Category Archives: Body & Mind

Judo Falls for the Elderly

When old people fall the results are likely to be far worse than when younger people hit the floor. There’s a long history of technology assistance for elderly individuals who fall from the infamous “I’ve fallen and can’t get up” device to the modern smartwatch with fall detection. As always, the best solution is prevention.

In Quebec an organization has popped up to help teach people how to fall so they don’t injure themselves. Yes, that’s right to prevent falls and help people deal with them is to get them to fall in the first place.

One of the principal lessons is to encourage suppleness and to teach students to not be afraid of falling, says Jean-François Marceau, executive director of Judo Quebec.

As part of the courses, students are taught the basics of how to drop down to — and then get up from — the floor.

“When you go back to that basic thing then you become less afraid of the floor,” said Marceau. “Of course you don’t learn to fall in one lesson and then it’s acquired for life. You have to practise for several weeks … It keeps the reflex on your body and your mind.”

Read more.

Thanks to Lindsay!

Pigeons Outperform Radiologists

birds

Radiology is very complex and even doctors with years of training and experience can make misdiagnoses. So far AI systems haven’t been competitive with humans; however, pigeons are. Researchers trained pigeons to identify cancers in radiology images and concluded that the birds are just as good, if not better, than human observers. With the increasing costs of healthcare maybe paying workers in birdseed is a potential solution.

We report here that pigeons (Columba livia)—which share many visual system properties with humans—can serve as promising surrogate observers of medical images, a capability not previously documented. The birds proved to have a remarkable ability to distinguish benign from malignant human breast histopathology after training with differential food reinforcement; even more importantly, the pigeons were able to generalize what they had learned when confronted with novel image sets. The birds’ histological accuracy, like that of humans, was modestly affected by the presence or absence of color as well as by degrees of image compression, but these impacts could be ameliorated with further training. Turning to radiology, the birds proved to be similarly capable of detecting cancer-relevant microcalcifications on mammogram images.

Read more.

Radical Idea: Libraries

maps

If the idea of a library was purposed today it simply would be laughed out of existence because a library embodies an idea that is often ignored: that people, no matter their status, should be given a chance at no cost. In fact, libraries are free for all and generate no profit. What’s more they let people use the same shared resource over and over again – anathema in a post-Napster internet. Take a moment and marvel in the fact that despite the commodification and finalization of all aspects of our life that the simple library still stands.

The majesty of library buildings is matched only by the nobility of their purpose. The public library does not make anyone money; it does not understand its patrons as mere consumers, or as a revenue base. Instead, it aspires to encounter people as minds. The public library exists to grant access to information, to facilitate curiosity, education, and inquiry for their own sake. It is a place where the people can go to pursue their aspirations and their whims, to uncover histories or investigate new scientific discoveries.

And it is available, crucially, to everyone. It costs nothing to enter, nothing to borrow – in New York, and in many other cities, the public library system has even eliminated late fees. All the knowledge and artistry of its collection is available to the public at will, and it is a privilege made available, without prejudice, to rich and poor alike.

Read more.

Philosophers Argue Men Don’t See Domestic Duties

AI generated image of philosophers arguing about domestic duties

The age old debate about who does more around the house will never be settled, thanks to some philosophers may at least understand why it won’t be settled. Using affordance theory (which is about objects, situations, and actions being related) philosophers argue that the way the world is interpreted fundamentally defines how we react, or not, to an implication of a chore. For example, a man might see a room as being disorganized and leave it at that whereas a woman sees the same room and thinks about the necessary action of having to organize it, meaning that the woman in this example has more of a mental burden than the man. Of course, it’s a very gendered conversation and there’s no clarity of any of this being innate or learned behaviour.

Regardless, you should tidy up after yourself.

“Many point to the performance of traditional gender roles, along with various economic factors such as women taking flexible work for childcare reasons,” said Dr Tom McClelland, from Cambridge University’s Department of History and Philosophy of Science.

“Yet the fact that stark inequalities in domestic tasks persisted during the pandemic, when most couples were trapped inside, and that many men continued to be oblivious of this imbalance, means this is not the full story.”

McClelland and co-author Prof Paulina Sliwa argue that unequal divisions of labour in the home – and the inability of men to identify said labour – is best explained through the psychological notion of “affordances”: the idea that we perceive things as inviting or “affording” particular actions.

Read more.

Climate Crisis Course Required in Spain

tree with climate knowledge

Students at the University of Barcelona will now be required to take a class on the climate crisis regardless of their field of study. Adding the course to all students makes sense since the climate crisis impacts all aspects of knowledge from urban planning to our understanding of history.

The way the course got added to the curriculum is further proof protesting works.

“The trigger was the student occupation but it shows a general cultural change. Ten or 15 years ago the university would have sent in the police. But now you can’t kick them out because you know they’re right and society supports them.”

“It’s not just another course on sustainable development,” said Lucía Muñoz Sueiro, an End Fossil activist and PhD student at the university. “It combines the social and ecological aspects of the crisis, which are interrelated.”

Read more.