Friday, 31 May 2013

Bloger Sun power sends 'high-tech dragonfly' across the US


Historic trip: Solar Impulse flies from San Francisco Bay, California to Phoenix, Arizona.    Sun power sends 'high-tech dragonfly' across the US 

The plane has an ultra-light, carbon frame and weighs 1585 kilos - about the same as a mid-size car. It has the wingspan of a 747 and a slender fuselage, giving it the look of a giant, high-tech dragonfly.
The plane's power is drawn from the sun by that form the top of its wings. It is collected in a series of batteries arrayed behind the craft's four electric engines.It routinely reaches altitudes of up to , well below the thin air traversed by big commercial aircraft zipping around at close to . On-board instruments alert the pilot if the plane banks even a degree too far.For all of its innovations, at this piloted across the Atlantic Ocean in 1927.The plane's engines put out about 10 horsepower - roughly the same amount as the Wright brothers' first planes. Solar Impulse cannot take off or land in windy conditions, nor can it fly through clouds. The lone pilot wears a parachute and is confined to an area the size of a ''bad economy seat,'' noted the project's chief executive and co-founder Andre an engineer and former fighter pilot.The tiny cockpit is unheated the pilot must endure extreme heat and cold and wear an oxygen mask. On long flights, meditation and advanced breathing techniques to stay. His psychiatrist, does self-hypnosis.And as for bodily functions - the pilot relies on spent water bottles and eschews fibrous foods in the days before a flight to make sure that nappies do not have to be used.But comfort is not the goal. ''The point of this is to underscore how far we've come and how far we need to go to develop alternative sources of power, particularly solar energy,'' said Bob van Linden, chairman of the aeronautics department at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. ''This will help push the technology along.''Pilot Bertrand landed having used only three-quarters of the plane's battery power.Advertisement'It's a little bit like being in a dream,'' said as he stepped on the tarmac.The plane has an ultra-light, frame and weighs 1585 kilos - about the same as a mid-size car. Solar Impulse co-founder, pilot and CEO Andre Borschberg.  It has the wingspan of a 747 and a slender fuselage, giving it the look of a giant, high-tech dragonfly.The plane's power is drawn from the sun by cells that form the top of its wings. It is collected in a series of batteries arrayed behind the craft's four electric engines.It routinely reaches altitudes of up to 8500 , well below the thin air traversed by big commercial aircraft zipping around at close to . On-board instruments alert the pilot if the plane banks even a degree too far.For all of its innovations, at this stage of development, Solar Impulse is no more practical for commercial flight than was the single-engine Spirit of St Louis that Charles Lindbergh piloted across the Atlantic Ocean in plane's engines put out about 10 horsepower - roughly the same amount as the Wright brothers' first planes. Solar Impulse cannot take off or land in windy conditions, nor can it fly through clouds. The lone pilot wears a parachute and is confined to an area the size of a ''bad economy seat,'' noted the project's chief executive and co-founder Andre , 60, an engineer and former fighter pilot.The tiny cockpit is unheated and meaning the pilot must endure extreme heat and cold and wear an oxygen mask. On long flights, meditation and advanced breathing techniques to stay. His co-founder , a psychiatrist, does self .   Hypnosis.And  as for bodily functions - the pilot relies on spent water bottles and eschews fibrous foods in the days before a flight to make sure that nappies do not have to be used.But comfort is not the goal. ''The point of this is to underscore how far we've come and how far we need to go to develop alternative sources of power, particularly solar energy,'' said Bob van Linden, chairman of the aeronautics department at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. ''This will help push the technology along.''A plane powered only by the sun has completed the first leg of a journey that aims to cross the US.The plane, the first able to fly day and night, began a transcontinental journey that will reach Washington by mid-June.Solar Impulse lifted off from a World War II-era airfield in San Francisco on Friday and has room for only one person and an average cruising speed of about It landed in Phoenix, Arizona, some 18 hours later. Dragonfly' across the Bloger.

Thursday, 30 May 2013

Top 100 Science Fiction Bloger


 Science Fiction Bloger

Science fiction works tend to engender an enthusiastic following in the academic and literary world. Whether you’re interested in books, movies, TV, or a little bit of everything, you’ll find what you’re looking for in one of the Internet’s many science fiction blogs. Here, we’ll take a look at 100 of the best of these blogs to satisfy your craving for all things sci.
     General
  • Whether you’re studying writing or just enjoy the genre, you’ll learn a lot about science fiction books from these blogs.offers a reverencing dose of science fiction, with news, trivia, and more.
  • Big Dumb Object: This blog covers a variety of science fiction, with books, TV and more.
  • Check out Sudoku for science fiction and fantasy books, movies, and games.
  • Forbidden Planet: Forbidden Planet celebrates comics, TV, and more in sci and fantasy.
  • Check out this blog for short stories, news, reviews, and features.
  • Hero Complex: This blog encourages readers to find their inner for genre films, graphic novels, and science fiction.A is a celebration of all things geeky, including sci games, movies, and books.
  • Media delivers unique perspectives on sci movies, novels, TV, and more.
  • offers an interesting look into parallel worlds and alternate views.
  • This "shape-shifting blog" discusses books, TV and more in science fiction.
  • You’ll find movies, TV, books, and more on this sci blog.
  • The Blog is all about sci movies, books, and more.
  • This blogger writes about British science fiction, film, books, and computer games.
  • Stay on top of fantasy and science fiction news, giveaways, and more.
  • This magazine is all about modern magical surrealism, and beyond.
  • Check out Pat’s list to find the best of the best in fantasy.
  • These blogs celebrate science fiction in print.
  • Tor writes about science fiction, fantasy, the universe, and related subjects.
  • This blog reviews science fiction books and more.
  • True Science Fiction: Check out this blog to find sci reviews, free fiction, and more.
  • OF Blog of the Fallen: On this blog you’ll find reviews, interviews, and more about literary and in it.
  • covers reviews, interviews, and more on sci and fantasy books and comics.
  • : Follow Apex to stay on top of authors in science fiction, horror, and dark fantasy.
  • Visit this blog to learn more about the writing and life of Warren Ellis.
  • Explore the genre of space westerns on this blog.
  • Mike Brother ton, a science fiction writer, discusses his writing and developments in science fiction.
  • : This blog is full of science fiction author writings and more.
  • The Subterranean Press features a variety of new titles from their authors on this blog.
  • Visit Book-spot, and you’ll see reviews, interviews, and more about science fiction books.
  • Bookcase: Bookcase is full of books and other reading material that you can get excited about.
  • Crap hound: Stay on top of the latest from writer Cory Doctorow on this blog.
  • The Book Swede: The Book Swede has reviews, essays, free books and interviews for fantasy, science fiction and horror on this site.Bibliophile Stalker: This blog discusses speculative  and blogger.
  • You’ll find lots of resources and information about the writing on this blog.
  • Grasping for the Wind: Check out this blog to get high quality reviews on a variety of fantasy and science fiction books.The Galaxy Express: Learn about adventures in science fiction romance blog.
  • full of science fiction, fantasy, and more from new and established authors.Follow your favorite science fiction TV shows on these Get insider information and insight on Atlantis from this blog. This is an essential blog to read for fans.Maureen Ryan’s TV blog serves up a healthy dose of science fiction TV. Visit Sawyer’s blog to get spoilers and more about This blog celebrates everything that is True Blood.Heroes Television: Follow this blog about Heroes to find spoilers, sneak peeks, and more. This blog is full of the series LOST all about the latest news from the popular Dr. Who notebook: Follow Karen’s blog to find updates and insightful commentary .This fan club blog offers a fun and interesting.
  • Get spoilers, news, and more about Fringe from the Fringe Fanatic blog.
  • Check out the Sarah Jane blog to learn about news and developments from The Sarah Jane.
  • Check out this blog to keep an eye on all things Dollhouse.
  • This LOST blog aims to solve the mysteries of the island.
  •  These bloggers offer a load of news theories,  eggs, and more from Fringe.
  • of Firefly fans who also like to share handcrafted items.
  • This blog features videos and related media from the very popular Dr. Horrible web series.
  •  This f blog is all about Dollhouse series.ha:s loads of videos, theories, and more relating to 
  • This TV junkie shares news and more about Fringe,  and other popular sci shows.
  •  Fringe Television offers a friendly place to discuss the show and stay on top of the latest news and it.
  •  The s an awesome source for news, spoilers, and more from .A is a gathering place for fans to share images, spoilers, fan fiction, and more.This blog offers a collaborative look at the world of Doctor 
  • This fan site for will keep you updated on the latest news, theories, and more.
  •  The is a blog that will take you inside the new Dollhouse series.
  • You’ll be able to find episode guides, spoilers, and other great information about on this blog.
  •  Check out the  Blog to find reviews, interviews, and fan art.This fan blog follows the work of actor.
  • These blogs are all about science fiction on the big screen.
  •  Check out Scanner to find news about sci  movies, entertainment, and more.
  • Here you’ll find audio dramas, radio shows, parodies, and more for Star Wars.
  •  offers previews, reviews, and more of movies with storytelling and supernatural elements.
  • : Check out this blog to read about Serenity,and more.
  • This blog is full of movie news, with lots of sci  features.
  •  On  you’ll get clued into new developments, reviews, and more in sci and fantasy movies.
  •  Check out this blog to find everything about Alien, Predator,
  • This blog writes about Star Wars developments and other news in the world of science fiction.
  •  On this official blog, you’ll get access to the latest developments in the Star Wars world.
  • Serious students of science will love these blogs, where you’ll find an exploration of the true science 
  • Biology in Science Fiction: Read Peggy’s blog to learn about the biology behind science fiction.
  • Pink Tentacle: Pink Tentacle celebrates strange science in reality.
  • Futurist: This blog is all about the effects of science and technology, with a lot of  thrown in.    



Monday, 27 May 2013

Bloger Scientific Games.



Scientific Games Corp-A (S.G.M.S) Details
Scientific Games Corporation provides gaming solutions to lottery and gaming organizations worldwide. The company operates in three segments: Printed Products, Lottery Systems, and Gaming. The Printed Products segment designs, prints, and sells instant lottery tickets; and provides value-added services, such as game design, sales and marketing support, specialty games and promotions, inventory management and warehousing, and fulfillment services. This segment also offers licensed games, promotional entertainment, and Internet-based services, as well as prints and sells phone cards. The Lottery Systems segment provides customized computer software, software support, equipment, and data communication services to lotteries. Its products include transaction-processing software, draw lottery games, keno, point-of-sale terminals, central site computers, and communication platforms, as well as ongoing operational support and maintenance services. In addition, this segment provides instant ticket validation; video lottery central monitoring and control systems and networks to lotteries and gaming regulators; software, hardware, and support for sports wagering systems; and inventory management systems and services. The Gaming segment provides server-based gaming terminals and systems, and game content primarily to bookmakers and gaming operators, such as betting shops, bingo halls, arcades,  lotteries ticket and pubs. This regulators segment also offers remote management of game content and management information, central computer systems, secure data communication, and field support services. Scientific Games Corporation was founded in 1984 and is based in New York, New York.Scientific Games Corporation announced that it has signed an instant ticket and cooperative services contract with the large electronic lottery licensed by (The Dominican Republic National Lottery). Under the terms of the new contract, Scientific Games will supply instant lottery tickets and related cooperative services, including game design, a back office instant ticket system, marketing, training support.    The seven-year contract, which begins in May 2013, includes an option for to extend the contract for an additional three years. Revenue to Scientific Games will be based on a price-per-thousand tickets basis along with a percentage of instant ticket retail sales for providing cooperative services.Scientific Games Corporation announced consolidated earnings results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2013. For the year, the company reported total revenue was against a year ago. Operating year ago. Loss before income tax expense was against income before income tax expense of a year ago. Net loss from continuing operations was or $0.15 per diluted share against net profit from continuing operations of per diluted share for the same period a year ago. Net loss was or per diluted share against net income of or per diluted share a year ago. Net cash provided by operating activities was against a year ago. Total capital expenditures were against a year ago. Attributable from continuing operations was million against $86.8 million a year ago. Attributable was year ago. from continuing operations against for the same period a year ago. A from equity investments was against for the same period a year ago. Free cash outflow was against free cash flow of for the same period a year ago Scientific Games Corporation announced that it has been selected with its partners as the primary vendor team to operate Internet Gaming Systems and Services for the Delaware State Lottery, subject to successful contract negotiations. Scientific Games teamed with  Holdings to provide a full turnkey solution for the gaming platform,  using advanced responsible gaming tools and sophisticated player in response to the  Internet Gaming System and Service ,  table gaming with  Holdings tools to provide  games, and video lottery games.  Scientific Games Corp.

Friday, 17 May 2013

Keep Mobile Beautiful Bloger


  Mobile Beautiful Bloger

The annual "Great American Cleanup " kicks off at 10 a.m. Thursday with a news conference at Palmer Pill ans Middle School,  Military Road. Students from  and B.C. Rain High School along with volunteers will kick-off the month by cleaning up portions of Dauphin Island Parkway."This is a chance to focus the community attention on the litter issue and the importance of getting people to help clean up," Bob Hawkins  director of Keep Mobile Beautiful, said today.This year's cleanup will take place in neighborhoods throughout the Mobile area culminating with an event from 8 a.m. to noon on Saturday, April 27, along Dauphin Island Parkway from Interstate 10 to the Dog River bridgeheads said volunteers that day will be divided into 22 sections – each section is three-quarter blocks to a half-mile in area – and will be given safety vests, litter grabbers, bags and gloves."This is a continued effort to focus on the watershed and the effect of litter along Dauphin Island Parkway," Hawkins said. "Our main objective is to try and get people to understand their actions in the area around the mall and Dauphin Island Parkway is going to effect the water quality downstream. Trash and litter blows into creeks and streams."Ha-skins said April continues to be the biggest month for litter pick up during the year. Last year, the clean-up resulted in 2,600 pounds of trash picked up.Anyone who wants to form a team can call Keep Mobile Beautiful at 208-6026."We'll be glad to set them up," Hawkins said. "They can pick up their own area to clean up.After coming under criticism on BBC Watchdog for its lack of user-accessible internal storage on the Galaxy Samsung has said that it is reviewing the possibility to secure more memory space. 
                                                                                                                        A taken up by the system install and  apps, which equates to around  out of an advertised  leaving available to the user. Samsung’s custom Android skin,  comes with a host of new features and this is the reason that so much of the internal storage is already in use out of the box.It sounds as though Samsung may push an update out at some point that condenses the system files and therefore frees up more space for the user. How much this will equate to is as yet unclear, but needless to say even a small improvement will be welcome.Some of the latest smartphones can be really expensive, we know that, so if there is an opportunity to save money on one of the latest phones, surely you will be interested?!We have just reduced the prices on a range of phones we have in stock here at Clove.Many are ex-demonstration handsets where they have simply been used for a short period and are ‘as new’ but are not in sealed boxes.Check out some of the savings that can be made by Checking  Here to see what is on offer.A couple of ones that stand out are the original surely you  at just £ including.

Thursday, 16 May 2013

Respectful Insolence Science Bloger



  Science Bloger 

I hate to end the week on a bit of a downer, but sometimes I just have to. At least, it’s depressing to anyone who is a proponent of science-based cancer care as the strategy most likely to decrease the death rate from cancer and improve quality of life for cancer patients. Unfortunately, in enoughOn 4 April 2013 (0700 GMT) all Bengali blogs went to a blackout for indefinite time to protest against the arrest of 4 bloggers in Bangladesh. These blogs and bloggers want unconditional release of those arrested bloggers.A fundamentalist group named Hefajat-e-Islam Bangladesh have started countrywide campaign to hang freetahinking bloggers, and they want tough blasphemy law. In response to this, the government have started monitoring Bengali blog sites and sent letters to their authorities to terminate the alleged "anti-religious" blogs and provide information about the alleged "anti-religious" bloggers.[5]Individual bloggers show their solidarity with this blackout by changing their profile photos on Facebook and by twitting with #MuzzleMeNot hash tag.[1] Different international organizations have expaaressed deep concern about taking freethinking bloggers into cust After hours long blackout, blogs returned online by publishing a press release on their central Facebook pageFrom the beginning of the shahbag protest, bloggers came out on street to demand capital punishment of Abdul Quader Molla, a war criminal of Bangladesh liberation war and a leader of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami. During the protests, Ahmed Rajib Haider, a blogger who was critical of Jamaat-e-Islami, was killed by few Jamaat activists. Afterwards, a Jamaat backed Islamic fundamentalist organization started violent protest demanding death penalty for all allegedly "anti-Islamic" bloggers, and they termed all participants of shahbag movement as atheist. The spokesperson of Shahbag movement Imran H. Sharkar said, Hifazat-e-Islam is desperate to thwart the war crimes trial and the process of banning Jamaat-e-Islami.Afterwards, the government of Bangladesh started monitoring on blogosphere and sent letters to the Bengali blog authorities to terminate the alleged "anti-religious" blogs and to provide information penalty about the alleged "anti-religious" bloggers.
                                                                                     
On the night of 1 April 2013, three bloggers were arrested by the detective branch police. Blogger Rasel Pervez, a science teacher in profession, and Mashiur Rahman Biplob were arrested on 1 April 2013 from their house. Subrata Adhikari Shuvo, who is a masters student of Bengali department at University of Dhaka, was also arrested on the same day from his university dormitory.Another blogger Asif Mohiuddin was called to police station on 3 April 2013, and when he went there, he was arrested .[ Earlier, theBangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission forced the Bengali blog somewhereinblog,net to remove all writings of Asif Mohiuddin. The move was criticized by the Human Rights WatchAfter yesterday, I really hadn’t planned on writing about Angelina Jolie and her decision to undergo bilateral mastectomies again, except perhaps as a more serious piece next week on my not-so-super-secret other blog where The Name of the Doctor is revealed on a weekly basis. As I mentioned yesterday, there are a number of issueI should have known it. I should have known that the reaction wouldn’t take very long. I should have known it based on prior history. The news story to which I am referring is, of course, the revelation yesterday in the New York Times editorial page by Angelina Jolie that she had decided to undergoI’m not alone in pointing this out, but if there’s one thing about research and clinical trials into “complementary and alternative medicine” (CAM) that has become very apparent to me over the years, it’s that the more rigorous the study the less likely it is to show an effect. In normal research, the usual progressionSometimes blogging topics arise from the strangest places. It’s true. For instance, although references to how tobacco causes cancer and the decades long denialist campaign by  infrequently referenced blogging particularly from supporters.

Tuesday, 14 May 2013

Introduction of Calcutta Bloger


 Calcutta Bloger

There may be other factors in the score, such as time elapsed, but that is not evident so far.So you get to take a random walk around the earth, indulge your curiosity, develop your observation skills, trigger book-memory or experience. And, if you are so inclined, you can make a game out of it.As developer Anton Wallen says, it was “built as an experiment to investigate the possibilities that the Google Maps  and to create a simple immersive game.” Details to be found in Chrome Experiments.How simple. How beautiful. Thank you Anton. Thank you Google.I may not think this post is about. When it comes to meanings of songs, I take heart from the story of the Doors fans who wrote deep and searching treatises about how the band, and more particularly Jim Morrison, used the imagery of Mojo in dark and satanic ways, especially in the repeated incantations of Mr Mojo Risin’. And everyone accepted that. Until a little old lady wrote in and pointed out that it was nothing of the sort. She and her husband lived next door to the Morrisons when James was a young lad; it was her  or something similar.That still left me with a problem. I think about “work” all the time. I think  okay, no one ever quite multitasks, so when I'm thinking about my family I'm not actually thinking about work, except in those cases was somewhat flimsy. So, even as a 12-year-old, I wouldn’t have been able to understand this work-life thing. And it wasn’t as if it was something new and modern and free-thinking, this integration of work and home. The house I was born in was the place where my extended family lived, the place where we ran the family business from, the place we printed and published the magazine from.I tried everything else I could think of. Whom he spent time with. What he was passionate about. It didn’t matter. The answer was the same. If I looked at what my father did, then work and home and everything else was hopelessly intermingled. The principal way of separating one from the other was “priority”, in terms of both importance as well as urgency. If I cut open my eyelid in a fight at playschool, he would come home to see me; if there was a problem at the printer’s that’s where he’d be. Priorities. Getting what needed to be done done.That was how I used to think about “work-life” balance. So when I started work myself, I came with a view that my working life and my home life didn’t needand everything  to be kept separate.
                                                                        I came with the view that I would keep doing the things .I enjoyed doing, that I would keep spending time with people I enjoyed spending time with. The origins of my relationships could be labelled and analysed, and there words like “family” and “work” and “church” and “school” and “pub” and “club” all meant something.Initially I kept all these groups separate. And that had an unintended consequence, I became a different person in each group. That was a nightmare: I landed up in a situation where I had real conflict as a result : a part of me wanted all these groups to merge (why have separate non-overlapping groups of friends?) and another part of me blenched What happened when you went on vacation with a work mate, to spend a week playing golf? Was it wrong to spend time “socialising” with the people you worked with? Soon I was back where I started.When the mobile phone entered my life, I didn’t find it a problem. Child has an accident at school, my wife calls me, I drop everything and go home to help. It’s early Saturday morning, t Hey-ho, it’s off to work I go.Priorities. Getting the job done. Outcomes. More than reading, more than watching, I can concentrate the most when I’m just listening. I have no idea why this is the case. Perhaps it’s because I grew up in a home where there was no television, and in a city where electricity was something you experienced occasionally. The phone was often on the blink; battery-powered portable radios only began to show up in India when I was in my mid-teens. Most of the time, we spent time talking to each other, playing, and, when and where possible, we listened to the radio. School was also more about listening and watching and learning; obviously.  There were exceptions, in the chemistry and biology labs, in carpentry class.and in the gym. But by and large I grew up in a listen-and-learn culture. When I emigrated to the it was the first time I’d ever left India; in fact it was the first time I’d ever lived in a I had no choice but to listen, to understand what people were saying (their accents were strange to me), to understand what they meant (the words, idioms and usages I’d never come across). It pays to be quiet hment of children, mothers can tell if the crying comes from one of theirs or not. Amazing. Yet natural and innate. And to be expected. Similarly, a week-old baby can tell if the voice she hears is her mother’s, and is calmed. Soon after, she can distinguish her questioning. And then I started working, and came across new authority models. After a while it all became the same thing. It wasn’t about obedience or following orders or authority figures or anything didn’t speak French or German. But I listened French and German. I knew enough to be able to translate some of what was being said. Which led to some very interesting inadvertent participations in conversations in lifts and in meetings, as others assumed I couldn’t understand a word. Live and learn.I listen to test and reflect of what I’ve learnt about cooking has come about by my listening to my wife; some of it has come from listening to cooks, often face to face in their restaurants and kitchens, sometimes on TV, occasionally in a cookery class. And it was in a cookery class that I learnt to listen to food, to use the sound of the food to tell whether something is ready or not. This seems particularly true for sauces and stews, but I’ve even heard it applied in other circumstances.in such circumstances.So I walked lifts and in meetings,everywhere. It was a time when time   Introduction Bloger

Tuesday, 7 May 2013

Science Proves Bloger


  Science Proves  Bloger

B logger, allows its b loggers to easily upload a variety of media files to their accounts. Once you upload your media file to the Bloodsport servers, you can insert it into your post and format it however you wish using HTML. However, if you've updated an image file, B logger provides a few quick tools that help you format its appearance in your post to your liking. Using the blower platform's image-alignment tools, you can easily wrap text to the left or the right of the image, giving the appearance of columns without the need to code tables.Thousands of science fans have expressed their surprise and shock after learning that a popular science bog is run by a woman.The page,Science, has more than  followers; and after Elise Andrew, who runs the page, posted a link to her personal Twitter account, her fans couldn't believe she was female.The  which also showed Miss Andrew's Twitter profile picture, provoked thousands of comments discussing her gender. One commenter wrote: 'I'm ashamed to say I assumed you were a man.'The English b logger living in Canada had simply written: 'I got Twitter! I figured it's about time I started exploring other social media. If you're on there, can you Tweet me some science people worth following?'Other commenter's made a point to discuss her appearance.!' wrote one young man. Before one more added: 'you mean you're a  you're beautiful? wow, just liked science a bit more today'.The science page is filled with scientific questions and photos, as well as exciting breakthroughs and notes on science news.Some commenter's said the fact Miss Andrew is a female shouldn't matter, and shouldn't be a point of interest at all.'My fellow dudebros:In science, sex is just a single genome characteristic. Andrew, who graduated with a degree in biology from the University of Sheffield last year, was disappointed by the overwhelming collective response to her gender.She tweeted: 'EVERY COMMENT on that thread is about how shocking it is that I'm a woman! Is this really 2013?The recent graduate started the page last year, after a friend suggested she make a Facebook page dedicated to science instead of 'clogging up' her friend's feeds. She received one thousand 'likes' in the first day.A major new study of the effects of Medicaid published in the New England Journal of Medicine yesterday found that the provision of “Medicaid coverage generated no significant improvements in measured physical health outcomes in the first 2 years.” That is not exactly great news for Obama-care which relies on Medicaid for roughly half of its health coverage expansion. In response, some of the health law’s backers are arguing that, well, we can’t be sure the study proves that Medicaid has no health benefits in part because the sample size is small enough to mean that the results are statistically underpowered. But that’s not how the study’s initial results, which appeared far more friendly to Medicaid, were reported and interpreted. Many of the individuals who wrote about the study’s initial round of results, released in July of 2013 were quick to tout the study’s robust design, and the certainty of its conclusions. Writing at Kaiser Health News, for example, The New Republic’s Jonathan Cohn declared that the study’s design “makes it unusually significant.” A bog post published by the left-leaning Century Foundation announced that the study’s “findings were irrefutable.” Aaron Carroll, an influential health policy b logger at The Incidental Economist, emphasized the orig of the study. “I’d like to reiterate that this was a randomized controlled is pretty much the best way to prove causality, especially if it’s well done.” And because it’s an, he concluded, “we can even start talking causality.” Ezra Klein published a column touting the study with the headline,  He explained why the randomized study was so valuable: “The gold standard in research is a study that randomly chooses who gets a new treatment and who That way, you know your results are unaffected by differences in the two populations you are studying.”Now, well, it’s all a little less clear. “The problem with the Oregon study,” Klein wrote this morning,” …is we don’t really know what we’re learning.” Carroll, who was ready to start talking causality when the first study was published, is now counselled caution. “So chill, people. This is another piece of evidence. It shows that some things improved for people who got Medicaid. For others, changes weren't statistically significant, which he same thing as certainty of no effect. For still others, the jury is still out.”It’s notable that the findings from the first round of study results were actually less robust than this week's results. Not only did the first round only measure a single year, there were no objective physical measures of health at all. Instead, the researchers did find big improvements in self-reported health. People who got Medicaid merely said they felt a lot better. And about two-thirds of that self-reported improvement appeared before any medical treatment had been obtained. Yet that was enough for many Obama-care backers to declare that certain victory was at hand. Indeed, despite the lack of objective measures, it was even enough for many reports to declare that we now had irrefutable evidence that Medicaid definitely does improve health.The White House slog for example, headlined an item on the first study “Health Insurance Leads to Healthier Americans.” An News report on the study opened by saying that the study “proves that being insured through Medicaid benefits people-physically policy analyst Harold Pollack used the initial results to “Can conservatives please stop-claiming that health insurance doesn't improve health?” Incidental Economist health expressed his confidence that "the research team will find that Medicaid does lead to better health" while singling out the sturdiness of the study's methodology and selection policy analyst Harold Pollack report on the study opened by saying that the study .
                                                                                                                                                                                    
A New York Times concluded that "expanding insurance does not save society money  as some advocates of preventive medicine have claimed — but it does appear to make people mentally and physically healthier." Harvard health policy professor John McDougall hailed the study, and dismissed those who counselled caution about the study’s results. “Naysayers are already out in force charging that the study results fail to identify actual improvements in enrollees' health status “Those kinds of results are down the road.”Weave now gone down that road. But we didn't find those kinds of results. Not with the rigour that the study's authors deemed necessary, anyway. Instead, on the objective health measures, we—or rather the researchers behind the study—found some improvement in objective health measures. But not enough to rise to the level of statistical significance. Not enough to know with high confidence that Medicaid was the cause. This is not nothing. It's even potentially interesting. But it is far from definitive proof, or even just a strong reason to suspect, that Medicaid actually makes a measurable difference in objective health outcomes.And while some on the left are still claiming victory in part because of the objective health measures and in part because the study showed decreased risk of health-related financial catastrophe, and decreased probability of screening positive for depression, the particulars of the study's results should at the very least complicate their arguments.If the primary goal of a program like Medicaid is to protect individuals from financial shocks associated with medical expenses, then why not support a far, far cheaper subsidized catastrophic insurance program instead of low-deductible insurance through Medicaid? If what the poor really need is financial protection, rather than health services, then why not just give them cash?The depression results are unusual as well, because the study found no concurrent rise in the use of medication for depression. Might some of the difference be attributable to the fact that Medicaid beneficiaries had won the health insurance lottery and, as we know, felt better because of it?As for the too-small-to-be-statistically-significant improvements on objective measures even if we could be confident that the improvements were attributable to the provision of Medicaid, would those improvements be worth the high price of the program, both in its current form and its planned expansion under Medicaid currently costs the federal government billion a year, a figure that's projected to rise past billion over the next decade. That doesn't count the hundreds of billions that state governments also spend on the program. (Health costs, many of which are related to Medicaid, are the . And for that, beneficiaries are getting health benefits that are, at best, highly uncertain. For what it’s worth, I am glad to see that liberal health are now preaching caution. Given the study’s results, they are right to do so. I wish, however, that they had done so from the outset, and I hope that they will adopt a less confident approach in the future. The second-round results of Oregon’s experiment with Medicaid suggest that it’s possible that Medicaid may have some improvement on a few health measures. But further study could just as easily show that they don’t, and that the improvements found here are little more than statistical noise. Science, in other words, has not really proven that Medicaid works, or that it doesn't But it has strongly suggested, in a gold-standard study, that on objective measures of physical health, those with coverage .





Saturday, 4 May 2013

Mobile Research Scientists Bloger



  Mobile Research

The Apple iPhone was voted recently as one of the greatest modern inventions ever, all while being hailed as “changing the universe” due to allowing us to have everything we need at our fingertips. The iPhone’s sister device, the has further pushed the technological envelope while easing basic tasks such as email, note-taking, reading, and other endless applications that could only be done at a computer. One area where the can have a tremendous impact in its utility is academia and the research setting helping to increase productivity, creativity, planning, and even streamlining daily tasks. While there are many niche, specialized, helpful apps for a wide range of scientific disciplines, and an even bigger subset for science fans, few apps can truly be called indispensable for researchers. Below are five that any academic research scientist could and should have on their s inherently a field of ideas and thoughts. Nearly every experiment, hypothesis and result starts out as an idea, or a brainstorm among collaborators. And with the mobile nature of , one of their benefits to researchers is the ability to record new ideas, take notes at seminars, and get feedback from group meetings anywhere. But what is the ideal app to group together as many features as possible for an academic setting? The winner by far is the flexible, feature-driven Notebooks for app. Utilizing a traditional notebooks motif, this app allows you to create as many sub-folders as you’d like, and keep them separate or meld into one document. You can also import data from external sites (and even bookmark it for later!), establish task lists, and export and merge into other documents not on your I Pad. As one of the most versatile note-taking apps available for the, every graduate student should plan to make this one of their first purchases for the tablet. If there’s one thing a scientist in any discipline is doing, it is repeated calculations. Whether you are making buffers, figuring out how to set up a serial dilution calibrating data, or doing simple calculations and conversions in SI Units.                  
No more calculations on scraps of paper, referencing back to figure out Volgograd number, or messing up experiments because you forgot to move the decimal over one place. They are small details, but ones you no longer need to fret over. With your pad by your side, this often tedious aspect of experimental design will now be an afterthought.Organization is one of the primary cornerstones of running a successful laboratory on any level, and the ability to transfer laboratory management to a mobile device is literally a game-changer for professors, lab managers and other personnel. Lab guru, an exciting new cloud management system in the largely stagnant world of management tools, is now available for I pad The ability to implement of organizational and management features – from tagging and archiving, to digital filing systems, to sample collection management – from a mobile device provides labs with the tools to stay operational and well-structured year-round. Just imagine the power of keeping a lab’s projects running remotely, getting a notification on your pad to put in a critical order, improving lab-wide communication and even scheduling experiments while on vacation!Since we don’t want to exclude medical student from our list, this app is ideally suited for the I Pads of medical professionals. This 3 in 1 application provides all the quick referencing that a medical professional would want at their fingertips, including suffixes and prefixes. References can be edited, link to major reference websites and can even be accessed without an internet connection. It is also the #1 rated medical application on iTunes.Named one of the Apps You Should Download for by Wired Magazine, Dropsy seems to be a universal favourite among graduate students in survey after survey on globs and research forums. Supplanting the need to Cary flash drives or any external photocopies, Drop-box is essentially a virtual, synced file folder where you put files you want to access with any device. So if you download papers throughout the day that you’d like to read when you get home, but hate the thought of printing them out (or worse yet, worry about forgetting!), simply put them in your Dropsy right from your Mac, and when you open up your pad later that night… there they are! It also works for including suffixes  pictures and music.