Tag: cancer

  • Stop throwing food in the trash: it’s killing the planet

    Stop throwing food in the trash: it’s killing the planet

    For the sake of keeping the peace I had to bite my tongue. The meal had been a rare treat: succulent sirloin steak cooked medium-rare, smothered in a rich, creamy peppercorn sauce, served alongside bowls of al dente vegetables. But as the plates were piled up at the end of the meal, I watched aghast…

  • Hope and terror: I just had most of my frontal lobe chopped out

      The grizzly details  A little over two weeks ago, a tall Greek surgeon, with a name that literally means “to die” in Ancient Greek sawed a dessert plate-sized wedge of bone from the front of my head then cut and scraped a cancerous tumour from my right frontal lobe, leaving me with only a…

  • Mystery symptoms? Get your lead levels checked

    It’s every gardener’s nightmare. Digging deep into the earth, you strike something hard and, with a metallic thud, a geyser of water fountains up into your face. One of our neighbours recently experienced such a shovelling disaster while erecting a new fence when an old lead pipe supplying her mains water was punctured by a misplaced…

  • Test yourself: Could you spot a skin cancer? Never miss a melanoma.

    If you ever doubted humankind’s ability to do great things for our planet, just look at the sky. Or rather, look toward the ozone layer high in the stratosphere. If you cast your mind back, you will remember that there was a lot of talk of the ‘hole in the ozone layer’ brought on by…

  • It’s ‘mo’ joke – moustache month is here!

    Moustaches are a bit like flares, perms and tie-dye t-shirts – they only come into fashion once a generation. Now I don’t care what the fashionistas tell me, or how many glossy fashion mags feature models sporting ‘hipster moustaches’ – moustaches are anything but hip. Surely the last person who looked cool with a tash…

  • New Study: Can Religion Help You Fight Serious Illness?

    “Do you believe in God?” is not the sort of thing you normally expect to hear in a hospital clinic. But for a group women quietly waiting in a breast health clinic, their wait to see the doctor was interrupted by this question. However, this wasn’t an enthusiastic evangelist trying to win a new convert;…

  • When Not to Lick Your Fingers: Artificial Sweeteners

      When I learnt NOT to lick my fingers    Whenever you work in a science lab, you are taught never to eat or drink anything. And there is good reason for this:  During medical school I had weekly human dissection lessons. I once licked my fingers straight after one of these sessions… never would I do that…

  • Coffee – Drink Up! The virtues of coffee drinking…

    Coffee is that strong smelling and bitter drink that people love or hate. Personally, I love it. Last year, I visited the UK’s first coffee festival and had so much fun that I’m looking forward to doing it again this summer. But next time I think I will curb my consumption: Over 20 espressos was…