Topic

Medicine, Psychology & Health

A collection of 141 issues

When the Body Becomes a Prison: The Terrifying Reality of Extreme Constipation

A 28-year-old woman's 45-day constipation culminated in emergency surgery to remove a football-sized intestinal blockage. Her shocking case reveals the life-threatening reality of fecal impaction, where a common ailment becomes a medical catastrophe.

Medicine, Psychology & Health Oddities & Curiosities

The Logician Who Starved to Death on a Flaw of Reason

He was the logician who proved the limits of mathematics itself. Yet, Kurt Gödel's brilliant mind constructed one system it couldn't escape: a paranoid fear of being poisoned that led him to starve to death when his only trusted protector fell ill.

Biography & Personal Stories Science & Nature Medicine, Psychology & Health

How a Genuine Cure Became America's Most Famous Fraud

The term 'snake oil' is synonymous with quackery, but it began as a legitimate anti-inflammatory remedy brought to America by Chinese railroad workers. The name was only tarnished when American hucksters began selling counterfeit versions to an unsuspecting public.

History Medicine, Psychology & Health Business & Economics

That 'Fresh Laundry' Scent Is a Chemical Illusion

The chemicals that give your laundry its soft feel and lasting 'fresh scent' are potent disinfectants linked to a range of health risks and the rise of antibiotic-resistant superbugs.

Medicine, Psychology & Health Environment & Climate Science & Nature

It Wasn't Just Nostalgia: The Biological Reason the Sky Used to Be Bluer

The memory of a more vibrant world isn't a trick of the mind. As we age, the lens of the human eye yellows, filtering out blue light and making the world appear demonstrably less colorful than it did in our youth.

Science & Nature Medicine, Psychology & Health Oddities & Curiosities

The Unsung Genius of Forgetting: How Your Brain Actively Deletes Memories to Make You Smarter

We treat forgetting as a failure, but neuroscience reveals it's an active and essential process. Your brain intentionally prunes old connections and overwrites data, not as a bug, but as a critical feature for efficient learning and mental well-being.

Science & Nature Medicine, Psychology & Health

You Don't Glow in the Dark: The Unsettling Difference Between Irradiation and Contamination

Getting an X-ray doesn't make you radioactive, but what if radioactive dust got on your coat? The distinction between being exposed to radiation and being contaminated by it is the critical, often misunderstood, factor in how radiation actually spreads.

Science & Nature Medicine, Psychology & Health Technology & Innovation

Your Body's Built-in Forge: The Astonishing Science of Stomach Acid

Scientific studies confirm a shocking biological truth: the hydrochloric acid in your stomach is potent enough to dissolve a steel razor blade. This incredible corrosive power is contained by a remarkable failsafe—a constantly regenerating mucus layer that prevents you from digesting yourself.

Science & Nature Medicine, Psychology & Health Oddities & Curiosities

The First Chiropractor Got His Big Idea From a Ghost

Millions of people see chiropractors for back pain, but few know its founder claimed the entire practice was revealed to him by the spirit of a doctor dead for 50 years, an origin that explains its contentious place in modern medicine.

History Medicine, Psychology & Health Oddities & Curiosities

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