Comments on: House — Episode 15 (Season 6): “Black Hole”

By: TimC

TimC — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 17:12:28 +0000

RE: Martin J

Or this newer article
https://sites.google.com/site/gallantlabucb/publications/nishimoto-et-al-2011

By: slimak

slimak — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 21:42:07 +0000

Ouch, that was soooo bad! schistosomiasis its not transmitted sexually, ever… you can get it by a contact with a larval stage called cercaria ,which lives in the water… epic fail this time :D

By: martin j

martin j — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 12:51:44 +0000

Even though the technology of the brain imaging was a bit over the top, its based on current working technology.

http://download.cell.com/neuron/pdf/PIIS0896627308009586.pdf

pdf includes images “read” from peoples brains in the exact same way as was done in the episode, though at the time of the article they could only manage simple objects and in black and white only, but that was 3 years ago.

By: ZVdP

ZVdP — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 22:55:07 +0000

All this time has passed, because it is not an error. You need to take the comoving distance (this takes the expansion in account).

By: balok

balok — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 21:06:14 +0000

All this time has passed, and no one has commented about the teacher’s saying that the observable universe is “93 billion light years across” being utterly and completely wrong. . .

By: VB

VB — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 18:31:57 +0000

This was an episode which was far too convoluted for comfort.I mean,they could have got all that foreign parasite,father-son-girlfriend dynamic without that stupid dream machine thingy.

Why oh why?

By: TheAdmiral

TheAdmiral — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 19:38:11 +0000

As a question, what exactly is the problem with full-body scans? My understanding is that it’s because they reveal a number of abnormalities, but that everyone has several suspicious spots in their bodies that are harmless. I guess I can understand how it could waste time tracking them all down, but I’d also that the more information about the situation would be overall beneficial. I don’t know, perhaps I’m just feeling sympathetic for whoever invented the full-body scan, as they may feel bad that no one likes their medical contribution.

By: Stephen

Stephen — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 11:43:42 +0000

Watching this episode I was worried for a moment that I would have to eat humble pie…

A friend recently told me that it was now possible to image dreams. I have a postgrad degree in neuroimaging, and I told him that probably what he’s heard about is fMRI studies that can tell the difference between stimuli, but don’t actually image thoughts.

And then I watched this episode…

The funny thing about it is how it is described as oldskool in the episode. Imaging people’s thoughts is *so* last year…

By: Bryan

Bryan — Tue, 04 May 2010 09:46:11 +0000

Re: epinephrine vs. adrenaline

Scott, I agree with you that “adrenaline” was probably used years ago. I’m not a doctor (my dad is), but I remember on the episodes of M*A*S*H, they would use the term “adrenaline” as a type of shot most of the time.

That show was on mostly in the 70’s, and it was supposed to be realistic back to the Korean war from the 50’s…

Other than the obvious for getting adrenaline into a stopped heart, what other common reasons would you want to make someone’s heart race/beat faster by using epinephrine?

Love the site and all the analysis, thanks!

-Bryan

By: James

James — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 20:56:48 +0000

Regarding Adrenaline/Epinephrine, Paracetamol/Acetaminophen – here in the UK we generally use adrenaline/noradrenaline and in my opinion that’s a good call since it’s from the adrenal, is the ligand for adrenergic GPCRs etc. However, we seem to be encouraged more and more to use epinephrine interchangeably with it and our adrenaline autoinjectors for anaphylaxis are universally called “EpiPens”. For paracetamol/acetaminophen – they’re both good approximations of the non-IUPAC name for the compound.
It seems to me lay-people in America are far more familiar with brand names for drugs anyway, most people seem to recognize it as “Tylenol” – whereas in the UK we’ll usually suggest taking a “paracetamol” in almost every context.
Also for the medically enlightened amongst you currently working in the US – do you find a similar thing in your hospitals? Something like Lasix we would generally refer to by its name furosemide, and plavix by clopidogrel and so on. Is that a private healthcare thing – the drug guys over there drum their product name into you more so than over here?
Of course prescribing the Generic vs a Brand Name isn’t always equivalent. Still, i’m interested to read more people’s experiences on it.

Oh and to caustic guy – where were you taught that matter, with any mass whatsoever, could overtake the speed of light? That’s horrifying.