September 21, 2010
The frontal lobe is an area in the brain of humans and other mammals, located at the front of each cerebral hemisphere, directly behind the forehead or ‘temple.’ The frontal lobe contains most of the dopamine-sensitive neurons in the cerebral cortex. The dopamine system is associated with reward, attention, long-term memory, planning, and drive.
In the early 20th century, a medical treatment for mental illness, first developed by Portuguese neurologist Egas Moniz, involved damaging the pathways connecting the frontal lobe to the limbic system. Frontal lobotomy successfully reduced distress but at the cost of often blunting the subject’s emotions, volition and personality. The indiscriminate use of this psychosurgical procedure, combined with its severe side effects and dangerous nature, gained it a bad reputation. The frontal lobotomy has largely died out as a psychiatric treatment.
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September 21, 2010
CrossFit is a strength and conditioning brand. CrossFit combines weightlifting, sprinting, and gymnastics. Athletes run, row, jump rope, climb rope and carry odd objects. CrossFit is used in nearly 1,700 gyms worldwide and by many fire departments, law enforcement agencies and military organizations including the Canadian Forces, and the Royal Danish Life Guards. The program even names workout moves to honor deceased troops, like a grueling forward-and-backward sprint combo dubbed ‘Griff’ for U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Travis L. Griffin. Its mascot is ‘Pukey the Clown.’
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September 20, 2010
Onychogryphosis (also known as ‘Ram’s horn nails‘) is a disorder that may produce nails resembling claws or a ram’s horn, possibly caused by trauma or peripheral vascular disorders, but most often secondary to neglect and failure to cut the nails for extended periods of time.
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September 15, 2010
Smegma [smeg-muh] (Greek for ‘soap’), sometimes described as a ‘cheesy substance,’ is a combination of exfoliated (shed) epithelial cells, transudated skin oils, and moisture. It occurs in both female and male mammalian genitalia. In human females, it collects around the clitoris and in the folds of the labia minora.
In human males, smegma is produced and can collect under the foreskin. In healthy animals, smegma helps clean and lubricate the genitals. In veterinary medicine, analysis of this smegma is sometimes used for detection of urogenital tract pathogens.
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September 13, 2010
Washlet is a registered trademark of Japanese toilet industry giant TOTO, referring to electric toilets with bidet functions. The first toilet with an integrated bidet was produced in the United States in 1964. The age of the high-tech toilet in Japan started in 1980 with the introduction of the Washlet G Series by Toto, and since then the product name washlet has been used to refer to all types of Japanese high-tech toilets. As of 2002, almost half of all private homes in Japan have such a toilet, exceeding the number of households with a personal computer.
While the toilet looks like a Western-style toilet at first glance, there are numerous additional features—such as blow dryer, seat heating, massage options, water jet adjustments, automatic lid opening, automatic flushing, wireless control panel, room heating and air conditioning for the room—included either as part of the toilet or in the seat. Recently, researchers have added medical sensors into these toilets, which can measure the blood sugar based on the urine, and also measure the pulse, blood pressure, and the body fat content of the user.
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August 16, 2010
A chipper is an occasional drug user who does not use drugs with the regularity or frequency typical of addicts. It is used particularly to refer to opiate users and tobacco smokers. Above a certain threshold they develop regular cravings and become addicted. The term dates at least to the 1970s, where it is used in reference to opiate use and was used notably in reference to tobacco by psychologist Saul Shiffman and journalist Malcolm Gladwell.
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August 11, 2010
Fecal bacteriotherapy, also known as fecal transfusion, fecal transplant, or human probiotic infusion (HPI), is a medical treatment for patients with gastrointestinal conditions which require restoration of normal bacterial flora from stool obtained from a healthy donor.
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August 11, 2010
Flashblood (also called Flushblood) is a technique employed by drug users in which an addict injects himself with blood extracted from another drug user, most commonly one who has injected heroin. After injecting themselves with heroin using a syringe, the user will extract approximately one teaspoon of blood from the vein. Another user will then inject the withdrawn blood into themselves. It is unclear if there is enough heroin in the injected blood to get high or if the high that many users claim is a result of traces of the heroin that had been injected by the user, or if the high is simply the result of the placebo effect.
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August 10, 2010
The Capgras delusion is a disorder in which a person holds a delusion that a friend, spouse, parent or other close family member has been replaced by an identical-looking impostor. The Capgras delusion is classed as a delusional misidentification syndrome, a class of delusional beliefs that involves the misidentification of people, places, or objects. It can occur in acute, transient, or chronic forms.
The delusion is most common in patients diagnosed with schizophrenia, although it can occur in connection with a number of conditions, including brain injury and dementia. It occurs more frequently in females by a ratio of three for every two men. Although the Capgras delusion is commonly called a syndrome, because it can occur as part of, or alongside, various other disorders and conditions, some researchers have argued that it should be considered a symptom, rather than a syndrome or classification in its own right. The condition is named after Joseph Capgras, a French psychiatrist who first described the disorder in 1923.
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August 5, 2010
Plumpy’nut is a peanut-based food for use in famine relief which was formulated in 1999 by André Briend, a French paediatric nutritionist. The product is a high protein and high energy peanut-based paste in a foil wrapper. It tastes slightly sweeter than peanut butter. It is categorized by the WHO as a Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF). Plumpy’nut requires no water preparation or refrigeration and has a 2 year shelf life making it easy to deploy in difficult conditions to treat severe acute malnutrition. It can be used as a replacement for infant formula for children who are at least 6 months old.
Plumpy‘nut was first used during the crisis in Darfur in western Sudan. There, it was fed to some 30,000 children and aid officials there say it has helped cut malnutrition rates in half. It has since been used by the UN and humanitarian organizations in Niger, Haiti, and many other countries.
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August 4, 2010
A pony bottle is a small diving cylinder, often of only a few litres capacity, which is filled from a main tank before a dive and fitted with its own independent regulator. In an emergency, such as exhaustion of the diver’s main air supply, it can be used as an alternate air source in place of a controlled emergency swimming ascent. By comparison a bailout bottle, which serves a similar purpose, is both smaller and has a regulator integrated into the cylinder. Since their introduction in the 1980s, bailout bottles have been the subject of debate within the diving community.
The argument against bailout bottles is that they do not have sufficient capacity to get a diver in many emergency situations back to the surface safely, and thus cause divers to feel a false sense of safety. A review carried out by Scuba Diving magazine attempted to give a sense of from what depth bailout bottles of various capacities could get divers to the surface under maximum safe ascent rates. The review found that a 1.7 cubic foot bottle had sufficient air to get the reviewing diver from 45 feet to the surface; a 3 cubic foot bottle from a depth of 70 feet; and a 6 cubic foot bottle from the maximum reviewed depth of 132 feet.
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August 3, 2010
The Five Tibetan Rites is a system of exercises reported to be more than 2,500 years old which were first publicized by Peter Kelder in a 1939 publication entitled The Eye of Revelation. Kelder claims to have met, in southern California, a retired British army colonel who shared with him stories of travel and the subsequent discovery of the Rites. Although the Rites have circulated amongst yogis for decades, skeptics say that Tibetans have never recognized them as being authentic Tibetan practices.
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