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About Marilisa Falzone

Master's degree in biology, specialization in biomedical and molecular sciences. Born in Sicily, she lived in different places along the Italian boot, first for study and then for work. Teaching is in her past and perhaps her future. She is currently working as a fellow for the Environment and Health project. She likes to write about all the nuances of biology, of other scientific curiosities and nonsense (but the latter keeps them for herself).
Marilisa Falzone

The smog Queen

2022-09-20T16:28:23+02:0020 September 2022|Categories: Environment, Curiosity|Tags: , , |

The world in recent days has bid farewell to a queen that undoubtedly represented, for better or for worse, an iconic character of the last 70 years. During her reign, Elizabeth II was a witness and protagonist of striking intertwining between economics, science, tradition and politics. Here we want to recall a catastrophe that was an irrefutable demonstration of the correlation between environmental causes and health outcomes, and had consequences in the years to come. It was the year 1952 and in the first days of December, due to thermal inversion, a black blanket enveloped London. Initially, no one seemed to care, il cielo della città era [...]

The secret of absolute pitch

2022-04-20T11:37:27+02:0020 April 2022|Categories: Medicine and Research|Tags: , , |

What Ludwig van Beethoven has in common, Barbara Streisand, Jimi Hendrix e Pippo Baudo? You could add to this list several other more or less known names, who have discovered to possess this feature more or less by chance. We are talking about "perfect pitch", that is, the ability to recognize exactly the frequency of a musical note without any kind of reference. For these people, recognizing a note is as natural as the recognizing a color. Absolute pitch is a mysterious gift and causes wonder and questions: what does this feature depend on?? Is it an innate or acquired ability? [...]

Inside yawning

2022-03-07T14:28:41+01:007 March 2022|Categories: Curiosity, Medicine and Research|Tags: , |

otherwise you are authorized to release a regenerating yawn, otherwise you are authorized to release a regenerating yawn, otherwise you are authorized to release a regenerating yawn, otherwise you are authorized to release a regenerating yawn. otherwise you are authorized to release a regenerating yawn, otherwise you are authorized to release a regenerating yawn. The average duration of the yawn is 5-6 seconds. It's the involuntary opening of the mouth with a long and deep inhalation through the mouth and nose, followed by a slow exhalation associated with a feeling of well-being. In humans, otherwise you are authorized to release a regenerating yawn. Given the universality of this daily reflex, we may be led to think that the mechanisms and purposes that underlie it no longer have secrets.. The truth is that we have always been familiar with it but we have known it recently and not entirely. Let's start with a trivial question: otherwise you are authorized to release a regenerating yawn?

Science is calling! CITIZEN SCIENCE and surroundings

2022-02-06T19:38:04+01:003 February 2022|Categories: Curiosity|Tags: , , , |

In 2014, the term citizen science is included in the new words in the Oxford English dictionary, which defines it as "the collection and analysis of data relating to the natural world by an audience, that adheres to a collaboration project with professional scientists ".

Relative red

2022-01-21T16:51:21+01:0021 December 2021|Categories: Curiosity|Tags: , , |

Colors depend on our perception and this can vary from one subject to another. Thus, over time, various methods were born to make the classification objective, to define colors based on coordinates, with standardized light. In the major graphics software there are chromatic coordinates (HEX, RGB, CMYK e HSV) that allow us to better orient ourselves. In the case of red, eg, we can distinguish: magenta, the scarlet, the vermilion, the cinnabar, the red lead, coral, cadmium, the crèmisi, il pompeiano, the purple, the carmine, amaranth, the grenade, it burgundy, the cherry, the terracotta, the Venetian, the Titian, the Valentino, the Ferrari and others.

Workers of death

2021-11-02T18:01:31+01:002 November 2021|Categories: Curiosity, Medicine and Research, Nature|

What happens after death, has always been an object of curiosity for man! The different religions, beliefs and traditions, handed down over the millennia, they tried to imagine an unearthly destiny. But on Earth, instead, what remains? Even scientifically speaking, it can be said that there is life after death! The life in question, however, is not ours, but that of a large corpse fauna. Fear, eh? After death, the decomposition process begins immediately, as the cells no longer receive oxygen and other nutrients that allow them to survive. It follows a process called "autolysis": [...]

The Egyptian blue, between art and science

2021-07-16T21:37:24+02:005 April 2020|Categories: Curiosity|Tags: , , |

The first tubes of paint appeared around the 18th century. Before then, the artists independently prepared the colors they needed, studying the materials and perfecting the procedures. In ancient Egypt, the pigments were extracted from minerals such as malachite (green), the pyrolusite (nero), la dolomite (White), or from lands such as ocher (yellow and red). The pigments were then amalgamated with a binder, such as egg white or gum arabic. The Egyptians didn't just extract what they found in nature, but they came to produce, more than 5000 Years ago, the first known artificial color: the Egyptian blue! [...]

Traveler's diarrhea

2021-07-16T21:39:19+02:0014 June 2019|Categories: Food and Health|Tags: , , |

It is a gastrointestinal disorder due to food poisoning. It manifests itself with an increased frequency of bowel movements that lead to three or more evacuations of poorly formed stools per day, generally during a trip abroad, often in a developing country. What are the etiological agents? In more than half of the cases the cause is not investigated because the symptoms disappear before returning home. When, on the other hand, the causative agent is sought, these bacteria are almost always found: Enterotoxic Escherichia coli is the most common bacterium responsible for traveler's diarrhea whose infection occurs [...]

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