Cave women had it easy. Except for the occasional attack by a saber-tooth tiger, the only stress in their lives was foraging enough food to feed their families and keeping the dirt floor clean. How did we get so stressed? Fast forward to modern times, we’re deluged with stressors that begin the moment we wake: checking our email, getting the…
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Blaschko Lines Blaschko's lines disease proves there's a little zebra in all of us
Nature has an interesting way of identifying animals in the wild. Lions have their manes, leopards have spots. Tigers and zebras have stripes. And apparently, so do people with Blaschko Lines. Blaschko Lines are common skin patterns that were first identified in 1901 by a German dermatologist named Alfred Blaschko. Over the course of years of examining thousands of patients,…
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Monkey in a Pink Canoe Why parents refuse to talk about the birds and the bees
“Where did I come from?” asked Shadrach as we pulled up to his football game at Fleigenbaum Field. Having never been married, I thought I’d be exempt from ever having to discuss the birds and the bees with a 6-year-old quarterback, so I never put much thought into what I’d say if asked. Looks like I was going to have…
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The Golden Era of Cigarette Ads When cigarette smoking, big tobacco and lung cancer were cool
When Sir Walter Raleigh helped to popularize tobacco during the 16th century, he probably had no idea that he would be responsible for cigarette ads; one of the largest and most profitable advertising campaigns in the history of Madison Avenue. Campaigns that would see a single product go from lifestyle enhancement to a pariah of the medical community within a…
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Ten Minutes that Could Save Your Life Coronary calcium scanning: a new way to look at your risk for heart disease
Each year, more than 800,000 Americans will suffer a heart attack. More than 150,000 will die before they experience their first symptom. Could they have been saved? A relatively new and effective way to screen people at risk for heart disease is called coronary calcium scanning. Calcium scanning has been around since the late 1990s, and started capturing people’s attention…
