Posted 4:33 PM by Blah blah

Insurance Companies and Lawsuits Squeeze Doctors Out of Carrying Insurance

God, what an AWFUL story to read. I'm not surprised if more and more doctors go this path. Earlier, I'd posted a story about how more and more doctors now refuse to take patients with insurance at all and prefer cash.

Sigh---as if we don't already have enough problems. This is one reason the attractiveness of going into medicine has dropped for young people.

I met a doctor a few months ago at a clinic, who told me she got out of private practice because it just did not pay. Bitter, she said "I had to get a Stanford MBA just to know how to run a private practice." Now she consults instead, preferring quality of life than to putting her nerves and life savings on the line in normal practice.

Many doctors decide to practice without insurance (AP):

Dr. Rene Loyola says he has given up just about everything to keep practicing medicine.

The surgeon owns no home or land, and has no savings other than a retirement plan after 29 years in the profession. He says he frequently has to turn away patients who need his help the most.

Loyola blames all the trouble on soaring malpractice insurance rates that forced him to join the thousands of other doctors nationwide who have dropped their liability coverage....

Doctors say their only other options were to leave the state [Florida], or leave the profession....

Doctors who practice without insurance insist that they sympathize with legitimate victims of malpractice, but they say skyrocketing awards from juries and frivolous claims have ruined the system for everyone.

"If I really injure somebody and do something wrong, I want them to be compensated for it," said Dr. Alan Routman, an orthopedic surgeon in Broward County who dropped his coverage. "But I don't want some crackpot jury to decide that I should lose everything I've worked for my whole life because of it."

A jury in one recent case awarded $63 million for a baby born with severe brain damage after a risky forceps delivery in Palm Beach County. The case ultimately was settled for less, and other such awards are often overturned on appeal. Even so, insurance companies say such cases are forcing them out of the malpractice insurance business. Several stopped writing malpractice policies in Florida in recent years, and others have had to obtain more insurance for themselves to help cover large jury awards and settlements.

As a result, rates are soaring to a point of crisis in at least 19 states, according to the American Medical Association....

Several states, such as Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Colorado, require doctors to have insurance, and most hospitals, even in Florida, require a minimum level of liability coverage. Even doctors who are bare in Florida have to prove to the state that they have $250,000 in assets to cover any claim against them

Until lawmakers fix the soaring insurance rates and set limits on the awards patients and lawyers can reap, doctors say going bare is the only defense against a broken system.

For many, it makes more financial sense.

Routman's policy last year would have cost $94,835 for $250,000 worth of coverage, even though he's had no settlements or judgments against him in 18 years of private practice.

Posted 11:07 PM by Blah blah

Social Networks (Part 2): Real Friendship is Hard

Part 2 of Salon.com's articles on Orkut, Friendster, Ryze, and all the other social networking sites. Well said. There's no substitute for getting out and hustling for friends.

You are who you know: Part 2 (Salon.com):

But friendship is hard. Over the past several months, as I've gotten caught up in work, or the NBA playoffs, or parenting, or other distractions, my social networks just sit there. Nothing happens. Occasionally, someone asks me to be part of their Orkut network, but after I click my acceptance, I never hear from them again....my networks remained static if I didn't exert myself to reach out to the people on them.

There are no truly easy short cuts to real human connection. No matter how clever the programming, one still has to reach out, to brave rejection or chance ridicule. Maybe it's best, to paraphrase John F. Kennedy, to ask not what social networking can do for you, but what you can do with social networking.

We do need all the help we can get. If there isn't a short cut, is it possible that at least some obstacles have been removed from the road? It's easier to send an e-mail than to cold-call someone, and it's easier to look someone up on a social network than approach them in a bar.

The geeks are excited about social networking because they never give up believing that they can apply their favorite tool, an algorithm, to the processes of human nature. The VCs are excited because they see so many eyeballs flowing to these sites, and if just one site turns out to be a Google, or a Yahoo, or an Amazon, or an eBay, somebody is going to get filthy rich. Everyone interested in studying human behavior is excited -- never has so much up-close-and-personal data been so accessible. The masses are excited because, well, hell, their hormones are pumping and there are a lot of pretty pictures out there.

Posted 4:16 PM by Blah blah

I definitely will NOT miss this documentary. Hope you go too.

'Fahrenheit 9/11' Gets Standing Ovations (Fox News):

It turns out to be a really brilliant piece of work, and a film that members of all political parties should see without fail.

Posted 12:00 PM by Blah blah

Social Networking Revisited:
Make More Diverse Friends and Dig Into Your Weak Ties

I've talked much with my friend Pjammer about how to perfect our skills at social networking. He admires Keith Ferrazzi, CEO of Yaya and profiled by this Inc.com article: "10 Secrets of a Master Networker."

Here are the 10 rules of networking, from that article:

Rule 1: Don't network just to network.
Rule 2: Take names.
Rule 3: Build it before you need it.
Rule 4: Never eat alone.
Rule 5: Be interesting.
Rule 6: Manage the gatekeeper. Artfully.
Rule 7: Always ask.
Rule 8: Don't keep score.

Successful networking is never about simply getting what you want. It's about getting what you want and making sure that people who are important to you get what they want, too. Often, that means fixing up people with one another.

[This is something I LOVE to do. I love to play matchmaker for my diverse acquaintances and am always hoping for a win-win result.]

"It's about a personal connection that makes you feel a sense of reciprocity," Ferrazzi says. "Superficiality is not networking. There are people who have lots of superficial connections, and people call that networking. But that's not successful. You feel dirty when you talk to someone like that. The outcome of good networking is the capacity to have a conversation with anyone you want to have a conversation with and then to leave that conversation with a lasting connection of some sort."

The best sort of networking occurs when Ferrazzi can connect two people who don't know each other. Which drives home a surprising implication: the strength of your network derives as much from the diversity of your relationships as it does from their quality or quantity. Most of us know the people within our own profession and social group, and little more. Ferrazzi makes a point of knowing as many people from as many different worlds as possible. The ability to bridge those worlds is a key attribute in managers who are paid better and promoted faster, according to an influential study conducted by Ron Burt, a professor at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business.

Rule 9: Ping constantly.
Rule 10: Find anchor tenants. Feed them.

Pjammer and I have also both read Malcolm Gladwell's fascinating book, The Tipping Point, about "social epidemics" of change. Of how change can happen sometimes so unexpectedly yet quickly in society. Gladwell talks about the qualities of people he calls "connectors," or "people whose social circle is four or five times the size of other people's. Sprinkled among every walk of life, in other words, are a handful of people with a truly extraordinary knack of making friends and acquaintances."

I think instinctively I developed some traits of a connector growing up, which of course I can always improve. My habit to talking to strangers and being interested in and friendly to all types of people has brought me sometimes into situations in which I'm the only guy whom most people know in a group.

Because I always like finding out about people and trying to do something for them, it's one reason I am pursuing health care.

New two-part series about social networking software like Friendster and Orkut:
You are who you know (Salon.com):

the counterintuitive key to social networking is that its value doesn't inhere in linking up to your best friends and soul mates. You are far more likely, argued Granovetter, to find leads on a good job or a prospective date from the networks of people you don't know very well.

You are already probably familiar with the friends of your best friend, or spouse, or close office colleague. There's no fresh territory to plunder there. It's those people with whom you have "weak ties" -- the vague acquaintances, that guy or gal you once kind of knew, a little bit -- who offer a path into possibility that you didn't know was there. The essence of social software networks is that they are a clever way to organize access to the networks of people you aren't actually friends with.

People, especially in the business world, especially salespeople, have been trying to figure out how to do this forever.

Posted 7:25 AM by Blah blah

Yahoo! Mail Plus

Yeeee haw!!! Since I'm already paying Yahoo for extra mail storage (10 MB), Yahoo has changed that into Yahoo! Mail Plus this morning.

Starting today I get:

- Powerful spam and virus protection (SpamGuard Plus and Norton AntiVirus)
- 2 GB mailbox (take THAT, Google Gmail!)
- 10 MB message size
- POP access and forwarding
- No graphical ads

This is NOT a license to send me MORE naked pictures of yourself. That means YOU, male readers.

Posted 2:50 AM by Blah blah

My List Lasts

My friend James said this about what I look for in My Ideal Woman:

"That 'My Ideal Woman' list is interesting, [but it] seems like a logical technical checklist though. Emotions are never logical."

I replied:

Yes, I know it's a "logical" list. But I made it DELIBERATELY to avoid getting swept up by emotions into something really stupid. Too many guys jump into things because they like a certain curve of a breast and face and end up with someone completely incompatible. My list is after lots of hard thinking about qualities that have worked with me in the past, exes, etc. My list lasts. Sure, I also get swept up in emotion [with the right person].

He also had said "men don't listen." I said:

Ack..."men don't listen" is such a cliche now, especially with all those SNAGs (Sensitive New Age Guys) running around complaining women "just wanna be friends" with 'em. I don't put much truck in that. Also, I've met plenty of WOMEN who don't listen. Just yesterday I met a classmate who told me that the heart is part of the nervous system. I just about peed my pants.
___________
Also, I noticed that Phlin (Paul) reposted his "ideal woman" list from one year ago, with a followup. Sorry, Paul, but I think your head is a little bit in the clouds when you write things like:

"I want a woman who will stimulate the senses and nourish the mind, so that I will always be left sated and hungry at the same time...."

It's hard enough to find a woman who will call back when she says she will and make it to appointments on time, much less some poetic ideal!

I think I'm more down-to-earth. Good luck, anyhow, Mr. Brooding Romantic.

Posted 2:26 AM by Blah blah

Sonially asked me to help promote her Google Gmail Invite Competition:

"SO YOU WANT A GMAIL INVITE?

I got plenty to give away! But of course, if you know me I’m all about community participation and entertainment! Yeah, yeah, I’m bored at work. Anyhow, I'll be giving away one Gmail invite a day for 5 days. Starting Tuesday, I will post a task at 10:00AM. You must complete the task along with a photo as proof and post a comment to my journal entry with your email address, a link to the picture by midnight the same day. A team of friends will pick the best one for each day a task is posted. Anyone interested in participating?"

I say check out the fun on her blog whether you have Google's 1 GB Gmail service or not.

Especially since all Blogger users get access to Gmail, plus Yahoo says, starting today, it will begin offering 100 MB email for free! Yea haw! I prefer sticking with my dear Yahoo Mail. I'm a thorough Yahooligan.

Yahoo Increases E-Mail Capacity (PC World):

"Yahoo will roll out this increase in storage globally between Tuesday and the end of the year."

Posted 7:36 PM by Blah blah

Ron Reagan to Bush: Take a Hike!

Go Ron Reagan! I thought the best comment out of last week's Reagan kiss up fest was by his liberal son, Ron Reagan, in his eulogy:

Reaganite by Association? His Family Won't Allow It (NY Times):

"The Bush people have no right to speak for my father, particularly because of the position he's in now," Mr. Reagan said [in 2000]. "Yes, some of the current policies are an extension of the 80's. But the overall thrust of this administration is not my father's - these people are overly reaching, overly aggressive, overly secretive and just plain corrupt. I don't trust these people."

Mr. Reagan was not quite so pointed on Friday night. "Dad was also a deeply, unabashedly religious man," he told mourners gathered at sunset at the Reagan presidential library. "But he never made the fatal mistake of so many politicians - wearing his faith on his sleeve to gain political advantage. True, after he was shot and nearly killed early in his presidency he came to believe that God had spared him in order that he might do good. But he accepted that as a responsibility, not a mandate. And there is a profound difference."

The remarks caused jaws to drop in California and Washington.

Posted 7:10 PM by Blah blah

Things Said to an Asian Guy

Sonially really cracks me up! Watch out when she's mad---grrr.....



She looks so young and restless. She needs someone to tuck her in.



She talks about "Top things a white guy shouldn't say to an Asian girl." Well here are some things people have said to me:

1. By a white woman boss, who hired me for a contract job. "Ooh, I like Chow Yun-Fat and all those Hong Kong actors." I wondered if my looks were a factor in her hiring decision.

2. By a Mexican woman who went clubbing with me a month or two ago, after we happened to meet at Starbucks and she flirted with me. "I like Asian guys because---ooh, look at Jackie Chan!" Did she want me to break a board with my forehead for her?

3. By a white woman while I was crossing a street in downtown Seattle, after I stopped to let a car pass: "Don't let them tell you who has the right-of-way in THIS country!"

4. By a surprised white guy who had just made an awful joke about black people being "monkeys," after I shook my head in dismay: "Your English is really good!"

Posted 5:33 PM by Blah blah

How the Brain Changes When We Learn

Synapse Size And Shape Key In Storing Long-term Memories: In a study to appear in the June 10 issue of Neuron, neuroscientists at the Picower Center for Learning and Memory at MIT show for the first time that storage of long-term memories depends on the size and shape of synapses among neurons in the outer part of the brain, the cerebral cortex....

This confirms what scientists have long suspected--that there are physical places in the brain that are repositories for all our knowledge, experience and memory. When an experience or a fact is repeated enough or elicits a powerful emotional response, it shifts from short- to long-term memory. It moves from the hippocampus, in the innermost fold of the temporal lobe, to the brain’s outermost region, the cortex, which controls higher functions like abstract thought and speech. MIT researchers studied how structural and functional alterations of synapses--physical and chemical connections among neurons--in the cortex affect the animal’s ability to store long-term memory.

The MIT research provides the first evidence that synaptic structure and function in the cortex are critical for their long-term storage as memories are transferred from the hippocampus to the cortex.

Older articles:
Study Describes Brain Changes During Learning:

[L]earning engages a brain process called long-term potentiation (LTP), which in turn strengthens synapses in the cerebral cortex.

The study provides the strongest evidence to date to support the 25-year-old hypothesis, generally accepted by neuroscientists, that learning uses LTP to produce changes in the connections (synapses) between brain cells (neurons) that are necessary to acquire and store new information.

Brains Of Those In Certain Professions Shown To Have More Synapses:

Education not only makes a person smarter, it may generate a specific type of synapse in the prefrontal cortex of the brain, Illinois and Russian neuroscientists say.

"There clearly were more synapses found in subjects with intellectually skilled professions, such as engineering or teaching," said James E. Black, who is part of a team examining post-mortem brain tissue at the University of Illinois Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology. "With our approach, however, we can't determine if extra professional experience actually caused new synapses to form, or if people with more synapses tended to choose challenging professions."...

Black and his Russian colleagues used an electron microscope that allowed for a systematic count of brain cells (neurons) and synapses (the connections between neurons) in 16 healthy people. Based on family interviews, the subjects were then divided by their profession and amount of education, with a high-level category corresponding to skilled occupations requiring more than a high school degree. The researchers examined tissue from the uppermost layers of the prefrontal cortex - an area of the brain used in complex reasoning - and counted two different types of synapses. They also examined the same types of synapses in occipital cortex, an area involved in simple visual perception.

Subjects with more professional training had 17 percent more synapses for each neuron than did their less educated counterparts. Synapse formation is thought to be a means of storing the information obtained through experience.

"The animal literature strongly indicates that experience can drive the formation of new synapses," said Black, a physician and professor of clinical psychiatry at the U. of I. at Chicago and a professor of neuroscience and psychology on the Urbana-Champaign campus.

Posted 10:06 AM by Blah blah

Why do computers crash? (Scientific American): Clay Shields, a professor of computer science at Georgetown University, explains.

Posted 8:08 AM by Blah blah

Nanotechnology: Fantasy vs. Reality

I so agree with this article and Vinod Khosla's comments. Don't invest in nanotech! Don't stake your future on it. It's much too early and undeveloped to make money yet. Feels too much like the Internet boom-and-bust days.

Since I was a chemical engineer, worked in the semiconductor industry (using some similar technologies that nanotechnologists use), and have attended some of the monthly meetings of the MIT-Stanford-UC Berkeley Nanotechnology Forum (where Vinod Khosla spoke May 27), I have some of the right technical background to be skeptical about the truth of what the businesspeople say.

I see some college teachers latching onto starting nanotech education as a way to help prepare laidoff workers for new jobs. Don't bank on it. I'll bet most of the few jobs that could be created would only be for people with PhDs in the field or lowly technicians. Nothing for the masses of people in the middle who want a realistic and stable career.

Even in a more mature industry, biotech, there is a lack of job stability and growth sustained enough to compare to the heydays in computer chips and software.

I thought seriously about entering nanotech, but only for a nanosecond.

Of course Khosla himself is much much smarter than I. He's one of the most famous and successful venture capitalists here in Silicon Valley. Bravo to him for helping to alert the public to hold onto their wallets.

The most interesting MIT-Stanford-Berkeley event I attended was last October's Nanomedicine: Today and Tomorrow. How will nanotechnology impact the future of medicine? Check out the fascinating presentations linked on that page.

Venture capitalist chastises buzz around nanotech: KHOSLA WANTS TO PREVENT `BUBBLE' (San Jose Mercury News):

One of the valley's most successful venture capitalists is railing against what he sees as the latest bubble: nanotechnology.

And that has the industry steamed.

Vinod Khosla, partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, has fired salvos at Palo Alto start-up Nanosys, which plans to offer shares publicly but has no revenue for the foreseeable future. He has criticized investment bank Merrill Lynch for hyping the industry just like bankers did during the Internet bubble.

Khosla said he is trying to prevent another bubble, in which public investors get hurt because they buy risky stocks they don't understand.

``There's a level of unpredictability that calls for more due diligence than public investors are able to do,'' he said.

Nanotechnology has attracted interest among venture capitalists for its potential to create new industries. It involves fabricating things from materials that are smaller than 100 nanometers, or one-billionth of a meter -- a size at which many elements take on different properties.

But many critics say nanotech is mostly over-hyped science fiction. Nanosys is run by serial entrepreneur Larry Bock, who pulled in a group of experts and scientists from the nation's best universities. It has been closely watched as a company that might lend legitimacy to the sector.

Khosla's comments carry weight because he has been one of the most successful venture capitalists in recent years, backing companies like Juniper Networks, now public, and Cerent and Siara Systems, which in 1999 were sold for a combined $11.2 billion.

Khosla's latest comments came Thursday at a San Francisco conference organized by the International Business Forum. This time, Khosla criticized investment bank Merrill Lynch for publishing a nanotech index which tracks the nanotech industry.

``It is silly to have a nano index,'' he said. ``Repackaging companies that have been around for 20 years as nanotech companies is ridiculous.''

The nanotech index tracks the performance of about 22 publicly traded companies, all of which are active, to some extent, in nanotechnology.

Khosla said bankers are creating hype that can lead to the same negative results seen during the Internet crash.

``Yes, they'll make more money, because they'll take more companies public,'' he said of Merrill Lynch. ``Now, someone from Merrill Lynch is going to call me,'' he said, to a chuckling audience....

The talk followed an event at an MIT/Stanford/UC-Berkeley nanotech forum at Stanford, in which Khosla was quoted by Private Equity Week as saying: ``It's a shame (Nanosys is) going public because I don't think they are in a position to be predictable enough.'' He added: ``And whether they are doing it knowingly or unknowingly, there is a reasonably high likelihood that they will defraud the public market.''

Khosla made similar remarks at three other events recently, hosted by investment company Raymond James, accounting firm KPMG and the Asia Venture Capital Journal....

During the Thursday event, Khosla was asked why it was wrong for Nanosys to go public if it openly disclosed -- as Nanosys has -- not having revenue or expecting products for several years. If the public still wants to risk it, shouldn't Nanosys have the right?

Khosla responded that he had not personally read Nanosys' filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, and so couldn't comment on specifics. But Khosla said the trouble is that bankers appear to be leveraging such events to drum up more business.

``I know of businesses where bankers call and say: `We can take you public because there's all this interest,' '' he said.

Khosla has invested in two nanotech-related companies, Kovio and ZettaCore. But like other critics, he believes companies should go public only once they have a product.

``We have considered this to be over-hyped for the longest time,'' said Vladimir Jacimovic, partner at San Francisco's Crosslink Capital. His firm recently made a nano investment, but only because the company's product is well out of the science lab.

Gary Morgenthaler, a venture capitalist with Morgenthaler Ventures in Menlo Park, agreed: ``The enthusiasm is ahead of the reality.''

Nanosys Chief Executive Bock's record is open to interpretation. He has enjoyed a reputation of sniffing out new ideas quickly, assembling the best minds into a start-up team, taking them public and then moving to the next new thing. Bock founded 12 biotech start-ups before moving on in 2001 to explore nanotech ideas. Four of those were sold or otherwise ceased doing business as independent entities. But he left biotech when the eight remaining public companies were losing money. All of them were still losing money as of the end of last year.

Posted 3:44 AM by Blah blah

Alaysia likes reading Crayon's diary. I can see why. Whoa. Check this out. He writes like a movie. This is part of his "fake" life. I hope he finally gets his girl.

Posted 12:52 AM by Blah blah

The Pragmatic Schwarzenegger

I actually like and admire Arnold now. I'm impressed. Saw his 1970s documentary on the bodybuilding championship world, Pumping Iron. I own his excellent book, The New Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding. I respect him because he came from a humble background and had to deal with the hardships an immigrant faces, something the lazy Bush never had to confront.

I find Schwarzenegger a much more practical and discerning guy than Bush, both personally and politically. He is a truly successful businessman, something Bush never was, despite his Harvard MBA. In business one of the first things you learn is that to survive, you must be flexible. You must CHANGE YOUR MIND sometimes. You must freely ADMIT YOUR MISTAKES. It shows in Arnold's current political success in California.

Bush treats governing as a rigid religious crusade and has never understood this. That's why Bush would fail after a week of working in Silicon Valley.

Look at this ironic article:

Arnold vs. Bush (Salon.com) When the official mourning for Ronald Reagan ends, the party's two leading luminaries will leave the big tent and go back to their corners:

[W]hile Bush finds in the ghost of Reagan support for "staying the course" and never admitting error -- in announcing Reagan's death last week, Bush spoke of the "confidence" that "comes with conviction" -- Schwarzenegger seems to revel in flexibility and course-correction. In an insight as un-Bushian as you'll find in politics today, Schwarzenegger recently told the Sacramento Bee that it's "very important not to get stuck with certain principles, but to be able to be flexible." He said that governing should be based more on "what is going on in the real world ... than reading someone's book and sticking to that, and saying, 'This is the Bible, and I will never change from that point of view.'" In the same interview, Schwarzenegger said that "ideology and political philosophy, many times, falls apart in front of your very eyes when you go out there in the real world," and he acknowledged that some of the more conservative views he held earlier in life have proven to be wrong.

Posted 12:30 AM by Blah blah

Bush Drops, Again. So Does Blair.

Had a wonderful talk with my new friend A yesterday. She was an OB/gyn doctor in Moscow. Married at age 18, with a daughter. The way she darts her eyes and gives you a quizzical look of irony when she speaks---that cracks me up.
_____________
Music to my ears. Bush is going down. I look forward to November, when he loses to Kerry in a landslide, when I will sing "Ding dong the Bush is dead! Which old tush---the wicked Bush. Ding dong the wicked Bush is dead....!"

Poll: Majority of voters say Iraq war wasn't worth it (AP):

A majority of Americans now say it was not worth going to war in Iraq but they don't want a deadline for a troop pullout and feel the country cannot govern itself without U.S. help, according to a Los Angeles Times poll published Friday.

By a margin of 53 percent to 43 percent, U.S. voters felt the situation in Iraq was not worth going to war. When the same question was asked for Times polls in March and November, the numbers were reversed....

Voters' mounting worries about the war also damaged their confidence in President Bush. Forty-four percent of the respondents said they approved of Bush's handling of the war, compared to 51 percent in March.

Nearly three in five voters said Bush's Iraqi policies have hurt America's image abroad.

Concerns about the war didn't translate into votes of confidence for his Democratic challenger, Sen. John Kerry. Only 15 percent said Kerry had offered a clear plan on how to handle the war.
________________
Blair pays price for Iraq war in elections:

Prime Minister Tony Blair took a beating as his governing Labour Party fell to third place Friday in Britain's local elections, a result he and colleagues blamed on voter anger over the war in Iraq.

With the results from 161 of the 166 local councils declared, Blair's Labour Party had lost 462 seats, while the main opposition Conservative Party had gained 261. Britain's third-largest party, the Liberal Democrats -- which touted the fact it was the only major party to oppose the war -- gained 131 seats....

Labour's big winner on Friday was London Mayor Ken Livingstone, an outspoken critic of the war who has called President Bush “the greatest threat to life on this planet.”

Posted 11:02 PM by Blah blah

Dogs Understand Words!

Wow! Fido Found to Be Wiz with Words (Scientific American):

Dogs may be able to understand far more words than a typical owner teaches them during obedience training. Scientists experimenting with a nine-and-a half-year-old border collie in Germany have discovered that the dog knows more than 200 words for different objects and can learn a new word after being shown an unfamiliar item just one time. The dog’s ability shows that advanced word recognition skills are present in animals other than humans, and probably evolved independently of language and speech.

Rico, the border collie, was taught to retrieve different objects by his owners, who placed various balls and toys around their apartment and asked Rico to fetch specific ones. Rico gradually increased his vocabulary to about 200 words that he could match to objects. To make sure Rico’s owners weren’t giving him subconscious cues that helped him find the right item, Julia Fischer and her colleagues at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, tested Rico’s knowledge in a lab, where he retrieved 37 out of 40 items correctly. "Rico’s ‘vocabulary size’ is comparable to that of language-trained apes, dolphins, sea lions, and parrots," the authors write in their report, published today in the journal Science....

Rico’s powers of comprehension, they say, show that the processes the brain uses to discern words are not the same as those used to produce speech. Says Fischer: "You don’t have to be able to talk to understand a lot."

[You also can talk a lot without understanding much.]

Posted 7:22 AM by Blah blah

Medical Detectives

Reading now:

Coroner at Large (1985), by Dr. Thomas T. Noguchi, former Chief Medical Examiner of Los Angeles County. Gripping and fascinating stuff! I LOVE medical detective work books. Must read his previous book, Coroner. A Japanese guy, he says he was fired from his medical examiner position because of politics, prejudice, and bureaucratic bullshit.

Comment on Amazon.com:
"At age 13 Dr. Noguchi witnessed an incident with his father's patient that set him on the road to forensic medicine. He later learned medicine by day and law by night. After graduation he left for America, the world leader in technology. He aimed to practice forensic medicine because of his love for scientific detective work."

Amazon.com readers recommend this book:
Unnatural Death : Confessions of a Medical Examiner, by Dr. Michael Baden, former chief medical examiner for New York City and now executive director of the New York State Police Forensic Sciences Consultant Unit.

Other books I have and love, on the detective work of diagnosis, are The Medical Detectives and The Man Who Grew Two Breasts, full of superb New Yorker essays by Berton Roueche. He makes epidemiology and public health very SEXY!

Extroverted Like Me: How a month and a half on Paxil taught me to love being shy. (Slate)

Fear and Loathing: A new study shows that being risk-averse may shorten your life. (Slate)

Posted 5:05 AM by Blah blah

YAY! About time.

58 Senators Seek Looser Stem-Cell Rules (AP):

Fifty-eight senators are asking President Bush to relax federal restrictions on stem cell research, and several said Monday that the late President Reagan's Alzheimer's disease underscored a need to expand the research using human embryos....

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said: "This issue is especially poignant given President Reagan's passing. Embryonic stem cell research might hold the key to a cure for Alzheimer's and other terrible diseases."...

Stem cells typically are taken from days-old human embryos and then grown in a laboratory into lines or colonies. Because the embryos are destroyed when the cells are extracted, the process is opposed by some conservatives who link it to abortion.

Bush signed an executive order in August 2001 limiting federal research funding for stem cell research to 78 embryonic stem cell lines then in existence.

But the letter complains that only 19 of those lines are now available to researchers and those available are contaminated with mouse feeder cells which makes their use for humans uncertain....

Because stem cells develop into the various types of cells that make up the human body, scientists believe they could be grown into replacement organs and tissues to treat a wide range of diseases, including Parkinson's, diabetes, cancer and Alzheimer's.