Prosthetics in developing countries

The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that thirty million people in developing countries need either a prosthetic limb or some other form of orthopedic assistance. How many can afford them? How many can really help them with expertise, material and prosthetic centers?

In Uganda CoRSU hospital, which opened its doors in 2009 with the help of donations from countries around the world, with the help of Canadian NGO Nia Technologies and the University of Toronto have been testing prosthetic sockets produced by a 3D printer. These prostheses have worked well. However,  sockets produced using cheaper 3D printers haven't. They were unstable and tended to break quickly,. Plus, patients are unable to wear such sockets for long periods of time.

Buying Weed in the U.S.

Birds have to eat

Does this happen only in India?

I think not. But these numbers are frightening. I'm referring to the number of children raped - 19,765 in 2016. And they rape kids as young as eight months old; she was raped by her 28-year-old cousin. She is in serious medical condition.

And then there's the case of the 10-year-old who was raped last August. She is pregnant and has been denied an abortion.

O, to be a Naked Mole Rat

They rarely get cancer, are resistant to some types of pain, and can survive up to 18 minutes without oxygen. But it looks like aging is not a problem, or so a recent study says. The study analyzed the life histories of thousands of naked mole rats and found that their risk of death doesn't go up as they grow older, as it does for every other known mammalian species. One of the investigators says, "At advanced ages, their mortality rate remains lower than any other mammal that has been documented.”

Captive mice live about four years. Based on their size, naked mole rats would not be expected to live past 6 years. But some live beyond 30 years, and even at that age breeding females stay fertile. The study found that each naked mole rat’s daily chance of dying was a little more than one in 10,000. 

However, the study could be biased, as most animals were either killed or moved to other labs, fewer than 50 animals in the study lived past 15 years of age. The oldest animal currently living in the lab is 35.

On-Line Charter Schools Don't Work Well

Some Estimates

Refrigerators are expensive

The Department of Defense is spending $23,657,671 to replace refrigerators and "chillers"on the two Air Force One planes. Both have been in service since 1990. The coolers on the heavily modified 747 jumbo jets that fly the US president need to have the capacity to store 3,000 meals on board, and two out of the five refrigerators are in need of replacement.

The RED HANDFISH - the world's rarest fish

Research 'Findings'

Almost every week there is a report about a wonderful scientific research finding. But, there are seldom any words in the report as to how true the report's findings are. I knew about a web site that kept track of retractions; they were in the thousands. I've forgotten the site but here are a couple of other sites - Retraction Watch and Wikipedia. 

Yesterday I came across an article about the subject by Douglas Campell, who has been  a Staff Economist in the President's Council of Economic Advisors. Here is an interesting excerpt:

This is a description of everything I wish science was! Perhaps it is an accurate description of hard sciences (I'm skeptical), but this is not how the social sciences operate. In practice, when a top researcher has a major finding, other top researchers, with rare exceptions, do not check it. Occasionally, grad students or less prominent researchers will overturn the result, but they will find that journals simply aren't the least bit interested in publishing papers which reverse seminal papers. Thinking like an economist, this creates some rather perverse incentives. If you are a well-connected researcher in a prominent department, you are well-incentivized to publish as much as possible. This means creating research which appears sophisticated, and it also means not pissing off the people who will judge your research. On the contrary, implies that there are benefits from having a lot of close friends (what deGrasse calls your "rivals") in the profession. You don't accomplish this by pointing out that another researcher's results disappear when you control for latitude. As a result, many top researchers are in fact incentivized to crank out many low-quality papers but with seemingly blockbuster results. Part of the way this system survives is because there is a culture frowning on writing "comment papers", and the other reason is that there is, fortunate for the existence of this system, a willing population of "sheep", the "true believers", available to consume and believe this research.

Should Puerto Rico be a state?

We have a job to do

The World Bank's latest report on poverty showed that 769 million people lived on less than $1.90 a day in 2013. Of these, 3.2 million live in the United States, and 3.3 million in other high-income countries (most in Italy, Japan and Spain).

However, the Bank adjusts its poverty estimates for differences in prices across countries, but it ignores differences in needs. Looking at needs, Angus Deaton, a Nobel Laureate in Economics, concludes that while people in undeveloped countries can squeeze by on $1.90 a day, the squeeze point for the very poor in advanced countries is $4. The following chart shows where nations stand.

Percentage of total population that is poorest:

Netherlands 0.2% 

Britain 0.2 

Belgium 0.3 

France 0.3 

Norway 0.3 

Denmark 0.4 

Austria 0.5 

South Korea 0.7 

Australia 0.7 

Canada 0.7 

Japan 0.7 

Sweden 0.7 

Ireland 1.0 

United States 1.7 

Spain 2.0 

Italy 2.3 

Portugal 2.5 

Greece 3.7

Is Democracy Dying?

A beauty contest for camels

Thousands of camels compete for the beauty prize of the King Abdulaziz Camel Festival in Saudi Arabia. They are judged on their shapely lips and humps. There is big money involved, a combined prize money of $57,000,000. So, there was a decent incentive for some to cheat. Twelve camels were disqualified from the contest because their owners tried to tweak their good looks with Botox. They applied Botox to the animals' lips, nose and jaw as big heads, lips, noses and jaws, which are important for a camel's beauty.

Guns around the world

Where the money is

With the wealthiest, of course. Oxfam has just released a report based on Credit Suisse's Global Wealth Databook. They conclude that:

82% of the wealth generated last year went to the richest one percent of the global population, while the 3.7 billion people who make up the poorest half of the world saw no increase in their wealth.

Billionaire wealth has risen by an annual average of 13 percent since 2010 – six times faster than the wages of ordinary workers, which have risen by a yearly average of just 2 percent. The number of billionaires rose at an unprecedented rate of one every two days between March 2016 and March 2017.

Remember Paul Robeson?

The Electric Eel

Picking good people is hard

The Trump administration has not done a very good job. The latest is Taylor Weyeneth, who was hired as deputy chief of staff for the drug policy office, or ONDCP. First problem is he has very little experience as an employee, let alone working for the government. He is 24 years-old and graduated from college in May 2016. His only experience post college was working for the Trump campaign and transition. 

Another problem is his work experience while in college. He worked as a legal assistant in a law firm in 2014 or early 2015. He was fired for absenteeism in August 2015. However, his resume says he left the firm in April 2016. His resume also said he had a graduate degree from Fordham; however, he has not yet graduated. Finally, his resume said that he served for three years as vice president of Kappa Sigma, reality was 18 months.

Trains can kill

A new train company, Brightline, began service in Florida a week or so ago. Things have not gone well. Three people have been hit by a train, two fatally. They tried to cross the tracks before the train came. It appears as though the accidents were caused by people not realizing how fast the trains were moving. Prvious trains went at 30 to 40 miles per hour, Brightline can reach speeds of up to 79 mph south of West Palm Beach and up to 110 mph through the Treasure and Space coasts.

From our Florida correspondent

It's only a half degree

From CarbonBrief

Combating Loneliness

England is trying to do so based on a recent study that showed that more than nine million adults in the country often or always feel lonely. This is more than the population of London. Government research has found that about 200,000 older people in Britain had not had a conversation with a friend or relative in more than a month. 

The country has take three steps to begin to address the problem. The Prime Minister appointed a minister for loneliness. A government agency will establish a method of measuring loneliness. A fund will be set up to help the government and charities to develop a wider strategy to identify opportunities to tackle the problem.

What does the world think of us?

Think you're cold?

Something good for a change

Poor design?

Here's a shot of the menu used in the Hawaii 'warning' on Saturday.

As you can see, it is not crystal clear. Particularly when the top line (False Alarm) was added after Saturday. Few of the lines are in plain English. For example, PACOM refers to the United States Pacific Command based in Hawaii.

Tulips were worth a heck of a lot

From Visual Capitalist

She has a Dream

Some change in 44 years

From Salil Mehta

He flies through the air

The car clipped a median and flew about 60 feet before slamming into the second floor of a building in Santa Ana, Ca. The driver had taken drugs.

Mistakes?

What were the odds of the Hawaii error resulting in a war?

Culture of animals?

One view of the War on Drugs

The State Dept. is shrinking

60 percent of the State Departments’ top-ranking career diplomats have left and new applications to join the foreign service have fallen by half, according to recent data from the American Foreign Service Association, the professional organization of the U.S. diplomatic corps. Last week the Ambassador to Panama resigned because he was not able to work under President Donald Trump. He was considered a rising star and a potential future assistant secretary. 

Does this bode well for us? Is the chance of another war on the increase?

Oxygen is leaving the ocean

And that's not good. Over the past 50 years, the volume of the ocean with no oxygen at all has quadrupled, while oxygen-deprived swaths of the open seas have expanded by the size Europe; we have lost 2% of the oxygen in the ocean. Why? Global warming and pollution. Warmer seawater both holds less oxygen and turbocharges the worldwide consumption of oxygen by microorganisms. Meanwhile, agricultural runoff and sewage drives suffocating algae blooms.

Rebuilding Afghanistan

$16 billion Weather & Climate Disasters in 2017

From NOAA

Collecting back taxes

In 2015 Congress passed a law in 2015 requiring the I.R.S. to use outside contractors to make a dent in the $138 billion that taxpayers owe the government. Well, it didn't work out too well last year. The IRS paid the private debt collectors $20 million. The return on this investment: the private collectors brought in only $6.7 million in back taxes, or less than 1 percent of the amount assigned for collection.

To further aggravate you, the private contractors in some cases were paid 25 percent commissions on collections that the I.R.S. made without their help. Also, 45 percent of the collections by private contractors were from taxpayers whose incomes fell below the minimum threshold, including those who received Social Security disability payments.

Are dolphins egotistical?

Kids dying

A bad month for bankruptcies

There were 699 Chapter 11 bankruptcies in the US in December 2017. That was 362 filings more than December 2016 and the largest year-over-year jump since the Financial Crisis.

Skating on Martha's Vineyard

From our Florida correspondent

Scientists say we are in trouble

More than 15,000 scientists from around the world, “the most scientists to ever co-sign and formally support a published journal article.” signed a new warning— “By failing to adequately limit population growth, reassess the role of an economy rooted in growth, reduce greenhouse gases, incentivize renewable energy, protect habitat, restore ecosystems, curb pollution, halt defaunation, and constrain invasive alien species, humanity is not taking the urgent steps needed to safeguard our imperiled biosphere.”

Deaths from some 21st century wars

Will these tweets go down in history?

Now that Russian collusion, after one year of intense study, has proven to be a total hoax on the American public, the Democrats and their lapdogs, the Fake News Mainstream Media, are taking out the old Ronald Reagan playbook and screaming mental stability and intelligence.....
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) Jan. 6, 2018

....Actually, throughout my life, my two greatest assets have been mental stability and being, like, really smart. Crooked Hillary Clinton also played these cards very hard and, as everyone knows, went down in flames. I went from VERY successful businessman, to top T.V. Star.....
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) Jan. 6, 2018

....to President of the United States (on my first try). I think that would qualify as not smart, but genius....and a very stable genius at that!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) Jan. 6, 2018


In November 2016 I wrote "I've had the sense that Trump is a 9 year-old spoiled brat." He seems to be proving it more and more often.

Protests in Iran

Winter is fun for some beings

Still Life at 50 degrees

Still in use

The Postal Creed - "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds" - was in effect yesterday here in Bloomfield, Ct. Given the "Bomb Cyclone" that was still howling outside, I was shocked when at 1 p.m. the receptionist announced that the mail was in. I even had a package.

Glacier Disappearing

A Free Press?

Source: Press Freedom Tracker

Where did I park my car?

Should Trump be a slave to Twitter?

Should any world leader? Twitter does encourage impulsive, off-the-cuff comments. Should world leaders engage in such communication? They don't have to, as they can go on television or radio whenever they want. Doing so would make them and their staffs give some thought to what they will say since their words can carry immediate consequences, and can conceivably affect billions.

Twitter now bans people with a few thousand followers to prevent the harm of online harassment. Some statements from world leaders could cause a lot worse than harassment.

Contaminating America?

She's only been running for 9 years

Some words for a new year and beyond

Here are six very short stories from a fellow Duncaster resident:

Once all villagers decided to pray for rain. On the day of prayer all the people gathered, but only one boy came with an umbrella. *That's FAITH.* 

When you throw babies in the air, they laugh because they know you will catch them. *That's TRUST.*

Every night we go to bed without any assurance of being alive the next morning, but still we set the alarms to wake up. *That's HOPE.* 

We plan big things for tomorrow in spite of zero knowledge of the future. *That's CONFIDENCE.* 

We see the world suffering, but still we get married and have children. *That's LOVE.* 

On an old man's shirt was written a sentence 'I am not 80 years old; I am sweet 16 with 64 years of experience.' *That's ATTITUDE.* 

Have a happy day and live your life like the six stories. 

When I was a child, I thought nap time was punishment. Now it's like a mini-vacation. 

*GOOD FRIENDS ARE THE RARE JEWELS OF LIFE . . . DIFFICULT TO FIND AND IMPOSSIBLE TO REPLACE!*

Liars

There is wealth in North Korea

A growing business

In 1979 the Big East Conference of colleges was born. One of its first moves was to broadcast its games. The conference was paid $305,000 for the right to broadcast all of its games. In the 21st century, the conference was paid more than $100 million for those rights. This year the NCAA's Division I sports programs brought in more than $8 billion. None of this revenue is taxable. 

College conferences now earn money from television and corporate sponsors. Take the Atlantic Coast Conference as an example. Its corporate sponsors include Toyota, Gatorade and Geico. When the conference filed its annual tax return for 2015, it reported about a quarter-billion dollars from broadcasting games for its member universities, as well as $147 million in other sports-related revenue. Its commissioner earned $2.9 million. 

I wonder how many of their athletes graduated.

Thoughts re North Korea

War on Supply or War on Demand?

Since the Nixon era we have waged the War on Drugs, the goal of which is to eliminate the supply of drugs. To say that this approach has not worked very well is a gross understatement. Studies show that the United States has among the highest rates of drug use in the world. The War on Drugs has made many criminals very rich, powerful and evil. In Mexico alone, drug-related violence has resulted in over 100,000 deaths since 2006.

The campaign to reduce tobacco use has succeeded much, much more than the war on drugs. Far fewer of us smoke and I don't know of a tobacco company that murders people. George Schultz and Pedro Aspe have some sensible suggestions for a War on Demand:

Decriminalize the small-scale possession of drugs for personal use.
Create well-staffed and first-class treatment centers where people are willing to go without fear of being prosecuted and with the confidence that they will receive effective care, as in Portugal.
Experiment with solutions. Which advertising messages are most effective? How can treatment be made effective for different kinds of drugs and different degrees of addiction? We should have the patience to evaluate what works and what doesn’t. 

But we must get started now.

Niagara Falls in winter