Sunspots 983

 

Things I have spotted that may be of interest to others:

The BBC has fact-checked President Trump's meeting with the President of South Africa. His claims don't stand up. Other sources have published similar findings.

Earth.com reports on breakthroughs in identifying long-dead North American megafauna (mammoths, giant sloths, etc.)

The BBC discusses the so-called Golden Done defense system.

The BBC also discusses the noise associated with Bitcoin mining (whatever that is!). Apparently it's quite annoying and pervasive.

Gizmodo reports on a study of how giant sloths disappeared.

Gizmodo also reports that Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy's recent paper on Making America Healthy Again refers to health studies that were never carried out.

Gizmodo also reports that two different species of termites are mating and producing hybrids, which may be really destructive.

Sunspots 670

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

The Arts: (Thanks to one of my brothers for this one!) National Public Radio reports that a farmer uses the positions of his cows to write messages visible from a satellite. There's a video. Really.

Christianity: He Lives reminds us that the Gospel is for believers, too.

BioLogos on why the bodily resurrection of Christ is so important.

Health: Gizmodo reports on infant deaths in the US, state by state. The US, as a whole, has a higher death rate than Europe, and no state is as low as Europe.
   Science: Scientific American reports that meditation may not make us "nicer."

New Scientist reports on a newly discovered human organ, and some of its importance.


Thanks for looking!

Image source (public domain)

Sunspots 569

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:



Christianity: Relevant thinks that so-called Christian movies are usually pretty bad, and that it's not because of a giant anti-Christian conspiracy to call them bad. How to fix this? The article says to tell stories like Jesus did.

Relevant also points out that most churches don't serve -- in fact may hurt -- people with mental illnesses.

I am a member of The Wesleyan Church. David Drury has written a brief essay on "What are Wesleyans for?" (as opposed to what, if anything, they might be against.)

Computing: Gizmo's Freeware reports on an on-line utility that can convert most any file format to any other reasonable format. This includes audio formats, as well as document formats.

Gizmo's has also found a free ransomware protection program. I installed it.

And Gizmo's has advice on how to recover your wireless password.

Wired reports on the progress, and imperfectness, of computer transcription of human speech -- there's still about an 8% error rate. (Humans doing the transcribing have about a 4% error rate.)

Health: Wired reports that only about 3% of US adult inhabitants have a truly healthy lifestyle, and that eating healthy, exercising, etc., doesn't guarantee that you will remain well.

History: Listverse tells us about 10 important African-American cowboys.

Politics: (And religion) Relevant has pointed out that some of President Obama's speeches sounded like Christian preaching.

FiveThirtyEight examines the salaries of state legislators (in New Mexico, they don't get a salary), and finds that state legislatures seem to do better work when better paid.

FiveThirtyEight also analyzes the Republican race for President, and finds that Donald Trump is doing worse than any other front-runner in the last few decades.

Science: Wired reports that nuclear power plants are actually very safe, but that they don't produce electricity as cheaply as other means, so they aren't getting built.

Wired also posted some photos of magnified peacock feathers, which are just amazing.

Listverse posts 10 facts about cancer cells from the late Henrietta Lacks, which cells have been critical to cancer research. For more about Mrs. Lacks, see here.

Sports: FiveThirtyEight on whether the Chicago Cubs will actually do something important in baseball this year.

Image source (public domain)

Sunspots 537

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

The Arts: (or something) Lego-like blocks have been produced, only they are large enough to build real furniture and buildings.

Christianity: Relevant on "How Worry Warps Your View of God," and how to get the right view back.

Benjamin L. Corey gives 12 signs that you got your "Biblical" Worldview from Fox News (not the Bible).

Computing: Gizmo's Freeware reviews free Virtual Private Networks.

Finance: From the New York Times, an interactive web site that helps you decide whether to rent or purchase a home, based on your own data.

Health: Relevant wants to know "Why Don't Churches Ever Talk About Physical Health."

Politics: Benjamin L. Corey also thinks that some people go way too far in their defense of gun rights.

Science: In a report published this week in Nature, we learn that there are about three trillion trees on the earth.

Wired reports that royal jelly doesn't result in queen bees in the way we have thought it did.



Image source (public domain)

Sunspots 472

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

Computing: According to Forbes, Amazon is hiring people to work in its delivery by drone sector. I'm going to start looking out the window when I order something from them . . .
Gizmo's Freeware suggests installing Wiser for people with Android Smartphones that are a little too complex for those users.
Health: National Public Radio tells us that we are still eating way too much fat and salt, even on our vegetables.
Humor: (And Education) National Public Radio gives advice on the content of a good commencement address, with examples.
Science: Fox News reports on a list of the 10 most interesting new organisms discovered in 2013.

Image source (public domain)

An important book on cancer

At the urging of a relative, who lent it to me, I recently read what some have labeled the most important book on cancer published in my lifetime. The book is The Emperor of all Maladies: A Biography of Cancer, by Siddhartha Mukherjee, and it won, among other awards, the Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction.

The book is written so as to be accessible to lay persons, although it has many notes, and a good index, so those seeking further information can explore further.

So what's it about? It's about the history of our attempt to prevent, and/or cure, cancer, from the beginnings of medical science until almost the present. Many names of important scientists and health professionals, and some philanthropists, politicians and what we now call activists are included, along with a sentence or more on what they were, or are, like. Many developments in the history of our work with cancer are described, such as establishing the link between tobacco and lung cancer.

What's the message of the book? More correctly, what are the messages of the book?

One of them is that cancer is many different ailments. The Human Genome Project "maps" the DNA bases of "normal" people. It's an enormous trove of data. The Cancer Genome Atlas, referred to in the book, and under development, promises to be much larger than the map of the human genome.

Another message is that we can't expect to cure cancer until we understand the workings of normal human cells better than we do now. Cancer occurs when the mechanisms that cause and control cell multiplication get out of kilter. Those mechanisms are complex. Our understanding is getting there, making some strides that scientists of a couple of generations ago wouldn't have even understood, but we aren't there yet.

Another message is that government, business, or academic bureaucracy can get in the way of doing some good things for people that are in desperate need. That's hardly a surprise, but the story of cancer has too many examples of this sort of thing.

Another message, although Mukherjee doesn't put it in those terms, is the way in which our progress toward curing and preventing cancer illustrates the thesis of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, by Thomas S. Kuhn. Kuhn claimed that science changes, not so much because of experiments, as because of revolutions in the thinking of the scientific community. These revolutions usually leave some older scientists bypassed -- they are stuck in an old way of looking at natural phenomena, and don't ever accept more correct and fruitful ways. Over and over, this happened in the biography of cancer.

We have made some progress, in preventing some forms of cancer, and in curing some others. But there are many cancers we don't have much of a handle on yet, and many patients who suffer through chemotherapy without much benefit. A sobering story.

Cancer is such a complex subject that it is probably not possible to come close to understanding it without reading a book such as Mukherjee's, or the equivalent. I'm glad that I understand this disease, which stands a good chance of ending my own life, a little better. (I am not aware that I have any form of cancer, but you never know, especially the older you get.)

Thanks for reading.

Medical ethics: Introduction, and questions for Christians

Bioethics is a word derived from the Greek words for biology and ethics. Biology is the study of life. Ethics is concerned with right behavior. So bioethics is an academic, and applied, discipline, about to proper behavior related to living things. You might suppose that bioethics concerns such matters as protecting endangered species, and, from the origin of the word, it should, but that branch of ethics is usually called environmental ethics, and will not be considered further here. (For more on that subject, see this post on “Environmental Stewardship in the Bible.”)

Bioethics, for this post, considers what behavior is right, in relation to health care. It is also called medical ethics.

Christians should be concerned with bioethics. Why? Here are some questions on the subject to consider:

1) Should a Christian seek medical treatment, or never do so, but trust in God to heal, in answer to prayer? Should a Christian avoid paying for health insurance, but trust in God’s provisions for financial needs?
2) Abortion, for some Christians, is the most important issue in society. Is this type of medical “care” ethical? If not, why not? Does the Bible clearly indicate that abortion is murder? If it doesn’t (or even if it does), is abortion ever justifiable? Are any forms of birth control acceptable for Christians to use? Are various forms of apparent wrong-doing, from deceit in anti-abortion ad campaigns, through murdering doctors who work in abortion clinics, things that Christians can do without sin?
(Here’s a more extensive discussion of abortion.)
3) What is a person -- that is, someone who should be treated as if they had rights? Is an infant a person, in that sense? A fetus? An embryo? A fertilized egg? A sperm? An unfertilized egg? A child? A person in a persistent coma or persistent vegetative state? A person who is temporarily unconscious? A person who has died within the past few hours? An intelligent animal, such as a dolphin, whale, chimpanzee or bonobo? A really fast computer with lots of processing ability and memory? A computer program capable of interacting in English with a human being such that the human can’t be sure whether the interaction is with a computer or another human? An intelligent alien organism? (Note that these are not scientific questions, or at least not mostly scientific questions. They are moral, religious, legal, political and philosophical. There have been times when, to our shame, blacks or women were not considered persons, in many senses.)
4) Some types of procedures or treatments strike some Christians (and some others) as so unnatural that they shouldn’t be allowed. Human cloning is one such procedure. Other types of “enhancements,” such as the use of drugs by athletes, are more common. Are there limits to what should be done to “enhance” the human body, including the brain?
5) Christ taught justice and concern for the poor, and Psalm 72 indicates that the government (in that case, King David, who was the government) has some responsibility for care of the poor. Is it right that the relatively wealthy, and seniors, should have access to expensive medical care, when the poor don’t? If not, why not?
6) Should Christians oppose the current fee-based “system” of medical care in the U. S., as unfair and wasteful? That “system” has financial rewards for medical facilities that encourage expensive procedures, as opposed to more simple treatments like exercise and diet. It also has financial rewards for doctors who become specialists, as opposed to those who become family practice, physicians, or geriatric physicians. It gives insurance companies incentives for not paying for treatments, for delaying payment, or for not covering sick people, who need insurance most, at all. It makes it likely that patients who are unable to pay for care will go to emergency rooms, where care, which someone has to pay for, is more expensive, and where their care may be interfering with true emergencies. The “system” emphasizes treatment, rather than prevention, which would often be cheaper and more effective.
(As I understand it, so-called Obamacare would do little, or nothing, to fix most of these issues, or might make the problems worse.)
7) Many people in the US have no healthcare insurance. Currently (Obamacare may change this) such insurance is most often obtained through employment. This often results in employers hiring people on a part-time basis, so they don’t have to pay for part of the employee’s health insurance, when, otherwise, that same employee might have been hired on a full-time basis. Also, health insurance costs for companies are high enough that it is difficult for them to compete with firms from other countries where health insurance is not a benefit of employment. Should Christians work to change this way of doing things? Do Christians have any special duty to advocate particular modes of governing, or of economics? Is trying to spread the gospel of salvation, which is important for eternity, compatible with trying to change laws, or trying to change those who have political power? Why or why not?
8) Research to bring new medicines and treatments to usefulness is expensive, and should be compensated, especially since the majority of such new treatments and drugs don’t turn out to be useful, and it is usually impossible to know that without years of expensive testing. But drug companies charge considerably more to US customers, in many cases, than they do to others, and they keep patents on medications active by tweaking minor features, such as the color or shape of the pill, when otherwise such medications could be sold as generic. Is this fair? Should Christians oppose this?
9) Everyone, barring the second coming, is going to die. When should we “let them go,” and let someone die, if ever? Should everything possible be done to keep someone breathing? If not, why not? Is it ever all right to administer treatment which will hasten death? If not, why not? Does God ever allow Christians to take their own lives, or to engage in actions that will lead to their deaths? A lot of healthcare resources are spent in taking care of persons who are within a few days of dying. Is this legitimate?
10) Are psychoses, addictions, emotional illnesses and physical handicaps the result of sin in the person’s life, or are they diseases, like, say, chicken pox, and the result of living in a fallen world? Should addictions and emotional illnesses receive any specialized treatment, other than prayer and care?
11) How do we deal with aging, or otherwise incapacitated, relatives and friends? Must a Christian put her life on hold to help such people? Is it ever right to act against their wishes, or even to deceive them?
12) Should there be differences in how people get health care, based on sex, age, income, ethnicity, religion, disability, and the like? If so, why? If there are such differences, should Christians oppose this?
13) Are we, as a society, spending too much on healthcare, at the expense of, say, public school education, or infrastructure?
14) Each Christian should examine her own life. Does she exercise properly? Get enough sleep? Eat healthful foods? Avoid exposure to UV rays, from the sun or tanning beds? Avoid harmful foods and drinks?

Where can we get guidance on such issues, and others?
There are several candidates for such guidance, among those who claim expertise in bioethics. They include:
1) Deontological ethics. This type of ethics holds that some things are always wrong, or always right, no matter what the circumstances. For example, it could be argued that it is never right to deliberately deceive a patient. Following deontological ethics doesn’t answer the question of how to decide what’s always right and always wrong. The Ten Commandments, the Bible as a whole, or the Hippocratic Oath, might be taken as guides for this, but they don’t cover all questions in bioethics. (There have been many attempts to modify the Oath for our culture -- Hippocrates lived four centuries before Christ. Here is one such.)
2) Consequentialist ethics. This type of ethics holds that what is right and wrong depends on the consequences, so we should try to make as many people happy as possible, and as few unhappy. Perhaps the Golden Rule of Matthew 7:12 is a form of this type of decision-making. One problem with this approach is that we don’t always know what the consequences will be.  Another problem is that this approach seems to deny the possibility of absolute moral directives.
3) Be virtuous. (See Virtue Ethics in the Wikipedia.)
4) Establish principles, and work from them. The book that was, for many years, the most important text in biomedical ethics was built around four such principles, in order from the most important to less so: Autonomy, giving the patient power over decisions; Beneficence, doing good; Nonmaleficence, not doing harm; Justice, treating people fairly.

If principles are to be the touchstone for medical ethics for Christians, the following is a proposed set of Christian principles which are relevant:
A. Treat others with unselfish agape love (1 Corinthians 13, and the Golden Rule); 
B. Treat one’s body as if it were the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19-20).
C. Treat resources as if they came from God, (1 Chronicles 29:10-14) as responsible stewards.
D. Remember that life and death are ultimately in God's hands (Deuteronomy 32:39).

This was originally posted on August 16, 2013, but has since been tweaked a little. Thanks to anyone who may read this post.

Sunspots 409

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

Health: An article on healthy snacking, and which says that snacking helps you lose weight, in AZSCentral.

Science: Fire ants can sting. I knew that, from experience. But NPR reports that there are people who are allergic to the bites, which can be life-threatening. There's also a link to a news report that a South Carolina high school football game was postponed because there were too many fire ant nests on the field. (See here for my own photo of a fire ant nest.)

NPR also reports on a very scary "superbug," a bacterial type that is resistant to almost everything, and can pass that resistance on to other types of bacteria.

Scientists have been able to get human glial cells (see Wikipedia article on those) to grow in mouse brains, according to a report by NPR. These mice acted normally, as far as could be determined, but were able to learn much more quickly.

NPR also reports that bees like caffeine, and that it helps their memory.

Image source (public domain)

Proper hand-washing

Antibacterial soaps have become increasingly popular in recent years. However, these soaps are no more effective at killing germs than is regular soap. Using antibacterial soaps may lead to the development of bacteria that are resistant to the products' antimicrobial agents — making it even harder to kill these germs in the future. In general, regular soap is fine.  - "Hand washing: an easy way to prevent infection," from the Mayo Clinic.

The same document suggests the use of alcohol-containing hand sanitizers.

The US Centers for Disease Control gives similar advice.

Flu is caused by a virus, not by bacteria. Antibiotics, and other anti-bacterial agents, have little or no effectiveness against viruses. As I understand it, alcohol can damage virus structure, hence has some effectiveness against these germs.

Wash often, using soap and water, or use alcohol-based hand sanitizers. The reason that washing is effective is that it removes the germs from your hands, so that you don't carry them to your nose or mouth. You can remove viruses and bacteria (and other things!) from your hands that way.

Bacterial resistance is all too common. It is often the result of natural selection -- exposure to an anti-bacterial agent kills susceptible bacteria, but leaves those that are resistant, which, as a result, means the the population at large is more resistant. As some of you know from unfortunate experience, it is now possible to get staphylococcus, and other infections, which are very difficult to fight with antibiotics. The same infection, a few decades ago, would probably have been easy to treat. Using antibiotics too often, in soap, in cattle feed, and probably in other ways, has selected for bacteria that are very hard to stop, and may kill us. (See Wikipedia article on antibiotic resistance.)

Keep clean! Thanks for reading.