March 14, 2010 — In April of last year, influenza A H1N1, or “swine flu,” led the news. People watched attentively as the number of confirmed cases and affected countries grew, with the spread deemed particularly newsworthy since this strain of influenza had not circulated before in humans; it was a new flu. In June, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared influenza A H1N1 a pandemic1. Following the announcement, governments released stockpiles of antiviral drugs and researchers increased efforts to prepare a vaccine. In October, the vaccine for influenza A H1N1 became available in the United States2, the United Kingdom3, France4, and Canada5, among many other countries. After initial shortages, vaccine production expanded. By the end of 2009, more than 85 million doses were available in the United States2. However not all countries were able to quickly produce vaccines. WHO called for an international effort to allow equal access to vaccines and received about 200 million doses of donated vaccines which will go to 95 countries requesting aide6. By February, WHO planned to have distributed vaccines to 14 countries; but only two, Mongolia and Azerbaijan, have received them. WHO officials note such distributions present considerable logistical challenges; still the efforts continue7. All New This Flu Season: Strain, Vaccines, and (Potentially) Treatments
March 14, 2010 — In April of last year, influenza A H1N1, or “swine flu,” led the news. People watched attentively as the number of confirmed cases and affected countries grew, with the spread deemed particularly newsworthy since this strain of influenza had not circulated before in humans; it was a new flu. In June, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared influenza A H1N1 a pandemic1. Following the announcement, governments released stockpiles of antiviral drugs and researchers increased efforts to prepare a vaccine. In October, the vaccine for influenza A H1N1 became available in the United States2, the United Kingdom3, France4, and Canada5, among many other countries. After initial shortages, vaccine production expanded. By the end of 2009, more than 85 million doses were available in the United States2. However not all countries were able to quickly produce vaccines. WHO called for an international effort to allow equal access to vaccines and received about 200 million doses of donated vaccines which will go to 95 countries requesting aide6. By February, WHO planned to have distributed vaccines to 14 countries; but only two, Mongolia and Azerbaijan, have received them. WHO officials note such distributions present considerable logistical challenges; still the efforts continue7. 
Things You Can Learn by Poking Yourself in the Eye
February 14, 2010 — Every university has a classic course, one with a professor or subject matter that becomes the stuff of campus legend. At Kansas State University, where I got my undergraduate degree, that class was Appreciation of Architecture. The waitlist each semester was massive, but Professor Seamon always managed to squeeze in everyone who wanted to come. We’d sit back and relax in the darkened lecture hall as he showed photos and regaled us with colorful commentary on everything from a tiny park in New York City to the rose window of Notre Dame. “When you walk in and see those colors, it’s just like being high,” he’d say, year after year. After a long pause punctuated by gasps and giggles, he’d continue huffily, “Well, it was the 60’s, you know!”
It seems that Jeremy Wolfe, a professor of ophthalmology at Harvard Medical School and a senior lecturer at MIT, might give Professor Seamon a run for his money with his wildly popular visual-perception seminar on “Ten Things You Can Learn by Poking Yourself in the Eye.” I had hoped to find a video of the lecture, but we’ll have to settle for descriptions of some of the experiments.
Toe Strength and Falling Among the Elderly
February 6, 2010 — My grandfather recently fell and broke his hip while “tinkering outside behind the workshop” on his Texas farm. Initially, the trauma of the incident and the painful surgery and rehabilitation blurred his memory of the specifics, but our suspicions that the real story included some quicker-than-most-octogenarians-can-handle movements away from a larger-than-expected flame were eventually confirmed when his recollection became clearer. As it turns out, he’d used too much gasoline to start a fire in a burn barrel while disposing of some falling ceiling material from an old shed. Whether it was a reflexive jump away or the power of the blast itself that knocked him off balance, we’ll never know. The drama of Grandpa’s fall certainly isn't the norm, though, with many researchers suggesting that falls by the elderly are often due to something surprisingly simple: toe weakness and deformity.
Sundance Film Festival Presents: "Glottal Opera"
February 1, 2010 — I never thought I'd be posting something from a film festival on a biomed site; but I've just watched an official selection from the 2010 Sundance Film Festival which left me mesmerized and, admittedly, a bit disturbed. Titled "Glottal Opera," it features a performance of the song "My Lips" by the vocal cords (the title was no joke!) of the ladies of the musical group Kaya. Intrigued? Watch the film after the jump, and don't forget to brush up on the vocal cord anatomy and mechanics described in "From Steven Tyler's Screams to Pavarotti's High C--The Science of Singing"!
What Hot Springs and Yogurt Have in Common: Beneficial Bacteria
Thousands of New Amputees Struggling for Aid in Haiti
January 28, 2010 — MSNBC has just posted a story by health writer JoNel Aleccia about the staggering number of amputees created by the Haitian earthquake and the tremendous aid efforts which will be required to care for them. Though estimates are difficult to make during the chaotic early stages of disaster relief, anywhere from a few thousand to over 110,000 amputations are believed to have taken place since the quake. Putting this into an amputations-per-day context clarifies the horror, with the most conservative estimates by aid workers interviewed for the report suggesting that at least 75 people per day have lost limbs. The magnitude of the quake would generally be expected to result in hundreds of amputations, rather than thousands; but factors ranging from the high population density at the center of the quake to the number of health and aid agencies that were destroyed in the disaster have led to the abnormally high count. The full story can be found here, and MSNBC's list of groups aiding victims of the earthquake as they face the challenges of amputation can be found after the jump.
The Potential of the Stem Cell Niche: An Overview of Stem Cell Science and Politics
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Trailblazing: A Sampling of the Best of the Last 350 Years of Science
December 2, 2009 — In celebration of its 350th anniversary, Britain’s Royal Society has launched Trailblazing, a fascinating interactive timeline highlighting sixty of the greatest scientific publications featured in the pages of its journals from 1665 to 2010. With online access to original manuscripts supplemented by commentary from modern-day experts, it’s a unique glimpse into the work of some of the scientific world’s greatest researchers--both quiet geniuses and renowned icons.
Beyond the simple wow-factor of so much great science (including many medical studies) in one place, I was particularly taken by the amusing writing styles of the older papers. Many read almost as if the author were having a conversation with a friend, making them much more enjoyable than the dry, bare-bones articles often published today. Furthermore, the inclusion of major historical events on the timeline helped put the discoveries into a context often not discussed in science classes.
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Beyond the simple wow-factor of so much great science (including many medical studies) in one place, I was particularly taken by the amusing writing styles of the older papers. Many read almost as if the author were having a conversation with a friend, making them much more enjoyable than the dry, bare-bones articles often published today. Furthermore, the inclusion of major historical events on the timeline helped put the discoveries into a context often not discussed in science classes.
Personalizing the Human Genome Project
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A Woman Is Like a Pressure Vessel? Merging Engineering and Obstetrics
“Now, hear me out, Bob. A woman is like a pressure vessel, becau—”
Several female heads popped around the corner, and my husband quickly found himself in dangerous territory.
While comparing a woman with a pressure vessel certainly has the makings of a disaster, for researchers combining biomedical engineering and obstetrics, it’s an angle through which to study a serious problem: premature birth due to early rupture of the fetal membranes. Though mechanical failure of the membranes and the subsequent release of amniotic fluid (“water breaking”) is a normal signifier of the onset of labor, preterm premature rupture of the fetal membranes (pPROM) is a leading cause of preterm birth, occurring in about 3-5% of human pregnancies1.
From Steven Tyler's Screams to Pavarotti's High C—The Science of Singing
After much rambling conversation, ranging from the recent Hugh Grant sighting in college to whether or not the college’s ever-entertaining butler Nigel really used to be Elizabeth Taylor’s personal assistant, the group attempted to cross the great sciences/humanities divide. The classicist admitted he faked his understanding of the biomedical engineer's research at a post-concert party several months earlier—a crushing blow, given her excitement at the time at having found someone outside the lab who cared. The organist and classicist reached out to the civil engineer by saying they remembered watching a video of “some bridge that fell” in school. The mechanical engineer jumped (literally jumped out of his seat, that is) at the opportunity to relate the resonance frequency of bridges to harmonic frequencies of music; and the biomedical engineer informed the organist that next time his instructor tried to get him to practice more, he could cite focal dystonia as a reason to not.
Finally, the classicist exclaimed, “Surely, there’s loads of biomedical research about the vocal cords!” B!B has found this to be quite true, so turn up your music and rock read on!
Gems amidst the Rubble: Writing Worth Reading in the U.S. Healthcare Debate
October 11, 2009 — It’s been difficult lately to escape the squabbling amongst U.S. politicians over healthcare reform. Whether it’s "death panels," "You Lie!," or the claim that Republicans want people who get sick to "die quickly," the debate has been characterized by a marked lack of thoughtfulness. Thankfully, a few gems can be found amidst the rubble, providing interesting insights without falling into the trap of partisan blather. After the jump, I list a few that I think are worth a look.
Prosthetics with Aesthetics
October 6, 2009 — Actress, model, athlete, and double amputee Aimee Mullins boasts a prosthetic leg collection which might be comparable to many people’s shoe collections: Cheetah® legs for sprinting, biking, and swimming; four human-like pairs with varying heel heights; an everyday pair with shock absorbers and a spring; and six other pairs which can best be described as high fashion. While tremendous strides have been made toward realistic-looking prosthetics, a new trend is emerging toward artistic prosthetics which can be a means of individual expression.Rowers' High: Relating Behavioral Synchrony and Pain Tolerance
October 3, 2009 — Having rowed for my college at Oxford and found it an intensely painful but oddly addictive experience (I suspect there are a few of you out there nodding right now), I was intrigued by this new research out of the University of Oxford Institute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology. In a study of 12 rowers from Oxford's Boat Race team, researchers found that team members were able to tolerate twice as much pain after training together than after training on their own.Dear [Player Name], next time, please use an initial angle of ____ and initial velocity of ____.
September 18, 2009 — College basketball may not quite be right around the corner, but B!B’s Lisa Martin has compiled a review which will make you nearly as intolerable a fan as the typical armchair coach. Now, when [Rival Team's Star] steps up to the line and chokes, you’ll be able to take gloating to a whole new level, proudly exclaiming to your friends exactly why he or she missed and what the coach should do about it.Read More...
The Politics of Prosthetics: Insuring America's Lower-Limb Amputees
September 12, 2009 — B!B believes, as Dean Gordon Brown once said, that "engineers operate at the interface between science and society," making an occasional glimpse into the world of politics and related fields well-advised. In the following article, an updated version of that originally published in the 2009 New Collection (ISSN 1757-2541), B!B's Lisa Martin partners with Angela Cummine,* an MPhil candidate in Political Theory in Oxford University's Department of Politics and International Relations, to discuss the just distribution of prosthetic limbs in the context of a luck egalitarian philosophical framework.Read More...
From Gait Analysis to Automotive Aerodynamics
Can't get the jelly jar open?
September 3, 2009 — B!B suspects you've been there: you open the refrigerator in search of a snack, find what you want, and are stymied by a stubborn jar. You twist and twist—nothing. You run water over it. You try gripping with a wet dishcloth. Hunger begins to wear you down. To hear you would make Monica Seles (who registered a 93.2 decibel grunt at Wimbledon in 1992) blush. Then in steps your household jar opening expert, who pops it right open. What’s the deal? B!B takes a look at the kinematics of jar opening, from youth to old age.Welcome to Brilliant!Biomed!
September 1, 2009 — Thanks for visiting Brilliant!Biomed! The site aims to provide engaging, scientifically sound summaries of interesting research in fields relevant to health and medicine to an audience ranging from academics to healthcare professionals to the general public. Keeping in mind the close cooperation needed among all involved in healthcare, it will also occasionally cross over into health policy, politics, and more.
Brilliant!Biomed was founded by Lisa Martin, a doctoral student in biomedical engineering at Oxford University. Born and raised in Kansas, she earned a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering at Kansas State University before beginning her studies in Oxford, where she is funded by a Marshall Scholarship. Potential B!B contributors are encouraged to contact her at editor@brilliantbiomed.com, as are any who would like to comment on the website or who are interested in commissioning an article. Thanks for reading!
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