Choice architecture to promote fruit and vegetable purchases by families participating in the Special Supplemental Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC): randomized corner store pilot study.

OBJECTIVE: To conduct a pilot study to determine if improving the visibility and quality of fresh produce (choice architecture) in corner stores would increase fruit/vegetable purchases by families participating in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC). DESIGN: Six stores were randomly assigned to choice architecture intervention or control. Store-level WIC sales data were provided by the state. Primary outcomes were WIC fruit/vegetable voucher and non-fruit/vegetable voucher sales, comparing trends from baseline (December 2012-October 2013) with the five-month intervention period (December 2013-April 2014). Secondary outcomes were differences in customer self-reported fruit/vegetable purchases between baseline and end of the intervention. SETTING: Chelsea, MA, USA, a low-income urban community. SUBJECTS: Adult customers (n 575) completing store exit interviews. RESULTS: During baseline, WIC fruit/vegetable and non-fruit/vegetable sales decreased in both intervention and control stores by $US 16/month. During the intervention period, WIC fruit/vegetable sales increased in intervention stores by $US 40/month but decreased in control stores by $US 23/month (difference in trends: $US 63/month; 95 % CI 4, 121 $US/month; P=0·036); WIC non-fruit/vegetable sales were not different (P=0·45). Comparing baseline and intervention-period exit interview responses by customers participating in WIC (n 134), intervention store customers reported increased fruit/vegetable purchases compared with control store customers (18 v. -2 %), but this did not achieve statistical significance (P=0·11). CONCLUSIONS: Placement of fruits/vegetables near the front of corner stores increased purchase of produce by customers using WIC. New policies that incentivize stores to stock and prominently display good-quality produce could promote healthier food choices of low-income families.

Hereditary premature closure of a coronal suture in the Abraham Lincoln family.

The most easily recognized facial features of unilateral premature closure of a coronal suture in the skull are an upward arching of the superior orbital rim and a smaller face on the involved side. Photographs indicate that at least 9 individuals over 5 generations of the Abraham Lincoln family showed this anomaly.

Unilateral coronal craniosynostosis in Abraham Lincoln and his family.

Premature closure of one coronal skull suture produces a characteristic arching or relative elevation of the superior orbital rim on the involved side. This sign is associated with facial asymmetry, and both signs are usually the most conspicuous features in patients with mild unilateral coronal craniosynostosis. Photographs suggest that at least 9 individuals over 5 generations of the Abraham Lincoln family had premature closure of 1 coronal suture. In 8 males, there was involvement of the left side; in 1 female, there was involvement of the right side.

The study of the wonderful: the first topographical mapping of vision in the brain.

The conception by René Descartes of the human brain, notorious as it is for placing the soul or mind in the pineal gland, had yet within it the basic idea of the brain as a highly organized mechanism with topographical sensory mapping and different functions localized in specific areas. Descartes was directly led to this idea by his appreciation of what the retinal image conceived by Johannes Kepler implied, not only for the nature of vision, but for the operation of the brain in general. The linkage between Kepler and Descartes is not widely appreciated but is one of the best examples of synergism in the history of science.

Evolution and the eye: the Darwin bicentennial and the sesquicentennial of the origin of species.

Evolution is an essential concept for anyone who considers science to be the best way to understand the natural world. It is as fully established as any scientific principle can be and is the great unifying theme in all of biology, as integral to understanding life-forms as gravity is to understanding the cosmos. On the bicentennial of the birth of Charles Darwin in 1809, and 150 years after the publication of On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection in 1859, we should remember the main features of eye evolution and the prominent place the eye holds in the development and refinement of evolutionary theory. A few highlights include the antiquity of rhodopsin, the ready capacity of an eye to evolve, the effect of eyes on the diversification of life-forms, and the promising influence of genetics on developmental and evolutionary biology.

Lincoln's craniofacial microsomia: three-dimensional laser scanning of 2 Lincoln life masks.

Examination of 2 life masks of Abraham Lincoln's face was performed by means of 3-dimensional laser surface scanning. This technique enabled documentation and analysis of Lincoln's facial contours and demonstrated his marked facial asymmetry, particularly evident in the smaller left superior orbital rim. This may have led to retroplacement of the trochlea on the left side, leading, in turn, to the mild superior oblique paresis that was manifested intermittently during adulthood.

The Nobel Prize of 1906.

December 2006 marked 100 years since the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded jointly to 2 pioneers in the cellular anatomy of the central nervous system (CNS), Camillo Golgi and Santiago Ramon y Cajal. Golgi developed the silver impregnation method for studying nerve cells, a technique that clearly showed entire cells with their arborizing dendrites and axons for the first time. Ramon y Cajal seized on the method for a series of groundbreaking studies that provided convincing support for what came to be known as the neuron theory, in opposition to the reigning model of the time, the reticular theory. The retina was one of Ramon y Cajal's favorite tissues for study. Although he was perplexed by the horizontal and amacrine cells, he was remarkably prescient in his analysis of retinal and CNS cellular anatomy. Few scientists have cast such a long shadow in their field, but Ramon y Cajal did not establish the neuron theory single-handedly, and the real tale is much more complicated.

History of ophthalmology. Boerhaave's tale.

The great 18th century physician, Hermann Boerhaave, once lectured on a case that is most likely the second recorded description of transient blindness due to interference with the brain.