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by RHIANNON EDWARD

a TREATMENT to cure or halt dementia by 2025 is “within our grasp”, Prime Minister David Cameron said yesterday, as he announced a doubling in UK funding for research.

Mr Cameron was addressing scientists, politicians and campaigners from around the world who have gathered in London for a dementia summit called by the UK as part of its year-long chairmanship of the G8.

With the World Health Organisation (WHO) forecasting that the number of dementia sufferers will almost double worldwide every two decades, Mr Cameron has said he wants UK government investment in dementia research to rise from £66 million in 2015 to £122m in 2025, with similar increases from the commercial and charitable sectors.

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Applied Omniscience in Transformative and Integrative Risk Management! By Mr. Andres Agostini
OMNISCIENCE
This is an excerpt from the presentation, “…Applied Omniscience in Transformative and Integrative Risk Management!…” that discusses some management theories and practices. To read the entire piece, just click the link at the end of article:

Please see the graphic at http://lnkd.in/dUstZEk

Womb-to-Tomb Management! By Mr. Andres Agostini
Womb-To-Tomb Management
This is an excerpt from the presentation, “…Womb-to-Tomb Management!…” that discusses some management theories and practices. To read the entire piece, just click the link at the end of article:

Please see the graphic at http://lnkd.in/dbD4G7e

This is an excerpt from the conclusion section of, “…NASA’s Managerial and Leadership Methodology, Now Unveiled!..!” by Mr. Andres Agostini, that discusses some management theories and practices. To read the entire piece, just click the link at the end of this illustrated article and presentation:

superman
In addition to being aware and adaptable and resilient before the driving forces reshaping the current present and the as-of-now future, there are some extra management suggestions that I concurrently practice:

1. Given the vast amount of insidious risks, futures, challenges, principles, processes, contents, practices, tools, techniques, benefits and opportunities, there needs to be a full-bodied practical and applicable methodology (methodologies are utilized and implemented to solve complex problems and to facilitate the decision-making and anticipatory process).

The manager must always address issues with a Panoramic View and must also exercise the envisioning of both the Whole and the Granularity of Details, along with the embedded (corresponding) interrelationships and dynamics (that is, [i] interrelationships and dynamics of the subtle, [ii] interrelationships and dynamics of the overt and [iii] interrelationships and dynamics of the covert).

DETAIL    DETAIL    DETAILBoth dynamic complexity and detail complexity, along with fuzzy logic, must be pervasively considered, as well.

To this end, it is wisely argued, “…You can’t understand the knot without understanding the strands, but in the future, the strands need not remain tied up in the same way as they are today…”

For instance, disparate skills, talents, dexterities and expertise won’t suffice ever. A cohesive and congruent, yet proven methodology (see the one above) must be optimally implemented.

Subsequently, the Chinese proverb indicates, “…Don’t look at the waves but the currents underneath…”

2. One must always be futurewise and technologically fluent. Don’t fight these extreme forces, just use them! One must use counter-intuitiveness (geometrically non-linearly so), insight, hindsight, foresight and far-sight in every day of the present and future (all of this in the most staggeringly exponential mode). To shed some light, I will share two quotes.

The Panchatantra (body of Eastern philosophical knowledge) establishes, “…Knowledge is the true organ of sight, not the eyes.…” And Antonio Machado argues, “… An eye is not an eye because you see it; an eye is an eye because it sees you …”

Managers always need a clear, knowledgeable vision. Did you already connect the dots stemming from the Panchatantra and Machado? Did you already integrate those dots into your big-picture vista?

As side effect, British Prime Minister W. E. Gladstone considered, “…You cannot fight against the future…”

PARALLEL     PARALLEL      PARALLEL
3. In all the Manager does, he / she must observe and apply, at all times, a sine qua non maxim, “…everything is related to everything else…”

4. Always manage as if it were a “project.” Use, at all times, the “…Project Management…” approach.

5. Always use the systems methodology with the applied omniscience perspective.

In this case, David, I mean to assert: The term “Science” equates to about a 90% of “…Exact Sciences…” and to about 10% of “…Social Sciences…” All science must be instituted with the engineering view.

6. Always institute beyond-insurance risk management as you boldly integrate it with your futuring skill / expertise.

BEYOND     BEYOND       BEYOND
7. In my firmest opinion, the following must be complied this way (verbatim): the corporate strategic planning and execution (performing) are a function of a grander application of beyond-insurance risk management. It will never work well the other way around. Transformative and Integrative Risk Management (TAIRM) is the optimal mode to do advanced strategic planning and execution (performing).

TAIRM is not only focused on terminating, mitigating and modulating risks (expenses of treasure and losses of life), but also concentrated on bringing under control fiscally-sound, sustainable organizations and initiatives.

TAIRM underpins sensible business prosperity and sustainable growth and progress.

8. I also believe that we must pragmatically apply the scientific method in all we manage to the best of our capacities.

If we are “…MANAGERS…” in a Knowledge Economy and Knowledge Era (not a knowledge-driven eon because of superficial and hollow caprices of the follies and simpletons), we must do therefore extensive and intensive learning and un-learning for Life if we want to succeed and be sustainable.

As a consequence, Dr. Noel M. Tichy, PhD. argues, “…Today, intellectual assets trump physical assets in nearly every industry…”

Consequently, Alvin Toffler indicates, “…In the world of the future, THE NEW ILLITERATE WILL BE THE PERSON WHO HAS NOT LEARNED TO LEARN…”

We don’t need to be scientists to learn some basic principles of advanced science.

Accordingly, Dr. Carl Sagan, PhD. expressed, “…We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows about science and technology…” And Edward Teller stated, “…The science of today is the technology of tomorrow …”

And it is also crucial this quotation by Winston Churchill, “…If we are to bring the broad masses of the people in every land to the table of abundance, IT CAN ONLY BE BY THE TIRELESS IMPROVEMENT OF ALL OF OUR MEANS OF TECHNICAL PRODUCTION…”

I am not a scientist but I tirelessly support responsible scientists and science. I like scientific and technological knowledge and methodologies a great deal.

Chiefly, I am a college autodidact made by his own self and engaged into extreme practical and theoretical world-class learning for Life.

APPROACH    APPROACH     APPROACH9. In any management undertaking, and given the universal volatility and rampant and uninterrupted rate of change, one must think and operate in a fluid womb-to-tomb mode.

The manager must think and operate holistically (both systematically and systemically) at all times.

The manager must also be: i) Multidimensional, ii) Interdisciplinary, iii) Multifaceted, iv) Cross-functional, and v) Multitasking.

That is, the manager must now be an expert state-of-the-art generalist and erudite. ERGO, THIS IS THE NEWEST SPECIALIST AND SPECIALIZATION.

Managers must never manage elements, components or subsystems separately or disparately (that is, they mustn’t ever manage in series).

Managers must always manage all of the entire system at the time (that is, managing in parallel or simultaneously the totality of the whole at once).

10. In any profession, beginning with management, one must always and cleverly upgrade his / her learning and education until the last exhale.

An African proverb argues, “…Tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it…” And Winston Churchill established, “…The empires of the future are the empires of the mind…” And an ancient Chinese Proverb: “…It is not our feet that move us along — it is our minds…”
DESTINY       DESTINY       DESTINY
And Malcolm X observed, “…The future belongs to those who prepare for it today…” And Leonard I. Sweet considered, “…The future is not something we enter. The future is something we create…”

And finally, James Thomson argued, “…Great trials seem to be a necessary preparation for great duties …”

AGE       AGE         AGE
Consequently, Dr. Gary Hamel, PhD. indicates, “…What distinguishes our age from every other is not the world-flattening impact of communications, not the economic ascendance of China and India, not the degradation of our climate, and not the resurgence of ancient religious animosities. RATHER, IT IS A FRANTICALLY ACCELERATING PACE OF CHANGE…”

Please see the full presentation at http://goo.gl/8fdwUP

Altering the surface of orthopaedic implants has already helped patients – and nanotech can fight infections too

One of medicine’s primary objectives is to trick the body into doing something it doesn’t want to do. We try to convince our immune systems to attack cancer cells (our immune systems don’t normally attack our own bodies), we try to convince neurons to regrow (another unnatural phenomenon), and we try to convince the body to accept foreign bits, such as someone else’s kidney or a fake bone. In order to accomplish this, we try to make parts of our bodies we don’t want, such as cancers, look foreign. We try to make foreign bits that we do want, such as orthopaedic implants, look natural. Nanotechnology, as you might have guessed, can help us do just that.

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surgery

Hands-free devices like Google Glass can be really transformative when the hands they free are those of a surgeon. And leading hospitals, including Stanford and the University of California at San Francisco, are beginning to use Glass in the operating room.

In October, UCSF’s Pierre Theodore, a cardiothoracic surgeon, became the first doctor in the United States to obtain Institutional Review Board approval to use the device to assist him during surgery. Theodore pre-loads onto Glass the scans of images of the patient taken just before surgery and consults them during the operation.

“To be able to have those X-rays directly in your field without having to leave the operating room or to log on to another system elsewhere, or to turn yourself away from the patient in order to divert your attention, is very helpful in terms of maintaining your attention where it should be, which is on the patient 100 percent of the time,” said Theodore.

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The seven deadly sins of health and science reporting

By Avi Roy, University of Buckingham and Anders Sandberg, University of Oxford

Benjamin Franklin said two things are certain in life: death and taxes. Another one we could add to this list is that on any given news website and in almost all print media there will be articles about health and nutrition that are complete garbage.

Some articles that run under the health and nutrition “news” heading are thought provoking, well researched and unbiased, but unfortunately not all. And to help you traverse this maze – alongside an excellent article about 20 tips for interpreting scientific claims – we will look at seven clichés of improper or misguided reporting.

If you spot any of these clichés in an article, we humbly suggest that you switch to reading LOLCats, which will be more entertaining and maybe more informative too.


1. “Scientists have proven that” or “it has been scientifically proven that”

Why?: In science we never prove something, we can only improve our confidence in a hypothesis or find flaws with it.

Details: Sometimes it is possible to disprove something confidently, but that mainly works in domains like physics. Medicine is notoriously messy because it deals with changeable, complex and individual bodies. There are potential exceptions to nearly anything, and the link between two things is generally statistical, rather than clear-cut “if X then Y” relationships.

OMG they’ve done what?! Ninja M

Health and nutrition is even worse because it deals with how we interact with our equally messy environment. We know about most of the big contributory causes of bad health such as starvation, disease, parasites and poisoning so arguably many new findings are smaller refinements that are hard to pick out from the “noise” of individual variation and habits. We know plenty of things, just beware of absolute certainty.

Takeaway: Discount the findings of any health or nutrition article with “scientists prove that…” by 80%.

2. X causes cancer, so it must be bad

Why?: There are no good or bad substances. Even water can kill you if you drink too much of it.

Nutmeg: spice and poison. Marxfoods

Details: There are a surprising number of things associated with slightly increased or decreased risks of getting cancer. We tend to think of things as pure/good/healthy or impure/evil/harmful, but in practice there’s no distinction. Many medications are poisonous, but they are helpful because they are more poisonous to infections or cancer cells than to the rest of the body.

Sometimes it’s the dose that makes the poison. So sleeping a lot or a little is associated with higher mortality (even when you control for depression and sickness, which of course also affect how much you want or can sleep). There can also be trade-offs between risks and benefits. Moderate alcohol intake can be good for heart health (in middle aged men, at least), but it increases the risk of pancreatic cancer and accidents. Whether something is good for you may depend on who you are, what you do and other risk factors.

Takeaway: As Oscar Wilde said, “everything in moderation, including moderation”; it is probably better to eat a diverse diet than to try to only eat “good” things.

3. [Insert natural product, spice or beverage here] cures cancer, diabetes or heart disease

Why?: There are no “natural” or magic cures for cancer, diabetes or any diseases of ageing.

Details: If these “natural products” actually worked, people consuming them would rarely, if ever, get the diseases of old age and die. The longest mean health and life spans of any sizeable population are in developed countries, and they are mainly attributable to antibiotics, vaccinations, reduction in smoking, improved sanitation, and public healthcare infrastructure. We don’t have artificial “silver bullets” either.

Enough said. Nico Paix

The reason is that most of these conditions are very complex and don’t have neat causes that can be fixed easily. Science is certainly working hard on the problem, but progress is generally piecemeal.

Takeaway: We already have many drugs that were extracted from natural things or are based on them. When the Cochrane collaboration, an international network of thousands of researchers and organisations, compiles the results of large human trials involving natural products, then it is time to take notice.

4. X gene causes you to smile/be grumpy/get diabetes

Why?: No single gene causes a behaviour trait or, except in rare cases, a complex disease.

Details: When a single gene mutation causes something, we call it a monogenic disease. Monogenic diseases include cystic fibrosis, Huntington’s disease and sickle-cell anemia. Complex behavioural traits and diseases of ageing are polygenic and multi-factorial disorders, which depend on both genes and environment. No one gene causes you to be happy, sad or diabetic.

A sad case of personality. aeu04117

The same applies for brain areas and neurotransmitters: serotonin is involved in mood regulation, but it is also involved in regulating gut movement (90% of it is in the intestines). Adding more serotonin is unlikely to help either function. If you get happy by eating chocolate, it could be because you enjoy the taste and may not be due to chemical reactions within the brain.

Takeaway: If you truly want to find reasons for your traits or propensity towards a complex disease, why not compile a detailed family history?

5. Red wine, turmeric or yoga can help you live longer and be healthier

Why?: Unfortunately, there is no fountain of youth or elixir of life.

Details: Articles that state eating something or doing something can help you live longer generally make their case using a long-lived or comparatively healthy population such as Japan. In these populations, the effects of eating or doing something can be explained by their homogenous genetics and environment. Even so, these people still live the normal maximum human lifespan, which is about 100 years.

So innocent. Public domain photos

Science has figured out a lot about how ageing works, and some researchers work on slowing it down. However, there is still a vast step from what works on a small lab animal to a useful pill for humans. Stay tuned.

Takeaway: If you want to live longer, don’t smoke, take recommended vaccinations, exercise and just try to enjoy life.

6. A new study from [insert elite university name here] …

Why?: Science, unlike religion, doesn’t work based on authority. Don’t assume that an experiment is well constructed and executed because it’s from an elite university.

Better croquet doesn’t mean better science. Spartacus

Details: Less elite universities can of course do bad research but “brand names” apply in academia as they do elsewhere. Some universities have or can afford bigger press teams than others. Journalists are trained to provide accurate, nuanced and unbiased analyses to the public. This is regularly practised in the political domain with reports on political scandals and other investigative journalism. We need the same for science.

Takeaway: Would you still read this article if the research was performed at the University of Never-heard-of-them in Where-in-the-world-is-this city?

7. Just-so stories

Why?: In science, laboratory results seldom make simple stories. This is especially true when dealing with biology.

Not 200,000 years ago. Ell Brown

Details: It’s easy to believe a good story, such as how diet habits like those of your ancient ancestors are healthier for you or that women think in a certain way because they were gatherers rather than hunters. It sounds plausible. Unfortunately, sounding plausible often has almost nothing to do with actually being true.

Takeaway: If you come across a neat little just-so story, it is likely over-simplified and stripped of its contextual underpinning, or just plain wrong.


Our aim isn’t to undermine the value of science but to become more critical reporters and readers. The list is by no means exhaustive and if you feel we have missed an important cliché, please comment below, email or tweet us. In the meantime remember, if you want to live longer, have fun and do nothing.

The authors do not work for, consult to, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article. They also have no relevant affiliations.

This article was originally published at The Conversation.
Read the original article.

Kelsey Campbell-Dollaghan on Gizmodo

How 3D Printers Are Cranking Out Eyes, Bones, and Blood Vessels

At the dawn of rapid prototyping, a common predication was that 3D printing would transform manufacturing, spurring a consumer revolution that would put a printer in every home. That hasn’t quite happened—-and like so many emerging technologies, rapid prototyping has found its foothold in a surprisingly different field: Medicine.

The following studies and projects represent some of the most fascinating examples of “bioprinting,” or using a computer-controlled machine to assemble biological matter using organic inks and super-tough thermoplastics. They range from reconstructing major sections of skull to printing scaffolding upon which stem cells can grow into new bones. More below—and look out for more 3D printing week content over the next few days.

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