Author: SupremeCmdr

Fugu or Not to Fugu?

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Tetrodotoxin poisoning

  • Numbness around the mouth followed by paralysis and death by respiratory failure – the victim remaining conscious throughout
  • First recorded case found in the logs of Captain Cook in 1774, after crew members ate the fish
  • Tetrodotoxin is named after the Tetraodontiformes order of fish, which includes blowfish
  • It is also found in blue-ringed octopuses, some toads, newts and other animals

via BBC News – Dicing death: The fish more poisonous than cyanide.

I refuse to eat sushi in Oklahoma.  I doubt I’ll ever eat Fugu.

Asthma Cases Reach New High

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Asthma prevalence reached its highest level ever in 2010 — 8.4% of the population, up from 7.3% in 2001, according to the CDC.

That translates into 18.7 million adults and 7 million children who had been diagnosed with asthma and still had the condition in 2010, the agency said in a report called Asthma’s Impact on the Nation.

On the other hand, the agency reported, deaths from the disease have been declining from 2001 through 2009, as have visits for asthma to physician offices and hospital outpatient departments.

via Medical News: Asthma Cases Reach New High – in Allergy & Immunology, Asthma from MedPage Today.

Why So Many Ph.D.s Are On Food Stamps : NPR

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Tony Yang received his Ph.D. in history from the University of California, Riverside in 2009. Since then, he’s worked on and off as a history lecturer, but has had to depend on unemployment and food stamps to get by.

In his best year since getting his Ph.D., Yang says he made about $32,000; in his worst, about $10,000. He says there’s a perception that if you have a doctorate, you automatically walk into a high-paying job.

“I have the prestige of holding a Ph.D., but that [isn’t] paying the bills,” he says.

via Why So Many Ph.D.s Are On Food Stamps : NPR.

FDA Panel Says Yes to Home HIV Test

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If marketed, the test would likely be sold in a similar manner to some cough medicines, according to a company spokesman. At checkout, the cashier would ask to see the purchaser’s ID to confirm he or she is at least 17.

via Medical News: FDA Panel Says Yes to Home HIV Test – in HIV/AIDS, HIV/AIDS from MedPage Today.

Might be time to review your application and exam question.

I’d take a hard look at my non-medical limits too.

Pizza Delicious Bought An Ad On Facebook. How’d They Do? : Planet Money : NPR

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Those ads went viral. They got twice the usual number of click-thrus, on average. The ad showed up more than 700,000 times. Basically, everyone in New Orleans on Facebook saw it. Twice. Pizza Delicious got close to twenty times the number of Facebook fans they usually get in two days. The guys were stoked.

via Pizza Delicious Bought An Ad On Facebook. How’d They Do? : Planet Money : NPR.

I’ll cut to the chase so you don’t have to read or listen to the entire article.  It didn’t work.

After a long night of asking every single customer where they found out about Pizza Delicious, not one said it was through Facebook.

Maybe at some point, the new Pizza Delicious fans will show up and buy some pizza. But social advertising is so new that nobody knows for sure. It’s still unproven, untested and largely unstudied.

Update –

I read the article first, then listened to the podcast.  Listen to the podcast, it’s funnier than hell.

MKSAP: 22-year-old man with T1DM

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Key Point  -Because factors such as fever and exercise can cause a transient increase in protein excretion, patients with type 1 diabetes mellitus who have abnormal findings on annual measurement of the urine albumin excretion should undergo repeat urinalyses twice within the next 6 months; positive findings on two of the three urine samples would confirm a diagnosis of microalbuminuria defined as a urine albumin-creatinine ratio between 30 and 300 mg/g.

via MKSAP: 22-year-old man with type 1 diabetes mellitus.