“What’d I miss?” – Week of July 6th

As usual there were a lot of things that happened during the week, and not all of it was pharmacy or technology related. Here’s a quick look at some of the stuff I found interesting.

– Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen was #1 at the box office last weekend. This brings its cumulative gross to just over $290,000,000. Wow!

– Medscape.com: “Sen Grassley Asks Medical Journals About Ghostwriting – Grassley, the ranking member of the Senate Committee on Finance, notes that his committee has been examining medical ghostwriting for the past year. The practice involves having review articles, editorials, and research papers drafted by marketing or medical-education companies, with prominent or academically affiliated physicians adding their names to the paper late in the process. As Grassley’s letter notes, these physicians sign on despite a minimal contribution to the paper or even knowledge of the article’s contents, including the underlying data and relevant documentation.” – Hmm, may not be illegal, but you may want to check your moral compass on this one.

– 9to5Mac.com: “Amazon dropped the price of a standard Kindle to $299 today [July 8] hoping to spur sales of the popular device.  That’s down $60 from Amazon’s normal price which has held steady since the device was released two years ago.  It isn’t certain what made Amazon drop its price but we can hope that a possible Apple tablet coming down the pipe may have pushed Amazon to become more competitive in their pricing.  The Kindle App on the iPhone is still free btw” – This is great news for anyone that hasn’t gotten around to purchasing a Kindle yet. My sister-in-law owns one and I think it’s amazing. It truly is a great reading device and conversation piece. I’m holding out for a Kindle Dx myself.

– Engadget.com reported on a Saab in Sweden that may have burst into flames secondary to an iPod. Whether the iPod actually caused the fire or not is unclear, but it’s definitely something to be aware of if you travel with your iPod plugged in.

– A group from NC State University has built a remote control bat with super elastic-memory metal alloy for joints, which is said to provide full range of motion while enabling it to “always return to its original position.” This is something straight out of Batman Begins. Remember when Batman was experimenting with the skeleton for his “wings”? Well, that looks a lot like the picture to the right. I wonder who had the idea first, the kids at NC State or Warner Brothers.

– Barcode.com: “The Intermec CV30 is a compact, full-screen vehicle mount computer that provides support for RFID, speech recognition, and voice, all incorporated into a rugged design. The CV30 includes the latest radio technologies such as 802.11x and Bluetooth scanning and peripherals support, enabling wired or wireless operation. Because of this, its ideal environment is in mobile warehouses and/or inventory-control applications such as forklifts and holsters. Since there is a limited amount of space on most equipment, the compact form and rugged design of the Intermec CV30 makes it a great choice for fixed mount applications such as cross docking, manufacturing work stations, shop floor, and other warehouse distribution environments.” – You should see this little device; it reminds me of a giant BlackBerry.

–Healthday.com: “Travelers Face Greater Risk of Leg Clots – A review of past research confirms what many experts have long believed: People who travel bear a significantly higher risk for developing potentially life-threatening blood clots in their legs. That risk, the analysis finds, is up to three times higher for travelers when compared to non-travelers. What’s more, the risk rises the longer the trip — 18 percent higher risk for every two hours of travel, and 26 percent higher risk for every two hours of airplane travel.”

– Annals of Internal Medicine: According to the journal aortic dilations picked up on computed tomography (CT) scans are often not recorded by clinicians in the patient’s electronic medical record (EMR). Researchers found that, of the 91 dilations which were new findings, 5 percent were notified by radiologists to the clinical team. Within three months of the CT scan, clinicians had not recorded 58 percent of the new dilations. Radiologists tend to be very tech savvy, which is why I’m surprised by the findings. So much for an EMR being the solution.

–Reuters.com: “U.S. President Barack Obama suffered a double-barreled setback in Congress on Thursday when members of his own party moved to apply the brakes on his top legislative priorities, healthcare and climate change.” – Bummer for Obama.

– The Steve Rubel Lifestram posted his list of Five Gadgets for the Social Technology Addicted. The list includes Posterous, Verizon Mifi, a Netbook, a Lacie IamaKey, and a Seskimo Crabble used to prop up an iPhone/iPod Touch. Interesting that he lists the Seskimo Crabble, but doesn’t say anything about the iPhone/iPod Touch that goes with it.

– Google introduced the Google Chrome OS. I love Google and use just about everything they have their hands in, including their awesome search engine. This is big news and potentially bad for companies like Microsoft. Gottabemobile gives an interesting take on the “Winners and Losers” in the Google Chrome OS game.