I’ve talked about depression a lot on this blog, both my own and in general, primarily because I’ve been dealing with it since early childhood. My personal depressive hell has gotten a lot less torturous over the last few years; my depressions now last a day or two at most (thanks primarily to the Lefkoe …
Continue reading ‘News Flash: Depression Has Been Solved… For the Last Forty Years!’ »
So much for the “obesity epidemic.” 🙂 (There’s something I’ve wondered about the “Body Mass Index,” or BMI, ever since I learned how it was calculated: why the heck would medical professionals use such a measurement? It’s obvious to anyone with a math education that it couldn’t be right — it assumes that a person’s …
Continue reading ‘“Being a skinny is much more unhealthy than being fat – new study”’ »
While roaming the Internet, I stumbled across this article. It’s from 2007, but its contents are still very relevant: […] Through much of the 20th century, lead in U.S. paint and gasoline fumes poisoned toddlers as they put contaminated hands in their mouths. The consequences on crime, Nevin found, occurred when poisoning victims became adolescents. …
Continue reading ‘“Research Links Lead Exposure, Criminal Activity”’ »
Sounds like an excellent idea, but I have my doubts about its effectiveness. My stepfather got a couple packs of Canadian cigarettes a few years ago, and was very amused at the warning graphic. It hasn’t stopped him from smoking though, and I’ve never known anyone who it has stopped. Everyone seems to think that …
Continue reading ‘“Gross-out cigarette labels drive spike in quit-line calls”’ »
Remember that mosquito-frying laser idea I mentioned last year? It turns out I’m not the only one who had it — and it’s getting closer to reality. 😀 Anyone who wants to get me one for Christmas is welcome to. 😉
This sort of thing might have come directly from a science-fiction action story, where the hero is patched up in an unbelievably short time between epic space battles. Who says the future is always far away? 😉
I’ve often wondered if there might be a way to harness the placebo effect to actually help people get better. It seems that I’m not the only one, either.
I never thought that I’d live to see a working Star Trek-esque medical tricorder, but it seems that I might… at least a poor-man’s version of one, that requires placing a sample on or in the device. Even better, the smartphones we’re toting around today might already have all the hardware needed, if I’m reading …
Continue reading ‘“iPhone doc will detect cancer, diabetes – boffins”’ »
A medical breakthrough in the fight against antibiotic-resistant bacteria! In a nutshell, these things render such bacteria vulnerable to antibiotics again, and it looks like bacteria have no way to defend themselves. 🙂 This is the kind of science I love to hear about.
The LA Times recently published a four-part investigation of autism. It’s pretty good, it has more information on it than I’ve been able to find in my own research elsewhere. I’m not a scientist, and I’m operating solely on my own experience and what I’ve read of others, but it seems to me that autism …
Continue reading ‘“Autism boom: an epidemic of disease or of discovery?”’ »