On Tuesday morning, a brain surgeon in Birmingham, Ala., walked six miles through a severe snow storm to save a patient’s life.
Dr. Zenko Hrynkiw, Trinity Medical Center’s only neurosurgeon, had just finished surgery at a neighboring hospital when Steve Davis, the charge nurse at Trinity’s neuro intensive care unit, called him with an emergency, AL.com reported. Hrynkiw attempted to drive to the hospital, but roadblocks prevented him from getting far.
Davis told The Huffington Post that both local authorities and Trinity tried to provide transportation for Hrynkiw, but to no avail.
“I called him again and he said, ‘I’m not getting anywhere, I’m walking,'” Davis told HuffPost.
Before they become part of our consciousness, memories aren’t much more than molecules. But how exactly do memories get stored in the brain?
With the help of mice and some advanced imaging techniques, scientists from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University in New York recently sought to answer that question. This short video illustrates how the brain makes memories on a molecular level.
The team put fluorescent tags on messenger RNA (mRNA) molecules that code for beta-actin, a protein believed to be crucial for the formation of memories. As described in two studies published Jan. 24 in the journal Science, the team then stimulated neurons in the hippocampus — the part of the brain where memories are formed — and monitored a living brain cell.
It’s commonly said that we humans use only about 10 percent of our brains, with some people attributing Einstein’s brilliance to his ability to stretch that paltry figure to 15 percent.
But in the video above, neurologist Dr. Richard Cytowic debunks these familiar notions, arguing that brain regions once believed to be “silent” are actually humming with activity.
A Southern California woman faces a murder charge in the fatal beating of a woman outside a Santa Ana night club last weekend.
Vanessa Tapia Zavala, 25, is one of five people who allegedly attacked 23-year-old Annie Hung “Kim” Pham outside of the Crosby Bar and Nightclub early Saturday.
A friend of the victim’s told the L.A. Times that the altercation began after Pham accidentally photobombed a group of Zavala’s friends.
UPDATE: Jan. 25 — A second woman has been arrested in the beating death of Kim Pham, according to the Associated Press.
The fight was recorded on cell phone video, which police then reviewed, according to the newspaper.
A Pennsylvania medical examiner reports more than a dozen people have died in recent weeks from overdosing on laced heroin thought to be sweeping the region.
Allegheny County medical examiner Dr. Karl Williams said Thursday that laboratory tests confirmed that the ultra-potent painkiller fentanyl was present in heroin samples seized in connection with at least 14 overdose deaths in Pennsylvania, according to the Pittsburgh Gazette.
Fentanyl, which is typically prescribed to cancer patients as a last resort, can be 10 to 100 times stronger than morphine, according to CNN. The laced heroin has been sold under street names like “Bud Ice” and “Theraflu.”
Master speed-painter D. Westry shows off his creative skills during the “Anderson’s Viewers Got Talent” competition At first I thought this was going nowhere…until the very last second.
How germy are those lemon wedges we plop into our water glasses at restaurants?
A slice of lemon can spruce up plain-old water, but you might be drinking more than you bargained for. Turns out, those seemingly innocuous water glass garnishes (see also: iced tea and diet soda) could be serving up a host of unappetizing organisms.
In 2005, a young woman named Jill appeared on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” with her brutally honest father, Kirk, to talk about what it was like being “the fat one in the family.” Overweight and feeling shunned, Jill — then known as Jill Roberts — listened as her father shared his harsh criticisms of her.
“Does it bother me when we’re out in public that Jill’s overweight? It does. I’ll be honest,” Kirk said back then.
“I just have this built-up hatred, like, ‘What is wrong with you? Why don’t you love me?'” Jill said, through tears.
New details have emerged in the case of a British woman who admitted to a triple killing last year.
Joanna Dennehy, 31, pleaded guilty in November to murdering three men by stabbing them in the heart and dumping their bodies in ditches in Cambridgeshire.
Her alleged accomplices, Leslie Layton, 36, and 7-foot-2-inch Gary “Stretch” Richards, 47, are now on trial. Providing evidence against them, Dennehy’s friend Georgina Page described how the confessed killer likened herself and Richards to Bonnie and Clyde, and “jumped around like a schoolgirl” when she learned of news reports about the murders, according to the BBC.
A 20-year-old woman in eastern India was gang-raped by 13 men on the orders of a village court as punishment for having a relationship with a man from a different community, a senior police officer said on Thursday.
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The woman, who is now recovering in hospital, told police she was assaulted by the men on the night of Jan. 20 in Birbhum district in West Bengal.
Police said that her male companion was tied up in the village square, while the assault on the woman happened in a mud house.
“We arrested all the 13 men, including the village chief who ordered the gang rape. The accused have been produced in court which remanded them to jail custody,” Birbhum’s Superintendent of Police, C. Sudhakar, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Film and Writing Festival for Comedy. Showcasing best of comedy short films at the FEEDBACK Film Festival. Plus, showcasing best of comedy novels, short stories, poems, screenplays (TV, short, feature) at the festival performed by professional actors.
James' World 2 