Net News Archive

Friday, May 9, 2008

Solve Puzzles for Science: Fold It!


This new online game, a protein folding puzzler, is a product of a collaboration between scientists at University of Washington and Howard Hughes Medical Institute. The game is designed to entertain and advance science at the same time. In other words, this is a distributed computing project with built-in fun.

...Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) researchers at the University of Washington are bringing the arcane world of protein folding to the online gaming arena with the launch of “Foldit,” a free game in which players around the world compete to design proteins. The real world benefit: Scientists will test proteins designed by the game's players to see if they make viable candidate compounds for new drugs.

Users can access the game via the web at www.fold.it

The development of the online game is a natural extension of HHMI investigator David Baker's quest to understand how proteins - the building blocks of cells — fold into unique three-dimensional shapes. Over the past decade, Baker and his colleagues have made steady progress in developing computer algorithms to predict how a linear string of amino acids will fold into a given protein's characteristic shape. A detailed understanding of a protein's structure can offer scientists a wealth of information — revealing intricacies about the protein's biological function and suggesting new ideas for drug design.


Predicting the shapes that natural proteins will take is one of the preeminent challenges in biology, and modeling even a small protein requires making trillions of calculations. Over the last three years, volunteers around the globe — now numbering about 200,000— have donated their computer down-time to performing those calculations in a distributed network called Rosetta@home. The computing logic behind the network is an algorithm called Rosetta that uses the Monte Carlo technique to find the best “fit” for all of the parts of a given protein.

But as the Rosetta volunteers watched their computers blindly trying to work out a solution by methodically testing every possible combination and shape to find the best fit, they began to think that a little human intervention might speed things up. “People were writing in, saying, 'Hey! The computer is doing silly things! It would be great if we could help guide it,'” remembers Baker, who is based at the University of Washington (UW) where he developed the Rosetta algorithm and network.

Baker didn't know how he could make that happen until about 18 months ago, when he went hiking on Mt. Rainier with his neighbor David Salesin, a University of Washington computer scientist who also runs a research laboratory at nearby Adobe Systems. Baker and Salesin began discussing ways to make Rosetta more interactive. With the inherent fun of competition, Salesin thought a multiplayer online game was the way to go. By the time they got back to the car, they had settled on that idea. Salesin provided Baker with the names of three colleagues, led by UW computer scientist Zoran Popovic, who could help Baker create the game.

Over the next few months, doctoral student Seth Cooper and postdoctoral researcher Adrien Treuille, working with Popovic and Baker, created the program, and team tested it in small venues. One match between teams from the University of California and the University of Illinois aroused unexpected fervor and cheering among spectators. “30 or 40 people participated,” says Baker. “The competition was very intense.”

“Foldit” takes players through a series of practice levels designed to teach the basics of protein folding, before turning them loose on real proteins from nature. “Our main goal was to make sure that anyone could do it, even if they didn't know what biochemistry or protein folding was,” says Popovic. At the moment, the game only uses proteins whose three-dimensional structures have been solved by researchers. But, says Popovic, “soon we'll be introducing puzzles for which we don't know the solution.”

Solve Puzzles for Science: Fold It!

HHMI press release: Researchers Launch Online Protein Folding Game...; UW press release: Game's high score could earn the Nobel...

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Monday, May 5, 2008

Free Marrow Donor Registration Campaign


For the next two weeks, the National Marrow Donor Program is running a registration campaign to boost the ranks of committed bone marrow donors. Typically the donor must front a registration fee to receive a test kit, which will then be sent back for matching with in-need recipients. During this May campaign, though, the organization raised enough money to sponsor 46,000 to register to the database for free.

Register here...

Image credit: Wellcome images: Normal anatomy, bone marrow...

(hat tip: BoingBoing)

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Wednesday, April 30, 2008

2nd Annual DiabetesMine™ Design Challenge

Medgadget is proud to announce our co-sponsorship of the 2nd Annual DiabetesMine™ Design Challenge - "a competition designed to foster innovation in diabetes design and encourage creative new tools that will improve life with diabetes". The contest is looking for unique, practical, and novel design ideas that may one day be applied to real products. The winners of the design challenge will receive both prize money and consulting time with design firm IDEO.

Below is from the official announcement:

2nd Annual DiabetesMine™ Design Challenge*

* a competition designed to foster innovation in diabetes design and get the creative juices flowing around new concepts and tools to improve life with diabetes*

Two of the most enticing design concepts will win a package of prizes to help further their creative efforts: $1,000 in cash, some pro-bono professional advice from world-renowned design experts, and free access to the next Health 2.0 conference for one adult winner.

This contest is co-hosted by my friends over at Medgadget, the Internet journal of emerging medical technologies, and supported by the world-renowned design firm IDEO, with headquarters in Palo Alto, CA. The campaign is generously sponsored by Cory and Justin Oringer, two young brothers (ages 14 and 11, respectively) who have both been living with Type 1 diabetes for more than 10 years each and have already seen and personally experienced many wonderful benefits of design innovation in diabetes technology. Just a few of the innovations that have changed their lives include:

  • blood glucose tests that previously took 30 seconds now take only 5 seconds

  • 5 microliter droplets of blood required have now shrunk to just .3 microliters

  • where we once there was finger sticking only, we can now use alternate sites (nighttime toe testing gives the boys' fingers some healing relief)

  • multiple injections have now given way to the option for pumping with convenient temp basals, correction calculators, and "bolus wizards"

  • 21g lancets have slimmed down to just 30g needles, now available in "virtually painless" lancing devices like Renew and Pelikan

  • These devices provide the lancet needles in cartridge form, doing away with accidental needle sticks (Cory's schoolmate once poked himself with a lost lancet, creating havoc at their school)
  • At the same time, Cory and Justin have witnessed (and lived) the revolution in communication we fondly know as Social Media. Who ever heard of a "blog" back when they were diagnosed? User-generated content has changed lives, and driven a whole new wave of excitement about contests and challenges (think American Idol, Dancing with the Stars, Survivor, and The Apprentice).

    "With a father deeply entrenched in the diabetes business, Cory and Justin inevitably wind up in the midst of numerous innovation-brainstorming conversations. They’re very excited to be involved in the DiabetesMine Design Challenge," the family writes to me.

    Now for the particulars:


    THE BACKGROUND

    It was just about this time last year that I posted my Open Letter to Steve Jobs, calling for the gods of consumer design to help revolutionize design of diabetes devices. This spurred a ton of conversation across the blogosphere and mainstream media. In the weeks and months that followed, all sorts of individuals and organizations came forward with many compelling new prototypes, designs, and ideas.

    This year, we're making it an official competition, laying down the gauntlet, as it were, to anyone passionate about diabetes and product design. Whether you're a pharma R&D pro, an independent engineer, a design student or an enterprising patient, we want to hear from you.


    ELIGIBILITY

    This competition is open to all individuals and organizations developing devices or supplies for people with diabetes (medications not included), or enterprising patients with unique prototype concepts. DiabetesMine™ will accept submissions in two categories: under age 18, and age 18 and older.


    CONTEST TIMELINE

    Submissions can be made beginning April 30, 2008, until Monday, May 26st, 2008, at 11:59 pm PST. The winners will be announced on Friday, May 30th, 2008.


    PRIZES

    The winners will receive a combination of rewards intended to help take their ground-breaking diabetes design concept to the next level: prize money, consulting advice, industry event exposure and media coverage.

  • Sponsors Cory and Justin Oringer generously offer $1,000 each in two entry categories: under age 18 and over age 18 (total prize money $2,000).
  • Health and wellness consultants from world-renown design firm IDEO will host a two-hour workshop to help each winner refine their concept.
  • Organizers of the “innovation incubator” Health 2.0 Conference have generously offered one free access ticket to their Fall conference in San Francisco, October 21-23rd, 2008, for the winner of the adult competition.
  • Medgadget and DiabetesMine™ will promote the winners through articles and blogs, and possibly also feature some of the coolest finalists.

  • COMPETITION GUIDELINES

  • All entries must be in the form of a movie or an animation, no more than 2 minutes long (all content in English), which will be submitted by uploading into the DiabetesMine™ channel on YouTube.
  • Each product or design concept must be new, i.e. introduced within the last half-year, or in development phase, possibly undergoing user testing now.
  • One video per product idea only, please.
  • The product or design concept needs to have been created in its entirety by the submitting team, i.e. it must not infringe or violate the rights of any third parties, including, but not limited to the copyrights, patents, trademarks, trade secrets, and right of publicity/privacy.
  • Each video submission needs to contain your brief but complete "Elevator Pitch," covering the following aspects describing your new design:

  • Explanation of the everyday problem(s) your concept is designed to solve – how does it help improve life for people with diabetes?

  • Description of the medical application of the product.

  • Detailed depiction of the product's look and feel, material, and dimensions. Ideally the video will include a 360-degree shot of the product or design concept.

  • Demonstration of the product in action and its various functions, if possible.

  • Each video segment must display the 2nd Annual DiabetesMine™ Design Challenge screen at the beginning and end for five seconds. (See instructions below on where to download that slide)
  • [for some inspiration, see tips on crafting your Elevator Pitch here. View the sample contest entry videos here. Or browse the various product pitches here.]


    HOW TO SUBMIT YOUR ENTRY

    1. Create your video, and add the DiabetesMine™ Design Challenge screen (downloadable HERE) to appear at the beginning and end for five seconds.

    2. Give your video a short, recognizable title (ideally the product name), to make it easy for readers to vote on favorites.

    3. Go to this site: http://youtube.com/group/DiabetesMineDesignIT, and click on “add a video” to upload.

    4. Post a comment on this blog below providing the following information to help identify your video:

  • Video title

  • Your name and age (category you are entering)

  • Valid email contact info

  • State of residence

  • Your status (medical professional, start-up company, independent designer, student, etc.)
  • 5. Note that by submitting an entry for the 2nd Annual DiabetesMine™ Design Challenge, submitters agree to these additional OFFICIAL CONTEST RULES.


    THE JUDGING CRITERIA

    Winners will be evaluated both popular vote and by a panel of three judges. In a sort of reverse American Idol system, reader voting will be taken into consideration, but the final determination will be made by the judges.

    The judging panel will consist of one MD/Editor from Medgadget, one design expert from IDEO, and Amy Tenderich of DiabetesMine™ providing the patient perspective on user experience/desirability of the product. Entries will be judged on three-pronged criteria:

  • Efficiency - how does it solve a real-life problem for people living with diabetes?

  • Clinical Efficacy – how realistic and applicable is this product from a medical standpoint?

  • Aesthetics - it's the look and feel, Baby! How good is the pure design?
  • Remember, good design can be applied to anything, even something as "low-tech" as a special container for disposing of used glucose test strips. Let the innovation begin!

    The official contest website and rules can be found at Diabetes Mine...

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    Friday, April 25, 2008

    Health World Web: A Health 2.0 Platform

    Health World Web, Inc., a Jacksonville, FL company is trying to create a new, more interactive platform for patients as well as medical professionals. It offers help, emotional support, non-medical advice or ratings, reviews and recommendations for local doctors, dentists and chiropractors. The database now consists of more than one hundred patient communities and supposedly nearly 1.5 million doctors.

    An excerpt from the mission statement:

    The primary focus of our current site is to enable users to communicate with other patients, provide and share emotional support within relevant communities as well as facilitate the exchange of recommendations for local doctors, dentists, chiropractors, physical therapists and alternative medicine providers. Our users can create or join specialized communities and discuss their health issues with a local person or an entire planet, directly connect with other members in the forums area, and get recommendations about the best health care available in their neighborhood or across the country.

    And here is a video describing the main goals and features of the site. If you mix social networking and doctor search with a twist, you get HealthWorldWeb.com

    More at Health World Web...

    This is a cross-post from Scienceroll.

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    Wednesday, April 9, 2008

    Vitals: Free Doctor Reviews and Ratings

    Vitals, Inc., a Lyndhurst, NJ company, has a purported mission to provide prospective patients with as much objective data as is available about a doctor. If you plan to make an appointment with a physician you don't know yet, check up on him or her on the site. It's also easy to find a doctor, as one can search by ailment or by specialty. What is even more important, patients and physicians have to log in differently, which makes it possible to create a medical community where medical professionals can build their online reputation.

    According to their mission statement:

    Vitals was created to give consumers the tools -- for the first time -- to make intelligent, informed decisions about which doctor to choose.

    Our web site offers you a variety of ways to help in your choice of the right doctor.

    For physicians, it allows you to keep track of what others are saying, gives you the opportunity to let consumers know about your work, and lets you make sure your profile is complete and accurate.

    More at Vitals...

    This is a cross-post from Scienceroll.com...

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    Tuesday, April 8, 2008

    Video Case Studies from NIAAA: Helping Patients Who Drink Too Much


    The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has just introduced an online course designed to better equip clinicians in diagnosis and treatment of patients with severe alcoholism. Those that complete the Helping Patients Who Drink Too Much course can obtain a whopping 1.5 hours of CME credits available through Medscape.

    "The video scenarios demonstrate evidence-based techniques for assessing and managing at-risk drinking and alcohol use disorders," says NIAAA Director Ting-Kai Li, M.D. "We want to make these techniques widely available to clinicians so that more people with alcohol use problems will get the help they need." Called Video Case Studies: Helping Patients Who Drink Too Much, the program is available through the NIAAA website at www.niaaa.nih.gov/guide.

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    Wednesday, April 2, 2008

    Liveblogging ICEM 2008 at GruntDoc

    Our friend Allen from GruntDoc is hosting a liveblogging series by Logan Plaster, Editor and Creative Director of Emergency Physicians' Monthly, who is attending the 12th International Conference on Emergency Medicine held in San Francisco.

    Allen writes:

    I'm a big fan of EPMonthly, and enjoy reading it cover to cover every month. It's my honor to host them here (and they have a website supporting their publication that's terrific, check it out).

    Come back often for his updates; he's going to try to post pictures (and maybe video) in addition to the expected well-written text. I'm looking forward to it myself.

    More at GruntDoc...

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    Monday, March 31, 2008

    Hackers Circumvent Browser, Attack Brain


    The world of hacking has achieved another milestone when a team of culprits managed to attack an online forum of epileptics, using Java script pop-ups of seizure inducing imagery. They must have thought it very funny. Perhaps a few months with Tony, the seizure inducing federal cell mate, would help the bastards reconsider.

    The incident, possibly the first computer attack to inflict physical harm on the victims, began Saturday, March 22, when attackers used a script to post hundreds of messages embedded with flashing animated gifs.

    The attackers turned to a more effective tactic on Sunday, injecting JavaScript into some posts that redirected users' browsers to a page with a more complex image designed to trigger seizures in both photosensitive and pattern-sensitive epileptics.

    RyAnne Fultz, a 33-year-old woman who suffers from pattern-sensitive epilepsy, says she clicked on a forum post with a legitimate-sounding title on Sunday. Her browser window resized to fill her screen, which was then taken over by a pattern of squares rapidly flashing in different colors.

    Fultz says she "locked up."

    "I don't fall over and convulse, but it hurts," says Fultz, an IT worker in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. "I was on the phone when it happened, and I couldn't move and couldn't speak."

    After about 10 seconds, Fultz's 11-year-old son came over and drew her gaze away from the computer, then killed the browser process, she says.

    More at Wired...

    (hat tip: Engadget)

    Image courtesy of Salmon...

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    Ozmosis: A New Physician-Only Community

    Ozmosis, Inc., a Vienna, VA company, is offering a new community site with an emphasis on clinical discussions, practice management and health policy schmoozing. It is touted to be by physicians for physicians. All the members have to be verified during the registration process.

    According to their mission statement:

    Ozmosis, an online Medical Knowledge Exchange, has been working with physicians to improve patient care since 2006. Ozmosis aggregates the collective wisdom and experience of its physicians and transforms individual insights into trusted knowledge for all its members, providing physicians a place where they can turn daily for trusted and reliable clinical, practice management and health policy information. Offered at no cost for verified physicians, Ozmosis accelerates learning and knowledge exchange across medicine and is dedicated to improving collaboration in healthcare.

    The site is currently in private beta, whatever that means.

    More at Ozmosis...

    More on Scienceroll.com...

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    Friday, March 21, 2008

    BodyMaps Available in Beta


    BodyMaps is an intuitive online anatomical atlas made to be easy to locate specific organs and visualize the anatomy around them. Currently still in beta stage, the product offers basic navigational functionality, a search tool, as well as a way to identify body parts in an image and to selectively add or remove entire organ systems, like the digestive or circulatory. BodyMaps folks have made a good start, and we're looking forward to expanded features and improvements.

    BodyMaps...

    For developers interested in company's API or its web widget framework, the company has a special website: BodyMaps Development Center...

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    Monday, March 10, 2008

    MDPIXX Portal: Medical Media for Physicians


    MDPIXX , a platform developed by C2C, a company based in Madrid, Spain, is a recently launched portal dedicated to medical media interchange between physicians. Invitation is needed to join the community and share your medical images and cases, and only registered physicians can send invitations. An excerpt from their mission statement:

    MDPIXX site allows worldwide physicians to interchange medical images and videos, create clinical cases, discuss and evaluate about them. All for free.

    MDPIXX is a secure and private community for physicians. MDPIXX helps physicians to share and contrast clinical opinions about a case, improves medical research and help medical students to learn from experts by having a complete repository of clincial cases with associated media material.

    MDPIXX is a closed community for physicians.

    Do you have an invitation you can extend, or do you need one? Lets use the comments section for this post for the exchange.

    More on Scienceroll.com...

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    Friday, March 7, 2008

    IBM Builds Virtual Healthcare Island


    To promote IBM's vision of the future of healthcare information management, the company setup a virtual island within Second Life to demonstrate potential possibilities. As more ideas in healthcare IT are developed, IBM plans to continue working on their virtual property, integrating new components into the island.

    From the press release:

    The IBM Virtual Healthcare Island is designed with a futuristic atmosphere and provides visitors with an interactive demonstration of IBM's open-standards-based Health Information Exchange (HIE) architecture. Working with project leads in the U.S., the island was designed and built by an all-IBM-India team.

    Starting from the patient's home, avatars create their own Personal Health Records (PHRs) in a secure and private environment and watch as it is incorporated into an array of Electronic Medical Record (EMR) systems that can be used at various medical facilities. As they move from one island station to the next, they experience how the development of a totally integrated and interoperable longitudinal Electronic Health Record (EHR) is used within a highly secured network that allows access only by patient-authorized health systems and family members.

    Press release: IBM Opens New 3D Virtual Healthcare Island on Second Life...

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    Tuesday, March 4, 2008

    The Great Glut of Health 2.0

    David Hamilton over at the VentureBeat wrote an article, as he reports from the Health 2.0 Conference (we're not attending this year, and frankly, forgot exactly what Health 2.0 means). The piece is titled The Health 2.0 glut, and how one startup adapts. He notes that many internet startups nowadays are doing the same old variations on themes that don't seem to work very well in the internet's health business.

    We're also a little dubious about the future for many of these startups, be it social networks for patients, doctor rating services, tagging platforms, doctors locators/schedulers, and others. To illustrate the point, check out some of the press releases that came out in the last couple of days touting Health 2.0 websites:

    eDrugSearch.com Launches Social Network for Prescription Drug Consumers

    eDrugSearch.com, the trusted search engine for Americans seeking medications from prescreened international pharmacies, has expanded its mission by unveiling the eDrugSearch.com Community, a new social network for prescription drug consumers.

    "U.S. consumers who want access to prescription drugs at fair, affordable prices have long had the odds stacked against them," said Cary Byrd, president and founder of eDrugSearch.com. "We started eDrugSearch.com to level the playing field, giving consumers a safe way to find low-cost prescription drugs online from Canadian and other non-U.S. pharmacies.

    "Now, by creating the eDrugSearch.com Community, we are moving beyond specialized search to enable our members to share information about their experiences, both with online prescriptions and online pharmacies. Our Health 2.0 community will empower members to make better decisions for themselves and for their families."

    The First Web 2.0 Pharmaceutical News Portal

    World Pharma News project is launching a Web 2.0 pharmaceutical news platform, named as well World Pharma News but with attached '.net' extension. Web 2.0 generally represents knowledge-oriented social-networking platforms focused first of all on collaborative approaches.

    Look, we're not crotchety old curmudgeons. We like the web, and understand the power of social networks. But we also have some insight into their limitations -- which is why these press releases leave us a little underwhelmed and confused.

    So if you're waiting for the day when you can join the eMedgadget 2.0 .Net community search portal, so you can share stories about all the medical devices your body has rejected, well, you might be waiting a while.

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    Thursday, February 28, 2008

    Encyclopedia of Life Goes Live

    A consortium of scientific institutions has joined forces to create the Encyclopedia of Life, a comprehensive database of all the knowledge known about the world's species. The first batch of information, comprising data on 30,000 different species, has gone live, and the project plans to cover the rest of the 1.8 million known species in the next ten years. To give a sense of scope of the project, the consortium plans to scan 1 million volumes of biological text to be entered into the database.

    In essence, EOL will be a microscope in reverse, or “macroscope,” helping users to discern large-scale patterns. By aggregating information on Earth’s estimated 1.8 million known species, scientists say the EOL could, for example, help map vectors of human disease, reveal mysteries behind longevity, suggest substitute plant pollinators for a swelling list of places where honeybees no longer provide that service, and foster strategies to slow the spread of invasive species.

    Most importantly, the EOL will be a foundational resource for helping to conserve the species already known and to identify millions of additional species that haven’t yet been described or named. At its core is the knowledge about the world’s species that has been discovered by scientists over the last 250 years. By putting this information all together in one place, EOL hopes to accelerate our understanding of the world’s remaining biodiversity.

    The MBL has played a major role in developing the Encyclopedia of Life, which was officially launched in the spring of 2007. The EOL Biodiversity Informatics Group, based at the MBL and led by David J. Patterson, created the software for the EOL Web portal, which goes live today with the first species pages (www.eol.org). Each species page is an aggregation, or “mash-up,” of text, images, video, scientific data, and other information drawn from many different sources, and all vetted by scientific experts.

    Press release from Marine Biological Discovery in Woods Hole: MBL Creates Portal for Online "Macroscope" to Explore Life's Mysteries

    Encyclopedia of Life project page...

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    Wednesday, February 27, 2008

    Auties Go Online


    The internet is proving to be a tool of choice for autistic people, as they connect with each other and successfully communicate their feelings and emotions with one another. Wired magazine is running a feature on Amanda Baggs, a highly autistic woman, who participates within the autistic online community, arguing that autism is simply a different approach to communication rather than a type of mental retardation.

    Baggs is part of an increasingly visible and highly networked community of autistics. Over the past decade, this group has benefited enormously from the Internet as well as innovations like type-to-speech software. Baggs may never have considered herself trapped in her own world, but thanks to technology, she can communicate with the same speed and specificity as someone using spoken language.

    Autistics like Baggs are now leading a nascent civil rights movement. "I remember in '99," she says, "seeing a number of gay pride Web sites. I envied how many there were and wished there was something like that for autism. Now there is." The message: We're here. We're weird. Get used to it.

    This movement is being fueled by a small but growing cadre of neuropsychological researchers who are taking a fresh look at the nature of autism itself. The condition, they say, shouldn't be thought of as a disease to be eradicated. It may be that the autistic brain is not defective but simply different — an example of the variety of human development. These researchers assert that the focus on finding a cure for autism — the disease model — has kept science from asking fundamental questions about how autistic brains function.

    A cornerstone of this new approach — call it the difference model — is that past research about autistic intelligence is flawed, perhaps catastrophically so, because the instruments used to measure intelligence are bogus. "If Amanda Baggs had walked into my clinic five years ago," says Massachusetts General Hospital neuroscientist Thomas Zeffiro, one of the leading proponents of the difference model, "I would have said she was a low-functioning autistic with significant cognitive impairment. And I would have been totally wrong."

    More at Wired...

    (hat tip: BoingBoing)

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    Tuesday, February 26, 2008

    ZocDoc: Doctor Appointments Online

    ZocDoc, Inc., a New York, NY company, uses the advantages of web 2.0 to make it easier to find and book a dentist or doctor. Currently available only for Manhattan based clinicians, the website has just been selected as a finalist in CNET's Webware awards, according to ZocDoc's latest blog post. Since its launch in November 2007, it has been mentioned in The Wall Street Journal and Venture Beat, and was a presenting company at the TechCrunch40 conference. Patients can make a search for a doctor or dentist based on the location, appointment date, the reason for one's visit, or the patient's insurance coverage. So, who knows, it might even increase your clinician's bottom line.

    Here's what the website wants to provide to patients:

  • find doctors and dentists in your neighborhood,

  • judge their quality by patient reviews & ratings,

  • book them online 24/7.
  • More at Zocdoc...

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    Bassett Anatomical Image Collection Goes Online

    Stanford University has partnered with a company called eHuman to make available to the public one of the most impressive anatomical dissection image collections in the world. The Bassett collection, a work of David Bassett and William Gruber obsessively compiled and anotated more than 50 years ago, has been used for decades in medical schools as an aid in anatomy courses.

    The first set of images hits computer screens this month, an online library that takes the one-of-a-kind collection of photographs and makes them available in a whole new format with highlighted labeling and audio narration.

    Think "Body Worlds," the traveling exhibit of preserved human bodies viewed by millions, but much larger, with more detail and geared toward providing an encyclopedic volume of information about the anatomy of the human body.

    "The Bassett collection is simply the most beautiful dissection collection in existence," said Paul Brown, DDS, consulting associate professor of anatomy, referring to the 50-year-old collection of 1,547 photographs of serial dissections painstakingly annotated over a 17-year period. "The photographs are stunning."

    After almost four years of work by School of Medicine researchers together with eHuman, a Silicon Valley company, the first set of images of the head and neck are now ready for public viewing online at eHuman.com. By summer, the rest of the human body will follow. The images are free to the Stanford community and available to the public for a minimal fee.

    "This collection is designed for any student of anatomy, from a high-schooler, to a medical anatomist," said Brown, founder of eHuman, an anatomy dissection software company located in Portola Valley whose mission is to create the first "clickable" human, something akin to the Google Earth map project, but for the body.

    More from Stanford Medical Center Report...

    Selected Bassett Collection images on Flickr...

    Full collection can be subscribed to at eHuman...

    (hat tip: BoingBoing)

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    Tuesday, February 19, 2008

    F&S eBroadcast: Leveraging Global PLM

    Frost & Sullivan will be hosting a complimentary online eBroadcast on Tuesday, February 26, to discuss the use of PLM (Product Lifecycle Management) systems during development of medical devices.
    The use of PLM systems in the global medical device industry has grown rapidly in the last several years, even though the ROI benefits can be hard to visualize and measure. The greatest savings often come from what isn't done rather than what is - time not wasted, efforts not duplicated, defects and product recalls prevented.

    This complimentary 1-hour web cast will feature case studies by CooperVision and AGA Medical, two medical device companies who have successfully implemented a world-class PLM system and realized results.

    During this program we will learn how to:

  • Re-architect regionally maintained product documents into globally consistent Design History Files, Device Master Records, etc.

  • Coordinate, accelerate and control change management and version control

  • Enhance global collaborations while keeping everyone on the same page

  • Improve the quality of regulatory submissions while accelerating product registrations

  • Facilitate document retrieval to enhance performance on regulatory audits
  • To learn more and discuss PLM implementation within your business, register here for the free eBroadcast. Medgadget is proudly sponsoring the event.

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    Tuesday, January 29, 2008

    New Taber's Online: More Features


    F.A. Davis Company and Unbound Medicine, Inc. have just introduced a new online version of the popular Taber's Cyclopedic Medical Dictionary. Providing all the content of the hardbound copy, the online version sports such capabilities as extensively cross-linked terms & topics, 2,500 audio pronunciations, customized bookmarks, sophisticated searching that includes full-text, advanced, and "sounds like" searching, and links into Unbound MEDLINE. These features were not available in the old version of Taber's Online.

    Taber's Online is a paid service at thirty bucks for the subscription. Users can get access to the site, for one year, with a purchase of the book . There are other plans available, such as Taber's for Web + Mobile Devices, or by purchase Nursing Central, which bundles Taber's with other top-selling nursing reference products for Web-Wireless-PDA access.

    Taber's is offering a free subscription for one year to one of our readers, who correctly completes the following short quiz, and posts (correct) answers in the comments section of this post. Medgadget will randomly select a winner. Good luck!!!

    Update: The contest is over, thanks for playing.

    Taber's Online...

    Press to open the Taber's Challenge:

    READ MORE...


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