Vampire fetishists will be heartened by this news release from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, which suggests there may be something to the idea of …
Author: Bruce Goldman
Hepatitis C virus's Achilles heel
Stanford's Jeffrey Glenn , MD, PhD, and colleagues, in a just-published study, have discovered a promising class of compounds that could help defeat the hepatitis …
Stem-cell sausage: Is Porky Pig obsolete?
In case you missed this groundbreaking news last week, MSNBC reported that Dutch researchers are on their way to producing "pork in a petri dish." …
Number of H1N1 patients declines, but calls for patience continue
Bad bugs are a bit like those giant mutant insects from sci-fi flicks of yore: Just when you think the world is safe, he-e-ere comes …
Compassion, Darwin, facial expressions, the Dalai Lama – and counterterrorism?
[1-11-10 update: Please note that due to unforeseen circumstances Paul Ekman's talk Thursday Jan. 14 has been postponed and will be rescheduled.] What happens when …
A cell phone is not a microwave oven or a nuclear reactor
There's been a lot of chatter about cell-phone use leading to brain cancer. But that conversation may be nearing its termination, unless Scandinavian skulls provide …
H1N1 flu and emotional epidemiology: What if they gave a vaccine and nobody came?
A few weeks ago I posted a link to one of several articles describing the spread of what was rumored to be a particularly virulent …
More evidence that seasonal flu vaccine protects against H1N1
A week ago, I noted that being old enough to have experienced earlier forms of the H1N1 influenza strain that were circulating prior to 1958 …
New flu brew due?
From the Just Over the Hill Dept.: Could the part of the world that gave us Dracula and Frankenstein be incubating some tiny monsters? Way …
H1N1 flu and the persistence of memory
People of a certain age have been known to complain that, while they lucidly recall the details of childhood events, they can't remember what they …
Your own unique microbial cachet?
For every human cell in your body, there are ten bacterial cells living on or in it. So it's an open question whether "you" are …
Ancient mummy meets modern medicine (and daddy, too) at Legion of Honor
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 …
Rush to judgment regarding the state of U.S. health care?
"The U.S. health care system, although it's the costliest in the world, doesn't even deliver the goods when it comes to delivering health." That's the …
A question to ask your doctor
Here's an idea for everybody: Call or email your doctor and ask him or her, "Are you going to get vaccinated for the H1N1 influenza …
It's official: There's a swine-flu pandemic
The World Health Organization has officially declared a swine-flu pandemic. While somewhat anti-climactic from a news perspective, the action does promise to spur accelerated development …
Old blood scores against new pig-brewed flu
It looks as though older people have been around long enough to have been exposed to influenza viruses at least somewhat similar to the H1N1 …