Last updated April 18, 2018 at 9:19 am
The Check Up is a weekly feature highlighting some of the best, most fascinating, most important, or simply unmissable health, medical, and human stories from around the web.
Meet Dr Palipana
This profile of quadriplegic doctor Dinesh Palipana is fascinating, but I hope in the future it’s not newsworthy for people with disabilities to be excelling in the career of their choice. Halfway through his medical studies, Dr Palipana was in a serious car crash that left him in a wheelchair. I won’t spoil the story here of how he got to where he is today, but it won’t surprise you to know it took a lot of hard work.
Meet Dr Robot
Well, technically I’m not introducing you to Dr Robot, I’m introducing you to an artificial intelligence system that could one day aid medical professionals in making diagnoses of eye disease and pneumonia. Applying artificial intelligence to medicine will make diagnoses faster, more accurate, and available to more people. And maybe one day we’ll have hologram doctors like in Star Trek. But one step at a time.
Alone together, together alone
Music has charms to sooth the savage beast, and perhaps that’s because it stimulates our brains in the same way that socialising does, even if we’re alone with our headphones plugged in. It’s got to do with mirror neurons in our brain, which fire whether we’re engaging in an activity or observing it. This article also addresses some of the stigma associated with disappearing into your headphones – you’re not actually less engaged with the world around you, you’re just making a more mindful choice about your engagement.
Narcolepsy and sleep disorders
Sleep is so important, sleep disorders are really common, yet we don’t take those disorders seriously. And this made one author/narcolepsy sufferer so angry he wrote a book about it. This interview and book excerpt will have you thinking not only about your own forty winks, but how you judge other people’s sleeping patterns
Homeopathy explained
And finally, the calm voice of reason that is Kurzgesagt provides an exceedingly generous explanation of homeopathy.
