Faking the News (and Informational Chaos)

I read in the paper this morning that some hackers successfully (?) broke into the PBS website on Saturday night and posted a story that is untrue. According to multiple sources, the fabricated article stated that Tupac Shakur, a rap performer who died in 1996, is alive and living in New Zealand. Fox “News” (quotations […]

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News on Niaspan, Cholesterol Drugs and Biomarkers

The Times alerted me, this evening: Lowering bad cholesterol levels reduces heart attack risks, and researchers have long hoped that raising good cholesterol would help, too. Surprising results from a large government study announced on Thursday suggest that this hope may be misplaced…. Common wisdom has been that such patients should take a statin drug […]

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Good People, a New Play About Chance, Decisions and Fate

A short note on Good People, the title of a new play at the Manhattan Theatre Club starring Frances McDormand – It’s a simple story, at some level, about a middle-aged woman from south Boston who loses her job. She has a disabled, adult daughter who needs caregiving, and she needs money. She contacts some […]

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Psychology Colors and Emotions, from the Late Dr. Robert Plutchik

This morning’s med-blog Grand Rounds is up at MedGadget, where my colleague Dr. Nick Genes has put together a nice assortment of reads. One entry refers to the Plutchik Emotion Circumplex – “a wonderful graphic representation of a highly regarded emotion classification system.” I never took psychology in college, and in med school they sent […]

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Zombies are For Children, and Hits

A few more thoughts on the CDC’s zombie ploy – Today’s Disruptive Women in Healthcare features a post applauding the agency’s out-of-the-box “thinking” to get the public’s attention turned to emergency preparedness. (As if that should be necessary, just after the worst radiation disaster in decades, as tornadoes rip through hospitals here in the U.S.) […]

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On Media Snobs and Darwinism in the Blogosphere

Last week Aaron Sorkin wrote for The Atlantic a piece in which he details his daily news feed, in What I Read. He’s not into blogs: When I read the Times or The Wall Street Journal, I know those reporters had to have cleared a very high bar to get the jobs they have. When I […]

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First Look at the Burns Collection of Early Medical Photographs

CBS News has posted a gripping set of images, mostly of cancer patients, dating to the 1880s. The photos from the Burns Archive are graphic, as much as they’re telling, instructive and rare.   This photograph, taken in New York City in 1886, is one of the earliest ever taken of breast surgery. Surgeons had […]

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Shoutout: This Week’s Grand Rounds Hosted by the Prepared Patient Forum

Yesterday’s medical-blog Grand Rounds, on What it Takes, is hosted by the Prepared Patient Forum. There’s a nice array of diverse posts. Among my favorites this week are from patients’ perspectives: by Warm Socks, on complex and simple physical systems for remembering to take pills and by Heart Sisters, on ditching the bucket list. I […]

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