SeniorJunior

HOW MANY TIMES... Have we all seen great news about... ... a science "breakthrough" story with the promise of some cure or another [my favs : obesity, brain cancer, aging, etc.] but it will be years before we can get an actual prescription in our aging hands? Now there's "translational medicine!" This is the go-from-basic-discovery-to-human-applications-at-warp-speed idea. I love the way the people in this new- ish field think. Here's an excerpt from an article in Science Magazine. (You have to be a subscriber to read it.) It's kind of a how-to on making translational medicine work: Recommendations for the Future Our analysis documents objectively show the long length of time that passes between discovery and translation. As scientists, we should convey to our funders and the public the immense difficulty of the scientific discovery process. Successful translation is demanding and takes a lot of effort and time even under the best circumsta

COME ON, MALWARE FIGHTERS... Neither Zombie... Nor Robot Get your act together. Develop a foolproof program that will tell me if my computer has been taken over by bad guys for bad business. And then DESTROYEEE the worm/virus/slimeware! Surely this isn't too much to ask. Pix: www.zombie.org; www.allthingsmike.com; Robbie the... (several locations)

As you who patiently wait long periods between posts know, the old Duffer is a strong supporter of single payer health insurance, my one unabashed opinion that's pro "socialism." Here's a paragraph from a May 30, '09 article in the NY Times: "Public opinion polls suggest that many consumers would like to have the choice of a public plan. But insurance companies and Republican lawmakers say a public plan could drive private insurers out of business and lead eventually to a single-payer system run by the government." The "many consumers" mentioned are in the 55-65% range, depending on how the polling questions are asked. Read the NYT article at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/30/health/policy/30health.html?hpw And you are invited to see the whole "Duffer Plan" on single payer and how to make it happen at http://seniorjunior.blogspot.com/search?q=single+payer

Here's another brazen suggestion for what Prez Obama might say to the Joint Session of Congress next Tuesday. (I've played this game before. See this .) The Fearless Usually Win When things are scary, it’s time to be rational. Be cool. Keep your head while all about you are losing theirs. Be a leader and show the frightened how not to lose their heads. It’s time for all of us to be leaders. The rational, cool thing for Americans to do in this economic situation is to make spending decisions without fear. For instance, if you need a new machine at your small business for productivity or safety reasons, and you have thought it through carefully, don’t let fear keep you from making the right decision. Or if you think some work on landscaping your house will improve its value in the long run and your personal satisfaction in the short run, don’t let fear lock up your thinking. The “fear” influence on decision-making might cause you to just reject a produ

UnderGrounding So how much did that Kentucky ice storm cost? Millions of people without power, plus of course, their factories, shops, offices, banks, government installations, plus the call-up of the whole Kentucky National Guard... on and on, the costs skyrocketed. Main problem? Power lines. Wires on top of poles, the way we have distributed electricity since the first days of the telegraph set the standard. Power line wires run by and through trees. They not only collect unsupportable ice weight during bad ice storms, but the trees around them are worse, crashing down on millions of lines. So here we are at the crucial crossroads of a decaying infrastructure that can't function through a normal weather phenomenon (what? a "fifty year storm?"), and an economic meltdown that demands government spending to replace all the missing consumer spending. Simple idea: Let's start turning overhead power lines into underground power lines. Then bring on the storms, the j

NUTS! Hard to Get the Straight Nutrition News I read – it must be 10-11 years ago – about a medical research study that said people who eat a “helping” of nuts (not peanuts, thank heavens) three to five times a week had about a 45% advantage on the poor nutless for not having a fatal heart attack over any fifteen year period. It seemed like a credible study to me; many thousands of people tracked over fifteen years with full records kept on what they ate and how they got sick, died, etc. When I recalled this recently (with a handful of walnuts ready to eatin hand), it occurred to me that I have read similar studies claiming similar benefits for eating fish three to five times a week, drinking red wine (but not too much!), cooking everything in olive oil, eating a lot of garlic, eating a lot of “cruciferous” vegetables, drinking the juice of various “superfruit” I have hardly heard of, like gogi, acai, black elderberry plus enough cranberr

M'Son the Guyster puts forth one of his revolutionary ideas on "Change.org" Click the widget, read it and vote, should you be so inclined.

At long last a "Look Through" Just "relax" your eyes until the towers coalesce. Wiggle your head to get vertical matching. To see a "cross-eyed" 3-D, check THIS .

Another ponderous type. Old Woman/Bird Head ... Same Cap

[I'll try this now and then. Great Four Corners road trip with lots of digital clicking. I was looking for faces. This is what I saw and what the camera saw.] Canyon de Chelly, Arizona: "Tough Guy"

Think what might happen with just a few fewer tanks... --> Over 8,800 M1 and M1A1 tanks have been produced for the US Army and Marine Corps, (and a relative few for the armies of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait) at a cost of US $2.35–$4.30 million per unit, depending on the variant. (“top-of-the-line” = $4.3 million) The M1 Abrams Main Battle Tank is made by General Dynamics Land Systems. Supporting the Abrams is a Tank Recovery Vehicle. The United States Army requirement is for 595 M88A2 HERCULES recovery vehicles, the Marine Corps requirement was originally for 60 vehicles (now 66).The US Army has fielded 157 HERCULES and the US Marine Corps all its planned HERCULES. Unitary Cost: USD $2.0 million. The Hercules is made by BAE Systems (AirBus, etc.). Both vehicles are totally paid for with taxpayer dollars. The top-of-the-line combine John Deere offers is the 9870 STS.Manufacturer's suggested list price: $

How many strikes does it take to strike OUT? How about these? 1. Doctors (mostly primary care docs) hate ins. paperwork, want to quit That's a very disheartening story from United Press International - UPI - about a huge survey of primary care physicians. Almost half say they are going to quit their profession or at least reduce their patient rosters. Of course, this is the very category of docs we need the most and have the biggest shortage of. Why this catastrophe? "The reported reasons for the widespread frustration among doctors include: increased time spent dealing with non-clinical paperwork, difficulty receiving reimbursement from insurance companies and burdensome government regulations." And... 2. New International Survey : More Than Half of U.S. Chronically Ill Adults Skip Needed Care Due to Costs Bottom line in this study: The U.S. is last of eight advanced nations in the quality of care for the chronically ill. And we spend the most out of pocket on