- An edgy, irreverent book by Kayt Sukel that examines all the ways our neurons can wreak havoc with our hearts.
By Kayt Sukel (CNN) As background research for my book, “Dirty Minds: How our brains influence love, sex and relationships,” I participated in a study at Rutgers University where scientists measured the activity in my brain as I self-stimulated to an orgasm in an MRI scanner.
During the course of my research for “Dirty Minds,” I asked neuroscientific researchers about the greatest challenges involved in studying human sexuality. I expected to hear concerns about finding study participants willing to be honest about their sex lives or if what was learned in the laboratory could really be applied to real-world behaviors.
But unanimously, the scientists I talked to said their greatest challenge was finding research grants and financial support for their work. Because so many of us are peevish about the study of sex, funding agencies can be, too. But none of us should be. Human sexuality is important – and its study is something we should all get behind. Because we can’t begin to have discussions about how to best deal with problems concerning sexual behavior, sexual function and sexual intimacy until we have a better handle on what’s normal.
Time and time again, I’m asked how I managed to have an orgasm in an fMRI scanner. But that’s not the right question. The important question is why I had an orgasm in an fMRI scanner. And that’s to help further our understanding of orgasm and human sexuality. When I say I came for the science — I mean it. And it’s my hope that more people will do the same in the future.
via Why I orgasmed in an MRI scanner – – CNN.com Blogs.
By Katie Moisse (ABC News) A Florida woman was rushed by helicopter to an Alabama burn center after her face caught fire during routine surgery.
Kim Grice, a 29-year-old mother of three, was having cysts removed from her head at an outpatient surgery center in Crestview, Fla., when the flash fire erupted.
The cause of the fire is still under investigation. But surgical fires are usually sparked by heat, often from tools like lasers, and then fueled by alcohol, surgical drapes and oxygen. Grice was wearing a non-rebreathable oxygen mask, according to Traylor.
In October, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration launched an initiative to curb surgical fires through increasing awareness and promoting risk reduction practices.
“There are between 550 and 650 surgical fires a year,” said Mark Bruley, vice president for accident and forensic investigation for the ECRI Institute, adding that fewer than 30 of them result in patient injuries.
via Fire Erupts on Woman’s Face During Routine Surgery – ABC News.
(DoctorTipster) A strain of avian influenza H5N1 genetically modified to be extremely contagious has been created by researcher Ron Fouchier of the Erasmus Medical Center Rotterdam, Netherlands. The work was first presented at a conference dedicated to influenza, that took place in September in Malta.
Avian influenza emerged in Asia about 10 years ago. Since then there were fewer than 600 infection cases reported in humans. On the other hand, Fouchier’s genetically modified strain is extremely contagious and dangerous, killing about 50% of infected patients. The former strain did not represent a global threat, as transmission from human to human is rare. Or, at least, it was before Fouchier genetically modified it.
via Dutch Researcher Created A Super-Influenza Virus With The Potential To Kill Millions.
(AllGov) Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles is refusing to grant a liver transplant to a cancer patient because he used medical marijuana, which not only is legal under California law but also was prescribed by a Cedars doctor.
Diagnosed with inoperable liver cancer in 2009, Norman B. Smith, 63, has been treated at Cedars-Sinai by oncologist Steven Miles, who approved medicinal marijuana in part to help his patient cope with the effects of chemotherapy. Smith became eligible for a liver transplant last year, but was removed from the list in February after testing positive for marijuana.
By Adam Bernstein (Washington Post) Loren R. Mosher, 70, who died of liver cancer July 10 at a clinic in Berlin, was a contrarian psychiatrist and schizophrenia expert who was dismissed from the National Institute of Mental Health for his controversial theories on treatment.
While chief of NIMH’s Center for the Study of Schizophrenia from 1968 to 1980, Dr. Mosher decried excess drugging of the mentally ill. He eventually established small, drug-free treatment facilities that were more akin to homes than hospitals.
Creating Soteria House in the early 1970s, he said, caused lasting trouble with the psychiatric community. After showing studies of patient recovery that matched traditional treatment with medication, the project lost its funding amid a strong peer backlash. So did a second residential treatment center in San Jose.
via Contrarian Psychiatrist Loren Mosher, 70 (washingtonpost.com).
By Robert Sanders (UC California, Berkeley) University of California, Berkeleyscientists have shown that ionized plasmas like those in neon lights and plasma TVs not only can sterilize water, but make it antimicrobial – able to kill bacteria – for as long as a week after treatment.
A brief spark in air produces a low-temperature plasma of partially ionized and dissociated oxygen and nitrogen that will diffuse into nearby liquids or skin, where they can kill microbes similar to the way some drugs and immune cells kill microbes by generating similar or identical reactive chemicals. (Courtesy of Steve Graves)
Devices able to produce such plasmas are cheap, which means they could be life-savers in developing countries, disaster areas or on the battlefield where sterile water for medical use – whether delivering babies or major surgery – is in short supply and expensive to produce.
“We know plasmas will kill bacteria in water, but there are so many other possible applications, such as sterilizing medical instruments or enhancing wound healing,” said chemical engineer David Graves, the Lam Research Distinguished Professor in Semiconductor Processing at UC Berkeley. “We could come up with a device to use in the home or in remote areas to replace bleach or surgical antibiotics.”
Low-temperature plasmas as disinfectants are “an extraordinary innovation with tremendous potential to improve health treatments in developing and disaster-stricken regions,” said Phillip Denny, chief administrative officer of UC Berkeley’s Blum Center for Developing Economies, which helped fund Graves’ research and has a mission of addressing the needs of the poor worldwide.
By Neeraj Thakur (DNA) A man becomes truly great for humankind and his passing away deserves mass mourning only if he has done something to better the lives of his fellow beings, overcoming personal greed and lust for power.While all of us take our newborn kids to have ‘Do boond zindagi ki’, to save our kids from the life-crippling polio virus, very few would know why those life drops come for free.
There are many other diseases, medication for which does not come even at a reasonable cost, forget having it free.The man who invented the polio vaccine, Jonas Edward Salk, decided not to patent his invention.
After seven years of rigorous research, when he had the chance to become a billionaire, much like Jobs did, he refused to do so. When someone asked him ‘Who owns the patent of the vaccine, he replied, ‘Can anyone patent the sun?’ In civilisation’s history of one individual bettering the lives of fellow humans, can Jobs stand anywhere close to Salk?
Jobs did not even eradicate poverty with the immense wealth he accumulated by selling his so-called great products, invented by scientists who worked in his company. Instead, he rather stopped all philanthropist activity by Apple in 1997, saying philanthropy can ‘wait until we are profitable.’ Today, Apple is one of the world’s most valued companies sitting on $40 billion cash and ironically, it is perhaps the only one in its category that has no philanthropic contribution worth talking about.
via Comment: Steve Jobs wasn’t great; he wasn’t even close – Analysis – DNA.
