Waardenburg Syndrome is a rare autosomal genetic disorder that has possible bright blue eyes as one of its qualifying criteria, along with possible deafness (common). Actually, the cause of the blue eyes is a form of albinism that may include patches of non-pigmented skin or forehead hair, regardless of ethnicity.

There are four types of Waardenburg Syndrome, with a mix of possible characteristics as the determinant. Medical challenges increase with type. The boy in the picture is displaying two major symptoms of type 1; bright blue eyes and dystopia canthorum, a condition where the inner corners of the eyes are set more widely apart, but with normally distanced eyes. ...

The researchers gave pregnant women a recording of several spoken variations of the made-up word "tatata" to play daily during their last trimester. When tested using EEG sensors after birth, their infants' brains recognised the words and its variations, while the control group did not.

Patients with urinary tract infections can drink cranberry juice to make their urine more acidic.

Bacteria that cause a urinary tract infection multiply rapidly in alkaline urine, but not in acidic urine. Some types of kidney stones form in alkaline urine, but not in acidic urine.  

Being a person that dislikes the smell or sight of blood, it makes me happy to read that a product that could prevent the leakage of blood has been created. The inventors call it "vetigel", but the "Band Aid of the Future" seems to be a better name. This product is a plant based adhesive that can heal wounds and clot blood within seconds. It has a great potential to revolutionize the Emergency Medicine field.

"The gel activates blood’s natural clotting process and is made with biocompatible components that can be absorbed directly into the body. By reassembling onto a wound site, VETIGEL mimics the body’s extracellular matrix and accelerates the production of fibrin, which enables the body to clot rapidly."

Make sure to watch these videos to ...

In a paper this week in Science, two scientists at John Hopkins have united biology and mathematics to propose a mathematical formula to explain the genesis of cancer.


Take the number of cells in an organ, identify what percentage of them are long-lived stem cells, and determine how many times the stem cells divide. With every division, there’s a risk of a cancer-causing mutation in a daughter cell. Thus, Tomasetti and Vogelstein reasoned, the tissues that host the greatest number of stem cell divisions are those most vulnerable to cancer. When Tomasetti crunched the numbers and compared them with actual cancer statistics, he concluded that this theory explained two-thirds of all cancers.

“Using the mathematics of evolution, you can really ...

The importance of adequate, non-distracted, deep sleep could not be emphasized enough. Recent research has put the brain yet again under the spotlight, this time only to shed some light on one more reason we should be getting our sleep and why. Make sure to watch the video above. It is hands down, one of the best TED talks I have listened to. As for now, I'mma go make my CSF flush my amyloid betas Nighty, night!

We've all struggled trying to shove magnanimous amounts of information for exams, be it vocabulary, geometry theorems, biology notes, chemistry reactions, physics equations or even just names of acquaintances we meet at weddings or the likes.  You might question whether after many years of non-stop learning, be it in a classroom setting, or just basic interactions and do's and don'ts, may we run out of space to absorb all the memories, events and information we encounter.

Our brain, unlike the brains of animals and lower ancestors, is not hardwired by instincts. In fact, we have very little in the field of instincts by comparison. Our brain is a learning brain. It is designed to absorb and interconnect information. Now, which of this inform ...

I have a big scar on my leg from when I was a kid. I often wonder what would have happened if we let it heal on its own without using stitches.

Here's what happens when you do get stitches:


Here's what happens without stitches:


And finally, this scenario often leads to contamination. In this case, you'd get this:


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