. BBC: Generic News Report by Charlie Brooker

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The absolutely
best news report
I've ever seen!

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This is so 'Gee Whiz'!

Anthony Atala of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine is growing new organs for people - and then 'installing the new organs in the people's bodies - replacing diseased organs with healthy organs!

AMAZING!

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Israeli field hospital in Haiti a model for crisis care

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Update 1.

ABC News covered a birth on January 18th in the Israeli field hospital.

Jan. 19, 2010: Port au Prince, Haiti

Israeli field hospital a model for crisis care

Just in case you missed this news item on Tuesday.

Israeli field hospital a model for crisis care

An Israeli field hospital is up and running in Haiti, complete with electronic medical records and a neonatal ICU unit.

NBC's Nancy Snyderman reports.

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

Frank Zappa said, "Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible."
   This Israeli team really deviates from the norm in a very effective manner!


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Google Helping to Find People in Haiti

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Search giant Google is helping people connect with friends/family in Haiti.  Get to the webpage here.

Free Google Voice calls to Haiti and (scroll down on that same page) a person finder in three languages.

Person Finder: Haiti Earthquake

English | Français | Kreyòl

What is your situation?
I'm looking for someone	I have information about someone
Currently tracking about 35000 records.

PLEASE NOTE: All data entered will be available to the public and viewable and usable by anyone. Google does not review or verify the accuracy of this data.

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Meet Marko. 
He's a computer  systems engineer.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention,
he's 9-years-old!

Be  sure to watch his video discussion
(it's a sidebar to the article).

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I'm NOT afraid to fly, BUT I will NOT ride a motorcycle -- *especially* on Brice Street!

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Daniel Meyer, in his newest book,
"Life is a Road, Get on it and Ride",
explains here  why
the Cops Won’t Patrol Brice Street
AND
why he won't ride his motorcycle
on Brice Street either.

You gotta read this to believe it!

Just don't read it with a mouthful of coffee (or anything else).

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. Why I am NOT Afraid to Fly

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When someone else says it better than I can, I defer to their wordsmithing.
It boils down to --- the probability of being involved in a terrorist act is the same as the probability of getting Cancer from a Whole Body X-Ray machine.

    Ethan Ackerman writes, "Since the Schneier editorial brings up the subject of thinking rationally about small risks…

    "[People] following the debate around TSA's whole body scanning might have noticed that not too much ink has been spilled over the fact that these imagers are a source of x-rays - ionizing radiation. Ionizing radiation (at the right dose and probability) can cause or increase the likelihood of cancer and other ailments.

    "But one reason there's not been a big hullabaloo is because the risks from these machines are rather small, though not zero. How small a risk? About as (un)likely as a terrorist attack, it turns out.

    "The risk of being on a plane subject to a terrorist attack is ~1 in 10 million. [1]

    "Similarly, a single backscatter scan corresponds to a 5% increased risk of fatal cancer in ~1 in 10 million cases. ( While reliable studies suggest that a scan-level dose would result in a statistically verifiable increase in fatal cancer risk in about 1 scan in 100,000, the “5% increased risk at 1 in 10 million” conclusion is supported with more studies than the former, and more statistically sound.) [2]

    "So how many additional cases of fatal cancer (or just debilitating cancer, or just cataracts) is it worth for us as a society to cause an innocent traveler in order to possibly detect a drug smuggler or would-be-bomber?

    "In how many people are we ok with just increasing the likelihood of cancer for this kind of security?

    "Can you give a number? The TSA and FDA already have.

[1] http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/12/odds-of-airborne-terror.html [www.fivethirtyeight.com]

[2] http://www.fda.gov/ohrms/dockets/AC/03/briefing/3987b1_pres-report.pdf [www.fda.gov]


"-The dose-adjusted nominal risk estimate of fatal cancer associated with exposure from a single backscatter x-ray scan is 0.0000005% for a member of the general public, at a 5% increased risk of fatal cancer per Sievert dosed and a single scan dose of 0.1 microSieverts.
"Although, I suppose, someone might argue that the risks are distributed slightly differently in that all of the cancer risk goes to the traveling public, while some of the terrorism risk is shared by people in the flightpath if a plane lands on them."
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. You Must Watch and Listen to Patrick Henry Hughes' Music!

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This young man plays piano by ear.  And he plays trumpet in the University of Loiusville Marching Band!

Oh yeah:  Patrick is crippled, and blind -- since birth!
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. 1963 - The Beginning of Computer Timesharing

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It's time for the "Way-Back Machine" (with apologies to Mr. Peabody) to take us all the way back to 1963 and the beginnings of computer time-sharing. 

The IBM 7090 was a large mainframe computer that filled an entire room.  45 years later, your laptop is faster and more powerful!
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. Let's Go On A Trip -- A Long Trip

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The American Museum of Natural History has invited us on a trip to the edge of our known Universe.

It's very cold out there.  Remember to pack warm clothes.

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9/11 "Living Memorial" Dedicated in the Jerusalem Forest Hills

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Video of the dedication of the September 11 monument and Living Memorial in Jerusalem on Thursday, November 12, 2009.

Filmed and edited by the U.S. Embassy in Israel.

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, We Should All Act More Like Dogs

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 This morning, Bob Schieffer on CBS News' Face The Nation, said that we should all act more like dogs.

Bob Schieffer, CBS News, Face The Nation, Jan. 10, 2010

    “I have no idea where this came from or who wrote it - if I did I'd give them credit - but a friend who knows I love dogs e-mailed the following, which I pass along today only because it seems a nice thing to share at the beginning of a new year.

    It's a list of what we would learn if dogs were our teachers."

Even tho' I'm more of a 'cat person', I agree that we can learn much from dogs.

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. Vint Cerf interview - The history & future of the internet

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Here's a 30 minute interview with Vint Cerf, Google's Chief Internet Evangelist.

It would be difficult to over-emphasize his importance to the development of the internet.

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. GuyReplaces Finger With USB Drive!

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Jerry Jalava lost a finger in a motorcycle 'incident'.  So, instead of getting a prosthetic finger, he got a USB drive as a replacement finger.

This gives an entirely new meaning to the term 'Thumb Drive'.
Now he's thinking about upgrading to an MP3 player.
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This is amazing!

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This is a different kind of imaging.
This blew ... me ...  away!

I'm not even going to write about it.  I'm simply going to cut & paste, because TED.com says it better than I can.

"Neuroscientist and inventor Christopher deCharms demonstrates a new way to use fMRI to show brain activity -- thoughts, emotions, pain -- while it is happening. In other words, you can actually see how you feel."
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Full Body Scanners & Child Porn

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The Guardian is reporting that full body X-Ray scanners at British airports appear, prima facie, to violate U.K. child pornography laws.
"The Department for Transport confirmed that the "child porn" problem was among the "legal and operational issues" now under discussion in Whitehall...."
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Is there a fear shortage?

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Is there a fear shortage?

This is the question Seth Godin is blogging about here.
What do you think?  Is there a shortage of fear?  Do we need more fear?

What do you think?
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