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Extreme Biology

The new rules for living longer and healthier

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Extreme Biology

The Underlying Logic of Codes and Memes

Washington
1 day ago

The word code turns out to be a really important word for my book, The Information .  The genetic code is just one example.  We talk now about coders, coding.  Computer guys are coders.  The stuff they write is code.   Code, of course, is a word with a long history, and it pops up again during ...

Extreme Biology

My Best Advice on Quitting Smoking

Shutterstock_108545138
7 days ago

If you want to stop smoking here’s the best advice that I could give you.  The first thing I would say is, smoking is actually not physically addictive for very long after you stop smoking.  So we know from studies that about 100 hours after your last cigarette, all of the nicotine is out of your ...

Extreme Biology

Why You Should Eat Bugs

Shutterstock_134453462
7 days ago

In terms of sustainability and what we eat and what its footprint is on the environment and the consequences of eating one thing versus another, obviously it makes a lot of sense to be eating insects.  They’re incredibly plentiful.  They’ve got a very short turnover rate.  You could be eating ...

Extreme Biology

Why Aren't We All Happy Polygamists?

Shutterstock_31658374
10 days ago

Modern culture is intrinsically polygamist.  The culture of sexual choice is precisely nothing but polygamy, polygamy without marriage, if you will.  We live in a culture of multiple sexual and romantic and marital partners. According to the biologist's view, if we are indeed inherently ...

Extreme Biology

Does Medicaid Affect Health? Part II

Shutterstock_118837663
10 days ago

(Caution – this piece is wonkish.) An interesting aspect of the Oregon Health Study, which I wrote about a little while ago, is that it uses the “intent to treat” format of a randomized controlled trial. In this kind of study, the control group and treatment group are still randomized. The ...

Extreme Biology

Why Thinking about Eating is Taboo

Shutterstock_121601872
11 days ago

The reason that eating and everything that involves is taboo is that it’s something we have in common with animals.  I think that human beings don’t like to be reminded that they, too, are just organisms – big sacks of guts that are chewing and swallowing and processing and excreting.   I think ...

Extreme Biology

Antibiotics for Back Pain

Back
11 days ago

It sounds preposterous: antibiotics for back pain? What on earth could antibiotics possibly do for back pain? Then again, it sounded preposterous when Barry J. Marshall and J. Robin Warren said, back in 1984, that peptic ulcers were the result of bacterial infection (and could therefore be ...