Category: public posts
The select public posts from syn·op·sis, written and reviewed by iSci students at McMaster University. Each post is interdisciplinary in nature, and a wide variety of subject matter is covered. So sit back, relax, and start learning.
-
Being Mindful of the Mindfulness Trend
Have you ever participated in any of the mindfulness or meditation trends? Using the new Calm app, going to meditation circles, or delving into the ‘self-help’ plans propagated by the media? Before you dive into the mindfulness meditation (MM) trends, you should ensure you’re aware of both their benefits and faults. MM trends have swept…
-
Animal vs. Plant Proteins: Which Is Better For Bones?
Which is better for the human diet: animal protein or plant protein? This is a highly debated topic given that diet plays a large role in human health, especially bone health. Some argue that animal-based proteins are detrimental to bone health and plant proteins should be consumed instead. Others believe that plant proteins are not…
-
Shining Light on the New Wave of Neurobiology
Since its inception in 2005, optogenetics has revolutionised neurobiology—researchers are now closer than ever to determining the functions, behaviours, and pathologies of individual neurons (Boyden, 2011). As this technology continues to develop, it underscores the intersectionality of optics and genetics and shapes scientific perception of neural dysfunction and mood disorders (Guru, et al., 2015). An…
-
Squirmy Brains
There are many layers within the skull that protect the brain from injuries, but is there an organism that can worm its way into the brain. Neurocysticercosis (NC) is caused by an infection of the larval cystic form of Taenia solium in the central nervous system (CNS) (Gripper and Welburn, 2017). It is one of…
-
Forget-me-not: The Legacy of Henry Molaison
Memories form a core part of life, facilitating learning, maturation, and even survival. Now imagine not being able to form memories at all. Such was the case of Henry Gustav Molaison, a man who not only lost his memories, but his ability to form new ones. Molaison was not always an amnesiac. At age ten,…
-
The Microscopic Elephant in the Room
Life as humans know it is slowly but surely being altered by the crucial issue of climate change (Tiedje, et al., 2022). Greenhouse gases (GHGs) such as carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), and nitrous oxide (N2O), largely contribute to this problem and are in surplus due to altered biogeochemical cycles. These gases are produced and…
-
A New Hope to Beat Depression
Major depressive disorder, or clinical depression, is a mental condition that knows no bounds; it affects more than 300 million people spanning all races, ages, genders, and communities and its global burden is likely to increase with time (Somani and Kar, 2019). That said, numerous treatment modalities exist, but nearly 30% of clinically depressed patients…
-
Challenging ALS: From Ice Buckets to Clinical Trials
Many of us would like to believe that “the Ice Bucket Challenge was the beginning of ending ALS” as phrased by Pat Quinn, one of the Ice Bucket Challenge founders (Sohn, 2017). In 2014, the Ice Bucket Challenge raised global awareness and millions of dollars for research on the neurodegenerative disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).…
-
The Unsettling Concussion Crisis in American Football
American football is one of the most popular yet violent sports in the world; each season, players accrue injuries ranging from common sprains to career-threatening spinal fractures (Saal, 1991). In the United States, football continues to account for the highest proportion of concussions, a trauma now emerging as a significant health risk to long-term cognition,…
-
Curare: the False Anaesthetic
The introduction of plant medicines from Indigenous cultures into the West by ethnobotanists drives the development of novel medical and research tools (Heinrich and Gibbons, 2001). This was the case in the 18th and 19th century when explorers and pharmacologists set out to understand curare, an arrow poison used by Amazonian tribes in regions of…