inkycircus

Dr Google will see you now

Apparently, Google is almost 60% accurate in diagnosing disease. This doesn't mean that a hand comes out of your laptop, feels your forehead and shouts out 'flu'. It means that in a recent study, doctors typed symptoms into Google and analysed the resulting information, and in almost 60% of cases, Google produced pages featuring the correct diagnosis for the disease.

There are obviously pitfalls of using a search engine as a diagnostic tool like this, particularly when used by patients looking for information rather than doctors looking for corroboration. A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing - even relatively simple symptoms can take on ominous meanings when they appear as features of much more serious conditions. But at the end of the day, the more information you can have to hand, the better. Various studies have shown that it can be really helpful for patients receiving bad news to have a videotape of the consultation to watch later, as it can be hard to take everything in at the time. It makes sense to assume it would be similarly helpful for patients to come with a list of questions to put to their physician when their appointment rolls around. In these days of NHS waiting lists, you might not get to see them again for quite a while - so it makes sense to wring every drop of value out of each one-on-one session.

I'm not sure how many doctors would appreciate each and every one of their patients coming in each time with a checklist of what they might or might not have, but if the patient's research throws up sensible questions that lead to sensible discussions, that can only be a good thing. The moral of the story is, do your own research on-line before you go to see your doctor, but do go and see them. No search engine is really a substitute for a fully trained medical professional.

Via MSNBC. (PHOTO: LUSI)

An excuse to slouch

Workplaces are paranoid about repetitive strain injury (RSI). I have discovered that if you even mention a hint of a stiff neck, a crick in your wrist, an ache in your spine, suddenly you find yourself with a telephone headset, a new posh office chair and a footrest. It's great. I do wonder, though, what would happen if you told the office manager that sitting upright is actually extremely bad for your back, and that you really should be reclined at a comfortable 135 degrees (from thigh to body) for maximum comfort and therefore efficiency. Go on, I dare you to try it.

(PHOTO: TEDGUY49)

So nuts, I'm screwed

The other day I was shopping at my local grocery store, which has become surprisingly posh these last few years. They were giving out free samples of sweet-potato fries, coated and baked with this awesome tasty chili sauce. I ate some. They were darned good. So darned good that I asked for a jar of the chili stuff and planned on heading straight for the frozen section to grab the fries. I was all chattin' with the fry lady, who was particularly proud of the dipping sauce she'd made, mayo and more of the tasty chili, which I heartily enjoyed as well. So we're chattin' and I'm all "what is IN this nectar of the gods chili deliciousness?" And then I see it. Third ingredient. PEANUTS.

Anyone who's read this website before probably knows that I, Anna Gosline, am deathly allergic to nuts. But I really didn't want to freak out the lady. She was nice and blonde and happy. I wanted her to keep on having a good day. I wanted the thought that she just about killed me in front of the deli cheeses to never pass her mind. So I handed her back the jar and said "Oh, this has peanuts in it. I can't get any because my brother is allergic (LIE LIE LIE)." She replied, kindly, perky and concerned, "Well we're reformulating with cashews!" And I had to tell her that he (ME ME ME)) is allergic to them too. To which she said, all sad-faced, "poor thing, but you are sure lucky to have escaped it!" Cough. "Yeah." I snuck away, took two Benadryl and hoped I wouldn't fall asleep on the 6 minute drive home.

It's funny, see, all the press attention that peanut allergies get. Mars are spending MILLIONS of advertising dollars promoting their new Canadian bars are totally peanut-free. Which is cool. Nestle makes an assortment of Halloween candy (Smarties, Coffee Crisp, Kit Kat. Aero) that is likewise free of peanuts. It's been a long hard battle by folks like Anne Munoz-Furlong of Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network, to gain this ground. I salute people like her who have given us peanut allergy freaks the ability to enjoy our candy.

But what about us losers stuck with the multi-nut allergy, eh? An estimated 1.1% of Americans are allergic to peanut and/or tree nuts (almonds, cashews, walnuts etc). But just 0.3% are allergic to both - like ME! Of course then there are the weirdos like my brother, who can down a jar of peanut butter in 7 minutes but will blow up like a balloon at the first sight of a walnut. Go figure.

I just want to know how many more years it will take before all the nuts, either pea or tree, are considered equal. Both are lethal - some studies suggest that peanuts and tree nuts account for up to 90% of deaths by anaphylactic reactions - though peanut death is nearly twice as prevalent. Both are ground and buttered, used as fillers and thickeners in all sorts of places you wouldn't expect to find them - though peanuts, being cheaper, are used more often.

So yes, peanuts are the uber-killer, and have been granted their special status according. I guess I won't hold my breath until the lesser nut assassins make the grade. Though really, I should practice for all those times when my asshat brother breathes peanut breath on my face OR when my windpipe starts to swell shut after I eat someone's "there are no nuts in this, only almonds!" curry.

Did I mention that I hate snow, too?

How to pick a bad analogy

Warning - I am about to lower the tone of this blog. But it is Friday night so I think it's justified. A group of German sex educators have come up with a solution to loose and poorly fitting condoms. Their product, Das Spray-Kondom, is a fit-all condom. Because it sprays on. It comes (fnar) in a can, which is, erm, fitted over, then sprays an even layer of latex from nozzles on all sides of the can. Sort of like a car wash. But without the brushes. Surely they could have come up with a better analogy., such as, oh I don't know, a SPRAY TAN booth perhaps? Car wash indeed. Good one, guys. Way to make your product even less appealing than it already is...

More from The Telegraph here. (PHOTO: PAL BERGE)

McDonalds are patently insane

McDonalds are trying to claim the "method and apparatus for making a sandwich" as its intellectual property. Yes, that's right. They're trying to claim a retrospective patent on how you put filling in bread.

Two things strike me about this. Firstly, and most obviously, this is crazy. You surely cannot patent something as ubiquitous as making a sandwich. Surely. Even though everyone has their own ideal way of making a sarnie (margarine v butter, fresh bread v toasted bread, salad v no salad, mayo v no mayo, ham v cheese, wagyu beef and foie gras etc etc etc), it's barmy for McDonalds to want to retrospectively claim rights on all this.

Secondly, a little mystery is good. If you describe something too much or think about it too hard, you ruin it. Case in point some of the phraseology of their scientific patent (which you can read in more detail at Guardian Unlimited here). It mentions things like a "cavity" where the filling goes (cavity in what? ew) and "condiments such as liquid or semi-liquid cheese". Now I like a nice plate of cheese-on-toast with melted gruyere as much as the next person, and I feel strongly that a cheese burger only really works if the cheese is nice and melty, but called the cheese "semi-liquid" makes me feel queasy.

And the patent apparently runs to 55 pages. What's wrong with the world!

(FYI - If you are a meat-eater and want to eat the best sandwich ever bar none, I suggest you pay the cafe in the Museum of Modern Art a visit. Their pulled pork sandwich is To Die For.)

(PHOTO: WORDRIDDEN)

Sex advice - don't be silly...

I was watching telly the other day, and had a cup of tea and a comfy spot on the sofa so I stayed to to watch the adverts in the commercial break. I learned about no-win-no-fee lawyers, where to buy Jamie Oliver's latest cookery book, and that having sex without a condom can give you gonorrhea or chlamydia.

The last advert was a public health message designed to encourage teenagers to carry condoms. It featured sets of promiscuous young folk getting up to no good. The way that we knew they weren't using protection of any kind was from their outfits - the girls were usually wearing (or had just discarded) clothing printed with the names of sexually transmitted diseases. So one girl was wearing frilly pants with 'Chlamydia' embroidered on them, and another was wearing a stylish belt who's buckle spelled out 'Gonorrhea'. The take home message was also fashion based - "Condoms: Essential Wear".

I wouldn't have thought any more of it had I not seen the story featured on Yahoo! Health News the other day. The story is all in favour of the new advert, and I actually agree that's it pretty good. Public health messages are not known for their stylish design, and the words NHS are a big turn off. This campaign is all about style, and a big part of that is the rather good website 'Condoms - Essential Wear'. In comparison, the NHS sexual health clinic website is a pain to navigate. The other interesting thing about this website is a button entitled digg this. This impresses me - they're trying to appeal to web friendly young people. My only complaint is that I can't find anywhere on the site or elsewhere where you can watch the ad and that seems remiss. There is however a handy button to click to hide what you were looking at.... If you click on it, you get this which is really rather nifty.

I do think, though, that many teenagers probably don't know that GPs give out free condoms. I didn't know that when I was a teenager... The site does have a page saying where you can get them free, but it shouldn't be so subtle. It should be a great big red arrow on the front page...

(PHOTO: WAZARI)

Into yer sleeve I beg you

Last August the CDC started an ad campaign to get people to sneeze and cough better. Unfortunately it didn't take off too well. So in stepped OtoRhinoLounsburgology Productions with their award winning short film "Why Don't We Do It In Our Sleeves?" Good question.

Whatever your sneezing etiquette, the film will have you converted in seconds flat. The instructional video illustrates correct and downright wrong ways in which to propel your germs from your nasal cavity. It also gives you several options in which you can use your sleeve "depending on your dimensions, flexibility of your joints, whether you are wearing long or short sleeves, and your ability to cough at an angle." There's also a hilarious stint where a panel of three judges score members of the snotty public on their form.

Random sneeze facts:

1. Most estimates of the speed of a sneeze hover around 150km/hour or 100mph - about as fast as a pitcher throws a fastball. That said, the JFK Health World Museum in Barrington Illinois claim a sneeze can go as fast as 85% of the speed of sound or approximately 630 miles per hour...

2. The reason they're so forceful is because near every muscle in the general vicinity joins the effort.

3. Thomas Edison and Dickson's short film of their employee's sneeze is the earliest surviving copyrighted motion picture.

All hail the horseshoe

IT'S ONE SMALL STEP FOR A CRAB.... (PHOTO: AVALORE)
The Horseshoe Crab is a pretty basic sort of creature. It's not going to win any beauty contests, looking like a cross between a contestant in Robot Wars and a garden trowel. But if you're an astronaut it might just save your life.

In the 300 million years or so that these little crabs have been pottering about the planet, they've evolved a primitive but incredibly sensitive immune system that is teaching NASA a thing or two about medicine. The crabs' blood contains enzymes that are capable of recognising infections consisting of a single bacterium, so the appropriate iummne response is triggered amazingly swiftly. NASA has figured out a way to extract these enzymes from horseshoe crab's blood cells (without damaging the crabs), and put them into a hand-held diagnostic device for astronauts. The astronauts need such a device because there are no GPs, labs or petri dishes in space, and if they get sick they need to know what's wrong and FAST. This device (called the LOCAD-PTS) might not be so hot on identifying the maurauding bacteria (yet) but it will definitely win the race for speed and tell the spacemen that they need to take some antibiotics and have a hot lemsip asap.

Via NASA.com.

UK face transplants get the go-ahead

The Royal College of Surgeons has given the go-ahead for face transplants in Britain. They were set against the idea only 3 years ago, but the success of the operation on Isabelle Dinoire in France last year seems to have convinced them. Surgeon Mr Peter Butler of the Royal Free Hospital in North London says he is now in the process of putting together a short list of suitable patients, and hopes to have ethics approval in the next few months.

There are conditions involved with this new step, 15 of them. They seem to be pretty comprehensive and are actually extremely reassuring. They include issues such as the psychological support that will be available for the patient and their family whether or not the op is a success, the duties towards all the families involved, the money that needs to be available for after-care, how the scarcity of donors will be dealt with and the families of the donors helped and reassured, and, obviously, whether the surgeons involved have the requisite level of skill to carry out the operation. Here's the list in total from The Times.

As well as the ghoulish fascination displayed around the world about Ms Dinoire's experiences (ahem), there was also concern that Isabelle had been used as a test case and that the events and preparation surrounding the transplant were all a bit shady. This list of 15 conditions brings it all out into the open, in a good way. That said, identifying the issues doesn't produce a simple check-box list. They're all complex and thorny challenges. But if the surgeons can manage to tick the boxes, they may be able to help others the way Isabelle Dinoire seems to have been helped...

More from BBC News here. (PHOTO: TUTU55)

Have a backache? Just lick it..

(PHOTO NR49)

We all know that our bodies come equipped with their own pain-fighting mechanisms. Take the endorphins, or endogenous opioid, which flow down the same groovy pathway as, well, non-endogenous opioid like heroin and morphine. They feel real nice.

Now a bunch of French researchers have isolated another one of these natural drugs. But this time, they found it in human saliva. Then they tested the drug, called opiorphin on seriously pained rodents. The results suggest it was more effective per dose than morphine.

So, like yeah. Got a pain? Just give it a wee lick. Either that or collect a bunch of your saliva, and then inject it into the problem area. Both, I think, are totally sensible. Results may vary.