Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

Localized hardening of soft tissue of the body. The area becomes firm, but not as hard as bone.

The first in a series of therapeutic measures taken to treat a disease, typically a cancer. The induction therapy, for example, in acute leukemia is the initial chemotherapy designed to bring about a remission.

An abortion that is brought about intentionally. Also called an artificial or therapeutic abortion. As opposed to a spontaneous abortion (a miscarriage).

1. In medicine, a condition which makes a particular treatment or procedure advisable. CML (chronic myeloid leukemia) is an indication for the use of Gleevec (imatinib mesylate). 2. A sign or a circumstance which points to or shows the cause, pathology, treatment, or outcome of an attack of disease. The presence of the Philadelphia chromosome in peripheral blood cells is…

In medicine, to make a treatment or procedure advisable because of a particular condition or circumstance. For example, certain medications are indicated for the treatment of hypertension during pregnancy while others are contraindicated.

In biotechnology. an apparatus in which environmental conditions can be set and controlled. Incubators are used in microbiology for culturing (growing) bacteria and other microorganisms. Incubators in tissue culture rooms are used for culturing stem cells, lymphocytes, skin fibroblasts and other types of cells. And in the hospital nursery and newborn intensive care unit (NICU),…

In medicine, the time from the moment of exposure to an infectious agent until signs and symptoms of the disease appear. For example, the incubation period of chickenpox is 14-16 days. In biology, the incubation period is the time needed for any particular process of development to take place. For example, the length of time for turtle eggs to…

The inability to control excretions, to hold urine in the bladder, or to keep feces in the rectum.

A cut through skin or other tissue performed by a health care professional.

A measure of how close two people are genetically to each another. The coefficient of inbreeding, symbolized by the letter F, is the probability that a person with two identical genes received both genes from one ancestor. Take a first-cousin mating. First cousins share a set of grandparents. For any particular gene in the male,…