Common Parasite Increases Risk of Suicide Attempt

A parasite is an organism that lives off another organism such as an animal or a human (or both). There are many different types of parasites from many different sources. Today, I’d like to talk about one particular parasite—Toxoplasmosis gondii. If you have ever been...

Synthetic Bacteria? What Will It Mean?

The television news magazine 60 Minutes recently aired a piece about the creation of the first synthetic cell. The scientist at the head of this research, J. Craig Venter, is also responsible for mapping the human genome. Over the past 15 years, $40 million and his...

Airborne Fungus and Parasite Poop, Oh My!

It really wouldn’t be my blog with a good fungus or poop reference every now and then, so here’s the latest news from around the country about a couple of the things we try not to think about all that often…but that can have a pretty big impact on our health. In the...

How the Oil Spill is Affecting Our Health

No matter where you live in the U.S., you can’t turn on the TV or pick up a paper these days without hearing about the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Since the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig at the end of April, roughly a million gallons of oil have been...