Isadora Botwinick

Rocket ships. Guns. So much vaguely phallic technology in the news. It's time to stop beating about the bush and discuss the real thing.

Here are three cool urogenital advances to learn about -- and one very catchy music video.

[ Read Full Story ]

When most people hear the phrase "organ transplantation," they generally think of allotransplantation, that is, the transplantation of organs from one person (allo=other) to a second person. Transplanted organs may come from a cadaver, as in heart transplants, or from a living donor, as with some kidney and liver transplants. Allotransplantation requires the use of immunosuppressive drugs. Patients who receive donor organs must take a special medication regimen for the rest of their lives to prevent their bodies from rejecting the "foreign" donor organs.

[ Read Full Story ]

I was feeling sick I was losing my mind I heard about these treatments
From a good friend of mine he was always happy smile on his face
He said he had a great time at the place...
Gimme gimme shock treatment Gimme gimme shock treatment
Gimme gimme shock treatment I wanna, wanna shock treatment....
Peace and love is here to stay
and now I can wake up and face the day
Happy happy happy all the time shock treatment, I'm doing fine
- The Ramones

Don't stick you finger in the electrical socket! That's one of the first things you learn as a kid, right? Otherwise, as all proper cartoons show, you'll end up with singed eyebrows and a wild poufy Einstein-style 'do. But all joking aside, electrocution is a serious business. People die from electrical burns, whether they have been hit by lightening or deliberately executed in the electric chair. (If you're worried about the former, and you find yourself the tallest object in an open field during an electrical storm, LIE DOWN. If you are worried about the latter...stay out of trouble. Or write to your congress person.) Bottom line, most people prefer not to be zapped with electricity...except when it can cure disease.

Psychiatrists currently use electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) for a variety of psychiatric disorders, but most commonly ECT is used for severe, treatment-resistant major depression, usually for inpatients who are too depressed to function outside the hospital.

[ Read Full Story ]

Call me Immunity. My friends call me “Private I,” because that’s what I do—I’m a private investigator, a detective, a shamus. I track down criminals and make sure they don’t get away with any funny business. Take this one case. Now I know there are a whole lot of bad girls in the city, but this one floozy—let’s call her “Flu” for short—she was a real piece of work.

I wasn’t prepared for Flu the first time we met. I ran into her at what I like to call my “second office,” a half-legal seedy little nightclub joint down by the docks. She was leaning on the piano, pretending to sing the blues. One look at her figure and long blonde hair and you knew she hadn’t been hired for her singing voice. We got acquainted. Matters got real friendly; I was too distracted to notice the three tough guys sitting in the corner. Next thing I know, I’m waking up in the gutter, no wallet, high fever, a pounding headache and a throat that feels like I’ve been gargling broken glass. Damn Flu.

[ Read Full Story ]

Liberté, égalité, fraternité . . . foreskin? Who knew that penises had anything to do with the French Revolution?

[ Read Full Story ]

Scene: A Royal Air Force station in Great Britain during World War II. Two medics, Tom and Fred are enjoying tea and toast. An officer arrives and orders the medics go out with a stretcher to retrieve a captured German pilot who was wounded when he ejected from his plane over British territory.

Tom: Dash it all, Fred, doesn’t this bloody Nazi pilot look just like the Nazi with the broken femur we just sent back through the POW exchange a few weeks ago? How could he be up and flying again so soon with an injury like that? He should have been bedridden with his leg up in traction for months!

Fred: Crikey, old chap, I do believe you’re right! [Addresses the Nazi pilot] Here now, tell us how you managed to get up and about so soon after cracking your femur?

German Pilot: Nein.

Tom: Come on, old boy, tell, are doctors in Germany so special they’ve got you cured already?

[ Read Full Story ]

I’m writing a screenplay for the next big Hollywood blockbuster. The main character is a Harvard-educated doctor who conducts research on a remote South Pacific Island in the 1960s. The doctor realizes that the native people on this island are suffering from a devastating epidemic. He notes the symptoms of this mysterious disease: first, the infected victims begin to tremble; they lose the ability to walk and begin to laugh a terrible, demonic laugh; dementia and death soon follow.

[ Read Full Story ]