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We don’t know whether Eva Milinkovic of Tsunami Glassworks was inspired by Blondie’s Heart Of Glass
Link – via Carrie Leber
The stethoscope was invented by a doctor too embarrassed to place his ear on a woman’s ample bosom.
Before the invention of the stethoscope, a physician would listen to a patient’s heart by placing his ear over the chest.
In 1816, René Laennec, a physician and devout Catholic, was called to examine a young woman suspected to have a diseased heart. According to the medical procedure of the time, Laennec tapped his hand on the patient’s back and tried to listen to the resulting sound (the "thumpyness" of the sound was used in diagnosis). Unfortunately, because the patient was too fat, he couldn’t hear anything.
Too embarrassed to put his head on the young woman’s ample bosom to listen closer, Laennec came up with a simple yet brilliant solution: he rolled a piece of paper into a cylinder and used that to listen to the patient’s heartbeat.
Laennec later created a new instrument made from hollow wooden cylinder he called stethoscope, from the Greek words stethos (chest) and skopos (examination).
Now, you would think that such an invention would be universally embraced by the physicians of his time, but you’d be wrong. Even the founder of the American Heart Association, Lewis A. Conner, resisted the stethoscope, preferring to listen to the heart directly over the chest of the patient.
(image credit: L.A.Times)
The old ad slogan "Guinness is good for you" may actually be true: a study showed that drinking just over a pint of Guinness at mealtimes may help reduce the blood’s ability to form dangerous clots that may lead to heart attacks.
Drinking lager does not yield the same benefits, experts from University of Wisconsin told a conference in the US.
Guinness were told to stop using the slogan decades ago – and the firm still makes no health claims for the drink.
The Wisconsin team tested the health-giving properties of stout against lager by giving it to dogs who had narrowed arteries similar to those in heart disease.
They found that those given the Guinness had reduced clotting activity in their blood, but not those given lager.
Link (Image: spleeney [Flickr])
Previously on Neatorama: Stories Behind 7 Famous Beer Logos
If you [heart] birds, then Josh Coulas has the birdhouse for you! Here’s Heart For Bluebirds, a wooden holed heart structure he built for a competition/fundraiser at the Toronto Botanical Gardens.
Check out the complete showcase of entries here: Link – via MoCo loco
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Researchers at the North Carolina State University has developed a machine that can keep a heart beating outside the body. The potential medical benefit is huge, though for whatever reason I kept on thinking about Dr. Frankenstein:
"Researchers can obtain pig hearts from a pork processing facility and use the system to test their prototypes or practice new surgical procedures," says Andrew Richards, a Ph. D. student in mechanical engineering at NC State who designed the heart machine.
The computer-controlled machine, which operates using pressurized saline solution, also allows researchers to film the interior workings of the pumping heart – enabling them to ascertain exactly which surgical technologies and techniques perform best for repairing heart valves.
Oh, there’s a video all right:
From the Upcoming Queue, submitted by 
If you were hoping for a plush uterus, though, you’re out of luck – they’ve recalled the uterus due to choking hazards. True story.
Link via Dump Trumpet
When Dzhana Simmons’ heart became weakened and enlarged so it couldn’t pump blood, she underwent a heart transplant. But when that heart failed, doctors scrambled to hook her up to a machine: she survives 118 days without a heart!
Doctors scrambled to come up with a way for Simmons to survive until a new donor heart became available. A custom-made artificial heart was the solution. It looked like a large, complex machine, and Simmons was attached to it for 118 days.
"It was like I was a fake person, like I didn’t really exist. I was just here," Simmons said. "Now, I know that I really was here and I did live without it."
"It was scary," said Simmons’ mother, Twolla Anderson. "I didn’t know from day to day how she was going to turn out or if it would’ve been fatal or what. Thanks to my buddies, the transplant team — I love them for everything they’ve done for her — I couldn’t be happier."
On Oct. 29, Simmons received another donor heart and a kidney, as well.
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