July 2012
11 posts
10 tags
Horror: The Dawood Military Hospital
If you look at only one story about the Afghan War this year, make it this one. An explosive Congressional investigation revealed horrific new details this week about a U.S. funded military hospital in Afghanistan that kept patients in “Auschwitz-like” conditions.
The investigation also revealed that Lt. General William B. Caldwell, then commander of the $11.2 billion dollar a year Afghan...
4 tags
Are Olympic Sports Creating a Race of Mutants?
Athletes who perform at the elite level aren’t like the rest of us. Their feats of strength, accuracy, and endurance often appear superhuman — which probably explains why we enjoy watching them so much. And the suggestion that many of these athletes are somehow performing outside of “normal” human bounds is not an exaggeration. Professional sports, it would seem, are being...
8 tags
Why Some Diseases Wait in Your Body For Decades...
Almost any disease will spend some time in your body before making you ill, summoning its forces or just lying in wait. But some maladies are even more patient than that.
Some ailments can spend decades lurking in your body, dormant and unknown, until they suddenly spring to life. Let’s take a look at some of the most patient diseases that you could already have, without knowing.
The...
7 tags
What Science Can Tell us About James Holmes’s...
As humans, it’s only natural for us to search for explanations in the face of senseless violence. So it’s no surprise that people have floated many weird and offensive theories to explain the tragic shootings late last week at a movie theatre in Colorado, that left 12 people dead and dozens more injured.
But you don’t need to look too far for a “reason” to explain...
9 tags
This Is What Child Birth Looks Like, From the...
Back in 2010, a team of German doctors announced that they’d recorded the world’s first MRI of a woman giving birth. Back then, only still images were available — but now the researchers have released the video, and it’s spellbinding.
New Scientist explains how the video, which you can watch below, was acquired:
The video captures the active second stage of labour as...
5 tags
After 25 years trapped in woman’s stomach, lost...
Here’s a reason to leave any and all tonsil examinations up to the professionals. From an article last year in the journal BMJ Case Reports comes this anecdote about a woman who managed to keep a pen marinating in her gut for a quarter-century until doctors plucked it out..[[MORE]]
Report the authors, who are physicians in Exeter, England:
A 76-year-old female, with a blameless...
4 tags
Scientists Now Know Why You Toss and Turn at Night...
Ever kicked your partner as you sleep? By studying rats, University of Toronto scientists have discovered what exactly it is that makes our eyes move and our bodies paralyzed while we slumber, and why some people can’t stay still. And it could help them find ways to overcome REM sleep disorders, tooth grinding, narcolepsy, and other snooze-related ailments.[[MORE]]
To solve the question,...
8 tags
The Robot Doctors of the Future Are Coming
Remember how in sci-fi tomorrowland we were promised that doctors would be followed around by robots who knew your medical history by rote and could make sure that nothing gets missed? Well, we’ve woken up in the future because shit just got real.
Meet the RP-VITA, or Remote Presence Virtual + Independent Telemedicine Assistant, a collaboration between iRobot and InTouch Health. iRobot...
4 tags
Do you want to live longer? Here's how you can..
People who exercise are certainly healthier than those who don’t, but do they actually live longer? A review published in the latest issue of the Journal of Aging Research says they do, by an average of around four years. But the review also suggests that the type of exercise could be just as important.[[MORE]]
A team of researchers led by sports scientist Anne Reimer collected a...
5 tags
10 Psychological States You’ve Never Heard Of --...
Everybody knows what you mean when you say you’re happy or sad. But what about all those emotional states you don’t have words for? Here are ten feelings you may have had, but never knew how to explain.[[MORE]]
1. Dysphoria Often used to describe depression in psychological disorders, dysphoria is general state of sadness that includes restlessness, lack of energy, anxiety, and...
6 tags
Are we all mentally ill?
Thanks to DSM-5’s new definition of General Anxiety Disorder, we can now all be labeled ‘mentally ill’. The psychiatric, and pharmacological industries approve.
To start, let’s go back in time..
In 1994, a study asking a random sample of thousands of Americans about their mental health reported that 15% had ever suffered from anxiety disorders. A 2009 study of people...
