When Steve Jobs died many people wondered who and where the next ‘Steve Jobs’ was. We may have one here. He even looks and sounds like him…
My 3 Cents 0n Cancer
Jack Andraka | TEDxSanJose | 13 Feb 13
Following the death of a close friend from pancreatic cancer, Jack Andraka, a freshman in high school, set out to find a way to detect this killer earlier and cheaper than the accepted methods of the medical establishment. The result was a new dipstick type diagnostic test for pancreatic cancer using a novel paper sensor, similar to that of the diabetic test strip. This strip tests for the level of mesothelin, a pancreatic cancer biomarker, to determine whether or not a patient has early-stage pancreatic cancer. The test is over 90 percent accurate in detecting the presence of mesothelin. According to Andraka, it is also 168 times faster, 26,000 times less expensive (costing around three cents), over 400 times more sensitive than the current diagnostic tests and only takes five minutes to run. He says the test is also effective for detecting ovarian and lung cancer, due to the same mesothelin biomarker they have in common.
________________________________________________________________________________ Jack Andraka’s research, conducted at John Hopkins University could change the face of cancer and promote early detection. He has been selected as the Intel 2012 ISEF winner and has won awards at multiple national and international math competitions. Jack is on the national junior whitewater kayaking team and enjoys playing with his dog and folding origami.
Inspiration Alert! Watch this and see if you don’t get inspired. Ballard has been exploring the oceans that surround this planet all his life. To hear him talk is like listening to Christopher Columbus talk about finding an unknown island with palm trees. Like Neal Armstrong talking about his first step on moon dust. Pretty exciting stuff…
Exploring the Oceans
Robert Ballard | TED.com | Jan 13
________________________________________________________________________________ Among the most accomplished and well known of the world’s deep-sea explorers, Robert Ballard is best known for his historic discoveries of hydrothermal vents, the sunken R.M.S. Titanic, the German battleship Bismarck, and numerous other contemporary and ancient shipwrecks around the world. During his long career he has conducted more than 120 deep-sea expeditions using the latest in exploration technology, and he is a pioneer in the early use of deep-diving submarines.
Ballard is president of the Institute for Exploration, scientist emeritus from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and Director of the newly created Center for Ocean Exploration at the University of Rhode Island’s Graduate School of Oceanography. His new ship of exploration, the E/V Nautilus operated by his Ocean Exploration Trust spends four to five months at sea each year and will be exploring the Black Sea, Aegean, Mediterranean, and Atlantic Ocean in 2011, beaming back his exploration around the clock on Nautilus Live.
When we were cruising there was one person we looked to every day for critical information about the weather. Dr. Jeff Masters, founder of Wunderground.com. There is probably no person on the planet who knows more about weather then Jeff Masters. In this presentation Dr. Masters shares his observations, insights and forecasts for the future of our increasingly worrisome weather. Given what we just went through near New York, it’s not too encouraging. While the presentation is a bit formal the picture he envisions is enough to make even the most cynical global warming skeptic sit up and take notice. But they probably won’t. By the way, Jeff predicted Sandy would occur and warned it would be devastating to New York. Last year…
What’s Up With The Weather?
Dr. Jeff Masters | TED | Apr 12
________________________________________________________________________________ Jeff Masters co-founded the Weather Underground in 1995 while working on his Ph.D. Weather Underground is a commercial weather service that provides real-time weather information via the Internet. Weather Underground provides weather reports for most major cities across the world on its Web site, as well as local weather reports for newspapers and Web sites. Most of its United States information comes from the National Weather Service (NWS), as information from that agency is within the public domain by federal law. The Web site is available in many languages, and an ad-free version of the site with additional features is available for an annual fee.
I’ve been trying to get this point across to clients for 40 years…
Deadlines
Café Communications | 28 Sept 11
________________________________________________________________________________ Café Communications designs and executes communication solutions in Central and Eastern Europe.
This article is a case study of how America bought into an educational model that was flawed at the start, resulting in a generation of people who lack the basic skills necessary to translate thoughts and ideas into language and ultimately into writing. While the story is inspiring for the progress made by one school and hopefully many others to follow, it is also an indictment of our educational and political structures (i.e. leaders) who sold this nation a bill of good so lacking in common sense and effectiveness. Missing from the article is the $64K question, “Why was a high school principal able to see the problem, locate the cause and chart a path to an effective solution, so quickly and with such positive results, while countless Harvard PHDs and nationally esteemed educators failed for so many years to do the same?”
Note… I am also taken by the phrase at the end of this piece, “Then someone showed me how.” That is the essence of education. It is engraved in the hearts of teachers everywhere. Politicians who suggest we cut budgets for education are cutting our oxygen supply. Are you listening, Mitt?
The Writing Revolution
Peg Tyre | The Atlantic | Oct 12
For years, nothing seemed capable of turning around New Dorp High School’s dismal performance—not firing bad teachers, not flashy education technology, not after-school programs. So, faced with closure, the school’s principal went all-in on a very specific curriculum reform, placing an overwhelming focus on teaching the basics of analytic writing, every day, in virtually every class. What followed was an extraordinary blossoming of student potential, across nearly every subject—one that has made New Dorp a model for educational reform.
This is one of the most amazing internet stories I have ever seen. A young boy in Los Angeles, with some brilliant guidance from his dad, decides to build a cardboard arcade in his dad’s auto parts store in East L.A. He invites his friends to come over and play. Someone makes a film of it which gets posted to the internet. The result is a world-wide phenomenon, a foundation bringing in hundreds of thousands of dollars supporting scholarships and kids around the world building their own cardboard arcades. There are many interesting facets to this story but two I can think of are how kids today are using digital technology to explore and build their world and how creativity has little to do with gadgets and everything to do with the joy of entertaining yourself with the tools at hand. Because of this story there are are nine-year-olds all over the planet inventing and building their imaginations out of cardboard. What could be less “techie” than that? Anyone see a TV or a video game here? Incredible…
Caine’s Arcade
Nirvan Mullick | Los Angeles | Sept 12
________________________________________________________________________________ Nirvan Mullick is an LA based filmmaker, digital strategist, and creative consultant.
If you have any interest at all in the subject of race in America you must watch and listen to this interview by Bill Moyers with Khalil Gibran Muhammad, head of the New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and author of ‘The Condemnation of Blackness’, Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America. I have never heard anyone talk so clearly and effectively about American history and the black experience. Listening to this man is like learning that you only have one eye and it’s been shut most of your life…
Confronting the Contradictions of America’s Past
Khalil Gibran Muhammad | Bill Moyers | 29 Jun 12
________________________________________________________________________________ Dr. Khalil Gibran Muhammad is the Director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, one of the world’s leading research facilities dedicated to the history of the African diaspora. Prior to joining the Schomburg Center in 2011, Dr. Muhammad was an assistant professor of history at Indiana University for five years. While there, he wrote the book The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime and the Making of Modern Urban America, in which he explored the roots of the popular conception of black criminality in America. Mr. Muhammad is the great-grandson of Elijah Muhammad, leader of the Nation of Islam, and son of Ozier Muhammad, a Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times photographer.
A fw days ago I got a email fm a frnd which i could hardly understand. It was sent fm a blkbry device which is how every1 speaks n rites nowdys. Gd help us!
This Embarrasses You and I
Sue Shellenbarger | Wall Street Journal | 19 Jun 12
When Caren Berg told colleagues at a recent staff meeting, “There’s new people you should meet,” her boss Don Silver broke in, says Ms. Berg, a senior vice president at a Fort Lauderdale, Fla., marketing and crisis-communications company.
“I cringe every time I hear” people misuse “is” for “are,” Mr. Silver says. The company’s chief operations officer, Mr. Silver also hammers interns to stop peppering sentences with “like.” For years, he imposed a 25-cent fine on new hires for each offense. “I am losing the battle,” he says.
I am always amazed at the audacity of republicans who say poor people are spongers, students should educate themselves and the sick deserve it. Romney kids shouldn’t have much of a problem with their education. How much was your endowment?
Stephen King: Tax Me, for F@%&’s Sake!
Stephen King | The Daily Beast | 30 Apr 12
Chris Christie may be fat, but he ain’t Santa Claus. In fact, he seems unable to decide if he is New Jersey’s governor or its caporegime, and it may be a comment on the coarsening of American discourse that his brash rudeness is often taken for charm. In February, while discussing New Jersey’s newly amended income-tax law, which allows the rich to pay less (proportionally) than the middle class, Christie was asked about Warren Buffett’s observation that he paid less federal income taxes than his personal secretary, and that wasn’t fair. “He should just write a check and shut up,” Christie responded, with his typical verve. “I’m tired of hearing about it. If he wants to give the government more money, he’s got the ability to write a check—go ahead and write it.”
I’m a big fan of Sir Ken Robinson. In addition to being a brilliant presenter he also has some keen insights into about how we live and operate. This video, taken at a remarkable place in London called The School of Life, is not exactly a sermon though it has the trappings of one. In his talk, Robinson discusses what it is that makes certain people thrive while others simply plod along in life. Toward the end of this one-hour “chat” he also talks about the implications of raising kids in rigid educational molds versus allowing them the freedom to discover and exploit their own innate qualities. Like all of Robinson’s presentations this session leaves you chuckling and resolved to see things a bit differently…
The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything
Sir Ken Robinson | The School of Life | Apr 12
________________________________________________________________________________ Founded in September 2008 by an eclectic group of London writers, artists and friends, amongst whom the philosopher Alain de Botton, The School of Life offers night classes on a variety of topics with the unifying goal to satisfy its students’ hunger for a more meaningful life.
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