Science Snippets
October 2nd, 2022 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
Revela ingredients: Water, Denatured Ethanol, Propylene Glycol, Glycerin, Propanediol, Aloe Barbadensis Leaf Juice, Caffeine, Serenoa Serrulata (Saw Palmetto) Extract, Apple Extract, Niacin, L-Lysine, ProCelinyl (furanyl methylthio methyl sulfanyl triazole), Biotin, L-Methionine, Inositol, Thiamine HCI (Vitamin B1), Xanthan Gum, Phenoxyethanol, Ethylhexylglycerin, Pantothenic Acid (Vitamin B5). If you are about to buy Revela because you think that $90 is all you can lose, think again. Nobody knows what this novel chemical can do to a human body because humans had never encountered it before it was created and added to these products. The loophole in medicine/cosmetics, as seen by the FDA is a temptation to people wanting to make a fast buck.…
September 28th, 2022 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
Using information from folk medicine and old pharmacology, Julius elucidated what happens when our bodies encounter chili peppers. In 1997, Julius and his colleagues cloned and characterized the transient receptor potential V1 (TRPV1), the molecule that detects capsaicin, the chemical in chili peppers that makes them “hot.” They found that TRPV1 also detects noxious heat (thermoception). TRPV1 is part of a large family of structurally related transient receptor potential (TRP) cation channels. Animals lacking TRPV1 lose sensitivity to noxious heat and capsaicin. It may seem obvious, but these receptors don’t exist simply to allow us to enjoy Mexican food; they are responsible for a body function that allows us to…
August 21st, 2022 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
It seems that in life, everything looks like a biphasic curve. Train hard, and you will get fitter and strengthen your muscles. Train too hard, and you will be in trouble; it’s called “overtraining.” We recognize tiredness and fatigue but don’t know how it works. Fatigue is often described by patients as a lack of energy, mental or physical tiredness, diminished endurance, and prolonged recovery after physical activity. The mechanisms underlying persistent fatigue are not well understood; however, mitochondrial disease causes fatigue, making mitochondrial dysfunction the likely biological mechanism for fatigue. The primary source of fatigue and tiredness is that mitochondria, the engines that provide energy to the cells, are…
August 5th, 2022 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
O ATP! I could write poems to ATP, sing to it, or maybe build a sculpture! It’s the most beautiful molecule in the world. Or maybe Rubisco is, or chlorophyll. I have many favorites. But ATP is the energy currency of life. Life “runs” on ATP, the energy that allows cells to make order out of disorder and build molecules using what, ultimately, it’s the sun’s energy. But let’s keep it simple: our cells make ATP out of the food we eat. Our skin uses ATP to do almost everything, to keep everything going, make new cells, and keep going for almost 100 years. Figure: the ultimate energy currency,…
July 4th, 2022 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
INCI Name:Saccharide Isomerate (and) Aqua (and) Citric Acid (and) Sodium Citrate The consumer may see nothing strange in this ingredient list, but the chemist or biochemist or biologist will ask “what on earth is saccharide isomerate”. If you are Hannah you will think that you must have forgotten something important because I used to know everything about sugars and polysaccharides. Is it age? No. It’s not my age. Saccharide isomerate is an invention of the ingredients industry, great at pulling names out of the proverbial magic hat. Saccharide isomerate is a soup, a mix of unknown sugars made in the laboratory. And, as its composition is unknown, it can’t be…
June 2nd, 2022 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
Her life reads like a TV series, how come nobody produced it yet? In fact, there was both a musical and a comedy inspired by her life. Chaja Rubinstein was born in 1870 to a Polish Jewish family. She was lucky to be was born in a city, Krakow (Lesser Poland) then part of the Austria-Hungary empire, at a time when there was some tolerance towards minorities. She had a good education and even started medical school. The only part that she liked was labwork and not dealing with illness and death. Late in the 19th-century doctors did not have many tools, and being a doctor was not a satisfying…
January 4th, 2022 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
What is sustainability? It is a relatively new word, plus its meaning has been changing with time. Originally, “sustainability” meant making such use of natural, renewable resources like a forest so that people could continue to rely on their yields in the long term. In other words, using a resource in such a way that it never runs out. Nowadays it means keeping the balance between environment, equity, and economy. In any of its uses, it’s an admirable aim and looks great in advertising. Because the meaning of the word changes with the source, it’s a good idea to ask what the person (or the advertiser) means by it. How…
December 28th, 2021 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
Robert H. Grubbs (1942-2021), who shared the 2005 Nobel Prize in chemistry said “there was great joy in making new molecules”. An efficient method of carbon-carbon double bond formation was uncovered over 50 years ago when scientists Robert Grubbs, Yves Chauvin, and Richard Schrock began their pioneering research into metal-catalyzed reactions. Their catalytic reaction is known as olefin (or alkene) metathesis. Schrock discovered that two metals, tungsten, and molybdenum, were effective catalysts in producing metathesis, which means “changing places.” The metals caused carbon bonds in molecules to break apart and then rearrange themselves in different ways, creating new chemical bonds. In 1992, Dr. Grubbs improved the process by demonstrating that…
December 2nd, 2020 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
These days, people are learning about protein structure more than they ever wanted to, but life gives us no choice: we need to know about the covid-19 virus, its spikes, and the human protein it uses to get inside the cell, the ACE2 receptor. We also need to know how antibodies, also proteins, defend us from the virus. There is some very good news about protein structure. Why does this good news matter? Because protein structure determines function, and good function means good health (and lots more). You must have seen those multi-color pictures that we use to represent proteins. I was involved in a minute part of the work…
October 7th, 2020 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
Dr. Doudna and Dr. Charpentier created is a system to edit DNA as desired. This optimized tool is based on the research of many scientists who worked before the two Nobel Prize awardees and was inspired by an innate immune system that is present in very primitive bacteria. This system has already been used to edit genetic information in cultured human cells, yeast, and plants. Some bacteria defend themselves by using the CRISPR system to recognize the genes of an attacking virus and destroy them using an enzyme called Cas9 that slices the viral genetic material. How to use this amazing tool? If there is a genetic flaw that results…
July 10th, 2020 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
‘I had never known that the world was beautiful until I reached old age.” Alvise Cornaro (1467 – 1566) in The art of living long. The Fountain of Youth, a myth persistent in the human imagination throughout the ages, was at times a river, or a spring, or any other water source that reversed the aging process and cured sickness when drunk or bathed in. We can’t blame Herodotus for dreaming about it, as did the Chinese and the Arabs (who created the word “elixir”). You can’t blame people for dreaming, and you can’t blame the Chinese emperors for sending explorers to look for the fountain of youth. Whoever…
June 27th, 2020 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
As we age, crucial DNA mutations accumulate in our cells, and the mechanisms that regulate cell division fail. Out of control cell division plays havoc with our bodies: it’s called cancer. As the general population ages, the incidence of cancer increases. Science had progressed enormously in the understanding and treatment of cancer, and some amazingly sophisticated therapies do exist forme some specific types of cancer. For many other types of cancer, a big part of the treatment involves removing and killing cancerous cells. Thus, surgery to remove cancerous tumors is often followed by radiation therapy. In addition to dealing with sutures still healing, the patients (us) have to contend with…
March 10th, 2020 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
Question: What’s worse than not having hand sanitizer during a viral epidemic/pandemic? Answer: A “fake” hand sanitizer, one that does not kill viruses but gives you a (false) sense of security. True, some essential oils have activity against certain viruses in certain circumstances (plants have to defend themselves against viruses), but this does not mean that the essential oil in question provides protection against infection by any virus. I know how hard it is to get hold of hand sanitizer. It is also hard to get hold of rubbing (isopropyl) alcohol. Incidentally, vodka is about 40% ethanol, it will not do the trick. Gin is even lower than that. If…
February 27th, 2020 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
By James Hamblin. You will find the article here Here is a fragment: “Over the past month, stock prices of a small pharmaceutical company named Inovio have more than doubled. In mid-January, it reportedly discovered a vaccine for the new coronavirus. This claim has been repeated in many news reports, even though it is technically inaccurate. Like other drugs, vaccines require a long testing process to see whether they indeed protect people from disease, and do so safely. What this company—and others—has done is copy a bit of the virus’s RNA that one day could prove to work as a vaccine. It’s a promising first step, but to call it…
February 25th, 2020 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
The most despicable character in the film “Contagion” (2011) is not the virus (which, as a piece of nucleic acid, is not even alive so it can’t be evil), but Alan Krumwiede (portrayed by Jude Law), a conspiracy theorist who makes a killing (quite literally) out of a viral pandemic. For many years I have been more aware than many of how many Krumwiedes there are all over. I truly appreciate that in the film he and his awful methods are described so realistically. “Have you heard of Forsythia?” There are some excellent articles in the media about the new almost-but-not-quite coronavirus pandemic (as of today, 2/25/2020). Watch the movie…
February 15th, 2020 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
Stanley Cohen was 97 when he died on February 5th, 2020. This is the Stanley Cohen who discovered epidermal growth factor. He followed the path of so many immigrants and children of immigrants and benefited the USA and humanity with lives of extraordinary achievement. From Wikipedia Cohen was born in Brooklyn, New York, on November 17, 1922. He was the son of Fannie (née Feitel) and Louis Cohen, a tailor. His parents were Jewish immigrants. Cohen received his bachelor’s degree in 1943 from Brooklyn College, where he had double-majored in chemistry and biology. After working as a bacteriologist at a milk processing plant to earn money, he received his Master…
February 2nd, 2020 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
The answer is very complicated, so I hope you will you will bear with me. But first, why is the “how” important? Because if we know how estrogen supports the skin, then maybe we can help alleviate the damage we can see in the mirror when estrogen goes down. Estrogen does a lot for our bodies, including the skin and scalp. Estrogen deficiency (like in menopause, natural, or surgical or chemical) leads to ageing and delayed skin repair. Many women go through early menopause, or have to contend with the effects of removal of the ovaries, or deal with estrogen suppressants (to control the growth of a tumor that responds…
January 25th, 2020 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
First, as always, INCI, the list of ingredients that tells you what’s in there. Progeline is a trade name for an ingredient that contains glycerin, water, dextran (a polysaccharide used in artificial tears) plus a fluorinated peptide, trifluoroacetyl-tripeptide-2. The INCI for this ingredient: it is a solution of dextran (thickener), glycerin (humectant), a tripeptide L-Valine, N-(2,2,2-trifluoroacetyl)-L-valyl-L-tyrosyl- (a synthetic, fluorinated peptide), and water. The order of concentrations is more likely to be: water, glycerin, dextran, and tripeptide, with a preservative in there, somewhere, because otherwise, the mix would have to be kept frozen to prevent bugs eating the glycerol within a couple of days. And then, as usual, “claims”. The people…
January 18th, 2020 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
Dear Reader, This is the introduction to my new book “Four degrees of Do It Yourself skin care”. I am assembling the chapters that will deal with botanical ingredients. I welcome suggestions on the ingredients you wish me to discuss in the book. Hannah We get attracted to plant extracts for many reasons. Besides advertising, there are cultural influences (what did your grandmother use when you were sick?), the attraction of the exotic (if it is Korean, it must be better), and even the common name of the plant (dragon’s blood, anybody?). As a scientist, I have to be more careful with how I choose plant extracts as…
January 18th, 2020 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
We get attracted to plant extracts for many reasons. Besides advertising, there are cultural influences (what did your grandmother use when you were sick?), the attraction of the exotic (if it is Korean, it must be better), and even the common name of the plant (dragon’s blood, anybody?). As a scientist, I have to be more careful with how I choose plant extracts as an ingredient for our Skin Actives products. Yes, I look at plants that were used for centuries by different peoples. I read the publications that deal with the ethnological use of the plant extracts, but that is only the beginning. Maybe the ancient people who used…