Body and Spirit: Tibetan Medical Paintings

High Society: Drugs in Victorian Britain

Friday 11, 19.00-21.00 & Saturday 12 February 2011, 10.30-17.30

Victorian Britain: a global Empire and a culture awash with drugs. Opium, morphine, cocaine and cannabis are on sale in every high-street pharmacy.

http://www.wellcomecollection.org/whats-on/events/drugs-in-victorian-britain.aspx

 

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

      The second Wellcome Trust Book Prize has been won by Rebecca Skloot for her book The Immortal Life of  Henrietta Lacks. The result was announced at an awards reception at Wellcome Collection in November. The book tells the story of a poor tobacco farmer whose cancer cells, taken without her knowledge, became one of the most important tools in medicine.

     This debut work by Rebecca Skloot took a decade to chronicle, and weaves together the Lacks's family story from the first culturing of HeLa cells (as they became known) to the dark history of experimentation on African Americans and the birth of bioethics.

     HeLa cells were vital for developing the polio vaccine and uncovering data about cancer, viruses and the effects of the atom bomb. They helped lead to important advances, such as in vitro fertilisation, cloning and gene mapping, and have been bought and sold by the billions. Henrietta herself, however, remains virtually unknown, buried in an unmarked grave. Today, her family can't afford the heathcare advances that their mother's cells helped to make possible.

Launched in 2009, the £25 000 Prize highlights outstanding works of fiction and non-fiction on the theme of health, illness or medicine. The 2011 Prize is now open for submissions. (Wellcome News, 2010. – № 65. – P. 3)

http://www.wellcome.ac.uk  www.wellcomebookprize.org

 

When Humans Left Africa, Malaria Came Along - ScienceNOW

When Humans Left Africa, Malaria Came Along - ScienceNOW

Curse of the Mummy? Could be Heart Disease - ScienceNOW

Curse of the Mummy? Could be Heart Disease – ScienceNOW

An Egyptian mummy moments before a CT scan and a mummy heart with calcium buildup (inset), a sign of heart disease.

The Body and the Mind in the History of Medicine and Health

"The Body and the Mind in the History of Medicine and Health"

EAHMH Conference 2010, Utrecht, 1-4 September 2011

The European Association for the History of Medicine and Health (EAHMH) will hold its bi-annual meeting in Utrecht (The Netherlands), 1-4 September 2011. The conference will consider the general theme: 'The Body and the Mind in the History of Medicine and Health'.  Further information on the conference please see www.eahmh.net

Science/AAAS The Neandertal Genome

The Neandertal Genome

      Neandertals (Homo neanderthalensis) are currently believed to be our closest evolutionary relatives.

      “Fossil remains and anatomical reconstructions indicate that the typical Neandertal had a stocky muscular body with short forearms and legs, a large head with bony brow ridges and a brain slightly larger than ours, a jutting face with a large nose, and perhaps reddish hair and fair skin. Neandertals made and used a diverse set of sophisticated tools, controlled fire, organized their living spaces, hunted and fed on game of various sizes, and occasionally made symbolic or ornamental objects”.

For more Neandertal basics, see http://www.sciencemag.org/special/neandertal/feature/index.html