Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.
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Aetna mobile health initiatives
Aetna CEO, Mark Bertolini spoke at the 2012 4th annual mHealth summit and summarized his companies outlook to mHealth. He made some very interesting points. First of all, he recognized that the health system was expensive and that it was useful for a company like Aetna to participate in mobile health initiatives to reduce cost.…
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Games can help science – Foldit
People spend a significant amount of time playing games and solving puzzles. It has always been argued that there must be some benefit that could be derived from the endeavors. Many man-hours, computer computation and power go into playing games. Obviously, they serve some physiological and psychological functions since so many people continue playing games.…
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Shimmer microscopy – useful?
Microscopy has its origins from small lenses being put together for astronomy and then used for magnifying the small particles in a lake. Microscopy enabled the discovery of much what we know about cells, organelles and the function. It has also helped in the diagnosis of diseases – one of the earliest one being the…
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Is there a link between autoimmune disorders and our intestinal bacteria?
There have been several research publications that have tried to establish a link between immune system and gut microflora. The field has led to several confusing results, but a paper published in 2012 (Chung et al, Cell: 149, 1578) may help some of the confusion. They found that the maturation of intestinal immune system is…
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Mobile devices with emotion
We think of mobile devices mainly as information exchange devices. The provide exchange of thoughts through words and also from looking up information on the internet they can provide sources of information, data and even ideas. The mobile devices of today are equipped with a lot of sensors: accelerometers, gravity, light, sound and even pressure.…
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Imaging through rain.
Start with the application: A set of headlights that can enable the driver to see through the falling rain. Typically, it is difficult to see through rain because water droplets reflect the light that is reflected back from the water droplet. However, rain is not constant and it should be possible to time the light…
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If this then that… websites that talk back
The reasons to browse the web are many but often it is to check the status of something or find out more about something and ultimately do something about it. For example, one of the most often used ones is to probably check the weather. What we want to know is “whether it will rain…
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Technology assessment or how to present technology
How to present your ideas or plan in 5 minutes or less. Use these guidelines for VC, partners, funders or your boss. Why you?• What is the problem?• What solutions exist?• How is yours better? How?• What is your solution?• Technical details• What has been done till now?• Members of the team if relevant. Future• …
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Why do we blink? It is more than what you think
We blink about 10-40 times per minute. Almost all mammals blink and the rate is variable. For humans, the conventional mechanical explanation given for blinking is that we need to moisten our eyes, clean the debris from the eye and refresh the eyes. Obviously, having a eyelid in front of the eye can also prevent…
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Medical Devices industry standard – Global Location numbers (GLN)
Computers are good with numbers and can form precise calculations. They remember perfectly and can manage big lists of numbers. What they are not good at is averaging and understanding meaning. So for example, “St Peters Hospital” will be different from “St Peter’s Hospital” if it appears in medical records. And, nowadays since most of…
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