A Poem for Grandmother

Life: A Poem

Grandmother elephants

As new technology makes it possible to perform experiments that were unimaginable a decade ago, Eve Marder argues that we can still learn from the past.

A critical care holiday poem.

Double-Scope Peroral Endoscopic Myotomy (POEM) for Esophageal Achalasia: The First Trial of a New Double-Scope POEM

With the accumulation of clinical trials demonstrating its efficacy and safety, peroral endoscopic myotomy (POEM) has emerged as a less invasive treatment option for esophageal achalasia compared with laparoscopic Heller myotomy. However, the difficulty in determining the exact extent of myotomy, a critical factor associated with the success and safety of the procedure, remains a limitation. Al...

The Grandmother Effect

Two classes of explanation have been advanced to explain women’s long post-menopausal life span – that it is an epiphenomenon of increased longevity or an evolved adaptation. While there is no decisive evidence to choose between them, the latter appears more likely. Two mechanisms for the evolved adaptation have been proposed, the ‘mother effect’ and the ‘grandmother effect’. It is argued that ...