Archive | March 2011
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A PSA about Inappropriate PSA Screening
There’s no denying that preventive medical screens do save lives, whether through mammograms, colonoscopies, or prostate exams. But for all the benefits, screening is not a one-size-fits-all practice. In the case of prostate cancer, mortality rates have declined by more than 30 percent in the last 20 years as testing levels of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) […]
The Ghosts of Yellowstone
Paleontologists often deal with time scales in the hundreds of millions of years, reading the messages of fossils to learn about life on Earth long before humans arrived on the scene. But bones aren’t limited to providing insight on prehistoric ecosystems. The skeletal fragments left behind by animals at their final resting place can be […]
Crowdsourcing the War on Cancer
Reading The Emperor of All Maladies, Siddhartha Mukherjee’s “biography of cancer” from last year, one is struck by both the long and short history of cancer. Descriptions of breast cancer can be found as long ago as an Egyptian papyrus dated to 2500 BC and ancient Greek histories, and tumors have been found in thousand-year-old […]
Linkage 3/25: Giant Bunnies, Religious Obesity, and Kin Selection Kerfuffle
Just in time for Easter, a team of scientists digging on a Spanish island have discovered the fossils of a prehistoric rabbit of unusual size: 26 pounds, more than six times the size of today’s bunnies. Called Nuralagus rex – the “king of the hares” – the big guy definitely did not hop when it […]
Infection: A Disaster Movie for Gut Microbes?
Imagine if your comfortable existence was suddenly and traumatically disrupted by a disaster. Your home is destroyed, food becomes scarce, and social structures suddenly break down. Even the most civilized people would respond to this situation with desperation, doing whatever it takes to survive in the short-term without the usual considerations for the long term. […]
Disparities Across the Ocean and Next Door
Like the rest of campus, the MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics seminar series is on spring break, resuming in early April with a talk from provocative economist Richard Epstein. So now’s a good chance to get caught up on the previous quarter’s seminars, covering topics under the umbrella of health disparities from the biological […]
Linkage 3/18: Match Day, Podcast #0.3, and More
Yesterday wasn’t just St. Patrick’s Day for fourth-year medical students around the country – it was also Match Day, the tense and celebratory day when aspiring doctors learn the residency program where they will spend their next 3-7 years. At the Pritzker School of Medicine, green-clad students and supporters absolutely packed the hospital’s Billings Auditorium […]
Putting the Data Warehouse to Work
Electronic health records are a hot topic in the world of medicine, as hospitals implement new computerized systems to meet federal incentives. Proponents of replacing paper records with electronic health records (EHR) in hospitals and other health care settings argue that the update will improve the efficiency of health care, cutting costs and making life […]
Nature’s Neverending Tournament
For three weeks starting tonight, the attention of sports fans around the country will be on the brackets of the NCAA Basketball Tournament as 68 teams are methodically reduced to one champion. The process is somewhat similar to evolution, as a combination of direct competition and environmental luck (determined by a team’s seeding and the […]
