March 23, 2020
One of the more striking concepts I love to chew on is that our entire consciousness is a collection of data input from 5 senses, processed into a linear timeline, and merged with shared perceptions from other people. While we can and do share our data, our view of the world is ultimately limited to just our own view - we have no ability to objectively look outside our individual perceptions of reality. The fact that we are able to think and project out of our little brains to understand cause and effect, make choices to work together for the benefit people not yet born or who we do not know, and perform selfless (or self-sacrificing) acts in accordance with abstract principles amazes me. Obviously, this can be used for good or bad, but on whole I am pretty sure it is a plus.
I have no idea why this is on my mind on a Monday morning. Not even sure the articles today fit this theme. Hope this brings a little light to your day...
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Check out Atul Gawande's discussion of operationalizing his New Yorker article from Friday
https://twitter.com/Atul_Gawande/status/1241745332549140482
As it turns out, in 2013 someone actually published on the effectiveness of various materials for homemade masks... https://twitter.com/walker_md/status/1241735898812866561
Original article on PubMed https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24229526/?From_single_result=Testing+the+efficacy+of+homemade+masks
(please keep in mind our mask discussion) - this is mostly for entertainment and curiosity...
One of my friends sent me a heads up about some interesting early symptoms of COVID being reported - loss of smell and taste. This is the good and bad of Twitter and social media - interesting finding, communicated early, but without data it is hard to know what this actual means. Is it truly a sensitive and specific early sign or is it most valuable when combined with historical data? What about in people who have negative swab testing? What about as a means to determine who should get swab testing? All TBD.
https://twitter.com/search?q=anosmia&src=typed_query
My OCMO colleague Dr. Krishnan just bought us a bunch of IgG and IgM COVID ELISA test kits to help us identify frontline teammates and patients exposure to COVID through their antibodies (IgM = immediate reaction - exposed to virus in the last 3-5 days, IgG= longer term history of exposure, possibly recovered or immune post exposure). More on this later in the week. Here is a nice overview https://www.technologyreview.com/s/615379/antibody-test-how-widespread-coronavirus-covid-19-really-is/
The scary value of aggregating data from smart devices - the ramifications of spring break
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/615379/antibody-test-how-widespread-coronavirus-covid-19-really-is/
and the visualization data mentioned in the article
https://healthweather.us/
Wow. Medicine moving fast again - https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/22/science/coronavirus-drugs-chloroquine.html?referringSource=articleShare This is my favorite part of humans - understanding and shaping the world in helpful ways...
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Bonus Round - People Adam wants to learn more about....
Chandragupta Maurya was the founder of one of the ancient kingdoms in India. I just came across him in some of the my reading, exposing my ignorance of Asian and Indian ancient history. I suspect there are people on our team who could teach me a lot about this part of world history... either way, of the many amazing aspects to his leaderships was that he may have helped spread the use of War Elephants to the post-Alexander Greek world, which is a whole different discussion.
One of the more interesting, but less well known, renaissance philosopher is Michel de Montaigne. He has been on my radar since college, but the more I read, the more I like. I picked up this book of his a few years ago, which is truly a unique combination of writing and art...
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