Mosquito biting activity increases 500 times during a full moon phase, and they prefer blondes with smelly feet

Mosquitoes appear to prefer blonde people with smelly feet. Did you see the moon last night? Got mosquito spray? Mosquito biting activity increases 500 times during a full moon phase! There are more striking facts in this video excerpt from National Geographic.

The video is part of the Amazing Animals YouTube playlist by National Geographic:



Medical Geek Humor on Twitter

The tweets below are part of the series Medical Geek Humor on Twitter - they recall a TED moment from 2009:

@loic Bill Gates released mosquitoes at #TED we're all leaving the room and getting sick about 4 hours ago from web


@stevewhitaker Don't worry about the buggy mosquitos Gates released at #ted. Microsoft's working on a patch that's due out next year. about 14 hours ago from twitterrific
AllergyNotes Releasing mosquitoes by Bill Gates into a startled crowd at TED described as "an amazing TED moment" http://is.gd/iu0o about 12 hours ago from web

AllergyNotes Gates spreads malaria message with mosquitoes http://tinyurl.com/cxwo2e 12 minutes ago from TweetDeck

pyknosis Nice to hear Bill Gates picked up a hobby during his retirement: entomology. http://is.gd/izJn (Not surprised he likes the blood-suckers.) 14 minutes ago from web

pyknosis Don't get me wrong. Not saying B Gates is a bad person. He's not. He just created and championed software that can suck the life out of you. 12 minutes ago from web
pyknosis BTW, now that I understand the context, I think this is a winner of a tweet: http://is.gd/izK5 11 minutes ago from web: "If Steve Jobs had released mosquitoes, everyone would be wanting one."

If you are included in this post but would like to have your tweet removed for any reason, please email me and will comply with your request the same day.



Comments from Twitter:

Vijay @scanman: Mosquitoes are mini-vampires

Tariq @ucisee: Mosquito biting activity increases 500 times during a full moon phase - "appear to pref blonde with smelly feet."

Kathy Mackey @mkmackey: Ha! No one likes full moon!

Times have changed

@ConanOBrien:

http://twitpic.com/17lx53 - I no longer have health care. Could someone show this to a dermatologist and get back to me?

@pyknosis:

I'm a hematologist, not a dermatologist, but looking at that, I give you 7 months. Don't worry. That's a really long time.

That's just good humor, as Happy Hospitalist likes to say.

The journey of a medical blogger: from Twitter to the New York Times

From @Berci: "I have many reasons to use Twitter. One of them is that it’s quite easy to get feedback from doctors who also use Twitter for communication. Now one of my stories was featured in the New York Times:

"Some people are even using Twitter for more urgent questions. Bertalan Meskó, a medical student at the University of Debrecen in Hungary, wrote a post about a patient with mysterious symptoms: “Strange case today in internal medicine rotation. 16 years old boy with acute pancreatitis (for the 6th! time). Any ideas?”

Within hours, specialists worldwide had responded, suggesting gallstones, lupus or growths on the pancreas. One of the suggestions helped the doctors with a diagnosis.

“It would have been impossible to find that specialist through e-mail, because we had no idea who to contact,” Mr. Meskó said."

Congratulations to Berci for being featured in the “newspaper of record” as mentioned by Susannah Fox!

We can use Google Buzz, Skype and Facebook to talk about interesting cases (not a good idea at present but in the future, with better privacy controls and HIPAA protection, may be) but does that improve patient care? The NYTimes does not mention the correct diagnosis, if one was reached....

References:
Getting the Most Out of Twitter, No Posting Necessary - NYTimes.com
From Twitter to the New York Times. ScienceRoll.

Farm-raised salmon has 16 times the polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) as wild-caught salmon

According to the Environmental Working Group (EWG), farm-raised salmon has 16 times the polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) as wild-caught salmon. That’s because farm-raised salmon are often fed contaminated fish meal, which builds up in salmon’s fatty tissue.

Chilean-farmed fish had lower levels of toxins than fish raised in the U.S., Scotland, Canada and Norway. Those tested from Scotland had such high levels that the EWG recommended it be eaten no more than once per month.

References:

360-5.com in collaboration with the Cleveland Clinic.
Image source: Amazon.com, used for illustrative purposes only - NOT a suggestion to purchase any products.

Sign of the times

One more sign of the increasing geriatric population - in 2009 the adult size diapers outnumbered the baby diapers at the U.S. waste sites for the first time.



From Twitter:

@drwalker_rph Who counted the diapers???

"Sleep eaters" binge on sugary, high-calorie snacks, sometimes 5 times a night

Consequences of nighttime eating can include injuries like black eyes from walking into a wall or hand cuts from a prep knife, or dental problems from gnawing on frozen food.

Upwards of 10 percent of adults suffer from some sort of parasomnia, or sleep disorder, like sleepwalking or night terrors. Some have driven cars or performed inappropriate sexual acts — all while in a sleep-induced fog. About 1 percent, mostly women, raid the refrigerator.

References:
Raiding the Refrigerator, but Still Asleep - NYTimes.com.

Image source: A halo around the Moon. Wikipedia, GNU Free Documentation License.