Description
Book SynopsisWhat it's like to be struck by lightning or to lose your sense of smell? How can a man fall off a 400ft skyscraper and live? Why do we have allergies? Originally written for the Wellcome health charity, Bodyology's 16 stories follow the scientists investigating our limbs, organs and senses.
Trade Review'It's a good sign when you pick up a book intending to read one chapter and end up reading three. It's very moreish. This is because it's made up of short, self-contained articles, originally published on a website. Often an edited collection of articles by different authors suggests a boring read, but here the articles are good pieces of journalism with plenty to interest the reader.
The topics are all vaguely human body related, but thankfully not all medical (not my favourite subject) - so, for example, as well as stories of a person cured of Lyme disease by bee stings or a piece on miscarriages we get topics like the effects on the body of being struck by lightning or falling from a high place. Even some more explicitly health-related matters, such as the impact of losing your sense of smell, were engaging enough to get me past my medical squeamishness.'
— BRIAN CLEGG, SCIENCE WRITER
Table of ContentsINTRODUCTION. All of the stories in this book were first published by Mosaic (mosaicscience.com), created by Wellcome, a global charitable foundation dedicated to improving human health. They are republished here under a Creative Commons licence. Some edits have been made, including to the headlines
1. WHAT'S IT LIKE TO BE STRUCK BY LIGHTNING? By piecing together bystander reports, the singed clothing and the burnt skin can survivors start to construct their own picture of the possible trajectory of an electrical current that can approach 200 million volts and travel at a third of the speed of light
2. WHY AND HOW WE COLOUR HAIR. Humans have dyed for thousands of years, experimenting with ever-changing, often vicious, formulas to achieve a new hair colour. Along with ammonia, hair dye formulas contain hydrogen peroxide, a bleaching agent. Peroxide reacts with the melanin, removing natural colour
3. THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN BLOOD. On the trail of rare blood, who gives it and why? Some blood can be as rare as 1 in 100 million. The majority of the 342 blood group antigens belong to one of 35 blood group systems. Finding a donor and getting rare blood to a patient in crisis can be a desperate race
4. WHY DIETERS CAN'T RELY ON CALORIES. More than two-thirds of American adults are overweight or obese. One in three are attempting to lose weight by dieting. Yet there is ample evidence that diets rarely lead to sustained weight loss. Because a calorie isn’t just a calorie – and that's the problem
5. COULD 3D PRINTERS MAKE BODY PARTS? Stories of lives devastated by conflict or disease are all too common across low-income countries. Lack of an arm or leg can be tough anywhere, but for people in poorer parts of the planet, with so much less support and infrastructure, it is especially challenging
6. HOW TO FALL 400FT AND LIVE TO TELL THE TALE. Alcides Moreno was a window washer in New York City when he fell from the 47-storey Solow Tower. Falls are the second leading cause of death by injury in the US, after car accidents. Yet we are more fearful of terror attacks, shark bites and Ebola outbreaks
7. MISCARRIAGE: THE RACE TO PROTECT PREGNANCIES. The unspecified genetic abnormalities that are said to underlie most miscarriages have various possible causes. The risk of random genetic faults in the fetus seems to increase with the age of the mother. There are several other potential causes
8. CAN MEDITATION OUTWIT AGEING? Whereas Western biomedicine has traditionally shunned the study of personal emotions, a team led by a Nobel Prize-winning biochemist at the University of California, San Francisco, is engaged in serious studies hinting that meditation might slow ageing and lengthen life
9. SEEKING A 'CURE' FOR MALE BALDNESS. Androgenetic alopecia is the medical term for inherited hair loss, and while it affects both men and women, it’s men whose anxieties tend to be targeted by the hair loss industry. It’s estimated to be worth at least $1.5 billion a year worldwide
10. HOW BEE STINGS SAVED A WOMAN'S LIFE. ‘I moved to California to die.’ Ellie Lobel was 27 when she was bitten by a tick and contracted Lyme disease. She had 15 years of pain and disability. And she was not yet 45 when she decided to give up fighting for survival. A swarm of Africanised bees saved her
11. THE GLOBAL TREND FOR 'KANGAROO' BABIES. Kangaroo Mother Care (KMC) is the brainchild of Colombian paediatrician Edgar Rey, who introduced it to the Instituto Materno Infantil in 1978. It was an idea born out of desperation. Death rates and infection levels dropped immediately
12. WHAT IT'S LIKE TO LOSE YOUR SENSE OF SMELL. People who can no longer smell – following an accident or illness – report a strong sense of loss, with impacts on their lives they could never have imagined. Smell is not ranked highly among our senses – until it's gone (as many with Covid have found)
13. THE DOCTOR AIMING TO END SEVERE EYE PAIN. At 82, Boston ophthalmologist Perry Rosenthal has become the nerve centre of a small but growing network of researchers and clinicians seeking out new explanations for the often jarring disconnect between brutal symptoms and a lack of clear signs
14. ALLERGIES — A DEFENCE AGAINST NOXIOUS CHEMICALS? Allergens include latex, gold, pollen, penicillin, insect venom, peanuts, papayas, jellyfish stings, perfume, eggs, house mites, pecans, salmon, beef and nickel. Why? At Yale School of Medicine, Ruslan Medzhitov has a theory
15. WHY BIG PHARMA MAY BE GOING SLOW ON THE MALE PILL. Researchers are as confident as they can be that they’re close to overcoming the scientific barriers. Now, the multimillion-dollar question seems to be: Who is actually going to make the male pill happen?
16. HOW VIRTUAL REALITY IS AIDING REMOTE SURGERY. A 54-year-old surgeon at Panamerican University in Mexico City, he’s on a mission to bring virtual reality into the operating room, using the high-tech distraction technique to carry out surgeries normally requiring powerful painkillers and sedatives
17. SHHH! BUT WHAT EXACTLY IS THE MENOPAUSE? A few things science doesn’t know about the menopause: what it’s for, how it works and how best to treat it. After the age of 40, the ovaries begin to secrete less oestrogen, and... this causes 'the body to behave differently'. One woman investigated
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS. The stories in this book were originally published by Wellcome on mosaicscience.com. Canbury Press thanks: Charlotte Huff, Chrissie Giles, Rob Reddick, Francine Almash, Charlie Hall, Rebecca Guenard, Peta Bell, Kirsty Strawbridge, Penny Bailey, Madeleine Penny, Lowri Daniels plus
