In addition to hosting the 2012 Olympic Games, London is also celebrating the opening of a brand new hospital—the beautiful University College Hospital. Despite the hospital boasting 12 operating theatres, Minerva has heard a rumour that there's just one (unisex) toilet for theatre staff and no rest room (theatre staff have to share the one used by the intensive care unit). Oh, and the architects apparently forgot to include any changing rooms.

A man with a prodigious capacity to generate the correct weekday of any given past date within a few seconds has had his brain examined using positron emission tomography. He performs this trick despite severe behavioural and cognitive impairment and has been doing so since the age of 4. Being unable to work with future dates, it was hypothesised that his calendar abilities were sustained by memory processing. The bits involved proved to be the left hippocampus, the left frontal cortex, and the left middle temporal lobe, which is similar to the cerebral circuit involved in memory retrieval tasks (British Journal of Psychiatry 2005;187: 83-6).

People who have received kidneys from living donors are apparently reluctant to accept them before they have had a chance to talk to the donors. Their main concern is to …