The carnivals Grand Rounds of medical blogging and Encephalon of mind/brain blogging are out this week.

Not Totally Rad is hosting Grand Rounds Vol. 5, No. 20. First off, happy first anniversary to the samurai.

The recommended read is Val Jones’ piece on How the Health Blogosphere Was Scammed by Wellsphere, now sold to the HealthCentral Network.

Alvaro Fernandez gives us Ten Reflections on Cognitive Health, Dr. Shock speaks to derogatory humor towards patients (“it’s mostly about culture”), and David Williams tells us why we should ban pharmaceutical companies from funding continuing medical education.

All that, and more, at the latest Grand Rounds.

Of Two Minds is hosting Encephalon… The Late Prize-Winning February Edition. So what was the strategy, the person who laughs last laughs hardest?

Teasing aside, it’s a great edition. Channel N gives us a video with Dieter Meyerhoff discussing the neurobiology of why people both smoke and drink. If that doesn’t float your boat, you might try the debate over Better Thinking through Chemistry (i.e., brain doping), with Ouroborus seeing this debate as similar to the one we’ll have soon enough about further extending our lives.

And what better way to end than some sexual sweating?

If you don’t need a cold shower after that, just surf on over to the latest Encephalon.