Number of words: 1,300 The idea that dogs are pack animals who require a pack leader was introduced in the 1940s. It became known as dominance theory, and eventually alpha theory. But it wasn’t until many decades later that the idea of the pack leader became a staple of the American dog owner’s vocabulary and … Read more
Number of words: 489 Each day, the station loses more than 250 grams (0.6 pounds) of air each day during its 15.5 orbits around Earth, but that’s not always the case, as evident in the case of this leak The International Space Station is a potential hazard due to many reasons, with its age being … Read more
Number of words: 1,616 We’re at a critical moment. Our leaders, some of our great institutions are failing us. Why? In some cases, it’s because they’re bad or unethical, but often, they’ve taken us to the wrong objectives. And this is unacceptable. This has to stop. How are we going to correct these wrongs? How … Read more
Number of words: 730 K Thilagarajan spent two days with an old coconut tree climber at Sholavandan learning to make a “bug that buzzes”. The 50-year-old school teacher from Madurai is a populariser of toys made from palm and coconut leaves. He travels across the State sharing with children the joys of making fans, fish, … Read more
Number of words: 721 Reddit is a great forum for raising scientific questions, but the fact that it’s discussion-based makes it difficult to know when a debate has settled on the best answer, objectively speaking. Exhibit A concerns the value of lying down with your eyes closed. How much does it do for you compared … Read more
Number of words: 481 Cataracts, however, were not the whole story in blindness among lepers. Many lepers at Vellore didn’t suffer from cataracts, yet were losing their sight from eye ulcerations. Did the bacillus leprae produce the infection and the resultant ulcerations and blindness? Or, as in the ease of fingers and toes, was the … Read more
Number of words: 771 As is often the case in medical research, some of Paul Brand’s most important discoveries about leprosy came about not as the result of systematic pursuit but through accident. Soon after arriving in Vellore he observed the prodigious strength in lepers’ hands. Even a casual handshake with a leper was like … Read more
Number of words: 509 Paul Brand’s main purpose in coming to the Christian Medical College and Hospital at Vellore was to see whether he might be able to apply his highly developed skills in reconstructive surgery to the special problems of lepers. Commonly, lepers’ fingers tend to “claw” or partially close up because of the … Read more
Number of words: 355 Some years ago, I had an opportunity to observe African witch-doctor medicine at first hand in the Gabon jungle country. At the dinner table of the Schweitzer Hospital at Lambarene, I had ventured the remark that the local people were lucky to have access to the Schweitzer clinic instead of having … Read more
Number of words: 423 If the placebo can do a great deal of good, it can also do a great deal of harm. The cerebral cortex stimulates negative biochemical changes just as it does positive changes. Beecher stressed as long ago as 1955, in the Journal of American Medical Association, that placebos can have serious … Read more
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