Wired Science pulled out some awesome black-and-white surgery videos from the 1930s from the annals of British Medical Association. Warning: They are pretty gruesome but show how complex surgeries were done back in the day with somewhat primitive tools and no computers. I highly recommend it just because it’s pretty fascinating.
Tag Archives: Medical
A woman becomes pregnant, while being pregnant – WEIRD!!!
Posted by vidyant on October 1, 2009
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An Arkansas woman, 31, became pregnant while already being pregnant. This happened two weeks into her first pregnancy. Basically, she will have a baby and then another one two weeks afterwards. Apparently, it’s only the fifteenth case known to us and is called superfetation (what an awesome name!). She has a super fetus!!! Btw, here is the link to the news article.
The mechanism behind it is not really known but some scientists think that it happens when the menstrual cycle keeps on going even after a woman becomes pregnant. Usually what happens is that a woman’s menstrual cycle ceases once she becomes pregnant because she stops producing Leutinizing Hormone (LH). LH is responsible for causing the ovarian follicles to grow and ovulate on the fourteenth day of the month. No LH means no ovulation, no egg, and therefore no fertilization.
More as I wrap my head around it and figure out more mechanisms and perhaps more hypotheses. I know, a nerdgasm but I can’t help being fascinated by this…
Wait! Somebody in my lab brought up an excellent point. What happens when she goes into labor? Is one fetus really just going to chill there while the other is being born? Contractions can’t be selective! This just keeps getting weirder and weirder! and that’s why I love biology. Help me understand this please, if you got any ideas.
Internet addiction, a mental illness! really?
Posted by vidyant on September 29, 2009
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Yes it is true that people using blackberries or iPhone while having dinner or in other social situations, or even in class is really annoying if not infuriating, but a new Scientific American article suggests that there is actually a debate going on whether or not to include Internet addiction as a mental illness. That’s kind of going overboard, in my opinion.
First of all, you can’t call internet usage an addiction but rather what you do on the internet. Internet just provides a means to indulge in those addictions. For people whose job revolves around the internet are obviously not addicted to it but still may be on it for better part of the day like bloggers.
Secondly, as one of the comments that I really liked states, “Why do we have to separately label different addictions?… Why not just ‘He has a psychological addiction to the internet’, most span from the same things and have the same effect, it’s like making each virus that causes the common cold it’s own category.”