Search Results for: label/CT scan

• Biology Explainer: The big 4 building blocks of life–carbohydrates, fats, proteins, and nucleic acids

  …molecules themselves break down into a surprisingly small number of building blocks. The proteins that make up all of the living things on this planet and ensure their appropriate structure and smooth function consist of only 20 different kinds of building blocks. Nucleic acids, specifically DNA, are even more basic: only four different kinds of molecules provide the materials to build the countless different genetic codes that translate into all…

  Authored by Emily Willingham on June 8, 2012

• Sesame Street helps unlock the secrets to the brain during children’s learning

  …levision is a bad idea, but there is something to the idea that educational TV is, well, educational. We have the brain scans to prove it! A study published in PLOS Biology used functional MRI scans to check out the brains of 26 children and 20 adults while they watched 20 minutes of Sesame Street. The actual purpose of the study wasn’t to find out if Sesame Street was educational per se. Rather, it was to observe the neural processes in th…

  Authored by Tara Haelle on January 4, 2013

• For Dad: A guide on strokes, including a glossary of terms

  s though ultrasound, as well as in the heart, using both an electrocardiogram(EKG) and an echocardiogram(ultrasound of the heart).  The patient might also be asked to wear a Holter Monitor, which is a device worn for at least 24 hours and can detect potential heart abnormalities that may not be obvious from short-term observations, like those obtained via an EKG.  If a stroke is due to a hemorrhagic event, an angiogramwould be performed to try an…

  Authored by Jeanne Garbarino on January 26, 2012

• After Newtown missteps, journalists get guidelines

  …almost twice as likely to say that they don’t want to live or work near a person with mental illness if they read an article about a person with mental illness involved in a mass shooting, according to a study published March 20 in the American Journal of Psychiatry. Interestingly, this tendency is the same even if the article avoids any mention of mental illness. This may be because this link between violence and mental illness is deeply engrain…

  Authored by DXS Contributor on March 27, 2013

• Of Mint, Mollusks, and Mojitos

  I finished assembling the requested cheddar cheese and cracker sandwiches and made sure to follow the precise directions for filling the sippy cups: half apple juice, half water, one ice cube, and a slice of lemon (don’t ask, my kids are high maintenance).  Saturday afternoon was upon us and it was clear that we all needed a little downtime.  So I set the girls up for a picnic on the family room floor, engaged Netflix, and laid out their snack. …

  Authored by Jeanne Garbarino on June 25, 2012

• Friday Roundup: dissolving mice, preschooler paleontologist, evolution cake, and more 2011 retrospective

  Burrunan dolphin, a new species discovered in 2011 Cool science and science ewwws Can Mountain Dew really dissolve a mouse?  Barry White’s voice may have been low, but how well could his boys swim? French botanist Jeanne Baret botanized around the 18th-century world dressed as a man. Now, she gets some recognition.  Have you had a child? Would it make you feel better to know that you each still carry around cells from one anothe…

  Authored by Emily Willingham on January 6, 2012

• Getting Naked for a Good Cause

  rly, flesh colored nodule, usually on areas that get sun exposures (head, neck, arms). SCC, which arises in the squamous cell population of the epidermis, is the second most common type of skin cancer, affecting approximately 200,000 people each year, and often resembles a scaly patch surrounded by a red halo of inflamed skin. While sun exposed areas are more vulnerable, SCC can occur anywhere on the body (including genitalia) and, if not detecte…

  Authored by Jeanne Garbarino on November 12, 2012

• Depressing genes

  Can depression be a matter of genetic fate? by Siobhan Mitchell          [This post is the latest installment in our I Am Mental Illness series.] What if you could know if you were fated to be depressed? With the rise of personal genotyping services such as 23andme, almost can find out what their psychiatric ‘fate’ will be, but what do you do with this information once you have it? When I first considered testing myself for depressio…

  Authored by DXS Contributor on May 17, 2013

• Is the bar high enough for screening breast ultrasounds for breast cancer?

  …n controversial. What’s new is the “Are You Dense?” patient movement and legislation to inform women that they have dense breasts. Merits and pitfalls of device approval The approval of breast ultrasound hinges on a study of 200 women with dense breast evaluated retrospectively at 13 sites across the United States with mammography and ultrasound. The study showed a statistically significant increase in breast cancer detection when ultrasound was…

  Authored by Emily Willingham on September 21, 2012

• Autism and the DSM-5

  …ial social aspect of this change, and the one thing that might, when it comes to autism, elevate the DSM-5 above the level of doorstop. [Image credit: Dave Bullock, UK, via Wikimedia Commons under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 generic license.]…

  Authored by Emily Willingham on April 23, 2013