Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

Alex Lightman Appointed Executive Director of Humanity+

Los Angeles, August 3, 2009 - The Board of Directors of Humanity+ is pleased to announce the appointment of Mr. Alex Lightman as its new Executive Director. ”Mr. Lightman brings to the job significant experience in the technology world and H+ is thrilled that he is taking the reins to help grow our organization,” said Dr. James Hughes, Secretary, Humanity+.

About Alex Lightman

Mr. Lightman is an author, serial entrepreneur, and futurist, who has made significant contributions to the adoption of IPv6, written and spoken on the future of technology since 1985 and has authored numerous articles and a book on technology and society. He is the author of the first book on 4G wireless broadband, Brave New Unwired World: The Digital Big Bang and the Infinite Internet (John Wiley, 2002), which made predictions about the future of computers and communications that are consistent with the actual growth of Internet and mobile technologies. He has published over 130 articles, including six articles in H+ magazine in 2009, has spoken in over 40 countries, including at the United Nations space conference, at US embassies in Europe and Asia, and at hundreds of conferences.

He is currently CTO of FutureMax Group and CTO of the Intergovernmental Renewable Energy Organization. His company, Charmed Technology, was a pioneer of wearable computers, and he holds patents in the fields of wearable/mobile/pervasive computing and related communications and software. He has sold wearable computers to military, industrial and academic users, deployed “Charmed Badges” at locations as diverse as a Navy ship and a CEO conference, and developed the first augmented reality for a live performance, with the UK tour of Duran Duran in 2001. He was the producer of Charmed Technology’s “Brave New Unwired World” wireless technology fashion show, which has been performed over 100 times at venues in fifteen countries, including the US, Europe, Asia, Israel, and Australia. Mr. Lightman is a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (’83), and attended graduate school at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.

About Humanity+

Humanity+ is a nothing-less-than-awesome international nonprofit membership organization which advocates the ethical use of technology to expand human capacities. We support the development of and access to new technologies that enable everyone to enjoy sharper minds, healthier bodies, greater freedoms, and better lives. In other words, we want people to be better than well.

From the OSM blog:

Open source bioinformatics, hardware development, software development, wetware development. Synthetic biology. Accessible knowledge and self-education. Statistical analysis. Copyleft for genome data. Longevity research. Regenerative medicine. Massively-peer reviewed journal. Virtual doctors for developing nations.

Join the mailing list. Join the Facebook group. Follow us on Twitter.

If you joined this group, you’ve probably decided that the time is right to foster and create an effective open source medicine community. You may be interested in playing a founding role over the next few months/years. This group intends to get the community discussion started, and invites everyone to join and speak freely, contributing your talent and your voice.

Please have a look around at our projects and aims. If you see something you’d like to work on, feel free to jump in the discussion, contributing your knowledge and skills. If there’s something you don’t see but think should be here, go ahead and make it known. Welcome to Open Source Medicine!

Internet Vigilante Justice: Iran

Neda’s horrific murder by the Basij militia, captured on video (warning: graphic violence), has shocked and enraged the international community. More importantly, the killings have shocked and enraged individuals, who are working together, Anon-style, to identify and threaten leading members of the Basij.

People have begun collecting and distributing pictures of Basijis who are armed and took part in the murders ongoing. The purpose is to make their lives at least a little bit harder; they shouldn’t walk freely and enjoy life when they are taking away lives of innocent people. In the last few days, Basijis have started wearing helmets so they can’t be recognized.

In this photo (larger image), an armed man is seen riding a motorcycle:

The man was identified as Seyyed Hassan MirKazemi, and this picture is being distributed widely (larger image):

Translation from Farsi

Caption on the left side:

Location of picture is ‘Donyaye Felez’ (World of Metal) from ‘Donyaye Eghtesad’ (World of Economy) newspaper.

We know you and we will kill you soon… (English)

We will kill you soon.

Caption on the right side:

Seyyed Hassan MirKazemi
Head of Bassij of Al-Hadi mosque
Located in Shams Abad hill, Tehran
CEO of ‘Donyaye Felez’ company
Located on Karaj Autobahn

Have a better translation? Email info@cyber-sapiens.com.

Implications

Internet vigilantism has sparked discussion again and again. But could the first documented human deaths soon result from search and destroy engines? What will this mean for freedom of information and speech online? Whether you’re for or against vigilante justice, this situation is unprecedented and should be closely watched. (I’m rooting for the vigilantes, myself.)

Here is the full unedited version, as published by The Guardian, of Simon Singh’s article that was critical of chiropractors and is subject to legal threats by the British Chiropractic Association (BCA) as reported by Holfordwatch and the Quackometer. Evidence has been added in bold to support Singh’s claims. Thanks to gimpy for most of the evidence.

If you want to help Simon Singh: http://www.senseaboutscience.org.uk/freedebate

Sign the Support Statement.

Also, download the campaign button and add it to your website.

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Beware the spinal trap

by Simon Singh

This is Chiropractic Awareness Week. So let’s be aware. How about some awareness that may prevent harm and help you make truly informed choices? First, you might be surprised to know that the founder of chiropractic therapy, Daniel David Palmer, wrote that, “99% of all diseases are caused by displaced vertebrae”. In the 1860s, Palmer began to develop his theory that the spine was involved in almost every illness because the spinal cord connects the brain to the rest of the body. Therefore any misalignment could cause a problem in distant parts of the body.

[This claim comes from D.D. Palmer The Science, Art and Philosophy of Chiropractic. Portland, Oregon: Portland Printing House Company, 1910.]

In fact, Palmer’s first chiropractic intervention supposedly cured a man who had been profoundly deaf for 17 years. His second treatment was equally strange, because he claimed that he treated a patient with heart trouble by correcting a displaced vertebra.

[This claim comes from D.D. Palmer The Science, Art and Philosophy of Chiropractic. Portland, Oregon: Portland Printing House Company, 1910.]

You might think that modern chiropractors restrict themselves to treating back problems, but in fact they still possess some quite wacky ideas. The fundamentalists argue that they can cure anything. And even the more moderate chiropractors have ideas above their station. The British Chiropractic Association claims that their members can help treat children with colic, sleeping and feeding problems, frequent ear infections, asthma and prolonged crying, even though there is not a jot of evidence. This organisation is the respectable face of the chiropractic profession and yet it happily promotes bogus treatments.

[These claims are found in the following documents from the BCA website, Happy Families and A Real Pain in the Back.]

I can confidently label these treatments as bogus because I have co-authored a book about alternative medicine with the world’s first professor of complementary medicine, Edzard Ernst. He learned chiropractic techniques himself and used them as a doctor. This is when he began to see the need for some critical evaluation. Among other projects, he examined the evidence from 70 trials exploring the benefits of chiropractic therapy in conditions unrelated to the back. He found no evidence to suggest that chiropractors could treat any such conditions.

[All details on Ernst's research on chiropractic can be found on PubMed here. Simon Singh has indeed co-authored a book with Professor Ernst.]

But what about chiropractic in the context of treating back problems? Manipulating the spine can cure some problems, but results are mixed. To be fair, conventional approaches, such as physiotherapy, also struggle to treat back problems with any consistency. Nevertheless, conventional therapy is still preferable because of the serious dangers associated with chiropractic.

[This appears to be personal opinion based on research conducted by Ernst & others and is not libelous.]

In 2001, a systematic review of five studies revealed that roughly half of all chiropractic patients experience temporary adverse effects, such as pain, numbness, stiffness, dizziness and headaches. These are relatively minor effects, but the frequency is very high, and this has to be weighed against the limited benefit offered by chiropractors.

[This paper can be found here]

More worryingly, the hallmark technique of the chiropractor, known as high-velocity, low-amplitude thrust, carries much more significant risks. This involves pushing joints beyond their natural range of motion by applying a short, sharp force. Although this is a safe procedure for most patients, others can suffer dislocations and fractures.

[Personal opinion based on evidence.]

Worse still, manipulation of the neck can damage the vertebral arteries, which supply blood to the brain. So-called vertebral dissection can ultimately cut off the blood supply, which in turn can lead to a stroke and even death. Because there is usually a delay between the vertebral dissection and the blockage of blood to the brain, the link between chiropractic and strokes went unnoticed for many years. Recently, however, it has been possible to identify cases where spinal manipulation has certainly been the cause of vertebral dissection.

[Some reports here.]

Laurie Mathiason was a 20-year-old Canadian waitress who visited a chiropractor 21 times between 1997 and 1998 to relieve her low-back pain. On her penultimate visit she complained of stiffness in her neck. That evening she began dropping plates at the restaurant, so she returned to the chiropractor. As the chiropractor manipulated her neck, Mathiason began to cry, her eyes started to roll, she foamed at the mouth and her body began to convulse. She was rushed to hospital, slipped into a coma and died three days later. At the inquest, the coroner declared: “Laurie died of a ruptured vertebral artery, which occurred in association with a chiropractic manipulation of the neck.

[Details of this case and some conclusions here.]

This case is not unique. In Canada alone there have been several other women who have died after receiving chiropractic therapy, and Professor Ernst has identified about 700 cases of serious complications among the medical literature. This should be a major concern for health officials, particularly as under-reporting will mean that the actual number of cases is much higher.

[Details in this paper.]

Bearing all of this in mind, I will leave you with one message for Chiropractic Awareness Week – if spinal manipulation were a drug with such serious adverse effects and so little demonstrable benefit, then it would almost certainly have been taken off the market.

[Personal opinion based on evidence.]

Three patients in Australia are the first humans to have their sight restored using their own corneal stem cells. Of these three patients, two were legally blind and one had limited vision (could read only the largest row of a vision chart).

A team at the University of New South Wales in Australia extracted adult corneal stem cells from the patients’ good eyes, and cultured them on extended wear contact lenses.  They then cleaned the patients’ corneas, and they began wearing the lenses.

Within 10-14 days, the stem cells re-entered the cornea and began to recolonize it.  UNSW’s Dr Nick Di Girolamo describes, “The procedure is totally simple and cheap.  Unlike other techniques, it requires no foreign human or animal products, only the patient’s own serum, and is completely non-invasive.”

The two legally blind patients can now read the top row of a vision chart, and the visually impaired patient can now read enough to get their driver’s license.

It has been a year and  half since the procedures; how long will the effects last? The cornea has no blood supply (it gets its oxygen through diffusion from the air), so it becomes a question of whether the patients’ tear fluid alone can sustain the new tissue in the long term.

Google Squared went live today! Instead of providing a list of links to ranked pages, Google Squared presents information derived from a query in a spreadsheet-like grid called a square.

“‘It essentially searches the Web to find the types of facts you might be interested in, extracts them and presents them in a meaningful way,” Google says. “If your square isn’t perfect at the beginning, it’s easy to work with Google Squared to get a better answer.”

This video, from Google’s blog, shows you some of the features.

Will Google Squared kill Wolfram Alpha?

“Google Squared is a search tool that helps you quickly build a collection of facts from the Web for any topic you specify:

* Facts about your topic are organized as a table of items and attributes (we call them “Squares” for fun).
* Customize these Squares to see just the items and attributes you’re interested in.
* See the websites that served as sources for the information in your Square.
* Save and share Squares with others.

“While gathering facts from across the Internet is relatively easy (albeit tedious) for humans to do, it’s far more difficult for computers to do automatically. Google Squared is a first step towards solving that challenge. It essentially searches the web to find the types of facts you might be interested in, extracts them and presents them in a meaningful way.”

Does this sound familiar?

Try searching for ‘roller coasters’ using Google Squared and Wolfram Alpha. The winner, here, is clear.

However, Wolfram Alpha can outperform Google at almost everything computational (can Google do this?).

Wolfram Alpha’s data was organized by real live humans; Google Squared is algorithmic.

In a way, this is a very interesting, very public example of the race between humans and machines; how long will it be before Google’s algorithms outstrip Wolfram Alpha’s literal brain-power. Can computers match our minds? Time will tell. Some certainly think so.