Quite a number of professional ballet dancers suffer from medical conditions brought about by their requirement to perform very extreme leg movements. To accurately evaluate such problems physicians would, ideally, like to be able to carry out MRI scans of ballet dancers whilst performing the splits. [that’s the dancers, not the physicians] And, impractical as […]
Year: 2014
Strange: On the smell of Composition C-4
Strange and colleagues offer discouraging news in the hunt for a substitute for a mysterious substance: “On the Smell of Composition C-4,” William Kranz, Kelley Kitts, Nicholas Strange [pictured here —Nick Strange is now a graduate student at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville], Joshua Cummins, Erica Lotspeich, John Goodpaster, Forensic Science International, epub December 24, […]
The past and further adventures of Troy Hurtubise (of grizzly fame) (Part 3 of 3)
Ig Nobel Prize winner Troy Hurtubise explains in exquisite detail why and how he has spent 25 years building and testing a suit of armor to protect himself against grizzly bears. Vice presents a three-part interview with Troy. In the past two days we enjoyed part 1 and part 2. Here’s part 3, about how […]
The quest for the elusive tooth worm(s)
The Chirurgeon’s Apprentice blog discusses “the battle of the tooth worm“: This is a depiction of the infamous tooth worm believed by many people in the past to bore holes in human teeth and cause toothaches….Tooth worms have a long history, first appearing in a Sumerian text around 5,000 BC. References to tooth worms […]