State-of-the-art radiological scans of 2,500-year-old mummy on display at the Legion of Honor in San Francisco have yielded an amazing, high-resolution tour through the mummy's …
Month: October 2009
How a wealthy family in 18th-century China fought smallpox: The view from a novel
I've been reading The Story of the Stone, the great 18th century Chinese novel, which is much more accessible to my 21st-century Western mind than …
Is social media an antidote to medical myths?
If you didn't see this 33 Charts post on why physicians should tweet, blog and use other social media, it's worth a read. In his …
Nothing without a face: Surgeon talks about landmark transplant
Famed transplant surgeon Jean-Michel Dubernard is flipping through slides of his celebrated patient, Isabelle Dinoire, the first woman in the world to receive a face …
Researchers identify dominant chemical that attracts mosquitoes to humans
UC Davis researchers have identified the sweet, sweet cologne that draws blood-feeding Culex mosquitoes (which transmit West Nile virus and other diseases) to humans. Apparently …
Victor Fuchs offers contrarian view on health reform
Health economist Victor Fuchs, PhD, has been watching the health-care debate in Washington very carefully. Despite the recent optimism of Congressional Democrats, Fuchs hasn’t wavered …
Gender differences in H1N1 vaccine response?
An op-ed piece in the New York Times this morning caught my eye. The authors, two women with strong backgrounds in public and women's health …
Will debt forgiveness program remedy doctor shortage?
A health care reform proposal to repay the student loans of doctors who choose primary care could encourage more medical students to enter the field …
Attack in a national park
Year: 1995 Setting: Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea Position: Chief medical officer for Chevron Oil Co. I have been in PNG for two years, seen …
Questions for Dr. Ricardo Dolmetsch on autism
In September 2008, Ricardo Dolmetsch, PhD, assistant profesor of neurobiology, received a National Institutes of Health New Innovator Award to continue his discoveries about the …
More to reform
At risk of stating the obvious, much has been written these past few months about health-care reform and the problems with our health-care system. What …
A century of brain imaging
There's a fantastic gallery of images over at MIT Technology Review showing how our ability to image the brain has evolved over 100 years. The …
Harvard Medical School launches H1N1 influenza iPhone app
Harvard Medical School recently released an iPhone application designed to educate its users about the H1N1 influenza pandemic. Here's the description from iTunes: The Swine …
How the flu virus invades your body
This is an absolutely fascinating NPR video that shows how a virus invades your body. According to the NPR story, scientific animation outfit XVIVO produced …
Stanford Medicine Fall 2009: Where’s Sherlock Holmes when we need him?
The fall issue of Stanford Medicine magazine came out a few weeks ago while I was on vacation (mostly in Germany, visiting relatives and gaining …
Dismissing young patients if parents refuse to vaccinate them
Parents take note: pediatricians may legally deny care to your children if you refuse to vaccinate them. As the anti-vaccination movement increases, some doctors are …