Happy New Year 2014!!!!

My Dear Sexy Readers,

I wish you all a Sexy

I hope you had a fantastic Christmas, hopefully surrounded by your family. 

NOW is time for fun with friends!!!

If you are out and about tonight, you will be in full preparation mode about right now, so if you are wondering what are the "chemicals" you put on your face, check out SSS mini series on Chemicals in your Make up.

Later on, you might be tempted by a late night snack such as a little omelet? Maybe you will be wondering if your eggs are still fresh, although this might not be your biggest worry. Anyhow, here is how to know!

Or maybe you'd like a nice piece of toast with some Nutella on it?

To make sure that you are not too hungovered, you might be tempted to finish your night with a cuppa. Find out here what are the effects of caffeine in your body.

Tomorrow morning, you will probably wake up wondering why you feel the way you feel!?! It might be about anything but this article is about 'feeling rough' after a big one!!!

And then will start the usual guilty feelings about not respecting your body, so you will be tempted to start a January Detox programme. Come over here for some tips and how to avoid spending too much money on so called miracle cures!

See you Soon for More Sexy Science,

Merry Christmas

My Dear Sexy Readers,

I wish you a

I hope you have enjoyed this year's So Sexy articles.
And if you are in full Xmas preps and baking your way into your family's get together dinner, you might find the article about the difference between yeast and baking powder interesting or useful or need to know how to make a gorgeous home made mayonnaise.
Also, little tricks here or there about why you cry when you are chopping your onions, but fear not, they are good for your health, check it out over here.
When you'll be all finished in the kitchen and will be preparing yourself, you might wonder if wearing make up is really healthy, this mini-series on Chemicals in your make up will help you make up your mind on the subject. As well as being informative and an excellent conversation topic, check out this mini-series on What's in your Shampoo? with a focus on the infamous SLS and Parabens.

See you Soon for more Sexy Science,

Banking your baby's umbilical cord

My Dear Sexy readers,

It has become on of those talks you HAVE TO HAVE when you fall pregnant:  

(Please note, I have included a LINK to a Petition that I am supporting. If you are interested, feel free to jump over there first from HERE)

Will I store my baby's umbilical cord?
Why? How? It's gross! and where? In my fridge?
Don't worry, if you do decide to do it, you have a few options and storing it at home is NOT one of them!
A few companies have now set up in the UK to help you store your precious in state of the art containers.
So now to the Why?

Special Amazon offers on baby products ends soon: 

Cord blood contains stem cells which are cells that haven't decided what to transform themselves into.

For example, cord blood contains mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs), haematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) and very small embryonic like stem cells (VSELs), all of which may be usable in stem cell treatment and increase the therapies available to your child. The cord tissue also contains MSCs in addition to unrestricted somatic stem cells (USSCs), vascular endothelial stem cells and perivascular stem cells, which are also expected to have great therapeutic benefit in the future. (Excerpt from Cells 4 Life website)

Cell types produced from MSCs

So with a little help from scientists, those stem cells could be fed with a few nutrients to help them differenciate into a specific cell type.
Those differenciated cells can then be used to treat someone who has a disease or a condition. This is called regenerative therapy because by introducing those cells into our body, it can kickstart the repair programme needed!
This type of therapy is in its infancy but already scientists have witnessed the phenomenal potential that it brings. For example, check out this article about a little girl who was cured using her cord blood stem cells that her parents got stored
Please check out this link to see a list of diseases that are being studied and case studies where stem cells therapies have been successfully applied.

Is it ethical?
It's not controversial at all like it used to be with embryonic stem cells because cord blood stem cells are usually thrown away, there is no life in it, baby used it for 9 months and once (s)he's born, (s)he doesn't need it anymore.
Keeping it could save that baby's life if, by an unfortunate twist of fate, (s)he develops a disease that is, by a fortunate twist of life, treatable with stem cells!

Who do I ask?
Not many women, and nurses/midwives for that matter, know that you can donate your baby's umbilical cord to the UK NHS bank! Instead, your baby's umbilical cord just ends up in the bin! WHAT A WASTE!!! Don't you think?

Even fewer people know that you can keep it for your own use when/if it will be needed!
I myself did it using the company Cells 4 Life. It is relatively non expensive, the price could scare a few I admit, when you add this cost to all the other bills that are required for a newborn!
But if you look at it as an investment, my baby is insured for £100/year for 25 years! And that is Priceless - and quite cheap! Isn't your Sky or phone bill 10x more? Even my house insurance is 3x more!

In London, there is an NHS trust in Barking/Havering and Redbridge that is thinking about refusing private procurement of umbilical cord blood! Why should it be their choice?

Think about all the women living in that area who won't get to decide what to do with their child's umbilical cord!!!! Please do come over HERE and sign my petition against it!!! THANK you for them

LINK to Petition: https://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/barking-havering-and-redbridge-hospital-allow-private-procurement-of-umbilical-cord-blood

What more?
The company I used not only allows you to keep the cord blood but also the tissue, and store it as a whole as opposed to purified and reduced cord blood like other companies do. For more information on this, please do check out their website.
Now, some people might say it could be a lot of money wasted and we don't even know if it's working, there are not many diseases treated by this kind of therapy, etc...
I reply AS YET!
This science is at the beginning, every day scientists are discovering new and exciting facts and the list of diseases and conditions treatable is growing! Imagine in 25 years? In 50 years? When your child will need them? By then the list might be extraordinary, but if you haven't banked those cells at the birth, you or he won't be able to use them in the future!

The opportunities to save lives are there, to potentially save your child's life!

Also, let me take this opportunity to remind you of Cosy Science café as their last talk was about regenerative medicine :)

See you Soon for more Sexy Science,

Please note that Although Cells4Life is now a Sponsor of SSS, this article has not been requested and my views are mine only.

Did you Know? #6 - Blond hair are not only found in Europe

My Dear Sexy Readers,

Today we are resuming our "Did you know?" series on a fascinating subject that took its stem in our recent SSS post "The genetics behind hair colours".

 

Natural Blond hair on Solomon islands 

When I was researching the genetic variations behind hair colours and looking through pins on Pinterest to illustrate this, I stumbled upon something I never knew! In Melanesia and particularly on Solomon islands where people have predominantly a dark skin, the occurance of blond hair is almost 10%! Which is as much as in Northern Europe! Contrary to the European genetic complexicity, this blond hair trait is located on a single gene located on chromosome 9 and could account for 50% of all the blond people checked out (reference)!

Did you Know Collection

See you Soon for more Sexy Science,

What Mandela did for the Sciences

My Dear Readers,

Nelson Mandela, the man who fought all his life for liberation, one of the greatest leaders of all time, passed away last night.
Now, I realised there's probably not a - adult - soul who hasn't heard of him but what is less known is/was his involvement for the Sciences:

He once said that education was "the most powerful weapon with which you can change the world".
Mandela lent his name to the creation of a new generation of African Institutes of Science and Technology, seen as the beginning of a new generation of African research universities. In Tanzania, Nigeria and soon Burkina Faso. Please do check the Nelson Mandela Institution wesite for more info or hover your pointer over the countries to be redirected to their website.

As well as this, a new secondary school located in Mandela's birthplace Mvezo will be opened on the 17th January 2014 to welcome children up to grade 12. The facilities at the school will include three double-storey buildings housing 25 class rooms and three laboratories – for science, biology and agriculture; a state-of-the-art resource centre with two computer laboratories, an engineering design laboratory and a library; and sports facilities including a netball court, soccer field and sports pavilion.
 

The facilities at the school are world-class. There are three double-storey buildings housing 25 class rooms and three laboratories – for science, biology and agriculture; a state-of-the-art resource centre with two computer laboratories, an engineering design laboratory and a library; and sports facilities including a netball court, soccer field and sports pavilion. - See more at: http://www.discoversiemensafrica.com/topics/big-impact-of-new-mandela-school-of-science-technology-in-mvezo-education-skills-and-jobs/#sthash.8stwTa85.dpuf

The facilities at the school are world-class. There are three double-storey buildings housing 25 class rooms and three laboratories – for science, biology and agriculture; a state-of-the-art resource centre with two computer laboratories, an engineering design laboratory and a library; and sports facilities including a netball court, soccer field and sports pavilion. - See more at: http://www.discoversiemensafrica.com/topics/big-impact-of-new-mandela-school-of-science-technology-in-mvezo-education-skills-and-jobs/#sthash.8stwTa85.dpuf

www.mandelaschool.co.za/

So Sadly,

Cosy Science

My Dear Sexy Readers,

I would like to share with you this amazing initiative by a group of research scientists in London.
Cosy Science is a Science Café where VISP (Very Important Sexy Scientists) come down the pub and talk to us about their science while drinking their beer (oops... I mean coffee)!
Yes this is similar to a previous SSS post on Pint Of Science.
The major difference is that Pint of Science is a festival happening once a year over a few days whereas Cosy Science is a regular monthly event.
One of the founders of Cosy Science is Kinga, a PhD student at Cancer Research UK whom I met at our weekly mummy and baby club :)
She explained to me that she came up with the idea on a Sunday afternoon while lounging in Hyde Park in April 2012. She got some labmates interested in the project and launched their Cosy Science Café. (Note the Science Café concept has been around for many years in UK and all over the world)

Cosy Science presents: Unlocking secrets behind regenerative medicine

Last Tuesday 26th November, I was the happy owner of a ticket to their sold out, yet free, event where 4 prominent scientists from London and Israel were coming down to a Holborn pub to talk to us about regenerative medicine!
WHAT a TREAT!
Passionate, clear, funny, interesting and enriching are a just a few adjectives to describe the messages that those guys wanted to put accross. We were also treated to some pub food, entertained by a super easy and fun game, followed by a session of lively discussion. All this in a non-patronising environment! Brilliant! Loved it!

Check out their FB page for more info on the next event.

See you Soon for more Sexy Science,

So Sexy Sciencey Things on Pinterest #11

My Dear Sexy Readers,

Welcome back on SSS. Today we are looking at a snapshot of Science So Sexy Pinterest board focusing on the beautiful and sexy variety of our hair colour. A quick reminder that SSS latest post is on the genetics of hair colour. A very complex matter which has eluded many scientists so far! If you are interested in our genetics, please check out the Mystery behind the colour of your eyes.You might also be interested in checking up SSS previous post on DNA, genes and proteins.

SSS Pinterest #11

For similar posts, check out SSS Pinterest Collection

See you Soon for more Sexy Science,

Try it at Home Series

My Dear Sexy Readers,

The holidays are fact approaching, your kids are driving you crazy? They are bored, you want to unglue them from the TV? Why not test the Try it at Home, a new fun Science So Sexy series on easy experiments to do with your kids!
You never know, that might inspire them to get into Science :)

Look out for our new SSS logo:

See you Soon for more Sexy Science,

The complexity behind hair colour genetics

My Dear Sexy Readers,

Today, we are looking at something that my new mummy friends have been talking about very often. Why is my kid blond when we are all so dark?

The most amazing example of genetic inheritance was this Asian mummy friend who has the most beautiful blond hair blue-eyed daughter!

So how does this work exactly?

How does the genetics behind hair colour work?

Well genetics are not as simple as what we learnt at school. It's not just a matter of  one dominant over one recessive gene. It's more like a combination of on/off activation of different genes! That is why there are so many different hair color. Also, as no science fact is set in stone and not much is known in exact details, there might be some regulation or influence of other different genes as well as accompanying compounds influencing them.

The colours

The actual colour comes from a pigment called melanin. We already approached this subject when we talked about the Eye colour.

There are two types of melanin called Eumelanin and Pheomelanin:

*Eumelanin gives the black and brown colour,

-Black eumelanin, little of it causes grey hair whereas lots of it gives black hair. 

-Brown eumelanin, little of eumelanin gives blond hair, lots of it gives dark brown hair.

*Pheomelanin gives a orange to yellow pigment which combined to the eumelanin level gives a reddish colour to the hair.

The amount we develop is influenced by the genes we inherit from both parents but several genes play a role in the final shade:

The genetics

Note: For basics in genetics, please feel free to check out SSS post over HERE

You inherit 23 chromosomes from your  mum and 23 from your dad. We therefore get each gene twice, which can be slightly different from mum to dad. Those alternatives of a gene are called alleles. So we get 2 alleles for each gene.

The genes for hair colour are multiple, there is not just one! There are located on 2 different chromosomes 19 an 15. So in total we get genes from our parents that are just ON or OFF. In this case, there are not alleles OR can be alleles because they contain SNPs.

(SNPs or Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms are the most common types of genetic variations)

On the other hand and in addition to these, the Red hair gene is located on chromosome 16 and is a recessive gene passed down as an allele as the result of many SNPs. 

As an example, let's imagine Dad is dark brown hair BBBBBBbb and mum has darkish blonde hair Bbbbbbbr. Baby could be anything between BBBBBBBr and will be darker than dad or bbbbbbbb and will be blonder than mum, could even be bbbbbbbr and have light strawberry hair. Also, I find that Light and Dark are very subjective concepts. For example I consider myself a brunette because I used to be much fairer, but people will mostly see me as blonde!

Note:  The eye colour genes are located close to these and are usually inherited together in linkage ie people with blonde hair would usually have blue eyes. Key word here being Usually!

Final shade?

As many of us have noticed, our hair colour changes over time. We might be born with blond hair and turn out very dark later on. My son was born with dark brown hair, is now a young toddler with dark blond hair and will probably grow up to be a very handsome dark brown hair gentleman ;) Who knows?

The hair colour can also change depending on stress and hormonal levels. 

Gene switches just get turned ON and OFF!

Aren't we all? 

See you Soon for more Sexy Science,

References

http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/2001-03/984769893.Ge.r.html

http://udel.edu/~mcdonald/mythredhair.html 

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/11/science/11angi.html?_r=2&ref=science&oref=slogin&

http://www.myredhairgene.com/index.html

Wikipedia

Scientists - Science Artists? #2

My Dear Sexy Readers,

One thing you might not be aware of is that scientists are very artistic people. You can often find some videos of scientists such as this one I mentioned in a previous post. Once again, the magazine Science organised a contest 'Dance your PhD', the opportunity for the scientist to express his frustration and/or love for his subject.

This year the winner in the Biology category as well as the overall winner is Cedric Tan from the University of Oxford who is studying the sperm competition between brothers and female choice.
I find his video hilarious, as well as strangely informative :)


For more videos from the chemistry, physics and social science winners, check out the article from the Science Magazine HERE
The winner's video reminds me to invite you to check out SSS Did you Know serie and notably its first instalment on Egg!!! How appropriate :)

I will leave you today with this last video which won the reader's award. It features a lot of salsa dancing which I am particularly fond of as well as cancer biology! Who knew you could associate them!


See you Soon for more Sexy Science,

Blog community: ScienceBlog.com - FDA to trans fats: Get the h*ll outta here!

My Dear Sexy Readers,

I need to share this information with you as a lot of you are interested in  what you put on your face/in your body.

FDA to trans fats: Get the h*ll outta here! | ScienceBlog.com

In brief,
 The American Food and Drug Association is reviewing whether to classify Partially Hydrogenated Oils (PHO), better known as Artificial Transfats as products that are generally recognised as safe (GRAS) or not!

From Pinterest

 This article might be of interest for SSS readers as we addressed the question in a previous post 'Olive oil - better than butter?'
If you are interested in keeping up with a healthy diet, please note SSS previous post on how not to waste your cash on fake diet/detox.

See you soon for more Sexy Science,

So Sexy Sciencey Things on Pinterest #10

My Dear Sexy Readers,

We are coming back to our wonderful Pinterest collection where I assemble all sciencey things!

Today's snapshot is about Nutella, cord blood stem cells (post coming soon) and stand up for cancer! Feel free to come visit and follow the entire board.

See you soon for more Sexy Science,

Stand up to Cancer

My Dear Sexy readers,

Today si UK's Stand up 2 Cancer day! Big congratulations to all of you guys out there who are doing it right now! Standing up All day to show your support and raise money for Cancer Research UK

Even if you were not aware of this until you read it here, you can still show your love and support by tweeting a pix of yourself standing up using the fabulous #standupselfie!

If you are interested in learning more about Cancer, please check out Karen's post on Why does one lose his hair when on chemo.

See you soon for more Sexy Science,

Wear jeans for Genes day! - 20 September

My Dear Sexy Readers,

This Friday 20th Sept is Jeans for Genes day!!

What is this?
Jeans for Genes day raises money for Genetic disorders UK, a charity that provides care and support to the families affected by genetic disorders but also raises awareness and promotes understanding of genetics and genetic disorders.
There exist a multitude of genetic disorders but if we group them altogether, 1 in 25 children is affected in this country alone. These disorders are caused by an alteration in the DNA, it can be a single or multiple deletion, a inversion or a repetition of a gene that shouldn't be there. As a result of these different events, the person/child can be affected in his movements, speech, development or even appearance.
In this video, you can meet several people who have different genetic disorders.

For a quick reminder of basic terms, visit their page HERE or you can read about it in a previous SSS post

So if you wanna get on board at school or at work or anywhere really... Visit their website and request a fundraising pack or directly donate to the charity!

See you soon for more Sexy Science,

A vaccine for AIDS

I compiled a few messages from different social networks to illustrate the story behind the new HIV vaccine. This is my first attempt at Storify so bear with me :)

Youtube Geek Week

My dear Sexy Readers,

Special week on youtube where you can let your geek out and check out some cool and nerdy videos! WHY NOT???
I selected this one out for you, 10 cool experiments to do at home:

See you soon for more Sexy Science,

To drink or not to drink caffeine...

Dear Sexy Readers,

Lift your finger who starts his/her day with a cup of coffee or tea?

Lift your finger who has eaten chocolate - at least once?

Lift your finger who drinks/has drunk a cola/energy drink - at least once?

I think everyone has - even babies through breast milk - consumed some caffeine at some point in their life!! And we all agree that it has an effect on our body and on our brain!! Personally, I know it well enough as I am OVER sensitive to caffeine:

Apart from chocolate (I'm Belgian after all!!), I had to strip any caffeine-containing product from my diet, or else I would suffer from different side effects ranging from heart stomping, breathlessness to complete choking, fainting and crazy restlessness!

But whyyyyyyyy? I used to looooove Tiramisu! Can you imagine going to an Italian restaurant and all your friends raging about their tiramisu and you not being able to have even a little bit??? Such is my life!! (Until a friend of mine recently made me a special milk chocolate Tiramisu!! miam miam)

On the other hand, one of my friends, was telling me about how she was trying to cut down on her coffee intake to try to reduce some of the side effects she was experiencing such as hyperventilation and of course addiction to the substance!!

She asked me if I could have a look at how it works on our brain and why, if such bad effects happen to almost everyone of us, isn't caffeine banned from our diets already. I told her that the population would probably go crazy if the government was to ban coffee. After all no cancer/diseases are publicly known to be related to high caffeine intake. Or is there? Let's have a look:

Caffeine

Structure

Caffeine is a natural stimulant, chemically called a xanthine alkaloid. Other xanthine alkaloids include theobromine found in cacao and theophylline contained in tea leaves. Some fruits/leaves contain more than one type of xanthines such as the yerba mate leaves a.k.a loose tea.

Sources

Caffeine can be found in coffee plant, tea bushes, yerba maté, guarana berries, guayusa and yhe yaupon holly, and products derived from kola nut.

 

How does it work on our body?

Caffeine acts on our brain by inhibiting the action of a molecule called Adenosine. This adenosine naturally circulates in our body, especially in our brain, and its role is to suppress activity making us feel drowsy.

Simply put, Caffeine stimulates brain activity by stopping Adenosine from suppressing it! It can do so because their structures are similar. Caffeine can therefore "pretend" to be Adenosine and binds to its receptor.

How much?

As for everything, dosage is crucial! Personally, 0mg of caffeine is my maximum, some people it's 200mg. How come? Well, because caffeine is a natural stimulant and its effects depend on body size and our degree of tolerance, which increases as consumption increases making caffeine a legal and unregulated addictive psychoactive substance!

Its effects

It reduces drowsiness and increases alertness. But it also helps the body use less sugar and more fats, something that is used in caffeine pill for athletes or people on diet (Beware that abuse of these pills - and "high"dose depends on your body metabolism - have resulted in death)!

Side or overdose effects
Nausea, anxiety, vomiting, heart palpitations, restlessness, fidgeting, excitement, insomnia, face flushing, diuretic effect, muscle twitching, rambling of though and speech, irritability,...

Withdrawal effects

Include headache, irritability, inability to concentrate, drowsiness, insomnia and pain - can last up to 10 days.

Regarding diseases: Caffeine - friend or foe ?

I think this guys made a really good video on it summarising pretty well all the research I read about. Enjoy - and as everything Doses Matter!! (I'm not sponsored by that guy so if you click to check out his website, that's your whole responsability ;))

So, are you addicted? What does caffeine do to you?

See you soon for more Sexy Science,

Break #2

My Dear Sexy Readers,

I'm sorry I wasn't able to update you on all things amazing, cool and sexy for the last few months. The reason for this sudden act of disappearance was that I lived in an internet-free house!!!!!
I hope you were able to catch up on some reading around here by checking out the "Previously, on Science So Sexy" (adopt a deep "American serie" kind of voice while reading this) for all the previous posts I wrote you, also don't forget to check out Karen's first post on "Why do hair fall on chemo?".
I'm hoping to be back with some interesting reading in the next few days. Please stay tuned, I'll update you via our Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and of course G+ pages!

Here is a map of where you, sexy readers, are all from!

See you soon for some Sexy Science,

A boy and his Atom - the smallet movie...

Far from advertising IBM, this mini-movie had to find its place on SSS!!! Have a look


See you soon for more SSS,

So Sexy Sciencey Things on Pinterest #9

My Dear Sexy Readers,

Today is the 100th day of the year 2013!!!

To celebrate it, I would like to share with you my latest snapshot of my SSS Pinterest board with a focus on Vinegar to remind you that our Did you Know Series is well underway and the latest instalment, the 5th already!!!, was on the fabulous uses of Vinegar ;)

For more Pinterest, check out the Collection of So Sexy Sciencey Things

See you Soon for more SSS,

Did you Know? #5 - the amazing Vinegar

My Dear Sexy Readers,

For this week's Did you Know SSS - sexy short subject - we will have a look at the amazing usefulness of vinegar! We started this new series, appropriately with egg as the sexy short subject, going through egg as a baking ingredient, what's an emulsion, how to make a mayonnaise and why lemon juice or vinegar are added to it, but for our 5th episode:

Vinegar is the ideal house cleaning companion to get rid of lime scale

In fact, Vinegar has 1000s of use, like this website is explaining but what I'm interested in really is how vinegar works to remove lime scale.

Vinegar is a diluted (in water) version of acetic acid CH3COOH.
Limescale is a precipitate of calcium carbonate CaCO3

By adding them together:

 2 CH3COOH + CaCO3  

 (CH3COO)2Ca + H 20 + CO2

The resulting product (CH3COO)2Ca is soluble in water and therefore easy to wash away!

Did you Know Collection

See you soon for more SSS,