Consent issues about Google DeepMind raised after leaked letter but its analysis of 1.6 million patient records to identify those at risk of acute renal failure seems to be covered by 'implied consent'. "Google DeepMind patient app legality questioned. A leaked letter throws doubt on the legal basis...
Source: bbc.co.uk
NHSbuntu - a modern, secure, open source, operating system being considered by Jeremy Hunt for the NHS. It seems to have taken the recent ransomware attack on the ageing Windows XP infrastructure of the NHS to alert those in charge to an innovation that has already been developed from within it. NHSbuntu...
Source: openhealthhub.org
The Ebook R/Evolution – Not as Easy as It Seems - The Scholarly Kitchen: The "ebook revolution" in scholarly publishing has behaved more like an evolution. Are we reaching a key inflection point where users are central to our innovations?
Source: sspnet.org
If you do one online course this year make it this one. Calling Bullshit. A course for students at University of Washington but all materials will be online. Live and archived videos of lectures will be made available. "The world is awash in bullshit. Politicians are unconstrained by facts. Science...
Source: callingbullshit.org
The Internet Archive just got a bit more useful - and a lot more political - ExtremeTech: Archive.org seems to think the Trump Administration will be so disastrous for data freedom that it is literally moving (a copy) to Canada.
Source: extremetech.com
Good read. The most good you can do by Peter Singer. This is about effective altruism. If you are going to give away your money how can ensure you give it to the most effective resources? More than that if you've decided to give away money what is the best job that you can do? There are some extreme...
Source: amazon.co.uk
Just finished reading 'not exactly: in praise of vagueness' by Kees Van Deemter. Fantastic concepts and well explained but I found it really hard going. He seemed to want to dive in to all the logic, theoretical background, and notation of the topic but then it would have felt more like a textbook. ...
Source: amazon.co.uk
Just read the "Happy Life" story - saving abandoned children on the streets of Nairobi. This is about a children rescue centre in Nairobi started 14 years ago and has now expanded to caring directly for around 100 children across two sites. They have offered for adoption over 170 children. The city...
Source: amazon.co.uk
Good read. "Life on the Edge" by Jim Al-Khalili and Johnjoe McFadden covers the fascinating world of quantum biology. Could life be a delicate balance that organic molecules can provide to enable quantum coherence? The efficient quantum mechanisms of photosynthesis, magnetoreception, and enzymes are...
Source: amazon.co.uk
Evolution seems to have occurred a million times faster than natural selection alone could explain. Could nature be using some hidden process? Just read Probably Approximately Correct by Leslie Valiant (a computational theorist). It explores a special class of algorithms which he calls 'ecorthims' that...
Source: amazon.co.uk
The Zika virus debunked by Science-based Medicine. "A new word has been added to the public’s vocabulary – the Zika virus. It seems we have one more infectious agent to worry about. Here are the facts as we currently understand them regarding the recent Zika epidemic, and also some rumors and conspiracy...
Source: sciencebasedmedicine.org
Video "Hans Rosling asks: Has the UN gone mad? The United Nations just announced their boldest goal ever: To eradicate extreme poverty for all people everywhere, already by 2030. Looking at the realities of extremely poor people the goal seems impossible. The rains didn’t fall in Malawi this year....
Source: gapminder.org
Study suggests that washing dishes decreases stress: Washing those dreadful dishes after a long day seems like the furthest thing from relaxation. Or is it?
Source: medicalxpress.com
Computer-Aided Detection for Mammography Seems to Offer Few Benefits NEJM Journal Watch.
Source: jwatch.org
Although heavy going at times I attended an interesting update on Vitamin D at Truro today. Basically Vitamin D seems ... well ... vital not only for bones but for soft tissues as well(1). It would be interesting to explore the relationship with diabetes, Type 1 in particular, in more detail. I had been...