Adopt A Microbe

Via Boing Boing: Adopt A Microbe.

Hola. I'm C. jejuni.
I am a curved Gram Negative rod.

You can find me in lots of domestic animals.
I am part of the normal bacterial flora of poultry and cattle.

The illustrations alone are a riot.

Eyes Without a Face

In Wired this month: Face Blind, an article about prosopagnosia.

Developmental prosopagnosia came to light in large part because of Internet groups. Before that, most people born with the condition assumed they were just bad with faces. It's not the type of thing most would go to a doctor about, and even if they did, their physician probably couldn't help, because many doctors are unaware of it. In many ways, this is a neurological condition discovered by Yahoo.

The Survivor

Via ProMED-mail: Regarding a recent case of symptomatic rabies, the aptly-named Wish TV reports on the Indiana State Department of Health's wild optimism.

"Historically it's a near fatal disease and so it's always touch and go, but given treatment today we're hopeful that this individual is going to survive this case," said Dr. Judith Monroe, Indiana State Department of Health.

By "near-fatal" Dr. Monroe means "only one person has ever survived": see Recovery of a Patient from Clinical Rabies --- Wisconsin, 2004.