workaholics

So funny. A symptom of our modern age and a reflection of "communication" skills.

I especially love the physical comedy of it, like when he brushes off the bottom of her hand, or how she rests her head on her opposite hand while he flops her arm around.

Translational and basic science

Just some notes to myself to research. Thoughts came out of Peggy Zelenka's retirement party plus the PI mtg discussion about translational research.

When did scientists say the earth is round? How long was it from then until someone carried that out into trying to sail around the world (get to a location from the opposite direction). Started with basic science and hypotheses, but the practical implications of that science ended up being the “discovery” and colonization of the Americas by Europe.

more links

Hans Rosling in Foreign Policy magazine's top 100 global thinkers

Did You Know? -- a look at our future world
http://www.youtube.com/user/xplanevisualthinking#p/u/4/pMcfrLYDm2U
from http://shifthappens.wikispaces.com/versions

Gapminder. org

I went to a really good lecture at NIH today by Hans Rosling, creator of Gapminder. I want to remember the link, so I thought putting it here in my blog would be an easy way to access it later.

Basically it's a tool to graph statistical informormation concerning global development indicators and allows non-statisticians to more easily understand trends. His software is actually named Trendalyzer and has been purchased by Google. I really appreciate the ability of these graphs to transform people's worldviews. Many still view the world according to the facts of 1950, when the world was divided into the West and the developing world; between small families with long lives and large families with short lives. But there has been massive change and transformation in the development of nations in the last 50 years, and especially in the last 10, including the rise of Asia. The sequence of progress for these former "developing world" countries has been very different from the West. In the West, wealth was developed first and then health. In emerging countries, health has developed first, which is now allowing wealth to grow astonishingly quickly. This caused a shift in Rosling's perspective, to now believe that disease causes poverty, not the reverse.

So instead of a polar world of West contrasted with developing world, we now live in a world defined by economic level. Rosling sees the world as collapsed/low/middle/high income. Collapsed are countries like Afghanistan -- very few fall into this category. Low income are countries receiving aid, which have less than $1K USD/capita -- about 2 billion people. Middle income are emerging economies, with between $1-10K USD/capita -- about 3 billion people. High income is the West + 20%, with greater than $10K USD/capita -- about 1 billion people. This breakout is not sustainable and won't be with one superpower. For example, China is now accumulating $1B per day! Compare that to Gates Foundation which distributes $3B in aid per year. When the US economy crashed and the government needed money, they couldn't get it from their own population. The countries with money now are Brazil, China, etc.

In terms of health, most of the world now fits into the old picture of the "West" -- small families with long lives. Because of these healthy populations, the middle income countries are having incredible ecomonic growth. In the meantime, these are highly educated people who can get a diagnosis, e.g. cancer, and know of the appropriate treatments but can't afford them. The low income countries do still need help with diseases like tuberculosis and malaria. However, as development continues, they will work themselves out of poverty. Development = school, health, infrastructure, information, freedom & rights, credit, market & employment, security, etc. So the global health goals are two-fold:
1) bring health research to bear on the problems of low income people, e.g. solve TB
2) use populations of the whole world with all genetic variations for studies

Avatar

So after being buried under a pile of snow for a week, I went to the movies this evening and finally saw Avatar. It took a little while for my eyes to adjust to the 3D but once they did the images were really incredible. I loved being carried away into another world and may go see the movie again, just to examine the scenery.

But it also strikes me as ironic -- the movie transports us to another world, yet "there is nothing new under the sun." Human imagination is incredible and beautiful, from curly-que plants to insects with circular overhead wings to hammer-head animals to large blue "humans", and even to macro ideas like day/night and air and religion. But at the end of the day they are still plants, insects, birds, animals, etc. These things were all created by God, and we can't even imagine a world outside of these structures. It's meaningless to us. The other world is beautiful in it's variety and differences to ours, but underneath is actually still the same.
Especially the culture and religion of the "humans" (sorry, I don't remember what they're called) on this other planet is essentially ancient tribal and animist/antheist.
Regardless of the pantheism, I did appreciate the ideas about "joining". The humans have these neurons that can connect to the neurons in other beings, e.g. animals or trees. It's an organic connection, as opposed to the mechanical one of the regular humans from Earth. Examples of the mechanical one: the link into the avatars, the robot machines that a human can be inside of and controlling. I think that organic connection is an element missing in modern life that appeals to the audience. I keep encountering so many stories these days that seem to be successful because they do play on godly principles that people are longing for and don't have: connectedness to other humans beings, true manhood, sacrificial love, etc.