Comment Old news for Canada (Score 5, Funny) 188
Canada has had this technology for weeks now!
God, I've always wanted to say that.
Comment Health Care is ready for this (Score 1) 83
The health care system is most definitely ready for this.
You might be familiar with Nurse Anesthetists, or the newer Anaesthesia Assistant role (often filled by Respiratory Therapists with advanced training). These people are qualified to start IVs, administer drugs, insert breathing tubes, monitor during anaesthesia, and troubleshoot when things go wrong. They can be trained to insert arterial lines, central lines, etc.
The role of the anaesthesiologist then becomes more big-picture... the doc is able to:
* develop a treatment plan
* oversee the patient
* respond to emergencies, and
* attend to the more difficult cases.
Those first two can easily be done remotely, especially under the conditions in the article (like patients in very low-density areas). The point is, there are people available to handle the basic technical skills, and under extreme conditions this system could bring anaesthesia to areas it'd be otherwise unavailable.
Everybody wants fast access to health care. They should diagnose expeditiously, start a treatment plan immediately, and treatment should progress rapidly. We should absolutely embrace ways to free up doctors so they can treat more people, and sooner.
Comment Health care impact (Score 5, Informative) 362
I work in respiratory care. We administer a 70%/30% mix of helium and oxygen, called Heliox. It is a low-density gas, making it easier to breathe for people with airway obstructions (such as asthma, throat cancer, etc.).
The rising cost of helium may make Heliox prohibitively expensive.
Just wanted to share that helium is for more than balloons.
Aral Sea May Recover; Dead Sea Needs a Lifeline 131
An anonymous reader writes "It's a tale of two seas. The drying up of the Aral Sea is considered one of the greatest environmental catastrophes in history, but the northern sector of the sea, at least, is showing signs of life. A dam completed in 2005 has increased the North Aral's span by 20 percent, and birds, fish, and people are all returning to the area. Meanwhile, the Dead Sea is still in the midst of precipitous decline, since too much water is being drawn out of the Jordan River for thirsty populations and crops. To keep the sea from shrinking more, scientists are pushing an ambitious scheme called the 'Red-Dead conduit,' which would channel huge amounts of water from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea. However, the environmental consequences of such a project may be troubling."
Good Language Choice For School Programming Test? 407
An anonymous reader writes "The Australian Informatics Olympiad programming test is being run in a couple of months. I'm an experienced programmer and I'm thinking of volunteering to tutor interested kids at my children's school to get them ready. There will be children of all levels in the group, from those that can't write 'hello world' in any language, to somewhat experienced programmers. For those starting from scratch, I'm wondering what language to teach them to code in. Accepted languages are C, C++, Pascal, Java, PHP, Python and Visual Basic. I'm leaning towards Python, because it is a powerful language with a simple syntax. However, the test has a run-time CPU seconds limit, so using an interpreted language like Python could put the students at a disadvantage compared to using C. Is it better to teach them something in 2 months that they're likely to be able to code in but possibly run foul of the CPU time limit, or struggle to teach them to code in a more complicated syntax like C/C++ which would however give them the best chance of having a fast solution?"
Comment 100 million? (Score 5, Funny) 145
Don't you mean 6,000?
Comment Lay back and receive your SDK (Score 5, Insightful) 120
An API for suck does not undo the suck.
Submission + - Thunderbird in crisis?
Elektroschock writes: "The two core developers of Thunderbird leave Mozilla. Scott McGregor made a brief statement: "I wanted to let the Thunderbird community know that Friday October 12th will be my last day as an employee of the Mozilla Corporation." and David blogged "Just wanted to let everyone know that my last day at The Mozilla Corporation will be Oct. 12. I intend to stay involved with Thunderbird... I've enjoyed working at Mozilla a lot, and I wish Mozilla Co and the new Mail Co all the best." I am scared. A few month ago Mozilla management considered to abandon their second product and set up a special corporation just for the mail client. Scott was more or less supportive. David joined in. While Sunbird just released a new version no appropriate resources were dedicated to the missing component. And while Thunderbird became the most used Linux mail client it is abandoned by Mozilla for 'popularity reasons'. Both messages from David and Scott do not sound if they as founders will play any role in the Thunderbird Mail Corporation. What happened to Mozilla? Is it a case of pauperization through donations?"
Slashdot Top Deals
The moving cursor writes, and having written, blinks on.
