Fact Finder.

Siriano:

This is a useful website I use whenever I'm searching for medicines and effects they have. I have linked the one with penicillin allergy on it

I also use sites like this one or check out WebMD's article about it here.

This also gives you a great overview of precautions, side effects, and other drugs not to mix with penicillin.

Hope that was helpful

Helpful yes. Thank. @ cadaveres literarios

I'm toying with the idea of a new story that would take place on Nantucket Island. However, I've never been there and don't know the first thing about it other than what Wikipedia tells me.

Ideally, my protagonist would own a bed & breakfast type of property there, so if anyone has visited, can you tell me the basics of the place? Weather, notable shops, what the place looks like, etc. Any and all information you can give me would be incredibly helpful.

Thank you.

Anybody older than me and can tell me if Starbucks was around in the late 90s? I'm talking big chain wise.

@ Siriano;

Wikipedia:

The first Starbucks opened in Seattle, Washington, on March 30, 1971 by three partners that met while students at the University of San Francisco.

Quote

In 1984, the original owners of Starbucks, led by Jerry Baldwin, took the opportunity to purchase Peet's.[13] During the 1980s total sales of coffee in the USA were falling, but sales of specialty coffee increased, forming 10% of the market in 1989, compared to 3% in 1983.[14] By 1986 the company had 6 stores in Seattle[14] and had only just begun to sell espresso coffee.[15] In 1987, the original owners sold the Starbucks chain to former employee Howard Schultz, who rebranded his Il Giornale coffee outlets as Starbucks and quickly began to expand. In the same year, Starbucks opened its first locations outside Seattle at Waterfront Station in Vancouver, British Columbia, and Chicago, Illinois.[16] By 1989 there were 46 stores across the Northwest and Midwest in 1989 and Starbucks was roasting over 2,000,000 pounds (910,000 kg) of coffee a year.[14] At the time of its initial public offering on the stock market in June 1992, Starbucks had grown to 140 outlets and had a revenue of $73.5m, up from $1.3m in 1987.

All information found here. I hope that helps.

@ Siriano;
I don't have any official information and I don't recall particularly clearly myself, but in Fight Club (which came out in 1999), Starbucks is referenced so it was definitely well known at that point. Unless your story is taking place in a very small city, I think it'd definitely have a Starbucks in the late 90s, and if it's a major city, probably a whole bunch of them.

Thank! @cadaveres literarios

I forgot about Fight Club. Thanks! @ battalions

I need help from someone who knows a lot about science, preferably about Virology or hormones, that can explain this article to me because my brain can't wrap around it.
I'm trying to create a male-specific zombie virus and I want to know if scientifically, there is any relation between testosterone and viruses. I found this article, but as I said, I can't make much sense of it at the moment.

http://www.virologyj.com/content/3/1/19

@ lovecraft

It basically says that higher levels of testosterone before exposure to viruses are directly linked with higher viremia (spread of viruses in the bloodstream, and then to body tissue).
As it seems, testosterone has the effect of an immunosuppressor (reduces the activation or efficacy of the immune system) on virus infection in male primates; in other words, it increases the animal's susceptibility to a viral infection.
After infection though, levels of testosterone were found to be lower, probably a response of the host to stop/reduce immunosuppression.

Hope it helps.

So higher levels of testosterone make a person more susceptible to viruses?
In the simplest sense. This is soft scifi, I'm not worried about it being 100% absolutely scientifically probable.

@ lovecraft
Yes, that would be true.

Excellent, thanks for your help. :)

I'm going to be writing a story based in a hospital in America (US) but the whole insurance thing has me confused. Am I right in thinking that if a patient is unconscious upon admittance to an emergency department that they would check certain forms to make sure that they had insurance? Also, would they ever deny anyone treatment if they didn't have medical insurance (again, we're talking about an emergency here where the patient can't speak for themselves), or would they just be billed for the medical expenses? I've seen so many different conflicting articles that I'm now mega confused.

Also, what would happen if you don't have someone to make medical decisions for you after you fall unconscious? Like...no next of kin and no one officially appointed to make those decisions or you. Would a doctor decide what would happen?

So I've written a story where one of the characters shows behaviour of trying on women's clothing (he's a male). Originally, I was going to make him transgendered but I think it's a bit heavy not to mention I'm not too keen on writing it in my story, so what could be a good excuse to cross-dress? Do gay people show this tendency in their earlier years? I've heard that straight males have tried on women's clothing and simply enjoy the feel of it, but if I don't venture into making the character transgendered, then would him being gay work or would it not make sense?

@ swell
There's a difference between gay men and transgendered men and men who just enjoy wearing women's clothes. Where does the character wear the clothes? At home? In public? A man wearing female clothing doesn't have to have any specific reasoning behind it - for Children in Need in November, two guys in my sixth form came in dressed as women, and one of the guys was in my English class and even had his mother's high heels and a wig to complete the outfit. Outside of the day, you would never have guessed that they would dress up as women, even for charity. Looks can be deceiving.

Some men enjoy cross-dressing without being gay, transgendered or anything of the sort. They can just enjoy dressing up in women's clothing. So your character needn't have a reason behind cross-dressing other than he enjoys the feel of the clothing or he just enjoys dressing as a woman. You can have the character be gay but there's no link between being gay and dressing like a woman so I wouldn't use the wearing women's clothes as a signal that he's gay.

@ dougie poynter;
This is just my understanding of what happens and I'm definitely not an expert, but as far as I know, in an emergency, the person just gets treated and insurance (or lack thereof) is dealt with later. So if a person was unconscious they would be treated immediately and then when they were stabilized the hospital would figure out about what kind of coverage they have, and if they didn't have any they'd be billed the full amount (which people who can't afford insurance usually can't pay since emergency medical treatment is really expensive). If the hospital doesn't know the identity of the patient or they can't contact any next-of-kin to make medical decisions, taking all possible measures to save the person's life is the default; refusing treatment would have to be done by the patient or their next-of-kin. If they couldn't find anyone, the hospital would contact social services and a social worker would become responsible for the person, though I'm not really sure how that works long-term.

You do sometimes hear about people being deferred to other hospitals / ignored / treated poorly / discharged too soon if they can't pay for treatment, but that's not the ethos of emergency rooms in general – if you're rushed in unconscious, they're going to treat you first and ask questions later.

@ castiel's vessel
He was trying a bra on in his room and had female clothes on him. I've already posted the fact that he's done both so I'm not too keen on going back and rewriting it, but I also have planned a fight between him and his parents regarding his personal choices so I feel like if I simply say he's a cross dresser, then it may not be enough? I understand what you mean though. Thanks for the help!

@ swell
He could say he's a cross dresser and it would be enough. I mean, most parents generally wouldn't want their boys to be cross dresser so that could be an enough reason behind the fight and such.

@ battalions
Oh, that makes so much more sense than some of the stuff I was reading! Some of it seemed to say that if you didn't have insurance, you didn't get treated full stop but I thought that was a bit...well, heartless. Thanks!

I have one question that I can't seem to find an answer to. What kind of transportation options were there in 1949 America? I know that railroads were available, but did they run to California? I just need to know what the best type of transportation would be for a family to take from New York to California in 1949.