When I was five years old my father was committed to Camarillo State Mental Hospital. He had become increasingly stressed and depressed because he couldn’t find work to support his family. I grew up wondering what happened to my father and whether I inherited his “mental illness.” I talk about my healing journey in my...Continue reading
Did you think that 2017 was a wild year? Me too. In so many ways, the improbable became reality. And, I have to admit, this includes science: It was a breathtaking year for epigenetics research. If you recall, epigenetics is the study of how our genes are switched on and off and is a field that came to light...Continue reading
You know who Charles Darwin is, right? One seriously influential figure in human history, Darwin’s famous natural selection theory is an easily digestible way to explain evolution. Makes sense: giraffes with longer necks can reach higher into trees to eat and survive. Advantage passed on to long-necked offspring. And so on, until poof! You have the modern giraffe. Wearing...Continue reading
Hard to believe, but I used to use Encyclopedia Britannica in grade school to research book reports. Imagine that, a 10 year old encyclopedia was the “latest and greatest” source of knowledge that you could get in a library. Back then, history was history, it’s in the past for Heaven’s sake, and science was evolving at...Continue reading
You share 99.5% of your DNA with the person sitting next to you. In fact, you share 97.5% of your DNA with mice. And, believe it or not, 50% of banana DNA is identical to yours! So what makes you so special? Epigenetics. The New Plastics Remember the scene in “The Graduate” when the smug, older businessman...Continue reading
He stared back at me, his face blank. He didn’t like my answer. We had examined the known genetic causes of azoospermia and had come up dry. “I really don’t know why you’re azoospermic, but I’d say it’s still very likely to be genetic, but currently undefined.” Not much to work with, but it’s where we are at...Continue reading