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Read our latest stories on the people and scientific innovations making a difference in patients’ lives.
Why — and How — Music Moves Us
“Life seems to go on without effort when I am filled with music.” – George Eliot Instinctually, intuitively, we know that music makes life better. For millennia, humans have used music to soothe to our souls and comfort pain. Parents worldwide sing lullabies to the young and mark special occasions such as birthdays, graduations, and weddings with song. We rely on music to help us power through workouts and tackle tasks we’d rather ignore, and we manipulate our moods with melodies. Music...
foundations-science
Seeing Science in the Everyday: Glow Sticks That Detect Cancer
Researchers are using the same chemical processes behind glow sticks to make better tools to diagnose cancer. The same science behind glow sticks and the crime scene chemical luminol – which glows blue in the presence of blood – is now being used to develop cutting-edge tools to detect cancer and other medical diagnoses. When you snap a glow stick, two liquids inside the plastic tube come into contact, setting off a chemical reaction that emits energy in the form of light. This process...
Science Fact or Science Fiction? Lactic Acid Buildup Causes Muscle Fatigue and Soreness
Anyone who has pushed themselves through an intense workout will be familiar with “feeling the burn” — that sensation of fatigue and pain that sets in when you subject your muscles to lifting heavy loads repeatedly or sprinting all-out. This burning sensation is associated with a buildup of acid in the muscles during intense exercise, and lactic acid has long been thought to be the culprit in that acid buildup, known as acidosis. Lactic acid is a byproduct of anaerobic metabolism, in which...
Bodily Functions Explained: Spicy Food Reaction
Spicy food contains chemicals that trick the body into cranking up its internal air-conditioning system, triggering responses from head to toe and involving everything from the respiratory to the circulatory system. It happens at dinner tables around the world every day. Something spicy — a chunk of chili pepper, perhaps — goes from fork to mouth, setting off a body-wide chain reaction. A burning sensation spreads across the lips and ignites the tongue. Mucous membranes, which protect the...
Flashback: The First ECG
*/ /*-->*/ /*-->*/ Willem Einthoven found the beat and built a machine that could measure the electrical current a heart creates. It weighed 600 pounds. An electrocardiogram — called informally an ECG or EKG — measures the small electric waves that a human heart...
Bodily Functions Explained: Goosebumps
A holdover from our prehistoric days, goosebumps are the end result of an adrenaline rush meant to ward off a big chill — or predators. It’s a common occurrence. A sudden freezing gust of wind or spike in air conditioning causes our hair to stand on end and our skin to prickle. If the chill is strong enough to dip your body temperature below 98.6 degrees, your skin sounds an alarm. Body muscles contract in quick bursts to generate heat and your hypothalamus triggers a rush of adrenaline...
foundations-science
Bodily Functions Explained: Itch and Scratch
Meant to remove invaders, either infectious or simply irritating, a scratch is human skin’s first line of defense. It happens every day. An irritant — a speck of dust, bit of errant clothing fiber, a tiny bug, perhaps — triggers nerve receptors on the skin to send an alert to the brain: “There is something foreign and potentially dangerous that needs to be removed. Now.” Receptors on specialized nerve cells translate that alarm message into “itch,” then specialized nerve fibers speed the...
6 Views of a Neuron by Golgi and Cajal
Two groundbreaking scientists stain cells, uncover the intricate secrets of the nervous system, and elevate scientific discovery to fine art. In 1872, Camillo Golgi accepted a job as the chief medical officer at the Hospital for the Chronically Sick at Abbiategrasso, Italy. It is here — ensconced in a tiny kitchen he had converted into a makeshift laboratory — that he created what he would call the “black reaction.” It was a method of staining that was able to capture even the most delicate...
Female Pioneers: Meet the Biochemist Who Tackled One of TB’s Great Mysteries
Florence Seibert was an early pioneer in applying physical chemistry techniques to biomedical problems. American Florence Seibert developed a reliable test for TB, which has helped saved millions of lives. In the early 1900s, tuberculosis, a bacteria that settles in the lungs and eats them away, continued to be among the deadliest diseases, killing one in seven people in the U.S. and Europe. Before the turn of the century, German scientist Robert Koch had discovered tuberculin...
Smallpox Vanquished
Once one of the world’s deadliest diseases, smallpox’s complete eradication was the result of a worldwide deployment of a vaccine begun 50 years ago. To date it’s still the only human disease ever to disappear from Earth. Considered one of the greatest achievements of the 20th century, alongside the likes of getting a man on the moon, and one of the greatest medical feats in all of human history, smallpox was officially declared eradicated from the planet in 1980. The big push for its...
foundations-science
Bodily Functions Explained: The Cough
It’s an everyday occurrence. A little tickle in your throat, a wayward speck of pollen, perhaps — or a bit of water traveling down the wrong pipe — and then a full-on chain reaction in your body. Your torso lurches forward with force as your esophagus slams shut then opens wide again. In between, your lungs compress in a short burst and abdominal and rib muscles contract to push the equivalent of most of a two-liter bottle’s worth of air out of your windpipe in a fraction of a second. A...
foundations-science
What a Porcupine Quill Can Teach Us About Making Better Needles
Taking a design cue from the animal world, mimicking a porcupine quill might help make a more effective—and less painful—needle. A porcupine’s quill barbs may be microscopic, but they have mighty staying power. Ask any curious dog who’s run afoul of a porcupine. Some researchers are hoping to translate that natural ability into improved needles. In particular, a team of researchers at Harvard looked at the North American porcupine, which has about 30,000 quills covering their back as a...
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