Is it safe to own a cat? A new paper suggests the answer may be Yes. Maybe Yes The new, possibly-pro-cat paper is: “Healthy cats provide more health benefits than risks to owners,” Michael Lappin, Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery, vol. 21, no. 11, November 2019, pp. 1007-1007. The author explains: “In these 2019 […]
Tag: disease
Associations : Ultra Violet Radiation and the number of days it takes to get a misaddressed letter back (new study)
Can the level of Ultra Violet Radiation (UV-R) in your environment affect the number of days it takes to get a misaddressed letter returned to the sender*? Or the degree to which a country’s laws protect private property rights? A new study in the journal KYKLOS examines the effects of sunlight on such indicators of […]
Article 15—“Débrouillez-vous”
A jaunty passage from Ed Yong’s essay “The Next Plague Is Coming. Is America Ready?” in The Atlantic magazine: If [the disease outbreak does return], is there any protective equipment at the hospital? “No,” she tells me. Mikolo laughs. “Article 15,” he says. Article 15 is something of a Congolese catchphrase, referring to a fictional but […]
Fracking and Sexually Transmitted Disease [public health study]
Of all the criticisms aimed at fracking, charges that it might increase the incidence of STDs – specifically gonorrhea – are seldom heard. Yet there might be a link – according to a new research paper published in the Journal of Public Health Policy. “We analyzed one potential cost to communities, the effect of fracking […]
Cardinal Ludovico Trevisan’s earlobe crease (study)
Attention was recently drawn to the fact that Robert E. Lee had a crease in his right earlobe, and that he died from cardiovascular disease. But Lee was by no means the only historical figure who showed such signs. Francesco M. Galassi, Dr. who is a Postdoc assistant in the Paleopathology and Mummy Studies Group […]
The Right Earlobe Crease of Robert E. Lee (study)
The photo shows Robert E. Lee’s right earlobe crease (ELC) He died at the age of 63, on October 12th 1870, from the effects of coronary artery disease (CAD). The question arises – are the presence of the crease and the fact that he had severe cardiac problems related? Put another way, are ELCs (necessarily) […]
Dangerous infectious diseases : good news for Wall Street?
“In this research, we show that large events of devastating nature to the economy can be considered as good news to some interest groups, such as stock market traders.” – explain researchers Michael Donadelli [pictured], Renatas Kizys and Max Riedel in a new paper for the Journal of Financial Markets. In this case. the ‘large […]
No plague in the NY subway after all (new study)
Travellers on the New York and Boston subway systems might allow themselves a sigh of relief – Yersinia pestis (the causative agent of plague) and Bacillus anthracis (the causative agent of anthrax) might not be living in the subway systems after all. This is the finding of a new investigation published in the journal mSystems™, […]
(Self-tested!) Intravenous garlic juice herpes treatment (new patent)
Inventor Behnam Azizkhani describes a newly patented (US 9,089,597) medical treatment (for herpes and other conditions) involving intravenous diluted garlic juice injections – which were self-tested. The patent includes this compelling technical drawing; the inventor is represented, graphically, as the bottommost element of the drawing: Please note: Improbable strongly recommends that interested parties should consult qualified […]
WHO says: No who, no where
Innocuity is now a recommended goal in naming a disease. “Discovered a disease? WHO has new rules for avoiding offensive names” is the headline on a report by Kai Kupferschmidt, in ScienceInsider. It says, in part: The World Health Organization (WHO) mostly works to reduce the physical toll of disease. But last week it turned to another […]