Medary.com

At Science Blog:
Brain implants predict and prevent epileptic seizures:

One research project focuses on a tiny transmitter three times the width of a human hair to be implanted below the scalp to detect the signs of an epileptic seizure before it occurs. The system will record neural signals relayed by electrodes in various points in the brain, said Pedro Irazoqui (pronounced Ear-a-THOkee), an assistant professor of biomedical engineering.

"When epileptics have a seizure, a particular part of the brain starts firing in a way that is abnormal," Irazoqui said. "Being able to record signals from several parts of the brain at the same time enables you to predict when a seizure is about to start, and then you can take steps to prevent it."

Data from the implanted transmitter will be picked up by an external receiver, also being developed by the Purdue researchers.

The most critical aspect of the research is creating a device that transmits a large amount of data at low power. The transmitter consumes 8.8 milliwatts, or about one-third as much power as other implantable transmitters while transmitting 10 times more data. Another key advantage is that the transmitter has the capacity to collect data specifically related to epileptic seizures from 1,000 channels, or locations in the brain, Irazoqui said.

"The fact that this circuit can deliver such a vast amount of data and, at the same time, be less power hungry than anything else that's out there is what makes this important," he said.

Another implant project seeks to monitor eye pressure in order to prevent onset of glaucoma:

"Glaucoma is one of the big two irreversible, but preventable, causes of blindness," Irazoqui said.

The disease causes blindness from a buildup of fluid pressure in the interior chamber of the eye, killing fibers in the optic nerve. Glaucoma patients go to the doctor periodically to have their eye pressure checked. If it is high, the doctor prescribes medication or performs surgery.

"The problem is that your interocular pressure spikes over hours, sometimes minutes," Irazoqui said. "So you can be fine today and fine in six months and spend three months in the middle where it's very high, killing your optic nerve. What you really need to do is check it often, every couple of minutes, but you can't go to the doctor every couple of minutes for the rest or your life. So what you need is a device that measures your eye pressure continuously."

Gosharootie, folks, guess what happens when some electrical engineer with delusions of grandeur tries to design a multibillion dollar transportation system?

He gets it wrong.

Color me surprised.

From the Kansas City Star:

A new report says Kansas City’s voter-approved light rail plan faces a funding shortfall of $433 million to $545 million — even if the federal government pays half of the construction costs.

Officials with HNTB discussed the estimate with the city council’s Transportation Committee this morning and copies were provided to reporters,

“The money is not sufficient to do what was voted on in November, 2006,” said Mark Huffer, general manager of the Kansas City Area Transportation Authority.

Clay Chastain, who proposed the November 2006 ballot measure, did not attend the meeting this morning and was not immediately available for comment.

. . .

Engineers also estimated operating costs at $11 million in the first year, with fares and other revenue paying for $6.2 million of that. The total operating shortfall, the report says, would total $73.7 million, in 2007 dollars, through 2034.

Total shortfall considering construction and operating costs: $489 million, assuming the midpoint construction estimate.

It remains less than obvious to me why Kansas City, one of the least densely populated major metropolitan areas in the country, needs a light rail system.

(The Kansas City metro area's population density in 2000 was 328 people per square mile.  The average for all metro areas in the U.S. is about 320.  New York's metropolitan population density is 2,028 per square mile.)

Kansas City DOES NOT HAVE THE POPULATION DENSITY to support a light rail system.  Nor do most cities in the U.S--even those where a light rail system has been rammed down the throats of ambitious or ignorant taxpayers.  It WILL LOSE MONEY if you're stupid enough to actually build the damn thing.  That's why people are starting to ask for another vote on this manifestly dreadful idea of light rail in Kansas City.

The Johnson & Johnson red cross, that is.  Seems that the Red Cross (organization) doesn't own the red cross (logo).  Johnson & Johnson does.  All well and good, except the Red Cross (organization) has been selling rights to the red cross (logo) to other health care product manufacturerers.

Johnson & Johnson doesn't like that.  One little bit.  So, of course . . . LAWSUIT!

From the Wall Street Journal article (subscription required, fair use excerpt below):

J&J said it has been using the symbol of a Greek red cross since 1887, predating the chartering of the Red Cross. J&J trademarked the design -- two intersecting red lines of equal length -- at least as early as 1906, the suit says.

According to J&J, the Red Cross only has the right to use the trademark in connection with nonprofit relief services. J&J says in 1905, Congress prohibited "the emblem of the Greek red cross on a white ground" by organizations other than the Red Cross; J&J's suit says since it used the cross before that date, it was exempt.

In the J.D. Power study of vehicle durability.

The Wall Street Journal story (subscription required, fair use excerpt below):

J.D. Power and Associates on Thursday released its annual Vehicle Dependability Study, which tracks quality over the first three years of ownership of a vehicle.

Lexus has been the perennial king of the survey. But domestic auto makers have scrambled to catch up in recent years, and their efforts continue to pay off as Detroit brands crowd the podium, leaving less of a gap between the U.S. and Japan than traditionally has been the case.

Three of the top five brands in the study were domestic players, with GM's Cadillac and Ford Motor Co.'s Mercury finishing behind Buick and Lexus. GM's Hummer brand was the most improved, but it still is a below-average performer.

I tweaked my back this morning while putting on socks, getting ready to go to the gym.  Snookums convinced me to go to a chiropractor, something I've never done before.  The experience was, shall I say, painless.  The four-page medical history questionnaire was the worst part of it.  I got a couple of x-rays, the chiropractor twisted me a bit, then hooked me to a machine that electrically massaged my back for a few minutes.  He sent me away saying he'd look at my x-rays and I should come back tomorrow.  Pretty ordinary.

But it got me thinking, as I sometimes do, about what is wrong with our health care system.  I think you can sum it up in two words:

Insurance companies.

(Including and especially Medicare).

Insurers are the ones who are driving almost every single patient-unfriendly "advance" in health care.  They're the ones who dictate which doctors you can see and which ones you can't.  They're the ones who determine whether or not treatment is "appropriate."  They're the ones who set the treatment prices so low that many general practitioners are barely scraping by.  Meanwhile, companies used to dealing in the free market (Wal-Mart) are lowering prescription prices for lots of drugs to $4.00.  Take a guess why insurance companies didn't do that first.

Health insurance isn't the solution.  It's the problem.  Instead of rushing like lemmings off of the cliff of "universal health insurance," we need to run as fast as we can away from that cliff.  I wholeheartedly believe that we need to completely scrap the current system of paying for health care.  We need to just blow it up, from its roots to the top of the insurance company skyscrapers.

But, you are no doubt saying, how will everyone afford the health care that they need?  The same way we afford the clothing and the food and the transportation we need.  You need health care, you pay for it.

Heartless.  Scandalous.  How could I possibly be so unfeeling as to suggest that customers actually pay for services?

Easy.  I've dealt with insurance companies.  Even the good ones are bad.  The bad ones are positively evil in their callous disregard for patients and caregivers.

I'm OK with the idea of some kind of health safety net to make sure that basic health care needs are always available.  But, we already have that.  If you show up at an emergency room, the hospital is required to treat you regardless of your ability to pay.

What the whole health care argument boils down to in the end is that the "universal health care" advocates want something for nothing.  Or, more accurately, they want to be able to get any  medical procedure they might possibly need AND they want someone else to pay for it.

Blow up the current medical insurance system.  Go back to fee-for-service.  Maybe take another run at mutual insurance societies, but never, ever let those foxes get control of the chicken coop.  And for God's sake, keep the government out of the business.

From the Wall Street Journal's OpinionJournal, a former high-ranking KGB official writes:

I spent decades scrutinizing the U.S. from Europe, and I learned that international respect for America is directly proportional to America's own respect for its president.
. . .
Sowing the seeds of anti-Americanism by discrediting the American president was one of the main tasks of the Soviet-bloc intelligence community during the years I worked at its top levels. This same strategy is at work today, but it is regarded as bad manners to point out the Soviet parallels. For communists, only the leader counted, no matter the country, friend or foe. At home, they deified their own ruler--as to a certain extent still holds true in Russia. Abroad, they asserted that a fish starts smelling from the head, and they did everything in their power to make the head of the Free World stink.
. . .
Now we are again at war. It is not the president's war. It is America's war, authorized by 296 House members and 76 senators. I do not intend to join the armchair experts on the Iraq war. I do not know how we should handle this war, and they don't know either. But I do know that if America's political leaders, Democrat and Republican, join together as they did during World War II, America will win. Otherwise, terrorism will win. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi predicted just before being killed: "We fight today in Iraq, tomorrow in the land of the Holy Places, and after there in the West."

We all need to tone it down, and start seriously discussing what's really, really important.  On both sides.

Like victory over barbarians, and how to achieve it.  You don't defeat barbarians by running away from them.  They have this nasty tendency to follow you home.

Military lasers to be ready by 2020, says this Wired blog article:

For a quarter of a century, energy weapon enthusiasts have fantasized about a ray gun that never runs out of shots -- and can be "tuned" to blast through the air, at just the right wavelength.   But, for most of that time, such a "free electron laser" weapon seemed like just a dream.   Now, DANGER ROOM has learned, the Navy is about to give the go-ahead to begin work on a building a battlefield-strength free electron laser.  It'll take around $200 million to pull off, and it won't be ready until 2020 or so.  But if it all works out as planned, military researchers may one day have  "the Holy Grail of lasers" in their hands.

Click through to the article to see this puppy burn through a metal plate.

Via Hot Air.

The California Secretary of State's "Top to Bottom Review":

Decertification/Recertification Decisions Issued August 3, 2007, by Secretary of State Debra Bowen

Diebold Election Systems, Inc.

• Withdrawal of Approval/Conditional Reapproval (.pdf, 6,734KB)

Hart InterCivic

• Withdrawal of Approval/Conditional Reapproval for Hart System 6.2.1 (.pdf, 5,886KB)
• Voluntary Withdrawal of Certification of Hart System 6.1 (.pdf, 303KB)

Sequoia Voting Systems

• Withdrawal of Approval/Conditional Reapproval (.pdf, 4,631KB)

Elections Systems and Software, Inc.

Rescission and Withdrawal of Approval (.pdf, 303KB)

Probably not a bad idea.  Voting is too important to be left to the machines.

Via Winds of Change.

Reacting to recent quality control problems, China is starting to crack down on it's companies which export products:

China draws up export blacklist amid health scares:

Chinese Vice Commerce Minister Gao Hucheng stressed the government line that Chinese products were overwhelmingly safe and of high quality, and called on foreign media not to hype the problems of a small minority of goods or companies.

But on the ministry Web site, he said 429 Chinese firms on the blacklist had been punished for violating export regulations. The Web site did not elaborate.

"China will strengthen international cooperation on the safety of products," Gao was quoted as saying.

Why not?  They just did the incredible--win the Asian Cup soccer tournament.  Most of them came home, but didn't get the parade they earned.

Iraq soccer team returns home without captain

There were no cheering crowds or ticker tape parade Friday along the dangerous airport road to greet Iraq's Asian Cup soccer champs. And the team's captain, a Sunni who scored the winning goal, didn't even return because he feared for his life.
. . .

Tight security in the heart of the capital - and the team's late arrival - prevented many Baghdad residents from celebrating in the streets.

"It is an incomplete joy, because all other people welcome their winning teams in the streets of their capitals and we in Iraq had to be the last ones to receive them," said 40-year-old Naeem Abdullah.

What bigger gesture could the city that suffered the attack on September 11th make towards the country which has suffered so much since then?  What bigger gesture could the country which invaded another to overthrow a tyrant make towards that tyrant's victims than to honor their champions in the same manner we honor our own?

Give the Iraqi National Soccer Team a ticker-tape parade in New York City.

Somebody get Bloomberg on the phone . . .