October 2011
7 posts
Hiatus
While I have greatly enjoyed this blog, my schedule (for the next few weeks at least) is going to be very busy and unpredictable. I’m taking a break. Hopefully, I’ll be back soon.
8 tags
10/5/11 (HIV and Birth Control Shot) →
sciencecenter:
A birth control shot, popular in eastern and southern Africa, has been shown to double the risk of picking up HIV. The shot is convenient and effective, given once every three months and used by 12 million African women. It may, however, come with a sinister side effect. The shot also increases the risk that men will pick up HIV from their female partners if they are infected. The...
5 tags
10/4/11 (Birkin)
This word does not mean some sort of Islamic clothing. Nor does it mean an awkward toupee. Those were among two of my guesses when I was trying to figure out what this odd word might define. None of my guesses were even close.
According to Wikipedia:
The Birkin bag is a handmade purse by Hermès and named after actress and singer Jane Birkin. The bag is a symbol of wealth due to its high...
4 tags
10/3/11 (Grapefruit and Medicine)
Dear Alice,
I heard somewhere that drinking grapefruit juice with vitamins and/or prescription medicine is harmful. Is this true?
Dear Reader,
Hard to believe that a healthy drink like grapefruit juice would be a potential problem, right? Unfortunately grapefruit juice interacts adversely with certain, but not most, medications. Researchers believe that compounds in grapefruit juice suppress...
4 tags
10/2/11 (Atlanta Traffic)
Atlanta has some of the worst traffic of any city. Even if you’re just trying to drive by on the expressway, and even though the expressways are eight lanes across in either direction in some places, you can still end up stuck for hours. Well, if you have to got through Atlanta, I found out today that early Sunday morning is the time to do it. Most people are sleeping or in church, so the...
7 tags
10/1/11 (Alpha-Gal)
Apparently a tick bite can get you more than lyme disease. Most lyme-disease-carrying ticks are deer ticks, but then there’s the lone star tick. These ticks are named for their one spot, and are found primarily in the southeastern and south-central U.S., but have been moving outwards. The CDC has reported that they do not carry lyme disease, but according to the University of...
