Browsing: Health/Medicine

A Brief History On March 10, 1535, Tomás de Berlanga, a Spanish Bishop based in Panama, accidentally discovered the Galapagos Islands while sailing to Peru. These beautiful islands were not occupied by humans at the time and seem to never have had human inhabitants.  The 18 main islands are famous for their unique species of animals and plants and as the inspiration for Darwin’s theory of evolution. Digging Deeper Accidental discoveries have led to great things, including: In 1492, Christopher Columbus landed in the Bahamas, finding the Americas while on his way to East Asia, opening a vast and rich…

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A Brief History On March 4, 2020, Nik Wallenda of the famous acrobat and daredevil family, became the first person to walk on a wire above the crater of the Masaya Volcano in Nicaragua.  Not to be outdone, his wife, Erendira, performed an aerial routine above the smoking crater! Digging Deeper The Wallenda family is famous for many of their death-defying firsts, with Nik personally holding 11 Guinness World Records, including being the first to walk across Niagara Falls on a high wire. Other daredevils have achieved epic firsts, including: Annie Edson Taylor, the first to survive going over Niagara…

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A Brief History On February 11, 2001, the “Anna Kournikova Virus” was set loose by a Dutch computer troll, infecting the email of millions of users with a joke image of the eponymous tennis player along with a not so funny virus infecting their computers. Digging Deeper Anna, of course, had nothing to do with the computer plague that bears her name, and today we look at a few other unfortunately named items. Firstly, any disease or bad medical condition.  Examples would be Parkinson’s, Graves’, Alzheimer’s, Hodgkin’s, Crohn’s, or Down Syndrome. Sadism and Masochism are also both named after people!…

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A Brief History On February 5, 2024, Royal spokespersons released information that the reigning monarch of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, King Charles III, had been diagnosed and is under treatment for an undisclosed form of cancer. Digging Deeper King Charles, age 75, has been receiving treatment for an enlarged prostate gland which resulted in the cancer being discovered.  While not specifically naming the nature of the cancer, it was reported to not be prostate cancer. No prognosis has been released, and the King is being treated on an outpatient basis. He is expected to resume…

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A Brief History On January 22, 2009, only a couple days after being sworn in, President Barack Obama issued an Executive Order ordering the closure of the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where suspected terrorists were being held.  Congress overrode the President, and Gitmo stayed open.  Obama also suffered the failure to get universal national health care passed and had to settle for a watered-down version known as “Obamacare.” Digging Deeper Almost all presidents fail at certain projects and here we list a few: President Nixon, who promised “peace with honor” in Vietnam, but the North Vietnamese were not…

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