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Comedian
Carol Burnett once said that "giving birth is like taking your lower
lip and forcing it over your head."
I'm sure that the moms reading this would agree. Perhaps reading about childbirth is the last thing on your mind, especially if you've already given birth, but trust me, this one is interesting.
Atul Gawande wrote an article for The New Yorker about how childbirth went industrial, including this tidbit of the history of the obstetric forceps, which invention was kept as a family secret for 3 generations:
The instrument was developed in the seventeenth century by Peter Chamberlen (1560-1631), the first of a long line of French Huguenots who delivered babies in London. It looked like a pair of big metal salad tongs, with two blades shaped to fit snugly around a baby’s head and handles that locked together with a single screw in the middle. It let doctors more or less yank stuck babies out and, carefully applied, was the first technique that could save both the baby and the mother.
The Chamberlens knew that they were onto something, and they resolved to keep the device a family secret. Whenever they were called in to help a mother in obstructed labor, they ushered everyone else out of the room and covered the mother’s lower half with a sheet or a blanket so that even she couldn’t see what was going on. They kept the secret of the forceps for three generations.
In 1670, Hugh Chamberlen, in the third generation, tried and failed to sell it to the French government. Late in his life, he divulged it to an Amsterdam-based surgeon, Roger van Roonhuysen, who kept the technique within his own family for sixty more years. The secret did not get out until the mid-eighteenth century. Once it did, it gained wide acceptance. At the time of Princess Charlotte’s failed delivery, in 1817, her obstetrician, Sir Richard Croft, was widely reviled for failing to use forceps. He shot himself to death not long afterward.
Link - via Metafilter
Baldies, take heart! Science is coming to the rescue: Japanese scientists
have bioengineered stem cells to enable nude mice to grow hair.
LinkTakashi Tsuji, a regenerative-medicine specialist at Tokyo University of Science who led the study, says that the technique holds promise for treating male pattern baldness.
The team used a specialized nylon sheath to guide the hair through the skin layers, enabling it to erupt from the skin of the mice in 94% of all grafts. The hairs took between 2 and 5 weeks to emerge, and behaved as normal: they underwent normal growth cycles and established connections to the muscles and nerves underneath the skin. The hairs also lifted up from the skin in response to acetylcholine, a neurotransmitter known to cause hairs to stand on end.
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Deborah
Orr of The Guardian was diagnosed with cancer, and thus experienced first
hand what people say to you when you're seriously ill.
She wrote:
What no one ever tells you about serious illness is that it places you at the centre of a maelstrom of concerned attention from family and friends. Of course it does. That's one of the nice things. It's actually the only nice thing. But it's also a rather tricky challenge, at a time when you may feel – just slightly – that you have enough on your plate. Suddenly, on top of everything else, you are required to manage the emotional requirements of all those who are dear to you, and also, weirdly, one or two people who you don't see from one year to the next, but who suddenly decide that they really have to be at your bedside, doling out homilies, 24 hours a day.
So, to help all of us out, she wrote a guide to The 10 Things Not To Say To Someone When They're Ill:
1 "I feel so sorry for you"
It's amazing, the number of people who imagine that it feels just great to be the object of pity. Don't even say "I feel so sorry for you" with your eyes. One of my friends was just brilliant at mimicking the doleful-puppy-poor-you gaze, and when I had been subjected to a sustained bout of it, I used to crawl over to the local pub for lunch with him, just so that he could make me laugh by doing it. Don't say "I feel so sorry for you" with your hand either. When someone patted my thigh, or silently rested their paw on it, often employing the exasperating form of cranial communication known as "sidehead" at the same time, I actually wanted to deck them. Do say: "I so wish you didn't have to go through this ghastly time." That acknowledges that you are still a sentient being, an active participant in your own drama, not just, all of a sudden, A Helpless Victim.
6 "Whatever I can do to help"
Apart from anything else, it's boring. Everybody says it, even though your assumption tends to be that people do want to help, of course. That doesn't mean that help should not be offered. But "Can I pick the children up from school on Tuesdays?" or "Can I come round with a fish pie and a Mad Men box set?" is greatly preferable to: "Can I saddle you with the further responsibility of thinking up a task for me?" If you do happen to be on the receiving end of "whatever I can do to help", be shameless. Delegate with steely and ruthless intent.
So.
You think you know how to floss. Well, is it better to brush first or
floss first? Should you floss in the morning or at night?
Well, if you don't know the answer to that, here's Denis F. Kinane, professor of pathology and periodontics at the University of Pennsylvania's Penn Dental Medicine (I mean, you can't get anyone more experienced than that, right) with the secrets of being the perfect flossing:
Is it better to floss first or brush first?
The typical regime would be brushing, flossing and rinsing. Flossing cleans out places where the toothbrush can't reach. But if you were on a desert island and could only bring one dental-health item, choose a toothbrush.
What about morning versus evening?
Your teeth are typically covered in microbial plaque, or biofilm, which is understood to be linked to every disease caused by infection, from strep and on.
When you should remove that plaque depends on why you're removing it in the first place. If you are removing it for prevention of tooth decay or periodontal disease—such as gingivitis, which destroys the root and makes the teeth fall out—then I believe it's best at night. This gives you an eight-hour, food-free rest so your mouth can fight against the ravages it faces all day.
If you floss in the morning, because you have to say hello to people and want nice teeth, that is useful—but less so from a biological point of view. Although it should be noted that this has never been researched—call it the Kinane Hypothesis.
Read more over at Wall Street Journal: Link
When life hands you lemons, you’re supposed to make lemonade. Six-year-old Drew Cox did just that. Drew’s father, Randy Cox of Gladewater, Texas, underwent chemotherapy to treat cancer. Drew wanted to help in any way he could.
Drew said he felt sad and wanted to help his father with medical bills.
“He is so important to me. We like to play with each other. Lots of times we like to play games,” Drew told a local television station.
Randy Cox says he has medical insurance but still will have to pay thousands of dollars in medical costs out of pocket.
Drew opened his stand for business outside his home on Saturday morning, charging 25 cents a cup. Word of his benevolent venture spread quickly, with some customers coming from dozens of miles away.
One person wrote a $5,000 check and by the end of the day, Drew raised more than $10,000.
Suprise!
It's not the United States - although one third of Americans are overweight,
we look downright svelte compared to Qatar:
Qatar is a tiny country with a big problem.
This Connecticut-sized nation, sticking out like a loose tooth in the Persian Gulf, is one of the most obese nations in the world, with residents fatter, on average, than even those of the United States, which often takes the cake in such competitions.
According to recent studies, roughly half of adults and a third of children in Qatar are obese, and almost 17 percent of the native population suffers from diabetes. [...] So what's going wrong in little Qatar? [...]
Over the course of two generations, most native Qataris, who number only 250,000 in a nation of 1.7 million, and enjoy the benefits of a robust welfare state, went from living modest, tribal lifestyles in the Arabian desert, to living in air-conditioned villas with maids, nannies, gardeners, and cooks.
Haley Sweetland Edwards wrote the report for The Atlantic: Link
Food and other industries have mascots that are walking and dancing versions of their products, so why not mascots for urine tests, syringes, and various body organs? These exist too, in walking, dancing, kid-hugging form! See eleven of the best at mental_floss. Shown here is Petey Cup, which is, well, you can figure that out or go read more about him. Link
The Hulk might seem like the perfect cover model for a magazine like Muscle and Fitness, but consider this-do you really want the guys that read your magazine getting even more jacked up on “supplements” in an attempt to look like Marvel Comics’ raging tower of muscle?
And isn’t this cover a bit misleading, considering that Bruce Banner (The Hulk’s human alter-ego) is a scientist with the muscle mass and strength of, well, a scientist?!
Although the Hulk aspect seems a bit silly, I am intrigued by the article entitled “Bulletproof Your Knees”, so I’m gonna ask around and see if anyone I know has picked up this issue. Well played Muscle and Fitness, well played indeed…
Blood, sweat, tears, and a few other bodily liquids we don’t talk about in polite company are the main body fluids you know. There are plenty more you might not know, but they all work together to make you exist and function properly. For example, have you ever heard of interstitial fluid?
Interstitial Fluid, AKA tissue fluid, works in conjunction with lymph and plasma (the liquid part of your blood) to maintain your body’s internal pressure and make sure your organs and other fluids properly interact. Most interstitial fluids have a specific job and a specific name, like peritoneal fluid, which lubricates everything inside the abdomen, or pleural fluid, which coats the lungs to allow them to do that whole oxygen exchange thing so you can live. And you were giving air all the credit.
Read about the rest and what they do at mental_floss. Link
Comments Off A British reality TV show called The Pet Fit Club takes overweight pets and tries to reform their lives. It sounds like a better concept than The Biggest Loser, because we can all root for the pets, who are not only obese through no fault of their own, but also cannot say dumb things to make us dislike them. Their owners, on the other hand…. Link -via The Daily What
Our
health care professionals have been haranguing us for years to lose a
few pounds - so is it fair for us to expect that people working for the
hospital to be, well, not fat?
Citizens Medical Center, a Texas healthcare facility, is walking the walk: they're refusing to hire fatties (people with body mass index over 35, classified as severely obese):
Officials say the measure is meant to promote healthy living, so that employees can set an example for patients. The rule is legal in Texas, and the medical center is hardly the first company to institute weight-related policies — in 2010 grocery chain Whole Foods started offering workers with low BMIs better employee discounts. Considering how hard it is for anyone to get a job these days, should hospitals be able to reject applicants based on their weight?
So - what do you think? Is it discrimination for hospitals not to hire people because of their weight? Link
Sorry to hear your toe got needled is a strange little animated short that starts out stop motion and ends in traditional 2d style, and it all centers around a man’s strange story about his injurious trip to the hospital.
It’s cute, it’s a cartoon, and even though watching it probably isn’t covered by your HMO I won’t tell if you don’t!
–via Drawn
Dr. Dennis Filips, a retired surgeon in the Canadian Navy, saw a lot of traumatic wounds in Afghanistan. He figured that there had to be a better way for troops to stop blood loss immediately after a wound. So he developed a hinged clamp that snapps over a wound. Needles anchor it in place as the clamp holds the wound together and reduces blood flow. Watch a simulation video at the link.
Link and Product Page -via OhGizmo!
Thousands of soldiers were wounded during the Battle of Shiloh on April 6, 1862 -150 years ago today. Medics on both sides were overwhelmed, and some of those wounded had to wait quite some time for treatment.
Some of the Shiloh soldiers sat in the mud for two rainy days and nights waiting for the medics to get around to them. As dusk fell the first night, some of them noticed something very strange: their wounds were glowing, casting a faint light into the darkness of the battlefield. Even stranger, when the troops were eventually moved to field hospitals, those whose wounds glowed had a better survival rate and had their wounds heal more quickly and cleanly than their unilluminated brothers-in-arms. The seemingly protective effect of the mysterious light earned it the nickname “Angel’s Glow.”
In 2001, almost one hundred and forty years after the battle, seventeen-year-old Bill Martin was visiting the Shiloh battlefield with his family. When he heard about the glowing wounds, he asked his mom – a microbiologist at the USDA Agricultural Research Service who had studied luminescent bacteria that lived in soil – about it.
“So you know, he comes home and, ‘Mom, you’re working with a glowing bacteria. Could that have caused the glowing wounds?’” Martin told Science Netlinks. “And so, being a scientist, of course I said, ‘Well, you can do an experiment to find out.’”
And that’s just what Bill did.
Martin and a friend worked on the question and their research eventually won a science fair competition. Read about their findings at mental_floss. Link
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Bald is beautiful! Mattel has announced that they will development a Barbie doll without hair especially for girls dealing with hair loss, whether from chemotherapy or another cause, in themselves or a family member. The dolls should come out in 2013.
Although “Mattel has a policy of not forwarding unsolicited product ideas to our design teams,” it seems like New Jersey resident Jane Bingham with her friend Rebecca Sypin, who launched a Beautiful and Bald Barbie Facebook page last December, sparked the idea. The social media move went viral. Bingham and Sypin reportedly met in a pregnancy chat room. Both Bingham and Sypin’s daughter lost their hair to chemotherapy. So they hoped the doll could be used to help children cope and understand what other family members are facing, like Bingham’s 9-year daughter learning to understand her mother’s condition. And for children battling cancer like Sypin’s 12-year old daughter, it’s a reminder that hair isn’t what makes them special.
Reportedly, it’ not Barbie, but it’s a female friend who will be hairless. The friend will have wigs, hats, scarves and other accessories children can put on the doll. (And what’s a Barbie Doll without accessories?)
The dolls will not go on the market, but will be donated to children’s hospitals and other charity outlets in the US and other countries. Link -via Breakfast Links
As a follow-up to yesterday’s gallery of obese animals, here’s a video showing a bunch of kittehs hitting the treadmill to shed those extra pounds.
Some are dedicated to getting in shape, others are lazy and don’t seem to care about being a bit too fluffy, and they’re all too cute! And I know this video is a couple of years old, but if you’ve never seen it before it’s new to you!
–via Tastefully Offensive
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Apparently, you can. Twenty-eight-year-old Monique Jeffrey of Melbourne, Australia, sneezed so hard that she actually dislocated two vertebrae in her neck:
She's lucky not to have been paralyzed, according to her doctors: Link - via ArbroathMonique—of Melbourne, Australia—who was alone at home with her 10-month-old baby, said it was incredibly painful after she sneezed: "I just knew something was wrong. I felt something move and I was in excruciating pain."
She was able to text her husband with a simple "Help can't move pls call." Emergency personell came to the rescue, taking her to Sandringham Hospital. Doctors told her she had a "wry neck" and asked her to do some exercises to move it again. But when her left arm went numb and started to tingle, the doctors immediately sent her to The Alfred hospital's spinal trauma unit, where they discovered that her two top vertebrae were dislocated.
A 41-year-old homeless man in Mobile, Alabama was treated with antivenom after he was bitten by a decapitated cottonmouth.
A friend of the man described the incident.
“I saw it swimming down along the creek and everything. And, I ran down and hit it with the machete and killed it and brought it up. He picked the head up and stuck himself right in the finger with it,” the man’s friend said.
The friend said the man purposefully stuck his finger in the snake’s mouth.
“He put his finger in there and all of a sudden the nerves, I guess, and it bit down on his finger.”
The man first refused medical treatment, but after he started showing symptoms of venom poisoning, he was taken to USA Medical Center, treated, and released. Link -via Arbroath
Apparently there’s an animal obesity epidemic in the U.S. that coincides with people being heavier than ever before, at least according to the almighty media.
Personally, I prefer my kitties on the heavy side, so they don’t taunt me about my weight with their condescending looks and incredible feats of agility.
Michelle Collins from Best Week Ever wants to raise awareness about this issue with a gallery she has put together of overweight animals and the humans that get a hernia trying to lift them off the ground.
Or maybe she just wants to point and laugh at the poor little critters, which will probably lead to kibble binging and catnip addiction.
Last week, in a 36-hour operation, Richard Lee Norris (shown here before his accident) received a full face transplant at the University of Maryland Medical Center. The transplant team was led by reconstructive specialist Dr. Eduardo D. Rodriguez.
“We utilized innovative surgical practices and computerized techniques to precisely transplant the mid-face, maxilla and mandible including teeth, and a portion of the tongue. In addition, the transplant included all facial soft tissue from the scalp to the neck, including the underlying muscles to enable facial expression, and sensory and motor nerves to restore feeling and function,” explains Dr. Rodriquez. “Our goal is to restore function as well as have aesthetically pleasing results.”
The face transplant recipient, 37-year-old Richard Lee Norris of Hillsville, Virginia, was injured in 1997 in a gun accident. Since that time, he has undergone multiple life-saving and reconstructive surgeries. Due to the accident, Mr. Norris lost his lips and nose and had limited movement of his mouth. Mr. Norris first came to the University of Maryland Medical Center in 2005 to discuss reconstructive options with Dr. Rodriguez.
A set of photographs have been released that show how extensive the surgery was, and so far it seems to be quite successful. The pictures may be disturbing to some people, but in my opinion they are okay for all but the most squeamish, so go ahead and take a look at the amazing life-changing work. The surgery was funded by the Office of Naval Research (ONR).
Link to story.
Link to pictures.
Toxic
f racking chemicals that leached into the ground making you sick? Why
that's bad press for the oil industry!
That's why they came up with this ingenious (in an evil way) to deal with the problem: "gag" doctors from telling their patients what is making them sick. See, problem solved!
A 2010 congressional investigation revealed that Halliburton and other fracking companies had used 32 million gallons of diesel products, which include toxic chemicals like benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylene, in the fluids they inject into the ground. Low levels of exposure to those chemicals can trigger acute effects like headaches, dizziness, and drowsiness, while higher levels of exposure can cause cancer.
Pennsylvania law states that companies must disclose the identity and amount of any chemicals used in fracking fluids to any health professional that requests that information in order to diagnosis or treat a patient that may have been exposed to a hazardous chemical. But the provision in the new bill requires those health professionals to sign a confidentiality agreement stating that they will not disclose that information to anyone else -- not even the person they're trying to treat.
Link - via Fark (Photo: arimoore/Flickr)
The
next time your parents told you to eat your fruits and veggies, tell them
you'd eat some popcorn instead. After all, it's now been scientifically
proven that popcorn is actually healthier:
Joe Vinson, Ph.D., a pioneer in analyzing healthful components in chocolate, nuts and other common foods, explained that the polyphenols are more concentrated in popcorn, which averages only about 4 percent water, while polyphenols are diluted in the 90 percent water that makes up many fruits and vegetables.
In another surprising finding, the researchers discovered that the hulls of the popcorn -- the part that everyone hates for its tendency to get caught in the teeth -- actually has the highest concentration of polyphenols and fiber.
"Those hulls deserve more respect," said Vinson, who is with the University of Scranton in Pennsylvania. "They are nutritional gold nuggets."
Go science! Link
Previously on Neatorama: Chocolate May Help Keep You Thin
Yes!
Thank you, science! If you love chocolate, you'll like the result of this
new research study:
The findings come from a study of nearly 1,000 US people that looked at diet, calorie intake and body mass index (BMI) - a measure of obesity.
It found those who ate chocolate a few times a week were, on average, slimmer than those who ate it occasionally.
Even though chocolate is loaded with calories, it contains ingredients that may favour weight loss rather than fat synthesis, scientists believe.
Despite boosting calorie intake, regular chocolate consumption was related to lower BMI in the study, which is published in Archives of Internal Medicine.
The link remained even when other factors, like how much exercise individuals did, were taken into account.
Jessica Lloyd Jones creates rather unique representations of vital organs out of blown glass, then she adds neon to each piece to add a glow of life energy. Here’s what Jessica has to say about her works:
Blown glass human organs encapsulate inert gases displaying different colours under the influence of an electric current. The human anatomy is a complex, biological system in which energy plays a vital role. Brain Wave conveys neurological processing activity as a kinetic and sensory, physical phenomena through its display of moving electric plasma. Optic Nerve shows a similar effect, more akin to the blood vessels of the eye and with a front ‘lens’ magnifying the movement and the intensity of light. Heart is a representation of the human heart illuminated by still red neon gas. Electric Lungs is a more technically intricate structure with xenon gas spreading through its passage ways, communicating our human unawareness of the trace gases we inhale in our breathable atmosphere.
People who go through life with limited mobility quickly realize that one thing most modern wheelchairs lack is the ability to help them stand up, thereby leaving many things in life out of reach.
Enter the innovative new TEK Robotic Mobilization Device, basically a wheelchair with a sling crane for your butt that can help the handicapped stand up and get what they need out of life.
The TEK recently began shipping in Turkey for around $15,000, which seems like a small price to pay for the huge improvement this device will make to people’s lives.
Link –via Geekologie
Veterans are returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and Traumatic Brain Injuries. That’s bad enough, but the number of veterans suffering from back injuries is much bigger. VA social worker Carroll McInroe says the strain put on the backs of young soldiers is making them into old men -and women- way before their time.
McInroe started to ask each and every vet who came through his office if they were suffering back pain. Just about all of them had pain, he says. “I would say 70 percent of them. And not just a little. I’m talking chronic stuff here — misaligned vertebrae, bulging discs, herniated discs, the whole list of back problems.” At national conventions, he would share his informal findings with his counterparts at other VA facilities. They told him much the same situation prevailed in their offices. He called around to military hospitals and asked the nurses what their most common complaint might be. Back pain, he was always told.
He saw nothing like that among his cohorts in Vietnam. Since grunts have humped heavy packs since Napoleon’s day with no resulting epidemic of back woes, McInroe believes that modern body armor is to blame. “It’s too heavy. You can’t just put 120 pounds on a 19, 20-year-old musculoskeletal system, 14 hours a day, 365 days a year and not create some real serious problems.”
And in his view, this is a real serious problem indeed. If McInroe’s estimate — that 70 percent of returning veterans have moderate to severe back problems — holds true across the nation, the costs to America’s taxpayers will be enormous, and the bill will do nothing but grow and grow over the next 50 years.
The Houston Press has an extensive article on veterans, their pain, and the problems they have getting treatment. Link -via Digg
(Image credit: Brian Stauffer)
What’s the easiest way to score a free pizza in Hyannis, Massachusetts? Why, by getting a vasectomy, of course!
The old “free pizza can sell anything” routine has finally hit rock bottom, thanks to the Urology Associates of Cape Cod, who are offering up a snip and a slice which are ready whenever you’ve given up all hope of ever having kids or dieting.
To add further insult to injury, they suggest that the topping of choice should be meatballs. Low blow doc, low blow.
–via The Daily What
A man came to the emergency room with strange symptoms. He had previously been diagnosed with viral meningitis because of a high white cell count in a spinal tap -but no infectious agent was found. And his symptoms weren’t consistent with the diagnosis. Then the doctor remembered another strange case he’d read about.
In a Vital Signs column in this magazine 17 years ago, infectious-disease physician Abigail Zuger described the conundrum of a young woman with recurrent meningitis. Hospitalized four times in a matter of months, the patient exhibited high fevers, delirium, and a stiff neck—all signs of life-threatening ?bacterial, septic meningitis. CAT scans were normal. Spinal taps revealed high white cell counts in the cerebrospinal fluid—usually a harbinger of severe infection—but bacterial and viral cultures grew nothing. The patient was becoming ill and then abruptly getting better. The fourth time, to general eye-rolling, a medical student was tasked with asking the woman for the umpteenth time whether she had taken anything, anything, prior to getting sick. He hit pay dirt: Advil.
Zuger’s patient hadn’t considered over-the-counter, everyday Advil a medication. It is also sold as Rufen or Motrin, and the chemical moniker is ibuprofen. Ubiquitous as this drug is, until reading Zuger’s article I hadn’t known that in rare cases it can cause meningitis.
Case reports are the lifeblood of diagnosis. The dry, reductionist, what-percent-have-cough and what-percent-have-fever lists in medical texts will put you to sleep. But good stories stick. Doctors trade odd diagnoses like baseball cards; we glean them from journals, TV, and friends, stockpiling them against the next tough diagnosis. Zuger’s story—even 16 years later—primed me to jump on one small clue.
Ibuprophen-induced meningitis is rare, but it explained everything about this particular patient. Read the rest at Discover magazine. Link -via TYWKIWDBI
At one time, radium, or radiation, was considered new, cutting-edge, and the savior of mankind. Any and all products were “better” when infused with radiation! See a collection of these miracle products at Buzzfeed. Link
I’m glad you asked! No, it’s not creepy and I don’t judge you at all. Neither does Matt Soniak of Mental Floss, who answered this burning question. From his response:
Malaria parasites can spread among mice through cannibalism and blood-drinking, and scientists think that the simian immunodeficiency virus and hepatitis spread among chimpanzees the same way. (However, none of this has been shown in humans, and such a study probably wouldn’t pass an ethics board anyway.) It’s also possible that people could pick up tapeworms through cannibalism.
However, the biggest health threat tied to cannibalism is prion diseases, a group of neurodegenerative disorders that are spread by eating contaminated meat. Prions are misfolded proteins that wreak havoc in healthy bodies by causing healthy proteins to change shape and convert even more proteins into prions. You wind up with a cascade of misshapen proteins that cause tissue damage and cell death, and eventually brain deterioration, loss of motor control and death. It’s nasty stuff, and the human brain, bone marrow, spinal cord and small intestine can all harbor prions, which aren’t easily killed denatured by cooking.
Link -via Geekosystem | Image: MGM
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