For thousands of years, trepanation--the act of scraping, cutting, or drilling an opening into the cranium--was practiced around the world, primarily to treat head trauma but also for headaches, seizures and mental illnesses. Sometimes it was even done to expel demons.

It sounds garish now, but ancient Peruvians were surprisingly adept at it, so adept that Incan "neurosurgeons" had twice the survival rate for the procedure than better equipped surgeons during the American Civil War centuries later.

Obviously there could be differences in when it was done, so it may be due to confounders that in Incan times the mortality rate was between 17 and 25 percent while during the Civil War it was between 46 and 56 percent. 

Suicides have gone up in the United States since 1999, according to the CDC, but then state it is more than a mental health issue.

There is no rhyme or reason to the increases, half of states, from cultures as different as Vermont and North Dakota, saw large changes of over 30 percent.  Suicide is the 10th-leading cause of death in the U.S., and rates have been climbing steadily for years. With 44,965 suicide deaths in 2016, half of them using a firearm, the CDC would like to know why.

One way to manage chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) is to abandon existing guidelines and screen all people born between 1945 and 1975 for the disease, according to a new paper. 

Chronic HCV is a major public health problem in Canada with serious health effects leading to premature death. In 2013, about 252,000 Canadians were infected with HCV. People born between 1945 and 1975 have the highest rates of HCV, although an estimated 70% of this group have not been tested. 

Epilepsy is no laughing matter - except for one rare form, caused by hypothalamic hamartomas, benign masses in the brain that can cause epilepsy symptoms, unintentional giggling seizures and even early puberty.

This actual science appeared in the medical melodrama "Grey's Anatomy." The episode “Hold Back the River” featured the show’s doctors using focused sound waves to treat a hypothalamic hamartoma in a young boy, and it is being tested in a clinical trial at UVA.

It's not a tumor

There are numerous proponents of caloric restriction as a way to achieve longevity, and the belief has a kernel of truth - you don't often find obese centenarians - but what they leave out of the narrative is that these are mice, and they were weaned on a starvation diet.

We're not going to wean human babies on a starvation diet and then expect them to do it for 110 years. They will discover In-N-Out Burgers somewhere along the way. 

But while aging is going to remain the biggest risk factor for diseases like cancer, cardiovascular diseases, type II diabetes and Alzheimer's disease, obesity will soon overtake smoking as the number two. What can bridge the gap between humans and the flies, worms, fish and mice that have benefited from a lifetime diet?

Tax and spend politicians and their supporters have begun framing austerity in a negative way. Austerity - spending what you make, or even less so you have a reserve - is now regarded as a negative by people that believe taxes and more government lead to growth, even if those beliefs are what led to their economic collapse.