Archive link: https://archive.ph/rYlvQ

I think this would be an interesting article for discussion. Some of these articles in popular media I feel adopt an overly hostile tone toward doctors and assume the worst of a situation. Part of this is the necessity of health care privacy laws that prevent us from getting all sides of a story which could shed more light on a situation.

I think it also ignores the huge flipside problem of this, confidently telling someone they have a diagnosis even though you shouldn't and they don't. For instance I often see someone who's been referred to me and told confidently they have a deadly disease or a genetic disease, told everyone in their life they have this, joined online support groups, and made big life choices based on that info, but they actually don't have the disease. And the information the diagnosis was based on was nowhere near confident enough to say so. It was right to seek further evaluation and there may have been some abnormality, but even if the diagnosis should be mentioned as a possibility, the patient shouldn't have been told they definitely have this thing yet because the certainty was just not there. Anyway, I think there's lots of interesting aspects of this article to think about.

A fascinating condition. You can walk away, come back ten minutes later and have the exact conversation in the exact same way even down to the person's vocal intonations. It is uncanny. Truly gives you existential "oh my god I'm a meat computer" thoughts if you ever see it for yourself.

Luckily if someone gets this they are back to normal in less the a day, and it's uncommon to have multiple episodes.

I've always found sleep paralysis fascinating, having had it a few times myself it's much less scary if you know what's going on. I think there's lots of good research out there on the mechanisms of the paralysis, but would love to see more work done on some of the even more bizarre features, like the tendency to hallucinate a shadowy figure in the room with you.

Before there was long covid there was Encephalitis lethargica or the sleeping sickness, vanishing around 1927 as mysteriously as it appeared alongside Spanish flu epidemic. Many individuals afterwards suffered from severe parkinsonism, prisoners in their own body and barely able to move for years until the drug L-dopa was found to "unlock" them many years later in the 1960s. Made famous of course in Oliver Sack's book "Awakenings." Also featured prominently in the Sandman comics. The exact cause of the illness still uncertain to this day, though evidence exists for multiple theories.

I found this server via the join lemmy site and really like it, but noticed the communities here don't appear on https://browse.feddit.de/ which seems to be the way most people are finding communities across other instances. I was wondering if that was deliberate, and if not how to get the mander.xyz communities listed so that those at other instances who are interested in the communities here might able to find them and participate.

How are those out there who grade essays or teach writing skills planning on dealing with the monumental advances in easily accessible ai language models this year?

Republicans racing to gut programs that help keep the government budget balanced and others that actually massively benefit their own districts. Highlights of the article include $375 million alone spent by the pharmaceutical industry lobbying to try and kill provisions to allow the government to negotiate drug prices.

Another gene therapy for a deadly genetic neuromuscular disease, this time Duchenne muscular dystrophy, is nearing potential fda approval with a final decision expected this week. The scientific advisory panel narrowly voted in favor 8-6, but like in many fields currently the tension between early approvals on the basis of biomarkers and how that might effect the ability of researchers to obtain definitive measures of clinical efficacy in phase 3 trials remains.

New trial results have been seen at conferences and likely will be published publicly as well soon, previous small trial published here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7296461/

Open access source study here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ele.14261

Open access source paper here https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ele.14261

Cited NYT article here for those who have access and would like more details: An Inside Job https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/06/16/world/europe/ukraine-kakhovka-dam-collapse.html?smid=nytcore-android-share

From the history of pretty crazy self experimentation in medicine, a doctor has a cutaneous branch of his own radial nerve surgically cut. He then meticulously documents the progress of nerve regrowth, initial total numbness followed by neuropathic pain, and a partial return of sensation over time

From the history of pretty crazy self experimentation in medicine, a doctor has a cutaneous branch of his own radial nerve surgically cut. He then meticulously documents the progress of nerve regrowth, initial total numbness followed by neuropathic pain, and a partial return of sensation over time