By Haider Hassan Khalid If you think about it, the human body is a bit like a city! The brain is the government because it tells the body what to do. The liver is the hospital because it cleans the blood. The stomach is like a restaurant and the lungs bring fresh air just like a park. There is a world of science to explore ..read more

The Giant-Cell Arteritis Actemra (GiACTA) trial (Stone et al., 2017) explores a much needed treatment for Giant cell arteritis (GCA) that allows discontinuation of glucocorticoids (GCs) without fear of immediate relapse. The study reported that weekly administration of tocilizumab (TCZ) was superior to TCZ administration every other week; and that both TCZ treatment arms with prednisone taper had superior outcome to prednisone taper alone with regards to GCA remission. There is a certain controversy in the definition of sustained remission as a normalization of serum CRP levels. This is becaus ..read more

What if I told you that you can have a window into the mind and soul of your favorite visionary? What if you could learn about rocket science directly from engineers at NASA? What if you could see the timeline of events, decisions, and co-factors that led to the downfall of the Ottoman Empire? Because you can! Right now, right here, you can do all of that and more. Reading has the power to transform the way you think, the way you perceive the world around you, and even change your staunchest beliefs. You can lead another life in someone else’s shoes, fall in love with another culture in some o ..read more

Content writing has been around for as long as we’ve had stories to tell, news to share, and things to buy and sell. In the past, this need was furnished by newspapers. Now it is accomplished by social media. Ever since Facebook allowed the creation of ‘pages’,  content writing has become crucial for businesses to stay relevant and connect with their customers; not just on a daily basis but an hourly, even instantaneous basis. With this hyper-connectivity comes some great potential but also quite a few challenges. Businesses can reach audience on any part of the globe but to do so effecti ..read more

Oxford University recently released the much awaited results of their covid-19 clinical trial. Dexamethasone was reported as the first life saving drug in the fight against Covid-19. Following this news, there was an almost instantaneous spike in the number of people searching for ‘Dexamethasone’ on Google. Google Trends Within a few hours, ‘Should you invest in Dexamethasone maker, Cadila Healthcare?’ by Forbes was a trending article in top news. The sudden increase in interest is understandable; people are desperate and in this gloomy sea of bad news, a shiny glimmer of hope shines bright. I ..read more

All of us have at one time or another searched for information regarding different aspects of the current pandemic and not found the exact facts and figures we were looking for. This is because different organizations focus on building knowledge in a distinct niche and so no one source can cater to all aspects of a phenomenon. Thus, it would be useful to have a handy list of resources that provide reliable, current, and exhaustive information on Covid-19. It is equally essential to know exactly which resource can provide what kind of information. Following is a list of websites categorized acc ..read more

There is an isolated tribe in South Africa that lives a little north of Zimbabwe called the Doma People. These people are peculiar in that most of them have only two toes. So their feet are actually V-shaped like an ostrich and hence the name “ostrich people”. A family from the Doma Tribe with Ectrodactyly (Thfk / Wikimedia Commons) Ectrodactyly or congenital split hand/foot malformation (SHFM) is a genetic defect in which the middle three toes are missing and only the two outer toes develop. There are several genetic factors linked with the disorder which can present in the syndromic for ..read more

Is your name Wiggly Worp TamTam Tee? Yes? In that case you’re safe. Otherwise, if you have a regular name, a scientist alter ego of yours is sure to exist, one that works on the stripe patterns of marine bumble bees. You know – important stuff like that. According to an article in Nature, the most published scientist of the year 2011 was Y. Wang with about 3,926 articles to his name. That’s about 10 per day. Either Wang is actually a robot scientist sent from the future or there is something off with this number. Turns out, this was actually because of a bunch of Y. Wangs, and not just one per ..read more

Between skeptical conspiracy theories and Trump’s phenomenal medical advice, there are many myths and false claims that you may have come across. Despite easy access to a multitude of reliable sources for correct facts and figures, several misconceptions are widely circulating. This article attempts to address these so-called ‘stupid questions’. Novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 is a retrovirus (a virus with an RNA genome) that is causing the pandemic respiratory disease known as COVID-19. The virus originated in a wet market in Wuhan, China most likely from an animal source and quickly spread to t ..read more

Assessment of Proteasome Inhibition for Extending Remissions (APEX) was a Phase 3 clinical trial conducted in 2002-2003 to ascertain the efficacy of Bortezomib, a proteasome inhibitor, against relapsed multiple myeloma in comparison to that of high dose dexamethasone, the accepted treatment of the disease at the time. The study divides 669 patients with relapsed multiple myelomas into two treatment groups one of which receives Bortezomib and the other receives high dose dexamethasone. The division of patients was accomplished using stratified randomization according to the number of previous t ..read more