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(alchemists have always been important and studied in the history of science, especially by medievalist... but, anyway...)
Transforming the Alchemists
By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD, The New York Times, August 1, 2006
PHILADELPHIA — Historians of science are taking a new and lively interest in alchemy, the often mystical investigation into the hidden mysteries of nature that reached its heyday in Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries and has been an embarrassment to modern scientists ever since.
There was no place in the annals of empirical science, beginning mainly in the 18th century, for the occult practices of obsessed dreamers who sought most famously and impossibly to transform base metals into pure gold. So alchemy fell into disrepute.
But in the revival of scholarship on the field, historians are finding reasons to give at least some alchemists their due. Even though they were secretive and self-deluded and their practices closer to magic than modern scientific methods, historians say, alchemists contributed to the emergence of modern chemistry as a science and an agent of commerce.
( Read More )
A Small Charity Takes Lead in Fighting a Disease
By STEPHANIE STROM, The New York Times, July 31, 2006
PATNA, India — The drug that could have cured Munia Devi through a series of cheap injections was identified decades ago but then died in the research pipeline because there was no profit in it.
So Mrs. Devi lay limp in a hospital bed here recently, her spleen and liver bulging from under her rib cage as a bilious yellow liquid dripped into her thin arm. The treatment she was receiving can be toxic, and it costs $500. But it was her best hope to cure black fever, a disease known locally as kala azar, which kills an estimated half-million people worldwide each year, almost all of them poor like Mrs. Devi.
Soon, however, all that may change. A small charity based in San Francisco has conducted the medical trials needed to prove that the drug is safe and effective. Now it is on the verge of getting final approval from the Indian government. A course of treatment with the drug is expected to cost just $10, and experts say it could virtually eliminate the disease.
( Read More )
The Doctor's World: In Philadelphia 30 Years Ago, an Eruption of Illness and Fear
By LAWRENCE K. ALTMAN, The New York Times, August 1, 2006
In late July 1976, American Legionnaires returning from a state convention in Philadelphia began to fall ill with mysterious symptoms: pneumonia and fevers topping 107 degrees.
By early August, news organizations across the country were reporting that 6 to 14 of the men in Pennsylvania had died. Others were in hospitals fighting for their lives. No laboratory tests could determine the cause of their illness, which quickly became known as Legionnaires’ disease. No one knew the health status of the 10,000 other convention participants.
As the news began to break, 30 years ago this week, Americans were primed for the threat of an epidemic. The Ford administration was making plans to vaccinate every American against a new strain of influenza, known as swine flu, after repeated warnings from government officials that a devastating epidemic could strike without warning. Michael Crichton’s “Andromeda Strain” had become a best seller. And some scientists were calling for a moratorium on laboratory efforts to genetically engineer microbes for fear they might create a monster germ.
( Read More )
Researchers Explore Ways Bird Flu May Spread
By DENISE GRADY, The New York Times, August 1, 2006
A new study addresses the most urgent public health question about bird flu: what would it take to make the virus more contagious in people?
The study did not exactly answer the question, but it did show what does not work — simple genetic changes are not enough to transform the virus into a strain that could cause a pandemic.
Researchers from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tried to make the A(H5N1) bird flu virus more contagious, but could not, they are reporting this week in the online edition of The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
That result may sound like good news, but the scientists urge caution. “These data do not mean H5N1 cannot convert to being transmissible person to person,” said Dr. Julie Gerberding, director of the disease centers. “They mean it is not simple.”
( Read More )
Really? The Claim: Wounds Heal Better When Exposed to Air
By ANAHAD O’CONNOR, The New York Times, August 1, 2006
THE FACTS Most parents and school nurses have a time-honored approach to treating a small wound: clean it up, stop the bleeding and then let it get some air.
The point of this approach, as described in medical texts, is to lower the odds of infection and to speed the healing process. But over the years, researchers have found that what many people know about treating small cuts and scrapes is wrong.
( Read More )
Evolution’s Backers in Kansas Mount a Counterattack
By RALPH BLUMENTHAL, The New York Times, August 1, 2006
KANSAS CITY, Kan., July 29 — God and Charles Darwin are not on the primary ballot in Kansas on Tuesday, but once again a contentious schools election has religion and science at odds in a state that has restaged a three-quarter-century battle over the teaching of evolution.
Less than a year after a conservative Republican majority on the State Board of Education adopted rules for teaching science containing one of the broadest challenges in the nation to Darwin’s theory of evolution, moderate Republicans and Democrats are mounting a fierce counterattack. They want to retake power and switch the standards back to what they call conventional science.
( Read More )
Transforming the Alchemists
By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD, The New York Times, August 1, 2006
PHILADELPHIA — Historians of science are taking a new and lively interest in alchemy, the often mystical investigation into the hidden mysteries of nature that reached its heyday in Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries and has been an embarrassment to modern scientists ever since.
There was no place in the annals of empirical science, beginning mainly in the 18th century, for the occult practices of obsessed dreamers who sought most famously and impossibly to transform base metals into pure gold. So alchemy fell into disrepute.
But in the revival of scholarship on the field, historians are finding reasons to give at least some alchemists their due. Even though they were secretive and self-deluded and their practices closer to magic than modern scientific methods, historians say, alchemists contributed to the emergence of modern chemistry as a science and an agent of commerce.
( Read More )A Small Charity Takes Lead in Fighting a Disease
By STEPHANIE STROM, The New York Times, July 31, 2006
PATNA, India — The drug that could have cured Munia Devi through a series of cheap injections was identified decades ago but then died in the research pipeline because there was no profit in it.
So Mrs. Devi lay limp in a hospital bed here recently, her spleen and liver bulging from under her rib cage as a bilious yellow liquid dripped into her thin arm. The treatment she was receiving can be toxic, and it costs $500. But it was her best hope to cure black fever, a disease known locally as kala azar, which kills an estimated half-million people worldwide each year, almost all of them poor like Mrs. Devi.
Soon, however, all that may change. A small charity based in San Francisco has conducted the medical trials needed to prove that the drug is safe and effective. Now it is on the verge of getting final approval from the Indian government. A course of treatment with the drug is expected to cost just $10, and experts say it could virtually eliminate the disease.
( Read More )The Doctor's World: In Philadelphia 30 Years Ago, an Eruption of Illness and Fear
By LAWRENCE K. ALTMAN, The New York Times, August 1, 2006
In late July 1976, American Legionnaires returning from a state convention in Philadelphia began to fall ill with mysterious symptoms: pneumonia and fevers topping 107 degrees.
By early August, news organizations across the country were reporting that 6 to 14 of the men in Pennsylvania had died. Others were in hospitals fighting for their lives. No laboratory tests could determine the cause of their illness, which quickly became known as Legionnaires’ disease. No one knew the health status of the 10,000 other convention participants.
As the news began to break, 30 years ago this week, Americans were primed for the threat of an epidemic. The Ford administration was making plans to vaccinate every American against a new strain of influenza, known as swine flu, after repeated warnings from government officials that a devastating epidemic could strike without warning. Michael Crichton’s “Andromeda Strain” had become a best seller. And some scientists were calling for a moratorium on laboratory efforts to genetically engineer microbes for fear they might create a monster germ.
( Read More )Researchers Explore Ways Bird Flu May Spread
By DENISE GRADY, The New York Times, August 1, 2006
A new study addresses the most urgent public health question about bird flu: what would it take to make the virus more contagious in people?
The study did not exactly answer the question, but it did show what does not work — simple genetic changes are not enough to transform the virus into a strain that could cause a pandemic.
Researchers from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tried to make the A(H5N1) bird flu virus more contagious, but could not, they are reporting this week in the online edition of The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
That result may sound like good news, but the scientists urge caution. “These data do not mean H5N1 cannot convert to being transmissible person to person,” said Dr. Julie Gerberding, director of the disease centers. “They mean it is not simple.”
( Read More )Really? The Claim: Wounds Heal Better When Exposed to Air
By ANAHAD O’CONNOR, The New York Times, August 1, 2006
THE FACTS Most parents and school nurses have a time-honored approach to treating a small wound: clean it up, stop the bleeding and then let it get some air.
The point of this approach, as described in medical texts, is to lower the odds of infection and to speed the healing process. But over the years, researchers have found that what many people know about treating small cuts and scrapes is wrong.
( Read More )Evolution’s Backers in Kansas Mount a Counterattack
By RALPH BLUMENTHAL, The New York Times, August 1, 2006
KANSAS CITY, Kan., July 29 — God and Charles Darwin are not on the primary ballot in Kansas on Tuesday, but once again a contentious schools election has religion and science at odds in a state that has restaged a three-quarter-century battle over the teaching of evolution.
Less than a year after a conservative Republican majority on the State Board of Education adopted rules for teaching science containing one of the broadest challenges in the nation to Darwin’s theory of evolution, moderate Republicans and Democrats are mounting a fierce counterattack. They want to retake power and switch the standards back to what they call conventional science.
( Read More )
