News Author Ann Constantino
Fitting Into Your Genes Part I
Photo by Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels Published in the Humboldt Independent on June 30, 2020 While we’ve seen some creative spelling variations on protest placards in the news lately, what you are about to read is not about that quarantine spare tire that…
OK, Zoomer
Photo by Chris Montgomery on Unsplash With schools and many workplaces closed and millions of people sheltering in place over the past three months, our intensely social species has found its social habits undergoing a sometimes disturbing transformation. Many changes…
Are You Gonna Eat That?
Photo by Ello on Unsplash Diet is right up there with religion and politics as a topic that will often create acrimony or even outright hostility among folks who don’t see eye to eye, so if you find anything hard…
Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet
Photo by Testalize.me on Unsplash Just a few short weeks ago, much of the Covid-19 news was focused on the shortage of mechanical ventilators, machines that breathe for a patient who can no longer breathe on their own. More ventilators…
We’re In This For the Long Haul
Photo by Anna Shvets from Pexels How is that adjustment going? Two weeks ago we talked about the stages of grief and a psychological condition called “adjustment disorder” in reference to the reaction to sheltering in place that we may be experiencing. Back…
Going Viral
Photo by Ashkan Forouzani on Unsplash Have you adjusted yet? It would not be surprising if your answer were a resounding “No!” You might even be feeling a kind of grief for your former life, the one in which you…
Facing the Coronavirus Pandemic Together
Photo by Adam Nieścioruk on Unsplash Published in the Humboldt Independent on March 24, 2020 While Humboldt County’s lone official positive case of Covid-19 has recovered, the highly infectious and deadly disease caused by a novel coronavirus that emerged in…
The Pain in Spain Stays Mainly in Your Brain
Photo by Andrew Neel from Pexels Suppose your beloved but clumsy dance partner steps on your foot and you immediately feel pain, identified by your brain as clearly being in the crushed appendage, but what exactly is that sensation and where does it…
May Be Habit Forming
Photo by Pawel Czerwinski on Unsplash Around this time of year, the end of one and beginning of another, many people are inclined to make some changes. Spurred by the sense of renewal that turning over the December page can…
The Deep End of the Gene Pool
Photo by CDC on Unsplash The old scientific debate of nature vs. nurture has taken on some promising new directions since the field of epigenetics has been developing over the past few decades. Every living thing carries a genetically coded…