Photo by Gustavo Fring from Pexels What’s that wriggling down the chimney? Why, it’s a brand-new COVID variant! The Omicron variant was first detected in California this past week, but despite the headlines, there’s little indication that there’s any reason to be overly…

Photo by RF._.studio from Pexels The spleen is a purplish, 4-5 inch long, roughly fist-shaped abdominal organ, sitting to the left of the stomach, attached to the left kidney by a ligament, and just within the lower-left rib basket. In ancient Greek and…

Photo by Leohoho on Unsplash Published in the Humboldt Independent on November 23, 2021 At long last, pharmaceutical leviathan Pfizer has come up with a pill whose name is ugly enough to terrify the disease it’s meant to fight: COVID-19,…

Photo by Robina Weermeijer on Unsplash Published in the Humboldt Independent on November 9, 2021 A couple of fist-sized, bean-shaped organs tucked behind the stomach just beneath the lower back ribs, the kidneys were considered during biblical times to be…

Photo by Mufid Majnun on Unsplash Published in the Humboldt Independent on November 2, 2021 Less than a year after the first vaccines were administered in the United Kingdom, almost half the planet has received at least a partial vaccination…

Photo by cottonbro from Pexels Posted in the Humboldt Independent on October 26, 2021 When famous ancient Greek physician Galen of Pergamon declared the pancreas nothing more than spongy protective padding separating the stomach from some large blood vessels, no one challenged the…

Photo by Sander Dalhuisen from Unsplash Published in the Humboldt Independent on October 19, 2021.  Around the world, doctors, nurses, and medical staff are suffering from more stress and fatigue than at any time in human history, courtesy of everyone’s favorite not-really-novel-anymore coronavirus.…

Photo by Sander Dalhuisen from Unsplash Published in the Humboldt Independent on October 12, 2021.  Platypuses and seahorses don’t have one, and if absolutely necessary you could live without one, but mostly it is a good thing to have a stomach, that repository…

Photo by ivalex from Unsplash Published in the Humboldt Independent on October 5, 2021.  Last week, the county’s COVID-19 Joint Information Center held a press conference to discuss efforts against the pandemic and provide an update on the impacts of the disease locally.…

Photo by v2osk from Unsplash Published in the Humboldt Independent on September 28, 2021.  About the size of a football and weighing roughly 3 pounds, your liver has up to 500 vital functions, earning it a dual identity as an organ and a…

Photo by Laurenz from Unsplash Published in the Humboldt Independent on September 21, 2021.  This isn’t going to be a fun one. Honestly, if you’ve had enough COVID this week, skip it. I won’t take it personally. Recent Numbers One in 500 Americans…

Photo by Mark Tulin from Unsplash Published in the Humboldt Independent on September 14, 2021.  Seen from the side, the human spine is a graceful series of curves that evolved when we became bipedal and which enable us to stand buoyantly upright, a…

Photo by Mauro Mora from Unsplash Published in the Humboldt Independent on September 7, 2021.  When we talk about “the pandemic” these days, it’s obvious what we’re referring to. Of all the nasty diseases floating around, none of them can claim to have…

Photo by CDC  from Unsplash Published in the Humboldt Independent on August 24, 2021.  From the frontlines of the Great Misinformation Wars of 2021, here’s your weekly COVID report. At least 371 new cases of coronavirus landed in Humboldt this past week,…

Photo by hopefilmphoto  from Unsplash Published in the Humboldt Independent on August 17, 2021.  Dating back to 1733, not long after the invention of the “Physician’s Pulse Watch”, a time device that had a second hand that could be stopped, it has…

Photo by CDC  from Unsplash Published in the Humboldt Independent on August 10, 2021.  Masks are back and cases are up as everyone’s favorite Coronavirus makes a truly Olympic effort to ruin the rest of summer. Here in Humboldt County, we’re seeing…

Photo by Anupam Mahapatra on Unsplash Published in the Humboldt Independent on August 3, 2021 As many as 20 million Americans suffer from some form of peripheral neuropathy. This condition, which can give rise to numbness, tingling, and/or mild to…

Photo by AllGo  from Unsplash Published in the Humboldt Independent on July 27, 2021 It’s been over a month since California eased up on COVID-19-related restrictions, ushering in a festivity of media speculation and statistical acrobatics as some numbers go up and…

Photo by Yoann Boyer on Unsplash Published in the Humboldt Independent on July 20, 2021 We arrive finally at the last of the five human senses: touch. Last in our series, but likely the first sense to develop in human…

Photo by Spencer Davis on Unsplash Posted in the Humboldt Independent on July 13, 2021 While COVID-19 continues to mutate through the Greek alphabet (I think we’re up to the epsilon variant by now), it seems safe to say that…

Photo by Fusion Medical Animation on Unsplash Published in the Humboldt Independent on July 6, 2021 The so-called delta variant of COVID-19 has been making headlines for the past few weeks, and with good reason. Potentially twice as infectious as…

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels Published in the Humboldt Independent on June 29, 2021 We have previously covered sight, hearing, and smell, and now arrive at taste on our odyssey through the suite of human senses. To most of us, taste is…

Image by 마스크맨 from Pixabay  Published in the Humboldt Independent on June 22, 2021 As of June 15th, California has had enough. For those fortunate enough to have been fully vaccinated, masks are no longer required in public spaces. COVID-related restrictions on businesses…

Photo by Casey Murphy on Unsplash Published in the Humboldt Independent on June 15 Moving on in our tour of the senses, we sniff out the human nose, a sense organ that gets a bad rap compared to your basset hound’s…