The Midwest is known for many things: we live in “America’s Heartland,” many of us live in the “Rust Belt” or “Tornado Alley,” and we may have the most diverse crappy weather of the nation. I will admit it; I am not a fan of winter after December. The gray snow matches the dreary sky and despite longer days, I often forget what sunshine feels like.
So here’s my cure to help with those winter doldrums—ridiculous PubMed entries.
One of my favorite blogs is NCBI ROFL, which was recently incorporated into Discover’s DiscoBlog. NCBI ROFL consists of “two prone-to-distraction grad students [that] post real scientific articles with funny subjects.” Here are a few of my favorite PubMed entries, but I highly recommend this site to anyone who needs a reminder that doctors have a sense of humor and medicine can be downright silly (just try to forget that our taxes may have gone into funding the studies)
- The Unsuccessful Self-Treatment of a Case of Writer’s Block: Probably the most impressive study ever (and yes, that is the entire article!)
- Humor and Death: A Qualitative Study of The New Yorker Cartoons (1986-2006): I think the title says it all
- D’oh! An Analysis of the Medical Care Provided to the Family of Homer J. Simpson: Funny, I never considered questioning what Dr. Nick Riviera’s qualifications were…
- The Effect of Technique and Shaft Configuration in Snow Shoveling on Physiologic, Kinetic, and Productivity Variables: As if shoveling snow wasn’t enough, now we know how bad it is for us!
- Ice Cream Evoked Headaches (ICE-H) Study: Randomized Trial of Accelerated Versus Cautious Ice Cream Eating Regimen: We’ve all wondered, it was just a matter of time before someone had to create a randomized control trial on eating ice cream
- Emotional and Persuasive Perception of Fonts: Ever wonder why some fonts just make you angry (like comic sans)?