Real Halloween Research

Halloween is right around the corner, so this week we are going to introduce you to a little bit of health sciences research fun. NCBI ROFL, according to it’s creators “is the brainchild of two Molecular and Cell Biology graduate students at UC Berkeley. Like most grad students, we procrastinate a lot.” The authors of the site look for actual citations in PubMed that deal with funny subjects, however they do give the disclaimer that the site “is not meant to denigrate science or NCBI in any way. It is purely for entertainment. [They] are scientists [themselves] and [...] firmly believe in science’s value to society and its importance for expanding the boundaries of human knowledge.” This week they are highlighting different Halloween related research, but I wanted to share an entry that came out about a month ago that I found particularly fun. This research could be very useful if you are trying to avoid vampires or if you are a Twilight fan hoping to meet one.

Does Garlic Prevent Against Vampires? A Research Study

Have a safe and fun Halloween!

Research First Aid – e-Books

Many people don’t realize that ECU libraries have subscriptions to thousands of e-books. In this episode of Research First Aid, Amy and Mark talk a little bit about the types of e-books available and how to find them.

Supercourse

The Supercourse is an international repository of epidemiology and public health open source lectures on numerous topics including: family health, multiple aspects of epidemiology, diseases, public health, global health, and telecommunication.  There are over 4096 lectures in 26 different languages in PowerPoint format which can be located based on author, keyword, or topic.  The major objective of the Supercourse is to provide a means for faculty to share their lectures with other educators from all over the world.  Supercourse was originally funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and is now supported by the National Library of Medicine.   The course materials are peer reviewed to ensure quality, and lectures come from faculty members of varying disciplinary fields, including nine noble prize winners and the US Surgeon General.   The Supercourse is maintained and produced by the World Health Organization Collaborating Center at the University of Pittsburgh and is a valuable resource for accessing free educational materials that are of exceptional quality.

Research First Aid – How Do I…?

In this episode, Amy and Mark discuss a valuable online resource called How Do I?.

Turning the Pages

The National Library of Medicine’s new service called “Turning the Pages” has made it possible to virtually flip through six treasured 16th century books from the National Library of Medicine’s collection.  Developed by the British Library, Turning the Pages, was created for visitors to touch and turn the pages of virtual books displayed on a touch screen monitor in an intuitive manner. The National Library of Medicine became the first US site for Turning the Pages in 2001, converting books from their own historic collection in the biomedical sciences to this format. The National Library of Medicine has now made this service available to everyone with online selections such as Johannes de Ketham’s Fasiculo de Medicina, Robert Hooke’s Micrographia, and the newest selection Hieronymus Brunschwig’s Liber de Arte Distillandi. Not only can you flip through the books page by page with their interactive interface but, you can also hear audio clips about the history of the book and download or print high resolution images of the pages.

If you’d like to learn more about the technology behind the Turning the Pages visit their website or get started Turning the Pages of these beautiful texts.

Research First Aid – Research Consultations

In this episode, Amy and Mark talk about free research consultations for students, faculty, and staff at ECU.

HealthDay TV

MedlinePlus launched HealthDay TV in early September. It’s a new multimedia feature for the health news section of the Web site. The HealthDay TV videos are only available on the English version of MedlinePlus, but cover timely health topics and are geared to health consumers, but still relevant to health professionals and students. I was particularly happy to see that they do a recap of the week’s news in video format every Saturday. This is great for those of us that like to stay in the loop, but sometimes feel overwhelmed with the amount of information coming at us.

Please visit the MedlinePlus News page to see the new video content.

Research First Aid – Ask a Librarian

In this episode, Mark and Amy talk about the convenient Ask a Librarian services offered through Joyner and Laupus.

Ghost Writers and Wyeth Pharmaceuticals

In the not so distant past, we told you about Merck paying Elsevier to publish phony journals. Well, now, there is a new reason to be a little more skeptical about what you read in medical journals.  Apparently, Wyeth pharmaceuticals paid ghost writers to write 26 articles (mostly review) which were published in 18 different journals  supporting the use of their homorne replacement therapies from 1998 through 2005.  Sales for these pharmaceuticals soared as many women were placed on these drugs due to downplayed side effects and exagerrated benefits.

 In 2002, a large federal study was cancelled when it became apparent that these same hormone treatments were correlated to increased breast cancer, heart disease and stroke. A later study even showed that the treatments were also linked to increased dementia in elderly patients.

 Unfortunately, it appears that Wyeth is not the only pharmaceutical company to use ghost writers to draft up articles supporting their treatments or to get physicians to sign their names to articles they may not have written completely (or even partially) themselves. 

 If you are interested in finding out more about this scandal, you can check out The New York Times or Stephen Colbert (for a funnier, if not less accurate depiction).  He doesn’t actually start talking about hormones until around 4:50, but it’s interesting to see how this phenomena has infiltrated the popular media.

Research First Aid – Welcome Back and Library Liaisons

 In this episode, Mark and Amy welcome everyone to a new semester and talk about the liaison programs at Laupus and Joyner Libraries.