Bizarre story of the day

18 human heads found at O’Hare on last leg of final journey

The heads were shipped from the United States to Rome for medical research, and they were then shipped back again to be cremated, Paleologos said. She said she didn’t know the name of the cremation service or where the heads began their journey in the United States.

Question...don't the Italians have heads of their own to examine? Why couldn't they dispose of them there rather than ship them back? I feel sorry for the poor worker who discovered the contents of the shipment, who may have taken the whole thing with aplomb, or may be bibbling in a hospital somewhere. :)

A lady of science, at a time women were discouraged from going to school

Her discoveries earned her the Nobel Prize and also paved the way for studying dementia and other brain disorders as well as cancer.

Dr. Rita Levi-Montalcini, a Revolutionary in the Study of the Brain, Dies at 103

One of four children, Rita Levi-Montalcini was born in Turin on April 22, 1909, to Adamo Levi, an engineer, and Adele Montalcini, a painter, both Italian Jews who traced their roots to the Roman Empire. In keeping with the Victorian customs of the time, Mr. Levi discouraged his three daughters from entering college, fearing that it would interfere with their lives as wives and mothers.

It was not a future that Rita wanted. She had decided to become a doctor and told her father so. “He listened, looking at me with that serious and penetrating gaze of his that caused me such trepidation,” she wrote in her autobiography, “In Praise of Imperfection” (1988). He also agreed to support her.

She graduated summa cum laude from the University of Turin medical school in 1936, the same year that Mussolini issued a manifesto barring non-Aryan Italians from having professional careers. She began her research anyway, setting up a small laboratory in her home to study chick embryos, inspired by the work of Dr. Hamburger, a prominent researcher in St. Louis who also worked with the embryos.

In 1941, the family fled Turin for the countryside during heavy bombing by Allied forces, and in 1943 the invasion by Germany forced them to Florence. The family returned at the close of the war, in 1945, and Dr. Hamburger soon invited Dr. Levi-Montalcini to work for a year in his lab at Washington University.

An intriguing medical breakthrough

Spray-on skin cells help heal serious burns: Device that ‘prints’ cells on wounds was inspired by an office inkjet printer

It could also help heal diabetic foot ulcers. Still in animal testing, it reduced burn healing from five to two weeks as opposed to traditional skin grafts.

I have to admit that it does bother me that the study, done on mice and about to go to pigs, must mean researchers are causing such wounds on the animals, with their associated pain, in the first place. If successful, however, it could mean the world to those people with these types of injuries. The military is especially interested, with burns being a common combat injury. That aspect of animal research leaves me conflicted.

I've bought into that illusion in the past

Catching up on lost sleep a dangerous illusion

People who are chronically sleep-deprived may think they're caught up after a 10-hour night of sleep, but new research shows that although they're near-normal when they awake, their ability to function deteriorates markedly as night falls.

Some studies show that almost 30% of Americans get less than six hours of sleep at night. The research indicates that the body's daily circadian rhythm hides the effects of chronic sleep loss and gives such people a second wind between about 3 p.m. and 7 p.m., when the circadian rhythm is pushing them to be awake.

But then they fall off a cliff in terms of attention.

According to the article, staying up for 24 hours can impair a person on par with being over the legal limit for alcohol. Getting only 6 hours of sleep for two weeks gives about the same results as being up for 24 hours. Since many professions where attention is crucial involve little sleep--paramedics, doctors, nurses firemen, policemen, truckers, etc.--critical errors may result. Scary.

Just to prove you can't believe what you see in print

Research ghostwriting common, insiders say

Researchers are lending their names to reports written by ghostwriters hired by pharmaceutical companies to promote their product. This happened with Merck and Vioxx, but some say it's fairly common.

It's a disservice to real researchers, a disservice to science, and most of all, a disservice to patients whose doctors rely on studies to know whether and how to prescribe medications.

I hope some change comes out of this.