Does the idea of spending 10 days in total silence, prohibited from using your cell phone (and reading and writing!), while trying to meditate for 12 hours a day scare you? It terrified me. Which is why I knew I had to do it: a 10-day silent Vipassana meditation retreat. For the last 5 years, […]
I love making plans and getting things done. My jam-packed, color-coded Google Calendar gained notoriety in grad school, and I’ve uncovered to-do lists I wrote 15 years ago. Few things give me more satisfaction than thinking through scenarios and interdigitating tasks to maximize efficiency. I love mapping out timelines for months, years, and decades. I […]
I’m very good at doing lots of things, and I’m very bad at doing nothing. For the past decade, my recurring pattern is filling my schedule to the brim, coasting off adrenaline and dopamine, and appearing to be wildly productive – and then crashing. After these semi-annual crashes, which look like an odd fight or […]
Today, I turn 29. Depending on whom I ask, I’m ancient or just getting started. Someone may find me remarkably accomplished for my age, while another person will point out that I’m behind on starting a family. Everything is relative. Out on a run a few years ago, I realized that it’s pointless to […]
In the span of two weeks, I went from a financially-challenged academic researcher living solo to a professional landlord living with her partner. I gained a tenant, a commute, a fancy job title (with perks like the company card), and a permanent bedfellow. While I’ve enjoyed flying up the professional totem pole, I have certainly endured […]
Though today is the last day I’ll be in an academic research lab and will soon start my first ‘real job‘ that won’t involve labwork, I very much value my 10 years of laboratory experiences. I’ll miss the little day-to-day moments in a lab. I’ll miss the satisfying snap of ejecting a pipet tip and its subsequent clink […]
As a lifelong scientist and relentless achiever, I’ve prided myself on my rationality and have actively worked to execute logically and efficiently. Yet, when my rationality is derailed, I have the most interesting, memorable, and vivid experiences. Operating irrationally makes me more generous, empathetic, creative, and vulnerable, enabling meaningful human connections. Right when I had locked in […]
While most pregnancy nutritional advice goes towards women, some fascinating recent research shows that fathers’ diets plays a role in their babies’ health and metabolism. In the beautifully-titled recent Cell article, Paternal Diet Defines Offspring Chromatin State and Intergenerational Obesity, researchers elegantly show that the foods males eat change their DNA and can cause their children […]
Small hinges swing big doors. Some of the tiniest habits, outlined below, have profoundly benefited my health (both mental and physical!), happiness, and productivity: Upon waking, I take 5 deep breaths and think of 5 things for which I’m grateful. Few things are better than your health/happiness than gratitude and starting your day in a […]
Right when I was experiencing my non-academic identity crisis, my PhD advisor, Tarek, told me that the Biomedical Engineering (BME) Chair had asked if I’d be interested in a potential job opportunity at Yale’s Center for Biomedical and Interventional Technology (CBIT), which he had co-founded. CBIT, which connects Yale’s Medical School, hospital, School of Management, and Engineering […]
Maybe there is something to those 3-day juice cleanses! In this study, people drank fruit/vegetable juice (greens + apples + ginger + beet + pineapple) for 3 days, and significant reductions in body weight were observed, as well as shifts in microbiota and nutrient utilization. Pretty cool!
www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-02200-6
Health benefit of vegetable/fruit juice-based diet: Role of microbiome
nature.com
The gut microbiota is an important contributor to human health. Vegetable/fruit juices provide polyphenols, oligosaccharides, fiber and nitrate (beet juice), which may induce a prebiotic-like effect. Juice-based diets are becoming popular. However, there is a lack of scientific evidence of their hea...
Throwback article I co-wrote a couple years ago!
Seems coconut oil is back in the news. What I do I think about it? Check out this article I wrote back in 2015...
Super awesome research that could restore vision in blind people! Scientists made an implant with materials similar to solar cells, and after installing them into the eyes of blind rats, the rats could SEE for up to 10 months (about 30 human years!).
www.nature.com/nmat/journal/v16/n6/full/nmat4874.html
nature.com
A retinal prosthesis fabricated from an organic photovoltaic polymer can restore degenerative blindness in vivo, and over long implantation periods.
This study uses rigorous statistical techniques to learn what causes mutations that lead to cancer. Interestingly, researchers find that genetics and environment only account for a small portion of cancer risk (<15% overall, and <1% in some types of cancer). This is great news - the way you live is your best form of cancer prevention!!
science.sciencemag.org/content/355/6331/1330.full
Stem cell divisions, somatic mutations, cancer etiology, and cancer prevention
science.sciencemag.org
Most textbooks attribute cancer-causing mutations to two major sources: inherited and environmental factors. A recent study highlighted the prominent role in cancer of replicative (R) mutations that arise from a third source: unavoidable errors associated with DNA replication. Tomasetti et al. devel...