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Letter From The Editor, Ryan Shah

Osmosis Magazine

Letter form the Editor-in-Chief, Ryan Shah.

Osmosis - Fall 2020

Osmosis Magazine

Osmosis is a student read, led, and written publication from the University of Richmond, focusing on all aspects of healthcare and science.

Is Medecine Losing Money?, Garrett Lang

Osmosis Magazine

It is no secret that modern medicine has improved people’s lives in virtually every are of healthcare. What is also not a secret is how expensive it is. . Not only does the average American spend roughly $5000 on healthcare, they also spend roughly $1200 on pharmaceuticals. The candidates gunning for the U.S. presidency often bring up the topic of rising pharmaceuticals and what they would do to change it. Medical services and products as a whole are of concern for virtually all Americans, and many of them are considered overpriced. The development of these products isn’t cheap, and it …

Our Future In A 3-D Printer, Ryan Cvelbar

Osmosis Magazine

CareCloud, a privately held technology company headquartered out of Miami, states that according to recent figures, the average cost of an organ transplant in the U.S. can reach well over $1 million. Furthermore, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS), more than 113,000 patients in the U.S. are currently waiting for an organ transplant. Anne Paschke of UNOS stresses this need for organs by expressing that only 1 to 2 percent of the population dies in a way that makes them potential organ donors. Although the need for organs has yet to be met, bioprinting has the potential …

Tree Man Syndrome, George Qiao

Osmosis Magazine

Imagine a condition in which lesions that grow on your appendages are so severe that you cannot use your hands and feet properly. Moreover, these lesions are large and painful, and prevent you from being able to perform daily activities. Surgery, a common answer for this condition, can temporarily control the growths, but the lesions continue to grow back after each surgical operation. Currently, there is no cure, and the treatments only offer a temporary fix. Therefore, you are faced with a lifelong condition that severely limits your ability to live a normal life. Though there are many debilitating diseases, …

What’S The Hang-Up On Hangovers?, Anthony Isenhour

Osmosis Magazine

Getting a hangover after drinking the night before can lead to varying regrets the next morning depending on a variety of factors including gender, weight, food consumption, and alcohol consumption. What a hangover feels like can vary a lot too: headaches, nausea, fatigue, etc.

Scientists are interested in understanding hangovers and how to prevent them because they experience them too.

Wolves And Ravens: Defining A Unique Relationship, Caterina Erdas

Osmosis Magazine

I barely felt the cold, dry Montana air pierce my lungs as I looked through my scope for an iconic animal in our culture: a wolf. While the dramatic thermal features on the south side of Yellowstone National Park attract the most visitors, the north is quiet and rich with life. The Lamar Valley is a stunning stage for Yellowstone’s wildlife to interact with one another. As the sun rises and hits the mountain tops, the cold air rushes into the valley and creates a thick fog, a curtain. Backstage, the wooded mountain ranges slowly bleed into the tall grasses …

Coronavirus Is Spreading Fast, But What Is Spreading Faster?, Dana Morcillo

Osmosis Magazine

The term coronavirus refers not to the newest, mysterious disease that is slowly spreading globally, but rather a family of viruses. These viruses are the source behind common illnesses such as the common cold to the more recent outbreaks of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Other more severe diseases have occurred before then such as the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in 2003 and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) in 2012.

Brains On Batteries: The Potential Of Deep Brain Stimulation, Joshua Pandian

Osmosis Magazine

Deep brain stimulation (DBS), the process of implanting electrodes into the brain to lessen the symptoms of neurological diseases, began as an experimental idea based on early pain-processing theories. Today, DBS is used to treat various neurological disorders, including Parkinson’s disease, depression, OCD, and chronic pain. While major advancements have been made in recent years, DBS is still in its infancy and possesses a tremendous potential to advance human well-being as our knowledge of neuroscience increases.

Living Lethal Weapons, Rilyn Mckallip

Osmosis Magazine

Biological weapons, as defined by the Federation of American Scientists, are “toxins and microorganisms, such as viruses and bacteria, used to deliberately inflict disease among people, animals and agriculture.” Biological weapons have been used for hundreds of years on varying scales, from the catapulting of plague-infected corpses into enemy cities in the 14th century, to the testing of infectious diseases in China during WWII, to the 2001 anthrax attacks. These weapons act discreetly, as it is hard to trace an outbreak to a particular attacker and it takes several days for an infected individual to show signs of the disease. …

Letter From The Editor, Anthony Isenhour

Osmosis Magazine

Letter from the Editor-in-Chief, Anthony Isenhour.

Osmosis - Spring 2020

Osmosis Magazine

Osmosis is a student read, led, and written publication from the University of Richmond, focusing on all aspects of healthcare and science.

Interview With A Specialist: Dr. Christopher S. Thomas, Md Invasive Cardiology Virginia Cardiovascular Specialists, Joseph Mceachon

Osmosis Magazine

Interview With Dr. Christopher S. Thomas, MD.

Retail Clinics: Risky Or Reviving Primary Care, Dana Oriana Morcillo

Osmosis Magazine

It’s that time of the season again, as the sniffs and coughs begin to rapidly spread throughout campus.Despite how hard you try to avoid all who are infected, no doubt you will wake up soon enough with a tickle in your throat and a waterfall running from your nose. As a college student, you can’t go all the way back home to your family physician, and the university’s clinic is booked for days. So, you drive to the nearest Walgreens and walk into the MinuteClinic. Here, within an hour you’re able to check in, get evaluated and diagnosed by a …

Dna On Trial, Nathan Dinh

Osmosis Magazine

In March 4, 1974, a nine-year-old boy was raped in his home in Lake Wales, Florida. When the police arrived, the boy described his assailant as possibly 17 or 18 years old with a mustache and thick sideburns and named “Jim” or “Jimmy.” After being identified in a photograph lineup by the victim, Jimmy Bain, who said that he was at home watching television with his sister, was arrested and charged with child sex abuse, kidnapping, and burglary/unlawful entry. During the trial, the prosecutors relied on both the photograph lineup and semen that had been found at the scene. The …

Lack Of Diversity In Genomics Research, Savannah Del Cid

Osmosis Magazine

Precision medicine is a movement that seeks to serve a patient’s individual medical needs with a tailored level of treatment. Such a practice requires an essential framework of genetic information to allow doctors to make accurate treatment decisions. Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) provide massive amounts of information for databases, such as the GWAS Catalog; however, there is an apparent lack of diversity in the genomics data available to researchers and drug-developers. The majority of participants in GWAS are of European descent. As of January 2019, 78 percent of genetics contributed by GWAS have been of European descent; while, only 22 …

Necessity Of Receiving The Flu Vaccine And Recent Research Trials, Lizzie Godschall

Osmosis Magazine

To this day, smallpox is the only disease confirmed to be eradicated worldwide. This would not have been possible without the first widely utilized vaccine developed nearly 200 years prior by Edward Jenner. Inspired by Jenner’s methodology of using the cowpox virus to protect against smallpox in humans, vaccine innovations and their significance to public health took off after Louis Pasteur’s discovery of the rabies vaccine in 1885. Vaccines are perhaps the greatest immunological feat to this day. So why are people still so averse to getting vaccinated, especially for the flu? Encouraging people to get their annual flu shot …

Snake Venom Is A Cancer Therapy, George Qiao

Osmosis Magazine

Cancer is a deadly disease affecting and killing many people every year. For 2019, the estimated number of new cancer cases exceeds 1.5 million, and the estimated number of deaths caused by cancer exceeds six-hundred thousand. Treatments for cancer certainly exist; although current treatments are often costly and are not always effective in the long-run. The treatments also come with side effects often associated with the destruction of healthy, noncancerous cells. The expansion of alternatives for treating cancer is a constant objective for the medical community, and researchers are experimenting with many new solutions in order to provide new opportunities …

The Science Of Fetishes, Adriana Grimes

Osmosis Magazine

A fetish is defined by the Oxford Dictionary as “a form of sexual desire in which gratification is linked to an abnormal degree to a particular object, item of clothing, part of the body, etc.” The diagnostic statistical manual (DSM), which defines psychological disorders, has also defined fetishes. Fetishes, however, are not defined as a disorder unless they confer a serious or significant detriment or distress for the person. Most individuals who self-describe as having fetishes or being fetishists do not fall into the category of having clinical impairments due to the fetish. So how do sexual fantasies differ from …

Bingeing On Carbs Might Make Your Drunk?, Anthony Isenhour

Osmosis Magazine

Everyone loves eating too many carbs and realistically the occasional food-binge doesn’t harm the body very much. For some people, however, it can. For people in the United States who have been diagnosed with Auto-brewery Syndrome, or Gut Fermentation Syndrome, carbo-loading (eating copious amounts of carb-heavy food at once) can have some legal and behavioral consequences.

Can A Piece Of Gum Keep You Running?, Najnin Rimi

Osmosis Magazine

More than 50 percent of adults over the age of 18 drink coffee every day. Students on our own campus are not unfamiliar with the idea of a cup of coffee, or more, a day. But, could there be an alternative to this morning routine? Do we have to run on Dunkin? Kent Chen and Ryan Yoshimura worked with surgeons from UCLA to develop an exciting new energizer that would provide better results than the energizers used in the past. In 2015, they introduced Neurogum to the market. Its purpose is to boost energy, cognition, and focus whether it is …

Letter From The Editor, Mickey Murvin

Osmosis Magazine

Letter from the editor-in-chief.

Osmosis - Spring 2019

Osmosis Magazine

Osmosis is a student read, led, and written publication from the University of Richmond, focusing on all aspects of healthcare and science.

Paula Ferrada, M.D. Facs Trauma And Acute Care Surgery (Interview), Joseph Mceachon

Osmosis Magazine

Interview by Joseph McEachon

Titles at VCU: Professor of Surgery at VCU.

Program Director for the Surgical Critical Care Fellowship.

Medical Director of the Surgical and Trauma Intensive Care Unit.

The Future Of Healthcare Delivery, Ryan Cvelbar

Osmosis Magazine

The advancement of modern technology is a perpetual cycle that enhances the current ways in which we live and our quality of life, while also improving upon older technological conceptions. Just recently, virtual reality (VR), has risen to the top as a result of the media’s fascination with the profound level of sophistication with which the product operates. The first concept of virtual reality was developed in 1968 by Ivan Sutherland. Since then, Sutherland’s rudimentary invention has blossomed, as have its potential applications in life irrespective of the entertainment industry with which it is most commonly associated. Specifically, virtual reality’s …

Pillow Talk: The Science Behind The All-Nighter, Rilyn Mckallip

Osmosis Magazine

It’s that crazy part of the semester. Finals are coming up, and you find yourself staying awake later and later trying to cram for important tests. The night before your toughest final, you decide to pull an all nighter. It’s the only way you’ll be able to learn all those facts. The day of the test, you feel awful, but you make it through, and have a feeling you probably passed. As you go back to your dorm to crash, all seems well. You think to yourself, “that one night of lost sleep probably won’t hurt me at all.”

Cow Conundrum: The Science Behind Lactose Intolerance, Dana Morcillo

Osmosis Magazine

We’ve all heard those words before - lactose intolerant. You, a close friend, or even a random stranger at d-hall mutters those words and with it comes the inability to eat milk, cheese, and ice cream. But what does being lactose intolerant actually mean? Besides special access to that one refrigerator in d-hall you’ve always wondered about, lactose intolerance means that you lack a special enzyme needed to digest lactose - a sugar present in many of your favorite foods.

What Does Science Say About Sexuality?, Anthony Isenhour

Osmosis Magazine

While sexuality is full of cultural variations and subjective definitions used for self-identification, scientists have attempted to investigate the complexity of this topic. There may be benefits and risks involved for many if science rules out specific characteristics that determine one’s sexuality, but there is no simple determining factor for sexuality because of its fluidity.

Law And Order: Zero Gravity, Nathan Dinh

Osmosis Magazine

In August 2019, a woman named Anne McClain logged into her ex-wife’s private bank account, violating privacy laws. While in any other case this would be just another issue of identity theft, this was no ordinary crime. Rather, McClain was 254 miles above the Earth, traveling 17,150 miles per hour aboard the International Space Station when she allegedly used a NASA-registered computer to log onto her estranged wife’s account. Hers was the first crime committed off planet Earth, and it raises the question: how do countries decide who investigates and prosecutes crimes committed in space? As space tourism, interplanetary travel, …

The Gut Microbiome, Lucy Patterson

Osmosis Magazine

The gut microbiome is characterized as living microorganisms, including bacteria and viruses, and genetic material found within the gastrointestinal (GI) tract. These microorganisms aid in the digestion and absorption of nutrients in food, and play an active role in the digestive process. However, recent evidence suggests that the gut microbiome is not only helpful in the digestion of food, but also could be linked to mental health and personality.