Feb 1
Posted by James in biology, culture, environment, food, funny
Scientists have observed bottlenose dolphins preparing cuttlefish for consumption.
Considering they can’t wield a knife or cleaver, dolphins make impressive butchers. Researchers in Australia recently observed a bottlenose performing a precise series of manoeuvres to kill, gut and bone a cuttlefish. The six-step procedure gets rid of the invertebrate’s unappetising ink and hard-to-swallow cuttlebone.
(Via kottke.org.)
Jan 27
Posted by James in biology, culture, engineering, management, medicine, science
As recently as 2001, a simple procedure was added to the protocol of a top notch hospital in the mid-atlantic. A year later, this simple procedure was seen to have been enormously effective.
They calculated that, in this one hospital, the checklist had prevented forty-three infections and eight deaths, and saved two million dollars in costs.
Yup, adding a checklist.
In a stellar piece of research and storytelling, Atul Gawande tells the ongoing story of critical-care specialist Peter Pronovost at Johns Hopkins Hospital.
Included and completely in context is an amazing story of mammalian diving reflex as embodied in a young Austrian girl, the challenges involved in supporting people in modern Intensive Care Units, and a neat anecdote about how the U.S. military and aviation as a discipline discovered the need for checklists.
A typically long and rewarding blog post by Roger Ebert; the subject, Elevation.
“Powerful moments of elevation sometimes seem to push a mental ‘reset button,’ wiping out feelings of cynicism and replacing them with feelings of hope, love, and optimism, and a sense of moral inspiration.”
Ebert covers the spectrum in this post: emotion, spirit, family, biology, “the odd” (like crying while watching Fargo), dead poets, you name it. Worth the five minute read *and* watching the few video clips he has embedded there. It’s a rare context that so aptly sets Debra Winger’s farewell in “Terms of Endearment” next to Michael Jordan’s heroic efforts while terribly sick in a playoff game.
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