A polio survivor, who lived inside an iron lung for 70 years, has died at the age of 78. Paul Alexander, widely known as "Polio Paul", contracted the viral disease in the summer of 1952 when he was six years old and was left paralysed from the neck down. He was rushed to hospital in Texas -...

I found out something today that I had never heard before: you can actually live without an anus! Maggie, a brave and quite humorous woman who had much of her colon removed and had a colonostomy bag installed, tells her story on YouTube. For her, a young sufferer with Crohn's Disease, her anus...

Seen a few conspiracy theories sprouting up about this new virus. Mostly about underreported numbers of infected/dead, but also the expected "It was made in a government lab!", e.g.

My shin started itching as soon as I read the headline. This is a serious problem wgich will only get wirse. Be careful of where you ramble when wearing shorts. Lyme disease is set to explode, and you can’t protect yourself A new prediction says 2017 and 2018 will see major Lyme disease...

This is by way of an extended thought experiment rather than any practical lifestyle recommendation (please read on, you are intrigued, or you wouldn't have reached the end of this sentence). Humanity, like all animals, procreates via sex, in all it's various versions. People, for most of our...

Edit to amend title.

http://www.azcentral.com/offbeat/articl ... to-ON.html File under "WTF?" :wtf:

Ok, this is only in mice, but I thought it warranted a mention, because this a field of research where there are generally precious few breakthroughs in a rehabilitative sense. I wonder where the origins of the antibody they used lie? http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4188677.stm...

Sophie Cameron Trust BBCi News 27/07/04

Kinda surprised there was no existing thread. Prompted by seeing this news story today: http://www.cnn.com/2004/HEALTH/conditions/07/20/sickvets.ap/index.html Study debunks Gulf War bacteria theory Antibiotic treatments did nothing, researchers say Tuesday, July 20, 2004 Posted...

Bubonic plague suspected in NYC visitors Friday, November 8, 2002 Posted: 12:14 PM EST (1714 GMT) NEW YORK (CNN) -- A New Mexico couple who traveled to New York have been hospitalized with what is believed to be the first case of bubonic plague in the city in a century, said health officials...

I'm sure that I can't be the only one to have heard the story that sharks cannot catch cancer. Versions of the story have it that scientists have attempted to start cancers in sharks, but that bizarrely the cancer just withers away. Today in the Observer, a medical article (discussing the...

I grew up in Wells, Somerset, on the Keward Estate which looked out over rolling fields to a delightful sewage farm. Behind this stands the imposing Hay Hill (http://www.streetmap.co.uk/streetmap.dll?grid2map?x=352500&y=144500&zoom=3&isp=200&ism=1000&arrow=y?151,86) We had a pet Chichuahua at...