The NHS is in love with the airline industry. The idea of checklists before operations has really caught on, and increasingly ex-airline people are being placed in advisory roles for a variety of NHS organizations. Hospitals are especially envious of the ability of the airlines to develop and use technology that allows hundreds of random individuals to be safely transferred over thousands of miles with the minimum of fuss and at relatively specific times. more…

Forget complementary therapies, the big question is can engineering succeed where traditional medicine has failed? Anyone following the online technology bible “TechCrunch” might be persuaded by this idea. Here in the US and on the West Coast in particular, the belief is growing that the combination of money and mathematical and engineering brilliance (and also increasingly youth), has the potential to solve many of human kind’s ills. Only the other day, one start-up company in Stanford (Healthtap) secured early funding to the tune of $2.5 million to create an “expert health companion.” Their blurb describes what they are trying to do as “help define the new field of ‘interactive health’” — the sector that is moving consumer health information to new platforms, like smartphones and tablets, to provide portability and immediate access to actionable information. The company plans to “integrate personalisation, game dynamics, and social networking to increase our engagement with our health and well-being.”  more…

Last Sunday it seemed like the whole of Silicon Valley stopped work to watch the Oscars (on-line of course) otherwise known as the 83rd Academy Awards. Overall, the impression was that it was a pretty limp affair with only one F-word, robotic presenters, and bland acceptance speeches. The botoxed fashionistas were particularly scathing about the stars’ couture on the red carpet and once the ceremony was over interest rapidly switched to following the dalliances of Charlie Sheen and his eclectic “friends.”  However, the most interesting and hilarious comments during the Oscars were on the live stream from Twitter. Comments came fast and furious throughout the ceremony and have continued ever since. Isn’t modern technology wonderful? more…

The night before the TED conference began, “The King’s Speech” beat “The Social Network,” four Oscars to three. A friend with a stake in the outcome had argued that a story revolving around  21st century technology (Facebook) should have had an advantage over a story revolving around a 20th century one (radio). more…

I have been the human guardian of both cats and dogs over the years. I cannot call myself either a cat person or a dog person. They have such different personalities. Cats are free spirits but are also wonderfully self-indulgent and will be happily stroked for hours. Dogs are more keen on activity and many an hour has been spent wrestling for ownership of old socks or slippers. more…

An interesting article in Nature gives what may be a glimpse of the future of scientific discourse by telling stories of how social media have done a much better and faster job than traditional prepublication review. Science recently published a paper in which researchers claimed to be able to predict human longevity with 77% accuracy. The paper gathered huge coverage in the media, but almost immediately bloggers and Tweeters recognised major errors. Researchers who regularly used the techniques of the study saw a common pitfall, which was why they reacted so fast. One week after the paper was published the authors acknowledged that they had made a technical error, and shortly afterwards Science issued an “expression of concern,” meaning ignore this paper. more…