Antimicrobial Nation: The Benefits and Drawbacks of the Domestic War on Germs

A short walk down the aisle of any convenience store will show you the public's contrary attitude towards microbes. We are at war. Everything seems manufactured to protect us from these microscopic creatures. Two decades ago when the household antibacterial soap market first gained popularity, these substances were simply used in cleaners. Now not only do they dominate 76% of the liquid soap market, but no application of them seems inappropriate: from ballpoint pens to children's toys, we have truly become an antimicrobial nation.

The Skinny on Life Extension

Purported to cure illness and sustain eternal youth, the Fountain of Youth is a worthy aspiration for any explorer. Ponce de Leon's quest for immortality took him to present-day St. Augustine, Florida, but no mystical spring awaited him there. Through the generations, however, this legend has persisted, though its form has changed. Now, a new breed of explorers is pursuing this goal. But these mavericks are no longer searching for enchanted wells; instead they are experimenting with an amazingly simple practice: calorie restriction.

MEDIA REVIEW – A Primate's Memoir: A Neuroscientist's Unconventional Life Among the Baboons, by Robert M. Sapolsky

It is rare for graduating students to foresee where their career paths might take them - a fact that was especially true of Robert Sapolsky. Back in 1978, as a young man recently graduated from college, Sapolsky left for southwestern Kenya to join a baboon troop. His intent was to do a behavioral study focusing on stress-related disease in a wild species; in doing so, he was inducted into the tribe as a low-ranking male. So began a twenty-odd year project where he observed the troop, spending four months out of every year studying the progression of their baboon friendships, courtships, and rivalries.

Academic Worry as a Predictor of Sleep Disturbance in College Students

Psychologists have devoted little attention to contemplating the effect of worry on the sleep patterns of college students. The purpose of this study is to address this gap by focusing on academic worries and its effect on length of sleep. It was proposed that students who have more academic worries would report less sleep than those who have less academic worries. It was also proposed that an increase in sleep disturbances attributed to worry would predict less sleep.