Erlend Hem

27.03.2012: During the 1880s, Edvard Munch painted a number of portraits of his family members. His father and brother were both obviously complacent models. Of his brother, who later became a doctor, eight portraits exist. Five of them are privately owned, and have been traded on the private art market in...

27.03.2012: Up towards the ceiling vault of the Nidaros Cathedral, a number of artworks are hidden from public view. Many of the stone sculptures portray mythological animals and other scary creatures. In such company, one would imagine that human faces were also intended to evoke fear and anguish. Do they...

21.02.2012: This simple and banal question is possibly the most controversial one among medical researchers. I often speak with scholarship holders and young researchers. Often, the conversation turns to authorship, and many have stories to tell. The most common of these involves a senior researcher who demands...

07.02.2012: The outbreak of the influenza epidemic in 2009 caused disagreement over many things, including what to call the disease. Mexican flu, novel influenza, influenza (A(H1N1) and several others were proposed, but the term ’swine flu’ prevailed, and was appointed Word of the Year in Norway. The name...

18.10.2011: A new Norwegian-made anti-prostate cancer drug shows «unambiguously positive results». Time to open the champagne? On Monday 6 June, the Norwegian biotechnology company Algeta announced the happy news. Trials of the drug Alpharadin on more than 900 patients suffering from prostate cancer had...

08.04.2011: In the summer of 1847, the 29-year old Danish doctor Peter Anton Schleisner (1818 – 1900) (1) (fig 1) sailed to the Westman Islands off the south coast of Iceland. He had received detailed instructions from the Danish authorities. The aim was to combat the epidemic of neonatal tetanus (referred to...