Mount Vesuvius, perhaps the world’s most famous and deadliest volcano, erupted on August 24, AD 79, destroying Pompeii and Herculaneum and killing some 25,000 people. Because of its explosiveness and the nearly three million people who live virtually within its looming shadow, Vesuvius remains extremely dangerous. The image below is an undated engraving, Greco-Roman House, depicting…
Clockwise from Upper Left: Kathleen Amos, Patrick McLaughlin, Amy Donahue, Paula Maez. After spending a year at the NLM, the 2008-2009 Associate Fellows had a big decision to make—what to do next. Three of the four Associates chose an optional second year, and the fourth was hired at NLM. The Associate Fellowship Program is a popular and…
Gifted physician, essayist, poet and lecturer, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (August 29, 1809-October 7, 1894), was one of 19th Century America’s literary and medical giants—as well as father of the eponymous Supreme Court Justice. In celebration of his long life, many accomplishments and the 200th anniversary of his birth, the NLM has opened a small…
The need for rapid exchange of scientific information to battle the current H1N1 flu epidemic helped spur arrival of the newest National Library of Medicine online archive, Rapid Research Notes (RRN). Developed by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), the RRN speeds access to published scientific research at moderated online sites, facilitating collection and sharing of…
MedlinePlus is now on Twitter, the free social networking service that lets you exchange quick messages of up to 140 characters. The Twitter site, medlineplus4you, is a companion to the popular National Library of Medicine consumer health Web site MedlinePlus.gov, providing trustworthy health and wellness information from federal government agencies and other authoritative sources. If you do…
NLM in Focus 