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Blog archive

October 2024

ARBORIST WALK: NOT FOR TREE HUGGERS ONLY!
10/29/2024

Bill Wishner: Visual Hunter
10/29/2024

Can a Village Group Fix Our Healthcare System?
10/29/2024

Community Board Directors Strengthen Village Board
10/29/2024

Connecting with Village Connections: The A, B, C, & D’s of Medicare @ 65+
10/29/2024

Grief is a Journey: Two Paths Taken
10/29/2024

Message from the President
10/29/2024

Promoting Informed & Involved Voters
10/29/2024

What Will Be Your Legacy?
10/29/2024

1619, Approaching the Election...
10/27/2024

Beyond and Within the Village - A Star is Born
10/17/2024

Happiness by Priscilla Leonard
10/11/2024

Those Winter Sundays by Robert Hayden
10/11/2024

Unpainted Door by Louise Gluck
10/11/2024

In the Evening by Billy Collins
10/10/2024

Wild Geese by Mary Oliver
10/10/2024

Betty Kilby, A Family History
10/01/2024

Betty Kilby, A Family History
10/01/2024

Betty Kilby, A Family History
10/01/2024

September 2024

August 2024

1619 Wide Ranging Interests
08/19/2024

1619 Wide Ranging Interests
08/19/2024

First Anniversary
08/19/2024

Alexandra Leaving by Leonard Cohen
08/16/2024

Muse des Beaux Arts by W. H. Auden
08/16/2024

The God Abandons Antony by Constantinos P. Cavafy
08/16/2024

Ch – Ch – Ch –Changes
08/15/2024

Cultural Activities Team offers an ‘embarrassment of riches’
08/15/2024

Engaging in Pasadena Village
08/15/2024

Future Housing Options
08/15/2024

Message from the President
08/15/2024

There Are Authors Among Us
08/15/2024

Villagers Welcome New Members at the Tournament Park Picnic
08/15/2024

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night by Dylan Thomas
08/14/2024

A narrow Fellow in the Grass by Emily Dickinson
08/13/2024

Haikus
08/13/2024

One Art by Elizabeth Bishop
08/13/2024

Poem 20 by Pablo Neruda
08/13/2024

Still I Rise by Maya Angelou
08/13/2024

Trees by Joyce Kilmer
08/13/2024

July 2024

June 2024

May 2024

Emergency Preparedness: Are You Ready?
05/28/2024

Farewell from the 2023/24 Social Work Interns
05/28/2024

Gina on the Horizon
05/28/2024

Mark Your Calendars for the Healthy Aging Research California Virtual Summit
05/28/2024

Meet Our New Development Associate
05/28/2024

Putting the Strategic Plan into Practice
05/28/2024

Washington Park: Pasadena’s Rediscovered Gem
05/28/2024

Introducing Civil Rights Discussions
05/22/2024

Rumor of Humor #2416
05/14/2024

Rumor of Humor #2417
05/14/2024

Rumor of Humor #2417
05/14/2024

Rumor of Humor #2418
05/14/2024

Springtime Visitors
05/07/2024

Freezing for a Good Cause – Credit, That Is
05/02/2024

No Discussion Meeting on May 3rd
05/02/2024

An Apparently Normal Person Author Presentation and Book-signing
05/01/2024

Flintridge Center: Pasadena Village’s Neighbor That Changes Lives
05/01/2024

Pasadena Celebrates Older Americans Month 2024
05/01/2024

The 2024 Pasadena Village Volunteer Appreciation Lunch
05/01/2024

Woman of the Year: Katy Townsend
05/01/2024

April 2024

March 2024

February 2024

January 2024

Science: Medical Monitoring & The Little Ice Age

By Bob Snodgrass
Posted: 08/07/2022
Tags:

We had a pleasant meeting on July 18th. It had been delayed one week because I was in hospital on July 11th. I was discharged on the 12th and felt better in a few days. Sharon was our first speaker. She brought interesting experiences when she served as health care executor for a sick friend. Many monitoring devices were used with her friend but they often had negative effects on the patient. Our culture assumes that more patient monitoring is always a good thing. It can be for certain cardiac conditions but there is a tradeoff- patients vary in their reactions to monitoring – it’s mostly noise, but some monitoring devices are themselves uncomfortable. Many physicians never consider this issue unless the patients brings it up. It would be reasonable for patients to say when monitoring devices are first mentioned that they sleep poorly and would wan to be convinced that monitoring was essential for their medical care. This discussion generally won’t apply to ICU patients, because today ICU patients often receive powerful intravenous medications that require close monitoring of patient response.

 

Barbara had a related issue, taken from an article in The Verge. One of their examples was a 70 yr. old woman successfully treated for atrial fibrillation, a common and important arrhythmia. Wearing a smart watch she was very anxious and printed out 916 electrocardiograms via the watch between two physician visits. She associated every notification from the watch with a possible worsening of her condition. Again, the monitoring device, the watch, is a tradeoff and may worse some patients’ overall condition. I note that the media usually adopt a cheerleader posture with every new monitoring device. Patients are often totally uneducated about the tradeoffs that come with monitoring.

 

Barbara also reported on the process by which astronomers are assigned time on the James Webb Space Telescope. Requests to use the viewing time on the telescope greatly exceed the time available. With a more thoughtful approach, each investigator submits a request. For time and an explanation of its potential payoff. Names are removed from these requests, so that women and graduate students are treated fairly. This system has been fairer than the ‘old boys’ system used 20 years ago on the Hubble telescope, which was launched in 1990.

 

Sally A presented information about the so-called medieval Little Ice Age, This was a period of irregular regional cooling, in no way analogous to the present period of climate change. The Little Ice Age affected the North Atlantic region most of all. There were three particularly cold periods, separated by intervals of modest warming:

 

The first began about 1660, the second about 1770, and the last in 1850. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Third Assessment Report considered that the timing and the areas affected by the Little Ice Age suggested largely independent regional episodes, whose cause is only partly established. The Little Ice Age had a gradual onset, possibly about 1300 when warm summers stopped being dependable in Northern Europe. We must remember 1816, the year without a summer.

 

After an unremarkable early spring, temperatures in the eastern United States plunged back below freezing, and communities from New England to Virginia experienced heavy snowfalls and crop-killing frost during June, July and August. Poor North Americans were reduced to eating hedgehogs and scrounging for turnips. Around the northern hemisphere, there was severe famine.

 

We now believe that this unusual cold weather and lack of sunshine was cause by a gigantic volcanic eruption, much more powerful than the famous Krakatoa. Mount Tambora in Indonesia produced a powerful eruption in 185, reducing sunlight all over our planet. Tambora, Krakatoa and many other active volcanoes are part of the so-called ring of fire.

Bruce also remined us of a CNET program that pointed out how much of the recorded early universe and last 50,000 years are based on European records and give insufficient attention to Asia and Africa.

 

Bob spoke about the large effects that viruses have had on human evolution and the differences between prokaryotic cells (no nuclear membrane) and the eukaryotic cell, whose cytoplasm if filled with membranes Retroviruses are RNA viruses like HIV virus. Retroviruses incorporate their nucleic acid, DNA made by the enzyme reverse transcriptase from RBA into the host genome, thereby changing future generations. COVID is an RNA virus but not a retrovirus.

 

Our August meeting comes Monday, August 8th at 4 PM. Belinda has sent the ZOOM log in material. I know that some people are away, this being summer and family vacation time. I hope that we may have interesting and informative discussions, which requires your finding presentations.


Best wishes

Bob Snodgrass

 

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