Blog

  • Exercise and DNA Methylation Changes

    How is this for amazing, that exercise or lack thereof could be the catalyst for many diseases in the children born of those who exercise, or don’t.

    From this PubMed article

    Aim: DNA methylation programs gene expression and is involved in numerous biological processes. Accumulating evidence supports transgenerational inheritance of DNA methylation changes in mammals via germ cells.

    Results: Global and genome-wide sperm DNA methylation was altered after 3 months of exercise training. DNA methylation changes occurred in genes related to numerous diseases such as schizophrenia and Parkinson’s disease.

  • Enrol

    Enrol is the standard spelling in British English, which breaks the general rule that British words carry with them an extra consonant. In many cases, such as traveling-travelling, canceled-cancelled, totaled-totalled, labeled-labelled, etc., it is the British spelling that contains the two –ll’s.

    But, in the case of enrolment, the standard spelling in British English only has one l – enrol and yet in past tense it is – enrolled.

    in American English the word has two ll’s – enroll and enrolled.

    The origin of the word

    The word enroll originated from late Middle English (formerly also as inroll ): from Old French enroller, from en- ‘in’ + rolle ‘a roll’ (names being originally written on a roll of parchment).

  • Breast Milk Pump

    We were talking about feeding babies, and when the practise of using a pump to express milk originated.

    The first patent for a breast pump was filed in 1854 by Orwell Needham in New York. The pump was made of a rubber cup connected to a glass pipe in which there was a hole. A mother would control the vacuum effect with her finger. A flexible tube connected the glass pipe back to a bellows fitted in a box.

    The goal was to mimic the sensation of a nursing baby.

  • Puppet

    Atropos is cutting the threads
    Sandie Shaw is a puppet on a string
    And still
    That still small voice that whispers
    You should know that
    Seek and ye shall find,
    is a warning?

  • Gallstones

    Gallstones are dried and compacted lumps of bile that form in the gallbladder when bile builds up. Gallstones can be as small as a grain of sand or the size of a golf ball. They do not cause symptoms in most people.

  • Ireland By Train

    From The Week 3 September 2022

    A train in Ireland: Ireland has some beautiful railways, and with recent cuts to fares, train travel there is now remarkably affordable. If you only have time for one trip, hop aboard at Rosslare, the ferry port at the country’s southeastern tip, and travel up the east coast to Dublin, says Vic O’Sullivan in The Guardian.

    The journey of two to three hours is among the loveliest in Europe. The line wends at first across the Sloblands, marshy plains that are a winter sanctuary for migratory birds, to Wexford Town. Next comes the “striking” Norman town of Enniscorthy, and then Arklow, beyond which the scenery is “positively Alpine”, the train climbing higher and higher before plunging into the “lush” Vale of Avoca. Past Wicklow Town, there are ever more dramatic coastal views on the way to Bray, where it’s worth switching to the DART commuter service to visit “idyllic” seaside towns such as Dalkey and Killiney on the way into Dublin. Tickets cost from €7.49 (irishrail.ie).