Kickass Kid of the Day: A Maryland-based scientist has developed an incredibly accurate mechanism for detecting pancreatic cancer, which is faster than current methods, as well as 100 times more sensitive and 28 times cheaper. Oh, and the scientist is 15 years old.
For his discovery, high school freshman Jack Andraka just won the Gordon E. Moore Award at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, which comes with a $75,000 prize.
Andraka’s method uses single-walled carbon nanotubes — which he calls “the superheroes of material science” — to detect a pancreatic cancer marker in urine and blood samples. In a blind test, it had a 100% success rate.
“I did not expect for it to be this good,” he said, “I was blown away by how sensitive it was.”
[huffpo.]
Nephrolithiasis.tumblr
Med student playing with his tumblr. A place for me to polish the rocks in my head... no wait, i mean kidneys.
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I am super happy to go into anesthesia. One of our professional publications had an article on alien abduction. It related to sleep paralysis. Anesthesia is such a broad field. I could specialize in knowledge of the vocal cords or of consciousness. Isn’t that neat?
I’m in love with these kind of old style TV science demonstrations.
We’re in love with this gif.
Each living art object, taken out of its natural habitat so we can so conveniently gaze at it, is like an animal in a zoo. Something about it has died in the removal. - The Image by Daniel Boorstin
In this case it was the owner. Ok, bad joke. :P
(Source: nevver)
Significant growth of osteopathic medical education:
Nearly 4,200 medical students graduated this year from one of the nation’s 26 Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine, compared with just 2,536 graduates a decade ago.
However, the number of residency positions has remained the same, and in many specialties has decreased. The AOA is trying to shunt students into their unfilled primary care residency positions. This becomes a potential problem when schools boast to prospective students who are told osteopaths practice in every specialty. What they are not told is some of these specialties only offer a handful of positions. Increasing class sizes and opening new schools has the potential to breed resentment among students, and not a desired enthusiasm for primary care.
(Source: nevver)
What do I do when my Employer Wants to be too Social?
I disagree with all these suggestions of the article. With a little planning you can have a 2nd facebook ready to go for any interviewer. Make it public to searches and display some public info of your choosing. Find the controls to the machine and project your professional identity. In a culture that accepts invasive technologies of absent presence, then you’re online identity should be situated, conditional, and completely optional.
http://lifehacker.com/5896413/what-do-i-do-when-my-employer-wants-to-be-too-social?tag=ask-lifehacker
(Source: fuckyeahpsychedelics)
Science Shows Us How to Be Creative
“Creativity is not magic, and there’s no such thing as a creative type. Creativity is not a trait that we inherit in our genes or a blessing bestowed by the angels. It’s a skill. Anyone can learn to be creative and to get better at it. New research is shedding light on what allows people to develop world-changing products and to solve the toughest problems. A surprisingly concrete set of lessons has emerged about what creativity is and how to spark it in ourselves and our work.”
1. Color Me Blue
A 2009 study found that subjects solved twice as many insight puzzles when surrounded by the color blue, since it leads to more relaxed and associative thinking. Red, on other hand, makes people more alert and aware, so it is a better backdrop for solving analytic problems.
2. Get Groggy
According to a study published last month, people at their least alert time of day—think of a night person early in the morning—performed far better on various creative puzzles, sometimes improving their success rate by 50%. Grogginess has creative perks.
3. Daydream Away
Research led by Jonathan Schooler at the University of California, Santa Barbara, has found that people who daydream more score higher on various tests of creativity.
4. Think Like A Child
When subjects are told to imagine themselves as 7-year-olds, they score significantly higher on tests of divergent thinking, such as trying to invent alternative uses for an old car tire.
5. Laugh It Up
When people are exposed to a short video of stand-up comedy, they solve about 20% more insight puzzles.
6. Imagine That You Are Far Away
Research conducted at Indiana University found that people were much better at solving insight puzzles when they were told that the puzzles came from Greece or California, and not from a local lab.
7. Keep It Generic
One way to increase problem-solving ability is to change the verbs used to describe the problem. When the verbs are extremely specific, people think in narrow terms. In contrast, the use of more generic verbs—say, “moving” instead of “driving”—can lead to dramatic increases in the number of problems solved.
8. Work Outside the Box
According to new study, volunteers performed significantly better on a standard test of creativity when they were seated outside a 5-foot-square workspace, perhaps because they internalized the metaphor of thinking outside the box. The lesson? Your cubicle is holding you back.
9. See the World
According to research led by Adam Galinsky, students who have lived abroad were much more likely to solve a classic insight puzzle. Their experience of another culture endowed them with a valuable open-mindedness. This effect also applies to professionals: Fashion-house directors who have lived in many countries produce clothing that their peers rate as far more creative.
10. Move to a Metropolis
Physicists at the Santa Fe Institute have found that moving from a small city to one that is twice as large leads inventors to produce, on average, about 15% more patents.
