Oxford University Press's
Academic Insights for the Thinking World
By Peter C. Doherty
A recent New York Times editorial by author David Quammen highlighted the seriousness of the current Ebola outbreak in Guinea, but made the point that there is no great risk of any global pandemic. That’s been generally true of the viruses that, like Ebola, cause exudative diathesis, or bleeding into the tissues, and present with horrific symptoms.
By Joseph P. Merlino, MD, MPA
In 1987, Esmin Green, a patient on the psychiatry ER floor of Kings County Hospital Center, died. International news coverage, lawsuits, and a US Department of Justice investigation ensued. The Behavioral Health department was to ensure the full and timely compliance with the resultant court decrees for drastic improvements in the care of the mentally ill at the hospital.
By Janet R. Gilsdorf
Every April, when the robins sing and the trees erupt in leaves, I think of Brad — of the curtain wafting through his open window, of the sounds of his iron lung from within, of the heartache of his family. Brad and I grew up at a time when worried mothers barred their children from swimming pools, the circus, and the Fourth of July parade for fear of paralysis.
The American Journal of Hypertension recently published the findings of a comprehensive meta-analysis monitoring health outcomes for individuals based on their daily sodium intake. The results were controversial, seemingly confirming what many notable hypertension experts have begun to suspect in recent years: that levels of daily sodium intake recommended by governmental agencies like the CDC are far too low, perhaps dangerously so.
By Gary Wenk
Marijuana is the leafy material from Cannabis indica plant that is generally smoked. By weight, it typically contains 2%-5% delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the primary psychoactive agent. However the plant also contains about fifty other cannabinoid-based compounds, including cannabidiol (CBD).
By Mitch Earleywine
A lot has changed this year in cannabis prohibition. Science and policy march on. Legendary legalization laws in Colorado and Washington have generated astounding news coverage. Maryland is the latest state to change policies. A look at these states can reveal a lot about the research on relevant topics, too.
By Barry S. Levy and Victor W. Sidel
Out of sight. Out of mind. Nine countries, mainly the United States and Russia, possess 17,000 nuclear weapons, many of which are hundreds of times more powerful than the atomic bombs dropped over Hiroshima and Nagasaki almost 70 years ago.
Few fields develop as rapidly as medicine, with new breakthroughs in research, tools, and techniques happening everyday. This presents an interesting challenge for many medical publishers — trying to get the latest information to students, practitioners, and researchers as quickly and accurately as possible. So we are delighted to present a Q&A with Associate Editorial Director of Medicine Books, Craig Panner.
By David Haig
A woman who gives birth to six children each with a 75% chance of survival has the same expected number of surviving offspring as a woman who gives birth to five children each with a 90% chance of survival. In both cases, 4.5 offspring are expected to survive.
By Lloyd A. Wells
It is easy to delineate what clinical decision making is not; it is not evidence-based medicine, it is not critical thinking, it is not eminence-based medicine, it is not one of many other of its many attributes, and it stands alone, with many contributions from all these fields. It is far more difficult to characterize what clinical reasoning is and very difficult to define.
From Facebook’s purchase of Oculus VR Inc. to the latest medical developments, technology is driving new explorations of the perception, reality, and neuroscience. How do we perceive reality through the sense of touch? Alberto Gallace is a researcher in touch and multisensory integration at the University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy, and co-author of In touch with the future: The sense of touch from cognitive neuroscience to virtual reality. We spoke to him about touch, personal boundaries and being human.
Scientists, using epidural stimulation over the lumbar spinal cord, have enabled four completely paralyzed men to voluntarily move their legs.
By Charley James
Did you know that 7-13 April is Parkinson’s Awareness Week 2014? To mark the occasion, here are 10 facts you might not have known about Parkinson’s Disease. Go on, improve your awareness!
By Arpan Banerjee
Recently I had the good fortune to see an excellent production of Bertolt Brecht’s play The Life of Galileo at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre. Brecht has a tenuous connection with the medical profession: he registered in 1917 to attend a medical course in Munich and found himself drafted into the army, serving in a military VD clinic for a short while before the end of the war.
By Cretien van Campen
If you think it makes little sense to take persons with dementia to the beach, it will surprise you that a nursing home in Amsterdam has built a Beach room. In this room, residents can enjoy the feeling of sitting in the sun with their bare feet in the sand. The room is designed to improve the well-being of these residents. The garden room at the centre of the home has recently been converted into a true ‘beach room’, complete with sand and a ‘sun’ which can be adjusted in intensity and heat output.
By William Firshein
It is almost impossible to read a daily newspaper or listen to news reports from television and radio without hearing about an outbreak of an infectious disease. On 13 March 2014, the New York City Department of Health investigated a measles outbreak. Sixteen cases including nine pediatric cases were detected, probably caused by a failure to vaccinate the victims.