Reflecting On The Reflecting Pool.

Jenny and Forrest (July 6, 1994) – Forrest Gump. Mike Magee The historic pool is, of course, not a swimming pool, although at 18 inches deep at the edges and 30 inches deep in the center, the National Archives does have a 1926 photo of children safely wading in it. Seven decades later, a fictional […]

Outwitting HIV

Mike Magee In a 1996 JAMA editorial Nobel Laureate Joshua Lederberg MD wrote “Our fight with microbes is far from over …odds are tipped in their favor…they outnumber us a billion fold, and mutate a billion times more quickly…pitted against microbial genes, we humans mainly have our wits.” Now three decades later, our scientists remain in […]

Hantavirus – Population Vulnerability, Transmissability, & Virulence

Note: There was a prior outbreak of the Andes variant Hantavirus reported in the New England Journal of Medicine 6 years ago. Mike Magee In 1948, General George Marshall, reflecting on the success of the World War II vaccine program, famously stated “We now have the means to eradicate infectious disease.” A frequent but untrue […]

AI Assisted Measurement of The Thymus – The “Fountain of Youth?”

Mike Magee For the past eight Springs, my calendar in May has included a 90 minute lecture for the Presidents College at the University of Hartford. Both the commitment and the topic have been chosen 9 months earlier. The long lead time allows enough space to develop the in-depth research and slide deck to support […]

Happy Spring to All

Mike Magee As Winter gives way to Spring, I am reminded of what J. R. R. Tolkien famously wrote in a poem that appears in the first volume of The Lord of the Rings trilogy in 1954 (and Bilbo Baggins sings as part of the song “I Sit Beside the Fire and Sing” a half […]

Microchimerism – What’s in a word?

Mike Magee According to some estimates, a medical student learns upwards of 15,000 new words during the four years of training. But the scope of the language challenge extends well beyond these tightly conscripted years since discoveries, and accompanying language to describe and label those new findings, accumulate throughout the entire span on one’s […]

Are You Ready For The Convergence of Metaphysics, Immunology, and Epigenetics?

Mike Magee Stanford neuroscientist, David Eagleman, reminded us this week that “A coherent explanation of consciousness eludes modern science.” That was his opening line in the New York Times book review of Michael Pollan’s latest effort, “A World Appears.” In it, Pollan asks innocently, “How does the brain generate a unified sense of self?” According […]

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