Medicine

XKCD Tips Its Hat to the Microbiome (and so Should You)

When was the last time you thanked the bugs in your belly? Even if the concept of a “healthy” microbiome is flawed, the trillions of microorganisms living in your gut (and mouth, and vagina, and nose, etc.) play a vital role in many of your body’s functions. They’re so essential, many refer to the microbiome…

California Passes Bill Banning Personal Exemptions for Vaccination

California vaccination bill SB277 has passed in the State Assembly on a 46 to 30 vote. The bill, inspired in part by the measles outbreak that began last December in Disneyland, mandates ALL schoolchildren be vaccinated, regardless of their parents’ personal or religious beliefs, but still permits medical exemptions. https://gizmodo.com/how-anti-vaxxers-ruined-disneyland-for-themselves-and-1680970446 Via The San Jose Mercury…

Are you curious about what makes a person transgender? So are the scientists trying to understand its biological underpinnings and the best way to help people with gender dysphoria. Kate Wheeling pulls together a short list of recent research findings on the subject at Pacific Standard. Contact the author at [email protected].

Just Say No To Deadly Illegal Butt Injections

Fat-grafting is the legal procedure by which fat is transferred from the abdomen or thighs to the buttocks. It’s become increasingly popular in recent years, but its high cost has also led to the emergence of black market alternatives that, while cheaper, are also plagued by nasty, even deadly, side-effects. Above: Sophelay Ouk undergoes treatment…

This Is How Prosthetic Eyes are Made

A small, highly skilled team at Moorfields Eye Hospital transform the lives of people who have lost their eyes to accidents and disease. Each year, they work with their clients to create around 1,400 customized, detailed prosthetics, many of which replace eyes. Here’s how. Modern prosthetic eyes are far removed from the old misconceptions about…

The lung-on-a-chip honored by the Design Museum in London this yearisn’t a one-off design, but a versatile method that can be applied to lots of human tissues. To wit: the National Institutes of Health just developed a placenta-on-a-chip, combining fetal and maternal cells to study how they interact. Contact the author at [email protected].

New Google X Wearable Could Change How We Understand Human Health

Autonomous cars and phantom internet planes are exciting and all, but Google X also has a division that’s focusing on something more interesting: human life. Now, it says it’s working on a wearable that could be used to help it. Bloomberg describes the as-of-yet unnamed wristband, which will track biometrics like heartbeat and activity like…

Why Do People Still Get the Plague?

People don’t die of the Black Plague in the 21st century — except when they do. And the disease won’t be going away any time soon. Earlier this month, a high school student in Colorado died of the disease. On average, seven people in the U.S. catch the plague every year; some years, it’s only…

Medical Study Finds Doses on Cannabis Edibles Are “Inaccurate”

It’s hard to believe that an unregulated industry devoted to getting people high might not be concerned about extreme accuracy in representing their products. But a group of doctors writing in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that most cannabis edibles they tested were stronger or weaker than advertised. So at least this…

Abortion Drone Is the Best Drone

This Saturday, a small drone carrying the abortion-inducing pills mifepristone and misoprostol will fly from Germany to a border town in Poland. And yes, “Abortion Drone” sounds like the name of an anarchist punk band, but this is the most badass drone aid mission yet. The drone will deliver medication to reproductive health groups, who…

The Best Design of the Year (Maybe Ever?)

Every year, the Design Museum in London picks a single object and names it the best design of the year. It’s pretty bad sometimes! But this year, the museum picked a winner: A chip that replaces animal test subjects with a complex package of human cells. It’s called a lung-on-a-chip--a name that is very literally…

Why You Should Thank an Astronomer for Preventing Blindness

We are, as Carl Sagan famously said, made of star stuff—and now, your doctor may use a technology designed for studying the stars to examine the inner workings of your eyes. Here’s how it works—and could one day save you from blindness. Astronomers use a technology called adaptive optics to correct blurring in images captured…

About That Ultramarathon You’ve Been Meaning To Run

A recently conducted study concludes that that when extreme athletes (like ultramarathoners) overextend themselves, their guts can leak microbes into their blood stream, “poisoning” their blood and triggering a harmful inflammatory immune response. Scientific American’s Christopher Intagliata has more details. Contact the author at [email protected].

A Teen Just Died of Plague in Colorado

It’s supposed to be a disease of the middle ages, but every year a few people in the United States contract the bacterial infection that killed half the population of London in the fourteenth century. The latest victim of plague was a high school student in rural Colorado. 16-year-old Taylor Gaes was an athlete who…

It’s True, Scar Tissue Can Bend Your Penis (NSFW)

It’s normal for a penis to curve a little when it’s erect, but Peyronie’s disease pushes that curve to alarming extremes. It doesn’t usually muck with a guy’s ability to get it up, but once the penis is erect, it can deviate 30° or more from its normal line of action. The curvature can be…

These Smart Gloves Use Bacteria-Sensing Silk to Warn of Risky Exposure

These gloves may look fairly normal, but the warning message on the side is made from a a silk compound which changes color once they’re exposed to bacteria such as E. coli—providing a means of spotting and avoiding exposure. The gloves have been developed by a team from Tufts University as a proof-0f-concpet of a…

UK Woman Gets “World’s Most Advanced” Bionic Hand Replacement

A new technology has enabled a woman who was born without a right hand to ride a bike for the first time, among other new abilities. Steeper Group, which is based in Leeds, created the “BeBionic” small hand for Nicky Ashwell, a 26-year-old from London; the company claims it is the most “anatomically accurate” out…

This Book Got The Author Sentenced to Three Months Hard Labor

Charles Knowlton didn’t think much of the laws of Massachusetts, at least when they interfered with his medical practice. By the time he opened a practice in the town of Ashfield, he had already been arrested in Amherst, MA for selling “infidel” books and had spent two months in the Worcester County Jail for grave…

This Heart-on-a-Chip Uses Gravity to Mimic a Human Pulse

This small, clear block may not look much, but it uses some of the world’s most basic physics to accurately recreate the rhythms of the human heart in the laboratory. This certainly isn’t the first heart-on-a-chip to be created. But microfluidic devices like it have in the past required mechanical pumps or hand-driven syringes to…

Left in the Brain: The Potentially Toxic Residue from MRI Drugs

Researchers raise alarms about unknown health risks of GE’s Omniscan and Bayer’s Magnevist, drugs injected to get better MRI pictures that contain the heavy metal gadolinium. With a family history of breast cancer, Marcie Jacobs decided in June 2001 that an MRI screening was her best preventive option. As is common with MRIs, Jacobs was…