Life and health

Chia seed

Chia seed, the edible seed of Salvia hispanica, a Mesoamerican mint-family crop rich in omega-3 ALA, fiber, and calcium; mucilage-forming functional food with mixed clinical-trial evidence for cardiometabolic benefits.

Chia-Lin Wei

Chia-Lin Wei is a genomic technology researcher known for the ChIA-PET chromatin method and a 2006 global p53 binding-site map, now directing the Northwest Genomics Center at the University of Washington.

Chia‐Hsueh Lee

Chia-Hsueh Lee is an American-based structural biologist at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis known for cryo-EM structures of the human HCN1 ion channel and the Spns2 lipid transporter.

Chianina

Chianina: Italian beef cattle breed from the Val di Chiana in Tuscany and Umbria, the largest cattle breed in the world; white Podolian-trunk breed behind bistecca alla Fiorentina and the Vitellone Bianco PGI.

Chiara Bonini

Chiara Bonini is an Italian physician-scientist who heads the Experimental Hematology Unit at Ospedale San Raffaele in Milan, pioneering engineered T cell gene therapies for cancer.

Chiara Cirelli

Chiara Cirelli is a neuroscientist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, trained at the University of Pisa, known for the synaptic homeostasis hypothesis, which holds that sleep renormalizes synaptic strength.

Chiara Cremolini

Chiara Cremolini, born in 1984 in La Spezia, is an Italian medical oncologist and full professor at the University of Pisa who led the TRIBE trials in metastatic colorectal cancer.

Chiari malformation

Chiari malformation (Arnold-Chiari malformation): hindbrain defect where cerebellar tonsils herniate ≥3-5 mm below the foramen magnum, type 1 most common, prevalence 0.24-2.6%, treated by posterior fossa decompression with or without duraplasty.

Chibby family

Chibby family (CBY1, CBY2, CBY3): small conserved coiled-coil proteins that antagonize Wnt/beta-catenin signaling and organize basal bodies for ciliogenesis; CBY1 loss causes a Joubert syndrome-like ciliopathy.

Chick culling

Chick culling is the killing of day-old male layer chicks, about 7.8 billion yearly, by maceration or gassing; banned in Germany (2022), France, Austria, and Italy, with in-ovo sexing as the main alternative.

Chick sexing

Chick sexing determines the sex of day-old chicks, mainly by vent sexing (the 1924 Japanese method of Masui, Hashimoto, and Ono) and feather sexing; in-ovo sexing now replaces male chick culling in Europe.

Chickadee

Chickadee (Poecile): small North American Paridae songbirds named for their chick-a-dee call. Known for food caching with spatial memory for thousands of sites, cavity nesting, and the black-capped/Carolina hybrid zone.

Chicken

Chicken (Gallus gallus domesticus), domesticated mainly from the red junglefowl subspecies G. g. spadiceus in Southeast Asia; the world's most numerous domestic animal, supplying about 40% of global meat, with debated domestication timing and major avian influenza losses since 2022.

Chicken egg sizes

Chicken egg sizes are standardized weight classes for retail eggs: US classes run Peewee (15 oz/dozen) to Jumbo (30 oz/dozen), Canada uses per-egg gram bands (42–70 g+), and the EU uses 48–73 g+ bands, so a "large" egg differs by country.

Chicken hypnotism

Chicken hypnotism is tonic immobility (TI), a fear-based freeze reflex induced by restraint, not true hypnosis. Studies since 1950 show fear potentiates it, eyes sustain it, and it serves as a poultry welfare fear test.

Chicken or the egg

Chicken or the egg: classic causal riddle. Evolutionary biology answers egg first: amniote eggs ~325-340 million years old, chickens only ~58,000 years; OC-17 counterargument and Lamarckian reframing discussed.

Chickenpox

Chickenpox (varicella), caused by varicella-zoster virus, a highly contagious herpesvirus disease with itchy blistering rash; up to 90% of susceptible contacts infected; two-dose vaccine about 90% effective; US cases down over 97% since 1995; reactivation causes shingles.

Chickpea

Chickpea, also called garbanzo or Bengal gram, is an annual legume of the pea family grown for its protein-rich seeds, one of the oldest cultivated food plants.

Chicory

Chicory (Cichorium intybus L.), a perennial Asteraceae herb native to Europe to Central Asia, cultivated since about 300 BC; its inulin-rich root (40–60%) is used as a coffee substitute, prebiotic fiber source, and traditional digestive remedy.

Chiea Chuen Khor

Khor Chiea Chuen is a Singaporean human geneticist and Group Leader at the Genome Institute of Singapore, A*STAR, known for genetic studies of infectious disease susceptibility and glaucoma.

CHIEDZA trial

The CHIEDZA trial, led from Harare and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, tested community-based HIV and sexual health services for 16 to 24-year-olds in Zimbabwe from 2019 to 2022.

Chief cell of parathyroid gland

Parathyroid chief cell (principal cell), the PTH-secreting endocrine cell of the parathyroid glands; senses ionized calcium via the CaSR, sets the calciostat at ~1.1–1.2 mM, and gives rise to adenomas and chief cell hyperplasia.

Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office

Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office is the title of the official cat residing at 10 Downing Street, held since 2011 by Larry, a tabpy recruited from Battersea.

Chien-Wen Tseng

Chien-Wen Tseng is a family physician and health services researcher at the University of Hawaiʻi. She was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2022.

Chiglitazar sodium

Chiglitazar sodium, brand name Bilessglu and research code CS-038, is a PPAR pan-agonist drug developed in China and approved in 2021 to improve glycemic control in adults with type 2 diabetes.

Chigua

Chigua: a cycad genus named by Dennis W. Stevenson in 1990 (type Chigua restrepoi) and synonymized with Zamia by Lindstrom in 2009; also the indigenous-derived epithet of the fern-like species Zamia chigua Seem. (1854) from Colombia's Chocó.

Chihiro Sasakawa

Chihiro Sasakawa (笹川千尋), born in Tokyo in 1948, is a Japanese bacteriologist known for work on how Shigella and Helicobacter pylori manipulate host cells, and for helping create the field of infection biology.

Chihuahua (dog)

Chihuahua, the smallest recognized dog breed, named after Mexico's Chihuahua state; AKC Toy Group breed under 6 pounds with apple head, 14-16 year lifespan, Techichi ancestry, and 1904 AKC recognition.

Chikashi Toyoshima

Chikashi Toyoshima (豊島近) is a Japanese structural biologist at the University of Tokyo known for determining the first atomic crystal structure of the calcium pump SERCA in 2000.