A call for revamping Universities and their structure

OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR: End the University as We Know It
By MARK C. TAYLOR

If higher education is to thrive, colleges and universities, like Wall
Street and Detroit, must be rigorously regulated and completely 
restructured....

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/27/opinion/27taylor.html

I had no idea there are 15 online photo editors; see them compared CNET

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10170333-2.html

Sent from my iPhone

CPT codes for Anesthesia

http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=dgsprq5_13nxx733cx&hl=en

Search for CPT codes for by procedure name or eponym.

"You'll have to wait, *Sir*"

I love the witty social observation in this article of how flight attendants say 'Sir.'

"The intonation of that “Sir” will be familiar to many of you, a tone peculiar to American airline companies, one in which resentment, superiority, fear, contempt and impatience are coiled into a venomous parody of politeness — a three-letter expletive really — that stands the notion of service on its head and tells the whole dismal story of U.S. carriers in recent years."

Preschool benefits IQ...even years later

I've long wondered if there was any long-term benefit to the expensive pre-school education many of us provide for our kids. Here's evidence from a long term randomized study that it helped even into the teen years.

"...intensive day care and education from 6 months of age until they left to enter first grade.
By age 5, the children in the program averaged an I.Q. of 110, compared with 83 for children in the control group. Even years later in adolescence, those children were still 10 points ahead in I.Q."
from the Op-Ed article
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/16/opinion/16kristof.html?em

Get more sleep! : Poor Sleep Increases Vulnerability to Colds

Poor sleep increases vulnerability to colds

Arch Intern Med 2009;169:62-7 [Arch Intern Med Abstract]

Sleeping badly makes you tired, but does it make you ill? To find out, researchers recruited 153 healthy volunteers who agreed to be quarantined for five days and inoculated with the cold virus RV-39. Most of them were infected (135/153; 88%), as defined by isolation of the virus from nasal lavage or development of neutralising antibodies. Only 54 (35%) caught a cold with objective symptoms and signs, but the researchers found a significant association between clinical illness and poor sleep in the two weeks before exposure. People who slept less than seven hours a night were particularly susceptible (odds ratio 2.94, 95% CI 1.18 to 7.30, relative to those who slept eight hours or more). So were inefficient sleepers—people who spent less than 92% of their time in bed actually asleep (5.5, 2.08 to 14.48 relative to more than 98% sleep efficiency). The link between catching a cold and poor sleep efficiency was independent of more than a dozen possible confounders, including an unhealthy lifestyle, obesity, and stress. The researchers conclude that poor sleep probably does make people more susceptible to colds.

Can they build a computer faster than the human brain?

A computer that outsmarts the human brain will be built within a few decades, gores the claim.  It's in the 'Did You Know?' video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cL9Wu2kWwSY&feature=related, about the rapidly expanding pace of technology.  Here's a rational, scientific perspective on that claim from today's New York Times. 

http://judson.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/31/guest-column-computers-vs-brains/

An intriguing discussion of how amazing the brain is - uses 12 watts of power, less than half that of a laptop, and it might be estimated to have a storage capacity of 1 petabyte (1 X 10E19) bytes.  But also, that it works well, makes judgments and has emotions despite having faulty components that don't always fire when they're supposed to.  

NYTimes: When Laptops Go Light

I bought the HP mini last week, and have been very happy with it. It
also rates well on CNET.com. http://reviews.cnet.com/laptops/hp-mini-1000/4505-3121_7-33351192.html

STATE OF THE ART: When Laptops Go Light
By DAVID POGUE

Netbooks have slow processors, tiny screens and are good at handling e-
mail. Why are they so popular?...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/26/technology/personaltech/26pogue.html

Memory: In One Ear and Out the Other

Our brains are good at remembering the general gist of things, but poor at recalling detail.

“Jokes work because they deal with the unexpected, starting in one direction and then veering off into another,” “What makes a joke successful are the same properties that can make it difficult to remember.”

In One Ear and Out the Other
By NATALIE ANGIER

Why the best jokes are the most difficult to remember....

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/17/science/17angi.html

Repairing undersea cables

[Using the submersible machine to retrieve broken undersea fiberoptic cables...] 'Plucking a cable from the ocean floor is akin to picking up a piece of thread in a blizzard while wearing a catcher's mitt.' Popular Science Apr '09 p49 http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2009-03/who-protects-intrnet

One internet exchange hub spends $630,000 a month(!) on electricity, mostly for cooling I guess.

This article has a link to a fascinating tool that traces the path of your internet packet across the web:

http://www.popsci.com/content/trace-your-route

Also in PopSci this month, a belt-drive bicycle (no grease, no noise). p20

http://www.popsci.com/node/33469

Mithridatism for peanut allergies

Mithridatism, the ability to gradually build up resistance to a poison, may be a cure for peanut allergies.  This report of successful placebo-controlled trials is encouraging.  

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/16/health/16peanuts.html

Incredible wearable computer

Want to see dialing a phone by touching numbers projected on your hand? See a wearable computer helping you choose products to buy? Here's an incredible bit of technology cobbled together by a research team, they say for $350, that uses the user's cellphone for brains.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZ-VjUKAsao

Hotel security - soon to be more like airport security.

In the wake of the Mumbai hotel attacks, hoteliers are scrutinizing and revising their approach to security. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29434591/Also in this article, tips for traveling safely... wise for any traveler.

Line-uppers vs sidezoomers - frustrated about traffic?

Hate sitting in a traffic line-up and someone zips past and cuts into the line way ahead?  Here's an article that goes into depth and interviews experts who have put a lot of thought into it.

I liked how well-researched this article was. Interesting conclusion that it is best to hang back and make a gap for a sidezoomer to enter. Sound cryptic? Read the amusing article and you'll understand. 

August 03, 2008 The Urge to Merge By CYNTHIA GORNEY What I, as a driver, learned about the war between lineuppers and sidezoomers in the battle for a lane.

NYTimes.com: Supreme Court Enters the YouTube Era

Video is everywhere these days.  The fact that it is entering the court system is a landmark.  This article quotes a law professor who states that in the courtroom, 

'Video introduced in a court of law is a partial, volatile, and dangerously persuasive' piece of evidence. Interesting. 

| March 03, 2009 Sidebar:  Supreme Court Enters the YouTube Era By ADAM LIPTAK The advent of video links as evidence has the potential to unsettle the way judges do their work.