Things I have learned from Wikipedia in the past half-hour
-Hyperekplexia is an exaggerated startle reflex. That just looks wrong with that "k" hanging out in the middle.
-The Little Albert study was a psychological experiment in which a nine-month-old boy was conditioned to fear white, furry objects. That's totally not fair to poor little Albert!
-Cyranoids are "people who do not speak thoughts originating in their own central nervous system: Rather, the words they speak originate in the mind of another person who transmits these words to the cyranoid by radio transmission." The term apparently originated with psychologist Stanley Milgram. I don't want to know how an apparently sane psychologist decided these things existed.
-Speaking of Milgram, he was also the originator of the Milgram experiment, in which the experimental subject teaches a series of word pairs to an actor representing the "learner." If the actor gets a word wrong while being quizzed on the pairs, the subject is instructed to deliver increasingly severe electrical shocks to the actor. The disheartening thing about this experiment is that 65% of the original subjects delivered the final "450-volt" shock after verbal commands by the experimenter.
-Aspens kind of look like birch trees, only not as peely and more yellow in the fall.
-Aspens are also important hosts for non-vascular land plants, or bryophytes.
-The Jack-in-the-pulpit produces differently-sexed flowers at different stages of growth.
-Drinking antifreeze will cause calcium oxalate crystals to show up in your urine. If you live long enough to urinate after drinking antifreeze, that is.
-Nephrolithiasis is the condition of having kidney stones.
-Rapidly progressive glomerulonephritis is a kidney disease that can cause death within months if left untreated. Coincidentally, it has the initials RPG.
-Kawasaki disease is an autoimmune disease that primarily attacks the heart. Unlike RPG (teehee, RPG), however, the mortality rate on this is only about 1%.
-Paracetamol is just the European name for acetaminophen.
-Heinz bodies are areas of denatured hemoglobin found in red blood cells, and have nothing to do with ketchup.
-An acanthocyte is an abnormal red blood cell with spikes on it. I like to call these "ninja star blood cells."
-Untreated syphilis can cause your face and body to become really, really fucked up.
-Infecting syphilitic patients with malaria can halt the progression of the disease by inducing a high fever and thus killing the bacteria. So if you ever find yourself with syphilis in a country with no penicillin, just catch malaria and you'll be fine... assuming you survive the malaria.
-Finally, Jean Alfred Fournier dedicated his life to studying syphilis. The things this man must have seen, I don't want to imagine.
-The Little Albert study was a psychological experiment in which a nine-month-old boy was conditioned to fear white, furry objects. That's totally not fair to poor little Albert!
-Cyranoids are "people who do not speak thoughts originating in their own central nervous system: Rather, the words they speak originate in the mind of another person who transmits these words to the cyranoid by radio transmission." The term apparently originated with psychologist Stanley Milgram. I don't want to know how an apparently sane psychologist decided these things existed.
-Speaking of Milgram, he was also the originator of the Milgram experiment, in which the experimental subject teaches a series of word pairs to an actor representing the "learner." If the actor gets a word wrong while being quizzed on the pairs, the subject is instructed to deliver increasingly severe electrical shocks to the actor. The disheartening thing about this experiment is that 65% of the original subjects delivered the final "450-volt" shock after verbal commands by the experimenter.
-Aspens kind of look like birch trees, only not as peely and more yellow in the fall.
-Aspens are also important hosts for non-vascular land plants, or bryophytes.
-The Jack-in-the-pulpit produces differently-sexed flowers at different stages of growth.
-Drinking antifreeze will cause calcium oxalate crystals to show up in your urine. If you live long enough to urinate after drinking antifreeze, that is.
-Nephrolithiasis is the condition of having kidney stones.
-Rapidly progressive glomerulonephritis is a kidney disease that can cause death within months if left untreated. Coincidentally, it has the initials RPG.
-Kawasaki disease is an autoimmune disease that primarily attacks the heart. Unlike RPG (teehee, RPG), however, the mortality rate on this is only about 1%.
-Paracetamol is just the European name for acetaminophen.
-Heinz bodies are areas of denatured hemoglobin found in red blood cells, and have nothing to do with ketchup.
-An acanthocyte is an abnormal red blood cell with spikes on it. I like to call these "ninja star blood cells."
-Untreated syphilis can cause your face and body to become really, really fucked up.
-Infecting syphilitic patients with malaria can halt the progression of the disease by inducing a high fever and thus killing the bacteria. So if you ever find yourself with syphilis in a country with no penicillin, just catch malaria and you'll be fine... assuming you survive the malaria.
-Finally, Jean Alfred Fournier dedicated his life to studying syphilis. The things this man must have seen, I don't want to imagine.