Science, Museums, and Adornment

[browngirl]

Heredity and metabolism: drglam told me about studies that indicate that if one's parents, grandparents, or even great-grandparents underwent a famine, one can be at increased risk for metabolic disorders like obesity and diabetes (the mechanism involves dna methylation, apparently). I immediately thought of the higher rates of obesity and diabetes amonng African-Americans and the malnutrition endemic among slaves and sharecroppers. Man, if I were twenty I would immediately set out to write a disseration on this.

Museums: like this writer, I was commuting (on a shuttlebus) when I glanced up and saw on a building's side, "MGH museum of medical innovation". I need to go see that, and so many other museums around Boston, so this is my note to myself.

While I sat on that bus I had my hair up in a bun with a white scarf tied around it; today I have a pink one. The new variant on my hairstyle has gotten me several compliments, and it's just... a lot of fun, feeling a scarf fluttering behind me like a flag as I walk outside. I'm rather indulging my frivolous side, but I don't think it'll rot my soul. :D

Comments

[branna.livejournal.com]

If the alternate-twenty-year-old you wrote that dissertation, I'd sure want to read it :)

The whole science of epigenetics utterly fascinates me. The interaction of environment and heredity is so much more complex than we thought.

[gosling.livejournal.com]

All of this. :-)