Air Traffic Footprint
Category: Environment/nature
From Cratylus, an intriguing visualization of worldwide air traffic, with notes on carbon impact:
Posted by David Dobbs at 9:31 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Neuron Culture
David Dobbs on science, nature, and culture.
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I write on science, medicine, nature, culture and other matters for the New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, Slate, National Geographic, Scientific American Mind, and other publications. (Find clips here.) Right now I'm writing my fourth book, The Orchid and the Dandelion, which explores the hypothesis that the genetic roots some of our worst problems and traits — depresison, hyperaggression, violence, antisocial behavior — can also give rise to resilience, cooperation, empathy, and contentment. The book expands on my December 2009 Atlantic article exploring these ideas.
I've also written three books, including Reef Madness: Charles Darwin, Alexander Agassiz, and the Meaning of Coral, which traces the strangest but most forgotten controversy in Darwin's career — an elemental dispute running some 75 years.
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- The mojo of open journalism, plus that itchy beta thing
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- Chess computing as a metaphor for Pharma. Who knew?
- Democrats Now See 'No Rush' on Health Care Bill
- Why do antidepressants work only for the deeply depressed? A neuroskeptical look
- Rice, alcohol, and really fast evolution in humans
- Ezra Klein - America spends way, way, way more on health care
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Morning dip - Health-reform, height prediction, flying birds, eye contact
Category: Healthcare policy
Karen Tumlty, a health-care expert, describes in Time her own family's grueling wrestling match with the health-insurance industry. A timely story -- no pun intended -- as it makes painfully clear that it's not just the 46 million people uninsured (did I just say "just" 46 million people) who fare poorly in the current system.
Posted by David Dobbs at 6:43 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Economic policy as genetic diversification
Category: Economics
Sort of. Economist Edward Glasser, via Andrew Sullivan, makes it clear why they call static old industries "dinosaurs." This seems...
Posted by David Dobbs at 9:49 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
The drug rep's ultimate sales tool - "First one's free"
Category: Pharma
A former: drug rep explains : Samples are the number one influencer of the prescribing habits of doctors, and I...
Posted by David Dobbs at 9:45 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Can medical records serve both statistical and patient needs?
Category: Healthcare policy
Reader Jay, in a comment on my post about health-care costs tanking the economy, questions whether the sorts of standardized medical records that would be needed to evaluate efficacy (and therefore economic efficiency) of various treatments would still be optimal for patient treatment purposes. I would think records could serve both purposes. A good patient record for hospital and provider uses would clearly show what? -- diagnosis or diagnoses under treatment; related diagnoses; key relevant variables in patient health and demographics like age, etc; prior conditions; and treatments and outcomes, as well as ancillary stuff like what they ate and so on. It seems to me those same things are just what you want to measure when you evaluate whether a particular drug or device or treatment protocol works.
Posted by David Dobbs at 9:19 PM • 7 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
A hidden health-care cost: patients' time
Category: Healthcare policy
"Although it doesn't currently enter into our national statistics, the time that patients spend getting health care services should be reflected in the way we calculate America's national health care expenditures.....Time spent interacting with the medical system could be used for other activities, like work and leisure. Moreover, spending time getting medical care is not fun. This time should be counted as part of the cost of health care."
Posted by David Dobbs at 9:59 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
How health-care inefficiencies are tanking the economy
Category: Healthcare policy
David Leonhardt's marvelous-but-long piece on the fiscal crisis in last week's Times Magazine, argues that our health care systems stunning inefficiencies are a) a prime example of a vested elite's ability to manipulate the economy for its own good and b) one of the most serious obstacles to the nation's long-term financial health because they are a huge drag on the economy.
Posted by David Dobbs at 9:36 PM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
The joys of writing about (a great) depression
Category: Economics
Amid much good reporting on the current economic mess has been some weird vicarious excitement -- the sort of giddy buzz of kids watching a disaster and simultaneously not realizing that it's real and hoping it gets worse. You see this in the many stories about the Great Depression, the implication being that we're facing something similar here. A lot of writers seem almost eager to see what such a thing looks like. Is this a longing to be Part of History?
Posted by David Dobbs at 2:02 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Tom Friedman on (not) bailing out Detroit
Category: Economics
That the auto industry would repeat the same mistake (again, multiple times) so soon and so spectacularly almost defies belief. Do these people deserve another shot? Should we fool ourselves they can learn enough to turn these companies around? Evidence suggests otherwise. Their failure to learn brings to mind that Simpsons scene where Bart -- or is it Homer -- keeps reaching for the treat even though he gets shocked every time. Impervious to conditional learning.
Posted by David Dobbs at 6:07 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
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