A new Dutch study on mobile phone signals finds that using a cell phone in restricted areas, such as hospitals, can be dangerous. In the study, published Wednesday in the online journal Critical Care, researchers measured the impact of electromagnetic interference (EMI) from cell phone use on hospital equipment such as ventilators and pacemakers. Signals that were equal in strength to those given off by second- and third-generation mobile phones significantly interfered with medical devices, and...

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The life threatening spinal-cord injury that Buffalo Bills tight end Kevin Everett suffered on Sunday while trying to make a tackle adds urgency to a question that gnaws at the NFL with each passing season — is playing pro football worth the risks?

Everett, 25, remains sedated and on a respirator at Millard Fillmore Gates Hospital in Buffalo following surgery to relieve the pressure on his spine. His orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Andrew Cappucino, had said Everett's chances of walking...

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In Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species (1859) and his next publication, The Descent of Man (1871), he referred to several "vestiges" in human anatomy that were left over from the course of evolution. These vestigial organs, Darwin argued, are evidence of evolution and represent a function that was once necessary for survival, but over time that function became either diminished or nonexistent.
The presence of an organ in one organism that resembles one found in another has...

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Why do you want to be a doctor?

After the harsh reality of her first year, Sunita Deshmukh wonders why she wanted to become a doctor

Why would anyone in their right mind want to be a doctor? If television shows like ER, Scrubs, or Grey's Anatomy are anything to go by, there is a plethora of exciting, fulfilling, and glamorous reasons to want to practise medicine. But lying awake in bed at 2 am, having forced down too many cups of coffee between yesterday's and today's...

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If you want to become a doctor, you must survive the course. Martin Dawes considers what it takes


Medical students are some of the brightest people in the country and are willing to work for the benefit of others more than just working for themselves. Because they already have these two characteristics, most will go on to make good doctors.

The recruitment of medical students varies between countries and universities. However, over time nothing very much has changed.w1...

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