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Bleeding Edge

by Michael Ho

Thu, Dec 30th 2010 5:00pm




Filed Under:
amygdala, bone marrow transplant, epigenetics


DailyDirt: Medical Curiosities

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

While the fundamental mysteries of the universe seem pretty far from being fully understood, one might assume a more practical science like the field of medicine should be a bit easier to grasp. But that's not really the case at all. There are a vast number of medical curiosities which are only starting to be studied. When even a fairly straightforward phenomenon like the Placebo Effect is commonly misunderstood, it doesn't quite bode well for other more complicated medical studies. Still, modern medicine has come a long way from poorly-trained barbers. Here are a few quick links to some interesting medical discoveries.
  • You are not only what you eat. You're also what your father ate. Epigenetics kinda messes with selfish genes a bit. [url]
  • A cure for HIV might involve a bone marrow transplant. There's only one case so far of this working, and about 30% of bone marrow transplant patients don't survive the procedure -- so no celebrations are planned just yet. [url]
  • In 2008, a girl's blood type was changed after receiving a bone marrow liver transplant. Her immune system was also converted to that of her donor, so if this procedure were just a bit less random and risky -- there might be some cool treatments from this process...? [url]
  • Big amygdalas are correlated with being social. With this in mind, social media experts everywhere might want to get their heads examined. [url]

    • 13 Comments | Leave a Comment

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    1.  
      identicon
      Joe, Dec 30th, 2010 @ 5:32pm

      hmmm

      ok - curious here - why use bit.ly here? what's the benefit of using that and then separating out a separate url link?

       

      [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

    2.  
      icon
      Mike Masnick (profile), Dec 30th, 2010 @ 5:36pm

      Re: hmmm

      ok - curious here - why use bit.ly here? what's the benefit of using that and then separating out a separate url link?


      Seems this question gets asked (and answered) every other day on these posts.

      Mike likes to see how many people click on these stories, so he gets a sense of what people like. Bitly makes it easy to track that data (and, for anyone to see it, actually). Yet, some people hate Bitly and wanted to know what the actual URLs were so he added those at the end?

       

      [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

    3.  
      identicon
      Lawrence D'Oliveiro, Dec 30th, 2010 @ 6:22pm

      Barbers Used To Be Surgeons, Not Doctors

      Strange, but true. And doctors used to look down on these barber-surgeons.

       

      [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

    4.  
      identicon
      Joe, Dec 30th, 2010 @ 6:30pm

      Re: Re: hmmm

      ah - makes sense, thanks. I understand why people don't like it as i often hover to look at the url before jumping. cheers

       

      [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

    5.  
      identicon
      Anonymous Coward, Dec 31st, 2010 @ 1:07am

      This reminds me of how we keep letting others decide how we will have healthcare in the future.

      Sorry I know this has nothing to do with what was shown here is just related somehow.

      I was thinking of how most kitchens today are more clean than the labs that manufactured medicines in the 60's and 70's.

      Opensource drug production.

      http://www.trendhunter.com/trends/open-source-drug-making-process

       

      [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

    6.  
      icon
      Red Monkey (profile), Dec 31st, 2010 @ 3:48am

      amygdalia - fear - social

      Wait, isn't the amygdala associated with feelings of fear? Does that mean people who are more sociable are more fearful? But many unsociable people complain they are "afraid" of striking up a conversation. Very strange.

       

      [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

    7.  
      identicon
      Pixelation, Dec 31st, 2010 @ 8:55am

      Epigenetics

      I watched a show on Epigenetics a while back. It was really interesting and a little scary. The environmental impact of chemicals on people and even their offspring through multiple generations is coming to light. The cool thing was the guy cured of lung cancer using Epigenetic therapy. Mapping the human genome is just a start. Now to study what turns those genes on and off. Very cool.

       

      [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

    8.  
      icon
      Travis Miller (profile), Dec 31st, 2010 @ 11:10am

      Misleading link title

      The line about "blood type was changed after receiving a bone marrow transplant" is very misleading. It actually makes the article sound stupid, because it is no big deal for this to occur. The big deal is that it happened with a LIVER transplant.

       

      [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

    9.  
      icon
      Michael Ho (profile), Dec 31st, 2010 @ 11:59am

      Re: Re: hmmm

      Yah... we'll have to put up a persistent explanation for these links somewhere. hmm..

       

      [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

    10.  
      icon
      Wesha (profile), Jan 1st, 2011 @ 9:32pm

      Mike, you'd be surprised, but I'm an example of blood type change. In my infancy, they did blood transfusion from my father, and after that, I ended up with his blood type rather than mother's.

       

      [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

    11.  
      icon
      Michael Ho (profile), Jan 2nd, 2011 @ 11:48am

      Re: Misleading link title

      Oops. good catch. I pulled this story from memory and forgot that it was a liver transplant. whoops.

       

      [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

    12.  
      icon
      PandaMarketer (profile), Jan 9th, 2011 @ 2:29am

      URL vs Title

      I ALWAYS click on the [url] link.

      Always. Not because I don't like url shorteners or tracking, because I just like to know where I'm going first.

      Maybe you or Mike could put the url in a hover pop up on the Title Link?.
      Simple as adding title="#"

       

      [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

    13.  
      icon
      Michael Ho (profile), Jan 9th, 2011 @ 4:08pm

      Re: URL vs Title

      Good suggestion, PandaMarketer.... I guess we could try that.

       

      [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]


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