Science Advocacy
Science Advocacy
A company called Vaev is selling facial tissues that it says “contains a human sneeze”. As in, someone else’s sneeze, that you then expose yourself to by using the tissue. The company claims these tissues will help you by getting you sick “on your terms”, and that it’s safer than “using needles or pills.” I swear we are not making this up.
It is our duty as a science advocacy website to state for the record that this is a terrible idea. It will not “replace” a flu vaccine – there are over 200 different kinds of flu viruses, and flu shots protect against many of them, while a filthy diseased tissue would potentially protect against only one of them. I say potentially, because you would have to survive the flu or cold or Ebola or whatever you come down with first. Flu shots don’t give you the flu, which is good because the flu is dangerous, Purposely giving yourself the flu is just plain stupid.
This idea is so crazy, soOOoo preposterous, and we have questions. So many questions!
Right? It sure seems like a joke, but apparently it isn’t. Most of what we found online about Vaev are from people writing about how surprised they are that is isn’t a joke. The website doesn’t provide a contact phone number, and no one has been able to get an interview with the yahoos who run the company to date.
No word on this. You’d have to find sick people, but not people who are too sick. Which brings us to…
We are confident in saying that this company does not have the resources (or the skills) to identify the organisms it’s selling. You probably won’t get Ebola, because they probably aren’t getting anyone from Sub-Saharan Africa to sneeze into their tissues. However, you could certainly end up with more than the flu. There are a whole bunch of nasty diseases you can catch from a dirty tissue, and there are no vaccinations available for a lot of them. You could catch Severe Acute Respsiratory Syndrome (SARS, remember SARS?), pneumonia, tuberculosis, bird and/or swine flu, shingles, herpes (!), and numerous forms of meningitis, among many others.
I know right? Sometimes this world makes us sad.
A single filthy disease-ridden tissue will cost you $80! If that sounds ridiculous, that’s because it is. Luckily, you can’t actually buy these tissues right now. They are all sold out, which means that either these filthy tissues are very popular, or (fingers crossed), the folks a Vaev are just not very good at managing their supply chain.
I guess the lawsuits will put them out of business? Let’s hope that the FDA shuts them down before then. This can’t possibly be legal…
In May of 2018, the Smithsonian Institute honored Henrietta Lacks by placing a portrait of her in the entrance. The portrait is titled the “Mother of Modern Medicine” and it hung in the entry of the museum until November of 2018. Mrs. Lacks never knew it, and her family wasn’t aware of it until much later, but she is responsible of many of our modern medical treatments and research studies.
I have done some pretty weird things in my life (including eating bugs for this blog), but I am not sure that there is anything quite so bizarre as using your own pee-pee as a health tonic. However, in a video posted recently in the New York Post, Julia Sillaman does just that.
Sillaman claims that drinking her own urine and using it as a face wash has cleared up her acne and helped her lose weight. She also says that fasting has helped her pee taste more like coconut water. Not only is this really a thing that she does (and not a joke or prank), the practice of using urine for health purposes has been around since forever. In this, the third article we’ve had to do about pee, we debunk the inexplicable history of people using urine as a health tonic. (Hint: It does not work.)
Once the social symbol of sailors and jail-hardened individuals, tattoos have surged in popularity among the global youth, with around 40% of adults between the ages of 18 and 29 sporting some ink. Tattoo artists spend years training and a lifetime honing their craft, often specializing in one of many forms of skin-based expression ranging anywhere from portraits to calligraphy to watercolor. Whether you’re a fan of the “I-Love-Mom” classics or elaborate Monet-esque mosaics, the practice of tattooing seems almost magical in nature – and like many other tattoo-lovers out there, you’ve probably found yourself wondering: how in the world do tattoos even work?
Hello gentle readers, and welcome to the first edition of the UYBFS book club! As much as we like writing about science, we enjoy reading about it, too, especially all the strange and interesting history behind many scientific discoveries that we now take for granted. There are a lot of great books out there, and here Editor David has collected a few of his favorites. Why not add some to your summer reading list? Dazzle your friends with trivia!
The Poisoner’s Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York – Deborah Blum. A fascinating history of thescience of forensic toxicology in the United States, this book is equal parts crime drama and history of science. Ever wonder about what makes “denatured” alcohol? Would you have guessed it has to do with Prohibition? How did we figure out all that CSI stuff that modern forensic scientists use to determine how someone died? It’s all in here, and it’s super cool.Continue reading…
Consider the following scenario:
Dylan Dawson is a master’s student from a prestigious school majoring in industrial engineering. Besides academic responsibilities, he’s also involved in several extracurricular activities. His recent project is organizing a TEDx event on campus. Dylan Dawson is dealing with too many obligations right now, so he goes to his doctor and asks for a prescription of Vyvanse, a stimulant in the amphetamine class prescribed to treat mostly attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Dylan receives a temporary prescription for Vyvanse, so he can stay focused and motivated while juggling with classes, course work, working out, and organizing the TEDx event.
Dylan isn’t diagnosed with any pathological disease that would require him to take Vyvanse. The purpose of him taking this prescription drug is to ace all his exams, stick to his workout routine, and organize a successful TEDx event.
There is even a term describing Dylan’s situation: cosmetic psychopharmacology, coined by Peter Kramer, a psychiatrist and faculty member at Brown Medical School. Kramer defines cosmetic pharmacology as “using medications to induce desirable and socially rewarding personality traits in healthy individuals.” In case of Dylan Dawson, he used Vyvanse to enhance his cognitive performance to power through a challenging time even though he was perfectly healthy.Continue reading…
“Get Tinder, everyone has it!” I hear that from my peers too many times. “All you need to do is sit back, relax, and swipe!”
For those who don’t know: Tinder is a location-based social dating app that has over 50 million users worldwide1 and it works through a simple principle: look at a person’s pictures and swipe right if you’re interested, or swipe left if you’re not. On Tinder, everyone can have virtual autonomy and the opportunity to select their potential dating mates based on their pictures.
As a biologist, the big questions I have are: What do evolutionary and neurobiological theories tell us about the most common parts of the online dating process? Although culture and heritage highly influence the perception of beauty and the visual aspects of attraction, some studies suggest that our preferences may be influenced by evolutionary biology. So, let’s explore the steps from getting a match on Tinder to the actual date, and see what evolutionary and neurobiological theories can tell us about the dating process.
