bookofjoe

Quantum downloads and instant Internet: The rise of entangled data transmission

The other day I was pondering how Internet speeds have increased from the good old days to what we now call "high-speed," on average 100mps down in South Korea and topping out in the U.S. around 10-20mps.

Does anyone doubt that speeds will continue to increase until they finally equal that of electricity and light, i.e., for all practical purposes instantaneous?

Which might be fine for streaming 3-D movies with all five sensory channels but won't come close to cutting the mustard for Major Tom and his crew's communications with ground control when it comes time to leave the solar system and head for the nearest Earthlike planets elsewhere in our galaxy.

I'm thinking around 2200 for the first of an endless stream of such missions.

Anyway.

It's obvious that information — when entangled quantum mechanically — travels much faster than the speed of light.

In fact, it's instantaneous, no matter how far the distance.

Want an example to prove it's so?

No problema.

Imagine yourself on the moon.

How long did that take?

I'll bet a lot less than a second.

That's interesting, since it takes light well over a second to travel from here to the moon.

Your thought of you on the moon was there the instant you imagined it, just like the entangled information enclosed in that thought.

nuf sed.

Long story short: Our startrekking descendants will be able to converse in real time no matter where they are.

I like it.

Vivienne Westwood Eco-Warrior Cap

Unveiled at Paris Fashion Week.

BehindTheMedspeak: Sleep Bruxism – 'Like having a large football player standing on your tooth'

That's how Dr. Noshir Mehta, chairman of general dentistry at Tufts University School of Dental Medicine and director of its Craniofacial Pain Center, described the force applied when you grind your teeth.

His analogy was part of Paul VanDeCarr's informative and entertaining November 13, 2007 New York Times Science section front page article, which follows.

A Lineman in My Bed: Notes on Teeth Grinding

I grind my teeth at night. Have for years. It’s my secret shame. But now I have the comfort of knowing that at least 8 to 10 percent of the adult population shares my malady.

It’s called sleep bruxism, and it refers to the grinding or clenching of teeth. There’s a waking version, too — an unconscious clenching of the teeth, most often owing to stress — but the origins are different and the effects are seldom anywhere near as bad as during sleep, when certain of the body’s protective mechanisms are turned off. Left untreated, it can cause damage to the teeth and surrounding tissue, headaches and jaw pain.

Bruxism may be at least as old as the Bible, which describes hell as a state where there is “gnashing of teeth.” I might fairly be accused of hyperbole if I reversed the equation and declared that bruxism can turn sleep into a kind of hell. But you get the idea. It’s a real nuisance.

“It’s much like having a large football player standing on the tooth,” says Dr. Noshir Mehta, chairman of general dentistry at Tufts University School of Dental Medicine and director of its Craniofacial Pain Center.

During sleep bruxism, he explained, the upper and lower teeth may come into direct contact as much as 40 minutes per hour, and — for example, on the first molar — with a force of about 250 pounds. Hence the football player. Compare that with normal circumstances, when a person’s teeth make contact for about 20 minutes a day, while chewing, and with only 20 to 40 pounds of pressure.

Even if I wanted a football player in my bed, I certainly wouldn’t want him standing on my teeth. I became aware of his presence the way that many bruxers do. My then-boyfriend told me I woke him up with a dreadful crunching noise that came from grinding; my dentist saw the wear patterns on my teeth and confirmed the diagnosis. Sleep bruxism is not a disease, but a common sleep disorder. It is more prevalent in children, who often outgrow it, and its origins may be different in adults.

“The exact causes are unknown,” said Dr. Gilles Lavigne. If anyone would know, it’s Dr. Lavigne, a professor of dentistry and medicine at the University of Montreal, and president of the Canadian Sleep Society who has published extensively on the topic. In the 1960s, he explains, bruxism was thought to be the body’s response to “malocclusion,” or problems with how the upper and lower teeth fit together; but that theory was discredited for lack of clinical evidence.

Stress was later thought to be the cause, but this failed to explain why not everyone with sleep bruxism was stressed and not everyone with stress ground their teeth. More recent research indicates some relationship of sleep bruxism to neurochemicals like dopamine, but there is still disagreement on how significant a role they play. Dr. Lavigne’s latest studies have identified a pattern of activation in the autonomic nervous system that correlates strongly with sleep bruxism. (He emphasizes that sleep bruxism is not an indicator of neurological disease.)

Whatever underlying causes science may show in time, and they may be several, the more immediate contributing factors for sleep bruxism are better understood. The medical literature shows that stress, smoking, alcohol, caffeine and other factors may set off or worsen the condition.

So what’s a grinder to do? Right away, my dentist suggested fitting me with a mouth guard, a small plastic device that covers some or all of the teeth to protect them against damage, but does not stop the grinding or clenching itself. Unable to afford the $300 price tag at the time, I got an over-the-counter version at the drugstore for $20. “The over-the-counter guards are usually better than nothing,” said Dr. Charles McNeill, director of the Center for Orofacial Pain at the University of California, San Francisco. They protect the teeth, he says, but may also be more likely to induce a chewing response and increase bruxism; they can also cause irreversible damage to the bite, or arrangement of the teeth, and so should be used only temporarily. Guards made by a dentist last longer, fit better and are generally designed to distribute the force of grinding to reduce jaw pain.

Feeling frustrated about my persistent bruxism, I was determined to find a way to stop altogether. Having started grinding during an especially hectic period in my life, I assumed that it was caused by stress. I tried relaxation techniques like yoga, exercise, biofeedback and hypnotherapy. Much as these may have helped my overall health, they didn’t seem to kick the football player out of my bed. Besides, even well after the initial stressor had passed, I was still grinding.

So I did what any reasonable person would do: I turned to drugs. The medical literature on bruxism showed that anti-anxiety medications like buspirone and clonazepam had worked on some patients; buspirone only made me jittery, but clonazepam brought my bruxism to, well, a grinding halt.

“Clonazepam would be a fantastic treatment, but it’s potentially habit-forming; it works too well,” said Dr. Michael Gelb, a clinical professor at the New York University College of Dentistry. “The better the pharmacological treatment works, the more fraught it is with difficulty.”

In two months, I became habituated to the drug and its effect began to diminish. I now use it only occasionally. So much for drugs.

Throughout, I paid attention to which factors seemed to worsen my clenching and grinding, like alcohol and poor sleep habits, and cut back where necessary. On my dentist’s recommendation, I also tried out the NTI-tss device, a hard plastic splint that for some people substantially reduces the intensity of clenching and associated headaches. But I was evidently such an insistent bruxer that I outwitted the principle on which it is based. Finally, I came back to where I started: I got a mouth guard that covers all my teeth, this time custom-fitted by my dentist.

I’d abandoned hope of ending my bruxism until I met a woman recently who stopped 10 years’ grinding after a year of regular acupuncture treatments. I was encouraged enough to try acupuncture myself, and have noticed some improvement after a few months of weekly sessions. Acupuncture has not been clinically proved to cure or calm bruxism, but I’m willing to hang my hopes on anecdotal evidence that suggests it helps.

Though I didn’t know it at the time, I had tried most of the approaches recommended for bruxism, albeit with less success than many people enjoy. Dr. Lavigne, of the Canadian Sleep Society, says people who wake up with headaches or jaw pain may clench or grind their teeth, and should consult their dentist, or doctors at a university-affiliated oral-facial pain center. There, patients may be directed to try some of the techniques I used, or others, and may be assessed for associated conditions like snoring. These approaches may reduce bruxism, but since there is no known cure, only the effects can be reliably treated. In the end, mouth guards are still the best defense.

After all, if you’re going to square off against a football player every night, you need padding.

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Previous posts on the subject here and here.

Tennis Ball Chair

Designed by Will Holman.

From the website:
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Tennis Ball Chair

This "readymade" chair has been constructed using a chromed steel frame from the popular line of Galaxy stacking chairs produced by office furniture company GGI.

I have modified it by replacing the original cushions with a new seat and back made of laser-cut, high quality, quarter-inch oak veneer plywood over an MDF substrate.

Each cushion has a grid of twenty-five tennis balls contoured to fit the body, trapped in place by the carefully sized holes in the plywood.

The substrate and finish pieces are fixed in place with all stainless-steel hardware and wood glue.
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$400.

Fashion's Bleeding Edge — The Incisions Gown

Look at the photo above.

What do you see?

It's The Incisions Gown, conceived by a British medical professor and a textile artist, featuring "... nine zippers at incision sites for such common operations as open-heart surgery and appendectomy" to show medical students — who wear the gown during anatomy training — where their scalpels should go.

Here's Ranit Mishori's item from today's Washington Post Health section, about the new new thing in health couture.

For Med Students, One Size Slits All

Before medical students make the first cut on a living, breathing patient, some are getting the chance to feel exactly where the scalpel will go. The Incisions Gown, conceived by a British medical professor, is made of silk materials that feel almost like human tissue and has nine zippers at incision sites for such common operations as open-heart surgery and appendectomy.

John McLachlan, an associate dean of medicine at Durham University School of Medicine and Health, who produced the gown with British textile artist Karen Fleming, wrote in an e-mail that he "longed for a way of helping students understand the personal/subjective dimension to anatomy and surgery."

Students who wore the gown in their anatomy training said zipping and unzipping helped reinforce their knowledge of incision sites, while wearing the gown gave them an emotional feel for being a patient or treating one, McLachlan said.

The inventors hope the gown can also be used in the hospital or doctor's office, to explain procedures to patients.

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More on the new garment in an article which appeared February 4, 2008 on News-Medical.net; it follows.

A new anatomical teaching aid

Medical students will be helped to understand what it is like to go under the knife thanks to a world-first project that brings together art and science.

A unique surgical gown, which goes on international display at the Museum of Science in Boston today, should significantly improve understanding of where operation incisions are made, and what they mean to the patient, say its developers at Durham and Ulster Universities in the United Kingdom.

It is hoped the gown, which would be worn by medical students in the classroom, will supplement the traditional plastic models of the human body that are currently in global use as teaching aids. It will also help in explaining procedures to patients, according to the scientists.

The gown has nine zips showing where surgeons make cuts in the body for various operations such as removal of the appendix and open heart surgery and its silk material is more like human tissue than the plastic of the traditional models. Medical students will wear the gown in the classroom whilst fellow students learn about surgical incisions using the zips. It will lead to a greater understanding of what it means to be the patient, say the developers.

Researchers say it will contribute to an improvement in teaching aids currently available. They say that, although the traditional plastic models can be used to show areas of the body and where incisions will roughly be made, they are not able to give medical students a sense of the feeling if they were the patient or show them the type of texture they will find once they have made an incision.

Leading medical developer Professor John McLachlan, Associate Dean in Durham University's School for Health, explains: "Current anatomical teaching aids describe but they don't evoke. They take no account of emotional involvement or the feel of the body. The way medical students distance themselves emotionally from the patient's body has long been seen as a desirable outcome of current modes of medical training.

"But this 'desensitation' also brings with it the risk of objectifying the body. The patient becomes 'the liver in bed four' rather than Mrs Smith. We think we can use art to bring meaning back into medical teaching and we want to help students understand the significance of the body as well as its structure."

The garment, named 'Incisions', was funded by the Wellcome Trust as part of a wider project to explore teaching, learning and thinking about the body through a series of art works and artefacts. 'Incisions' has been selected for inclusion in two major international exhibitions with the first one at the Museum of Science in Boston.

Artistic lead, Karen Fleming, Reader at Ulster University, said: "The body and garments are common objects in art and design but collaboration with medical knowledge brings a new dimension. The challenge for us has been finding material metaphors for living matter that were aesthetically inviting rather than repulsive. We have combined some of the familiar features from hospital gowns with fashion detailing to make it appealing"

The research team aims to feed the use of the gown into medical schools around the UK and beyond. It could form an integral part of the Personal and Professional Development strand of medical training in which students develop the ability to communicate effectively and sensitively with their patients.

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In their ateliers, Vivienne Westwood and Hussein Chalayan are smiling.

Screen-Vac — 'Clean your screens without removing them'

When's the last time you cleaned your screens?

Thought so.

From the website:

Screen-Vac

Never scrub and rinse your screens again!

Work- and time-saving Screen-Vac attachment fits any standard vacuum hose and whisks away dirt with two revolving brushes that loosen and lift it away.

$7.99.

Swing Lamp — 'Never again feel alone in the dark'

Created by BCXSY, "a cooperative

between designers Boaz Cohen and Sayaka Yamamoto."

"Acryl-glass, rope, SMD LED lighting

with press-switch mechanism."

I want one.

Fiskars 30-Gallon Kangaroo Container

Think outside the garden space.

3 inches thick when stored, it expands to a 22-inch-diameter, 30-gallon heavy-gauge vinyl container.

$18.57.