Marijuana is a preparation of the Cannabis sativa plant intended for use as a psychoactive drug, medicine and more rarely as religious or spiritual ingredient. It includes the dried leaves, flowers, stems, and seeds from the hemp plant. Its main active component is tetrahydrocannabinol (THC); one of 483 known compounds in the Cannabis plant, including […]
We live in a society permanently obsesed with the idea of youth. Therefore, it is not surprising to find supposedly miraculous potions, ointments and elixirs that offer precisely that. But the idea of permanent youth is not a new idea, it comes from way back, as does the notion that young blood would help rejuvenate […]
So many times, I order my coffee while hesitantly eyeing the seductive pastries. This time I’ll resist these sweet beauties. Last night I came across a lecture from Einstein’s friend, Otto Heinrich Warburg (Nobel Prize in Medicine, 1931). It was 1966 and he was at the meeting of Nobel Laureates in Lindau, Germany: “ Cancer […]
Flavor is a brain construction: we have olfactory and taste receptors and our central nervous system combines both types of information in what we call flavor. Malaria is an infectious disease affecting humans and other animals caused by parasitic protozoans belonging to the Plasmodium genre. It is transmitted by the bite of the female Anopheles […]
Celiac Disease (CD) is an autoimmune disease that is developed in susceptible individuals when the gluten is present in their diet. As consequence, there is an inflammation of the small intestine, what has different effects, such as pain and diarrhoea, and the only effective treatment known is a gluten-free diet. A great portion of the […]
Autism spectrum disorders are a group of developmental disorders that cause lifelong disabilities. They affect people’s ability to communicate, to interact with others and to understand social cues. Affected persons have difficulties recognizing body language, making eye contact, and understand other people’s emotions, symptoms that hurt the individual’s ability to function socially, at school or […]
«Mosquito» is one of the few words, together with «guerrilla», «adobe», «cigarrillo» and some others that Spanish culture has brought to other languages. I am not sure whether we should be proud of this legacy. The «little fly» is one of humanity most dangerous and terrible enemies. Many species of mosquitoes act as vectors of […]
Authors: Bárbara Hernando studied Biotechnology at the Polytechnic University of Valencia, then she moved to London where she did her MSc in Biomedical Sciences at London Metropolitan University. She is currently a Ph.D. student at the Department of Medicine of the Jaume I University of Castellon. Conrado Martinez-Cadenas studied Medicine at the University of Navarre […]
Autism is a highly prevalent spectrum disorder of the neurodevelopment. It is characterized by impaired social interaction, alterations in verbal and non-verbal communication, and restricted and repetitive behaviors. Considering these main differences, it had been difficult to have good animal models since these interactions were initially defined for humans but scientists are nowadays developing different […]
Laboratory mice are one of the most valuable tools scientists rely on to understand how pathologies work. In order to find a cure for a disease, we need to have comprehensive knowledge of the physiological processes which are impaired. For instance, we can manipulate mice genetically to assess the effect of either the deletion, overexpression […]