🧬 The Distilled Download - Mar 15

Greetings, fellow science nerds! 🤓 Here’s your latest installment of The Distilled Download.

With the recent move towards a TikTok ban, I’ve started thinking about ways that I can keep doing what I love–i.e., spending my days reading cool research and sharing it with you guys. My current plan is to start focusing a lot more on building out this newsletter so that I’ve got a direct channel that doesn’t depend on algorithms and isn’t subject to the whims of politicians (it helps if you share it with other science lovers!). I’m also working on a soon-to-launch online community where I’ll be able to interact more directly with you guys. If you’ve got any ideas/requests for it, let me know!

And now.

The Download

🧟‍♂️ Book that Changed the Way I Think of My Life
What if your life were a movie? Would it make for a good story? Sure, you could probably pick some good stories out, but what if you intentionally tried to live every single day in a way that would contribute to a good story? That’s what Donald Miller was thinking when, as an overweight nerd, he signed up to ride across the country for charity. He tells that story and many others in his book “A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: How I Learned to Live a Better Story”

⚠️ Why You Should Be Careful with Licorice:
A study had 28-year-olds eating a daily dose of black licorice candy containing 100 mg glycyrrhizic acid–which is the upper threshold of what the EU and WHO suggest for safe daily intake. After only two weeks they showed a 3.1 mmHg increase in blood pressure! Thankfully, lots of licorice sold these days is cheaps and uses anise for flavoring instead of the real Glycyrrhiza glabra root*,* but people also often take it in supplemental form to treat digestive problems and menopausal symptoms–which this study suggests could be problematic. Take note!

🧠 Blood Test for Brain Disorders?
One of the big challenges of psychiatric medicine is that almost every diagnosis has to be made based on self-reported symptoms–and humans are extremely unreliable. Researchers from Johns Hopkins Children’s Center are pioneering a new type of blood test that measures extracellular vesicles (EVs) in the blood. These are tiny, fatty sacs that contain lots of RNA fragments, letting us get a sense for gene activity in the brain, and they’ve started linking different ones to the presence of different brain disorders. This is super exciting just as a diagnostic, but it could also lead to better treatments!

🧵 Best Entry Level…. Sewing Machine?
We’re almost at the Jewish holiday of Purim! Which, for those unfamiliar, bears some similarities to Halloween–at least in the sense that one of the big customs is for everyone to dress up in costume (no creepy leaning though). I’ve always been super into cosplay/costuming in general, but I’ve always approached it with a bit of a n00b mentality. It’s time to step up my game. So, after a ton of research (as per usual with me), I went out and bought this computerized sewing machine–supposed to be the best all-around option to take you from beginner through advanced projects. I also got this thread and these scissors. I now look forward to destroying whole bunches of fabric 🤣
If any of you have any suggestions for excellent beginner resources, let me know!

Recent Video Highlights

Dune Science – If sandworms existed, what sort of internal anatomy might they have to support their size and locomotion? There are two parts.

Healthiest Time to Eat – Hint: it’s not midnight snacks. Here I discuss some cool studies I read about in Dr. Idz’s amazing new book, Saturated Facts.

Thanks for reading! I love to hear feedback, so feel free to respond to this email or tag me on Twitter or Threads (which I’ll start using seriously one of these days 🙊).