retrospectacle | January 9, 2008Yes its plague week, and yes I promised to post something today on the topic, but ironically (and inconveniently) I'm not feeling well. (Oooohh, maybe its Y. pestis? Maybe I should coat myself in mercury and hop in the oven...) So, I owe an extra post tomorrow on Plaguey goodness.
In the meantime, to satisfy your craving for the weird treatments of yore, check out this excellent post over at the ever-cantankerous and pithy Drugmonkey. The post details what was really in "Mrs Winlow's Soothing Syrup," which was given to teething newborns in the late 1800s.
It will come as no surprise to the…
retrospectacle | January 9, 2008A friend of mine is visting a relative in Abu Dhabi and sent me this priceless screen shot, which he got when he was trying to access YouTube.
retrospectacle | January 8, 2008This video is one of the most amazing things I've ever seen on YouTube. It shows the oh-so-careful surgical removal of an egg-sized cyst (intact) from a person's brain. The cyst is a hydatid cyst, which is the result of a parasitic infection by tapeworm larvae(Echinococcus). Generally speaking, it does not occur in the USA, but rather occurs in Mediterranean countries, the Middle East, the southern part of South America, Iceland, Australia, New Zealand, and southern parts of Africa. The cysts, which are initiated by one larvae, eventually come to house thousands of tapeworm larvae. So it is…
retrospectacle | January 8, 2008This week is plague week at Retrospectacle, and every day I will be posting something about the Black Plague.
Now that you've read my introduction to the Black Plague replete with its cause (both real and imagined), I wanted to write a bit about what 'Plague doctors' in 16th century Europe wore in an attempt to stave off being infected themselves. While perhaps having some small effect to prevent infection, the odd costumes surely had a large effect on scaring their patients. However, the intention of the extreme costume was to prevent the doctor from coming into contact with 'miasmas' (bad…
retrospectacle | January 7, 2008I think I might have been quoted in today's Chronicle of Higher Education journal, except I can't find out since it requires a subscription (which U of M doesn't have.) Well humbug.
From what I could tell from the title, the article is about drugs which enhance cognition, which I discussed 2 weeks back when Nature released a commentary on the topic. Will somebody let me know what I supposedly said?
retrospectacle | January 7, 2008True to form, OmniBrain has posted an informative video about the "ice cream headache" also known as "Iceberger's syndrome." This is the nominally painful headache one experiences after eating too much of something extremely cold. While no "silent killer," as the video jokingly claims, "brain freeze" is actually a real thing (sphenopalatine ganglioneuralgia) with a perfectly reasonable cause.
When you consume something very cold like ice cream or a 40 oz Slushie, it rapidly chills the roof of your mouth (the hard palate). Just above the hard palate is the sphenopalatine nerve which is…
retrospectacle | January 7, 2008This week is plague week at Retrospectacle, and every day I will be posting something about the Black Plague.
The Black Plague was responsible for wiping out 1/3 of the population of Europe during the 1300s, and is considered one of the worst (is not THE worst) pandemic in recorded history. The plague was particularly feared due to its high infectiveness, low chance for survival, and ability to wipe out entire villages in a matter of weeks. Once infected, a patient died in a matter of days amidst much agony. The names for the Black Plague (in the 1300s) included the "Great Pestilence," the…
retrospectacle | January 6, 2008Trepanation is a procedure where a hole is drilled into the skull, exposing the dura mater and brain for either medical (releif of pressure) or mystical (supposed heightened consciousness)purposes. It is likely the oldest procedure in neurosurgery and has been practiced by many ancient peoples all over the world.
A commenter on this post referred me to an amazing video he created animating the process of trepanation. Check it out, its really good (hat tip Jona!)
I would say 'don't try this at home,' but it looks like modern-day elective trepanation is already a fad in communities which…
retrospectacle | January 5, 2008It's an odd sort of entertainment: put two bugs in a glass aquarium and watch them fight to the death. Scorpions, tarantulas, huge wasps, mantis, centipedes, and other creepy crawlies are caught on film trying to defend themselves against their opponent. The fight is over when one bug is belly up.
They may just be bugs, but I still had a very hard time watching these fights. While I of course know that in nature these bugs will suffer an equally 'horrible' end, under someone's shoe, eaten by a bird, etc, there seems to be something grotesque about filming the death of any creature for the…
retrospectacle | January 4, 2008Hear ye, hear ye! To all those curious about the mysteries of the Plague, next week I will be blogging something about the Plague every day. To get a whiff of where I'm going with this, check out my post Coffee as A Treatment for the Plague.
If you've got anything you'd like researched, or interesting questions about the plague, leave them in the comments!
retrospectacle | January 4, 2008Its been a while since I've posted some of my 'world-famous' (heh) LOLParrots. Pepper was squawkin' that I was neglecting his kin so here's my offering to appease him.
retrospectacle | January 4, 2008While this short YouTube clip is ostensibly a preview of a TV show about brain surgery and tumor removal, the clip itself had some amazing footage of conscious brain surgery that I hadn't seen before on the internet. There is a little blood, so if you are squeamish about blood and guts you may not want to peek. For all of you who are curious as to what an exposed human brain looks like, and how modern surgery is performed, check it out!
Continued under the fold....
This video describes how neurosurgeons find tumors by using electrical stimulation in the brain.
retrospectacle | January 3, 2008
What looks like a bevy of medieval torture tools is actually a early 19th century set of German neurosurgical tools. I think I would be terrified if a doctor walked into my room and opened that innocuous-looking velvet-lined case to reveal all those gleaming edges and tongs and probes, all meant for the purpose of carving the human brain.
It contain 17 compartments which accommodate a full set of instruments made from unplated polished steel, brass and horn. They are signed by Zitier, Heine and Sandill and it is likely that the boxed set was made specifically to accommodate these…
retrospectacle | January 3, 2008Christmas Eve and Christmas Day I spent with friends in Lansing, Michigan, but on the 28th I packed up my car, kissed Pepper goodbye, and headed to Lexington, KY to hang out with Steve of OmniBrain for a few days. His sister lives there, and they were nice enough to give me a post-holiday home as I don't have any family in driving distance for me. Of course, being in Lexington, I insisted we go drink bourbon for free in the form of a distillery tour!
The closest one was the Four Roses bourbon distillery in Lawrenceberg which was established in 1888. All bourbons are whiskeys, but for a…
retrospectacle | January 2, 2008On December 30, the New York Times Magazine ran a feature about the most important obituaries of 2007. It was gratifying, yet still sad, to see that a joint obituatry for Alex the parrot and Washoe the chimp was included in the list. Alex and Washoe ("the Communicators," as described by the NYT) were both pioneering participants in the original animal "language" studies, which sought to test the limits of human-animal communication. Irene Pepperberg, trainer, colleague, and friend of Alex, continues her avian communication studies at Brandeis University, and if you would like to know more…
retrospectacle | January 2, 2008Its great to come back from vacation with good news waiting for you. Usually I just come back to school (and my blog) to a build-up of spam, bills, and unwanted catalogs so it was quite a welcome surprise to be notified by Bora that a post of mine will be published in the up-coming book, Open Laboratory 2007. The post that got in was a rather notorious one, but one I'm still proud of, entitled "How Much LSD Does It Take to Kill an Elephant?," published a few months back. Not bad, considering there were over 450 entries.
The Open Laboratory is a print-published book highlighting the best…
retrospectacle | December 27, 2007From the time I was a little kid, the idea of writing the thank-you-note was engrained in me by my parents. When you got a birthday or Christmas present from family or a friend, or if someone did something particularly nice for you, you hand-write a thank you note and mail it to them. No matter if you said thank-you in person, or over the phone, writing that note was something more meaningful somehow.
A CNN story on the topic has this to say:
"It reinforces the lesson of gratitude and appreciation for others' time and effort," says MichÃele O'Reilly, director of the Connecticut School of…
retrospectacle | December 26, 2007It has been suspected for some time that taking fish oil may reduce the risk of developing age-related Alzheimers disease. Fatty fish, like salmon, are rich in oils which contain omega-3 acids. Omega-3's cannot be manufactued by the body and must be acquired through diet or vitamins.
New research from UCLA's Dr. Greg Cole has now shown that these acids (also called docosahexaenoic acid or DHA) increases the production of a protein called LR11, which in turn has been confirmed to destroy the protein that forms beta-amyloid plaques. LR11 can reduce beta-amyloid production by guiding APP (the…
retrospectacle | December 20, 2007Well tomorrow (edit: TODAY!) is my birthday! 28 years ago, tomorrow, I was born in Euliss TX. Man, I'm getting old! Well happy birfhday to me. If you have a favorite birthday LOLcat please leave it in the comments. :D
retrospectacle | December 19, 2007A commentary today in Nature, by Sahakian and Morein-Zamir, poses the question: if you could take a pill which enhanced attention and cognition with few or no side effects, would you?
But I ask, why wouldn't you?
Interest in potions and drugs which increase awareness and "brain power" has been around for thousands of years. Many natural compounds from ginseng to coffee to cocaine have been touted as a dubious panacea for a muddled mind. However in the pharmaceutical age, we are now in possession of agents which actually do enhance cognition through changes in neurotransmitter release. For…