Technology: Monitoring gets personal

The genome gets personal--almost.

IT’S THE“YEAR OFPERFECTVISION,”2020.AMY,AGE21YEARS, visits with her physician and elects to have complete genome sequencing. At a follow-up visit, Amy chooses to learn of her genetic risk factors for heart disease, diabetes, breast cancer, and colon cancer. Amy’s physician provides her with risk scores for those disorders, and with suggestions for lifestyle modifications. Specifically, Amy is a...

The Perception Factor: Climate Change Gets Personal

Benefits of Mobile Phone Technology for Personal Environmental Monitoring

BACKGROUND Tracking individuals in environmental epidemiological studies using novel mobile phone technologies can provide valuable information on geolocation and physical activity, which will improve our understanding of environmental exposures. OBJECTIVE The objective of this study was to assess the performance of one of the least expensive mobile phones on the market to track people's trav...

When the Going Gets Tough: Scientists’ Personal Challenges

The high risk that we take during training, when several years of work are focused on one main project that may also not work but that is decisive for the further career, was a particular challenge to me. Due to my dual career in medicine and science and also personal life circumstances, the time I could allocate for my postdoctoral research was limited. I was very worried that my project would...

When group membership gets personal: a theory of identity fusion.

Identity fusion is a relatively unexplored form of alignment with groups that entails a visceral feeling of oneness with the group. This feeling is associated with unusually porous, highly permeable borders between the personal and social self. These porous borders encourage people to channel their personal agency into group behavior, raising the possibility that the personal and social self wi...