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In high school, after reading novels by C. P. Snow describing academic life at Cambridge University in England, I decided that I wanted to be a professor (little did I know that this vision of academic life was nothing like reality, at least in the US). In sophomore year, my inner-city high school biology teacher taught us about the experiments of Jan Baptist van Helmont (1579–1644) showing that a piece of soiled cloth mixed with wheat yielded mouse pups after a 21-day incubation. This sealed the deal — I wanted to be a biologist. more »

Joan L. Cannon wrote: "Most people are uncomfortable in the presence of what they see as authority. That’s the way most patients see their doctors. Subtleties like the relative position of the authority figure who sits on a stool a little below the level of the patient’s chair help to alleviate this artificial distance, but a common understanding of human behavior based on a lot more than one person can acquire through direct experience can be the biggest help of all. Once in practice, few doctors will have time for artistic or literary excursions, so it probably would be a good idea to give them as much of that experience as possible as early as possible." more »

Bills Introduced: The importance of reducing the rate of maternal mortality and morbidity among Black women; A bill to address the use of opioids and substance use disorders with respect to pregnant women and babies; A bill to prohibit the pricing of consumer products and services that are substantially similar if such products or services are priced differently based on the gender of the individuals for whose use the products are intended or marketed or for whom the services are performed or offered; a bill to require the secretary of Veterans Affairs to provide child care assistance to veterans receiving certain training or vocational rehabilitation. more »

Jo Freeman reviews and writes: Alan Venable was one of Hope’s kids. A junior at Harvard, he joined 18 students from Brandeis University and four from other Boston area schools to go to Columbia S.C. for ten weeks. After two weeks, six of them moved to Calhoun County. When they started canvassing only 490 blacks were registered to vote in that county. They registered 114 in July, under the very restrictive registration rules typical of the Southern states, which were generally applied to blacks but not to whites. When the VRA became law on August 6, it removed the literacy test. Another 500 registered in the next two months. more »