If you are male and have had some alcohol you are more likely to punch a wall. Why? Well for one thing males have testosterone, which does enable males to propagate the species but at the cost of otherwise doing stupid things. In my career spanning many years I have [...]

SIDS or sudden infant death syndrome is a horrible and devastating event. About 3500 babies die each year in the United States from SIDS. No one knows exactly what causes babies to stop breathing but there are several behaviors which have been shown to increase the risk of SIDS. Babies [...]

We all get old and guess what? with a little luck we all get there. One of the joys of middle age and beyond is arthritis. The knee is one of those joints prone to injury, especially with advancing age. One common injury is a meniscal tear, which involves damage [...]

Left handedness is relatively uncommon. About 10% of the population is left handed, which by the way includes me. Some are ambidextrous or able to use both hands. I am for sure not one. My right hand sits there useless and bored most of the time. Some positive things about [...]

Control of blood sugar 24-7 is the holy grail of diabetes treatment. Good control prevents immediate complications of high or low blood sugar and reduced long term problems of kidney, eye, heart and nerve damage. In other words better control means a longer healthier life. Insulin is one way to [...]

A recent Japanese study asked the difficult, previously unknown question of whether consumption of alcohol causes sexual disinhibition (ie lead to sex). Yes, I realize this is a very tough subject, one in which there is not much to go on. So these intrepid researchers recruited 258 Japanese college students [...]

Hollywood has a way of glamorizing medicine and the film "Dr. Strange" is no exception. In the movie, Dr. Strange, who is an accomplished neurosurgeon suffers a debilitating car accident. His hands after surgery are left with nerve injury and this makes him unable to practice medicine. At his physical [...]

Diarrhea no pun intended is a messy subject. Most of the time it is a self limited infection, caused by bacteria, viruses or protozoa. At times however, the diarrhea may be heavy enough to lead to significant dehydration and dangerously low levels of such critical electrolytes such as potassium. To [...]

Given last weeks fascinating study on dropped beer bottles, here is another one. This article published in 1987 actually earned its authors the IG award, given only to the best of the best quirky studies. What would be an effective spermicide, these intrepid authors wondered. Why not try Old Coke, [...]

One of the burning questions of modern medicine has always been whether, in the case of a brawl, an empty or full beer bottle inflicts more damage and of course which is more likely to fracture the skull. And to answer this perplexing dilemma, a team (believe it or not [...]