Monsters Inside Me

A guest lecturer showed us a clip from Animal Planet's documentary series Monsters Inside Me about malaria in class a few weeks ago. (Same professor who is friends with Edward Cullen.)



Anyway, we thought the featured doctor looked kinda familiar, but we were a bit preoccupied with laughing at the dramatic scrolling scene of the doctor posing in the hallway with arms crossed, superhero style.

Then his name was credited. Hey! Familiar looking superhero is our guest professor! Only he looked more, ah, studious in the clip with his eyeglasses and white coat and so ...

We laughed some more.

Professor's insight into the behind-the-scenes making of these documentaries: "We filmed it in one of those offices at Mount Sinai and for some reason, they had the heat on extremely high and they had all these lights so, uh, we would stop every two minutes because I was sweating and it looked like I had malaria."

Excellent.

Just had an exam on Monday, a presentation yesterday, and now I'm working on small group preparations and studying viruses.

Some Ebates Love

I was shopping for a friend's birthday present the other day (trying to decide between some blu-rays) and I remembered that I recently got this email from Ebates about their referral promotion. This is my referral link if you'd like to help me get some extra $$ and if 50 friends are referred, an Apple Ipad! Ooh la la: http://www.ebates.com/rf.do?referrerid=IV5q0zEgS2bCehY46RBDPA%3D%3D.

If you'd never heard of Ebates, it's a really good site that has various percentages of Cash Back for a bunch of familiar online shopping sites. No membership charges or sponsorship deals you need to do, no fees at all, no hassle. Honestly. Totally legit and their longtime referral program includes giving the referring person $5 as well as the new referred member $5. Win, win. I typically make sure most of my shopping (including Barnes & Noble (11% cashback off your purchase) Sephora (11%), Ebay, Half.com (4%), CompUSA, etc. - even though Amazon is not part of it! Darn.) are linked through this site first because hey, I'm already buying stuff anyway - might as well try to get some discount off, no matter how minimal it is. It adds up in the long run, especially with large purchases. So far, I've received $51.30 in checks so far and I've hooked in my brother and some friends. Ah, gratifying.

Anyway, just a recommendation and a plug for my own referral link, but I expect most of you are savvy enough about internet deals and are already members of this site. I feel kinda uncomfortable about throwing up some advertising here especially since it sounds kinda too good to be true, but Ebates gets a commission from the stores when members make a purchase and they just share part of that commission back. All in all, the program works well and actually gives you money back for purchases you'd just make normally. Everyone should know about it.

Edward Cullen of Parasites

Had third exam yesterday. We did our lab presentations today regarding unknown diagnoses with our plate cultures. Our case was based on a blood and urine sample from a 9 month old baby girl and we identified E. coli and some S. epidermidis (the latter probably due to skin contamination during the sampling process though) through Gram stains, API test strip, and all that jazz.

After that, we had an introduction lecture about parasitology. Cool class and we learned about all sorts of icky parasites that are quite clever at stowing away into their hosts' bodies, including this little fellow:

Behold. The Hookworm!

And then I died some more as the professor oh so casually described it: "I'd imagine this to be the Edward Cullen of parasites."

Class: "Say what?"

"It sucks blood and ... yeah."

I choked on my half-bewildered, half-horrified laughter.

Confused folks in the back row: "What? What is this Cullen he speaks of?"

I was lost for words. Three extra lessons I learned today:

1) So actually, not everybody is aware of this Twilight business. I thought it had about taken over the world already.

2) But of all those people out there who does know of Twilight, one of them is my professor. Who is so familiar with the Twilight world, he can state the full name of our favorite sparkling vampire. (Extra odd because I'm glancing back and forth between one girl who's all blissfully confused, "What's he talking about?", and then back to our middle-aged male professor, who's eyeing the picture of the hookworm, "Sup, Cullen.")

3) And I will never look at Mr. Hookworm the same way again. There is a part of Mr. Hookworm that thirsts for my blood and I am unconditionally and irrevocably in love with - yeah, no. Just no.

Random facts about Hookworm (Necatur americanus, Ancylostoma duodenale):

• a parasitic nematode worm that lives in the small intestine of its host
• feeds on host's small bowel mucosa, sucking blood directly from site of attachment
• one of the most important causes of childhood anemia in developing nations 
• infective larvae develop and survive in an environment of damp dirt
• diagnosis depends on finding worm eggs through microscopic examination of the stools
• basic prevention: don't walk barefoot in suspicious areas, avoid using human excrement as fertilizers, and try to deworm pets