Follow Slashdot stories on Twitter

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror

Comment iTunes + Airport Express (Score 5, Informative) 438

I like the combination of iTunes and Airport Express - http://www.apple.com/airportexpress/ - devices. Each Airport Express can join a wireless or wired network and has an optical digital and analogue audio output which you can connect to a hifi / radio with aux input etc. Each Airport Express appears as a remote speaker in iTunes and you can tell iTunes to play to any / all remote speakers. And you can control everything with Apple's free Remote app - http://www.apple.com/itunes/remote/ - on an iPod Touch / iPhone. It all works rather well.

Comment 8 months of rehab is the real reason (Score 2, Informative) 221

From: http://www.theskepticsguide.org/sgublog/?p=519 by Steven Novella

Here is the real story, as best as I can infer from the information I am given, but I have a high degree of confidence in my interpretation. First, it is not plausible that the spider bite itself did anything to regenerate nerves or muscles or improve David Blancarte's neurological function. So what did happen. The story reports:

Ever since, David's been relying on his wheelchair to get around. Then the spider bite. A Brown Recluse sent him to the hospital, then to rehab for eight months.

It is always important to seperate out variables when considering cause and effect. There are at least three variables we are being presented - Blancarte was biten by a brown recluse (which is poisonous), then he was treated for his bite in the hospital, and then he spent eight months in rehab. Of those three variables, which one is most likely to have resulted in his ability to walk? My bet is on the eight months of rehab.

To understand this we must further separate out variables. Motor ability (like walking) results from two general categories of factors - neurological and functional. Neurological factors include things like how intact the spinal cord and nerves are, and is there any damage to specific parts of the brain. Functional factors include conditioning, training, and motivation. So the question we must always ask when someone makes an improvement in motor ability is: was their improvement neurological, functional, or both.

Slashdot Top Deals

"It is easier to fight for principles than to live up to them." -- Alfred Adler

Working...