Health
Discover facts about health. Small discoveries that change the way you see familiar things.
Health
Medical codes record how an injury happened
A diagnosis describes the damage, while an external-cause code can describe the event that produced it. Being struck by a falling object is useful information…
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Heelys accidents have their own medical code
Code V00.15 was used for injuries involving Heelys, the wheeled shoes. Medical classifications can be impressively specific: even rolling along in your…
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US hospitals routinely charge an exorbitant facility fee
A clinic visit may come with two kinds of charges: one for the care and another for the facility where it happened. That second fee can be hundreds of…
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Military training grounds have specific occurrence codes
A medical claim may need to say not only that an incident happened on a military installation, but where on the installation it occurred. The code supplies…
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Why lead and mercury can stay in your body
These metals can stick around because they bind to body tissues. They can also pose a second problem: inside cells, they may crowd out elements needed for…
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Why a cheap bandage can cost $50 at a hospital
The bandage didn’t suddenly become expensive to manufacture when it entered the hospital. The charge can come from the way the hospital labels and bills basic…
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Carbon monoxide aggressively attacks human cellular function
Carbon monoxide binds to hemoglobin—the protein in red blood cells that carries oxygen—hundreds of times more readily than oxygen does. When the gas takes…
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Why the clitoris is packed with nerve endings
The clitoris has a dense network of nerve endings, so stimulation there sends a strong stream of sensory signals to the brain. Its primary known function is…
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The Y chromosome lost genes—but not on a countdown to extinction
The Y became much smaller than its ancestral partner as gene loss accumulated over millions of years. Comparisons with other primates show that much of its…
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Whistling utilizes entirely different mechanics than speaking
Speech uses vibrating vocal folds, but whistling makes sound by shaping airflow with the lips, tongue, and teeth. Change that little chamber in your mouth and…
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Your immune system detects and destroys mutating cells that have the potential to become cancerous every single day without you ever realizing it.
Your immune system detects and destroys mutating cells that have the potential to become cancerous every single day without you ever realizing it. Natural…
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Cotard syndrome can make a living person believe they are dead.
Cotard syndrome can make a living person believe they are dead. The rare delusion can include a conviction that the body or its organs no longer exist. It has…
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Australia's wintering Antarctic doctors must arrive without an appendix.
Australia's wintering Antarctic doctors must arrive without an appendix. The Australian Antarctic Program requires the operation because a winter station…
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Radithor sold radioactive water as a health tonic.
Radithor sold radioactive water as a health tonic. The product contained radium and was promoted as a restorative in the 1920s. Eben Byers became its most…
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Your intestine packs a huge surface into a narrow tube.
Your intestine packs a huge surface into a narrow tube. Folds, tiny fingerlike villi and microscopic projections on their cells multiply the area available…
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Blinking repeatedly cuts off your view, yet the world rarely seems to flicker.
Blinking repeatedly cuts off your view, yet the world rarely seems to flicker. Your brain suppresses awareness of those brief interruptions while your eyelids…
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Why you should not take a pulse with your thumb
A thumb can seem like a handy pulse-checking tool, but its own artery can throb under your skin. That means the beat you feel may belong to you, not the…
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Your brain runs on roughly twenty watts of metabolic power.
Your brain runs on roughly twenty watts of metabolic power. That is an energy-use comparison, not electricity available from a socket in your head. Cells…
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Your taste receptors are being replaced while you use them.
Your taste receptors are being replaced while you use them. Taste buds contain specialized cells that detect chemicals in food and send signals to nerves.…
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Foot odor is a shared project between moisture and microbes.
Foot odor is a shared project between moisture and microbes. Feet release sweat into an environment that shoes can keep warm and damp. Microbes on the skin…
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Heartburn happens when stomach contents reach tissue not built for them.
Heartburn happens when stomach contents reach tissue not built for them. The stomach normally contains an acidic mixture behind a protective surface. If the…
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Your eye offers two very different maps for identification
The iris is the textured ring around the pupil; the retina is tissue at the back of the eye with a branching blood-vessel pattern. Biometric systems can use…
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Your appendix may keep a backup supply of gut bacteria.
Your appendix may keep a backup supply of gut bacteria. Researchers have proposed that its sheltered shape and bacterial biofilms help beneficial microbes…
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Cerebrospinal fluid literally washes your brain while you sleep to clear out toxic proteins that accumulate during your waking hours of agonizing over embarrassing things you did five years ago.
Cerebrospinal fluid literally washes your brain while you sleep to clear out toxic proteins that accumulate during your waking hours of agonizing over…
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