Improbable Research

David Loring has joined the Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists. Ronald Hyman, who nominated him, says:

He has a PhD in Clinical Neuropsycholgy and is clinical researcher. Inter alia, he is an eminent expert in WADA testing which is used to test cerebral cortical functioning before epilepsy surgery.

If you click on the link at the bottom of his page, you will be directed to 167 citations in Pubmed. Not as many publications as hair follicles, but still no mean feat.

David Loring, PhD, LFHCfS
McKnight Brain Institute
University of Florida
Gainesville, Florida, USA

(Click on the photo to see more detail.)

When I was a new faculty physician, I worked with a resident doctor who was smart and energetic and took excellent care of her patients.

There was just one problem. As she delivered her thoughtful patient presentations to me and the other attending doctors, it was hard not to notice her low-cut dress.

?You two have to say something to her,? one of my male colleagues said to me and another female doctor one afternoon. But while none of us would have hesitated to intervene had she prescribed the wrong drug for a patient, we felt weird saying something to her about her clothes. So we didn?t.

Nearly a decade later, my impression is that more young physicians and students are dressing like that resident. Every day, it seems, I see a bit of midriff here, a plunging neckline there. Open-toed sandals, displaying brightly manicured toes, seem ubiquitous.

So writes Dr. Erin N. Marcus in a November 21, 2006 op-ed in the New York Times.

Sandwich patents range from the general to the highly specific. US patent #D527,165 S, for an evocative cucumber sandwich, is an example of the latter. It was granted to Alexander Stenzel of Pacific Palisades, California, on August 29, 2006.

(Thanks to investigator Martin Gardiner for bringing this to our attention.)

This time, the U.S. government’s Return-to-the-Moon Initiative is going to get be a success, we were told yesterday by a good authority.

Yesterday (Feb 17, 2006) we attended a press briefing about the USA’s moon exploration plans. This briefing was part of the Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, in San Francisco. The most enthusiastic speaker was Harrison Schmitt — the geologist who was the last man to walk on the moon. Dr. Schmitt subsequently became a politician (a U.S. Senator) and then a business consultant. He is now also chair of the NASA Advisory Council, where he is a voluble adviser to the President.

We were fortunate in being able to ask him a question. (Actually, we addressed the question to the panel in general, but Dr. Schmitt answered in place of his colleagues.)

The background: This is the third or fourth time a Return-to-the-Moon Initiative was announced. Each previous time, officials said they had a key that would ensure success. That key to success: good planning to commit adequate funding for the project.

Question to the panel: Each previous time, the financing didn’t materialize, and nothing happened. What’s different this time, under President Bush? What makes you believe that this time it will actually happen?

Dr. Schmitt’s answer: This time, they’ve done good planning to commit adequate funding for the project.

Investigator Bob O’Hara asks: “Should this journal really be open access?”

He is referring to The Journal of Privacy and Confidentiality. The journal’s founders — at least those who are making their identities public — are Cynthia Dwork, Stephen E. Fienberg and Alan F. Karr.