Articles by Sean
Are Left-Handers More Creative? Science Can’t Really Answer
‘Oh, that explains your creativity’ or ‘no wonder you’re good at math!’ If you’re a leftie, you might have heard such phrases directed toward you. While these claims can’t be substantiated, there are other real evidence-based benefits that being left-handed confers. For one, the distribution of brain function is more extensive in left-handers than in their right-handed counterparts. But what does this mean in our daily lives? In this article, we trace the evolution and discuss the science of handedness. […]
The First HIV Therapy Was Discovered Before HIV
Drugs are designed to combat existing diseases; it makes little sense to invest time and money into developing a cure otherwise! Sometimes though, a previously discarded drug candidate can resurface years later to make an instant impact. Shelved for years, Zidovudine (azidothymidine) made its way from laboratory archives to become the very first HIV therapy in record time. […]
Climate Change: One Planet, One Chance
The global fight against climate change recently took a huge blow, when the U.S. government announced in 2018 plans to relax its stance on carbon emissions. But the latest setback concerning climate change is treated with the usual indifference; why is it that efforts to resist climate change have not yet been successful? Is it too late to save the Earth, our one and only home? […]
Traversing The Space Between Galaxies
Inevitably humans—or our evolutionary descendants, whatever they choose to name themselves—will have to leave Earth to survive. We would have to settle on a different planet, in a different system, possibly in another galaxy. But the vastness of space means that such a system might be thousands of light-years away. Even if we could travel close to the speed of light, the sheer distances make space travel seem unfeasible, bordering on impossible. But what if nature has ways for us to circumvent space, and even time? […]
Use Or Abuse? Corticosteroids For Pain Relief
You may have heard of injured athletes who are made to ‘play through the pain barrier’ with the help of ‘injections’, these are actually corticosteroids—the gold standard of anti-inflammatory medicine. While this is somewhat of a common practice in the world of sports to prevent players from missing a big game, their effectiveness and convenience have led to chronic use in some individuals, whether or not it is actually needed. But how do these painkillers actually work? And what are their longer-term effects? […]
Sean is a consultant for clients in the pharmaceutical industry and is a lecturer at a local university, where unfortunate undergrads are subject to his ramblings on chemistry and pharmacology.
