Tag Archives: human variation

Joanna Radin on the ‘phenomenon’ of biobanking

When HIV/AIDS became a pandemic, epidemiologists wanted to know where it began. In the 1980s, they found their answer in a freezer filled with blood. This blood had been collected in the 1950s from members of indigenous communities in Africa as part of anthropological research on human variation. To this day, that sample is the oldest trace of HIV known to biomedicine. It is what launched Joanna Radin’s interest in the field of biobanking, a means of preserving blood and other tissues for future research. It is also what led her to write her recently published book, “Life on Ice: A History of New Uses for Cold Blood.” (more…)

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Oso disaster had its roots in earlier landslides

The disastrous March 22 landslide that killed 43 people in the rural Washington state community of Oso involved the “remobilization” of a 2006 landslide on the same hillside, a new federally sponsored geological study concludes.

The research indicates the landslide, the deadliest in U.S. history, happened in two major stages. The first stage remobilized the 2006 slide, including part of an adjacent forested slope from an ancient slide, and was made up largely or entirely of deposits from previous landslides. The first stage ultimately moved more than six-tenths of a mile across the north fork of the Stillaguamish River and caused nearly all the destruction in the Steelhead Haven neighborhood. (more…)

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