See images of medical cases of firework injuries shared on this 'Instagram for doctors.' (Warning: Graphic content)

Firework or sparkler burns can have large effects on our hands' range of motion

Dr. Erin Miller, a hand surgeon at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, describes the range of injuries she's seen from firework injuries in this 2020 video. The damage includes loss of hands, fingers, and tips of fingers. Miller describes how in a recent year she was on-call during the week of the Fourth, and in just five days she saw 30 cases and had to amputate 42 fingers because of fireworks injuries.

Firework or sparkler burns, even if they cover a relatively small area of skin, can significantly affect our range of motion.

Fireworks-related ER visits are on the rise—in 2024, they increased by 52% as compared to the prior year.

11 people died from firework injuries in the US in 2024

Most of those deaths involved misuse of the explosives and device malfunctions or misfires. That fatality count doesn't include the almost 15,000 people who received treatment in the emergency room due to firework-related injuries. More than a third of all the injuries in 2024 were burns, underscoring the risks of using these explosive devices.

11 people died from firework injuries in the US in 2024.

Fun family fireworks turn ballistic

The American Pyrotechnics Association estimates that over 10,000 injuries result each year from fireworks, close to three-quarters of which occur around the Fourth of July. This video shows just one rather explosive miscue.

A gallery of medical illustrations from NIH

The National Institutes of Health provides educational materials for broad use. The institute hosts a Flickr account with many different image galleries, including this one (with over 70 images to date) that illustrate and annotate curious phenomena, from the life cycles of a malaria parasite to the comparison of male and female bladders. Explore the gallery here.

Learn how your body is, scientifically, like a firework with its own slow, controlled burn.

Visualize the components of fireworks

This article provides animated diagrams depicting how different parts of fireworks function. The elements work together through timed mechanisms to produce desired effects.

Deepfake videos impersonating real doctors are spreading false medical advice

More than 100 videos, found primarily on Instagram and TikTok in August 2025, promoted products related to beauty, wellness and weight loss. While TikTok removed 94% of content violating its policies on AI-generated content, these deepfakes were watched and shared before removal, undermining public trust in medicine.

Listen to how medical error affected an emergency physician's approach

Emergency physician Dr. Sarah Gray discusses her worst medical error, what she learned from it, and how medical error and the culture around it lead to physician burnout. In addition to lawsuits, medical errors can lead to guilt, shame, anxiety, and fears of embarrassment, so this podcast discusses how sharing such errors and teaching about them can improve care.

The US had about 155.4 million emergency room visits in 2022

Of those emergency incidents, the largest share of patients were between the ages of 25 and 44 and were in the southern part of the US. More than 43 million of the visits involved injuries, including poisonings.

See this overview of the firework rules across all 50 states, ranging from a complete ban on non-professional fireworks in Massachusetts to states with more lax rules like Indiana.

A pediatric journal ran 138 fictional case studies, and 61 were cited as real stories

The Canadian journal Paediatrics & Child Health issued corrections to 138 case studies published since 2000, acknowledging the cases were entirely fictional—a practice intended to protect patient privacy that was never disclosed to readers. At least 61 of the fabricated reports were cited as fact in other peer-reviewed journals a combined 218 times, including a 2006 Lancet article alleging an infant died from opioid-laced breast milk.

New evidence suggests the eruption's victims died as their blood boiled

While most Pompeii victims suffocated or were crushed, spectroscopic analysis of bones from a nearby town indicates something more extreme: exposure to superheated gas that instantly boiled blood and caused deadly internal trauma.

See 33 images that became central to huge scandals, including a young Charles and Camilla, Michael Jackson's baby on a hotel balcony, and Hugh Grant's mugshot.

Medical imaging allows 3D printers to create patient-matched devices

With imaging data on a person's anatomy, external prostheses and implants, such as cranial plates or hip joints, can be custom-printed to better match a patient's body. Fabrication of porous structures can promote bone growth, leading to longer-lasting implants.

Accidental ingestion of batteries can be life-threatening

Tissue in the body can serve as a circuit path between the anode and cathode of a battery, resulting in electrical burns and gradual tissue erosion. Stomach acid can corrode a battery and cause its toxic contents to leak, making a person sick. Batteries for internal use, such as in pacemakers, require special designs.

Look through this WWI stretcher bearer's bag

While it was indeed the first industrialized war, medical science had yet to catch up on the battlefield. This nearly eight-minute video sorts through the contents of a World War I stretcher-bearer's satchel. A modern doctor and ex-officer assesses the bag's various medical tools for performing first aid on the battlefield.

Visualizing a joint under attack from rheumatoid arthritis

A particularly difficult arthritis subtype is rheumatoid arthritis, a painful condition provoking a vicious cycle of joint inflammation, destruction, and dysfunction. It begins with a misfiring of the patient’s own immune system—for unknown reasons, it identifies joint and cartilage cells as foreign, initiating an attack to eliminate the supposed "invaders."

Examining self-diagnosed synesthesia

A growing number of people on social media claim to have a perceptual condition that lets them smell colors, see music, or taste sounds. But do they really?

Metal fragments can create glowing rings when sand chips them off helicopter blades

The Kopp-Etchells effect—named after two soldiers who died in action in Afghanistan—may occur when kicked-up material shaves off fragments from a helicopter blade's abrasion strip. Due to a property called pyrophoricity, the fragments react with air and ignite, producing halos.

See the differences between chickenpox and hand, foot, and mouth

This helpful explainer breaks down the differences between these two contagious, viral diseases, which both present with fevers and sores. It includes photos of the sores that are characteristic of both diseases, showing how they have appeared across different skin tones to better inform people looking for information about their own loved one's symptoms.

Visualizing the consequence of data breaches

To get a sense of the grim state of data security today, take a look at this infographic from TruthFinder that explains why 2018 was the year of the data breach tsunami.

View a history of hashtags through 2013

First used on Twitter in August 2007, the social media shorthand gained popularity in October of that year during the San Diego wildfires as a means of coordinating emergency response and disaster relief. Instagram, Google+, Flickr, Facebook, and other social media companies would later integrate hashtags into their platforms.

Long-haul COVID: What doctors want patients to know

Long COVID continues to be a medical mystery, but some parts of the puzzle are falling into place. Learn more from intensivist Devang Sanghavi, MD.

The first year of war in Ukraine, in photos

The Russian/Ukrainian war grows more real in this series of photographs from Associated Press News. Showing the effects of war on soldiers and civilians alike, the photographs turn an unflinching eye on the injuries and fatalities wrought by the conflict, now in its second year after Russia's invasion in 2022.

The surgeon who tried to save John Lennon says he can’t forget that night

Frank Veteran was a resident in 1980 on the night John Lennon was shot in New York. For years afterward, he tried to process the sight of seeing the Beatle dying in the hospital, including through art, but he says that the memories from the experience are still vivid.

Many journalists are shying away from sharing mug shots when reporting crime

News outlets used to cover crime with mug shots of the accused. Some outlets even published mug shot photo galleries, collections of easily acquired content that drove clicks and, hopefully, advertising dollars. However, this practice has fallen out of favor as journalists question the lasting impact of immortalizing mug shots of accused perpetrators, at least some of whom are ultimately cleared of the alleged crime.

Double rainbow appears in New York City on 9/11 anniversary

On the evening of the 9/11 anniversary in 2023, a double rainbow appeared after a thunderstorm across Manhattan, providing inspiration 22 years after the terrorist attacks there. Peruse several amateur images taken of the phenomenon which were shared on social media, including shots from up high in condos overlooking Central Park and from across the Hudson River in New Jersey.

In the 19th century, ice-cream-related illnesses were somewhat regular in America

Ice cream was a popular dessert, but it was also a dangerous one, with numerous reports of vomiting, diarrhea, and—in some cases—death. Historians argue this was likely due to vendors' poor hygienic practices.

The concept of phantom limbs, the perception that amputated limbs are still present, dates back to a French military surgeon in the 16th century.

Explore what it's like inside a patient isolation unit, used in situations such as treating a patient or suspected patient with Ebola.

This poison ivy knowledge quiz—accompanied by photos of the plant's varied forms—may help you identify this common rash-inducing growth.

See the 25 of the best photos of auroras from around the world.

Fear or disgust related to clusters of holes and cracks, called trypophobia, may stem from evolutionary processes to help us avoid pathogens.

In 2019, a laptop loaded with six of the worst malware in history and described as 'an exhibit of historical weaponry' sold for $1.3M.

The use of fungi to detoxify land and water—a process known as mycoremediation—has been used to clean up natural resources affected by the 2025 California wildfires.

The deadliest aspect of volcanic eruptions is often not lava, but pyroclastic flows—avalanches of ash, gas, and rock that can move more than half the speed of sound.

At the beginning of the 20th century, a group of young men ate standard American food—replete with food additives like borax and formaldehyde—as part of government research to better understand food safety.

Fast-casual restaurant Chili's is experiencing a resurgence, with its parent company recently reporting a nearly 32% increase in sales, thanks to passionate Gen Z fans on TikTok.

Read a deep dive on the 'all-purpose healing' peptide BPC-157.

Tattoos remain visible on your skin thanks to immune cells called macrophages

Objects can be 3D printed with light by projecting 2D computerized tomography (CT) scans onto rotating cylinders of resin, which solidify upon exposure.

Power lines are dotted with large, brightly colored balls to improve the visibility of these thin wires to helicopters and small planes and help prevent potential crashes.

Astronauts have repaired genetic damage in space using CRISPR—a molecular tool that can make precise changes to DNA and is used in single-celled organisms to attack invasive viruses.

In 1984, Operation Smash Hit intentionally crashed a 239-ton train into a nuclear waste canister at 100 miles per hour to prove the canister's safety, which remained completely intact and lost just 0.29 of its 100 pounds of pressure.

Graffiti dates back to at least ancient Pompeii, where citizens scrawled messages to one another on public walls

Browse a detailed visual analysis of over 200,000 similes—comparisons that often use 'like' or 'as'—from popular fiction to see how frequently writers the same idiomatic expressions.

Double world record holder Hunter Ewen helped conquer his fear of balloons, called globophobia, by training to win Guinness World Record titles for balloon inflation.