j7uy5 | October 11, 2007
href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Combat-de-phelsumes-sur-un-bananier.JPG">This
photo is from the Wikimedia Commons featured pictures
section.
It depicts Two
href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Phelsuma_laticauda"
title="Phelsuma laticauda">gold dust day geckos
(Phelsuma
laticauda laticauda) fighting on a banana plant in
central Saint-Denis, Réunion.
The photo was taken by Thierry Caro. It
carries a creative commons share-alike license. It is
available in
href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bc/Combat-de-phelsumes-sur-un-bananier.JPG">Full…
j7uy5 | October 11, 2007The Journal of Psychiatry and Neuroscience (Canadian,
bilingual), an open-access publication, has a regular column entitled
Psychopharmacology for the Clinician (Psychopharmacologie
pratique). Typically the column contains a case
report and a brief discussion of practical issues in treatment.
The most recent (September 2007) issue describes a case of poststroke
pathological laughing and crying (PLC). PLC is a mysterious
condition, something that is impossible to explain using behavioral or
psychodynamic theory.
After a stroke, 7 to 48 percent of patients experience disinhibition of…
j7uy5 | October 10, 2007Fred
Thompson's campaign site has the following quote on the home
page:
"We are steeped in the tradition of honor and sacrifice for the greater
good. We are proud of this heritage. I believe that
Americans are once again ready to achieve this greater good, which is
nothing less than the security, prosperity, and unity of our country."
In contrast, there is a rather damaging article about Fred Thompson on
the ABC News site, The Blotter.
href="http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2007/10/nixon-on-thomps.html">Nixon
on Thompson: 'Dumb' but 'Friendly'
October 09, 2007 9:06 AM
Fred…
j7uy5 | October 10, 2007The Journal of the American Medical Association
has a sort-of-surprising article on the subject of peak oil.
"Peak
Oil" is a catchphrase that denotes the phenomenon of
declining oil production that is anticipated to occur in a matter of
some years. The "some" part of that is hotly debated.
There are well-informed people who think we already are
there; others project a peak around 2030.
The point of the article is that health care delivery will be
profoundly impacted by any decline in the supply of oil. This
presents a number of challenges, which the authors discuss.
Unfortunately, the…
j7uy5 | October 9, 2007Problem #1: College Republicans were shamed by
href="http://operationyellowelephant.blogspot.com/2005/07/operation-yellow-elephant-101.html">Operation
href="http://patriotboy.blogspot.com/2005_06_19_patriotboy_archive.html#111924907437313848">Yellow
href="http://www.preemptivekarma.com/archives/2005/06/operation_yello.html">Elephant.
They think it is a good idea to have a war, so long as they
do not have to risk their own lives. Now they need a way to
redeem themselves, but clearly something that is life-threatening is
not going to work.
Problem #2:
href="http://thelede.…
j7uy5 | October 9, 2007
Researchers studying the European common lizard (Zootoca
vivipara, formerly Lacerta vivipara) have
learned of a three-part mating strategy. Different members of
the species have disticutly different mating strategies.
Additionally, the colors of the bellies are correlated with
the mating strategy employed by the individual. (This was
mentioned recently at
href="http://scienceblogs.com/bushwells/2007/10/boffo_science_headlines.php">Joan
Bushwell's Chimpanzee Refuge.)
The scientists think that their findings could teach us something about
human sexuality. I don't know about that, but…
j7uy5 | October 8, 2007This is from a site on Medscape, Infosite. It is a multimedia
program about
href="http://scienceblogs.com/corpuscallosum/2006/10/update_on_nrp104_less_potentia.php">Vyvanse®
(lisdexamfetamine dimesylate), a long-acting amphetamine. The
video is positively mind-blowing:
This shows a person who is about to take a Vyvanse capsule.
Next we see the capsule going down the esophagus.
Pretty much everything in the educational material has
already been covered here and elsewhere (
href="http://carlatpsychiatry.blogspot.com/2007/07/vyvanse-watch.html">1
href="http://richardgpettymd.…
j7uy5 | October 7, 2007
rel="tag">Naomi Klein's
href="http://www.naomiklein.org/shock-doctrine" rel="tag">Shock
Doctrine is a powerful piece of work. I
became aware of it after a tip from a
href="http://www.quirkynomads.com/wpt/">reader.
I saw the video "trailer" for the book, and knew I had to
blog about it. But it has taken some time to pull my thoughts
together.
Ms. Klein has written a book about a theory of economic change, as
proposed by the free-market advocate
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_Friedman" rel="tag">Milton
Friedman in the 20th
century. She ties this theory to…
j7uy5 | October 7, 2007In this case, peace won.
Marisa Crockett speaks to an Albuquerque
Police Department officer at UNM about her free hugs project to travel
across the United States in her bio-fueled car, offering hugs and
hoping to get the word out about her recycling program. The officer was
responding to a complaint, but momentarily left after a few friendly
words, Tuesday, October 2, 2007.
(source)
j7uy5 | October 7, 2007Finally, a cool way to commute via bicycle!
Actually, it is
not a new idea, but perhaps the cooling aspect has been overlooked.
One thing that has kept me from riding a bicycle to work has been the
concern that I would be too sweaty upon arrival. This
invention might take care of that:
href="http://deputy-dog.com/2007/09/27/7-unusual-propeller-driven-vehicles/">
It could, conceivably, take care of the heat problem while
mowing a
lawn, too, although it would take a bit more engineering:
j7uy5 | October 6, 2007I wonder if he really believes this? If so, he dementia is
worse than I
thought:
href="http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2007/10/bush_never_really_thought_abou.html">Bush:
'Never really thought about' war
Posted by Mark Silva on
October 5, 2007
President Bush, interviewed “in the room where I make
decisions,’’ said that he “never really
thought about the decision to put men and women in harm’s
way’’ when he was running for president.
But the war in Iraq is necessary, Bush said, noting that he has
“made a pledge to the American people’’
to settle his dispute with…
j7uy5 | October 3, 2007This device, a
href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071003/sc_nm/germany_pillow_life_dc">computerized
pillow, may have a medical justification. But I
would recommend caution.
Daryoush Bazargani, a computer science professor in Germany, has
invented a device that he
believes can be used to help stop a person from
href="http://www.entnet.org/healthinfo/snoring/snoring.cfm">snoring.
The
device uses a microphone to detect and analyze the noise of snoring.
It then adjusted air-filled bladders in the pillow to
reposition the person's head.
Snoring is one of the cardinal symptoms of…
j7uy5 | October 3, 2007This is a photo of star trails over the
href="http://www.friendsofthebosque.org/">Bosque del Apache
National Wildlife Refuge. The anomaly in the upper
left is an "
rel="tag">Iridium flare," a reflection from
an
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iridium_%28satellite%29"
title="Iridium (satellite)">Iridium communication
satellite.
href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/"
title="Click this link to find out details of the Creative Commons license associated with this image.">
src="http://creativecommons.org/images/public/somerights20.gif"
alt="There is…
j7uy5 | October 2, 2007We all had some laughs when the two-bladed razor was
improved with the
addition of a third blade. Late-night comedians joked about
razors coming with four or even five blades.
Then, we all had a few more chuckles when the four-bladed Schick
Quattro actually made it to market, soon followed by the five-bladed
Gillette Fusion. This led to speculation about the natural
end-point:
href="http://agrumer.livejournal.com/414194.html">
class="inset" alt=""
src="http://www.grumer.org/lj_images/razors.gif" border="0"
height="256" width="264">
The same thing is happening inside our…
j7uy5 | October 1, 2007Actually, the full headline is:
href="http://www.huliq.com/36055/genetic-test-for-suicidal-ideation-in-patients-using-antidepressant-drugs%20">Genetic
test for suicidal ideation in patients using antidepressant drugs.
A company called Neuromark has made available a genetic test that it
claims can identify persons who would have an increased risk for
suicide after starting an antidepressant medication. They call
the test Mark-C™. It is based upon the finding that
persons with certain genetic markers seem to be at increased risk for
having thoughts of suicide after they start taking an…
j7uy5 | September 30, 2007In the most recent debate among Presidential hopefuls in the
Democratic Party, there was an exchange regarding the so-called
"ticking bomb" question. The question itself, and the way it
was handled, reveals shortcomings in the way we evaluate our candidates.
TIM RUSSERT: I want to move to another subject, and this involves a
comment that a guest on Meet the Press made, and I want to read it as
follows: “Imagine the following scenario. We get lucky. We
get the number three guy in al-Qaeda. We know there’s a big
bomb going off in America in three days, and we know this guy knows
where it is.…
j7uy5 | September 29, 2007Howard Hughes Medical Institute has announced a policy to
promote open-access publication of scientific papers. They
are not only supporting it philosophically, but financially as well.
In fact, they are not only supporting it, but requiring
it for their researchers:
href="http://www.hhmi.org/news/springer20070927.html">HHMI
Expresses Support for Springer Open Choice
September 27, 2007
The
Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) has expressed support for
Springer's Open Choice program whereby articles are — if
accepted for publication after a process of rigorous peer-review
—…
j7uy5 | September 29, 2007One of their flagship products, Excel , has been caught
making errors doing simple multiplication.
href="http://blogs.msdn.com/excel/archive/2007/09/25/calculation-issue-update.aspx">According
to a Microsoft Developer blog:
Yesterday evening we were alerted to an
issue in Excel 2007 (and Excel Services 2007) involving calculation of
numbers around 65,535. The first example that we heard about
was =77.1*850, but it became clear from our testing as well as
additional reports that this was just one instance where Excel 2007
would return a value of 100,000 instead of 65,535.
You have…
j7uy5 | September 28, 2007The government is finally moving the legal system into the 21st
century, with wiki-based laws. The idea is that the people
are
the customer, and the customer should have a say in the rules.
This is, oddly, a government-sponsored revolution.
Of course, this would not be possible in a government where
corporations have sway over the legal process. It could only
happen in a true democracy, not a fascist state.
href="http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=9079">New
Zealand to Pioneer Wiki-based Laws
Daily Tech
September 28, 2007 4:55 AM
New Zealand will allow citizens to…
j7uy5 | September 28, 2007The implantable cardioverter defibrillator is a device
placed under the
skin, near the heart. It delivers an electric shock to the
heart when a dangerous abnormal rhythm is detected. As you
might suspect, it hurts when this shock occurs (doctors call it a "
href="http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/542830">short-duration
nociceptive stimulation"). Also as you
might expect, it can create a great deal of anxiety.
Persons with ICDs are liable to be shocked at any time, with no warning
at all.
There's an evidence-based review of the subject that is openly
available at Current…