Category: Medicine

  • X-ray at 18 days.

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    For interest. This oblique view is more telling than the A-P.

  • New neuroscience podcast!

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    Phil Newton (henceforth to be known as Dr Phil) and I have begun a new podcast series to help medical students and others in similar need learn about neuroscience. Phil intends the series to be complementary to the lecture series in Swansea, but it should be useful and maybe even interesting to students anywhere. In…

  • Podcast episode 23

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    A new podcast is up on iTunes and the medicine page of my blog. Rhi and I finish talking about our list of things med students really should know about the anatomy of the pelvis. We include the vas deferens and the urethra, the os, the organs of the female pelvis and their ligaments, and…

  • Cell Size & Scale

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    Do you struggle with the concept of scale, like I do? How small is a red blood cell compared with a grain of salt? How big is a virus? What does a glucose molecule look like to a cell? Try this: http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/begin/cells/scale/

  • Heart sounds, podcast

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    Are you learning to recognise heart sounds, or revising? Go to iTunes U and have a listen to this Medical College of Georgia podcast: Heart Sounds This is a natural and great use for the podcast format, but you’ll need some teaching to go with the sounds that you hear! As a simple anatomist I’ve…

  • The brain has crumple zones?

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    The brain’s sulci seem to play a role in physical damage limitation. A study modelled the effects of impact on normal brains and gyri and sulci free brains. The smooth brains were more vulnerable. Links: Wired article Ho J, Kleiven S. (2009). Can sulci protect the brain from traumatic injury?, J Biomech. Aug 11, epub…

  • Stress and Illness

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    A common theme on this website (and the reason for the domain name, “dontbeasalmon.net”) is the link between stress and illness. Here’s a brief article on ScienceDaily.com: Starve A Fever, Feed A Cold, Don’t Be Stressed. There are notes about the field of “psychoneuroimmunology” (which is a new one for me) and the study of…

  • Drug testing

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    This is why drug testing scares me. A recent study, summarised in this slowtwitch.com article, demonstrated that athletes ingesting a mere 5ug of the nandrolone precursor 19-norandrostenedione (NOR) tested positive for this anabolic steroid using existing procedures. That’s a tiny amount. It’s a trace amount. It’s an amount that you wouldn’t ingest to improve your…

  • Working!

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    Working!, originally uploaded by samwebster. My job is fun. I was walking this skeleton around the School of Medicine. No-one else wanted to take the lift with him.

  • Needle or toothpick, acupuncture helps

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    A study comparing the treatment of chronic low back pain using general acupuncture, individually prescribed acupuncture, acupuncture that didn’t pierce the skin (but poked the acupuncture “points”) or contemporary medical treatment suggests that acupuncture can help, and that you don’t need to pierce the skin. I’ve only come across this brief Reuters report and haven’t…