Obesity is associated with increased postoperative complications after operative management of distal humerus fractures.

Background: Distal humerus fractures commonly require surgical intervention, including open reduction and internal fixation (ORIF) and, more recently in elderly, low-demand individuals, total elbow arthroplasty (TEA). The association of obesity with complications after either of these procedures has not previously been examined.

Methods: A national insurance database was queried for ORIF or TEA for management of a distal humerus fracture using procedural and diagnostic codes.

Science in the Making: Right Hand, Left Hand. I: A BBC television programme broadcast in 1953.

In August 1953, the BBC broadcast a television science programme entitled Science in the Making: Right Hand, Left Hand. The programme was broadcast live, being presented by Dr Jacob Bronowski in collaboration with Dr Kenneth Smith, and produced by George Noordhof. It not only presented a popular account of current ideas about right- and left-handedness, by using a group of celebrities (and a chimpanzee) in the studio, but also asked viewers to complete a brief questionnaire on handedness, which was printed in the Radio Times.

Science in the Making: Right Hand, Left Hand. III: Estimating historical rates of left-handedness.

The BBC television programme Right Hand, Left Hand, broadcast in August 1953, used a postal questionnaire to ask viewers about their handedness. Respondents were born between 1864 and 1948, and in principle therefore the study provides information on rates of left-handedness in those born in the nineteenth century, a group for which few data are otherwise available. A total of 6,549 responses were received, with an overall rate of left-handedness of 15.

Science in the Making: Right Hand, Left Hand. II: The duck-rabbit figure.

The BBC television programme Right Hand, Left Hand, broadcast in August 1953, showed a version of the duck-rabbit figure and asked viewers to say what they could see in the “puzzle picture”. Nearly 4,000 viewers described the image, and the answers to those questions have recently been found and analysed. The programme probably used the same version of the figure as appeared in Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations, which had been published a month or two previously.