The psychologist gives a brief essay on genetic analysis and the possibility of consumer genomics in the New York Times. He makes a number of interesting points about such analysis, concerning everything from Brussels sprouts to Jewishness to hair. But a couple of the points he makes about health markers are worth noting. First, in […]
Month: January 2009
Soran Reader on Euthanasia
Soran Reader (Philosophy, Durham) provides an insight into her own experience of being diagnosed with a brain tumour, and the availability or otherwise of euthanasia in the UK, in this week’s Times Higher Education. It’s powerful stuff. [T]he possibility that really threatens to break me is that I may be unable to remember my children. […]
When Transplantation goes Odd
A man who donated his kidney to his wife, who subsequently cheated on him and filed for divorce, says he wants it back. His chances are described as slim. Ronseal. […]
Measles! Get your Measles!
Britain, some would have us believe, is one of the worst places in the world for measles. In 2006-7, there were 12000 cases in Europe, many of them in the UK, according to a study in The Lancet (subscription required) and reported by the Beeb. This has not a little to do with the MMR […]
Chip off the Old Block
It would appear that games like Tetris may help in the treatment of PTSD – there’s apparently a six-hour period in which traumatic memories become consolidated, so something like Tetris, in effect, allows the brain to be distracted for a time, thus reducing the consolidation. Hence [p]laying “Tetris” after viewing traumatic material reduces unwanted, involuntary […]
Naked Scientists Performing Autopsies!
The headline get your attention? There’s recently been an appeal put out that more people should donate their organs – brains in particular – to science. In a similar sort of vein, it’s apparently National Pathology Week (I’ve booked my autopsy for Thursday morning: it’ll be ACE!), and there’s a series of podcasts to go with it. […]
A Bad Day to Detox… and a Diversion to Mill
Sense about Science are truly wonderful people, but, I fear, are engaged in a somewhat futile attempt to rid the world of gobbledygook. Nevertheless, with Stakhanovite determination, they’re putting the boot into the detox industry. Again. On a similar theme, Ben Goldacre showed his mettle on Today and elsewhere. I wish them luck, but I […]
Virgin Schadenfreude
By David Hunter I don’t usually get to post these sorts of stories, usually Iain spots the salacious ones a mile off before I do… It turns out according to the BMJ that a US study has shown that abstinence pledges are ineffective at preventing sex among teenagers, those who vow not to end up […]