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The most powerful woman in the world blinded her own son to uphold her beliefs Gorgeous, brilliant, and powerful, the Empress Irene perched upon her throne and contemplated her Eastern Roman Empire. She sought to reunite it with the West through marriage with none other than Charlemagne. Luckily for the great Carolingian king, pleuritis killed Continue Reading
When flipping through a news article involving infectious disease, it’s likely you have some across the terms of incidence and prevalence. “There is an alarming rise in prevalence for Disease XYZ in recent years” the story might say to hone your interest. The article might warn you without any specific numbers, but both terms have Continue Reading
If you are outside of the medical field, the term half-life may conjure thoughts of radioactivity or carbon dating. Within the medical field, half-life tells us the time that the body must have to remove half of the drug. For many long-term medications, doctors need to establish an equilibrium level of drugs – a plateau Continue Reading
The Ancient Roman Calendar Consisted of Ten Months If the words September, October, November, and December have ever triggered the numbers 7, 8, 9, and 10 in your head, they do so with good reason. The ancient Romans divided the year into ten months with a month-less winter period at the end where the astronomers Continue Reading
A closer look at Predictive Values When waging war and winning battles, successful generals consider timing a critical factor. Shall we move at dawn or wait till their supplies run lower? Few empires have witnessed the consistent military success as Rome. For roughly one thousand years, they expanded their empire, obliterated their enemies, and reigned Continue Reading
Podcast: Free Audio File If you prefer to listen to podcasts, feel free to play the audio version of this blog by clicking on the player above. Podcast: How a Proper Cup of Tea Changed Veterinary Medicine Length: 5 min 01 secondsWritten and read by the author How a proper cup of tea changed veterinary Continue Reading
Bacteria have evolved some very unique methods of transferring genes amongst themselves. One trait that is of high concern is antibiotic resistance. How is it that bacteria can so quickly develop resistance to a given antibiotic? The answer lies in conjugation, transformation, and transduction.
It has been fifteen minutes, fifteen long minutes. You look at the two blue lines that have been formed in your point-of-care test. One blue line would indicates that the control is working and that the result is negative. Two blue lines is a positive test. You just tested positive for Zombie disease. But how Continue Reading
Like incidence and prevalence, sensitivity and specificity are twin sons of different mothers. And there is no Fogleberg fallout here. These guys stick together. Knowing their similarities and differences is vital to understanding diagnostic testing and the associated biostatistics.