Mind-Control Helicopters and the Healing Power of Poop
Five unlikely breakthroughs in medical science today
By Lina Zeldovich
The history of science is punctuated with medical breakthroughs that seemed unlikely in the times from which they arose. Infections from simple cuts or sore throats laid waste to millions of people before the 20th century. Where was the cure? Certainly nobody in the 1920s imagined that it would come from green mold that formed on a petri dish in the lab of a London professor who was away on vacation. But the story of penicillin symbolizes the unlikely event that changed the world. It also got us wondering about the unlikely cures that medical science is working on today. The answers are many, of course, but we narrowed the list to five remarkable developments with potentially widespread applications.
The power of poop
Human feces was the scourge of early civilization, causing disease and death. So it sounds more than unlikely, it sounds downright bizarre, to report that poop has the power to heal. Surprisingly, human fecal matter contains trillions of microorganisms with potential healing properties.
In 2008, U.S. doctors transplanted human feces into a Minnesota woman suffering from an antibiotic-resistant intestinal infection caused…
