Dumb-Dumb Gramma and Mean Mommy: A trip with kids through the Southwest

I just came back from a road trip through the southern reaches of Colorado. I traveled with my daughter and two grandchildren to Mesa Verde National Park and the Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve.  The title of this essay refers to the epithets the children used: Dumb-Dumb Gramma and Mean Mommy. They were…

My great-great-grandfather… the Neanderthal?

As a retired physician, I sometimes answer questions related to medical issues. People often ask about their DNA results after finding a 4% genetic contribution from some unexpected source. Often, this is related to Neanderthal genes, which show up consistently in people from Europe and Asia -- but not at all in people from Africa.…

Chichen Itza and Fun with Genetics

I traveled to Yucatan, Mexico, with my daughter and son. We toured the pyramids at Chichen Itza, named one of the New Seven Wonders of the World sites. The city was built by the Mayans around 500 A.D., but it was abandoned around 700 years later. The ruins of Chichen Itza were rediscovered in the…

What really happens in the ER?

Quora is an online site where lay people can ask medically-related questions. As a retired physician, I review the questions and some times answer a few. It is a good exercise. I sometimes have to Google the answer and review medical articles in the process.  Here is one answer which elicited many readers. I thought…

Fairy tales and genetic diseases

As a child, I listened to fairy tales of far-off places filled with disturbing villains. As I grew older, the fascination with fairy tales subsided, replaced by an interest in genetic diseases. However, as I started reading fairy tales to my grandchildren, I began to notice how genetic diseases could have prompted some of the…

You don’t believe in science? Science believes in you

I have started visiting social media sites.  I spend some time on KevinMD and on Quora. The first is addressed to doctors and medical professionals. Much of the content on Kevin MD is written by physicians and first responders who describe the stress of caring for people who are dying of COVID-19. Although this trend…

What happens in Ugarit stays in Ugarit

I always thought we were the apex of civilization in the 21st-century United States. I naively thought Western democracies had evolved, through the twists and turns of preceding civilizations, to a pinnacle of stability and literacy and a sophisticated lifestyle.  Well, I was wrong. Not only is our much-vaunted country susceptible to pandemics that kill more…

Darwin During the Pandemic

When the pandemic first hit two years ago, we were told to go into lockdown. On the last afternoon of freedom, I went to the local library and checked out 15 books. I figured I would have lots of time to do some reading. One of the books was “On the Origin of the Species”…

Call of the wild: Returning to travel

We have survived the winter. Here in Denver, it snowed off and on in February and got bitterly cold. In early March, the sun finally emerged. The temperatures warmed up and the spring flowers decided to come up.  We survived not just the weather, but also the COVID-19 surge that started in late autumn 2021.…

When should you get a COVID-19 test?

After a 12-day odyssey of my husband being sick with symptoms suggestive of COVID-19 and being unable to access the most accurate testing for COVID-19, I posted my last blog borne out of frustration. The next day,  I read an article in the New England Journal of Medicine on Rapid Diagnostic Testing for SARS-CoV-2. An updated…