12: Getting drunk, getting full, and attracting mosquitos

This week we learn about getting drunk on diet soda, getting full on imaginary food, and attracting mosquitos with your genes.

Posts discussed in this episode:

Alcohol caused a higher level of intoxication when mixed with diet soda instead of regular soda as measured by participant's breath alcohol concentration and performance in a reaction time task.

Health

People who imagined eating a particular food many times (e.g., eating 30 M&M's in a row) before actually eating it ate less of that food than people who imagined eating the food fewer times (e.g., eating only 3 M&M's) or imagined eating a different type of food (such as cheese).

The degree to which mosquitoes are attracted to certain individuals is related to their genetic make-up.

Hosts:

Jaime Devine

Jaime K Devine is an interdisciplinary neuroscientist whose research focuses on how behavior and biology, specifically sleep and health, interact. She has a PhD in Neuroscience from Brandeis University and a Certificate in Sleep Medicine from Harvard Medical School. She is also a dedicated science communicator, runner, working mother and nerd.

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Directors

Kevin Neibert

Kevin graduated from McGill with a PhD in Pharmacology and Therapeutics, specializing in Nanotechnology. In his spare time he reads & writes about science in society. He also works with video game developers as a science media consultant at Thwacke! to help to make games smarter.

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Contributors

Lindsey Ogston

Naturalist at heart, with a fondness for ocean critters. M.Sc. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from the University of Toronto. Undergraduate from Simon Fraser University. My broad interests include aquatic ecology, conservation and science communication.

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Past Contributors

Cameron Spencer

Cameron is a designer and web developer. He is the founder of Lab 43.

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