The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few

Original post:  Oct 13, 2015

I want to live like an elephant. No, not the memory part. That's actually a myth.

With about 100 times as many cells as humans, it would seem that their odds of contracting cancer are also 100 times higher. That is not the case according to an article in Slate:

In reality, given their size and prodigious lifespans, elephants have one of the lowest cancer mortality rates in the animal kingdom: 4.8 percent, compared to a range of 11 to 25 percent for humans. How can this be?

Scientists at the Huntsman Cancer Institute, University of Utah School of Medicine, and Primary Children’s Hospital helped figure out the answer, published Thursday in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Another team, made up of University of Chicago researchers and their colleagues, posted a related paper this week. As it turns out, elephants have developed some ingenious safeguards against developing cancer. Understanding their cellular protections might help us learn more about how to suppress cancer in humans.

There are countless ways that cell division can go wrong. That’s why—as we learned from the winners of this week’s Chemistry Nobel Prize—your cells come equipped with a host of repair enzymes whose sole purpose is to prevent or repair genetic mistakes. These cellular copy editors proofread each strand of newly divided DNA, identifying errors and repairing the faulty bits to ensure that your DNA stays fresh and clean and functional. In humans, just one of those enzymes can fix a thousand different kinds of errors. Not too shabby! 

But elephants have one-upped us. For the JAMA study, researchers first compared cancer rates across the animal kingdom to find out that elephants were remarkably cancer-free given their size. (Other animals fared well, too. For comparison, rock hyraxes have a 1 percent cancer mortality rate, African wild dogs have an 8 percent rate, and lions have a 2 percent rate.) Then, they scoured the elephant genome to find out why.

The article goes on to single out one of their genes (known as p53) for its protective properties. They analyzed real elephant cells to discover:

....When they compared elephant cells to human cells, they found something amazing: The damaged cells in elephants were far more likely to resort to cell suicide—known as apoptosis—to avoid propagating errors in their descendants. It was a brutally efficient, even ruthless, system for protecting the organism at all costs.

It's that old Star Trek adage come to life:  The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few (or the one)!

Here is the link to the full article:  Why elephants don’t get cancer: extra tumor-suppressors.

The revolution may be delayed

Original post:  Oct 2, 2015

When I think of robots, I tend to think of these all-powerful machines. While it is true that they are incredibly capable, there are greater limits on their current abilities than you might expect!

One example of that is a story from the Verge. The article details attempts by robots to accomplish what seems to be a fairly simple task:  building a piece of Ikea furniture. The basic idea is that the instructions for Ikea furniture are meant for a global audience. Instead of trying to print different versions in the local languages, Ikea uses pictures to illustrate the key parts and the sequential steps required to assemble their wares. It's something that most people are generally capable of doing--in spite of whatever frustrations might occur along the way.

This excerpt helps explain the project:

Researchers at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore decided to test a robot's capabilities in messy environments by having it try and construct an IKEA chair through trial and error, something current bots can't do. It's well known that modern robots are very good at doing one thing and doing it well, like assembling one portion of an automobile. It's a product of the same type of factory programming that lets robots package IKEA furniture, but it fails when those same machines are asked to build it. In the researchers' published paper, "A Framework for Fine Robotic Assembly," they detail how they helped a robot equipped with two grippers, force sensors to measure grip strength, and a six-camera vision setup overcome IKEA's hallmark peg-in-a-hole task.

Essentially, the team had the robot map out the furniture's surface by trying and failing to plug in the peg until it figured out the proper direction to move. So while it can't construct an entire chair, the robot is capable of performing one of the process's most complex tasks that humans happen to find easy.

What makes the Swedish furniture company's standard building process such a good test case is that it's a surprisingly good model of the human brain's sophistication. IKEA instructions use only pictures instead of words, relying instead on the human brain's knack for intuition and prevailing at a task even after you've lost one of those important-looking tall screws and installed the leg of the chair upside down. Roboticists are only just now beginning to marry robotic precision and task programming with vision and motion sensing capabilities. So we have a while to go before robots can build items as well as they can package them.

Isn't it great to know that we aren't obsolete?

At least not yet!

Here is the link to the full article:  Watch a robot have an awful time building IKEA furniture | The Verge

As seen on TV

Original post:  Oct 1, 2015

Star Trek first aired in the 1960s. It presented a futuristic view of life in the 23rd century. Humans are exploring the galaxy in starships. In the show, computers are almost alive. The interface is not a keyboard. It's speech!

The latest version of the iPhone now has a new, improved Siri. You can actually address your virtual assistant from a distance of about five feet. This review from the NY Times, explains the evolution:

As David Pierce wrote recently in Wired, voice recognition and artificial intelligence are getting so good so quickly that it isn’t really a stretch to imagine that talking to computers will soon become one of the signature ways we interact with them. The new Siri is paving the way to what you might call “ambient computing” — a future in which robotic assistants are always on hand to answer questions, take notes, take orders or otherwise function as auxiliary brains to whom you might offload many of your chores.

Picture the “Star Trek” computer, but instead of powering a starship, it’s turning off the basement lights, finding you a good movie on Netflix and, after listening in on a fight between you and your spouse, reminding you to buy flowers the next day. It will be slightly creepy and completely helpful — and it’s coming faster than you think.

All of these improvements are changing the way that we interface with our digital assistants:

The ubiquity of voice-controlled assistants changes the way we interact with them. When Siri and other voice systems were new, they seemed gimmicky. Nobody quite knew what to do with them, and interactions veered toward the awkward. But the more assistants there are, and the more you use them, the more natural they feel — and that means the more you’ll use them, feeding the cycle.

Ironically, the Star Trek computer is not just fantasy. It is actually becoming a design goal!

In fact, for years now, Google’s top search engineers have been describing the “Star Trek” computer as their vision of the future of search.

“The ‘Star Trek’ computer is not just a metaphor that we use to explain to others what we’re building,” Amit Singhal, the head of Google’s search team, once told me. “It is the ideal that we’re aiming to build — the ideal version done realistically.”

Here is the link to the full article:  http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/24/technology/personaltech/iphone-6s-hands-free-siri-is-an-omen-of-the-future.html?_r=0

Just give it a nudge

Original post:  Sep 29, 2015

Professor Cass Sunstein wrote a book with Richard Thaler titled "Nudge". It theorized that one way to help improve decisions about health, wealth, and happiness was to set up subtle ways to influence behavior towards more positive outcomes. Many of these principles have been proven to work in a variety of areas.

One example is with 401(k) programs. Everyone knows that they should be saving for retirement. Many companies (including Medtronic) offer generous matches to employees if they will contribute towards their own retirement. Even with all of these incentives, people still elect not to participate. Sometimes it could be as simple as someone just forgetting to fill out the paperwork! Whatever the cause, this choice could end up being a significant liability in the long run to the employee. One simple solution is to change the default position. Instead of having employees elect to participate, some companies are starting off with automatic enrollment in the program. Participation is still voluntary. The catch is that those who don't want to join must take the active step to fill out the paperwork to withdraw from the program. This simple reversal makes significant, double-digit improvements in the participation rate!

This type of change is actually being investigated in the US government. There is a "Social and Behavioral Sciences Team" that is actively searching for ways to help make government work just a little better. Their nickname is the "Nudge Unit". Through emphasis on changing the design of programs, they are working to help improve the function of the various departments without massive infusions of capital. The result? Small changes that are creating outsized results at very low costs.

What's most important about all of this is that none of it is based on chance. Each of these tweaks is subject to rigorous testing. Using a model similar to A/B testing, small scale pilot programs are compared against the standard operating procedure. Changes are only made if the pilots can prove the overall value of the concept in the real world.

The results so far are impressive, suggesting that their work is going to save millions and possibly billions of dollars. And because the cost of these tweaks is so low, even moderate impacts yield extraordinarily high benefit-cost ratios.

In one case, the researchers tweaked some of the printers (but not others) linked to some Department of Agriculture computers so that whenever people tried to print a single-sided document, a pop-up message appeared to remind them how to make two-sided printing their default. On the printers they tweaked, 52 percent of all print jobs were double-sided, compared with 46 percent on the others. This increase of 6 percentage points may not sound like much, until you realize that about 18 billion pages roll off federal government printers each year, according to the Social and Behavioral Sciences Team report, suggesting that carrying this out across the entire federal government could save more than half a billion pages a year.

The changes may even lead to more ethical behavior:

Small nudges can also help make people more honest. In one ingenious tweak, the research team added a prompt at the beginning of a federal-vendor tax collection form asking vendors to promise to report the truth. Those who were randomly selected to use this new form reported more taxable sales relative to those who used the old form. In just three months of using this form on just one small and obscure tax provision, this box caused people to volunteer an additional $1.6 million in taxes. Expanding this idea could potentially bring in billions of dollars in extra revenue.

I'm sure that there are many ways we might be able to make small changes in our own lives that could produce similar results. It's impressive to know that there is real data underpinning the recommendations. Perhaps these kinds of activities can help reduce the overall waste in the system and make government ever more efficient in the coming days.

Here is the link to the full article:  http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/27/upshot/a-better-government-one-tweak-at-a-time.html?rref=upshot&_r=0

GoPro in space

Original post:  Sep 18, 2015

I stumbled across an amazing tale. I thought it was appropriate for a Friday post.

A group of enterprising students created a simple experiment. They used a weather balloon to launch a GoPro near the Grand Canyon. It took some amazing footage as it rose to nearly 100,000 feet. At that point, the balloon shattered and the camera came tumbling out of the sky. A parachute allowed the equipment to survive the fall, but it was lost for about two years. After a hiker stumbled across the remains, the team downloaded the footage and transformed it into the video below.

The view is stunning. I am amazed at how the earth seems to almost shimmer. The atmosphere is such a frail halo that protects everything on the planet from the punishing deep black of space. At about the 3:00 mark, you can clearly see the remains of the weather balloon as the camera begins its terrifying descent from the upper stratosphere.

Enjoy!

Are we clear?

Original post:  Sep 16, 2015

A colleague in Minnesota reached out to me via e-mail looking for some information. Instead of trying to convey complex information in long written missives, we scheduled a small conference call to discuss the issue.

Early on in the call, this colleague used a term I had never heard before. It sounded similar to something else that I remembered from the distant past. In order to avoid any misunderstandings, I asked the other party to explain what they meant when they used the term. "Well, maybe you're not the right person to help me" came the reply. After the initial shock wore off, I tried to calmly explain that I wasn't familiar with the term being discussed and if I could get that clarification, I might then provide the right response.

There are many occasions where something that is called "x" in Mounds View was called "y" in Mansfield. Unfortunately, there are very few people in Mansfield who can speak fluent SAP. It doesn't help when people looking for information aren't willing to explain what "x" means so that we can figure out what the correct "y" was. It's especially difficult when "x" and "y" aren't exactly the same things. Perhaps there might be a combination of several "y" parts to make up an "x" whole (or vice versa).

We eventually retrieved part of an answer. To be fully honest, we actually uncovered another layer of complexity that widened the conversation even further. As we continue forward, I have no doubt that this scene will replay itself out over and over again to a wider audience. I just hope we can remain patient with each other while we work through the transition.

Just get up and go

Original post:  Sep 14, 2015

Monday mornings can be difficult. You've allowed your body to relax over the weekend. When that alarm goes off, it can be a struggle to get yourself moving. Most of us probably spend a few of those precious early minutes making our bed. Well, that might be one thing that you can change about your routine. No, it isn't because you suddenly have a right to be messy. It actually can help you with these tiny creatures:

The mighty house dust mite. Actually, it’s not mighty at all. These microscopic little buggers are running rampant in your bed (sorry, but it’s true). In fact, the average bed can be home to 1.5 million of them. House dust mites feed on human skin scales (ew), so they love to take up residence with us under the sheets. The allergens they produce (which are actually the mites’ poop) are easily inhaled during sleep and are a major cause of illnesses like asthma. They don’t exactly help dust allergies, either.

Why would leaving your bed unmade help?

“We know that mites can only survive by taking in water from the atmosphere using small glands on the outside of their body,” Dr. Stephen Pretlove of Kingston University’s School of Architecture said to the BBC. “Something as simple as leaving a bed unmade during the day can remove moisture from the sheets and mattress so the mites will dehydrate and eventually die.”

Experts recommend leaving your bed unmade for the entire day — yes, the entire day — and making it (if you must) when you get home later on. By that point, many of the mites will have died an unceremonious death. Good riddance, you gross little things.

Here is the link to the full article:  Why you should never make your bed : The Loop