The American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in New York City has unveiled an exhibit, Race to the End of the Earth, that allows anyone to see and experience the difficulties involved in the original journey to the South Pole. In 1910, two men, Norway’s Roald Amundsen and England’s Robert Falcon Scott, led independent teams in hopes of becoming the first explorer to reach the South Pole and come back to tell the tale. The explorers both approached the daunting task extremely differently…
Chef Wylie Dufresne, the owner of New York City restaurant wd~50, experiments with food, literally. He has lab notebooks detailing what certain chemicals do to certain dishes. One of his signature dishes is a spin on eggs Benedict: he found that creating the plate’s centerpiece–a cube of fried hollandaise sauce–required a lot of scientific testing. Science Friday stopped in at Dufresne’s kitchen to see how he prepares the dish.
Astronauts are allowed to bring special “crew preference” items when they go up in space. NASA astronaut Don Pettit chose candy corn for his five and a half month stint aboard the International Space Station. But these candy corn were more than a snack; Pettit used them for experimentation.
My last couple of entries I have tackled ridiculousness pertaining to issues that have massive scope. Issues such as energy independence, climate change, the fate of our current geo-political system; ridiculousness that we hear about everyday on television, in newspapers, and across the blogosphere. However today, while riding the subway, I was reminded that ridiculousness comes in all shapes and sizes. And in this case, ridiculousness came in the form of a book title.
Hi, Mom. Hi, ether. On my first clinical rotation, I did step into a whole new world. And while I’m back to real life, I definitely brought a little part of the wards back with me. But I also left a little part of my former self there, too. For better or worse, these past few months have been some of the most intense (and the most rewarding) of my life. I wish I could write one blog entry that could capture how much I’ve learned or what I saw, but that would be impossible. Instead, I’d like to share a few reflections on, and a peek into, the very privileged world of hospital medicine.
