar methods, instead of independent groups of scientists using different methods, suggests a paper published last week in eLife. The findings may help improve the reliability of scientific results...
A hard tackle on the football-field, a crash on your bike or a fall from a ladder in your home can easily cause a concussion, which eventually can cost your job – especially if you are in your thirties, and have a higher education. These are some of the findings in a large new register-based data...
This July will be the 30th anniversary of Spike Lee’s hit film Do The Right Thing, which took place in the Bedford-Stuyvesant (“Bed-Stuy”) neighborhood of central Brooklyn. And almost 40 years ago Billy Joel sang “I walked through Bedford-Stuy alone” in his pop hit “You May Be Right.” These two pop culture classics paint a...
The 2018 Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo(DRC), has been a very different kind of outbreak than the massive West African outbreak that occurred in 2014 and 2015. For starters, it is much smaller, with just over 2,000 cases compared to the more than 28,000 cases of the West African outbreak. Because of...
Wandering through the grocery store, it is easy to be overwhelmed by the numerous brands and health claims on the dozens of sugar substitutes. It can be particularly confusing for those with diabetes or pre-diabetes who must keep their blood sugar in check and control their weight. With the growing diabetes and obesity epidemic, there...
Everything is a toxin, or has the potential to be, in the field of toxicology. In the 1500s, Swiss physician Paracelsus, the father of toxicology, coined his famous dictum: “What is there that is not poison? All things are poison and nothing is without poison. Solely the dose determines that a thing is not a...
Facebook’s Libra cryptocurrency has taken a lot of criticism from Western government officials and media commentators – but it’s not meant for them. A major target market for the Libra is users in developing countries. From researching cryptocurrency, blockchain and other technologies in the context of developing countries, I can see that digital payment systems...
Where to eat? It’s a question you’ve probably pondered when visiting somewhere unfamiliar. Though it’s fun to explore a strange suburb, town or city, when you’re hungry you’d rather minimise the chance of paying exorbitant prices for an unpleasant experience. Can economics help? We’ve combined economic theory with data from online restaurant ratings to identify...
On June 18, the government of Canada declared a national climate emergency. The next day, the same government approved the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion (TMX), which will be able to move almost 600,000 barrels of oil per day from Alberta to the Port of Burnaby in British Columbia. If this seems like a contradiction, you...
