February 2011
89 posts
7 tags
Animals who live fast and die young could be the...
Humans age very slowly, but the older we get, the more likely death gets. Not every animal follows that pattern though - some species live for only very short periods, but their age doesn’t actually seem to affect when they die. Figuring out why these animals age the way they do could help us understand why humans age…maybe even how to stop it.
There’s two different ways to...
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Science Art: A Sequence of Lines
This video depicts 500 people trying to do what should be an extraordinarily simple task: trace over an existing line. But as each person was asked to copy the previous person’s effort, the original straight line morphed into a chaotic mess of random squiggles. We’re not saying this is exactly like how evolution works, but this is a pretty great depiction of how random errors and...
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Giving you lunch or stealing your soul?
The pharmaceutical industry is one of the most profitable in the United States. A distinctive feature of this business is its dependence on physicians to recommend its prescription products. This necessity is underscored by the promotional budget of pharmaceutical companies, over $33 billion (data from 2004), mostly targeted at physicians, and medical education.
We as medical students are...
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The Biochemistry of Love's Ecstasy and Agony
For most of us, it just wouldn’t be Valentine’s Day if we didn’t offer a heart-shaped expression of heart-felt love to someone we care about. And whether we’re celebrating a long-time relationship or we’re newly smitten, the ups and downs of the experience are universal: the thrill of attraction, the joy of connection, the despair of rejection, the warmth of an...
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Choosing a Specialty
(Source: DocCartoon)
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Chocolate and Kisses: The Neurological Connection
Valentine’s Day is around the corner, which brings to mind two Cupid’s Day standbys: kissing and chocolate. Other than the fact that both are symbols of romance, what do they actually have in common? A whole lot! A small study in the UK showed that chocolate and kisses stimulate the body (and the mind) in very similar ways, with one of them (can you guess which?) out-stimulating the...
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Climate Change: 5 Million Dead by 2020
First comprehensive study on climate mortality — projects rapidly increasing death toll especially among children because of climate change.
The report offers some sobering findings.. there are an estimated 350,000 climate-related deaths per year, and that number is expected to nearly double by 2020 and triple by 2030. Not surprisingly, most of those impacted will be children and women in the...
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Hard Doc’s Life (Hospitalist Anthem)
Basic Ingredients:
1 instrumental track for Jay-Z rap ditty; cutting edge…back in 1998
1 overworked hospital medicine specialist, beaten down and nearly broken (with plenty of marbled fat)
1 piece x-treme movie editing software (Final Cut Pro or equivalent. Please see 10000-page attached manual for directions on use)
about 12 hours worth of freshly squeezed free time
Write, record, mix,...
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The 12 Cranial Nerves and Starbucks
When you walk into Starbucks and you..
I. Smell the coffee aroma (olfactory)..
II. Read the order menu from about 20 feet away (optic) then you..
III. Pupils constrict as you look at items, such as muffins, closer (oculomotor)..
IV. You look up at salesperson then down at your money as you pay (trochlear)..
V. You clench your teeth and touch your face when they called your drink...
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Dance Dance Revolution: Egypt Edition
This is what hope looks like: massive celebrations at the end of a historic day in Egypt, as captured in photographs.
Demonstrators celebrate inside Tahrir Square after the announcement of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s resignation in Cairo on February 11, 2011. Egypt’s Vice President Omar Suleiman said on Friday that Mubarak had bowed to pressure from the street and had...
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UKs "Evidence Based" Health Policies Aren't Based...
Ben “Bad Science” Goldacre looks at the UK government’s claims that its health cuts and changes are “evidence-based” and finds that the “evidence” consists of bad studies and cherry-picked results.
The government initially claimed that UK heart attack death rates were twice as bad as France. This was an overstatement: they are, but following recent...
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Music Actually is Intoxicating
An “outburst of the soul,” the composer Frederick Delius called music. The sounds associated with the form produce “a kind of pleasure which human nature cannot do without,” observed Confucius. It is the art “which is most nigh to tears and memory,” noted the writer Oscar Wilde.
It turns out that these guys were more on target than we thought. Our experience...
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Meditation vs Medication: Which Should You Choose?
Twenty-five hundred years ago, a disenchanted prince and seeker of truth sat quietly under a bodhi tree. After much stillness, The Buddha emerged. And the rest is history…
Mention the word meditation, and this quintessential image is conjured up. With the sheer velocity and lightening speed with which we live our lives, meditation seems like an ideal that comes from a galaxy far, far...
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What's the leading cause of disability in America?
If you were asked the leading cause of disability in America, what would your answer be? Consider your response carefully, as I can almost assure you that it is not any of the illnesses you are contemplating.
Could it be diabetes? This ailment certainly affects a significant portion of the adult public. Most of us have an acquaintance or two that suffers from the disease.
How about depression?...
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Antidepressant Medication: Millions Prescribed...
Are you taking antidepressants for something like sleep problems or a sour mood?
Well according to a recent study in The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, you may not be alone.
Researchers found that more than a quarter of Americans currently taking antidepressants haven’t actually been diagnosed with the conditions that traditionally qualified one for a prescription, like depression or...
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Acne and Stress Connected Through the Brain
These days, when we think of the brain, it is not hard to understand how it may be connected extensively with other body regions, as it directs so much of our bodies. And while a connection between the brain and heart is easy to imagine, with the heart pumping blood to the brain and the brain having an effect on heart rate, the connection between the brain and skin is not quite so obvious. Even...
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The Super Bowl -- It Feminizes Men
As you stock up on pizza, nachos, chips, soda, and beer for your Super Bowl feast, here’s something you might want to consider: Those foods are feminizing men.
Not exactly the way you meant to celebrate our annual tribute to red-blooded American masculinity, is it? But undeniably true. Many of the unhealthy things we eat today have been found to cause a drop in testosterone, the essential male...
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An Awake Craniotomy
The picture above shows an awake left parieto-occipital trephine craniotomy being done.
Here the trephined bone is being replaced, normally we do not fix the bone with anything however in areas like the forehead the bone must be fixed to give a good cosmetic look.
So, now you’re asking — an awake craniotomy?
In neurosurgery, more complicated techniques involve awake surgery...
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Little Pharma: The Medication of U.S. Children
The Wall Street Journal recently reported that a study of prescription patterns in 2009, conducted by IMS Health, showed that 25 percent of children in the U.S. were on regular medication.
IMS Health is a firm that provides marketing intelligence to pharmaceutical companies. The firm’s job is to keep the $800 billion per year global pharmaceutical industry on a continued pattern of...
