Under the Skin

Merry Christmas everybody! Even though this clip is more fit to Christmas Eve, it is from one of my favorite Christmas movies, "Prep and Landing." 

In this past semester, we talked some about toxicology and therapeutic drug monitoring.  When we were learning about toxicology, we also had to memorize all the common drugs of abuse, their trade name, generic name and their street names.  It was in this task that I learned that druggies have a lot of creativity.  Marijuana is also called "Mary Jane," "skunk" and "sinsemilla."  Hashish (which is different than marijuana, believe it or not) can be called "boom."  At that's just the cannabinoids.  When you get to the crazier stuff, the names get crazier.  If you're on the street, no one is going to ask you for some heroin.  They want some "smack" or some "horse." Or if they're not quite to the smack, maybe just some "Big O" or some "black stuff," both names for opium.  Some come off the name, like "C" or "Charlie" (cocaine),  or "Vitamin K" (ketamine), or "mesc...

Warning:  This post has masculist tendencies.  If you are one of the people who this seems to upset, read no further. As I implied, I am a masculist.  This means that I believe that feminism has made so much progress that we're coming around the other side and starting to discriminate against men.  There have been many recent studies that find that men are less likely to graduate college than women. Studies have shown that if a male child and a female child misbehave in the same way, teachers are more likely to notice the male, and if they do notice the girl, she is less likely to receive as harsh a punishment as the boy.  Violence towards and belittling of men is common in commercials and entertainment.  When these things are practiced towards women in entertainment, it's to paint the character as disgusting or evil.  When it's practiced towards men, it's set in humor. In a custody battle, women are more likely to obtain custody, even when the fath...

So, it is Friday.  And also the last day of our Finals Week Special.  But today, we end it with a parasite that can teach us about platonic love and companionship for this Christmas season.  Paragonimus westermani              Paragonimus westermani is a lung fluke that was originally discovered in bengal tigers, but has since been found in humans.  Generally, it causes an chronic inflammatory disease in the lungs similar to an ongoing bronchitis.  If it gets into the spine, it can cause paralysis, and if it gets into the heart, it can cause death.  But it generally just hangs out in the lungs.  But why is it friendly?  As the name would imply, Paragonimus westermani are always found in pairs.  They are never alone.  But, you would think, "That's not weird.  So are schistosomes, as we learned."  But there's a difference.  P. westermani are hermaphroditic and re...