Friday links: August 8, 2014

 

 Rolling.Stones.Spain_-640x360 Mick Jagger talking about Monty Python: “Still a bunch of wrinkly old men trying to relive their youth and make a load of money. I mean, the best one died years ago.” I love it.
 Ebola_Americans-03809-2087 The dedication of our front line health care workers just cannot be underestimated. Whether it’s an infectious disease epidemic like Ebola or a natural disaster, they put themselves in harm’s way to care for others.
 churchill A correspondent to Winston Churchill wrote, “OMG” in a 1917 letter. Here are other “modern” phrases that have been around for a while. Next we’ll find Egyptian hieroglyphs that say LOL.
 6c368822 Great speech by Bill Gates at Addis Ababa University. My favorite quote: “Usually, people assume that realism and optimism describe two different schools of thought. I disagree. I believe my optimism about the future of Africa is extremely realistic.”

 

 

 

 

Friday links: August 1, 2014

ucla-flood-steps Yes, this has me worried about the infrastructure of our public universities.
cdc-ebola I’m in awe of the health workers on the front lines of the Ebola emergency. They put themselves at risk even as other health workers are falling ill.
weird-al-screenshot I could have posted all of Weird Al’s videos here, but this one is my favorite, given my professional background. Someday, I want to work on Weird Al’s writing team.
ragan-weird-al An interesting take on what Weird Al can teach you about PR. Now, I want to partner with a high-authority site to offer interesting and educational content that links back to our health sciences.

Friday links: June 27, 2014

suarezbite2 This had me chuckling out loud. I love it when creative people, current events, and social media crash into each other.
ian-arm Wow. Ian Burkhart, a 23-year-old quadriplegic, is the first patient to use an electronic neural bypass for spinal cord injuries. The machine was able to help him move his arm, an arm he hasn’t moved voluntarily in 4 years. The machine reconnects the brain directly to muscles, allowing voluntary and functional control of a paralyzed limb.
buggy300 The Amish are now reconsidering vaccination, which they had previously avoided. The largest outbreak of measles in recent U.S. history is underway. Ohio has the majority of these cases. The virus has spread quickly among the largely unvaccinated Amish communities in the center of the state.
New-Meta-Analysis-on-Over-a-Million-Kids-Shows-No-Link-Between-Vaccines-and-Autism-650x365 A new study proves that there is no link between vaccines and autism. The myth that vaccines cause autism began in 1998, when a quack doctor published a fraudulent study that showed a link between vaccines and autism. That doctor was found guilty of falsifying the results, and the study was completely retracted by the original journal that published it. Celebrities like Jenny McCarthy, Alicia Silverstone and Kristin Cavalari have advocated against vaccinating children. Now, we have outbreaks like the one described above. This past school year, there was a whooping cough outbreak in my daughter’s elementary school because of families who have opted out of vaccinations. Why do people believe celebrities instead of scientists? But now we have a bigger problem. A study recently published in the journal Pediatrics showed that pro-vaccine information tended to strengthen the beliefs and fears of the anti-vaccine people, especially in the U.S. Our public health professionals have a task before them to develop health messages that encourage positive behavior change without scaring people into the opposite direction.

 

Friday links: July 20, 2014

 

 

61WMIMB - Copy Mid-century vacation postcards. Scroll down to the frolicking beauties on Carolina Beach. Did anyone really do that in the 50s?
  o-MESSY-ROOM-570 - Copy I’ve Got Your Lifestyle Blog Right Here. Now I don’t feel so bad anymore.
waltons - Copy How the Waltons stay rich. This is a few months old, but I just came across it. Shameful or ingenious?
Top_10_Most_Popular_Facebook_Twitter_Topics_1 - Copy The top 10 topics on Facebook and Twitter. Where are the babies and cats?

Friday links: June 13, 2014

It’s Friday the 13th! You’re so brave to venture into the World Wide Web today.

Here are the things that have caught my attention lately …

dengue-tracking-map The state of Punjab in Pakistan is using smartphones to fight dengue fever. Two sentences that jumped out at me: “Mobile phone penetration in Pakistan is 74 percent today, up from 56 percent in 2007, making the country the fifth largest mobile phone market in Asia. … Smartphones increasingly are being used across the developing world to collect data and improve health outcomes.” This seems very cool, though I do wonder how literacy rates factor into using cell phones and text messages to improve health outcomes.
spikes-homeless Spikes were recently installed outside a luxury apartment building in London. Using Twitter to voice outrage, some call the installation degrading and say the homeless are being treated like “pigeons” or “vermin.”
no-beach-photos Social media prenups are on the rise as couples draw up contracts about what they can and can’t post online. I tend to agree with the statement that if you are fighting over Facebook posts, perhaps you have some bigger issues to address.
mobile-health-clinic - Copy A UK non-profit organized a design competition for a mobile clinic it could use in Cambodia. The winning design is a clinic is repurposed from a shipping container. It sits on a flatbed truck. The whole unit is pre-assembled before transportation. As well as delivering treatment, the clinic also hosts education and community activities.

 

Friday links: June 6, 2014

 

altman_960x Daniel Altman’s guide to where to invest around the world. Four Sub-Saharan African countries are in the top 20. Ethiopia is 27th, and the U.S. is 26th. Altman uses eight factors to predict the total pretax return investors might expect: economic growth, financial stability, physical security, corruption, expropriation by government, exploitation by local partners, capital controls, and exchange rates.
Ezequiel Lavezzi The best World Cup player names and how to pronounce them, for all the fans.
Traits_of_Disengaged_Employees_Infographic_crop An infographic describing the disengaged employee. Sure, these folks are annoying to work with. But does this give employers a free pass?
protect-yourself-when-eating-out-950px CDC says more than half of reported foodborne outbreaks occur in restaurants. The center offers an infographic with 4 tips to prevent food poisoning when eating out. I find #3 challenging with a husband and daughter who like their burgers still pink in the middle.
DataVisualization_US_Health_Map_Smoking_2 A very cool tool for exploring U.S. health trends. Click on life expectancy. I may need to move to Gunnison, Colo. (Just kidding. I’m joking. This is a joke. I know this is for people born in 2010.)