John Nash: A Beautiful Mind Dies
On May 23, 2015, John Nash and his wife were killed while riding in a taxi on the New Jersey Turnpike. The driver...
Fausto Coppi’s Mysterious Death
Fausto Coppi was the best international cyclist in the years before and after World War II because he was the best climber, time trialer...
Gerhard Hansen and Leprosy
Diana and I just returned from a riverboat/cycling trip with almost 400 other bicyclists from Memphis to New Orleans. We visited the National Hansen's...
Toulouse-Lautrec: Inbreeding, Alcohol and Syphilis – a Bad Mix
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec ranks with Cezanne, van Gogh, Monet and Gauguin as one of the best painters of the late 19th century. Throughout...
Famous Athletes with Asthma
Paula Radcliffe holds the world’s record in the women's marathon, has won the world championships in the marathon, half marathon and cross country, has...
Dmitri Mendeleev, Father of the Periodic Table
Dmitri Mendeleev developed the Periodic Table that organized all of the chemical elements known at that time and many that were not yet known....
Van Cliburn, Cold War Hero
In 1958, at the height of the "Cold War", the Soviet Union gained an incredible coup by successfully launching Sputnik 1, the first orbiting...
Franz Kafka and Tuberculosis
Franz Kafka was one of the most influential writers of the twentieth century, even though little of his work was published before his death...
Julian Schwinger and Pancreatic Cancer
Julian Seymour Schwinger (February 12, 1918 – July 16, 1994) was one of the greatest physicists of the twentieth century. He shared a...
Gerty Cori’s Nobel Prize
Gerty Cori was the first woman to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, in 1947, for the discovery of how muscles...
Andre the Giant and Acromegaly
Andre the Giant was a professional wrestler who at 7' 4" and 520 pounds, won the World Wrestling Federation individual championship and World Tag Team Championship. He was also an actor in several Hollywood films. His huge size was caused by a pituitary gland brain tumor that produced huge amounts of human growth hormone.
Ignaz Semmelweis, Antiseptic Pioneer
One of the saddest stories of a prophet who was treated as a quack by his contemporaries
is that of Ignaz Semmelweis. In...
Itzhak Perlman and Polio
Itzhak Perlman is arguably the most brilliant and beloved violinist of the 20th century and so far in the 21st. He is also...
Marion Barry, Washington’s ‘Mayor for Life’, Dead at 78
As four-time mayor of Washington, D.C., Marion Barry helped to create a city that helped the poor and disadvantaged. His programs created jobs for...
Tom Magliozzi, Host of “Car Talk”
Tom Magliozzi died at age 77 on November 3, 2014 from complications of Alzheimer's disease. This horrible dementia prevents you from remembering almost...
Raoul Dufy’s Rheumatoid Arthritis
Raoul Dufy, one of the most popular painters of the early 20th century, produced more than 6000 paintings that featured themes of happiness, luxury...
Tom Hanks, Diabetes and YoYo Dieting
Tom Hanks' films have grossed more than $4.2 billion in the United States and Canada, and more than $8.4 billion worldwide. He is...
Grace Kelly, Death of a Princess
Grace Kelly was a famous Hollywood actress who became Princess Grace of Monaco and died at age 54 after driving a car off a...
Joan Rivers: No Procedure is Risk-Free
UPDATE - 11/13/14
The New York Department of Health and Human Services has now determined that Joan Rivers died from brain damage caused by lack...
Why Did Ultimate Warrior Die at 54?
The Ultimate Warrior, one of the most famous professional wrestlers of all time, died of a heart attack at the very young age of...
Sinead O’Connor’s Fibromyalgia
Sinead O'Connor is an Irish singer and songwriter who became famous in the late 1980s and has been a strong moralist, speaking out against...
Brian Piccolo and Testicular Cancer
In 1969, Brian Piccolo was a 26-year-old fullback for the Chicago Bears in the National Football League when he was diagnosed with testicular cancer....
Famous Stents: Bill Clinton and George Bush
Bill Clinton: In 2004, former President Clinton had a quadruple bypass operation that did not require stents and did not increase risk for...
Tony Gwynn, Mr. Padre, Dead at 54
One of baseball's best batters ever, Tony Gwynn, died of cancer of his salivary glands on June 16, 2014. The New York Times called...
Natasha Richardson’s Needless Death
Natasha Richardson was a British stage and screen actress who died at the young age of 45 from an epidural brain hemorrhage caused by...
Rosalind Franklin, Cheated Out of a Nobel Prize
Rosalind Franklin should have won the Nobel Prize for discovering the structure of DNA. She died at the very young age of 37...
Jean Harlow, the Blonde Bombshell
Jean Harlow was voted one of the greatest actresses of the 1930s Golden Age by the American Film Institute and was the first...
Toshiko D’Elia, Marathon Champion, Dies at 84
Toshiko D’Elia, who broke many age-group world marathon records for women over 50, died of brain cancer on February 19, 2014. ...
Al Capone: Crime Does Not Pay
The king of Chicago prostitution lost both his mind and his life to diseases caused by a lifetime of promiscuous sex. He was probably America's most famous killer, gangster, bootlegger, criminal and racketeer, but the United States government could convict him only for tax evasion and he was sentenced to only 11 years in prison.
Srinivasa Ramanujan, Math Prodigy
Perhaps the most amazing mathematician of all time was Srinivasa Aiyangar Ramanujan (1887-1920). He worked out incredibly complicated problems and expanded our knowledge of...
