Archive for the ‘medical’ Category
In-vitro bacon anybody?
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In-vitro bacon anybody?
Inside the meat lab: the future of food
With billions of mouths to feed, we can’t go on producing food in the traditional way. Scientists are coming up with novel ways to cater for future generations. In-vitro burger, anyone?
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Just Finished Reading: How Doctors Think #books
My daughter’s Godmother is studying to be an MD, and has started her internship. Starting her internship coincided with her birthday, which meant that many of the presents she received were related to medicine. One of the gifts, which she gracefully allowed me to borrow before she read it was How Doctors Think
Groopman’s book covers one subject which I love: heuristics and bias. Heuristics are the stuff the practice of medicine is made of, which makes it a little strange that this isn’t always taught. The influence of the intuitive, fast, effortless System 1 thinking versus the slower, conscious, System 2 thinking is reasonably well known. System 1 allows us to unconsciously come to conclusions based on the information at hand, as Groopman says: “When you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras.” The practice of medicine is such that most of the diseases encountered fit into a nice pattern, however it is also a burden which make cognitive bias possible. When a doctor sees nine patients who are suffering from flue symptoms, System 1 will quickly come to the conclusion that the diagnoses of the tenth patient with these symptoms is also flue, and will even ignore facts to the contrary. Read the rest of this entry »
Slow Coffee as Wine #foursquare #4sq
I drink a lot of coffee, and I visit a lot of coffee places which is how I earned my Fresh Brew x2 FourSquare badge. I just drink it all the time. And after visiting G-CO over the 30th time the owner asked me whether I would be interested in further developing my palate. “How?” I said. “Slow Coffee,” was his answer.
Slow Coffee
There is coffee, and there is coffee making. Coffee like wine comes in many different flavours, and like wine there is an art to making a good brew which starts with the beans. His come from Bocca, a company where quite a few people I know work. They craft beans, different roastings for different purposes; espresso; filter; and others I have yet to learn about.
Slow coffee is filter coffee, made slowly first by measuring the beans – 24 grams – and boiled water – 240 grams at 95º. Then grinding the beans and placing them in a soaked untreated paper filter and pouring a small amount of the water over the beans in a gentle even way allowing the air to cause a bloom as the escapes. Then another amount, and another, and then the remaining water taking care to not allow the bean pulp which is spent on the side of the filter to be reused. Once the water stops flowing from the filter and starts dripping remove the filter.
And then you don’t just gulp it down, this is vinology. Sip and swirl then liquid in your mouth, then leave it to cool down and taste again. Again leaving it to cool until cold and tasting more. Savoring the texture and feeling the explosion of flavours in your mouth.
I’m slowly becoming a coffeeologist.
Image source: mine, foursquare
Discriminating Against Breaks is Counter Productive #productivity
Some weeks ago I read an interview with a Dutch Internet Entrepreneur who was launching a book on how to create a start up. I haven’t read the book so I can judge that, however what surprised me was his tip to give smokers only 23 days holiday rather than 26 days as they are 1.5 hours less productive every day. I think that he’s missed the point when it comes to productivity, and I’ll tell you why:
Doctors Without Borders Donate Profile #twitter #linkedin #facebook #social
Medicine Sans Frontier, Doctors without Borders, asked people to donate their Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn profiles and profile images for one day. They do something similar to Twibbon, with the exception that they ask you change your profile image back yourselves. I support the work of MSF, and I think this is a great way for people, who don’t examine their profile pages and images daily or are lazy, to have the profile update for more than one day.
What MSF incorrectly tells you is that they are unable to change back the profile details, they can. All that is required is that they store the token which they use to update your profile, just as Twibbon does. They may not do this for security reasons or laziness, and my belief is that they do this because they know they can get more milage out of this than just the that one day.
Other than that it’s a fine cause which I believe should be supported.
Words I Wondered About In Medical Shows #television
I love watching Hospital series, such as Chicago Hope, ER, House or Grey’s Anatomy, although I’m not always sure what all the terms mean. So I had a look to find out what the commonly used terms mean:
- GCS – Glasgow Coma Scale
- GSR/GSW – Gun Short Residue/Gun Shot Wound (Ok, so I like CSI too…)
- CPR – Cardiopulmonary resuscitation
- Pneumothorax – Collapsed Lung
- Tension pneumothorax – Worsening Pneumothorax
- Hemopneumothorax – Blood in the chest cavity
- Hypotension/Hypertension – Low/High blood pressure
- Tachycardia – Abnormally rapid beating of the heart
- Apgar test – Method to assess the health of newborn children
- Systole/Asystole – Cardiac electrical activity
- Myocardium – Muscular tissue of the heart
(Thanks to Wikipedia for their help.)
This post originally appeared here.
technorati tags: medical, series, television, term
Sightsavers Sunday #who #bbc
Ever since my father exchanged my expensive Christmas gifts for a card which read something like: “A donation was made in your name to SiteSavers” Although I did deserve the gifts – I had been very good, thank you very much – I saw that there were people who needed a gift more: The gift of sight.
“[Today] Sightsavers is asking churches across the UK to join together in worship to mark World Sight Day. […] This year special focus will be placed on women and blindness as various cultural, social and economic barriers often lead to women and girls becoming the last in line to receive appropriate medical treatments.”
World Sight Day is an initiative of The International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (IAPB) and the WHO‘s Prevention of Blindness and Deafness program under the title VISION 2020: The Right to Sight
Just Finished Reading “Forever Young” #books
I like non-fiction and I loved Forever young: Science and the search for immortality
The book covers Alzheimer’s, Genetics and Organ Replacement well and although it helps that I have some medical knowledge it’s not difficult for a layman to understand. The genetics portion is very interesting, and I learned a lot about enzyms and the inner workings of the human brain.
Naturally I’ve started taking my NSAIDs to prevent Alzheimer.
Technorati Tags: alzheimer, genetics, organ, replacement, schnabbel
Mobile Safety #mobile
CNN.com has an interesting article 5 tips to limit your cell phone risk. Their first is predictable, don’t put it against your head use the speakerphone, but I didn’t know that CNET keeps a list on Specific Absorption Rate (SAR), “… a way of measuring the quantity of radiofrequency (RF) energy that is absorbed by the body.” Have a look at the article Cell phone radiation levels.
It seems my RIM BlackBerry Curve 8330 is one of the highest at 1.54 SAR, and the crappy Motorola Razr is the lowest as 0.14, although as it’s prone to crash constantly you can hardly ever use it. My Nokia 2600 (RH-59) and 6300 (RM-217) aren’t listed on CNET, but from Nokia’s SAR I discovered they run warm at 0.80 W/kg and cooler at 0.57 W/kg respectively.
And people call me a hot head, it’s not me it’s my phone.
technorati tags: blackberry, nokia, sar, crackberry, health
General Musing 