A doctor at the computer with a robot surgeon

by kevindooley

Comparison shows robot-assisted option offers advantages for kidney surgery
[Via EurekAlert! - Medicine and Health]

(Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center) A comparison of two types of minimally invasive surgery to repair kidney blockages that prevent urine from draining normally to the bladder found that robot-assisted surgery was faster and resulted in less blood loss and shorter hospital stays.

[More]

A doctor at a console, controlling a robot, completes the surgery in less than an hour (50% faster than normal) with a large reduction in blood loss, resulting in the patient leaving the hospital much sooner but with the same outcomes at 18 months.

It is a small study but pretty indicative of where we might be going in the future.

Table-top X-ray laser

by orsorama

CU physicists use ultra-fast lasers to open doors to new technologies unheard of just years ago
[Via EurekAlert! - Medicine and Health]

(University of Colorado at Boulder) For nearly half a century, scientists have been trying to figure out how to build a cost-effective and reasonably sized X-ray laser that could, among other things, provide super high-resolution imaging. And for the past two decades, University of Colorado at Boulder physics professors Margaret Murnane and Henry Kapteyn have been inching closer to that goal.

[More]

This is so cool. There are some really incredible things that can be done with X-ray lasers but these have usually required having access to a synchrotron. While I don’t expect a table-top version to be able to examine single molecules, it would be really nice to have easier access to some of the technology, not only in medical settings but in research labs.

Go to the source

by derekGavey

Genetic health risks in children of assisted reproductive technology
[Via EurekAlert! - Biology]

(Temple University) As a group, children born as a result of assisted reproductive technology are at greater risk of certain kinds of birth defects and being low birth weight.

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One thing I hate about press releases is they often fail to give me the data I want. How much of a greater risk are we talking about? Differences in methylation patterns between children conceived by assisted reproductive technology and regular approaches could mean all sorts of things. But he seems to say that differences are only seen in 5-10% of the children.

Perhaps this is the reason for the infertility of the couples to begin with. It is hard to know which is cause and which is effect here. In most cases, assisted reproduction is used for couples that have fertility problems, problems that are not really understood in a fraction of the cases.

This is an intriguing observation but I would really like more information than the PR actually gives. It would be nice to have a link to some papers.

But this PR actually provides something a little different here that I have not seen before. It provides the cell phone number of the doctor for people to call if they have questions. I guess going to the expert is the fastest way to get answers.

Loss of coral

by Franklin Dattein
Will coral reefs disappear?
[Via EurekAlert! - Biology]

(Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council) NSERC-funded researcher Dr. Simon Donner, an assistant professor in the department of geography at the University of British Columbia, will be talking about the vulnerability of coral reefs to climate change due to higher ocean temperatures.

[More]

Dr. Donner answers the question in the press release:

However, the outlook isn’t completely bleak. Dr. Donner says that no one is predicting that coral reefs will go extinct; they will continue to survive, but only in certain habitats, such as shaded areas. The reality is a general loss of coral cover and a breakdown of the physical structure of reefs.

They may very well be driven into ecological niches that are much smaller and remote than today. They are vulnerable but so are many people. As he says:

Obviously, there’s an aesthetic concern because people see Finding Nemo and they’re worried about what’s going to happen to the world’s coral reefs, but the key thing is that there are hundreds of millions of people who depend on them for their livelihood,

And, I believe that corals are also under pressure as ocean pH changes. The ability to create their skeletons is severely hampered when the pH gets too acidic. We are just now really investigating the ability of coral reefs to tell us about changes in the last few centuries. A Science paper from 2005 demonstrated the ability to get about 300 years worth of data. This figure not only shows the location of the reefs they examined but also show the decreasing ratios of 13C/12C, demonstrating the Suess Effect (bottom right of figure).

The Suess Effect examines the ratio of two isotopes of carbon, 14C and 13C, compared to 12C. Fossil-fuel derived carbon has different ratios of these two isotopes than normally found in the atmosphere. The burning of fossil fuels has added large amounts of carbon that is depleted in 13C and 14C. So the relative amounts of 12C have been rising, and 13C have been falling,  since we have been burning fossil fuels.

The figure shows the change in 13C found in the seawater surrounding the reefs. Over a 300 year period there has been a substantial decrease, most of it occurring in the last 150 years or so.

Low pH and high temperatures may have large effects on the coral reefs in the world’s oceans. They most likely won’t disappear but their range may be greatly decreased.

And thermological does not mean what they think it means

from Wikipedia

You can’t resolve away climate change
[Via Bad Astronomy]

My stance on climate change is clear: the scientific evidence that we’re getting warmer is overwhelming, and the most likely cause is that it’s human-produced. The first is fact, the second is a conclusion based on a lot of evidence.

Climategate showed us that the noise machine is in full swing; nothing in those emails takes away from the fact that there are multiple and independent lines of evidence that we’re warming up. And the talking heads on Fox and other right-wing media saying that the harsh winter is evidence against global warming shows how dumb of an argument they’re willing to make.

[More]

I love it when legislators get all sciency with their legislation. It really demonstrates the shallowness of their thinking.

So I’m reading this while having some coffee. Pretty normal legislative lunacy. Seen the same sorts of things when evolution and natural selection get slammed by state attempts to redefine what scientists know and have proven. But I did a spit-take with this bit from the South Dakota act:

However, my absolute favorite part of the South Dakota resolution is this next bit. Are you sitting down? Good:

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED [...]
(2) That there are a variety of climatological, meteorological, astrological, thermological, cosmological, and ecological dynamics that can affect world weather phenomena and that the significance and interrelativity of these factors is largely speculative; and

Wait, what? Did those guys in the South Dakota legislature actually say astrological?

I’ve written before about their inability to read. Now we know another aspect of the problem. They are either totally unable to proofread or unable to tell science from charlatanry.

And is thermological even a word? Google takes me to a definition of thermology indicating it is “the medical science that derives diagnostic indications from highly detailed and sensitive infrared images of the human body.”

What the heck does this have to do with climate change? None of the links from Google I saw indicate anything about the matter under consideration. I’d really like to know how breast scans affect world weather phenomena?

They were just making up works and adding ‘ological’ to them. Thus they reveal their buffoonery.

An unfolding story of false identity

by Mykl Roventine
The Bizarre Saga of InfoWorld Writer Randall Kennedy and Devil Mountain Software
[Via Daring Fireball]

Good investigative reporting by Larry Dignan and ZDNet.

[More]

With a title like Why we don’t trust Devil Mountain Software (and neither should you), you know something good is coming. It turns out that one of the columnists for Infoworld, Randall Kennedy, was also, using a false identity, the CTO of a software company touted by Infoworld.

They found out last week and have canned him but it is pretty embarrassing episode. As they say:

Devil Mountain Software is a business Kennedy established that specializes in the analysis of Windows performance data. There is no Craig Barth, and Kennedy has stated that this fabrication was a misguided effort to separate himself (or more accurately, his InfoWorld blogger persona) from his Devil Mountain Software business.

ZDNet has been doing an investigation of this very thing. It seems that the only apparent existence of this CTO, Craig Barth, was in quotes from IDG publications. This company, Devil Mountain Software, has made quite a name for itself with some pretty amazing statements, such as 86% of PCs were using way too much memory under Windows 7. This company was quoted at saying “Outside of Microsoft, I don’t think anyone knows more about Windows performance than us.”

The ZDNet investigation, which is an amazing read, indicates that the company itself, and its software, are not what they seem. What is interesting it the timing of Kennedy’s release from Infoworld.

ZDNet says it was going to publish its report today, revealing the hoax. Infoworld severed its relationship with Kennedy yesterday, claiming it had found out on Friday about the whole mess. They never state whether this was because of the impending ZDNet revelations.

And the name Craig Barth goes back over 10 years, apparently before the Devil Mountain Software stuff, as a contributor to magazines that Randall Kennedy was not allowed to write for, as he was working as an analyst at the time.

A lot of this work was possible because of the Wayback Machine at Archive.org. This keeps snapshots of web pages as they change, allowing people to find what was on old sites before they were scrubbed. The Internet never forgets.

And, one of the ways they connected Kennedy with the software company was that he made some mistakes and logged in as himself to upload graphics. He apparently did not realize that the graphic would get tagged with his ID.

There appears to have been an attempt to clean up some of this but the Wayback Machine revealed the originals.

The lesson: if you are going to create an alter ego on the Internet, you had better have it completely planned out from the beginning, make sure you never slip up regarding who is the alter and who is the ego, and make sure you create a vibrant social media life for the character, with traits indicating a completely separate personality from yourself.

Of course, cultivating and curating this alter ego could take as much time as leading a regular life. Not very easy to do in a well connected world.

This also indicates the poor vetting job many reporters do. They simply call a phone number and get some quotes. That is why this was able to go on for 10 years.

I think the only reason this came out is that the alter ego, Barth, finally went too far, making statements that were so much against the current thinking that somebody decided to track this guy down.

So one final lesson: never allow the alter ego to become too well known. Otherwise, they may be asked to make an actual appearance.