@AskPippa@c.im
@AskPippa@c.im avatar

AskPippa

@AskPippa@c.im

I'm a science & medical writer curious about the world. I like to share what I find out. Remember Ask Pippa, science for kids in the Toronto Star? That was me. Also the Medical Post, Medscape, SciAm, Vice and more.

#scicomm #journalism #medicine #science #technology #ScienceFiction #PublicHealth #scifi #vaccine #immunology #oncology #pediatrics #cardiology #diabetes #virus #cancer #epidemiology #Medmastodon #IDmastodon #plastic #climate #biodiversity #space

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AskPippa, to medmastodon
@AskPippa@c.im avatar

Diesel-powered school buses are bad for kids. levels on school buses often exceed surrounding areas by five to 10 times.
@medmastodon Details:
https://leahy.substack.com/p/diesel-school-buses-are-poisoning?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=8423&post_id=121452681&isFreemail=true&utm_medium=email

ct_bergstrom, (edited ) to random

This week, Science published a stunningly irresponsible news story entitled "Fake scientific papers are alarmingly common" and claiming that upward of 30% of the scientific literature is fake.

https://www.science.org/content/article/fake-scientific-papers-are-alarmingly-common

Below, the first two paragraphs of the story.

Headline and intro notwithstanding, the story itself later notes that the detector doesn't actually work and flags nearly half of real papers as fake. Does the reporter just not understand that?

h/t @Hoch

AskPippa,
@AskPippa@c.im avatar

@ct_bergstrom @Hoch Yikes, it's not the way I would've written the article. I might've lead with something about testing a fake paper detector (put that up top), then lead into the general problem of paper mills, etc. and why detectors are being developed.
Another concern out there are fake (predatory) journals and fake medical conferences.
I wonder if Retraction Watch will have something to say about it?
https://retractionwatch.com/

NerdRage42, to random

Last night at work someone said "I'm going to be praying for you", in a very genuine, not snarky way, when they knew I was wrestling with a lot of very difficult challenges in my life.

I've learned to say, "that feels great coming from you and I appreciate your care," when it's meant as a goodwill gesture, even when I am not at all religious.

If someone asks me if I believe in a higher power I say, "no, but I believe in the power of humanity and compassion and what we can all do every day with our time on earth."

I ask myself a lot, "what do we owe to each other?"

AskPippa,
@AskPippa@c.im avatar

@NerdRage42 I just stop and look at the well-meaning intent behind it. And appreciate that someone cares enough to be thinking about me.
It's not much different from "sending good vibes," or "hoping for the best for you."
Others often aren't in a position to do more than just give a bit of emotional support like that.

nbrandsberg, to art
@nbrandsberg@socel.net avatar

BANFF NATIONAL PARK:https://render.fineartamerica.com/images/rendered/social-media/48111027?domainId=1

Canadian Rocky Mountains, Banff National Park and Canmore, Three Sisters Mountains in silhouette the summer of the wildfires in unusual colors.

AskPippa,
@AskPippa@c.im avatar

@nbrandsberg There can be beauty from terrible things.
I fear the wildlife in the area will suffer from breathing in all the smoke particulates.

DebOppermann, to art

Yellow Warbler perched on a branch of the Serviceberry Tree with white blossoms in spring
Available here
https://www.redbubble.com/people/debop/works/21858128-yellow-warbler?asc=u

AskPippa,
@AskPippa@c.im avatar

@DebOppermann Great pic! Looks almost like a Japanese painting.

w7voa, to random
@w7voa@journa.host avatar

E. Jean Carroll is weighing whether to file a new defamation lawsuit against former President Donald Trump in the wake of his diatribe against her during a CNN town hall. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/11/nyregion/e-jean-carroll-trump-defamation.html?smid=url-share

AskPippa,
@AskPippa@c.im avatar

@w7voa There must be others out there who could also sue him for defamation.

cobalt, to random
@cobalt@awscommunity.social avatar

So excited to learn our new replacement windows for the whole house are to be installed next week! They are double pane Energy Star with a slight blue tint for extra energy savings. No more of my DIY insulation on very old, large single pane windows.
FYI they are far less expensive than I thought. Literally half the price I guessed.

Front picture windows with bubble wrap on the inside glass to help stop heat transfer.

AskPippa,
@AskPippa@c.im avatar

@cobalt They look like they might be friendly too?

AskPippa, to animals
@AskPippa@c.im avatar

I'm not as smart as my cat Bones. First, he taught me to play fetch by bringing me a toy and being noisy until I threw it down the stairs for him to chase -- and he'd bring it back. Suddenly the rules changed. He now has me tossing a treat down the stairs along with the toy -- or he won't bring it back.

AskPippa, to medmastodon
@AskPippa@c.im avatar

A story on the Canadian Network describes how too much paperwork has lead to family seeing fewer patients, doctors leaving their practices, and fewer students choosing family medicine as a profession.

The full story is accessible for free to doctors and in . Here is the first part:

The admin burden that’s really killing family practice, by Dr. Sohail Gandhi.
"On Saturday, I logged into my Electronic Record (EMR), correctly realizing that if I waited until Monday, the inbox would crush my sorry soul."...

"Recently, there’s been a lot of talk about the “administration burden” faced by family physicians.

The College of Family Physicians estimates family doctors spend up to 19 hours a week on “paper work.” Given there are only so many hours in a week, the more hours spent doing paperwork, the less hours seeing patients.

It also contributes to situations where people just get too frustrated with family medicine, and quit. Data shows 20% of Toronto family doctors are planning on leaving within five years. This bad karma is not lost on medical students, who, as I mentioned in a previous blog—are avoiding family practice like the plague, worsening a crisis that has been years in the making.

But what exactly is this “administration burden?” What’s the “paper work” that is driving us all to frustration? I would argue it’s not paper per se, it’s digital.

That’s not to say there isn’t paper. I frequently get asked for completely pointless sick notes from employers, impractical forms to return to work and seemingly useless—“we agreed your patient was permanently disabled, but we want a one year update to make sure your patient is still permanently disabled” forms from the pointy headed bureaucrats at insurance companies. But I’ve taken a somewhat mercenary approach to those forms in order to keep myself sane.

...I reconcile the fact that these forms are a burden, with the fact that at least I make money out of them. While somewhat unscrupulous on my part, it keeps me from totally blowing my lid whenever I see one of these.

*** No, the real admin burden comes from the completely absurd and unrelenting avalanche of reports/lab work/follow up notes—all of which present to me in a haphazard way, seemingly designed to drive me to psychiatric medications.

I took the Friday of Eid ul Fitr off to celebrate with my family. On Saturday, I logged into my Electronic Medical Record (EMR), correctly realizing that if I waited until Monday, the EMR inbox would crush my sorry soul.

Unsurprisingly, I had a total of 75 labs/reports/messages about patients to review. It wasn’t so much the number of items to take care of, (truly if they were straight forward it wouldn’t have been too bad). It was rather how badly and inefficiently the came to me that sucked all of the happiness I had enjoyed on Eid from my spirit.
One method of getting information to me is via a system called Hospital Report Manager (HRM). I look at HRM in my EMR and see a report on a renal transplant patient from SickKids. But the note was “uncategorized” which meant that I had to go into the HRM software and enter the category “nephrologist” in the report. The VERY NEXT report in my HRM in box was . . . the exact same report on the exact same patient, but this time HRM had categorized the report as being from a cardiologist—so I had to go in, change the report once again to “nephrologist” and I now have two copies of the same report.

By the way—SickKids hospital provides exceptional medical and nursing care to my patients, but ever since they switched their hospital IT systems to a company called EPIC there has been no end of issues like this. The only thing that software is epic at is causing physician distress.

That’s not all. HRM has more goodies awaiting for me. There’s a report from my colleague Dr. Collings on his expert management of a wrist fracture on one of my patients. Thorough, comprehensive and well done. Except HRM has auto-categorized him to be a gynaecologist. So yes, I either have inaccurate information in my patients chart, or I go back and re-categorize the report to reflect that Dr. Collings is an orthopaedic surgeon."

...and more...
@medmastodon
https://www.canadianhealthcarenetwork.ca/admin-burden-thats-really-killing-family-practice

AskPippa, to food
@AskPippa@c.im avatar

Impacts of Climate Change on Production Seriously Underestimated. Another great story on an important topic by Stephen Leahy.

"Extreme , water scarcity, plateauing crop yields, soil degradation and conflicts, such as the war in Ukraine, are the main causes."
"The latest models that do incorporate some climate impacts such as hotter temperatures and increased extreme weather show substantial impacts coming well before 2040 in major breadbasket regions of the world."
" is not only highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change but it is also a major source of emissions. AG need to fall nearly 40% as part of the global effort to help keep warming below 2 degrees C AND still feed the world’s growing ."

  • Plus there is a list of things that can be done to help.


https://leahy.substack.com/p/impacts-of-climate-change-on-food?publication_id=8423&post_id=120586532&isFreemail=true

AskPippa, to random
@AskPippa@c.im avatar

The #Ontario Government is proposing amendments to the Fish and #Wildlife #Conservation Act to allow new licenses for facilities that use captive foxes, coyotes and rabbits as bait to train #hunting dogs.
There are currently 24 of these Train and Trial facilities in Ontario. In 1997 the decision was made not to allow any more to be created, however the Ontario government proposes to change this decision. Petition.

https://www.change.org/p/stop-the-ontario-from-encouraging-dogs-to-kill-wildlife-deadline-for-comments-may-18?recruiter=67954269&recruited_by_id=b6a0efcb-aa04-450d-921a-a45c0dc8b88d&share_bandit_exp=initial-36164050-en-CA

AskPippa, to internet
@AskPippa@c.im avatar

Does this mean people on that Other Site won't be tweeting any more -- they'll be Xing? Heh.

AskPippa, to random
@AskPippa@c.im avatar

Various for-profit long term care () homes in Toronto are not planning to sell the buildings and land to developers.
Where will people who need long term care go?

Story in

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-ontario-government-foresaw-long-term-care-property-selloff-minister/

AlisonCreekside, to random

Infrastructure Ontario public land sales update:

6 days ago, @AskPippa, @gemelliz, myself, & others were discussing the 222 public land sales listings posted at Infrastructure Ontario.

As of today, Infrastructure Ontario has removed from its site 39 of those listings that are either "listed on the open market, in negotiations for direct sale, sold, or under review", including Cedarvale Ravine -- leaving nothing posted more recently than March 2022

Make of that what you will

AskPippa,
@AskPippa@c.im avatar

@AlisonCreekside @gemelliz did anyone save a copy? I didn’t think of it.

jik, to random
@jik@federate.social avatar

ER doc friend tells me a story recently about a woman coming into the ER with strong indications of COVID. Hospital policy no longer requires COVID testing patients or masking for staff, but he tested her anyway and she was COVID positive and highly contagious. If he hadn't then 13 unmasked ER docs and nurses (he counted!) would have had to follow isolation protocols and be out of work for days, in the midst of acute staffing shortages. Absolute madness.

AskPippa,
@AskPippa@c.im avatar

@jik Masking in hospitals just makes so much sense -- for so many reasons (count the number of airborne infectious diseases out there plus vulnerable patients).

kjhealy, to random
@kjhealy@mastodon.social avatar

As a rule, you shouldn't put philosophers in charge of anything. But if you insist, then it's best to give them a preposterous title.

AskPippa,
@AskPippa@c.im avatar

@kjhealy As long as the philosopher doesn't want the position for power's sake, then Plato would approve, heh. 🤔
Hadn;t hear about this this, but looked some things up. Actually, the title is Free Speech Champion and is apparently part of a team to battle free speech restrictions that have been happening on campuses. I found this that explains more about the position and role.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/landmark-proposals-to-strengthen-free-speech-at-universities

KatM, to random
@KatM@mastodon.social avatar

I'm dealing with my dying mother's financials. After years of giving her money every month for food and utilities, I've just discovered she's been donating thousands of dollars each year to a few viable charities and even more GOP PACs that she believed were charities helping veterans and young people in need. She's a Democrat. She had no idea what she was giving her money to and now I'm having to undo all of those automated debits. Check on your elder parents. Someone is probably scamming them.

AskPippa,
@AskPippa@c.im avatar

@KatM A friend who was in her 80s, no family, was scammed by a man she'd known for years. He kept doing her 'favors that always required cash ', and often just asked her point blank for cash, and slowly drained her accounts over several years. It didn't help she had mild dementia. He even took her car and raked up dozens of parking tickets. Finally, another friend was helping her with her accounts, noticed something was amiss -- and got a restraining order against the guy.

davidslifka, to spreadmastodon

I'm very concerned about this seven-month graph of Mastodon's MAU, for the sake of both Mastodon and the fediverse.

To be honest, I don't love any of my current ideas for changing this picture.

I'd be grateful for anyone sharing their own ideas that could move the needle on growing the fediverse (i.e. Mastodon and/or other platforms). @spreadmastodon

Data from https://cryptpad.fr/sheet/#/2/sheet/view/8TmIxgfFMBQ9h4maRV79wdiEwlu-37v3gRfTKUFDwEM/

AskPippa,
@AskPippa@c.im avatar

@downey @supernovae @stooovie @humaldo @davidslifka Is there a list of software easy for us non-technies to find?

AskPippa, to random
@AskPippa@c.im avatar

A short news story I wrote reporting on a study that found the shape of your can help predict risk for atrial fibrillation.
The first few paragraphs (most of the story):

Rounder hearts predict future heart failure, a-fib
Greater left ventricular sphericity showed 47% greater incidence of

MAY 2023 -- Not everyone’s heart is quite the same shape and its shape changes over time – but this could help predict who’s at risk for .

A study in CellPress, where researchers analysed cardiac MRIs of over 30,000 people, found that variations in left ventricle sphericity in normal hearts predicted risk for cardiomyopathy and related outcomes.

Researchers hypothesized that beyond size and function, the shape of hearts might carry extra details about heart health. To study this, they used data from a large biobank with cardiac imaging data to help analyze variation in cardiac morphology in normal populations.

They noted “Cardiomyopathies of different etiologies often result in a similar end-stage phenotype of a more round, spherical ventricle. Among individuals with known cardiac disease, increased sphericity of the left ventricle (LV) has been associated with adverse outcomes, including ventricular arrhythmias and death.”

It also stated that “within the spectrum of normal LV chamber size and systolic function, there exists variation in LV sphericity, and this variation may be a marker of cardiac risk with genetic underpinnings.”

The researchers turned to artificial intelligence to help analyze 38,897 cardiac MRIs from the U.K. Biobank database. The cohort had undergone cardiac MRIs and had normal LV end-diastolic volume, normal LV end-systolic volume, and normal LV ejection fraction.

The team looked at LV sphericity and whether it predicted incident cardiomyopathy as well as clinical manifestations such as atrial fibrillation, heart failure, and arrest. Other factors were taken into account such as body mass index, pulse rate, , diabetes, and prior infarction.

“We found that individuals with spherical hearts were 31% more likely to develop atrial fibrillation and 24% more likely to develop cardiomyopathy,” said Dr. David Ouyang in a press release. He is coauthor of the study and a cardiologist at Cedars Sinai in California....

The full story is online. Sorry, its password protected. It's accessible, free to and @medmastodon

MY NEWS REPORT: https://www.canadianhealthcarenetwork.ca/rounder-hearts-predict-future-heart-failure-fib

THE STUDY: https://www.cell.com/action/showPdf?pii=S2666-6340%2823%2900069-7

AskPippa, to random
@AskPippa@c.im avatar

Study finds people living in pre-industrialized setting age better -- their brains age more slowly, and almost no disease or .

@medmastodon https://www.wired.com/story/aging-brain-volume/

AskPippa,
@AskPippa@c.im avatar

@CindyWeinstein Maybe try a different browser?
https://www.wired.com/story/aging-brain-volume/

AskPippa, to random
@AskPippa@c.im avatar

I haven't taken the for a while, but am on email list for as a customer. They're offering a 15% discount on business class in the Quebec City--Windsor (corridor -- Montreal, Kingston, Toronto, etc.). If you want a real treat, try business class at least once -- like a half day at the spa. Choice of meals, good food, lots of wine, wider seats, wifi included. If you collect points, they accumulate fairly quickly and never expire.


https://www.viarail.ca/en/fares-and-packages/discount-tuesday?utm_campaign=discounttuesday&utm_medium=email&utm_source=all&utm_term=en&utm_content=dt-20230509

AskPippa, to random
@AskPippa@c.im avatar

I haven't taken the train for a while, but am on email list for as a previous customer. They're offering a 15% discount on business class in the Quebec City--Windsor (corridor -- Montreal, Kingston, Toronto, etc.). If you want a real treat, try business class at least once -- like a half day at the spa. Choice of meals, good food, lots of wine, wider seats, wifi included. If you collect points, they accumulate fairly quickly and never expire.

AskPippa, to climate
@AskPippa@c.im avatar

A visual history of the changing over millennia by xkcd. An oldie but a goodie.

https://xkcd.com/1732/

canadiansuzanne, to random

Today, I shovelled my sidewalk and driveway for the third day in a row. Exercising is easier when you're legally obligated to do it.

In other news, the were embarrassing pummeled tonight 😥



AskPippa,
@AskPippa@c.im avatar

@canadiansuzanne You might like to visit this instance where a lot of SF writers hang out. https://wandering.shop/about

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