We are overjoyed to announce that Roberta Kwok has become the newest person of LWON (or LaWONian, as some of us like to say). You’ve seen her here before. Her first guest post explained how a study to detect traffic patterns gave investigators new insight into a fatal car crash. Elsewhere, she’s written about synthetic […]
I recently witnessed one of the kindest, gentlest people I know fly into a momentary rage over a parking space. Such transformations used to baffle me, but after writing a Discover story about embodied cognition, I’m starting to understand why normally mild-mannered people can become uncharacteristically aggressive behind the wheel of a large automobile. The […]
So many press releases land in my inbox that I don’t have time to read them all. But a recent release from the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ) caught my eye — “Treatment by naturopathic doctors shows reduction in cardiovascular risk factors. Randomized controlled trial.” This would be big news if it were true. Naturopathic […]
Spring is a nervous time for skiers and farmers. I’m both of these, and every April I watch the weather even more closely than usual. As a skier, I’m waiting for crust — the year’s most magnificent snow conditions. Spring’s warm temperatures compress the winter’s deep snowpack and when the freeze/thaw cycles line up just […]
Yesterday at The Washington Post, I wrote about a controversy in which a 911 caller who identified herself as a nurse refused to give CPR to an 87-year-old woman who’d collapsed at a Bakersfield, California independent living facility. (Unlike a nursing home, the facility did not employ medical staff, and, according to the Associated Press, […]
Ten years ago this month, the United States invaded Iraq on false pretenses. On December 15, 2011, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta declared the war officially over. In the March 16 issue of the medical journal the Lancet, researchers examined the war’s consequences for human health. While politicians argue about the meaning of war, one […]
The storytelling begins the morning you wake up with a slight scratch in your throat. Oh, this is nothing, you tell yourself, as if denial was the best antidote to a virus. If I just sip some throat-soothing tea, I’ll be fine. When the runny nose starts, you load up on oranges or Fisherman’s Friend […]
The other morning while we were walking our dogs, my husband slipped on some snow and fell down in front of me. One moment he was stepping over a log, and the next he was on his back, feet up in the air. I laughed hysterically. He wasn’t hurt. Nor was he amused. And his […]