Daily MOS: The No Fear Disease
Urbach-Wiethe Disease will, neuron by neuron, remove every trace of your fear. But at what cost?
HEALTH
Daily MOS: Day of the Zebra
I live with an illness that has adopted the mascot of the zebra. Because so often, doctors see us zebras up close and can’t help but try to diagnose a striped horse.
Daily MOS: DDT, Chemical Menace or Savior?
Dr. Muller was awarded a Nobel Prize for his work developing the pesticide. After all, DDT was proven safe for humans, it killed mosquitoes, and wasn’t that enough?
Daily MOS: Get Hammered at the Hospital with this One Simple Trick
In order to ensure that your entire available supply of alcohol dehydrogenase is being blocked from breaking down ethylene glycol, you’re gonna have to take a positively heroic amount of alcohol.
Daily MOS: Pablo’s Hippos
When Pablo Escobar brought four hippos to Colombia, did he do much research? Nah. He brought them because having hippos was effing cool and who in God’s name was gonna tell Pablo Escobar, “hey, a word about your hippos?”
Daily MOS: Thalidomide and Teratogenesis
In an era when people were popping quaaludes like m&ms, this promised to be a drug that didn’t get you high and let you sleep through whatever was so stressful about the 1950s. It was so absurdly non-toxic they couldn’t find a dose that would kill a rat.
Daily MOS: The Radium Girls
In the early twentieth century, radiation was understood about as well as 5G is understood by conspiracy theorists today. How were we supposed to know that mysterious glowy things signaled danger decades before the modern horror movie?
Daily MOS: The Invention of Handwashing
It’s been hard to get people to take some common sense advice during this pandemic, but hand washing was an easy one to get people on board with. The first guy who said “hey maybe wash your hands when doctoring” was beaten to death in an insane asylum.
Daily MOS: The First Acid Trip
Dr. Albert Hofmann discovered LSD and thought it was a failure. Then, five years later, he touched it.
Daily MOS: The Life Changing Magic of Botulism
How did the deadliest neurotoxin on the planet morph from a treatment for crossed eyes into modern medical duct tape?