Tag: Arizona State University
The Most Mysterious Cells in Our Bodies Don’t Belong to Us
Some 24 years ago, Diana Bianchi peered into a microscope at a piece of human thyroid and saw something that instantly gave her goosebumps. The sample had come from a woman who was chromosomally XX. But through the lens, Bianchi saw the unmistakable glimmer of Y chromosomes—dozens and dozens of them. “Clearly,” Bianchi told me, “part of her thyroid was entirely male.”
The reason, Bianchi suspected, was pregnancy. Years ago, the patient had carried a male embryo, whose cells had
How to Keep Time: How to Look Busy
Many of us complain about being too busy—and about not having enough time to do the things we really want to do. But has busyness become an excuse for our inability to focus on what matters?
According to Neeru Paharia, a marketing professor at Arizona State University, time is a sort of luxury good—the more of it you have, the more valuable you are. But her research also revealed that, for many Americans, having less time and being busy can
Why Women Are Drinking More
More than a decade ago, when Holly Whitaker worked a director-level job at a Silicon Valley start-up, insecurities haunted her. She feared never being enough, never getting ahead. “There was just an inability to be with myself,” she told me, “and that manifested as fear.” She often sought comfort in alcohol. The relief would start even as she anticipated drinking; at the first sip, she began to feel warm and right; numb, but also energized.
In her 2019 book, Quit
Here Comes the Second Year of AI College
When ChatGPT entered the world last fall, the faculty at SUNY Buffalo freaked out. Kelly Ahuna, the university’s director of academic integrity, was inundated by panicked emails. “It has me thinking about retiring,” one English professor confessed. He had typed a prompt into ChatGPT and watched in horror as an essay unfurled on-screen. There were errors, sure: incorrect citations, weird transitions. But he would have given it a B-minus. He anticipated an onslaught of undetectable AI plagiarism. Ahuna found
Milk Is an Evolutionary Marvel
If an alien life form landed on Earth tomorrow and called up some of the planet’s foremost experts on lactation, it would have a heck of time figuring out what, exactly, humans and other mammals are feeding their kids.
The trouble is, no one can really describe what milk is—least of all the people who think most often about it. They can describe, mostly, who makes it: mammals (though arguably also some other animals that feed their young secretions
What the Fitness Industry Doesn’t Understand
If you tried to imagine the perfect gym teacher, you’d probably come up with someone a lot like Hampton Liu. He’s a gentle, friendly guy who spends most of his time trying to figure out how to make the basics of exercise more approachable, and he talks frequently about how he never wants anyone to feel shame for their ability or skill level. In other words—and with apologies to good gym teachers, who almost definitely exist—he’s probably the polar opposite
The CDC’s Flawed Case for Wearing Masks in School
The debate over child masking in schools boiled over again this fall, even above its ongoing high simmer. The approval in late October of COVID-19 vaccines for 5-to-11-year-olds was for many public-health experts an indication that mask mandates could finally be lifted. Yet with cases on the rise in much of the country, along with anxiety regarding the Omicron variant, other experts and some politicians have warned that plans to pull back on the policy should be put on hold.
How to Support a Sick Friend
Each installment of “The Friendship Files” features a conversation between The Atlantic’s Julie Beck and two or more friends, exploring the history and significance of their relationship.
This week she talks with two friends who were both diagnosed with the same cancer—acute myeloid leukemia—one right after the other. They discuss how this unhappy coincidence shaped their friendship and their faith, and what they’ve learned about the right and wrong ways to support a sick friend.
The Friends: