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[ Friday, November 30, 2007 09:41 PDT ]
Legacy Journal: Friday Final: Frameworking the Future
Section:
Environment
Summary:
Enviromentalism: The State of the Movement.
* A usatoday blog view of the fluid flow of the movement.
The State of the Environment: CT Radiation and Xrays .
** A
nytimes Op Ed page
writer chimes in on “Problematic” CT scans and radiation exposure.*** The inner Environmental Stressor: Asthma and P.T.S.D.
Main:
“Two things in life are certain, death and taxes.”—- Grandpa, Mark Twain, and others.
: Today, the local Rochester, NY paper has a lead article in its Business Section on a local investment in a corn to ethanol envirotech boomlet. The graphic of the process was excellent. It clearly illustrated the steps in the conversion. What was interesting was that more than twenty energy consuming processes were necessary to convert corn in the field to alcohol in the motor. Transporting, grinding, heating, distilling, cooling, pumping, filtering, and storing are among the examples of steps that are highly energy dependent. Meanwhile, the same paper reports that a local Congressman part of a delegation on a six day trip to Brazil for a first hand look at how that nation has “weaned itself from a dependency….. on foreign oil” using sugar cane to produce ethanol. It there also a rum dependency problem in Brazil where the stuff is reported to be plentiful and cheap for natives and tourists.
:: Predictably, the OP Ed folks of nytimes used a slow day on Friday to fill white space with tepid pap on what is characterized as “possibly problematic”—- unnecessary diagnostic radiation exposure. That is a strongly voiced opinion?
The good news is that the issue is not one of peace or prosperity, and no parallels were drown using the horrible Hiroshima metaphor.
Sadly, the science, technology and history of CAT scans is lacking. Not even EMI and the Beatles are given their due. The good news is that the research behind the 1979 Nobel Prize for Medicine helped launch the progress that powers the fifth generation machines. Dramatically increased processing speed has reduced motion artifact, optimized contrast enhancement, and decreased study completion time. Radiation exposure is now measured in mrem units and slice imaging time in msecs. That is very good news.
:::
More:
Calendar: • Friday: • Culture Clash: • Environment: • Envirotech: • Policy: • Features: • Quotes: • Frameworks: • Gold Standard: • Hot and Cold: • Language: • Rhetoric: • Leisure: • Life Support: • Medicine: • News: • Global: • Power Play: • Science and Technology: • Side Effects: • Sooner or Later: • Sustainability: • Truth Telling: • Weasel Words: • problematic: • Punditry: • (0) Comments: • (0) Trackbacks: • Permalink:
[ Thursday, November 29, 2007 11:02 PDT ]
Legacy Journal: Reasonable Risk Management: Screening Imaging , Radiation Exposure, and Cancer
Section:
Environment
Summary:
Living involves assuming and managing risk. One risk is death. Experience, the majority of scientific studies, and most recent polls put the risk at nearly 100%. A leading cause of human death is cancer.
Most cancers deaths are strongly associated with aging. Some, like Hodgkins disease, are also associated with Radiation Therapy. Today, a widely quoted article by two PhDs from Columbia University on possible radiation risks of CT diagnostic, imaging was published in the Current Concepts section of the NEJM. Among the conclusions was the opinion that many CT imaging studies are unnecessary, and are of source of increasing radiation exposure. The imaging study is available, may be in a mobile trailer, and be performed on patients who self-refer and self-pay for screening whole body imaging.
Main:
Further, the authors clearly state that their radiation exposure numbers are calculated and that to date there are no clinical or epidemiology based reports of disease caused by any imaging technology including digital Xray, Magnetic Resonance, PET, or ultrasound. In addition, it is unfortunate that the authors reference studies of “medical necessity”, a term of ART used by insurance companies, and not the more standard phrases , “medically appropriate”, “clinically justified, or “medically desirable”. Medical necessary is frequently used as a rationalization for a restrictive economic value judgment.
Meanwhile, today the nytimes Health section has extended multimedia presentation on the disability and death associated the pulmonary disease caused by self induced inhaled air contamination C.O.P.D. The agent is tobacco, the contamination is smoke largely from the burning cigarettes.
In Rochester, NY many diagnostic imaging studies require prior authorization. Some of that prior authorization preview is done by groups that do contract work for insurance companies. Their volume of work is large and growing rapidly. The volume drivers are many and include an aging demographic profile, rising patient requests to see a visual image as evidence of health and disease , a highly trained, technology oriented cadre of health care providers medical specialists, and students who are organized as members of teams. The team members are increasingly on salary.
More:
[ Wednesday, November 28, 2007 13:26 PDT ]
Legacy Journal: Wednesday Wisdom
Section:
Briefs
Summary:
* Ban Ki-moon, a career diplomat, is the recently elected Secretary-General of the United Nations. Based in New York City is appears to be saying all the right things about climate change, according to reporting by Rivkin of the nytimes.
** Google is going Green. The company is putting some spare change into climate change and investing in windturbines at altitude with attitude. Altitude is provided by kites. It sounds like kind of a wind driven twofer.: lift and thrust.
*** Subclinical sport associated concussion seems to be a mini epidemic. Detection and followup requires a $200 per pop neurobiopsycology evaluation using proprietary software. Hum.
Main:
“Science is facts; just as houses are made of stones, so is science made of facts; but a pile of stones is not a house and a collection of facts is not necessarily science” - Henri Poincare
: Ban do not have scientist credentials, Nor is he from France, but that does not stop him from trying use French. So, he does appear to endorse the conventional wisdom of doing good in the third world by sharing, yet again, the pervailing urban Penthouse technical wisdom of the Northern Hemisphere with the largely Southern Hemisphere poor of Africa, Asia, and South America. That wisdom is for the rapid adoption and deployment of alternatives to fossil fuels. Nuclear power for electricity generation in Korea, diesel for the trains of China, bunker oil for the fleets of Norway, gas for the taxis of Caracas, kerosene for the jets to Bali, and dung for the village hearths of India appear unacceptable alternatives at the outset. So think about kite power.
:: And brings us to Google Green. They are hedging their bets on kites, and like Microsoft have located their most recent server farms close to safe, secure and reliable hydroelectric dams in the Pacific Northwest.
::: Meanwhile youth contact sports like football in New York have mandated safety requirements, These are costly. So a property tax assessment is under consideration by a number of western upstate New York school districts.
More:
Calendar: • Wednesday: • Caveat Emptor: • Culture Clash: • High Brow: • Demographics: • Energy: • Environment: • Movements: • Policy: • Homeostasis: • How To: • IT3 Tech: • Internet Tech: • Google: • Language: • Rhetoric: • Metaphors: • Leap of Faith: • Nature: • News: • Global: • Really? A Reality Check: • Report Card: • Sixth Sense: • Sustainability: • Translations: • Quotes: • Climate Change: • Certainty: • By the Numbers: • Dollars and Cents: • Blowback: • (0) Comments: • (0) Trackbacks: • Permalink:
[ Tuesday, November 27, 2007 06:53 PDT ]
Legacy Journal: Medical Fundamentals: Patient Care, Turf Battles, and Funding
Section:
Health and Medicine
Summary:
Medicine Today: Local, National, and Global: Three Views in the News
* Outliers: A case report from the University of Rochester.
** The Texas Tornado and the Outlaw: The Feud ends between reconciled Houston heart surgeons DeBakey and Cooley.
*** The Fundamentals: Why the United States is the object of both admiration and envy.
Main:
First, today the University of Rochester, Strong Memorial Hospital Rounds was a case report. The patient was a 83 year old woman who was transferred to the Intensive Care Unit from another hospital for care because of fever and cardiomyopathy. Her DRG code was sepsis, probably secondary to pneumonia . Her hospital stay was over 35 days. Consultations, tests and procedures were numerous and frequent. Hospital charges alone were $90,000; insurance reimbursement was 50 cents on the dollar. She was discharged in stable condition at her request three days after simplifying her medicine regimen. One lesson is that the patient did offer students and residents valuable clinical experience. In addition, she probably was included in a NIH funded, University study on focused on some of the fundamental cellular mechanisms of sepsis.
Second, today the nytimes reports that the long standing Texas sized feud between Dr. Michael DeBakey and Dr. Denton Cooley has ended.
Third, David Brooks, writing for the nntimes and reporting from China, makes the case for sticking to the fundamentals of open, free and fair trade given the financial and economic realities of Global trade and the fluid flow of funds.
In the interest of full disclosure of possible conflicts of interest, I have been a willing reference guinea pig subject for an ongoing sepsis research study at Strong, a CME attendee of one Dr. DeBakey’s lectures, a step-brother is a guy who owns his life saving cardiovascular emergency surgery at the Texas Heart Institute by an Iraqi surgeon in Houston, and a post WW II beneficiary of world travel, trade, and the free exchange of human and financial capital.
BTW, approximately 20% of western upstate New York’s working professionals are estimated to be foreign born according to a recently reported economic and business survey.
More:
Business and Trade: • Calendar: • Corrections and Clarifications: • Demographics: • Diversity: • Family: • Fundamentals: • Heartland: • Immigration: • Life Lines: • Medicine: • Personalities: • Science and Technology: • Social Sciences: • Demography: • Score Card: • SeniorStatesmen: • Signals: • Clear: • Spot On: • Standards: • The Price is Right: • (0) Comments: • (0) Trackbacks: • Permalink:
[ Monday, November 26, 2007 06:39 PDT ]
Legacy Journal: A Culture of Complaint: Bets not Paying Off: Blame it on the Weather
Section:
Environment
Summary:
“Coal lay in ledges under the ground since the Flood, until a laborer with pick and windlass brings it to the surface. We may will call it black diamonds. Every basket is power and civilization. For coal is a portable climate”. —- Ralph Waldo Emerson
” Never place a bet on a college football game or predict the temperature and wind speed and direction at game time next week.” —- ESPN sports reporter.
How times change. Heat, cold and coal seem to be central to our perception of the way the world works,—or should bend before our needs. Carbon and coal are central to current complaints about climate, temperature and the natural and chaotic rhythm of weather that frustrate use with dynamic and sometimes dramatic changes.
Coal remains, for many, an abundant source of comfort, convenience, and civil necessity, and mostly in the form of reliable and affordable electrical power. How often, we take the long history of energy technology progress for granted. Try living off the grid in winter bound Yellowstone NP or Alaska for three days to learn the point.
Main:
Gambling with your life to test survival limits has always been a challenge for young risk takers. Thus, the sustained popularity of books by Jon Krakauer of Corvallis, Oregon.
Some complain about the weather or the temperature. Others engage Nature directly—face to face.
Thank about it. Weather is used to explain and give meaning to how our moods change, when shoppers buy, why the tomatoes will not grow, where water is available, who needs to put in hay, what species will survive, thrive,—- or not.
Today,
* Snow is falling in the Pacific Northwest Cascades at the 3,000 ft level.
* Rochester, NY is shrouded in dark gray and the school kids are prepared for rain.
* Bali is preparing for a tropical jet set De visit by UN types.
* Maryland is hosting Middle East stakeholders this week. The Golan is on the table.
* Oil spot market prices, the price of hay, and the cost of milk at the market continue to spike upwards as dollar markets continue to adjust to the whole as it is, not the world that that we want, but do not control.
Meanwhile most pundits, planners, policy makers, and politicians have yet to place their bets and roll out their plans and consumer cost analysis for taxing, capping or trading carbon and carbon surrogates. Many call for institutions to place risky but necessary bets so as effectively manage the earth billions of known and unknown plant and animal species, control weather and climate, and listen to our complains about the present, regrets about the past, and fears about the future. All of this seems to represent a naively self centered view of the State of Nature as it is experience by those live closest to her mystery and best know her power.
Energy Factoid:
* The University of Southern California is the largest non public customer for electrical power in Los Angeles. Government and public education continue to be major power users and wasters.
Question:
* What measurement best represents the earth’s heat cycle?
More:
Backgrounder: • Bottom Line: • Business and Trade: • Calendar: • Monday: • Cascade Effect: • Changing Course: • Counter Currents: • Demographics: • Energy: • Fast Facts: • Food: • Hot and Cold: • Leap of Faith: • Media Watch: • Moral Jeopardy: • New York: • Cities: • News: • Global: • Oregon: • Political Watch: • Science and Technology: • Physical Sciences: • Side Effects: • Weather Watch: • Wilderness: • Metaphors: • Climate Change: • Heat of the Moment: • Climate Chronicles: • Roll of the Dice: • By the Numbers: • Punditry: • (0) Comments: • (0) Trackbacks: • Permalink:
[ Sunday, November 25, 2007 13:23 PDT ]
Legacy Journal: Weather Questions: Snow in the Mountains, Cyclones in the Seas, Sleep in France
Section:
None
Summary:
Q:
Is it true that the weather forecasters predicted snow for Minneapolis Minnesota, Midland, Texas, and Mammoth Hot Springs at the northern entrance to Yellowstone NP near the Montana border this weekend?
Was that snow on ground as CBS Sunday Morning visited the elk and the bison in Yellowstone this morning? We noted the soon to be delisted Grey Wolves were nowhere in sight. And it is a full moon.
Could it be that some are blaming U.S. farmers, Thanksgiving travelers, service vehicles, bus drivers, snow plowers, etc for the Indian Ocean cyclone and flooding in Bangladesh.?
Main:
A: Yes, Yes and Yes.
Meanwhile, The nytimes book review section features a useful review of a number of Christmas books on cartography. Included are offerings on urban mass transportation and early maps for early cross country Pioneers to the American West.
Another nytimes Op Ed guest is Graham Robb , author of The Discovery of France: A History and Geography from the Revolution to the First World War. a seasonal 100 nytimes best books of the year selection. as reviewed by Caroline Weber of Barnard. Winter Sleep is his topic. Apparently the author, a Brit with a PhD in French Literature from Vanderbilt University, is of the quaint notion that mid nineteenth century French provincial peasant farmers holed up and slept their way through the winter in the close company of their children and livestock. The result was a politically correct ecologic and environment savings on food, fuel, fiber, and forage. Hum.
So, are we to believe that the Frenchmen in the Provinces in the mid nineteen century did not milk their cows, pitch hay, split wood, repair fences, add a room, send their kids to school, attend church, gather at the Bistro, sing, dance, repair harness, prepare meals, drink wine, forge iron, etc.? Where is the modern equivalent of great French historians, like Fernand Braudel, and the recently deceased Eugen Weber, former Dean of Arts and Letters at UCLA, when we really need them? For the meantime, the country’s new Prime Minister will have to take up the slack by showing the French and the world both clear direction and bold action.
More:
Calendar: • Monday: • Chronicles: • Cold Turkey: • Energy: • History: • Hot and Cold: • Nature: • News: • Snow Flakes: • Tall Tales: • Timeline: • Translations: • Weather Watch: • Wilderness: • Climate Chronicles: • (0) Comments: • (0) Trackbacks: • Permalink:
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