Cop Car's Beat

Mixing apples & oranges

Below are three items posted by Slashdot.net that caught my attention this morning. The first is technology/medical, the second and third have to do with US Constitutionally guaranteed rights.

Man Has 75% of Skull Replaced By 3D-Printed Materials72

Posted by Soulskillon Friday March 08, @05:22PM
from the i-wonder-if-they'll-do-customized-designs dept.

redletterdave writes "An un-named male patient in the U.S. has had 75 percent of his skull replaced with 3D printed materials. The undisclosed patient had his head imaged by a 3D scanner before South Windsor, Conn.-based Oxford Performance Materials (OPM) gained approval from US regulators to print the bone replacement. OPM's final skull replacement was built within two weeks, and inserted in the patient's skull in an operation performed earlier this week; this cutting-edge procedure was only just revealed on Friday. OPM's 3D-printed process was granted approval by the FDA back on Feb. 18, which means the company can now provide 3D printed replacements for bones damaged by trauma or even disease. The company says this technique could benefit more than 500 U.S. citizens each month, from injured factory or construction workers to wounded soldiers."

Court: 4th Amendment Applies At Border, Password Protected Files Not Suspicious170

Posted by Soulskillon Friday March 08, @06:45PM
from the you're-doing-it-right dept.

An anonymous reader sends this Techdirt report on a welcome ruling from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals: ""Here's a surprise ruling. For many years we've written about how troubling it is that Homeland Security agents are able to search the contents of electronic devices, such as computers and phones at the border, without any reason. The 4th Amendment only allows reasonable searches, usually with a warrant. But the general argument has long been that, when you're at the border, you're not in the country and the 4th Amendment doesn't apply. This rule has been stretched at times, including the ability to take your computer and devices into the country and search it there, while still considering it a "border search," for which the lower standards apply. Just about a month ago, we noted that Homeland Security saw no reason to change this policy. Well, now they might have to. In a somewhat surprising 9th Circuit ruling (en banc, or in front of the entire set of judges), the court ruled that the 4th Amendment does apply at the border, that agents do need to recognize there's an expectation of privacy, and cannot do a search without reason. Furthermore, they noted that merely encrypting a file with a password is not enough to trigger suspicion."

Obama Administration Supports Journalist Arrested For Recording Cops211

Posted by Soulskillon Friday March 08, @06:05PM
from the to-protect-and-serve dept.

New submitter SplatMan_DK writes "Ars Technica reports that the Obama Administration has filed a brief in support of a Maryland photojournalist who says he was arrested and beaten after he took photographs of the police arresting two other men. The brief by the Justice Department argues that the U.S. Constitution protects the right to photograph the actions of police officers in public places and prohibits police officers from arresting journalists for exercising those rights. Context: 'Garcia says that when Officer Christopher Malouf approached him, Garcia identified himself as a member of the press and held up his hands to show he was only holding a camera. But Malouf "placed Mr. Garcia in a choke hold and dragged him across the street to his police cruiser," where he "subjected him to verbal and physical abuse." According to Garcia's complaint, Malouf "forcibly dragged Mr. Garcia across the street, throwing him to the ground along the way, inflicting significant injuries." Garcia says Malouf "kicked his right foot out from under him, causing Mr. Garcia to hit his head on the police cruiser while falling to the ground." Garcia claims that Malouf took the video card from Garcia's camera and put it in his pocket. The card was never returned. Garcia was charged with disorderly conduct. In December 2011, a judge found Garcia not guilty.'"

Great-Grandpa S would have loved this.

Another goody from Slashdot.org:

    Bionic Hand Wired To Nerves Can "Feel" When Touched21

Posted by samzenpuson Monday February 18, @10:30AM
from the all-the-better-to-feel-you-with dept.

An anonymous reader writes in with a breakthrough in prosthetics. "The first bionic hand that allows an amputee to feel what they are touching will be transplanted later this year in a pioneering operation that could introduce a new generation of artificial limbs with sensory perception. The patient is an unnamed man in his 20s living in Rome who lost the lower part of his arm following an accident, said Silvestro Micera of the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne in Switzerland. The wiring of his new bionic hand will be connected to the patient’s nervous system with the hope that the man will be able to control the movements of the hand as well as receiving touch signals from the hand’s skin sensors."

 

As a youngish man, my great-grandfather worked for Missouri Pacific Railroad Company. During one unfortunate run, Grandpa S leaned too far out of the locomotive, looking toward the back, and was knocked off and under the train resulting in surgical amputation of his left arm just below his elbow. Although he had a prosthetic, I don't recall having seen it (although I had nightmares about Grandpa's arm being in the closet of our bedroom when I was three or four years old). Had Grandpa S gone through the experience, today, he might have a totally different attitude toward a prosthetic. Grandpa could do just about anything he wanted to do and worked at one job or another for another 50 years following the incident. Nothing kept him down! I still miss Grandpa S. He died during my freshman year at college.

Addition of three hours later

It was Grandpa S who showed me the lack of reverence that people held for human cells in the early 1950s. An 18-year-old who was slicing pickles at the warehouse that Grandpa supervised was showing off to a friend who had stopped by to visit - and - managed to slice tips off of three fingers on his left hand. Grandpa, after loading the guy into a taxi for a trip to the hospital, nonchalantly picked up the finger tips and tossed them out the window where they landed atop the heap of pickle-leavings that had accumulated there.

This bit of family/personal history was brought to mind by my having just heard, on Talk of the Nation (transcript not yet available online), a discussion of the cell-line of Ms Henrietta Lacks that has been propagated since 1951. The linked article mentions that, "The history of this event, described in the Johns Hopkins Magazine, is a commentary on the lack of informed consent common in medical research at the time." Lack of informed consent was not a big issue in the early 1950s. Nobody really gave it a second thought.

Note to Bogie: I was listening to Talk of the Nation while making the blue cover for your boudoir pillow. Done!

Seize the data

Hunky Husband alerted me to this video. (You'll understand the title of this posting if you watch the video to the end.)

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

 

IMHO, anything (other than death) that keeps people away from hospitals, clinics, and medical offices has to be good!

Hospital Microbiome Project

To all of my blog friends: Except where absolutely required, please stay out of hospitals - as patient or as visitor. The following excerpts from Hospital Microbiome explain why I make the request. If you find the subject of interest, I recommend clicking on the link to read the whole article. (I post only the references used within the excerpts.)

Overview

What is the research question and why is it important?

Contrary to public expectation, the potential for contracting a microbial pathogen is highest within a hospital environment, and these infections are much more likely to be fatal.  The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention identified 1.5 million cases of environmentally-contracted notifiable diseases in the United States for 2002 [1], 15,743 of which resulted in death (1 %) [2]. In comparison, during the same year, estimates of healthcare associated infections (HAI) in the United States was 1.7 million, a rate of 4.5 infections per 100 hospital admissions, which contributed to an astonishing 99,000 deaths (6%) [3]. This sobering statistic places HAIs as the 6th leading cause of death, ahead of diabetes, influenza/pneumonia, and Alzheimer’s [4]. Circumstantial evidence suggests that agent transfer between surfaces and humans is the most important transmission route, and therefore, hospitals are likely to be the foremost ecosystem for studying the transfer of microorganisms between humans and a built environment.

....

Currently there is a lot of misinformation about the whole idea of where infection comes from in the hospital setting, i.e. infected instruments, water supply, keyboards, human hands, noses, sheets, etc. The real question to ask is geo-spatially how does the microbiome of a hospital organize? The only way to know that is to study it before patients and personnel are there, and then to track how the structure (and key elements that it houses) become colonized, and from where the infection originates. Or if such colonization does not occur, what the potential mode of transmission might be. The new knowledge to be gained is that humans infect the structure, but the infected structure itself does not cause the infections (hypothesis to be tested). Sick patients enter the hospital with lots of pathogens (they have received antibiotics, chemotherapy, etc), they are then likely to leave a microbial/viral footprint in the locations they have been, whether by air or physical transmission. We then identify these microbes on objects like keyboards and personnel like nurses’ fingers, leading to misleading blame on the mode of transmission, when these most often, causally, represent rare events. There is circumstantial evidence that hands are the most common vehicle for the transmission of HAIs within a hospital, which has led to the assumption that hand-washing is the leading measure for preventing the spread of antimicrobial resistant infections [32]. Unpublished data suggests that hand washing reduces infection only by about 3-5%, and while this helps, infection rates are going up not down. The most compelling evidence we have of the association between environmental contamination and patient infection comes from unpublished studies that demonstrate circumstantial evidence of an increased risk for multi-drug resistant organism infections among hospital patients occupying a bed space that was previously occupied by an infected or colonized patient. However, these analyses are somewhat limited, even when multiple confounders are considered in the analysis. The need for education is highlighted by unpublished studies that explore aggregated hand hygiene performance, which typically only examines a limited number of hand hygiene opportunities, yet suggest that studies where hand-washing is reported may be woefully overestimating of rates.

....

___________________________________________________________________

References 

1. Groseclose SL, Brathwaite WS, Hall PA, Connor FJ, Sharp P, et al. (2004) Summary of Notifiable Diseases — United States, 2002. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 51: 1–84.
2. Hall-Baker PA, Nieves E, Jajosky RA, Adams DA, Sharp P, et al. (2010) Summary of Notifiable Diseases — United States, 2008. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 57: 1–100.
3. Klevens RM, Edwards JR, Richards CL Jr, Horan TC, Gaynes RP, et al. (2007) Estimating health care-associated infections and deaths in U.S. hospitals, 2002. Public Health Rep 122: 160–166.

....

32. Allegranzi B, Pittet D (2009) Role of hand hygiene in healthcare-associated infection prevention. Journal of Hospital Infection 73: 305–315.doi:10.1016/ j.jhin.2009.04.019.

Coughing & Sneezing (PP2)

As you may know, I am only a couple of days past a common cold. 

How did I contract a common cold - which I rarely contract? Who knows? But, one of the employees in the office was hacking the last time I was there (12/21/2012). I tried to get him to go home rather than spread his germs. BUT - instead of going home, he insisted upon having a 30-minute, closed-door meeting with me.

Well...the information exchange was valuable; but, telephones (much as I hate to admit it) still work! Five days later, my throat was scratchy. Now...Hunky Husband is in Day 2 of his own common cold.

It harms our egos to acknowledge that the world can go on without us. I guess it is also human nature for us to believe that our own germs are harmless - how could we possibly give them to anyone else? Or, perhaps it is human nature to be generous and wish to share!

Gee...if I can keep posting one pet peeve (PP) each day for 365,000 more days, I can live to be really old! Move over, Methuselah!

An example of taking personal responsibility

Not everyone can afford to do so, and most of us have existing homes; but, building one's home to withstand projected environmental factors makes sense. Below is a posting from Slashdot.org.

Building the Ultimate Safe House143

Posted by timothyon Saturday November 03, @08:27AM
from the don't-forget-the-toilet-paper dept.

Hugh Pickens writes "Candace Jackson writes that an increasing number of home builders and buyers are looking for a new kind of security: homes equipped to handle everything from hurricanes, tornadoes and hybrid superstorms like this week's Sandy, to man-made threats ranging from home invasion to nuclear war. Fueling the rise of these often-fortresslike homes are new technologies and building materials—which builders say will ultimately be used on a more widespread basis in storm- and earthquake-threatened areas. For example, Alys Beach, a 158-acre luxury seaside community on Florida's Gulf Coast, has earned the designation of Fortified...for safer living® homes and is designed to withstand strong winds. The roofs have two coats of limestone and exterior walls have 8 inches of concrete, reinforced every 32 inches for 'bunkerlike' safety, according to marketing materials. Other builders are producing highly hurricane-proof residences that are circular in shape with 'radial engineering' wherein roof and floor trusses link back to the home's center like spokes on a wheel, helping to dissipate gale forces around the structure. Deltec, a North Carolina–based builder, says it has never lost a circular home to hurricanes in over 40 years of construction. But Doug Buck says some 'extreme' building techniques don't make financial sense. 'You get to a point of diminishing returns,' says Buck. 'You're going to spend so much that honestly, it would make more sense to let it blow down and rebuild it.''

No rainbows, but grayscale vision for those with faulty retinas

It is always pleasing to read of progress in the field of medicine. Today's item comes from Slashdot.org.

Implant Gives Grayscale Vision To the Blind Using Lasers164

Posted by Unknown Lameron Tuesday July 17, @05:50PM
from the not-safe-for-mcdonald's dept.

MrSeb writes with a bit from Extreme Tech: "After a lot of theorizing, posturing, and non-human trials, it looks like bionic eye implants are finally hitting the market — first in Europe, and hopefully soon in the U.S. These implants can restore sight to completely blind patients — though only if the blindness is caused by a faulty retina, as in macular degeneration (which millions of old people suffer from), diabetic retinopathy, or other degenerative eye diseases. ... The Bio-Retina, developed by Nano Retina, is a whole lot more exciting. The Bio-Retina costs ... around the $60,000 [and] the 576-pixel vision-restoring sensor is actually placed inside the eye, on top of the retina. The operation only takes 30 minutes and can be performed under local anesthetic. Once installed, 576 electrodes on the back of the sensor implant themselves into your optic nerve. The best bit, though, is how the the sensor is powered: The Bio-Retina system comes with a standard pair of corrective lenses that are modified so that they can fire a near-infrared laser beam through your iris to the sensor at the back of your eye. On the sensor there is a photovoltaic cell that produces up to three milliwatts — not a lot, but more than enough."

War on women - global style

From Slashdot.org:

Another Afghan School Poisoned — 160 Girls Hospitalized427

Posted by Soulskillon Tuesday May 29, @02:32PM
from the setting-a-bad-precedent dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Back in April, we discussed news of an anti-education attack on an Afghani school, which poisoned 150 Afghan schoolgirls. Now, a hospital in the same province has admitted 160 more girls who seem to have suffered a similar attack. 'Their classrooms might have been sprayed with a toxic material before the girls entered, police spokesman Khalilullah Aseer said. He blamed the Taliban. The incident, the second in a week's time, was reported at the Aahan Dara Girls School in Taluqan, the provincial capital. The girls, ages 10 to 20, complained of headaches, dizziness and vomiting before being taken to the hospital, said Hafizullah Safi, director of the provincial health department. More than half of them were discharged within a few hours of receiving treatment, Safi said. The health department collected blood samples and sent them to Kabul for testing.'"

Tipping the scales

For the past several years, I've earmarked my annual contribution to my alma mater to be used for equipment required by those conducting research in the physics department. Last year, a physics major who was an undergraduate while I was in graduate school, and who started and runs a successful technical business, donated $$ (a relatively modest amount) to a project of the physics department - for which he had his name tagged onto the project.

Some weeks ago, the head of the physics department sent me a package of materials with a letter suggesting that I give $$ (he specified an amount 1.3 times what my fellow student had donated) toward funding scholarships with the suggestion that such a project might bear my name.

I have been hesitantly considering the proposition. My hesitation has four causes: 1) I'm not fond of someone's suggesting how much money I should donate, even though it is not an outlandish amount, 2) I have concerns as to who would be the beneficiaries, as the implication was that it wouldn't just be physics majors nor USA nationals, 3) I don't care to have my name tagged onto any project, and 4) it seems to me that providing scholarships to college-bound students is not where money could be used most effectively. I've been considering that it might be more effective to provide money to help under-served children in 4th - 7th grades develop an appreciation for science.

This item from Slashdot.org tipped the scales, for me. Where would you put your money?

Only 22% of California 8th Graders Pass National Science Test524

Posted by Soulskillon Friday May 11, @11:39AM
from the above-the-mendoza-line dept.

bonch writes "22 percent of California eighth-graders passed a national science test, ranking California among the worst in the U.S. according to the 2011 National Assessment of Educational Progress. The test measures knowledge in Earth and space sciences, biology, and basic physics. The states that fared worse than California were Mississippi, Alabama, and a tie between the District of Columbia and Hawaii. 'Nationally, 31 percent of eighth-graders who were tested scored proficient or advanced. Both the national and state scores improved slightly over scores from two years ago, the last time the test was administered.'"

I, myself, was hooked on science before I started grade school. Is 4th grade too late to spark an interest? BTW: I do thank Dr S for getting me to thinking, at least!

High fructose corn syrup

Alert: Nothing has yet been proven; but, evidence is being gathered.

After reading all of the hype from corn concerns about high fructose corn syrup's being "natural" and just like sugar to our bodies, it is suspected that an insecticide in the corn syrup is presenting a problem to bees, who are so important for crop pollination (and manufacturing honey!) Of course, that doesn't mean that cane or beet sugar (or any other kind) might not also be tainted with some sort of insecticide; nor does it mean that the insecticide is bad for humans. I usually choose, however, to avoid pesticides where possible.

From Slashdot.org:

Colony Collapse Disorder Linked To Pesticide, High-Fructose Corn Syrup125

Posted by timothyon Saturday April 07, @12:28PM
from the eat-your-vegetables-honey dept.

hondo77 writes "Researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health '...have re-created the mysterious Colony Collapse Disorder in several honeybee hives simply by giving them small doses of a popular pesticide, imidacloprid.' This follows recently-reported studies also linked the disorder to neonicotinoid pesticides. What is really interesting is the link to when the disorder started appearing, 2006. 'That mechanism? High-fructose corn syrup. Many bee-keepers have turned to high-fructose corn syrup to feed their bees, which the researchers say did not imperil bees until U.S. corn began to be sprayed with imidacloprid in 2004-2005. A year later was the first outbreak of Colony Collapse Disorder.'"