Differences in blood types can mean the difference in whether a person qualifies for an organ transplant. If the blood type of the donor organ doesn't match the recipient's, a mismatched transplant likely results in death.

But a new approach uses enzymes to treat donor organs to make them compatible with recipients of any blood type. Right now, it's still experimental and hasn't been tried in real patients, but if proven successful, it would further ease the challenges of organ transplantation.

Body of Knowledge

It is estimated that 20% to 30% of people bite their nails.

Get Me That, Stat!

The pandemic has caused some patient safety achievements of recent years to slip backward, according to a New England Journal of Medicine study. In nursing homes, for example, serious falls were up 17% compared to pre-pandemic, and bed sores had increased 42%.

Counts

315: Number of animals (from 15 species) confirmed to have been infected by SARS-CoV-2. (Note: This number does not include infected mink, nearly all found on fur farms.)

Source: National Geographic

Doc Talk

Idiopathic: unknown cause

Mania of the Week

Amychomania: an uncontrollable obsession with being scratched

Never Say 'Diet'

The Major League Eating record for Peeps is 255 in five minutes, held by professional eater Matt Stonie, whose record-breaking performance was so dominant that competitors didn't utter, well, a bird of protest.

Food for Thought

According to FDA regulations, tomato paste, pizza sauce or other sauces can include 30 or more fly eggs per 100 grams. Alternatively, you can have 15 or more fly eggs and one or more maggots, but not 30 eggs and multiple maggots. That would presumably make it a meat pie.

Best Medicine

After a checkup, a doctor asked his patient, "Is there anything you'd like to discuss?"

"Yes," said the patient, "I was thinking about getting a vasectomy."

"That's a big decision," replied the doctor. "Have you talked it over with your family?"

"Yes, we took a vote. They're in favor of it 15 to 2."

Observation

"Y O U R F L Y I S O P E N would be a fun chart for an eye doctor." — Humorist Greg Tamblyn

Medical History

This week in 1993, two articles in the journal Nature solved a mystery in the development of AIDS: Why do many patients exhibit an early outbreak of HIV virus particles in their blood, but then go as many as 10 years before the virus reappears in their blood? The published reports pointed to lymph tissue throughout the whole body acting as a reservoir to hide the virus during this latent period. The significance of the finding is that to be effective, any vaccine must act to block the virus before it takes hold in the lymph system.

Perishable Publications

Many, if not most, published research papers have titles that defy comprehension. They use specialized jargon, complex words and opaque phrases like "nonlinear dynamics." Sometimes they don't, and yet they're still hard to figure out. Here's an actual title of actual published research study: "The nature of navel fluff."

Far from mere belly button gazing, Austrian scientists found that small cloth fibers from clothing migrate down the abdomen, directed by body hair, into the navel, where they mix with dead skin cells and loose hair. Women generally have less navel fluff because they have finer, shorter body hair.

Self-exam

Q: How fast is a sneeze?

a) 1 mph

b) 10 mph

c) 60 mph

d) 100 mph

A: d) Humans can sneeze at a speed of up to 100 miles per hour, with coughs clocking in at up to 50 mph.

Last Words

"Remember honey, don't forget what I told you: Put in my coffin a deck of cards, a mashie niblick, and a blonde." — American comedian Leonard Chico Marx (1887-1961). Though many assumed Chico was an Italian nickname and pronounced "Cheeko," Marx was dubbed "Chicko" by friends for his womanizing ways.

To find out more about Scott LaFee and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

Photo credit: swiftsciencewriting at Pixabay