Mostly harmless

Useful tips if you're into street photography:
http://photo.net/columns/mjohnston/14-tips-for-photographing-in-public/

The first Google Maps alphabet made from satellite images of natural and man-made structures, by a graphic designer from Australia.

From: http://rhettdashwood.com.au/#16575

From: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8046970.stm

"The Belgian city of Ghent is about to become the first in the world to go vegetarian at least once a week.

Starting this week there will be a regular weekly meatless day, in which civil servants and elected councillors will opt for vegetarian meals."

http://instruct1.cit.cornell.edu/courses/ee476/FinalProjects/s2009/rac82_mos22/rac82_mos22/index.htm

From: http://www.nature.com/nbt/journal/v27/n5/full/nbt0509-397.html

<snip>
"Nine years ago, Diana Levine lost her arm to gangrene after a physician's assistant improperly injected Wyeth's anti-nausea drug Phenergan (promethazine hydrocholoride), causing the drug to come into contact with arterial blood. Over two times the dose recommended on the label was administered, and the medical personnel persisted with the procedure despite Levine's protestations of pain. Levine sued the physician and physician's assistant, settling the suit out of court.

She then went after Wyeth (p. 399), alleging that the company had failed to provide sufficient warnings in Phenergan's labeling to indicate that the drug was "not reasonably safe for intravenous administration." Her attorney argued Wyeth was negligent because the drug label should have warned physicians not to use the intravenous (IV)-push method at all. The jury agreed, awarding Levine $7.4 million, which was subsequently reduced to $6.7 million.

Phenergan's label includes six statements (two in all capital letters and boldface type) explicitly warning that injecting the drug into arterial blood poses a high risk of tissue damage. In 1988, Wyeth had suggested to FDA a strengthening of Phenergan's label to warn about inadvertent administration into the artery via the IV-push method—exactly the issue targeted in the Levine suit. Ironically, though, FDA declined the labeling change presumably because the benefits of retaining IV-push injection as a treatment option for patients outweighed the risks. Thus, the regulator discouraged the manufacturer from making the label change that it was subsequently sued for not making.

When the Wyeth v. Levine appeal reached the United States' highest court last year, the drug company argued that FDA's oversight of Phenergan's label preempted Levine's claims of negligence on the basis of Article IV of the US Constitution. But in a 6–3 split decision this March, the Supreme Court disagreed with this interpretation, ruling that there is no preemptive language in the statutes governing drug regulation. Thus, any doubt over the invalidity of FDA preemption for drugs is now at an end." <snip>

Hilarious!

URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTEyw6PjEek

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RgL2MKfWTo

Royal wedding cake from 1871 goes on sale. (link to article)

French academic who waged war on English language dies. (link to article)

"He spent decades trying to rid his language of hundreds of foreign words – everything from "supermodel" and "takeaway" to "low-cost airline" and email" – which he claimed destroyed the purity of his mother tongue....

One of his greatest challenges was finding alternative words for new technology, with an entire page on the website devoted to the word "podcasting".

It also noted that the French do not appreciate the term 'Wi-Fi' – easily pronounceable in French as 'wee-fee' – because it is short for the English phrase "wireless fidelity".

So it recommended that France's millions of internet users say 'acces sans fil a l'internet'."

This little piggy went to the market,
this little piggy stayed home,
but that's still better than the last little piggy
cos the poor guy just went boom! :-(

URL: http://www.usatoday.com/news/military/2009-04-06-pigs_N.htm?csp=34

Why you should buy your kid a Lego set and not a Wii.

URL: http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2009/apr/07/a-catalyst-for-innovation/

From today's NYT:

"Advertisements placed by Warner Brothers warned Bollywood film producers not to proceed with a planned Hindi remake of “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” Agence France-Presse reported. Last month The Times of India reported that the Bollywood actors Akshay Kumar and Aishwarya Rai would star in a film called “Action Replay,” about a man who ages in reverse. The plot appears to mirror “Benjamin Button,” the David Fincher film that starred Brad Pitt as a man who is born elderly and dies as a baby; that movie was produced by Warner Brothers and Paramount. In the advertisements, which appeared in The Times of India and local trade publications on Monday, a New Delhi law firm representing Warner Brothers said it would pursue legal action against any film made “either in English or Hindi or other language, having a similar script, screenplay or story line or character sketches or interplay of characters or sequence of events” to “Benjamin Button,” according to Agence France-Presse."

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/07/movies/07arts-SPAREBENJAMI_BRF.html

Mr. Brown on the use of new media for the next election in Singapore. I love Mr. Brown!

"Our committee will be called Readying ourselves for latest media applications online (ROFLMAO)"

"Yesterday we threw a lychee at our 359000 facebook friends. And I know they liked it because they threw a goat back at us."

Oh Mr. Brown, please don't stop the magic.

Researchers in Amsterdam have found a drug that works just like in the movie. It manages to erase certain traumatic or unpleasant memories and is being touted as treatment for PTSD. (link)

But I have a question - if what they're using here is propanolol, a common beta blocker, does that mean heart patients who've been on this medication all along have been unknowingly suppressing these bad memories? So if a person with a heart condition seems to have a really sunny disposition, it doesn't mean he or she is managing to put a positive spin on life. They might just be high on this stuff! Gosh!

Mr. Brown and his pals tell us about the dangers of "anyhow-ly" driving a submarine.

http://www.mrbrownshow.com/2009/02/24/the-mrbrown-show-drive-safe-below/

Darwin's birthday was celebrated a couple of weeks ago by biologists all over the world and it prompted lots of interesting articles on the man and his ideas in every newspaper and magazine ranging from the NYT to Nature.

I enjoyed reading this one in particular: "Human nature: the remix". It examines diversity in humans by looking at things they have in common. It was interesting to learn that Darwin completely ignored our species. Obviously finches were more exciting. "Light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history" he said.

The article examines subjects like emotion (are human facial expressions universal?), altruism/fairness (how different communities perceive fairness), mathematics (is it really the universal human language?), grammar (is the ability to piece together a language an inborn trait?), morality and religion. A pair of American psychologists argue that evolution has trained us to "care about five sets of social issues: fairness and justice; avoiding harm to and caring for others; in-group loyalty; social hierarchy and respect for authority; and the domain of divinity and purity, both bodily and spiritual." They go on to say that "morality is a social construction, but each society constructs it on top of these five innate moral foundations, relying on them to varying degrees". They contrast the moralities of secular Europe (which are built mainly upon the first two) vs. traditional India (which emphasizes spirituality and respect).

So the question is this: is human nature universal or are we all different? The article sums this up nicely with the theories of some smart people from U Mich and Rutgers who say that we are all universally equipped with a "psychological kit" that lets us pick up and comply with local cultural norms which vary spatially and temporally. In other words the universal design we're equipped with itself drives diversity. I like that idea!

Ref:
Jones, D. Nature 457, 780-783 (2009)

I was surprised to see the initial reactions to the octuplet case here with people writing in about what a wonder it was and companies rushing in with endorsements and donations for everything starting from baby food. When I first read about it, the first thing I felt was anger. How is an unemployed single mom going to raise 14 children? In vitro after already having 6 kids? What was she thinking? What was her family thinking? What happened to responsible history taking by docs? Seems like a lot of people are beginning to wonder the same thing.

http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2009/02/our-view-on-in.html

I said a big, loud "thank you" when I saw this:
http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1877187,00.html