A weekly check-up of gender, medicine, and history in the news

• E. coli and bacterial sex.
• Rare footage of FDR walking.
• Leprosy vaccine scientist dies.
• Poverty among Holocaust survivors.
• Can the measles vaccine cure cancer?
• The racist roots of common phrases.
• The 19th-century vegetable version of Viagra.
• Thomas Edison and the cult of sleep deprivation.
• How old-timey medicine gave us the beard.
• Scientists discover 17-million-year-old giant sperm.
• Retirees are finding second careers at historical sites.
• Older women may be at higher risk for cervical cancer.
• Columbus’ ship, the Santa Maria, may have been found.
• The Acid Rescue Squad: Drug education in the 60s and 70s.
• 13,000-year-old wisdom tooth sheds light on Native American origins. 

** Featured image courtesy of Duke University’s “Medicine and Madison” digital collection: http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/mma_MM0443/