Posts

Shopping from farm to factory: What does actual healthy eating look like in the modern world?

Image
  Walk through a supermarket today and you'll find yourself surrounded by choices. From fresh vegetables sitting beside frozen alternatives, whole grains compete for attention with ready-to-eat cereals, all the way to locally grown produce shares shelf space with foods that have travelled thousands of kilometers and spent months in storage. Also in the mix, is the added influence of fitness trends, nutrition advice on social media and the constant debate over "clean eating," and it becomes easy to wonder what healthy eating actually means. One of the biggest misconceptions surrounding food is that it falls neatly into two categories, which include, "natural" and "processed." In reality, food exists on a spectrum. Many of the foods we consider healthy have undergone some form of processing, while not every food labelled as natural is automatically nutritious. Biology teaches us that the relationship between food and health is much more complex than ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Drug culture in nightlife under the syringe, handcuffs and microscope: The biology behind club drugs, risk, and crime introduction

Image
  Nightlife has long been associated with freedom, music, social connection, and self-expression. For many young adults, clubs, festivals, and parties represent spaces where they can escape routine, meet new people, and experience intense sensory stimulation. However, alongside the music and flashing lights exists another reality, which is, the widespread presence of recreational drugs. Public discussions about club drugs often focus on legality, morality, or criminality. News reports frequently highlight overdoses, arrests, and drug seizures, while social media may portray drug use as a harmless part of nightlife culture. Lost between these opposing narratives is an important scientific question, that seems to be on the fringes and that most people are often curious about, especially, in the cases of being drugged in clubs, and theft occurs, customers blacking out and being rushed to hospital or simply, a haven where those addicted come to indulge. Whatever the case, many often ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Sober people. Suspected dangerous minds: Separating biological reality from social myth of mental illness and crime

Image
  The Persistent Myth Few ideas are as deeply embedded in public consciousness as the belief that mental illness and criminal behavior are closely linked. Whenever a violent crime dominates headlines, speculation often follows regarding the perpetrator's mental state. Films, television dramas, and crime documentaries frequently portray individuals with psychiatric disorders as unstable, unpredictable, and dangerous. Over time, these portrayals have helped shape a widespread perception that people living with mental illnesses are more likely to commit crimes than the general population. Yet scientific evidence paints a far more nuanced picture. Mental illness, crime, and violence are often discussed as though they are interchangeable concepts. In reality, they are distinct phenomena that overlap only under certain circumstances. While specific symptoms associated with some psychiatric disorders can influence behavior, the overwhelming majority of individuals living with mental i...
Post a Comment
Read more