Category: Misc.

Virtual Cardiac Arrest Cart Treasure Hunt game: Adapting the game to your needs

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A while back I wrote [LINK] about a treasure-hunt-style game we developed in-house for training purposes. The purpose of the game is to help healthcare professionals memorize the location of items stored within a cardiac arrest cart, to make things go smoothly when every second counts.

A cardiac arrest cart (or “crash cart”) is a red metal tool cabinet, filled with items like airway tubes, IV needles, masks and other supplies used in advanced cardiac life support. The goal of this game is to learn where all the items are by retrieving the requested item from the cart by opening drawers, then dragging the item to a target for checking.

VIEW DEMO of the Virtual Cardiac Arrest Cart

DOWNLOAD SOURCE files for the cart game.

Game play

  1. When the game loads, a cardiac arrest cart stands off to the left. A specific item is chosen at random and requested in a message toward the bottom of the screen.
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New Google Gadget: The Daily Bailout

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My first attempt at a Google Gadget is now available, ready to contribute to your information overload and general level of anxiety. When loaded, “The Daily Bailout” widget shows you a random bailout from a list starting with the buyout of Countrywide Mortgages.

Researching this little gadget has been an eye opener because of the sheer size of the numbers involved. For example, did you know that the bailouts so far this year exceed all US bailouts in history combined? Did you know that some of the banks that appeared to be bailing other banks and companies out are actually themselves in serious trouble? This list could become very long before this is over.

In any case, you can add the gadget to your webpage by clicking this link:

Add to iGoogle

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Growth Factor I, insulin sensitivity, life extension

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Andrzej Bartke, a researcher in geriatrics, and his colleagues at Southern Illinois University in Springfield, are closing in on the genetic basis for and biochemical/endocrine prevention of aging in mammals .

For years it has been observed that calorie restriction could enhance longevity in rats and other animals (research history) but the mechanisms behind this effect were unknown.

In a 2006 article in the Proceedings of the National Acadamy of Sciences , they write

“there is considerable evidence that reduced secretion of insulin-like growth factor I and insulin are among the mechanisms that mediate the effects of Calorie Restriction (CR) on aging and longevity in mammals.”

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Stem cell tourism

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While stem cell research funding remains bogged down and encumbered in the United States, other countries, most notably China, have forged ahead. Patients are travelling to foreign stem cell clinics, to try treatments not available in this country, whether they follow standard testing and clinical protocols or not.

Lab research with stem cells has been extremely exciting and suggestive of great potential, but the current artificially embargoed situation in the US and several other countries provides ground for less than scrupulous treatment centers.

Beike Biotech, in Shenzen and other cities in China, is one bio-technology company which offers stem cell treatments for diseases that are usually considered untreatable. Their site offers many testimonials from people who have been treated for conditions like Spinal Cord Injury, Autism, ALS, and brain injury, but little in the way of systematic followups. Reading their patient blogs, although very interesting, it is difficult to tell for any given patient exactly what was done beyond “injections of stem cells” and exactly what their outcome was after they left the clinic. Most of the blogs end one or two entries after leaving. Beike’s treatment philosophy is summed up in this paragraph from their website:

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Update on Autism research

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Although repeated studies show little or no correlation between vaccination with the MMR vaccine and the onset of autism, there is a lot of popular support for the idea that there is some causal link. Originally the use of mercury in the form of thiomersal in vaccines was suggested as the culprit, but this seems less likely since mercury was removed from vaccines in North America and Europe by 2001 and the incidence of Autism continued to rise

Still many people remain unconvinced there is NO link between vaccination and autism, despite all the negative results, so other ideas have been floated. These include:

  • Some children’s immune systems may be predisposed to be overwhelmed by the combination vaccines, and they develop high fevers and sometimes febrile seizures which cause or contribute to the onset of autism.
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