Terminal cancer patient Randy Pausch fulfills childhood dream of practicing with the Steelers. (Earlier) Music fans, angered by price gouging, sabotage scalpers’ auctions online. More primping before work could mean higher wages. The newest formula in boxing stats: the Tyson Index.
Video Our International Woman of Mystery returns in a new video, “Do Doctors Wash Their Hands?” Here’s a column we wrote on the subject, and here’s some recent bad news. For a real time warp, read this 1859 essay by Ignaz Semmelweis, and ask yourself why on earth we are still talking about hand washing.
Randy Pausch, a prominent computer scientist at Carnegie Mellon, yesterday gave his farewell lecture. He is 46 years old, and he is dying from pancreatic cancer. Read this remarkable article, by Mark Roth, about a remarkable man. I will give you a dollar if you make it to the end without crying. My condolences and best wishes to Pausch’s family . . .
Remodeling Online ranks return rates for home improvement projects. (Hat tip: Consumerist) How people in other countries stay healthy. (Earlier) Left-handed people rebounding in numbers. (Earlier) Hedge-funders offer $1 mill. to encourage cancer research-sharing.
I am a big fan of cheap, simple solutions to complex problems – but really, who isn’t? One example is a column we wrote a while back on incentivizing doctors to do a better job of washing their hands to fight hospital-acquired infections. Similarly, this New York Times article described a study at a V.A. hospital in Pittsburgh where “the . . .
New book advocates following your gut. U.S. obesity rates keep on climbing. (Earlier) Ways to avoid hospital-transmitted infections. (Earlier) Red Lobster launches health-conscious Web site. (Earlier)
August 27 is the day in 1900 when U.S. Army physician James Carroll allowed a mosquito infected with yellow fever to bite him, thereby enabling his colleague, Army pathologist Walter Reed, to prove that the insects transmitted the disease. While their research led to development of a vaccine, the disease is still rampant, and often fatal — as is the . . .
When I first read this headline — “Doctors Warn of Poisoning From Hand Gels” — I assumed the accompanying Reuters article was about the potential danger of becoming too dependent on alcohol-based disinfectants like Purell. (Here’s an article we wrote about hospital-acquired infections and the pressing need for medical personnel to clean their hands; here’s a more recent development.) The . . .