Flickr: Angel in Fog

Angel in Fog, originally uploaded by TorontoStreet.

"Popular Brands May Brand the Brain" (Neuroeconomics)

From the Washington Post:

Marketers may have your number, neurologically speaking: A new study finds that familiar brands evoke faster, more positive responses in the brain than lesser-known brands.

In tests on young adults using real-time functional MRI (fMRI), the logos of well-known auto and insurance companies "lit up" areas of the brain associated with warm emotions, reward and self-identity.

Podcast Interview with "Getting Things Done" Author David Allen

Via 43 Folders:

As promised, here’s the single-file compilation of the Productive Talk podcast interviews I did with David Allen, the author of Getting Things Done. The final version’s eight episodes clock in at a considerable one hour and twenty-six minutes, so this should give you plenty to listen to while you’re in line at the DMV...

Technorati Tags: gettings things done, podcasts, david allen, 43 folders

Hilarious Journal Articles #65: Systemic Review of Parachute Use to Prevent Deaths Related to Gravitational Challenge

Parachute use to prevent death and major trauma related to gravitational challenge: systematic review of randomised controlled trials -- Smith and Pell 327 (7429): 1459 -- from the British Medical Journal:

Objectives To determine whether parachutes are effective in preventing major trauma related to gravitational challenge. Design Systematic review of randomised controlled trials. Data sources: Medline, Web of Science, Embase, and the Cochrane Library databases; appropriate internet sites and citation lists. Study selection: Studies showing the effects of using a parachute during free fall. Main outcome measure Death or major trauma, defined as an injury severity score = 15. Results We were unable to identify any randomised controlled trials of parachute intervention. Conclusions As with many interventions intended to prevent ill health, the effectiveness of parachutes has not been subjected to rigorous evaluation by using randomised controlled trials. Advocates of evidence based medicine have criticised the adoption of interventions evaluated by using only observational data. We think that everyone might benefit if the most radical protagonists of evidence based medicine organised and participated in a double blind, randomised, placebo controlled, crossover trial of the parachute.

Thanks to Clinical Cases and Images.

New York Times "Modern Love" Column on Kidney Disease

From The New York Times:

I was just 17, a typical college freshman concerned primarily with exploring my newfound freedom, my drinking skills and the boys in the dorm next-door, when one day I came home from sociology class with swollen ankles...

He took me to the hospital, where specialists examined me and explained that I had a kidney disease called glomerulonephritis and would have to start dialysis — a three-hour, three-days-a-week treatment to clean the waste out of my blood.

Sitting up in my paper-thin hospital gown, I said, “You know, this is really not a good time.”