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What (else) happened? A key question for learning programmes.

blog post image Good paper from 2013 on the need to go beyond just asking 'did our programme work?' "It is clear that programme evaluations using traditional ‘outcomes-based’ models are inadequate for the health professions context. Consequently, the scholarship in health professions education has begun to incorporate...
Source: wiley.com

A New Kind of AI Copy Can Fully Replicate Famous People. The Law Is Powerless.

New AI-generated digital replicas of real experts expose an unnerving policy gray zone. Washington wants to fix it, but it’s not clear how.
Source: politico.com

A systematic review of insight and reflection in post graduate medical education

Great literature synthesis on reflection. "We present a novel description of a hierarchy from discrete episodes of reflection, to cyclic processes that involve reflection, through to a state in which the practitioner is reflective. There is no unified understanding of how an individual ascends this...
Source: wiley.com

FDA approves most expensive drug ever, a $3.5 million-per-dose gene therapy for hemophilia B

The single-dose medicine "represents important progress" as the first-ever gene therapy for the rare disorder, the FDA said. ”The Food and Drug Administration cleared Hemgenix, an IV treatment for adults with hemophilia B, the less common form of the genetic disorder which primarily affects men.”
Source: cbsnews.com

Therese Coffey tells health workers about her 'working preferences'

New Health Secretary issues guidance telling staff of her 'working preferences' ... this includes: - stop using the Oxford comma - avoid double negatives - be 'positive' - to steer clear of 'jargon' After the incredible work that the NHS did in response to the pandemic and the sacrifices many staff...
Source: telegraph.co.uk

France launches hunt for new EDF CEO, sets money aside for full nationalisation

EDF and the French government are seeking a new boss to overhaul the power utility and build more nuclear reactors, they said on Thursday, with billions in public money earmarked to help finance a full nationalisation of the debt-laden company.
Source: reuters.com

The UK’s (new) Bill of Rights

An authoritarian resistance to scrutiny. Very un-British. “it is becoming abundantly clear that the true objective underpinning this Bill (and the Government’s wider project) concerns not the so-called restoration of parliamentary sovereignty or the strengthening of democracy, but the entrenchment...
Source: publiclawforeveryone.com

How the War in Ukraine Could Get Much Worse

The West and Russia may be entering into the terminal stages of an insecurity spiral, which could produce a larger European war even if it doesn’t go nuclear.
Source: foreignaffairs.com

The women who fought against nuclear missiles

The Greenham Common anti-nuclear protest was the UK's biggest women-led movement since the Suffragettes.
Source: bbc.co.uk

Psychology of panic buying

I've been fascinated by the psychology of panic buying and it is clearly an area for future research. It has an enormous impact on delivery infrastructure and I wonder if anyone has been tracking the data of the causes and the impact in the current fuel 'crisis'. A systematic review from last year identified...
Source: nih.gov

New WHO Global Air Quality Guidelines aim to save millions of lives from air pollution

"Air pollution is one of the biggest environmental threats to human health, alongside climate change. New guidelines provide clear evidence of the damage air pollution inflicts on human health, at even lower concentrations than previously understood." "Global assessments of ambient air pollution alone...
Source: who.int

Will MIT Scientists' Powerful Magnet Lead Us to Nuclear Fusion Energy? - Slashdot

"A start-up founded by scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology says it is nearing a technological milestone that could take the world a step closer to fusion energy, which has eluded scientists for decades," reports the New York Times: Researchers at M.I.T.'s Plasma Science and Fus...
Source: slashdot.org

Bill Gates' next generation nuclear reactor to be built in Wyoming

Billionaire Bill Gates' advanced nuclear reactor company TerraPower LLC and PacifiCorp (PPWLO.PK) have selected Wyomingto launch the first Natrium reactor project on the site of a retiring coal plant, the state's governor said on Wednesday.
Source: reuters.com

Then and now: Pandemic clears the air

Air pollution is highly damaging to the environment, but Covid lockdowns show we can clear the air.
Source: bbc.com

Why Did It Take So Long to Accept the Facts About Covid?

"The importance of airborne transmission in the pandemic was clear long before the World Health Organization finally began to acknowledge it." "If the importance of aerosol transmission had been accepted early, we would have been told from the beginning that it was much safer outdoors, where these small...
Source: nytimes.com

Detection of a particle shower at the Glashow resonance with IceCube Nature.

The Glashow resonance describes the resonant formation of a W− boson during the interaction of a high-energy electron antineutrino with an electron1, peaking at an antineutrino energy of 6.3 petaelectronvolts (PeV) in the rest frame of the electron. Whereas this energy scale is out of reach for currently...
Source: nature.com

Andy Weber on rendering bioweapons obsolete & ending the new nuclear arms race

"COVID-19 has provided a vivid reminder of the power of biological threats. But the threat doesn’t come from natural sources alone. Weaponized contagious diseases — which were abandoned by the United States, but developed in large numbers by the Soviet Union, right up until its collapse — have...
Source: 80000hours.org

Most brain activity is "background noise"

"Most brain activity is "background noise" and that's upending our understanding of consciousness." This complexity view of the mind is not new but this article explains it quite clearly.
Source: salon.com

No, frozen wind turbines aren't the main culprit for Texas' power outages

"Lost wind power makes up only a fraction of the reduction in power generating capacity that has brought outages to millions of Texans across the state during a major winter storm." Plenty of disinformation out there. There have been posts apparently showing a helicopter de-icing a wind turbine but it...
Source: texastribune.org

Mark Lynas on why nuclear power is the most practical way to avoid catastrophic climate change: Why isn’t everyone demanding

Mark Lynas on why nuclear power is the most practical way to avoid catastrophic climate change: Why isn’t everyone demanding a massive scale-up of nuclear energy to save lives and stop climate change?
Source: 80000hours.org