“Medical illustrators draw what can’t be seen, watch what’s never been done, and tell thousands about it without saying a word.” For decades, this slogan appeared on the website and printed materials of the Association of Medical Illustrators. Although the association no longer uses this tag line, it’s still an accurate description of the profession....
More than 25% of the young adults surveyed in a recent study mistakenly believed that sexual activity increases older adults’ risk of heart attack and that disinterest in sex is a normal and inevitable part of aging. While most of those in the study had permissive views about sexual activity in later life, the findings...
Hey, kids, meet Josef Stalin. New Russian high school textbooks – introduced in August 2023 on the instruction of President Vladimir Putin – attempt to whitewash Stalinist crimes and rehabilitate the Soviet Union’s legacy. While schools and teachers previously could pick educational materials from a variety of choices, these newly created textbooks are mandatory reading...
Among the many emerging trends on social media, one recent concerning fad is a casual and often inaccurate portrayal of trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD – along with an array of questionable interventions suggested for its cure. But what really is PTSD, who suffers from it, and what are the available treatments? As...
The fighting continues between the Israel Defense Forces and Hamas militants in and around Gaza. The death tolls continue to rise, but where do the weapons keep coming from? The Israeli government estimates that Hamas’ surprise attack on Oct. 7, 2023, killed 1,200 people in Israel. Since then, both sides have fired missiles and rockets,...
For decades, it has been common for people to throw around terms like “voodoo politics,” “voodoo economics,” “voodoo science” and “voodoo medicine” to reference something that they think is ridiculous, idiotic or fraudulent. Horror movies and crime shows often tell stories about evil “voodoo doctors” who terrorize their victims with black magic. Even Disney’s first...
Many people are wired to seek and respond to rewards. Your brain interprets food as rewarding when you are hungry and water as rewarding when you are thirsty. But addictive substances like alcohol and drugs of abuse can overwhelm the natural reward pathways in your brain, resulting in intolerable cravings and reduced impulse control. A...
A new University of Michigan-led international study finds that fruits and vegetables grown in urban farms and gardens have a carbon footprint that is, on average, six times greater than conventionally grown produce. However, a few city-grown crops equaled or outperformed conventional agriculture under certain conditions. Tomatoes grown in the soil of open-air urban plots...
Scientists have shown that people are able to tell apart morning from evening depictions in paintings using simple and subtle colour clues in the image. A study by Newcastle University, UK, and Delft University of Technology, Netherlands, published in the Journal of Vision, has found that people use a combination of colour and brightness in a...
The rising cost of health insurance is an ongoing concern in the United States. New research shows that increasing health insurance costs are eating up a growing proportion of worker’s compensation, and have been a major factor in both flattening wages and increasing income inequality over the past 30 years. In a study from the...
