Week of June 26, 2023
Amongst the milestones our family marked in the last few weeks, I was most affected by preparing a Power of Attorney (POA) form for my soon-to-be 18-year-old. It is jarring to think our kid will soon be a legal adult. Sometimes the mundane can be the most impactful.
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Both hospitalization and wastewater treatment data indicate improving case rates.
The N.Y. Times COVID Tracker reports CDC-gathered hospital data as a surrogate (lagging) indicator.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/us/covid-cases.html
Wastewater monitoring is more of a LEADING indicator.
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COVID articles
Japan is seeing rising rates of COVID.
https://japannews.yomiuri.co.jp/society/coronavirus/20230624-118349/
Neurologist Dr. Gina Ferre summarizes articles on the physiologic damage caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus. She put together a brief visual thread from a Cell article describing the pathophysiology of the COVID spike protein on the inner lining of blood vessels (the endothelium) and the resulting complications of "long COVID." A couple of interesting observations:
1) The number of infected individuals has given us a lot of data relative to other viral infections. I would not be surprised if (over time) we learn that other viruses cause chronic tissue damage or immune dysregulation.
2) Odd - despite a hefty internet search, I cannot find where Dr. Ferre practices or where she went to school. Nevertheless, she does an excellent job summarizing scientific articles (see her Twitter account). However, I wonder if she is an actual person or an online-only physician persona.
https://twitter.com/Drferremd/status/1669125192814063616
and
https://www.cell.com/trends/microbiology/fulltext/S0966-842X(23)00189-0
Medical Trends and Technology
More oral versions of Ozempic (the injectable diabetes drug used for weight loss) are coming. The weight loss pill market is about to heat up - Pfizer, Novo Nordisk, and Eli Lily have products coming to market.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/naco-more-shots-pill-versions-of-ozempic-like-drugs-are-coming-ca286ca2
More on this class of drugs (GLP-1 agonists):
I have found several articles looking at the impact of "internet use" at various stages of life.
1) The U.S. Surgeon General cites social science research in stating that 13-year-olds should not be on social media
https://www.medscape.com/s/viewarticle/987665
2) using longitudinal data from an ongoing research registry, New York University gerontologists found that older adults who routinely used the internet for 1-2 hours a day had a significantly lower risk (about 50% less) of developing dementia.
https://agsjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/jgs.18394
Ignoring the variance in operational definitions and study populations (and other methodologic problems comparing these articles), I am pleased to have an excuse to scroll on my phone.
Infographics
The Japanese concept of Ikigai, the constellation of one's mission, passion, profession, and vocation, is broadly understood to mean "a reason for being" and is associated with longevity. It is a great example of a culturally specific word that most concisely translates with a diagram rather than a definition.
https://blog.learnlife.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Ikigai.jpeg?width=1200&name=Ikigai.jpeg
from
https://blog.learnlife.com/what-is-your-ikigai
More
https://www.japan.go.jp/kizuna/2022/03/ikigai_japanese_secret_to_a_joyful_life.html
Things I learned this week
The unfortunate implosion of OceanGate's submersible Titan spawned a lot of news. I learned several interesting things that paint a broader picture of what happened and, more importantly, how innovation can incorporate safety. The backstory, hubris, and outcome offer numerous lessons in high reliability.
The CEO of OceanGate did not learn lessons from other adventurers.
https://twitter.com/d_feldman/status/1672072302169673728
What does a "safer" deep-sea submersible look like? Meet the Deepsea Challenger:
https://twitter.com/ladydoctorsays/status/1671700989429297152
The Wright Brothers offer some examples of high-risk tech evolution with a stronger (though imperfect) focus on safety:
https://rootsofprogress.org/wright-brothers-and-safe-technology-development
Microsoft, Google, and IBM continue to evolve quantum computing efforts. Microsoft is reporting some breakthroughs in foundational engineering in this space:
https://www.popsci.com/technology/microsoft-quantum-supercomputer/
The linked Microsoft blog post on their breakthrough hardware-protected qubit (a non-binary basic data unit) is a deep dive into the mechanics of quantum computing.
If you are still interested, here is a readable 2018 article on what Quantum Computing offers to future humans with stable qubits
https://interestingengineering.com/innovation/5-intractable-problems-quantum-computing-will-solve
Living with A.I.
Israeli archeologists use A.I. to translate large volumes of Babylonian clay tablets written in cuneiform. In addition to papers, the Israeli Science Foundation (ISF) has published an A.I.-driven Akkadian to English transliterator. (It takes scanned cuneiform symbols and predicts pronunciations in English. You still need to know Akkadian to know what these words mean.) There are thousands of cuneiform tablets that, using humans alone, would take hundreds of years and tens of thousands of hours to translate. A.I. can process large volumes of information and account for the multiple potential transliteration options.
Article:
https://academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/article/2/5/pgad096/7147349?login=false
ISF Website for Digital Humanities Research
https://digitalpasts.github.io/index.html
Check out the Babylonian Transliteration engine
I learned the phrase "secret cyborgs" - workers using ChatGPT on the down low out of FOMO and desires for efficiency, despite company policies. Though high-level, this Forbes editorial touches on many ethical and business policy considerations spawned by generative A.I.
A.I. art of the week
Darius the Great using quantum computers to write cuneiform on circuit boards - Van Gogh style
Clean hands and sharp minds,
Adam
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