American readers will probably recognize the dopey guy on the right as Elmo, of tickling fame, who lives on Sesame Street. But this isn’t Elmo, it’s his doppelgänger, Neno, who appears on Takalani Sesame, the South African version of the show. The blonde is his co-star, Kami, who will also appear on Sesame Square, a […]
Health/Medicine
Yesterday I stumbled on a Mancouch blog post (don’t ask) in which ‘the_static’ — a young mohawk-ed guy who rides motorcycles and plays video games — sings the glories of electronic cigarettes. E-cigs, in case you haven’t heard of them, are cigarettes without the smoke. You put in a few drops of a liquid nicotine […]
Are scientists who work with living organisms less germ phobic than civilians? When a science-writing colleague (okay: LWON’s own Ann Finkbeiner) apologized to an infectious disease specialist for giving him an insufficiently rinsed coffee cup, he responded, “Nothing in there I’m worried about.” I once watched a microbiologist cut her bagel with a butter knife […]
Scientists know a lot about infectious diseases. But a new study in the Archives of Internal Medicine finds that the treatment guidelines created by the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) are based on imperfect evidence. Only one in seven treatment recommendations relied on evidence from a randomized controlled trial, the gold standard in medicine. […]
On a crisp fall day in November 2008, a wildlife biologist killed a deer in Eastern Virginia. He slit the carcass open from breast to tail and removed the animal’s internal organs. Hunting knives are very sharp. And, in the process of field dressing the deer, he nicked his knuckle. I imagine he didn’t think […]
Once upon a time, in a far off land, a boy and a girl courted and fell in love. Although they lived in the big city, they decided to tie the knot in Montana, where the boy’s parents live. But before the state would recognize their union, the girl had to have a blood test. […]
Scientific articles published in prestigious medical journals don’t usually begin like this: A Little Red Hen lived in a university hospital where she took care of the sick animals in the different wards. She did this under the overseeing eye of her wise and learned mentors. There was the Cow, who had a degree from […]
Last week, I had my palm read for the first time. I was spending the day with scientists who study the microscopic bugs living on our skin. (It’s actually not as creepy or smelly as you might think.) One of the researchers, a young and energetic dermatologist, was giving me the grand tour of the […]
