Nature: The view of biology often presented to the public is oversimplified and out of date. Scientists must set the record straight, argues a new book. How Life Works: A User’s Guide to the New Biology Philip Ball Pan Macmillan (2024) For too long, scientists have been content in espousing the lazy metaphor of living… Continue Reading
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Category Archives: Medicine
Keep Your Abortion Private & Secure
Digital Defense Fund: “This page is organized into different security-related threats. You can jump to the ones that most concern you. Along with each scenario is a list of digital security tips to neutralize the threat! These are possible concerns you might have: Seeing advertisements related to pregnancy/abortion Tech companies like Facebook and Google storing… Continue Reading
Making the Greatest Medical Library in America
NLM: “On a quest to bring together and catalog the world’s medical knowledge, John Shaw Billings, an Army surgeon and book collector who oversaw the U.S. Surgeon General’s library (today known as NLM), acquired approximately 300 pamphlets from the private collection of the renowned French physiologist Claude Bernard in 1878. Later that year, these scientific… Continue Reading
How to Make the Most of Your At-Home Covid Test
The New York Times [read free h/t Pete Weiss]: “While Covid has become a regular part of respiratory virus season, community testing centers and drive-through sites where you could determine whether it’s the source of your sniffles have all but vanished. At-home tests are still a valuable tool to protect yourself and others from the… Continue Reading
The Guys Who Killed Toys R Us are Coming for Doctors
skepchick: “This post contains a video, which you can also view here. You may be aware that here in the United States, we have a less than ideal healthcare system. For instance, compared to our neighbors to the north, we enjoy slightly shorter wait times for some procedures in exchange for worse coverage, higher cost,… Continue Reading
Access to abortion pills has grown since Dobbs
Vox: “Eighteen months after the Dobbs v. Jackson decision that overturned the constitutional right to abortion, and with a new Supreme Court challenge pending against the abortion medication mifepristone, confusion abounds about access to reproductive health care in America. Since the June 2022 decision, abortion rates in states with restrictions have plummeted, and researchers estimated… Continue Reading
Why are so few people getting the latest Covid-19 vaccine?
Vox: “The Covid-19 vaccines were hailed as a miracle upon their arrival. They were delivered earlier than anyone thought possible and proved exceptionally effective in preventing hospitalizations and deaths. More than 80 percent of all Americans, and more than 90 percent of adults, received at least one dose of the vaccines, remarkable penetration in a… Continue Reading
The Sick Times
“It’s not mysterious. A highly contagious airborne virus has spread around the world for the past four years and continues to infect people as I write. SARS-Cov-2 has killed an excess of 23 million people worldwide and plagued over 65 million people with Long Covid and other associated conditions. Chronic illness advocates warned us about… Continue Reading
Deepfakes and scientific knowledge dissemination
Doss, C., Mondschein, J., Shu, D. et al. Deepfakes and scientific knowledge dissemination. Sci Rep 13, 13429 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-39944-3 “Science misinformation on topics ranging from climate change to vaccines have significant public policy repercussions. Artificial intelligence-based methods of altering videos and photos (deepfakes) lower the barriers to the mass creation and dissemination of realistic, manipulated… Continue Reading
Find out why your health insurer denied your claim
ProPublica’s Claim File Helper lets you customize a letter requesting the notes and documents your insurer used when deciding to deny you coverage. Get your claim file before submitting an appeal. [h/t Pete Weiss] “What’s a Claim File? Why Should I Request One? A claim file is a collection of the information your insurer used… Continue Reading
State Laws Restricting or Prohibiting Abortion
CRS Report – State Laws Restricting or Prohibiting Abortion Updated October 24, 2023 “The Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization overruled Roe v. Wade, providing states with greater discretion to restrict abortion access, including by limiting abortion prior to fetal viability.1 This report provides an overview of existing or recently passed… Continue Reading
Vaccine Confidence Falls as Belief in Health Misinformation Grows
Annenberg Public Policy Center: “Americans have less confidence in vaccines to address a variety of illnesses than they did just a year or two ago, and more people accept misinformation about vaccines and Covid-19, according to the latest health survey from the Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC) of the University of Pennsylvania. The survey conducted… Continue Reading
