黑料不打烊

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Battling Baldness

29 Mar 2023

It may seem hard to believe, but as late as 1942, male patients in some mental hospitals were castrated to quiet them. This extreme treatment did have some scientific basis, since testosterone, the...

Jawing About French King Louis IX鈥檚 Jawbone

22 Mar 2023

Pathologists study the causes and effects of disease mostly through laboratory examination of samples taken from body tissues. But what does a paleopathologist do? Given that 鈥減aleo鈥 comes from...

Saved by the Bell

17 Mar 2023

There are a number of common words that have different meanings for scientists; 鈥榗ultures鈥 are in Petri dishes, 鈥榤edium鈥 isn鈥檛 just the size of a T-shirt, and 鈥榗leavage鈥 is the process of cell...

A Different Twist on the 鈥淒ose Makes the Poison鈥

8 Mar 2023

Mithridates VI ruled the ancient Asian kingdom of Pontus in the first century. The king was terrified of being poisoned鈥攏ot an unreasonable worry, given that assassins at the time were adept at...

An End to 鈥淕ilder鈥檚 Palsy鈥

24 Feb 2023

Physicians today are unlikely to encounter 鈥淕ilder鈥檚 palsy.鈥 But prior to the 19th century this ailment had to be considered when a patient presented with tremors, irritability, increased...

The American Plan to Win World War I: Incarcerate Promiscuous Women

17 Feb 2023

In 1918, as war raged in Europe, the government of the United States of America waged war on a different and much more nebulous opponent: venereal disease.

One of Last Century鈥檚 Most Influential Social Science Studies Is Pretty Bad

17 Feb 2023

We love putting names to things, especially if those names are scientific. Just look at the variety of phenomena people love to refer to as the Dunning-Kruger effect: the idea that other people ...

Vinyl Chloride and the Ohio Train Derailment

16 Feb 2023

The recent Ohio train derailment and subsequent fire that released vinyl chloride into the environment has been a terrifying experience for the nearby population. The accident rekindles memories of...

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