Browsing: Health/Medicine

A Brief History On October 1, 2014, the findings of a medical study of adults between the ages of 57 and 85 published in the online journal PLOS ONE created a little stir on the internet when it was reported that a loss in one’s sense of smell could be indicative that one has less than five years to live! In other words, how good or bad one’s olfactory system is operating could be an indicator of one’s mortality and remaining life expectancy.  The exact mechanism, i.e. the correlation between the nose and general health, for this discovery is yet unknown, and further studies are necessary. Digging…

A Brief History Well, not exactly… But it probably seemed so!  Since the days of Confucious, nudity, even in art, has been viewed by the Chinese as immoral and was strictly prohibited.  This stance was so extreme that doctors could not look upon the naked bodies of their female patients to help treat them (more on this later). Digging Deeper For her series on instances of female nudity that were socially, culturally or historically significant, the author wanted to include examples from the Far East so that her lists would be more inclusive.  In the midst of her research, she discovered that there are very…

A Brief History On November 1, 1951, the U.S. military conducted Operation Buster-Jangle in which U.S. soldiers were exposed to atomic explosions in Nevada so that the effects could be studied.  Nobody asked the soldiers for consent, and many of them were probably draftees as well.  6,500 of these unfortunate men were used in 7 separate explosions, 5 of which were above ground (atmospheric), and the remaining 2 were underground (“cratering”).  Of course, the men were lied to about the “safety” of these tests, and they were exposed to harmful radiation from inhaling radioactive dust and marching on irradiated ground. Over the years, the U.S.…

A Brief History On October 4, 2010, the Ajka alumina plant in Hungary lost control of 35 million cubic feet of alumina sludge that ended up killing nine people and polluting the Danube and Marcal Rivers.  Yes, it was inevitable that someone alone the line would die in alumina sludge.  As Murphy’s Law states, if it can happen, it will happen.  But it is unlikely that anyone actually wakes up thinking “today this will happen to me.”  People are inventive and creative, and throughout history they have come up with new products, machines and techniques that also accidentally killed them.…

A Brief History On October 3, 1964, the Anchor Bar in Buffalo, New York first served Buffalo Wings.  Most people, like many of us here at History and Headlines, celebrate this day as one of the greatest days in Food History, and some of us even made a pilgrimage to the Anchor Bar to eat the original hot wings.  Of course, there are also people who refuse to believe that others eat Buffalo Wings, especially the extra extra hot ones.  Just as with art, one person’s likes and preferences are not necessarily shared by the next person. Back on July 5, 2014,…