Eideard

Of course, you never get past the TSA

Researchers are developing a Wearable Artificial Kidney for dialysis patients, reports an upcoming paper in the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (CJASN). “Our vision of a technological breakthrough has materialized in the form of a Wearable Artificial Kidney, which provides continuous dialysis 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” comments Victor Gura, MD (David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA).

The device—essentially a miniaturized dialysis machine, worn as a belt—weighs about 10 pounds and is powered by two nine-volt batteries. Because patients don’t need to be hooked up to a full-size dialysis machine, they are free to walk, work, or sleep while undergoing continuous, gentle dialysis that more closely approximates normal kidney function.

Such a device could lead to a “paradigm change” in the treatment of dialysis patients. Despite enduring long hours on dialysis every week—with major limitations in activities, diet, and other areas of life—dialysis patients face high rates of hospitalization and death. The U.S. dialysis population currently exceeds 400,000, with costs of over $30 billion per year…

The Wearable Artificial Kidney is successful in preliminary tests, including two studies in dialysis patients. The new study provides important information on the technical details that made these promising results possible.

“However, the long-term effect of this technology on the well-being of dialysis patients must be demonstrated in much-needed clinical trials,” adds Gura. “Although successful, this is but one additional step on a long road still ahead of us to bring about a much-needed change in the lives of this population.”

Still, this can and will be a giant step for a lot of humanity. And as our population becomes more and more an elderly population – the need for devices like this will increase.

Daylife/AP Photo used by permission

Michael Jackson’s death has been ruled a homicide.

Eight weeks after the King of Pop was found unconscious, a search warrant of his doctor’s office revealed Monday what had long been suspected – that Jackson was given “lethal levels” of a dangerous anesthetic.

Jackson’s doctor, Conrad Murray, the target of a manslaughter probe, told Los Angeles cops that he had been treating the singer for insomnia for about six weeks, according to the document…

On the morning Jackson died, Murray told cops he tried again to get the singer to sleep without using propofol, the records state.
Murray said on that fateful night he first gave Jackson valium at 1:30 a.m. When that didn’t work, the doctor said he injected lorazepam intravenously at 2 a.m.

An hour later, Jackson was still awake so Murray said he gave him midazolam. Still, Jackson could not sleep.

Finally, at 10:40 a.m., and after Jackson insisted on the propofol, Murray said he caved and gave into the singer’s demands.

And Jackson was doomed.

I wonder if there will be a trial verdict, say, before the next presidential election?

A record surge in confidence among business professionals indicates Britain’s recession is at an end.

Optimism among professionals in the third quarter hit its highest level since the start of the financial crisis two years ago, the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW) said.

The confidence measure jumped to 4.8 at the end of June from -28.2 in March – the biggest improvement since the survey began in 2003. The institute predicts that the economy will grow by 0.5% this quarter, breaking five quarters of falling output.

ICAEW chief executive Michael Izza said the findings suggest that “the UK recession is at an end”…

Asian shares advanced strongly today on fresh optimism over the global recovery, following upbeat comments from US Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke and news that Thailand has come out of recession.

“We seem to be on our way to the moon today on Ben Bernanke’s coat tails,” said David Buik at BGC Partners.

The ICAEW survey showed that UK businesses expected a rise in all but one of 14 key financial performance indicators in the coming year, in contrast to earlier in the year when most were expected to contract.

Monty Python fans will know about Chartered Accountants. Just picture a blend of your least favorite CPA and Attila the Hun.

This is what it looked like from 200 miles away!

With a very lucky shot, scientists have captured a one-second image and the electrical fingerprint of huge lightning that flowed 40 miles upward from the top of a storm.

These rarely seen, highly charged meteorological events are known as gigantic jets, and they flash up to the lower levels of space, or ionosphere.

While they don’t occur every time there is lightning, they are substantially larger than their downward striking cousins…

“This confirmation of visible electric discharges extending from the top of a storm to the edge of the ionosphere provides an important new window on processes in Earth’s global electrical circuit,” said Brad Smull, program director in NSF’s Division of Atmospheric Sciences…

“Our measurements show that gigantic jets are capable of transferring a substantial electrical charge to the lower ionosphere,” Steven Cummer, Duke University engineer, said.

“They are essentially upward lightning from thunderclouds that deliver charge just like conventional cloud-to-ground lightning. What struck us was the size of this event.”

It appears from the measurements that the amount of electricity discharged by conventional lightning and gigantic jets is comparable, Cummer said.

But the gigantic jets travel farther and faster than conventional lightning because thinner air between the clouds and ionosphere provides less resistance.

Whereas a conventional lightning bolt follows a six-inch channel and travels about 4.5 miles down to earth, the gigantic jet recorded by the scientists contained multiple channels and traveled about 40 miles upward.

Wow! Adds additional impact to the thought – “Don’t mess with Mother Nature!”

Think it was easy getting the Civil Rights Bill through Congress?

LBJ would:

Have a list of every member of Congress on his desk.

He would be on the telephone with members (and their key staffers) constantly: “Your president really needs your vote on this bill.”

He would have a list of every special request every member wanted — from White House tours to appointments to federal jobs and commissions…

He would keep a list of people who support each member financially. A call to each to tell them to get the vote of that representative…

He would use up White House liquor having nightcaps with the leaders and key members of BOTH parties. Each of them would take home cufflinks, watches, signed photos, and perhaps even a pledge to come raise money for their next election.

He would be sending gifts to children and grandchildren of members…

He would threaten, cajole, flirt, flatter, hug — and get the health care bill passed.

Obama has to grow beyond community consensus, bipartisan phonies – and get the job done.

Get off your butt, Barack – and get on with it!

Is this the truck they use to carry the money to the bank?

Oklahoma City police have begun an investigation at Feed The Children after a private investigator found evidence three offices had been illegally bugged.

The investigator “found remnants of wiretapping devices above the ceilings” during an almost six-hour sweep Wednesday evening of the charity’s Oklahoma City headquarters, according to a police report.

The Christian relief organization is widely known because of its heart-wrenching televised appeals for funds to feed starving children. It claims to raise more than $1 billion in donations a year.

The charity has been in turmoil for months because of a lawsuit over who was in charge there. The lawsuit was settled this month when founder Larry Jones agreed to give up operational control of the charity. He continues to work for Feed The Children as a spokesman and fundraiser.

A more accurate description of what the turmoil has been about – is who is in charge of the money.

Almost half of the world’s farmland has at least 10 percent tree cover, according to a study on Monday indicating that farmers are far less destructive to carbon-storing forests than previously believed.

“The area revealed in this study is twice the size of the Amazon, and shows that farmers are protecting and planting trees spontaneously,” Dennis Garrity, Director General of the World Agroforestry Center in Nairobi, said in a statement.

The Centre’s report, based on satellite images and the first to estimate tree cover on the world’s farms, showed tree canopies exceeded 10 percent on farmland of 10 million square kms (3.9 million sq miles) — 46 percent of all agricultural land and an area the size of Canada or China…

Previous estimates of the area of farmland used in agroforestry had ranged up to only about 3 million sq kms…

“We’re pleasantly surprised — it quantifies an under-appreciated resource,” Tony Simons, deputy director general of the World Agroforestry Center, told Reuters.

The report found that trees were integral to agricultural landscapes in all parts of the world, with the exceptions of arid North Africa and West Asia.

Simons said the report indicated a new front for fighting climate change. Farmers would do more to preserve trees if they got credits under a new U.N. climate pact due to be agreed at a meeting in Copenhagen in December…

“This study offers convincing evidence that farms and forests are in no way mutually exclusive,” said Wangari Maathai, a Kenyan environmentalist who won the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize for a tree-planting campaign across Africa.

Many of my kin in North America are farmers up on PEI. A typical farm might be 100 acres with only 40-50% cleared for planting.

The rest is kept as woodlot for heating and cooking. Been that way for a couple of centuries. Makes good sense to me.

#57 is a Typewriter. This is an aluminum/steel Lettera 22 portable. I own one.

There are some things in this world that will never be forgotten, this week’s 40th anniversary of the moon landing for one. But Moore’s Law and our ever-increasing quest for simpler, smaller, faster and better widgets and thingamabobs will always ensure that some of the technology we grew up with will not be passed down the line to the next generation of geeks.

That is, of course, unless we tell them all about the good old days of modems and typewriters, slide rules and encyclopedias …

A fun Post. Especially for a cranky old geek like me who’s been online since 1983.

Thanks, Jägermeister

A Norwegian team is set to embark on an expedition to find the submerged wreck of a plane which carried Norway’s great polar explorer Roald Amundsen.

Amundsen was aboard a Latham 47 sea plane when the aircraft disappeared over the sea on its way to the Arctic island of Spitsbergen in 1928.

Two ships will set sail from the Norwegian city of Tromso on Monday to begin the two-week expedition. The team will use an underwater robot to scan for the plane using sonar.

Between 1910 and 1912, Amundsen led the first expedition to reach the South Pole, reaching the target some five weeks before his British rival Robert Scott.

On 18 June 1928, Amundsen joined a rescue operation to save another rival: Umberto Nobile…

Amundsen boarded a Latham 47 sea plane along with a team of French Air Force pilots to try to reach them.

According to experts involved in the 2009 expedition, the Latham 47 should have been about 19 nautical miles south of Bear Island when the plane’s last radio message was picked up at 1845 on 18 June.

The expedition will use an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) called Hugin 1000, capable of making high-resolution maps of the sea bed…

The Norwegian Navy will contribute its ship the KNM Tyr…which will also deploy a tethered underwater robot called Scorpion 21. This remotely operated vehicle (ROV) is equipped with an HDTV camera and receives power from the ship.

My kind of adventure. Combine history with the spirit of exploration, the latest search technology – and a decent cook aboard ship – it’s hard to beat.

Visitors to London always have to be on the look out for pickpockets, but now there’s another, more positive phenomenon on the loose — putpockets.

Aware that people are suffering in the economic crisis, 20 former pickpockets have turned over a new leaf and are now trawling London’s tourist sites slipping money back into unsuspecting pockets.

Anything from 5 pounds to 20 pound notes is being surreptitiously deposited in unguarded pockets or open handbags in Trafalgar Square, Covent Garden and other busy spots.

The initiative, which runs until the end of August in London before being rolled out countrywide, is being funded by a broadbrand provider, which says it wants to brighten up people’s lives in unusual ways…

London’s police have been briefed about the plan, which will see at least 100,000 pounds given away.

Neat idea.

There must be some religious or ideological reason to oppose this, eh?