The Incubator

By Cynthia Duggan, @Cynthia_Duggan

Why do we need sleep?
Does yoga really lower your blood pressure?  
Is now the right time to peer into your own genome?  

You query the internet with a specific question about science, but it’s hard to find one clear, reliable resource.  You find sponsored links, websites with an obvious bias or political agenda, or pages of overly technical detail that have you frustrated and frantically clicking back to Netflix.

Science This! is aimed at that problem.  In this column, I’ll tackle topics in the public sphere and research the current state of the science.  As a highly educated science nerd, I can wade through and summarize tedious journal articles; in fact, that’s just what I love to do!  After many years in the lab trying to understand how nervous systems are made and destroyed, I’ve honed the necessary skills to synthesize and distill complex research.

I’ve noticed that periodically checking in on a particular research area can shed light on the pace of discovery.  Sometimes big promises have yielded only incremental progress, but occasionally you look at what’s new and say, “Wow!”  Or maybe there was a previously fringe idea that can now can be assessed in a rigorous way.  Join me as I take breaks from the two photon microscope to delve into the current state of the science behind a range of interesting topics.

Got anything you want me to science for you?  Feel free to suggest ideas in the comments section or under #sciencethis on Twitter.

I look forward to Science This! with all of you!