Shortly after birth, many newborns are given vitamin K to help their blood clot properly and reduce the chances of hemorrhage. Increasingly, especially here in the US, parents are refusing this…
Imagine yourself as a 17th century English peasant or merchant or noble. Let’s say you’re dealing with some intense stomach pain or a cut on your leg that won’t heal. Where do you turn to for help?…
This week, we’re picking up where we left off last episode in our exploration of ECT by examining how this therapy is administered, which conditions it’s used for, and what we know about why it works.…
For many, a mention of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) conjures images of torture or mind control from popular media like One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest or Requiem for a Dream. Comparatively few know…
Already this summer, heatwaves are causing thousands of deaths across the world, catastrophic flooding threatens millions, wildfires rage across enormous swathes of the globe, many regions face…
Few spiders hold the dubious honor of name recognition among the general public. Most that do, like black widows, Australian funnel-web, the Goliath birdeater, are renowned not for their cute colors…
If you have a medical question, where do you turn? How often is google or social media your first stop? As you sift through the AI overview and countless reels professing to have the answers, it…
Last week, we set the stage by breaking down the science behind cholesterol: how it moves through our body, why it causes disease, and when we discovered the link between LDL and atherosclerosis. This…
So your latest blood test results have come in, and you see a couple of numbers for cholesterol. What do those numbers mean, and why do we care about them? In this first part of our cholesterol…
You’ve seen the headlines: a food-borne parasite is infecting people across the US, leaving them chained to the toilet sometimes for weeks on end, as they are ravaged by wave after wave of…
