Original sin immunity
The first time you get sick with a virus can affect how your body responds to that virus for the rest of your life.
Category: Health & medicine
Don’t forget to breathe
People with central hypoventilation syndrome, also known as Ondine’s curse, can forget to breathe.
Human blood type systems
Your blood type is most commonly defined by two systems: ABO (blood types A, B, AB, and O) and Rh (+ or -). But these aren’t the only systems; there are more than thirty others.
Sentinel chickens
Specially designated “sentinel chickens” allow health officials to track the emergence of infectious diseases like West Nile virus amongst human populations.
Will Rogers paradox
Someone (not Will Rogers) once joked that “When the Okies left Oklahoma and moved to California, they raised the average intelligence level in both states.” This quirk of statistics has some surprising implications for cancer survival rates.
Let the buyer beware of magic stones
The famous legal phrase caveat emptor (“let the buyer beware”) entered common law because of a 17th century dispute over a magic bezoar stone.
The last smallpox survivor
In October 1977, Ali Maow Maalin was the last person to contract naturally occurring smallpox. He died thirty six years later while coordinating a polio vaccination drive.
Cow magnets
If you’re a bovine veterinarian, one of the tools in your arsenal might be the cow magnet.
Chimeric parents
During a child support dispute in 2002, a DNA test seemed to show that a mother was not the parent of her own biological children. The truth was stranger than anyone expected.
Left snail
The shells of almost all common garden snails coil to the right. Almost all.
Dragon blood island
Socotra, the alien island wedged between the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Aden, is home to the dragon blood tree: a source of dye, paint, medicine, varnish, and magic.
Fatal television
An episode of the 1970s television series The Goodies killed a man. He died laughing.
DNA lasso
In 2004 a new white blood cell defence mechanism was discovered: the cells extrude DNA threads like nets or lassos to trap and neutralise harmful bacteria.
Death by immortality potion
Poisoned potions of immortality caused the death of up to seven Chinese emperors – the last less than three centuries ago.
Sky compass
Bees use sunlight polarisation patterns to navigate. We can train ourselves to detect light polarisation too.
Space nurse
One nurse, Dee O’Hara, took vitals and monitored astronauts on the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo missions.