If you're an adult American, chances are pretty good that at one time or another you've tried to diet. Chances are also good that, despite your efforts, you've found yourself standing on a scale and looking at a certain number with frustration and disbelief. It's the same number as last week, and the week before, even though you've been cutting back on sweets and going to the gym an extra day. Why won't that bulge budge?

What led you to specialize in the study of obesity and diabetes?

I started as a basic science researcher with a Ph.D. in biochemistry and was intrigued by the fact that, of all the hormones, insulin was responsible for the biggest health issue and was the least understood at the time. Over time, it has been a great journey learning about and working primarily on diabetes, but in the context of projects that involve all sorts of different disciplines—from molecular aspects to public health issues—essentially from the molecule to Medicare.

Have you ever had a dream that just didn't feel like a dream—where, like Alice in Wonderland, you had trouble telling fiction from reality? Perhaps you even felt like you had control over what was happening, as if you were directing a film produced entirely in your imagination. If so, you most likely experienced what sleep scientists like Edward Bixler call a "lucid dream."

If you've ever had that fleeting, mysterious sense that something new—a city or person you're seeing for the first time—is somehow familiar, that you've been there or known them before, then you can count yourself among those who have experienced déjà vu. It's typically a brief sensation, lasting no more than ten to thirty seconds, but ninety-six percent of the population claims to have experienced at least one occurrence.

"Today we're going to figure out how to treat inflammatory bowel disease, or IBD, using evolutionary medicine," announced Burt Humburg at the beginning of his Research Unplugged talk last Wednesday at the Penn State Downtown Theatre. "Researchers have looked for bacteria, fungi, and parasites which may cause this disease, but we can't find any and so today we're going to find a treatment ourselves."

Your eight-year-old can't sleep because his legs ache. Your friend's five-year-old daughter wakes up crying in the middle of the night with the same complaint. After mom or dad massages their legs, the children are able to fall asleep and awake in the morning feeling fine. By adolescence, the sporadic night pains go away completely.

Most new parents want to give their babies the very best start in life. They give careful thought to everything from nursery decorations to choice of family physician. Yet when it comes to their babies' nutrition, relatively few women in the U.S. heed the advice of the American Academy of Pediatrics to breastfeed babies "for at least twelve months, and thereafter for as long as is mutually desired."