Month: February 2016

The Stethoscope

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The Stethoscope: Timeless Tool Or Outdated Relic?
February 26, 2016
http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/02/26/467212821/the-stethoscope-timeless-tool-or-outdated-relic

He says doctors used to get praise if they had the ‘ear’ to hear and interpret the subtle body sounds that travel through a stethoscope’s rubber tubing; the stethoscope is the iconic symbol of a physician.

But some argue that the stethoscope is becoming less useful in this digital age. Dr. Bret Nelson, an emergency medicine physician at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, says clinicians now get a lot more information from newer technology.

An ultrasound, for example, …
He admits the stethoscope is an icon but doesn’t buy the argument that if you lose the stethoscope, you lose the tradition of “healing touch.”

related:
https://franzcalvo.wordpress.com/2015/07/18/the-cognitive-consequences-of-formal-clothing

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Maggie Smith

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Maggie Smith On The Pressures Of Acting: ‘You Want So Much To Get It Right’
February 23, 2016·
http://www.npr.org/2016/02/23/467802382/maggie-smith-on-the-pressures-of-acting-you-want-so-much-to-get-it-right

Maggie Smith won an Oscar for best supporting actress for “California Suite” and the best actress award for “The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie.”

I am very insecure. And I don’t know, I feel somehow – on a set, I feel a bit trapped because you’re in a corner, and you absolutely have to do it. There is no way out. In the theater, you know, you get another chance. You can do it the next night, the next performance. You can probably get it right then. But you don’t have any real say in a film. And quite honestly, I probably drive everybody mad and go on and on and on and want to do another take and – because I never feel that it’s right. So I always feel huge pressure. It’s an odd feeling, but when you’re there and you’re having to do it, the choice you make has to be absolutely right. And of course, it can’t be. It just absolutely can’t be. So you don’t really have a say in it. I find it very hard because I don’t know that I trust myself to know that – if it’s good or if that’s the take that should be or whether we just do it with one take or there isn’t time to do anymore. You know, I find that real pressure.

DAVIES: And I that can lead to some tension at times. Yeah.

SMITH: Yes. I think there’s always great tension because there never seems to be enough – there is always pressure. There’s always pressure because there isn’t enough time. There’s never enough time for a movie, it seems to me. Never.

Strokes On The Rise (2016)

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Strokes On The Rise Among Younger Adults
February 22, 2016
http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/02/18/467222400/strokes-on-the-rise-among-younger-adults

About 10 percent of all strokes occur in people between 18 and 50 years old, and the risk factors include some that Hodge had: high blood pressure, overweight, off-kilter cholesterol, smoking and diabetes.

paper:
Obesity Increases Stroke Risk in Young Adults
Opportunity for Prevention
Walter N. Kernan, MD
Stroke. 2015; 46: 1435-1436
http://stroke.ahajournals.org/content/46/6/1435.full

Einstein’s Clocks, Poincare’s Maps

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Einstein’s Clocks, Poincare’s Maps
WGBHForum. April 2014
Peter Galison introduces us to the world that Einstein grew up in, and subsequently changed forever, with the release of his earth shattering theory of special relativity.

Things, Ideas And Reality: What Persists?
May 30, 2010
Adam Frank
http://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2010/05/30/127274522/things-ideas-and-reality-what-persists

NPR cites:
Einstein’s Clocks and Poincare’s Maps: Empires of Time
Peter Galison
W. W. Norton, Sep 17, 2004
http://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2010/05/29/127256923/ideas-and-things-which-comes-first

related:
https://franzcalvo.wordpress.com/2014/07/24/common-sense-is-usu-right-after-the-fact
Einstein used clocks in Relativity Theory because that was the scientific interest of the day

Use of MOOC Discussion Forums

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Exploring the Use of MOOC Discussion Forums
London International Conference on Education (LICE-2014). London, United Kingdom. 10th – 12th November, 2014
D.F.O.Onah*, J.E.Sinclair and R.Boyatt
The University of Warwick, United Kingdom
http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/dcs/people/research/csrmaj/daniel_onah_lice14.pdf
http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/dcs/people/research/csrmaj

topics becoming fragmented over many threads and a lack of search facilities.

Some MOOCs have made forum participation a required part of the course. However, some learners may not be comfortable with this and it may also lead to a large number of pointless posts.

Despite the widespread use of forums there is still a lack of understanding of effect pedagogy.

Mosquitoes. What Are They Good For?

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Mosquitoes. What Are They Good For?
February 19, 2016
http://www.npr.org/2016/02/19/467395225/mosquitoes-what-are-they-good-for

they’re food for fish and other insect predators and birds. They pollinate plants.

Correction: Only the female has the need for the iron from our blood for her offspring.

related:

the biting midge, a tiny bloodsucker that can spread diseases to animals and filarial worms to humans.
Dina Fonseca, a professor of entomology at Rutgers University, is that the biting midge is the only known pollinator of cacao.
http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2016/02/20/467094440/would-it-be-a-bad-thing-to-wipe-out-a-species-if-its-a-mosquito

Ecology: A world without mosquitoes
Nature 466, 432-434 (2010)
Eradicating any organism would have serious consequences for ecosystems — wouldn’t it? Not when it comes to mosquitoes, finds Janet Fang.
http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100721/full/466432a.html

Delaying retirement & Your Health

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Could Delaying Retirement Be Great For Your Health?
September 25, 2015
http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/09/24/442923309/could-skipping-retirement-be-great-for-your-health

A study published Thursday in the journal Preventing Chronic Disease finds that working in one’s 60s and 70s is associated with better physical and mental health.

“There’s something about the aging process — that if you stay working, then you stay hardy,” says University of Miami epidemiologist Alberto Caban-Martinez, who contributed to the study.

Caban-Martinez and his colleagues analyzed survey data from more than 85,000 adults age 65 and older. (The mean age was around 75.) In general, people who kept working were nearly three times as likely to report being in good health than those who had retired.

original paper:
Health Status of Older US Workers and Nonworkers, National Health Interview Survey, 1997–2011
Volume 12 — September 24, 2015
http://www.cdc.gov/pcd/issues/2015/15_0040.htm