again, a few things my sisters will enjoy

ah... Boingboing.net

Organlegging nurse sold diseased corpsemeat for dental implants, knees and disks

Posted by Cory Doctorow, January 31, 2008 1:13 PM | permalink

An oral surgeon-turned-nurse-turned-organlegger has been busted in Philadelphia for buying corpses from funeral directors, extracting their valuable tissues, and selling them on to be used in surgery in the US and Canada:

Mastromarino, a former oral surgeon, paid funeral directors $1,000 per corpse, then sold the parts to tissue banks, Sagel said.

The body parts fetched up to $10,000 apiece, though tissue banks resold them to hospitals for many times that amount, he said. Mastromarino is believed to have taken in $6 million to $12 million since 2001.

The body parts were used in disk replacements, knee operations and dental implants performed by unsuspecting doctors across US and Canada.

Link

(Image: Roll Up for Your Dentures!, a Creative Commons Attribution licensed photo from Meanest Indian's Flickr stream)

Chocolate redesign stymies British testicle measurements

Posted by Cory Doctorow, February 1, 2008 7:23 AM | permalink

Michael sez, "According to this splendid article in the British Medical Journal, the recent redesign of two popular British chocolate snacks has disrupted a simple, affordable teaching method used to assess 'testicular volume' in pubescent boys."

We previously reported that two chocolates -- Teasers and Truffles -- were strikingly similar to the 8 ml bead of the orchidometer used to assess testicular volume. We therefore suggested that they could be used to stage puberty in males and, because of their wide availability and low cost, commended their use.

We were recently dismayed to discover that the manufacturer has changed the shape of both these chocolates. Both are now flat bottomed, and even non-specialists will notice that they bear little resemblance to testes. More disturbingly, they are no longer much use for assessing testicular volume. Only one of six paediatric endocrine specialists (comprising trainees, consultants, and specialist nurses) felt confident that they could use the new Teasers or Truffles to gauge testicular volume relative to the 8 ml cut-off which indicates that puberty is proceeding satisfactorily.

Link (Thanks, Michael!)