This week’s Feedback column (that I write) in New Scientist magazine has three segments. Here are bits of each of them: Wrong, wrong, wrong — The Journal of Patient Safety has a new report called “Insurance claims for wrong-side, wrong-organ, wrong-procedure, or wrong-person surgical errors: A retrospective study for 10 years“. Something is a little off even with […]
“Total body water was determined by deuterium oxide dilution in 17 normal male subjects with a range of 55.9% to 70.2% and an average value of 61.8% of body weight. Eleven normal females ranged from 45.6% to 59.9% with an average of 51.9%, or 9.9% less than the males. These total body water figures have […]
Editing can be a slow process. A new study suggests that a famous novel published three centuries ago could and should be edited to correct a calculation error. The study is: “Physiological Essay on Gulliver’s Travels: A Correction After Three Centuries,” Toshio Kuroki, The Journal of Physiological Sciences, epub 2019. (Thanks to Mark Dionne for […]
You might think that, in the eyes of the law, you ‘own’ your body and all its constituent parts. Think again. “Most women would be stunned to discover that the law does not consider a piece of their body to be their property” That’s when the body part under consideration is a placenta. This perplexing […]
