Just as I think everybody should have a living will, a plan for their funeral, and clear instructions on whether you want to be buried or cremated, so I advise thinking about your obituary or even obituaries. If you are a doctor you can be sure to get one in The BMJ so long as […]
“Aah,” the maximally low and back rounded vowel sound, produced by opening your mouth and glottis and phonating, is not the only phoneme that could have formed the first linguistic sound. Change the shape of your mouth, keep phonating, and the sound changes. Interjections such as “eh” and “er,” “oo” and “oh” can all be […]
When journalists arrive in a country at war their learning usually starts with taxi drivers. They see and hear a lot. They know the dark side of life, particularly those who drive at night. I learnt a lot from the taxi driver who picked me up at 5.45 this morning. I was his last job […]
We may not know what the first spoken word was, but we can be pretty sure that the first uttered sound (Greek φώνημα) was a phoneme, a unit of sound that cannot be analysed into smaller units. English has 44: 24 consonantal sounds, 12 pure vowels (seven short, five long) (see picture, below), and eight […]
Apparently one in 20 searches on Google are for health related topics. At the moment typing in a medical condition (such as diabetes) on Google produces links to reputable sites and online patient forums. However, beyond the first page of a Google search, the quality and accuracy of the listed domains becomes more questionable, with searchers […]
Which words came first? And whence comes “first?” In his Historiai, Book II, Herodotus tells how an Egyptian king, Psamtik (he calls him Psammetichus), undertook an experiment. He entrusted two children to a herdsman, charging him to allow no one to utter a word in their presence, to keep them in a cottage and to […]
Will the confluence of big data and the genomics revolution lead to a transformation in personalized healthcare, or are the emperors’ clothes looking a little threadbare? This was the theme of the Astellas Innovation Debate for 2015, held in the Royal Institution’s lovely raking lecture theatre in Albermarle Street. George Freeman, Minister for Life Sciences, […]
Most doctors are dedicated clinicians who have worked extremely hard to earn the privilege of practising the art of medicine and caring for their fellow human beings. But there are, unfortunately, always some doctors who don’t live up to the oath they took when they finished medical school. Yet I always feel a mix of […]
It’s pretty well understood that people from disadvantaged communities have more important things to worry about than their health. However, one general practitioner (primary care physician) in the southwest of England believes that if you start from what people actually want, you can eventually impact their health and wellbeing. That general practitioner is Dr Jonathan […]
Some polls suggest that the NHS is the number one issue for voters in Britain’s coming general election. That’s one reason that the Labour Party has put it at the centre of its campaign, the other being “when in doubt retreat to where you are comfortable.” But would a healthy society put the NHS as […]