At Lady Astor's modest country retreat on the Thames
2007
The Ebola epidemic has driven all other health news
underground, and my cursed shingles invasion leaves me with very little energy
to chase down news of new developments in cancer research. In desperation (I haven’t blogged for five
days) I turned to my old pal, Google Scholar.
I asked for articles published in the last two years containing the
phrase “ovarian cancer” in the title – and got “about” 5300 hits! Thoroughly discouraged, I decided to use my
aching stomach muscles as an excuse and fob you off on a general article about
the biology of viruses. It is
reasonably interesting and accessible, and will give you a break from worrying
about whether the Kansas City Royals can pull it off. Here it is:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/28/science/ebola-and-the-vast-viral-universe.html?ref=health
The author tosses in a few technical bio-chem terms,
probably to appear erudite. Most of them
she explains: here are several she doesn’t.
Interferon: Proteins important in fighting viral
infections. They stimulate the immune
system to fight back
Lipid: fat cells
Capsid: The protein shell of a virus
Ribosome: A biological “machine” composed of
proteins and RNA that converts DNA into protein.
Phyletic: A fancy and obscure way to indicate an
evolutionary lineage
I don’t give you these definition to appear erudite myself,
but rather to save you the trouble of going to Google – which I had to do in
all but two instances.
No comments:
Post a Comment