January 2012
3 posts
Epistemological rupture? Release about paper...
Yesterday on Twitter, Sarah Kavassalis pointed me in the direction of a paper that seemed to befuddle her. Published last month in the journal Life by Case Western’s Erik D. Andrulis, “Theory of the Origin, Evolution, and Nature of Life” purports to solve “the puzzle of the origin and evolution of cellular life in the universe.”
The paper is 105 pages, which includes...
Water-breaking research: Woman gives birth to a...
“Push!” Image copyright AJOG
It’s the obvious next step in the distinguished line of scientific inquiry that had author Kayt Sukel orgasm in an MRI by herself and scanned a couple having sex in such a device: German researchers have reported on what happens when a woman gives birth in an MRI.
The scientists were standing on the shoulders of giants, they note in their report...
Resources: Organizations for women and minority...
This afternoon, a college friend of mine asked me for tips on finding organizations for minority scientists. I told her I knew of a few, but decided it would be better to broaden the question to include groups for women scientists, and ask Twitter. As usual, I was overwhelmed with the helpful responses, so I figured I’d capture them here in case anyone wanted them all in one place....
November 2011
2 posts
Not a close shave: Schick Quattro's PR firm asks...
File this under “Say, PR firm, does your client know you’re doing that?”
An email this afternoon from the Lippe Taylor PR firm:
I wanted to see if you have some time to tweet or facebook about Schick Quattro for Women’s campaign with Feeding America …. They have partnered with the #1 hunger-relief charity for the month of November in honor of Thanksgiving! Feeding America...
Beer: It's good for burns, too
Well, not really.
But a case report last year in Emergency Medicine Australasia describes how one man — presumably in Hong Kong, where most of the report’s authors are based — recovered as well as might be expected after a self-devised treatment:
We present the case of an unusual fluid resuscitation regime in a 65-year-old man with 40% burns. He fell into a garden fire, but...
October 2011
3 posts
Broken penis? It's OK, you can wait a week before...
If you’ve broken your penis, you might think that you should get treatment right away. But the authors of a recent study suggest that you can wait several days and have the same outcomes — you know, if you have other priorities, or errands to run, anything like that.
The authors, urologists at Mansoura University in Egypt, treated 180 men for broken penises between January 1986 and...
Did Paleolithic men pierce and tattoo their...
If you haven’t found yourself wondering how a Paleolithic man would decorate his penis, well, neither have I. But a group of French and Spanish urologists were apparently curious about that very question.
In a Journal of Urology paper called “Phallic Decoration in Paleolithic Art: Genital Scarification, Piercing and Tattoos,” they review art objects from the Paleolithic period,...
Shot in the balls? We have a study for you
The medical literature is often dry and boring — some might even say clinical — but one study in the BJU International caught my eye today:
Gunshot wounds to the scrotum: a large single-institutional 20-year experience
That single institution was Temple University in Philadelphia, a city that is no stranger to gunshots.
So, how many men were shot in the balls over the course of 20...
September 2011
1 post
Never mind 150 half-siblings: Try 'twinblings,'...
I’ve heard a fair amount of “woahs” about a story in yesterday’s New York Times noting that one sperm donor seems to have fathered 150 half-siblings. (The Times has trod this ground before.)
The reaction reminded me that I’d come across a paper earlier this summer in the journal Fertility and Sterility. The case report, by fertility doctors in the Bronx and...
July 2011
1 post
Alternatives to Tumblr for beekeepers, Luddites,...
My colleague Vincent Baby, riffing on a post about a new curation tool called Bundlr, tweeted that what the world needed was a new service called Mumblr. That has led to a number of other ideas, which I thought I’d gather here (in parens, the person who suggested the world-changing offering):
Buellr, those who like to take “sick” days (Jack Cox)
Blur, for people who...