Generative AI like ChatGPT is absolutely useless for anything besides maybe making summaries. Humans use language as a default method of communication, and if you are trying to produce academic work, the onus is on you to learn how to use language effectively. These heaps of algorithms and marketing exclusively hallucinate and plagiarize, both of which are absolutely unacceptable in academia (and should be unacceptable in society at large, in my opinion.)

Tell me you haven’t reviewed classmates’ papers without telling me you haven’t reviewed classmates’ papers.

Some of the papers I’ve read from my classmates make me wonder how they got out of high school, let alone into university or (!!) medical school. There are a lot of people who cannot write decently to save their lives that are still somehow in academia.

I just finished my surgery rotation for medical school and I saw so many colonoscopies. I have seen the inside of dozens of people’s colons and this is a pretty good explanation for what’s going on. I could also tell which patients ate a lot of fruit or seeds because there would still be some residual seeds in there after the clean-out prep.

Pro tip: if you are going in for a colonoscopy, ask for the pill form of the prep. Most insurances cover it, it works better, and you don’t have to drink the gallon of disgusting fluid.

Also! Colonoscopies are very important! They are the single best tool for detecting and preventing colon cancer. During the scope, if they find any polyps, they get removed and sent for evaluation to see if they are cancerous, pre-cancerous, or benign, and the polyps are basically the seeds of colon cancer. It is recommended to get your first colonoscopy at age 45, unless you have a family history of colon cancer, in which case you would get your first one 10 years younger than the age the family member was diagnosed, or age 45, whichever is younger.

There are the home tests like the cologuard, but that has a 45% false positive rate, and they’re only good for 3 years while a colonoscopy is good for 10 years(*) if it comes back normal, so the cologuard ends up being more expensive in the long run. It also only detects the later, more advanced polyps that are more likely to be closer to being cancer, and if it comes back positive, you have to get a colonoscopy anyways. A lot of the false positives come from the fact that it tests for DNA associated with cancer mutations and for microscopic blood in the stool, and they don’t tell you if it’s positive because of the DNA or the blood, and you can have microscopic amounts of blood in your stool for tons of reasons.

TL;DR: Colonoscopies are very important, and MUCH better than the home test. Talk to your primary care provider about when you should start screening, and if you’re over 45, go get scheduled for one now. Colon cancer is a horrible disease, and it’s actually quite preventable and easy to catch in the early stages, if you get your colonoscopies on the recommended schedule.

*Addendum: If your colonoscopy detects certain kinds of polyps, or more than a certain number of polyps, you might be on a shorter interval for surveillance scopes to make sure they catch anything before it becomes cancer, and that interval can be anywhere from 3 to 7 years depending on what they found. Also, if you have a family history of colon or rectal cancer, you’ll be on a 5 year schedule because you’re higher risk.

While that gene therapy does exist, it is not the same as what is being done here. The offspring of these mosquitos will have this same modified gene. The offspring of the recipients of the Sickle Cell gene therapy will not have the modified gene. We have the ability to alter a single human for their lifespan, but we do not have the ability to alter a human in such a way that their offspring will carry the same modification.

Gene therapy is not the same thing as CRISPR. CRISPR is modifying the genome before the organism makes it past 1 cell.

Not necessarily, but the advancement of the technology and refinement of the technique are not progressing very quickly and since it’s so far away from human application, there’s not a lot of money/investment in it.

As a widely available, cost-effective treatment? Almost certainly not. We have yet to successfully genetically modify a human being and there’s a metric ton of legal and ethical red tape to deal with before we can even try.

CRISPR is profoundly difficult and expensive, and gets more difficult and expensive the more chromosomes are at play. Modifying mosquitos is much easier, and with the short generations (days or weeks instead of decades for humans) it’s much easier to get the genetic changes to stick and observe their efficacy. We might get around to modifying humans someday, but it will likely be centuries before it is available for anything besides fixing lethal anomalies (and even then, it’ll be a long time until that becomes consistently successful).

Many species of mosquitos are reliant on blood for reproduction. The females utilize a “blood meal” for the nutrients for laying eggs to be fertilized. Additionally, it is the female mosquito bite that transmits diseases like malaria.

MRI sometimes uses a non-radioactive contrast depending on what you’re trying to get images of. MRI is probably the safest imaging modality, but it’s very expensive, kind of difficult sometimes due to how long it takes, and isn’t useful for every kind of imaging that needs to be done.

A lot of states have places for early in-person voting. You might have to drive a bit of a distance, but it allows for in-person voting in a less chaotic environment.

Not even a sip for me. I was offered small amounts of champagne or wine at special occasions, but I never drank any because I could smell the alcohol on it and didn’t want to.

I’ve just always been some variant of the “mom friend” and after I turned 21, I was still the DD most of the time.

Nope. The first time I drank any alcohol ever was on my 21st birthday. My Dad made me a gin and tonic with Bombay Sapphire, and that set the standard for the kind of alcohol I will drink. It’s a good thing I’m a lightweight because I only drink the expensive stuff. (The cheap crap burns too much.)

I’ve tried to drink coffee a couple times. I never was successful at it. My body just hates something in coffee and it just comes right back up before even hitting my stomach. So, I guess it’s gone down my esophagus, but never further than that.

I end up going to the ER way more than I want to. It’s really annoying; if you walk into an urgent care or a regular doctor’s office (besides my regular care providers, they’re used to me now) and say you think you have a kidney infection or other kidney problems and you just need antibiotics, they just go “NOPE” and yeet you out the door to go to the ER. So far, I have been successful in preventing them from calling an ambulance for me.

Never have I ever drank alcohol illegally or underage.

As an absurdly fervent Tolkien fan, people bringing up the Eagles spikes my blood pressure in a way that cannot be good in the long run.

I’m a third year medical student in the Midwest. I’m aiming to do my residency in Minnesota, either Emergency Med or Family Med because apparently I like doing social work and hate my sanity or something.

I just finished my second family medicine rotation and it’s just so ass-backwards because if we could give them the medication they need, they won’t end up in hospitals/ICUs/long term care facilities/etc. The new medications are incredible drugs and can vastly improve the quality and quantity of life for patients with diseases like diabetes, heart failure, renal failure, and more…if the patients can afford them, which they frequently cannot.