It happens to be one of many Awesome ThinkGeek Shirts. If you are reading this post, then A) you’ve probably already heard of ThinkGeek, and B) there’s a good chance you know what the molecule on that shirt is.

If neither A) nor B) applies to you, though – that’s okay! Because I plan to discuss 1) what the molecule represents, 2) which school I think the shirt is poking fun at, and why it’s of personal interest to me, and 3) what the molecule has to do with schooling, anyway.

This will be fun…

1. I don’t like to beat around the bush. The molecule is ethanol.
Look, Wikpedia says so: I’ll just hope that you, dear reader, have taken a chemistry class at some point in time, and I just want to remind you that anytime you have a bunch of carbons and hydrogens with an -OH sticking off of it (like in the figure below), it’s often an alcohol of some sort. And the name of the alcohol will very likely end with the suffix “-ol.”

But I want to be really clear on something: the only alcohol you should actually consume (if you choose to consume alcohol) is ethanol. ETHANOL, people. Drinking methanol can cause permanent blindness, unconsciousness, and death. Forty percent of the methanol in the world is used to make formaldehyde, which is the stuff used to embalm dead people and pets and such. So that’s not what you want. Propanol is thought to be 2-4 times as potent as ethanol, so I don’t think you want to go the propanol route either. Just…stick to ethanol, if anything. You don’t want to be this guy:

Shoulda stuck to ethanol, man.

2. Look at this logo again:

Observe the bold, striking crimson inside the oval. See the golden leaves of some sort, hugging the oval tenderly. Note, if you will, the abundance of H‘s, and how the letters are connected by cute little lines.

Are you thinking what I’m thinking? Well, now look at this logo:

Observe the bold, striking crimson inside the shield. See the golden leaves of some sort, hugging the shield tenderly. Note, if you will, that the school represented is the most popular school worldwide that starts with the letter H, and how the letters of the motto are connected with cute little lines.

Am I wrong in thinking that the Awesome ThinkGeek Shirt above is inspired in some part by the logo for Harvard University? I think not. And, well…this tickles me to no end because I’m currently a PhD candidate at Harvard (I refuse to accept any cool points for this). And although some might think there’s irony in using the symbol of hoity-toity Harvard to make a play on alcohol…it’s not as ironic as you might think.

Ever heard of “work hard, play hard”? From what I’ve observed, Harvard students party like students at most other campuses. As an example, I point you to this list of 15 Harvard Drinking Games. Yeah, so, we’re not the most uncool school in the world, and we’re not unfamiliar with the world of alcohol consumption and the concept of beer blankets and whatnot. I mean, you watched The Social Network , right?

3. Let’s talk about higher education and alcohol consumption. For many young people, going off to college is their first time being completely out from under Mom’s and Dad’s thumbs, and with that comes self-discovery, all types of life lessons, and a ridiculous amount of drinking. Beer pong. Flip cup. You know what I’m talking about.

Coming soon to an Olympics near you.

A study out of the University of Florida and Texas A&M found some strikingly obvious facts about what influences students to drink:

1. Emotional status. A “bad day at work” or “boyfriend or girlfriend broke up with them” can impact a student’s drinking behavior, particularly in the direction of drinking more.

2. Monetary considerations. Excess cash means more drinks; less cash means fewer drinks. (Mind. Blown.)

3. Surrounding environment. If you’re with your best buddies, you’ll drink more. If you’re with a bunch of sketchy strangers who might slip something into your drink, you’ll drink less.

4. Drinking games. As I alluded to before, drinking games go with the college drinking scene like brooms go with Quidditch. One student participant gives a poignant explanation, in his own words: “this person says that they can do this many shots, well then I have to one up that. I cannot let that person out show me.” No, he’d never live it down if someone got drunker than him.

5. Other people. If someone buys a round of shots for everyone at the bar, you’re more likely to drink (direct effect). If you’re at a frat party where you know that drinking is the theme of the general environment, you’re more likely to drink (indirect effect).

In summary:

Stay nerdy

Koehrer P, Creuzot-Garcher C, & Bron AM (2011). Methanol poisoning: two case studies of blindness in Indonesia. International ophthalmology, 31 (6), 517-24 PMID: 22200859

Rajamani A (2012). Two cases of toxic methanol ingestion, one leading to brain death: case reports and a brief review. Critical care and resuscitation : journal of the Australasian Academy of Critical Care Medicine, 14 (1), 56-9 PMID: 22404063

Cascallana JL, Gordo V, & Montes R (2012). Severe necrosis of oesophageal and gastric mucosa in fatal methanol poisoning. Forensic science international, 220 (1-3) PMID: 22398189

Barry AE, & Goodson P (2012). Contextual Factors Influencing U.S. College Students’ Decisions to Drink Responsibly. Substance use & misuse, 47 (10), 1172-84 PMID: 22662910

Aren’t they the cutest?

So, if you’re STD savvy, you might have realized that all of the plush toys above are named after venereal diseases. These adorable little guys are the Venereals. I want to reiterate that these are cuddly toys that look like the actual infectious agents that give you these diseases. A little weird, maybe? Yes.

But I own them all. Can you imagine a better conversation starter? (“Oh that’s cute, what is that little star-shaped toy?” …”Herpes.” ). If you’ve ever wanted nerdy street cred, now is your chance. Just click the link for Venereals and these nasty little cuties can be all yours. Now let me explain myself….

1. Take pox for example. Pox also goes by the name syphilis, which you’ve probably heard of. Technically, the bacterium is called Treponema pallidum, but that’s not so catchy. But the plush toy for syphilis looks surprisingly similar to the actual bacterium:So these toys are the real deal. You could even call them learning tools, but something tells me that these should only belong to high school-aged and older individuals, despite how much a 5-year-old would want to cuddle them.

As cute as plushie syphilis is, you don’t want to get syphilis. You really don’t.

Syphilis gives you very un-sexy ulcers and a crazy amount of nodules all over the body:

Yup, definitely not cute. So have fun cuddling your syphilis plushie, but don’t actually, you know, come in contact with syphilis.

Luckily, if you’ve had syphilis for less than a year, penicillin should cure you right up. But, again, my advice is to avoid syphilis at all costs. And if you do end up with it, don’t spread it around.

2. Herpes is way too cute not to talk about. Look at this little guy:

Okay, so the actual herpes virus on the right isn’t nearly as lovable as the star-shaped, innocent-eyed, fluffy herpes on the left…. And many of us know what herpes looks like on someone’s face:

Ouch. Not a good look. And I’m betting it’s painful, too. Quite sadly, there isn’t actually a therapy to remove the herpes virus from the body. The best you can hope for are antiviral medications to reduce the frequency and severity of outbreaks for the rest of your life.

But again, the toy is too cute. And that’s what really matters.

3. Finally, it would be unforgivable if I didn’t feature chlamydia. LOOK at this face!

Despite the terrible letdown of the actual chlamydia bacterium’s appearance, the guys who designed this plushie toy deserve a lot of kudos. Look closely at the soft chlamydia. Look into its eyes. Those hopeful eyes that say, “I want to be your friend! Please be my loving friend.” And that hair! Timeless.

Oh yeah, but um, you don’t actually want to get chlamydia either. To my guy readers: you don’t want to have burning pee or unusual discharge from your penis or tender testicles. If chlamydia really takes hold in your testes, you can become sterile. I wouldn’t wish these things on my worst enemy.

And ladies: chlamydia likes to set up shop in your cervix, which can lead to pelvic inflammatory disease, which can cause difficulty with getting pregnant. And your pee will burn too. So chlamydia is an all-around bad time for everybody. Take heart though: chlamydia can effectively be cured with antibiotics.

You still shouldn’t go getting it though. What you should get is the adorably cute cuddly Chlamydia doll. It’s a tough choice between chlamydia and Herpes though…so that’s why I got ALL the Venereals! They keep each other company, and I love each of them in my own little way.

I’m the talk of all my friends, and you can be too. Just imagine all the nerdy hipster points this will get you! Now get those Venereals! But not the diseases. In all seriousness, men and women should carry condoms.

Stay nerdy and safe!

P.S. If you’re a bit weirded out about cute STDs, or you don’t feel comfortable getting those for children, check out Black Death, E. coli, Common Cold, and other wonderful, cuddly microbes!

Thank me later.

Janier M, Libar E, Bonnet A, Meunier P, Tabet M, Mathourais M, Paterour C, & Porcher R (2012). Treatment of late syphilis with 2.4 million units benzathine penicillin G (BPG): tolerance of single versus divided doses. Sexually transmitted diseases, 39 (5), 359-60 PMID: 22504599

De Clercq E (2012). Human viral diseases: what is next for antiviral drug discovery? Current opinion in virology PMID: 22846888

No date rapes here!

Understatement of the century: date rape is not cool. Neither committing it, nor being a victim of it, should ever ever happen. As such, I want to promote awareness of something that could potentially be used as a date rape drug, but that’s also found in practically everyone’s medicine cabinet.

I’ve been conflicted for a long time about blogging about this, because I don’t want to enable those who seek to do bad things, but in the end I’ve decided that knowledge is power. And if you know about a particular danger, you can probably do more to protect yourself from it.

Also, I’m going to talk about these straws that scientists are working on, that might just prevent date rapes. Ahhh, now there’s a refreshing idea!

I won’t beat around the bush; the potential date rape drug that most people already own is…Visine. You know, the eye drops that clear up bloodshot eyes. To be fair, Clear Eyes
eye drops have just as much potential as a date rape drug. Plus they have this awesomely terrible commercial with Ben Stein:

The reason these eye drops, and, I presume, all the other brands of eye drops out there, have potential applications as date rape drugs is because they all contain tetrahydrozoline:

Innocent enough looking little thing, right? But, it’s not that innocent. Well, not when it’s in the wrong hands of somebody with bad intentions. You see, there was a very small publication that came from the Kentucky Regional Poison Center in 2007. The publication describes a guy who, in 2003, had been raping a woman and four children, all relatives of his, I believe, by adding Visine to their drinks.

While the tetrahydrozoline in eye drops will shrink the blood vessels in your eyes and make them less apparent, tetrahydrozoline ingested becomes a very strong high blood pressure medicine. When your blood pressure gets lowered too far, you can become drowsy, with a slowed heart rate and impaired breathing, and you can even enter a coma. Essentially, ingesting Visine or other eye drops can make someone an easier target for date rape. It is my sincere hope that by sharing this information I am NOT enabling those who would do harm, but empowering people to avoid potential dangers.

Speaking of avoiding dangers, I love drinking things through straws, and scientists in Israel are now working on straws that can detect the presence of date rape drugs in drinks! This is a truly great invention. It would be inexpensive (about $5), and all you’d have to do is dip it in your drink to instantly know whether date rape drugs had been added to it. Classic date rape drugs like ketamine and GHB are detected with, so far, 100% accuracy and no false positives, and when these chemicals interact with the testing solution in the straw, the drink turns cloudy and a little red light turns on in the straw. The developers are considering adding Rohypnol (aka “roofies”) to the list of detectable compounds in their straw. And even though using Visine as a date rape drug is rare in comparison to these other drugs I’ve just mentioned, might I suggest these scientists add tetrahydrozoline to the drug detection list as well?

If these straws really catch on (and why wouldn’t they?!), there should definitely be a push to stock them at every seedy bar and questionable frat party in the world. Just sayin’.

Stay nerdy safe!

Spiller HA, Rogers J, & Sawyer TS (2007). Drug facilitated sexual assault using an over-the-counter ocular solution containing tetrahydrozoline (Visine). Legal medicine (Tokyo, Japan), 9 (4), 192-5 PMID: 17320456

How I feel about viruses.

You know what really grinds my gears? The fact that there are people who would tamper with my site, and give it a virus or something. Everything’s fine now, but what gives? Did they get really frustrated when they Googled “great tits” and found a link to my post about the correlations between brain size and sociability? And then instead of just, y’know, closing the tab with my site, they wasted time in their lives (and, ultimately, in mine) to do something purely malicious? “Arg, down with science, RAWR!!!” *Eye roll*

So, for today, I’m going to turn the negative energyaround, and use it as motivation to give you a post all about some different types of biological viruses out there. Because they’re actually incredibly interesting and sci-fi-ish, in that they can take over your cells and use them for their own selfish purposes, even though they’re not technically “alive.” Plus, there’s all sorts of cool new science in the works to outsmart viruses and shut down their operations.

Oh, and one more thing — haters of all kinds (hateful commenters, hateful hackers, and whoever else), well, they may be able to bring down my spirits temporarily, or even bring down my site, but at the end of the day it means I’m awesome enough that somebody got worked up about it.

1. The computer virus. I actually know next to nothing about these, but I want to assume that the people who propagate them look like the guy above.

It's retro, duh.

2. The retrovirus. Ah, the retrovirus, a classic. He’s got a traditional virus structure: a head, where he holds his genetic information, and a tail with tail fibers so he can position himself on certain types of cells. What does he do once he’s in position on the cell? He injects his genetic material into it so that the cell is tricked into encoding more viruses just like the original, until the cell is full of viruses. At this point the cell explodes, releasing lots more retroviruses to repeat the process.

It goes something like this:

At this point, the retrovirus could probably leave if he wanted. The damage has been done. Your cell starts to take those viral genes and make virus parts.

But then things get real…the virus parts assemble. Your cell knows he’s in trouble.

Those viruses just build up in that cell until it’s too much — the cell explodes. The vicious cycle repeats as the new viruses seek out other unsuspecting cells. Assuming these cells are important, this situation really sucks.

(Other viruses don’t have names that lend themselves so easily to parody, I’m sorry.)

[Click here for my depiction of a virus dressed as the Pope.]

2a. The lentivirus (subtype of retroviruses). I have used my powers of foresight to understand that a cartoon of a virus dressed as the Pope (with whom I have no qualms) could be deeply offensive to some readers. However, the “lent” in “lentivirus” makes me think of Catholicism. In any case, a lentivirus is a type of retrovirus, so everything that the retrovirus did above, the lentivirus does as well. The key difference between the two is that lentiviruses take significantly more time before ultimately bursting out of a cell with new viruses, and they can pack tons of viral genes into a host cell.

Model of HIV's structure

A lentivirus you probably know already is HIV! HIV, as in the virus that usually leads to AIDS. HIV hijacks immune cells, and when someone loses too many immune cells, they have acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. This is unfortunate because people with AIDS can die even from simple infections that wouldn’t phase most healthy people. People with HIV infection are often given protease inhibitors, because proteases act as the enzyme that glues all those pieces of viruses together to make functioning viruses.

Marijuana, which is already prescribed to AIDS-sufferers to alleviate pain and increase appetite, has recently been shown to actually inhibit the HIV virus itself in late-stage AIDS patients. The mechanism of how marijuana may be able to help slow or stop the spread of HIV in late-stage AIDS is kind of complex, but a fairly layman’s terms article can be found here.

Ade-no-virus...get it?

3. Adenoviruses. If you can come up with a better witty cartoon for adenoviruses, please let me know. Like, really, leave a comment. Also, it’s pronounced “ad-n-oh-vy-ruhs,” just so you don’t go around talking about “aid-noh-vy-ruhses” and sounding like a noob. The essential feature of adenoviruses is that they don’t have the encasement, or viral envelope, that surrounds the heads of other types of viruses. The viral envelope (found on retroviruses, for example) is just something to help the virus fuse to the surface of a cell, so that the virus can get in easier. This simply means that adenoviruses (which usually cause upper respiratory tract infections) find their way into cells differently than other viruses do, but once they get their genes into the cells, it’s the same tragic story all over again.

An adenovirus looks like this:

My drawing would've been horrible.

And it uses the knobs at the ends of those rod-like things to bind cell receptors and make cells think it’s okay to take the virus in. It’s like the cell gets biologically Punk’d. Except the virus doesn’t come out from backstage at the end and tell the cell it’s not really dead…the cell is dead.

So, as you can see, viruses of any kind, like the ones that hurt your website or the ones that kill you, are no fun. While this post has been a gross oversimplification of viruses and their mechanisms of infection, there’s plenty of reading out there if you want to learn more. And knowing how viruses work is probably the best way to start figuring out how to stop them.

Stay nerdy (And let’s make this post go viral, eh?!)

P.S. Be the hipsterest hipster in town: get Try Nerdy gear from our online store!

Deu E, Verdoes M, & Bogyo M (2012). New approaches for dissecting protease functions to improve probe development and drug discovery. Nature structural & molecular biology, 19 (1), 9-16 PMID: 22218294

Costantino CM, Gupta A, Yewdall AW, Dale BM, Devi LA, & Chen BK (2012). Cannabinoid Receptor 2-Mediated Attenuation of CXCR4-Tropic HIV Infection in Primary CD4+ T Cells. PloS one, 7 (3) PMID: 22448282

However, when the subject matter pertains to the devastating mental disorder schizophrenia, it’s important that the makers of the entertainment are conscientious about how the disease is portrayed. There’s already a lot of stigma about schizophrenia in society, including the misguided notion that schizophrenics are running around with uncontrollable, violent alter egos.

Movies like Me, Myself & Irene (promotional photo shown above) don’t do the schizophrenic community any favors. Other movies, like The Soloist, appear to have given much more thought to the complexities of this disease.

In this post, I’ll try to give a simple explanation of what schizophrenia is and how it affects people’s lives, then I’ll do a rundown of movies and books that tried to depict schizophrenia and either failed miserably or made a respectable effort.

In short, no one can tell us why schizophrenia occurs or what exact biology is responsible. We know what schizophrenia looks like: it’s a breakdown of thought and emotion leading to significant social dysfunction. I think it is safe to say that schizophrenia must be characterized by at least two of the following:

1. Hallucinations. (You hear things [most common], see things, smell or taste things that no one else can sense but you.)

2. Delusions. (You may feel like you’re being persecuted in ways that seem bizarre to others; e.g. “I can’t go out in public because the CIA wants me dead and they have people outside my house watching me.”)

3. Disorganized thinking or speech. (Your train of thought is nearly impossible to follow because your speech is incoherent and you switch tracks mid-thought.)

4. Disorganized or catatonic behavior. (Your behaviors are illogical or inappropriate, or you have a flat affect.)

Paintings of cats done by 20th century artist Louis Wain, over a period in which he developed schizophrenia. The effect of the disease on his perception is apparent in his art.

A combination of factors, from genetics to environment to drugs, have been suggested to explain why schizophrenia afflicts people. A genetic link is almost certainly involved, with over 40% of schizophrenics’ identical twins also having the disease (as compared to the 6.5% risk shared by first-degree relatives). Urban living during child- or adulthood has been shown to increase the risk of schizophrenia two-fold. Cannabis use has even been implicated as having a causal role in schizophrenia development. Half of the world’s 24 million schizophrenics use drugs and/or alcohol to excess, but it is difficult to say how much of this behavior can be attributed to coping mechanisms.

So, I never set out to do a study on the depiction of schizophrenia in entertainment media. But I did come to realize that I’ve seen a number of movies and read a novel that all gave unique representations of this disorder…some of those representations were enlightening, and some were cringe-worthy. Below, I will grade works of art and describe what they did right, or, what they did very, very wrong.

1. Me, Myself & Irene. To be fair, I think I’ve only ever enjoyed 20-25% of Jim Carrey’s
movies. Me, Myself & Irene falls into that 75-80% that is almost unwatchable. The synopsis is that Carrey plays the role of a state trooper who is mild-mannered and lovable, until he goes off of his medicine and becomes abusive and violent. The movie that was “pure fun” for Carrey was viewed by the National Alliance for Mental Illness (NAMI) as “irresponsible.” The premise is that Carrey has “advanced delusionary schizophrenia with involuntary narcissistic rage” and is a “schizo” (according to his love interest in the movie, Rene Zellwegger).

What the audience sees is a guy who is normal and likable while on his medication, but when he’s off of it, he poops on his neighbor’s lawn, suckles at a stranger’s breast, and generally has uncontrolled rage. This, unsurprisingly, did little to help the societal stigma that schizophrenics are violent, dangerous people to be feared. In fact, if anything, Carrey’s character in the movie is closer to being a crude, insulting depiction of someone with dissociative identity disorder (aka multiple personality disorder), rather than someone with schizophrenia.

“We’re certainly not out to make fun of anybody,” Carrey said of the film. No, you’re just propagating negative stereotypes about a horrible disease by targeting the very age group with the peak incidence of the disorder, and telling the world that these people are dangerous (and maybe not so much worth helping, since that wouldn’t be as funny). The movie made $150 million worldwide, so a lot of people got the message.

Grade: F-

2. A Beautiful Mind. It was clear to me that this movie was making a more serious, sincere attempt at depicting schizophrenia. The main character, John Nash, was a real person, an actual schizophrenic, and a Nobel laureate at that. The real John Nash was plagued by paranoia, such as the idea that everyone who wore red ties was part of a communist conspiracy against him. He saw himself as having a special purpose, with schemers and enemies trying to persecute him.

Director Ron Howard goes to great lengths to make the viewer understand the all-consuming paranoia that a schizophrenic can feel. And Russell Crowe garners incredible sympathy for schizophrenics with his role. However, it seems like it was only for entertainment purposes that John Nash was seen to vividly hallucinate multiple individuals with constant personalities that stay with him for years and years. Not only that, but the John Nash of the film thinks everyone else sees his hallucination-people and is shocked to find out that others don’t accept reality as he understands it.

A true schizophrenic is much more likely to have auditory hallucinations, which he doesn’t expect others to hear, than to have “imaginary friends” that he believes are fully real. Still, there’s a reason multiple high school teachers made me watch this movie: it takes schizophrenics seriously, and depicts them as people you can respect and even begin to empathize with, even if the movie does take certain creative liberties in the name of entertainment value.

Grade: C+

3. The Soloist. Also based on a true story, The Soloist portrays Nathaniel Ayers, a  prodigy musician who develops schizophrenia and becomes homeless. Ayers inspires numerous newspaper columns (written by Robert Downey, Jr. in the movie), and I won’t ruin the ending for you, but rest assured that you will laugh with, cry over, and root for Jamie Foxx‘s Ayers.

Although the movie only has a Rotten Tomatoes score of 56% (i.e. it’s deemed “rotten” by movie reviewers), this is mostly attributed to a “lack of narrative focus.” The outstanding performance by Foxx is vibrantly complex and, moreover, clinically accurate. Efforts are made throughout the movie to reference Ayers’s childhood and to show the gradual build of his schizophrenic tendencies even from a young age, when he chooses to live in his basement and always be surrounded by his instruments.

Foxx plays a schizophrenic who is both believable and lovable in The Soloist.

One of the most beautiful things about this movie is that before you know anything about Ayers’s illness, you know about his incredible gift for music, and he’s inherently likable because his love of music is so pure. Even once the viewer starts to see the rapid, unexpected shifts in Nathaniel’s moods or the rambling, topic-jumping nature of his monologues, it’s impossible to write him off as just “crazy” — his insights about his home city of Los Angeles are spot-on, and he asks compassionate and worldly questions during his conversations with LA Times columnist Steve Lopez (played by Downey, Jr.). Even Nathaniel’s hallucinations are exclusively auditory (as is most common with schizophrenia) and his voices tell him that others can hear his thoughts (a belief commonly held by schizophrenics).

Clearly, people did their research into the nuances of schizophrenia before setting out to make this film. One could criticize the nature and believability of the friendship between Ayers and Lopez, but I think this movie does much to propagate a view of schizophrenia that makes more room for compassion, kindness, and aid, and leaves little space for fear and ostracism.

Grade: A

This post is getting long, but I just want to make one more plug for a novel that is truly spectacular in that it not only represents a schizophrenic in a factual, dynamic way, but it makes this representation through the eyes of this schizophrenic’s identical, mentally healthy twin brother. In this novel, I Know This Much Is True by Wally Lamb, the narrator goes through life as the privileged twin, preferred by their stepfather and more quick to make friends, but he is also fiercely protective of his less socially adept brother. As his brother develops schizophrenia, a progression which is written with attention to the typical age of onset and early signs of the disease, the healthy twin shoulders increasing amounts of the burden of care for his brother.

This novel does a stellar job of showing the reader that schizophrenia is far from a disease of the individual; schizophrenia affects everyone in a schizophrenic’s life, and even people outside of it. Add to that the fact that the identical twin brother is mentally sound, and thus suffers from the worry of becoming sick and the guilt of not being sick, and you have a book that paints an impressively complete picture of life with this disorder. Selected for Oprah’s Book Club in 1998, I Know This Much Is True is an intensely emotional, comprehensive, and profound read. Don’t be put off by the daunting 928 pages – it’s worth the time, and I definitely give it an A.

In summary, watch whatever you want, read whatever you want, but when it comes to at-risk groups in our society, know what’s real and what’s just for your amusement.

Stay nerdy

Picchioni MM, & Murray RM (2007). Schizophrenia. BMJ (Clinical research ed.), 335 (7610), 91-5 PMID: 17626963

van Os J, & Kapur S (2009). Schizophrenia. Lancet, 374 (9690), 635-45 PMID: 19700006

Large M, Sharma S, Compton MT, Slade T, & Nielssen O (2011). Cannabis use and earlier onset of psychosis: a systematic meta-analysis. Archives of general psychiatry, 68 (6), 555-61 PMID: 21300939

In any case, I recently found myself in a position of song lyric uncertainty that ended up being extremely enlightening. Last year, the song “Like A G6” by the group Far East Movement was a huge hit in clubs. Since my classmates and I love to dance (hey, grad school can be fun!), I ended up singing along with this song, like, all the time…especially since one could interpret a “G6″ to be a private jet or a sixth-year grad student with strong hopes of finishing her Ph.D. Anyway, when it came time for me to exuberantly proclaim that I was “Sippin’ sizzurp in my ride!” I would just sing along and give a self-deprecating laugh because, obviously, “sizzurp” couldn’t be a real word, but we were all just yelling and having fun, so what was a missed lyric here or there?

But (to make a long story short), I found out that sizzurp is real, kids. I wasn’t mistaken about those lyrics. Sizzurp is an actual concoction that people drink as a recreational drug to have a good time… but it’s surprisingly dangerous, so I’m going to do a quick breakdown of sizzurp aka “purple drank” in this post.

As for what it means when this song talks about “gettin’ slizzard,” that’s anybody’s best guess, so leave a comment if you think you know.

1. What is sizzurp? Chances are, you may have at some point ingested all of the components of sizzurp without knowing it, but you probably had them separately. The formula for sizzurp is quite simple, actually:

While the soda and candy combination sounds like an innocent flirtation with diabetes, the recreational use of prescription cough syrup is not innocent at all. Prescription cough medicine contains codeine and promethazine, an opiate and an antihistamine, respectively. Since cough syrup often has purple dyes in it, sizzurp tends to be purple, and is perhaps more commonly known as purple drank.

2. What’s so bad about sizzurp? So, about those opiates and antihistamines: they’re no joke. Codeine, like its more potent cousin morphine, is frequently used to treat pain. While codeine can make people feel a sense of euphoria, it can also cause itching, vomiting, and constipation, which are definitively un-fun things. Most serious, though, could be the fact that codeine can cause hypoventilation, a potentially fatal inability to breathe properly. Abuse of codeine can lead to physical dependence on the drug, which comes with a whole host of nasty withdrawal symptoms once someone tries to stop using it.

Promethazine is the element of prescription cough syrup that you may not have heard of, but it’s just as dangerous as codeine, if not moreso. Promethazine is an antihistamine that is typically used to fight nausea and to induce sedation. In low doses, promethazine can enhance the effects of codeine, causing more euphoric feelings than codeine alone. However, high doses of promethazine can also cause potentially deadly central nervous system depression and hypoventilation, extreme weakness and drowsiness, and constipation.

My version of euphoria does not involve constipation.

3. Who uses sizzurp? Sizzurp was first conceived in Houston, TX, but has since spread in the form of song references throughout hip hop music. On a basic level, it can seem as though sizzurp is “glorified in lyrics by hip-hop artists and rappers.” Name a rapper and he’s probably mentioned purple drank at some point. The most prominent face of sizzurp is the rapper Lil’ Wayne:

“I’m not a rookie, I’m a pro…methazine fiend.”

“I’m used to promethazine, in two cups, I’m screwed up.”

” I’m like a turtle, when I sip the purple.”

 

The trendy princess of rap, Nicki Minaj (you know, the one who was just at the Kids’ Choice Awards over the weekend), has an affinity for the purple drank as well:

“…and when I come, they better lean like promethazine.”

 

And now I’m getting to my point: “sizzurp” aka “purple drank” aka “lean” should not be considered something that’s isolated to the big, bad rap community. Many of the rappers who are touting this drug have fans listening even more closely than I am, and they are very often in the suburban, middle-class demographic. Indeed, I think these two girls have proven themselves her Minajesty’s biggest fans:

They may not look a thing like these rappers who’ve died from sizzurp overdose:

But they clearly have access to rap music, just like the rest of suburbia does:

Maybe they're singing Lil' Wayne songs...?

I’m definitely not saying that hip-hop and rap music should be banned in any way;  First Amendment rights, rah rah rah, and all of that. But I do think it’s up to the listeners of any kind of music to think about the meaning of the words they’re singing. Especially if you have a kid or even know kids who have access to pop radio, see if they’re picking up on drug/alcohol references, and talk with them about the ugly sides of these topics…the sides that probably won’t be talked about in the songs.

Because whereas I can hear a song and think “Sizzurp? Sounds weird,” Google it, and see that it’s dangerous, I wouldn’t trust an 8-year-old Nicki Minaj fan to Google “sizzurp” and not think “Mmm, tasty!”

Karamatic R, Croese J, & Roche E (2011). Serious morbidity associated with misuse of over-the-counter codeine-ibuprofen analgesics. The Medical journal of Australia, 195 (9) PMID: 22060082

Page CB, Duffull SB, Whyte IM, & Isbister GK (2009). Promethazine overdose: clinical effects, predicting delirium and the effect of charcoal. QJM : monthly journal of the Association of Physicians, 102 (2), 123-31 PMID: 19042969

Peters R Jr, Yacoubian GS Jr, Rhodes W, Forsythe KJ, Bowers KS, Eulian VM, Mangum CA, O’Neal JD, Martin Q, & Essien EJ (2007). Beliefs and social norms about codeine and promethazine hydrochloride cough syrup (CPHCS) use and addiction among multi-ethnic college students. Journal of psychoactive drugs, 39 (3), 277-82 PMID: 18159781

Wait, what?

… Maybe it’s just me, but I feel like I’m seeing more and more ads that are promoting this idea that our bodies are some foreign or outdated entities that can and should be forced into submission by product A or product B. I’ll agree that we’re more than just our bodies, but I won’t agree that our bodies are sneaking around with hidden agendas that need to be found out and dismantled.

I feel like there’s a disturbing trend in society right now to “medicalize” things that are probably normal, but that might be inconvenient (e.g. there has to be at least one kid out there with an ADHD diagnosis who just needs to cut back on Froot Loops). And I’m probably biased, but it seems like many of the silliest messages from advertisers are specifically targeting women’s insecurities.

Because it’s ridiculous to think that you could wear white, flirt with a boy, or generally have fun while you’re on your period.

First off, I don’t care in the slightest whether women choose to use these products or not. I don’t really have a problem with the products themselves. But I sort of resent the fact that some men might be seeing these ads and thinking, “Wow, glad I’m not part of the inferior sex!” or that preadolescent girls might be internalizing these messages and lamenting, “Oh no, I’m doomed to a future of womanhood!” That’s not cool.

So let me point out the stuff that’s been irking me in particular lately:

1. “Your body can tell you’re pregnant before you can.” This is the totally serious insight provided by the brunette (brunette because she’s smart, natch) at the beginning of a commercial for the First Response ® Early Result Pregnancy Test. She looks you deep in the eyes and serenely delivers the news that A) you and your body are two totally different things, and B) your body is withholding information that you’d probably like to know. The ad looks something like this:

(No, this isn’t the real ad and no, Sarah Michelle Gellar is not the spokesperson.)

First Response doesn’t use the fact that your body simply is or is not pregnant, but instead chooses to make you feel like you are in the dark about things your body can “tell” that you can’t. In my opinion, women would have been better served if the commercial had skipped the rhetoric and just explained, y’know, how pregnancy tests work: The tests detect levels of the hormone hCG in urine. hCG, human chorionic gonadotropin, essentially circulates in a pregnant woman’s body to promote the production of progesterone, which helps the uterus keep a good blood supply going to the fetus. But I guess none of that is really…catchy.

2. “Who says you have to have twelve periods a year?!” Funny enough, the answer to this question could potentially be really deep…something about evolution and/or God and/or the phases of the moon. But the way it’s posed by the voice-over in the ad, with cheekiness and sass, implies to me that it’s The Man or some other elusive oppressor of women who dishes out the monthlies just to see us suffer. What’s a girl to do? Rebel! By purchasing: Seasonique ®! It’s hard not to want to join these tough, young, fight-the-power types of ladies who chant “Who says?! … Who says?! … Who says?!” over and over and over. Before you know it, you’re squinting accusingly at your television screen thinking “Yeah! Who says?!” even if there isn’t actually anyone on the other side of this frustration. If you haven’t seen the TV spot, check out this print ad:

I’ve highlighted the line that really galls me, but in case you missed it, it reads: “There’s no medical need to have a monthly period on the Pill.” Does this sound slightly ridiculous to anyone else? I’m having a hard time finding a sufficiently parallel analogy to bring out the ridiculousness of it, but it strikes me the same way as if someone said “There’s no medical need to have brown eyes/ten fingers/earwax….” To me, there’s no “medical need” for most of the features that we possess as human beings, but that shouldn’t be the front-line argument against having these things when the choice is available to get rid of them.

Again, I have absolutely no issue with any woman who chooses to take hormones to prevent contraception, but I don’t think it’s quite right for some company to insinuate that menstruation is some vestigial biological nuisance that I should consider medicating myself against.

My Mother Nature is Betty White.

3. The “Outsmart Mother Nature” campaign, by Tampax. Until recently, I had been contentedly envisioning Mother Nature to be some serene, caring older woman, who sometimes gets depressed about the state of the environment.

But now Tampax Pearl tampons has put out this extensive ad campaign with a series of commercials to convince me that Mother Nature is actually this broad:

She has creepy, bulgy eyes, no flyaway hairs whatsoever, and really outdated fashion sense. Oh, and she presents you with “MOTHER NATURE’S MONTHLY GIFT” at the most inopportune times:

Like when you’re trying to get your sparkly, silver-and-white-themed photo shoot on with this guy:Don’t you hate it when this happens? I know I do. And my reaction’s all like:

Watch the ad here:

Yeah, Mother Nature sucks…wait, no! Darn you, Tampax!! You’ve taken a mental image of Mother Nature, who was benign at worst and really really comforting at best, and turned her into this vengeful character. “Take that, Mother Nature!”? I shudder to think what Father Sky is up to these days.

Alright, so, use whatever products you want — really, it’s not the products themselves that I’m rolling my eyes at here. It’s this idea that there’s someone to fight when nature proceeds as normal. Your body isn’t withholding anything, it’s just you who might not know what’s going on at the molecular level for a while. And there’s no evildoer behind the scenes, orchestrating your menstruation to maximize your misery. I don’t think it’s always the best thing to have books with titles like Take Control of Your Period, because it implies that your period is “out of control,” which might not be a healthy mindset. Besides — don’t we have enough real enemies to worry about, without fabricating imaginary ones?

Just my two cents.

Stay nerdy

 
Cole LA (2009). New discoveries on the biology and detection of human chorionic gonadotropin. Reproductive biology and endocrinology : RB&E, 7 PMID: 19171054

Goldzieher JW, & Rudel HW (1974). How the oral contraceptives came to be developed. JAMA : the journal of the American Medical Association, 230 (3), 421-5 PMID: 4606623

If you leave your job for three months without explanation, you’ll probably get fired. If you leave school for three months without a really detailed doctor’s note, you’ll probably get kicked out. If you leave your children unattended for three months, even with a good excuse, they’ll probably hate you, and CPS might take them away.

So, if you used to read my blog, but no longer feel that you can trust me as a webmaster, that’s well within your rights. I could go on and on about my hiatus with all the lab meetings and the presentations and the hours spent slaving away over tubes of clear liquids — but that’s not actually so interesting. You know what is?

What’s interesting is that I’m alive and relatively healthy despite my abominable (to some) diet and lack of exercise choices. Please read on for a heartbreakingly honest confession of my wicked health ways, with photographic examples of the devastation I’ve wreaked on myself, and sometimes on loved ones.

Disclaimer #1: The pictures herein may or may not induce diet fail.

Disclaimer #2: I may or may not use tons of hardcore scientific fact to back up my feeble excuses for my health choices.

Disclaimer #3: I may or may not be an advocate of unhealthiness per se, but I strongly defend people’s rights to make whatever unhealthful choices they wish…so long as they can live to tell about it, as I am.

First off, I can’t decide what my goal is with this post. Is it to absolve myself of the guilt I feel for what I’ve done? Is it to brag about the fact that I can do what I’ve done and get away with it? Or do I just want a platform to rage back against the hordes of people who provoke me time and time again by asking “Oh my gosh, you’re going to eat that?!”? Because the answer to this question is almost always “Yes. With seconds.”

So let’s say you make a cupcake. A cinnamon-y cupcake. You’re feeling indulgent, so you top it with streusel, which is basically butter and cinnamon and sugar. This adds a nice crunchy layer of devil-may-care deliciousness to your dessert.

This would be a fine place to stop and enjoy your creation. Would be, if it weren’t for maple buttercream. This is essentially maple syrup, butter (the real stuff), and powdered sugar.

Wow, you’re really throwing caution to the wind now! And since you’ve gone this far, you can’t think of any great argument against garnishing this confection with crumbled bacon, can you?

Paula Deen has nothing on you, obviously, but why are you doing this? Are you hosting a party? (No.) Do you have an amazing food blog, in addition to having an awesome science blog? (No.) Oh, so you just have a thing for unhealthy food! Lots of unhealthy food.

You don’t even really share these with people, you just eat them. The only reason you’ve taken pictures is to make your friends jealous on Facebook. But maybe you justify this as a rare treat! …What’s that? It’s not a rare treat? You mean you make unhealthy stuff, like, all the time? Surely you jest.

Alright, so I’m talking about myself here. I’m constantly making stuff like this, and not sharing it either. High sugar, high fat — and not just for dessert. My meals are technically not much better: cheap Chinese food, half of a large pizza, Ramen noodles. Even when I cook for myself, which is at least half the time, the meal is almost always along these lines:

Lots of frying, lots of butter. I’m not even going to talk about all of this stuff that I have on the side:

Alright, so you’re getting the picture. I’m not necessarily counting calories. Or fat, sugar, salt, cholesterol…. Maybe at this point you’re saying to yourself “Okay, this is disturbing, but what does it have to do with science?”

I’m not so sure, exactly. I guess I’m only just now becoming fully aware of the fact that I have eaten like this for my entire life, while making no attempt at formal exercise whatsoever, and yet I’m alive. Alive with an unremarkably normal BMI of around 20, normal cholesterol levels, no sign of diabetes, and blood pressure on the lower side. This probably sounds a lot like some sort of Humblebrag. And maybe it is. But I like to think of it as an anomaly of nature, an anomaly that should be questioned, challenged, and weakly explained in list form.

And so I present you with reasons why I’m not dead:

1. “I’m on a ketogenic diet!” A ketogenic diet is one that’s high in fats. I’ve got that covered. However, a ketogenic diet it also low in carbohydrates, so I can’t actually claim to be on a ketogenic diet. But it’s interesting to know that such a diet exists and is used as a form of treatment for epilepsy, brain cancer, and some genetic metabolic disorders. When the body has a relatively high amount of fat and low amount of sugar, the liver will burn fat instead of carbohydrates, which generates a byproduct called ketones. In people who can’t metabolize sugars because of enzymes deficiencies, a ketogenic diet is the way to go; in people who have seizures, it’s not well understood why a ketogenic diet helps, but it does.

"Tonight, we dine in hell! ...Because we hardly ate all day."

2. “I’m on the Warrior Diet!” The Warrior Diet is fairly straightforward: “under-eat” during the day and “overeat” at night. Now, I don’t technically follow the Warrior Diet or any diet at all, but I do find that my breakfast is small, my lunch is small, and my dinner is HUGE. For breakfast, I might grab some Greek yogurt (<200 calories). For lunch, I’ll have something like pita chips
and a cereal bar (<300 calories). And dinner is as much food as I can fit into my body. I’m talking 1200+ calories of pepperoni pizza, 1000+ calories of pasta, or 1400+ calories of fried chicken and biscuits. Followed by whatever my most recent baked good happens to be. So maybe I intake a normal number of calories (or so I’ll tell myself), but most of that happens after 6pm…where no one can see me.

3. “I’ve got good genes!” Ah, yes, those all-powerful “genes.” Those things that we use to excuse ourselves for not being runway models, Olympic swimmers, or (insert enviable profession here). And of course genes have a lot to do with everything we are…but, which genes are we talking about specifically? Very few people actually have a gene in mind when they praise “good genes” or lament “bad genes.” In fact, there aren’t many genes that can be solely blamed for why people are fat, athletic, smart, etc. Truth be told, there’s an enzyme known to break down fat in food and in the body and convert it to energy, and I know one of my two copies of this enzyme is mutated. So I don’t think I can say I have superior genes that let me eat tons of fat and sugar without consequence. If you still think it’s my genes, my dad developed Type 2 diabetes in his 50s, and my mom was diagnosed with high cholesterol in her 50s… neither of them were ever supermodels, either, so my genes probably aren’t terribly special.

4. “Just you wait!” And, after all this, it’s certainly possible that I’ve got some rough days in store for me. Everyone’s heard about how eating lots of fats and sugars predisposes to heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and just about every other negative biological outcome. It’s possible that my love of all things fatty is dooming me to a future with scarring in my brain, specifically in my hippocampus. I’m definitely not advocating for anyone to do as I do, but sometimes people break all the health “rules” and turn out just fine, and sometimes people follow every rule and are still struck with health misfortunes.

Honestly, I am in awe of people with well-balanced diets, those of you out there running marathons for fun, and the like. But…I’m just not like that. I’m sure as I get older, I will be forced to make concessions to nature and clean up my act a bit. But, until then, I’d love it if people would give me less grief about what I choose to eat, unless those people are doctors holding the results of my blood work.

And in the meantime, yes, I’m going to eat that.

Stay nerdy.

P.S. I really do apologize for so much time away from blogging. I’m going to shoot for updates every week or every other week, and hope for the best. Thanks as always for your continued support!

P.P.S. Check out this shiny new comedic science blog written by my buddy Tyler: http://www.biLOLogy.net

Lambrechts DA, Wielders LH, Aldenkamp AP, Kessels FG, de Kinderen RJ, & Majoie MJ (2012). The ketogenic diet as a treatment option in adults with chronic refractory epilepsy: Efficacy and tolerability in clinical practice. Epilepsy & behavior : E&B PMID: 22366051

Seyfried TN, Marsh J, Shelton LM, Huysentruyt LC, & Mukherjee P (2011). Is the restricted ketogenic diet a viable alternative to the standard of care for managing malignant brain cancer? Epilepsy research PMID: 21885251

Veggiotti P, Teutonico F, Alfei E, Nardocci N, Zorzi G, Tagliabue A, De Giorgis V, & Balottin U (2010). Glucose transporter type 1 deficiency: ketogenic diet in three patients with atypical phenotype. Brain & development, 32 (5), 404-8 PMID: 19515520

Thaler JP, Yi CX, Schur EA, Guyenet SJ, Hwang BH, Dietrich MO, Zhao X, Sarruf DA, Izgur V, Maravilla KR, Nguyen HT, Fischer JD, Matsen ME, Wisse BE, Morton GJ, Horvath TL, Baskin DG, Tschöp MH, & Schwartz MW (2012). Obesity is associated with hypothalamic injury in rodents and humans. The Journal of clinical investigation, 122 (1), 153-62 PMID: 22201683

Turns out, Jessica Simpson and I have differing opinions on this issue (and on many others, I presume; to be fair, the woman is 5’3″):

“I think when my mom had me I came out wearing high heels – I even go to the beach in them!”

She also provided this gem:

“I’d rather have a great pair of high heels than a hug.”

I know you can’t see me slowly shaking my head in pity right now, but maybe when you read this post you’ll give second thoughts to artificial height enhancement.

That can't feel good.

The practice of wearing high heels probably dates back to ancient Egypt, but that doesn’t make it right. Back then, high heels were most likely worn ceremonially, but today they’re a staple of women’s fashion. They make the wearer appear taller, with longer-seeming legs and emphasized bust and buttocks to boot. But the drawbacks to high-heeled shoes are in the things you can’t always see, things that probably make a woman (or man — we don’t discriminate here at Try Nerdy) feel less than sexy.

Here’s a list of of some ways that science seems to justify my high heel hate…beauty is pain, indeed:

1. High heels can lead to heel and ankle pain. Well, here’s an obvious one. Although the heel and ankle pain in this case is of a chronic nature, as opposed to pain only when you’re wearing the heels. That is, how much heel-wearing you do today could do you in for pain later in life. In this study that included over 3,300 men and women, over 60% of women reported regularly wearing “poor” shoes (including high heels) in the past, compared to only 2% of men. In women, a significant correlation was found between hind-foot pain and past shoe wear that included high heels.

WTF?

2. High heels alter the electrical activity in your lower back muscles. In this study, women between the ages of 20 and 55 were made to walk across a flat surface without shoes, in low heels (4 cm), or in high heels (10 cm). Higher bioelectrical activity was recorded in the “cervical paraspinal” muscles of the women in high heels, an effect that was even greater if they were 45-55 years old. This was hypothesized by the researchers to not be safe for the spine, and to be a potential risk factor for chronic lower back muscle fatigue.

3. High heels can shorten your muscle fibers and thicken your tendons. Last year, scientists in Austria reported on their findings on women who, perhaps counter-intuitively, feel pain when walking flat-footed. These women were habitual heel-wearers, and ultrasounds revealed their calf muscle fibers to be 13% shorter than those of women who wear flat shoes. Not only that, the women who wore high heels had substantially thicker and stiffer Achilles’ tendons, presumably to compensate for the shortened calf muscle fibers so that the calf could function optimally while walking. However, their thick and stiff tendons couldn’t stretch sufficiently and led to reports of pain in this area.

Hopefully Jessica Simpson incorporates some calf stretches into her day. I will stick with my lean, limber Achilles, thankyouverymuch.

4. High heels can lead to joint degeneration and osteoarthritis of the knee. A study out of Iowa State University focused on three heel heights: 0 inches, 2 inches, and 3.5 inches. The higher the heels were, the more compression that was experienced by the inside of the knee. Findings from a high heel study in Denmark corroborate the knee osteoarthritis link by showing that wearing a 9 cm heel causes the wearer to flex the knee joint significantly more when walking, leading to a large increase of bone-on-bone forces in the knee. The ISU study also found altered joint positions at the ankle, knee, hip, and trunk, which changed overall posture and could cause strain on the lower back.

Should've gone with the flats!

5. High heels can lead to calluses, bunions, and hammertoes. Not sexy. There isn’t too much fancy science here. When you wear heels, gravity pushes your foot forward against the front of the shoe. Also, the front of a high-heeled shoe is often more tapered than a foot is. All that pressing and squeezing into the shoe can mean (1) corns: tough, thickened patches of skin caused by excessive friction and pressure; (2) bunions: the inward turning of the big toe (encouraged by pointy shoes) as a deformity that causes the big toe joint to jut out to one side, and which may be accompanied by swelling; and (3) hammertoes: the permanent curling up of the toes (usually the second, third, or fourth toes), even when the shoes are off, in response to habitually squeezing into shoes that don’t fit.

The ugly truth:

Maybe some of you are calling me a feminist right now, but I call myself an anti-pain-and-chronic-injury-ist.  And, I’m not crusading for everyone to give up high heels, just advocating for people to know what they might be in for down the line.

Click the image below to enlarge and read more on the physiological consequences of heel-wearing.

Dufour AB, Broe KE, Nguyen US, Gagnon DR, Hillstrom HJ, Walker AH, Kivell E, & Hannan MT (2009). Foot pain: is current or past shoewear a factor? Arthritis and rheumatism, 61 (10), 1352-8 PMID: 19790125

Mika A, Oleksy Ł, Mikołajczyk E, Marchewka A, & Mika P (2011). Changes of bioelectrical activity in cervical paraspinal muscle during gait in low and high heel shoes. Acta of bioengineering and biomechanics / Wroclaw University of Technology, 13 (1), 27-33 PMID: 21500761

Csapo R, Maganaris CN, Seynnes OR, & Narici MV (2010). On muscle, tendon and high heels. The Journal of experimental biology, 213 (Pt 15), 2582-8 PMID: 20639419

Simonsen EB, Svendsen MB, Norreslet A, Baldvinsson HK, Heilskov-Hansen T, Larsen PK, Alkjær T, & Henriksen M (2011). Walking on High Heels Changes Muscle Activity and the Dynamics of Human Walking Significantly. Journal of applied biomechanics PMID: 21908897

SNL

I was exponentially more surprised when the same thing happened again, less than two minutes later. Yes, Seth was making multiple jokes about recent research, but the fact still stands — a lot more people know about those projects now than before the findings were worked into an SNL script.

Did you watch the November 12th episode of SNL? Do you remember which Weekend Update stories I’m talking about? No worries if you don’t — this post will refresh your memory, and take you beyond the one-liners.

With Emma Stone hosting and Coldplay performing, this past Saturday’s episode of SNL was already quite promising. However, when Seth Myers gave mention to not one, but two recent findings that I had come this close to posting on Try Nerdy…I was tickled.

Here’s a clip from Weekend Update that starts with the first nerdy reference (34:47) and ends with a second one (36:12):

The clip begins:

Researchers say that a new drug tested on monkeys has helped them lose weight with no dieting or exercise – it’s the easiest way to make the lean, sexy monkeys we’ve all been clamoring for.

Aside from being hilarious, this punchline makes a point — sometimes, research sounds ridiculous to the Average Joe. Whether it’s “fruit flies in France” or “sexy monkeys,” it’s not always immediately obvious how animal research relates to us as people. The common idea behind this type of research is that all living organisms — humans, monkeys, and, yes, fruit flies — are related on a big evolutionary tree, and that important biological mechanisms are probably conserved between us, or at least similar.

So about those monkeys. Monkeys are relatively quite close to humans on an evolutionary scale, so the discovery of a drug that makes obese monkeys lose weight effortlessly is kind of a big deal. Something that works in monkeys has a higher likelihood of working in humans, too. These monkeys, who became obese through overeating and under-activity, were given a drug that selectively destroyed the blood supply of fat tissues. Without a blood supply, the fat in these monkeys was broken down and reabsorbed.

Here’s fat in its normal state, thriving on a nutritious supply of blood:

Then this drug, called adipotide, kills the blood vessels supplying the fat, and the fat effectively melts away (the monkeys lost nearly 30% of their abdominal fat!):

If this drug gets approved for humans, it would be radically different from other weight loss drugs on the market, which typically try to suppress appetite or block absorption of dietary fats.

Near the end of Weekend Update, Seth surprised me again with another story that very nearly made it onto this site:

A new study suggests that people with high blood pressure suffer from emotional dampening and have trouble recognizing emotion in others – they’re called dads.

This got a laugh, but it basically summed up a study done at Clemson University in South Carolina. Researchers asked 106 participants to evaluate emotional expressions in faces and sentences, and individuals with higher resting blood pressures were significantly less accurate at the task. Imagine the irony: your job is super stressful, which drives your blood pressure up, which induces “emotional dampening,” which makes you interpret your boss’s constructive criticism as sarcastic prattle (which will probably lead to more stress down the line).

Oh, Mr. Steele, you're such a kidder.

The general idea at work here is that blood pressure can impact the central nervous system in complex ways; for example, hypertension is associated with decreased pain sensitivity. Perhaps a decrease in emotional sensitivity is part of the same phenomenon. Time (and more research) will tell, but until then, if someone misinterprets your words or fails to laugh at your joke, don’t get frustrated — maybe they’re just under a lot of stress…or eating a high-salt diet.

In any case, I’ll be paying closer attention to Weekend Update from now on, especially when I get blogger’s block.

Stay nerdy

 
Barnhart KF, Christianson DR, Hanley PW, Driessen WH, Bernacky BJ, Baze WB, Wen S, Tian M, Ma J, Kolonin MG, Saha PK, Do KA, Hulvat JF, Gelovani JG, Chan L, Arap W, & Pasqualini R (2011). A peptidomimetic targeting white fat causes weight loss and improved insulin resistance in obese monkeys. Science translational medicine, 3 (108) PMID: 22072637

McCubbin JA, Merritt MM, Sollers JJ 3rd, Evans MK, Zonderman AB, Lane RD, & Thayer JF (2011). Cardiovascular-emotional dampening: the relationship between blood pressure and recognition of emotion. Psychosomatic medicine, 73 (9), 743-50 PMID: 22042880