Blogs

When I was sick as a little girl, my mother would use all types of traditional Haitian concoctions and ideas to treat my symptoms. Fearing them immensely, I would run and hide thinking that she was absolutely nuts and preferring Tylenol or Robitussin instead. Yet, now I find myself following her traditions as opposed to shelling out money on the generic medicines at CVS. Maybe over time I became used to these, but I truly believed that they worked.

 It happens to all of us. “Passing Gas”, “cut the cheese”, or “breaking wind”; it could happen anywhere, anytime, and to anyone. Imagine standing in line at the bank and all of a sudden an uncanny sensation erupts in your stomach and an unpleasant smell ascends out of nowhere; and you think how embarrassing!

Hemispheric Lateralization in Horses

    Someone dear to me was born with a number of physical (not mental) birth defects known together as VACTERL Association. This person spent a great deal of time in the hospital as a baby, and had a number of surgeries at a young age. Now this person is perfectly healthy, but this person is still, albeit to a relatively small degree, visibly “different.” Ever since I was quite young, I have struggled with the reason why. It has always seemed frustratingly unjust to me that most people are born with “regular” bodies, while some, seemingly randomly, are not. Here, I will explore the causes of disorders like VACTERL, and also look into the differences, if any, between “genetic” and “developmental” birth defects.