Week of August 1, 2022
My plug-in hybrid car has an app that sends push notifications. The vehicle must have been on during some required maintenance this week, as my phone reported insistent, frequent messages of "car distress." "Engine problems" and "Emissions systems failure" on my home screen started feeling like pleas for help. "Schedule service now" (bannered red across the app's screen) provoked an urge to comfort the car, like a pet undergoing a veterinary procedure. Who knew car repair could turn into a reflective learning moment about a previously unknown empathetic bond with my car and the limits of my tolerance for the internet of things and real-time information?
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COVID case rates may be plateauing. Hospitalizations and deaths are still rising.
N.Y. Times Tracker
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/covid-cases.html
Country Comparison from FT.com
https://ig.ft.com/coronavirus-chart/?areas=eur&areas=usa&areas=twn&areas=nzl&areas=e92000001&areas=fra&areasRegional=usny&areasRegional=usnm&areasRegional=uspr&areasRegional=ushi&areasRegional=usfl&areasRegional=usco&cumulative=0&logScale=1&per100K=0&startDate=2021-06-01&values=deaths
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I am unsure how I missed this video on the physics of N95 masks from 2020. I strongly suggest investing 6 minutes of your day in understanding how and why these masks work.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAdanPfQdCA
In light of some very public rebound cases of COVID (President Biden, Dr. Fauci), Kaiser Health News published a good Q&A about Paxlovid.
https://khn.org/news/article/covid-drug-paxlovid-questions-answered-should-patients-take-it/
and Dr. Jeremy Faust covered this topic as well:
https://insidemedicine.bulletin.com/president-biden-has-paxlovid-rebound-here-s-what-you-need-to-know
Evusheld, a pair of monoclonal antibodies administered through intramuscular injection, offers additional protection for patients who may not adequately respond to vaccines. AstraZeneca is making it easier for immunocompromised patients (due to transplant, chemotherapy, etc.) to access this drug.
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/07/28/1114351832/evusheld-covid-immunocompromised-antibodies
Needle-less medication delivery uses high-density microarray patches (HD-MAP) to deliver pharmaceuticals through the top layer of skin. I found this article looking at the effectiveness of COVID vaccine delivery through such technology, consisting of lots of tiny needles instead of standard intramuscular injection.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264410X2200888X
More about HD-MAP technology (from a company commercializing these tools).
https://www.vaxxas.com/technology-platform/
Time to start learning about monkeypox. A fantastic thread of known knowns and known unknowns:
https://twitter.com/sailorrooscout/status/1551222428336267264
Random Medical Technologies and Realities
I found this fascinating history of aspirin on Medscape. The video and transcript discuss aspirin for migraines, but Dr. Diener offers some interesting historical context.
https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/976621
If you go digging a bit more, you can learn about Dr. Craven, an internist from C.A. who described the value of aspirin in preventing heart attacks in the 1940s and 50s. Dr. Craven's collections of empiric observations married to the known effects of aspirin are impressive.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1894700/
!Before you start taking aspirin! - read the current and more nuanced recommendations on who and when aspirin is appropriate for primary cardiovascular prevention. I suspect aspirin's value has diminished as the population is much different from the U.S. of the 1940s.
https://www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org/uspstf/recommendation/aspirin-to-prevent-cardiovascular-disease-preventive-medication
Infographics!
The Visual Capitalist offers this animated visual of the most popular web browsers used by year.
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/cp/the-rise-and-fall-of-popular-web-browsers-since-1994/
Things I learned this week:
Sea bass is your best option when cooking fish in a hot air balloon. At least, according to Angélique Schmeinck, chef of CuliAir, the world's first hot-air balloon restaurant floating above the Netherlands.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/hot-air-balloon-restaurant
and
https://www.culiair.nl/en/
I learned that hours of your life are lost wandering through the U.K.'s Science Museum Group's online collection of items from science, technology, engineering, and medicine. In addition to the descriptions, some objects also have videos.
https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/
Here are a few interesting items:
Life-size wax head of a melancholy insane woman, England, 1910-1940
https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co134157/life-size-wax-head-of-a-melancholy-insane-woman-england-1910-1940-head-model-representation
'Jedi' helmets, used with early Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) Machines (with video)
https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co8091205/jedi-helmet-used-with-cryogenic-magnetic-resonance-imaging-machine-component-object-jedi-helmet
19th Century Artificial Arm
https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co8087297/artificial-left-arm-europe-1850-1910-artificial-arm
One last update - Google fired the engineer who claimed an A.I. system (LaMDA) has become sentient. You will recall he went public with his observations and assisted LaMDA in hiring an attorney.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/23/business/google-ai-engineer-fired-sentient/index.html
Clean hands and sharp minds,
Adam
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