Healthcare Vox published an article earlier this week entitled “Is the Medical Blogosphere Dying?”, commenting on the number of well-known medical bloggers leaving the blogosphere. Although I don’t think the medical blogosphere is dying, recent events have been a catalyst for change and it’s definitely undergoing a transformation.
In Memorandum
May 17, 2007 | by
The medical blogosphere lost two important voices this week. FatDoctor was forced to shut down her blog due to privacy concerns. Flea’s blog mysteriously vanished. Given that he has been blogging about his malpractice trial, it’s likely that his blog also was taken down because of privacy issues. Hopefully, we’ll see his blog reappear when the litigation has finished.
Quercetin
May 16, 2007 | by
Quercetin is a polyphenol, one of a number of water-soluble plant pigments called flavonoids (meaning class of plant secondary metabolites known for their antioxidant activity) that are largely responsible for the color of many flowers, fruits and vegetables. High concentrations of quercetin are found in apples, onions, tea and red wine [1]. Other sources of quercetin include olive oil, grapes, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, dark cherries and dark berries such as blueberries, blackberries and bilberries. The average U.S. citizen eating a normal, healthy diet including fruits and vegetables consumes approximately 25-50 mg of quercetin/day. Quercetin and other flavonoids (also referred to as bioflavonoids) cannot be produced in the human body.
Alternative Ethanol Fuel Won’t Improve Future Air Quality
May 12, 2007 | by
Ethanol is produced biologically by fermenting sugar with Saccharomyces yeasts. Under anaerobic (meaning in the absence of oxygen) conditions, when yeast metabolize sugar, they produce ethanol and carbon dioxide. Bioethanol (meaning ethanol production derived from crops) is the most common renewable fuel today and is derived from corn grain (starch) and sugar cane (sucrose) [1]. Thus, ethanol is an inherently renewable eco-friendly resource, contributing nothing in itself to greenhouse gases. However, a study published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology (ES&T) concludes that if every vehicle in the U.S. ran on ethanol-based fuel, the number of respiratory-related deaths and hospitalizations would likely increase.
You read that right, widespread use of E85 would likely result in an increase in respiratory-related deaths and hospitalizations.
2007: The Year of the Personalized Genomics
May 8, 2007 | by
George Weinstock, co-director of the Human Genome Sequencing Center at Baylor College of Medicine, wrote a short, interesting article posted to MIT’s Tech Review, contemplating whether this year may be remembered as the year of the personalized genome.
In April, two companies, 454 Life Sciences and Illumina, announced plans to sequence individual human genomes. While genotyping tests have been used for decades to sequence single genes, DNA sequencing has never been done on the entire genome of a single person.
