When Mary Scarborough wrote the lyrics to “Old MacDonald Had a Farm” in 1923, she probably didn’t have a research facility in mind. She wouldn’t find cows, chickens or pigs at “The Body Farm” – just scores of rotting human bodies, covered in maggots. The Body Farm (officially known as the University of Tennessee Forensic Anthropology Facility) was the brainchild of Dr. William Bass, a Forensic Anthropologist from Kansas who helps law enforcement agencies estimate how long a person has been dead. Determining the time of death is crucial in confirming alibis and establishing timelines for violent crimes. After 11 years of watching human decomposition, Bass realized how little was…
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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 when President Bill Clinton had his. Coronary calcium screening uses specialized medical equipment to look at the structure of the heart’s coronary arteries. Much like standard x-rays, calcium scanning can be done using electron beam computed tomography (CT), multidetector CT (MDCT) or electron beam CT (EBT) scanners. The scanners are…
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Great Achievements in Medical Fraud How the foot operated breast enlarger and Recto Rotor revolutionized medicine
If you were diagnosed at the turn of the century with lumbago, puking fever, black vomit, consumption, decrepitude, falling sickness, milk leg, ship fever, softening of the brain, St. Vitas dance, trench mouth, dropsy or heaven forbid, dyscrasy then you were in big trouble. Not only did the “modern” medical community misunderstand most of these diseases, they were also clueless as to how to treat them… until medical fraud appeared. To the Rescue Facing a life of interminable pain and suffering, many sufferers of these diseases resorted to hundreds of unfounded medical treatments – sometimes they worked and sometimes they didn’t. Here’s a brief list of some of the more…
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Better Shoe Fitting through Science The Adrian Pedoscope: a new way to fit shoes
During the 1940s, people were concerned about their feet. Mothers, fathers – even the U.S. Army. As a result, the guardian of modern foot care was born – the “Adrian X-ray Shoe Fitting Machine.” A Star is Born Although there are a number of conflicting stories about its origin, the first x-ray shoe fitting machine has generally been attributed to Dr. Jacob Lowe, a Boston physician who was looking for a fast and efficient way to analyze soldiers’ feet during World War I. Dr. Lowe was concerned with the number of poorly fitting boots worn by military recruits and was interested in a way to cut down on their foot-related…
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A Foley Artist Reveals His Secrets Double punching a roasted chicken with a rubber kitchen glove: a new art is born
The scene in the Hollywood movie is a leather-jacketed hero who scuffles with a bad guy, walks through the snow and then guns his motorcycle engine before zooming off into the night. But, what really happened was a Foley artist punched a roasted chicken with a rubber kitchen glove and squeezed two balloons together while walking on a sandbox filled with cornstarch. That’s showbiz… Things Are Not What They Seem For most of us, the sounds of a movie are as entertaining as the visual experiences. But, unbeknownst to most viewers, the lion share of sounds and special effects are not captured at the time of filming. Instead, they’re either…
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