Kinetics» Cell

New Year’s Resolutions: The Magnetic Poetry of TEDx MidAtlantic

Carol Torgan, Ph.D. — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 01:45:08 +0000

This word cloud represents the essence of the messages of the inaugural TEDx MidAtlantic event as culled from my scribbled notes. The speakers were amazing role models, and their messages, which were so passionately delivered, words to live by.

In the true spirit of TED, the terms cut across numerous disciplines, including technology, arts, medicine, business, health, entertainment, and design. As I reviewed my notes, it struck me that the key messages represent a wonderful sort of magnetic poetry mosaic from which New Year’s resolutions can be crafted.

The theme of the TEDx MidAtlantic event was The Power of Stories. I’ve selected five words that spoke to me to build personal resolutions and craft my 2010 story. They are empower, execute, listen, acknowledge, evolve.

What 5 words would you choose to craft your 2010 story?

To start your new year with a dose of inspiration, check out videos of the talks, which are available at both TED and TEDx MidAtlantic. Some of my favorite TED talks include:

For more insight into the TEDx MidAtlantic event held in November 2009 in Baltimore at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), check out these reviews:

Duende: TEDx MidAtlantic. (A wonderful ‘visual recording’)
GrayMatter Minute: TEDx MidAtlantic, Eggs, Bones, Cows and Social Media.
Jim Doran: TEDx MidAtlantic. (The ‘top five favorite talks’ represents a perfect list of videos to watch and then craft 2010 resolutions)
Stellargirl: Inspired by TEDxMidAtlantic. (Key phrases that capture the event essence)
Christiana Aretta: Visual High Notes from TEDxMidAtlantic. (Stunning photos that convey the passion of the speakers)

Related posts:

Image generated by Wordle, http://www.wordle.net/.

Choreographing Cells: Dance Dance Evolution

Carol Torgan, Ph.D. — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 02:24:56 +0000

What do you get when choreographers interpret scientific papers that interpret our cells choreography? A Science Dance Match Up Challenge.

In a challenge recently held by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), four professional choreographers were paired with four scientists to create dances based on peer-reviewed scientific research. Individuals were invited to read the abstracts of the articles, watch the dances either live or online, and then try to match the science to the dance. The entire event was conducted as an informal research study to see if modern dance encodes science.

Those who watched the dances performed live, rather than online, were much better at matching the dance with the research, according to the results. “Being part of a live audience focuses your attention in a way that staring at a lonely computer screen never can. It’s equally true of art and science,” said John Bohannon, in his AAAS Gonzo Scientist column. (For science geeks, here’s the raw data).

The winning live audience was the University of Vermont, which beat out a global range of institutes that included McGill University in Montreal, CeMM in Vienna, The Science Gallery in Dublin, and Harvard. The New York Time’s Tierney Lab blog even took a turn, challenging readers to take the Dancing Science Quiz and tabulating results.

“Sun Starved,” shown below, is one of the dances from the Science Dance Challenge. The dance was choreographed by Chloe Jensen, working with researcher Dr. Sue Lynn Lau on the paper, Loss of ARNT/HIF1β Mediates Altered Gene Expression and Pancreatic-Islet Dysfunction in Human Type 2 Diabetes. Cell 122, 337 (2005).

Cell dance
While the choreographers created an amazing body of work, another type of choreographed dance – albeit one without an audience – simultaneously went on inside each of the cells within the dancers bodies.

“The Inner Life of the Cell,” the video above, illustrates the dance taking place inside a single white blood cell. It was created by XVIVO, a scientific animation company. Clearly the medical illustrators are also choreographers. They just sport high tech software rather than leg warmers.

Enjoy the dances.

So you think you can dance?

Spot reduction: The top 6 questions answered

Carol Torgan, Ph.D. — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 02:37:53 +0000

Do you have a garage full of ThighMasters, Ab Flyers, Ab Circles, Ab Coasters and Ab Rockers? Are you concerned about thunder thighs, love handles, man boobs, saddlebags, potbellies or cankles?

Everyone has his or her problem area (or areas). Thanks to the concept of spot reduction, we’ve witnessed decades of fabulous (or should that be flabulous?) gizmos such as the Astro-Trimmer, Abflex and, of course, those classic vibrating belts.

What can you do about those flabby arms or muffin tops? Does spot reduction work? Here are answers to the top six most common questions.

1. What is spot reduction?
Spot reduction is the idea that you can lose fat from a specific part of your body, especially if you exercise the area. Some people think spot reduction means that when you exercise a particular area, the fat in that area will turn to muscle. Unfortunately this is not medically possible — it would be like turning oranges into apples.

The concept of spot reduction also implies that the muscle tissue and fat tissue in a particular part of your body engage in some sort of metabolic pillow talk with each other. For example, if you do sit-ups, then ideally, your abdominal muscles would selectively use the fat that blankets them for energy. Although many cells communicate with each other in numerous intimate ways, there’s still a language barrier in this regard.

2. Can you spot-reduce?
No. If spot reduction worked, there would be a lot of lopsided people walking around. Think of anyone who uses one side of his or her body or one limb much more than the other side. Pitchers, quarterbacks and trombone players come to mind. If spot reduction worked, a player’s dominant arm would have much less fat than his or her opposite arm.

Tennis players are a perfect example. In a classic study, researchers examined the arms of players. Although the dominant arm had a greater girth due to more muscle mass than the opposite arm, there was no difference in skinfold fat thickness between the arms. For further proof, researchers asked a group of individuals to do a total of 5,000 sit-ups over 27 days. (That’s about 185 sit-ups a day.) Fat biopsies were taken from the participants’ abs, buttocks and upper backs before and after the exercise program. The fat decreased the same amount in all three areas, demonstrating that no spot reduction occurred.

3. What is fat and what is it good for?
Fat is made up of individual fat cells called adipocytes. They are just one type of cell, along with muscle cells, nerve cells, bone cells, liver cells and numerous others. A person’s total number of fat cells is thought to be determined by puberty. After that, as you gain and lose weight, the size of these cells swells or shrinks.

Some fat is good. Odds are you are either sitting on fat (your tush) or standing on it (padding in your feet) as you read this. Fat protects your internal organs, serves as an energy warehouse, insulates and helps regulate body temperature. Fat cells secrete numerous proteins and hormones that can influence blood pressure, immune function and blood sugar (glucose) levels.

4. Can you control the location of your fat?
Fat is like real estate — we’re all concerned with location, location, location. And location is mainly determined by the two G’s: gender and genes. To verify this, take a good long look at your parents and siblings, and then take a good long look at yourself in the mirror. Scary, isn’t it?

5. Does location matter?
Ab-solutely. There’s a growing body of scientific evidence that links the location of your fat to your health. Fat tends to be located either around the middle or center of the body (the classic apple shape) or peripherally on the arms, hips, and thighs (pear shape). Studies continually show that people with apple shapes are at much greater risk than those with pear shapes for numerous conditions, such as heart disease, type 2 diabetes and liver disease.

6. Can anything be done about thunder thighs and beer bellies?
The great news is yes, you may be able to shore up an area. And if you can reduce belly fat, you may decrease your risk of associated health problems. But it’s not as simple as using products that you’ve ordered on late-night TV for eight minutes a day. It takes a little bit of sweat combined with good nutritional habits. Repeat after me this mantra we all know by heart (and need to take to heart): Move more, eat less.

The first step is to engage in regular physical activity, especially as outlined in the new Physical Activity Guidelines. Engage in some type of strength training two or more days a week. You’ll tone up your muscles, strengthen your bones and burn calories. Buffing up your muscles, however, won’t help if you still have a layer of fat providing a cloak of invisibility over them.

So the companion step is to divest yourself of your extra pounds by also engaging in regular moderate-to-vigorous endurance (aerobic) activity at least 60 to 75 minutes a week. Lastly, keep an eye on what you eat. You know the drill: Burn more calories than you consume.

Your muscles require fuel to work, and fat is a great source. When you exercise, chemicals are released in your bloodstream that travel to fat cells and trigger them to break down units of fat to be burned for energy. Unfortunately, we can’t control which fat cells respond to the chemical signals. However, a general rule of thumb seems to be “last in, first out.” That is, wherever you’ve most recently added the insulation is generally the first place it’s lost. Then eat in moderation so that you aren’t refilling your fat cells to overflow.

What gizmos do you have in your garage? What late-night infomercials made you pick up the phone? Did you use any of the gadgets more than once? Some of these items can legitimately be incorporated into your exercise routine, while others probably need to be sprung during spring cleaning, sold at a yard sale or put up for adoption on eBay.

Can you hear me now? Gyms, iPods & hearing loss

Carol Torgan, Ph.D. — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 13:12:14 +0000

The music blared as the spinning instructor yelled at us to dig deeper and give it 110 percent for the next two minutes. My heart was pounding, and my ears were ringing. When the class was over, my heart stopped pounding, but my ears were still ringing. I walked out of the gym, wondering whether I had just damaged my ears while strengthening my lungs and legs. Turns out not only could I have damaged my hearing, but that it could be permanent.

Our ability to hear lets us engage with the world. We converse with friends, pull over for an ambulance and attend to a crying baby. Noise is all around us. Stop and listen for a minute. What do you hear? A radio, cars honking, music from someone else’s headphones, street work, yelling children, the dishwasher?

Exposure to sounds that are too loud or loud sounds that last a long time can cause noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL). This hearing loss can be permanent. That’s permanent as in FOREVER. The small sensory hair cells in our inner ears that convert sound energy into electrical signals can’t grow back once they become damaged, according to the public education campaign called “It’s a Noisy Planet” from the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD), a part of the National Institutes of Health.

When we are exposed to loud noises over a long period of time, symptoms of NIHL can gradually increase. Do you love rock concerts? Does the person sitting next to you on the subway sing along to the music on your iPod? If so, you might want to take this quiz: Ten Ways to Recognize Hearing Loss from NIDCD. One in five baby boomers has some degree of hearing loss, and exposure to loud noises is one of the biggest culprits, according to the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association.

The good news is that noise-induced hearing loss is 100 percent preventable. A few steps we can take include:

Become familiar with the sounds and levels that can cause hearing damage. There’s a great online noise meter from the CDC, with noises that range from a buzzing mosquito to a rocket launch.
Wear earplugs or other hearing-protection devices when involved in a loud activity. Earplugs and earmuffs are available at hardware and sporting goods stores.
If you suspect hearing loss, have a medical examination by an otolaryngologist and a hearing test by an audiologist.

A rule of thumb is to avoid noises that are “too loud” and “too close” or that last “too long.”

Just as we put on sunscreen at the beach or wear a helmet when we bike, it should become second nature for us to use protective hearing techniques when we’re exposed to loud noises, according to James F. Battey Jr., M.D., Ph.D., the director of the NIDCD.

I love listening to chirping birds and rustling leaves, so now when I attend spinning classes, I choose a bike in the back row that is located behind the speakers … and I bring earplugs.

Photo courtesy of khaybe at Flickr

Blinded by science? Check out Scitable

Carol Torgan, Ph.D. — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 15:12:45 +0000

Does genetics make your toes (and DNA) curl with glee? If so check out Scitable. This new “collaborative learning space for science” is from Nature Publishing Group (NPG), one of the top-notch publishers of science information.

The site offers:

A science library with over 150 free articles that explain the science of genetics.
A community where you can connect and join groups. Teachers can create a classroom group, and students can ask experts questions.

The strength of the site is in the evidence-based content. An article on “Genes, Smoking, and Lung Cancer” starts:

Imagine this kind of warning on a cigarette package: Quitting smoking now greatly reduces serious risk to your health, particularly if your DNA is mutated at the 15q24 locus. Would you get tested for this mutation?

I’m hooked! (On the article, not the cigarettes.)

The target audience is undergraduate faculty and students, but anyone in search of a solid explanation of a genetics-related topic will find it here. For example, a scan of the question board found a dog trainer inquiring about “how fast a selected trait can be diminished in a canine.” The trainer was directed to a helpful article on “The Genetics of Dog Breeding.”

The site is easy to navigate and has some wonderful photos from Nature’s archives. Currently the content is focused on genetics, but hopefully more topics from the extensive collection of NPG journals (Nature Biotechnology, Nature Nanotechnology, and Nature Neuroscience, to name just a few) will be added in the not-too-distant future.

Kinetics

Carol Torgan, Ph.D. — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 07:23:22 +0000

Kinetic
ki•net•ic adjective
Of, relating to, or produced by motion.
Moving or causing motion; motory; active, as opposed to latent.

Our bodies are in perpetual motion, from the winding and unwinding of our coiled DNA to the beating of our hearts and accelerating of our limbs. This blog explores, debates and celebrates the body as we sense, move and adapt. I hope to inspire you to learn, argue, embrace, question and move.