I hate this kind of stuff. A nurse has been arrested in connection with five deaths at a hospital in Stockport, near Manchester. Apparently some saline solution (used for intravenous drips) had been tampered with, by someone injecting insulin into it. Consequently when given intravenously to a patient this could cause hypoglycaemia, coma and death. This story is currently all over the news.
However, the police have not charged the nurse, nor have they released any details (was she working with the five patients who died? did she have access to insulin and saline? did she have a motivation?). In fact, it has not been confirmed that the patients died due to hypoglycaemia or insulin injection.
In which case, is it right for the BBC and the Guardian to show a picture of the nurse on their websites? The same goes for all the other news outlets. Even better, the story on the Guardian website today pretty much tells you where she lives.
I think it is highly unfair, in fact it should be illegal, to show pictures and give away addresses of people that may be innocent before any trial has taken place.
Friday, 22 July 2011
Friday, 15 July 2011
Sequences
Last week I went along to some "intensive" Mysore-style yoga classes, which were run 6-8 AM by Matt Ryan, whose classes I used to attend when I lived in Didsbury. After the first day, it was no problem getting up at 5 AM to walk down Brinny hill and catch the 192 bus to Heaton Chapel.
We started with pranayama, which are breathing exercises involving deep breathing and holding the breath either on the inhale or exhale (which is harder - after doing that a couple of times for 8 seconds a go I was struggling a bit). After that we did our normal self-practice, which is the Mysore thing, while the teacher wanders around correcting people as he sees fit. He got me started on the second series, which was cool, I hoped for that but from my previous experience with him I thought he might not let me progress so fast. However, he seems to have chilled out a bit in the two years since I last saw him, and I was on to the leg-behind-the-head move by the end of the week. (He corrected me for calling it the secondary series - as in not as important, but then isn't it primary, secondary, tertiary education, and that has a definite progress to it?)
Anyway, the point of this blog wasn't to tell everyone about my week, instead I've been meditating on the idea of a sequence in yoga. Ashtanga has quite a strict sequence of postures, linked by the vinyasa (jumping back, upward/downward dog).
Having a rigidly defined sequence has the potential to become very regimented and boring, and make the yogi reluctant to practice. Also, as the harder moves come later in the sequence, it can instill the tendency to want to push on, to get to the next move, rather than being "in the moment", and also give rise to big egos as you see you are more "advanced" than the people around you (this can happen anyway if you happen to be better than most in certain postures).
Some people complain that there are easier moves towards the end of the first series (e.g. bandha konasana, the butterfly stretch, and salabahasana in the second series) which are beneficial to beginners, and that in the traditional Ashtanga method they wouldn't be able to do these moves until they'd mastered the likes of Marichyasana D (twist and bind with one leg in half lotus - hard enough but dangerous or impossible if you are carrying knee injuries).
On the other hand, one of the things that attracted me to Ashtanga was the sequence. The progressive nature of it gives you something to aim for, and more importantly you can then practice on your own, without feeling like you're freestyling (i.e. making it up). Some of the frustrations that come out of the practice (I was more bendy than this yesterday!) are actually useful - dealing with them in a meditative way might help to improve how you deal with frustrations and set-backs elsewhere in life.
Also, the sequences in Ashtanga have been designed in a certain way, with a gradual build up of difficulty and heat (and sweat) up to a certain point, with a couple of easier ones on the end. So its fine to practice the later postures even if the previous ones are to difficult, but that way misses out some of the benefits of the Ashtanga system. Another point that ties in with the paragraph above is that if you start missing out moves, or doing whatever you want, you will naturally avoid the harder moves and not improve in the ways that you might need to (in other words, spend more time in the positions you find the most uncomfortable/difficult).
I think it is quite normal for the human mind to seek out sequences and patterns. Any yoga class, or exercise class for that matter, will use some kind of sequence for the various exercises (maybe this is the difference between "exercise" and "sport"). Some people respect the purity of a system, and will not tolerate any change or innovation. The history of evolution tells us though that those that don't adapt almost invariably will die. Unless you're a crocodile or something.
We started with pranayama, which are breathing exercises involving deep breathing and holding the breath either on the inhale or exhale (which is harder - after doing that a couple of times for 8 seconds a go I was struggling a bit). After that we did our normal self-practice, which is the Mysore thing, while the teacher wanders around correcting people as he sees fit. He got me started on the second series, which was cool, I hoped for that but from my previous experience with him I thought he might not let me progress so fast. However, he seems to have chilled out a bit in the two years since I last saw him, and I was on to the leg-behind-the-head move by the end of the week. (He corrected me for calling it the secondary series - as in not as important, but then isn't it primary, secondary, tertiary education, and that has a definite progress to it?)
Anyway, the point of this blog wasn't to tell everyone about my week, instead I've been meditating on the idea of a sequence in yoga. Ashtanga has quite a strict sequence of postures, linked by the vinyasa (jumping back, upward/downward dog).
Having a rigidly defined sequence has the potential to become very regimented and boring, and make the yogi reluctant to practice. Also, as the harder moves come later in the sequence, it can instill the tendency to want to push on, to get to the next move, rather than being "in the moment", and also give rise to big egos as you see you are more "advanced" than the people around you (this can happen anyway if you happen to be better than most in certain postures).
Some people complain that there are easier moves towards the end of the first series (e.g. bandha konasana, the butterfly stretch, and salabahasana in the second series) which are beneficial to beginners, and that in the traditional Ashtanga method they wouldn't be able to do these moves until they'd mastered the likes of Marichyasana D (twist and bind with one leg in half lotus - hard enough but dangerous or impossible if you are carrying knee injuries).
On the other hand, one of the things that attracted me to Ashtanga was the sequence. The progressive nature of it gives you something to aim for, and more importantly you can then practice on your own, without feeling like you're freestyling (i.e. making it up). Some of the frustrations that come out of the practice (I was more bendy than this yesterday!) are actually useful - dealing with them in a meditative way might help to improve how you deal with frustrations and set-backs elsewhere in life.
Also, the sequences in Ashtanga have been designed in a certain way, with a gradual build up of difficulty and heat (and sweat) up to a certain point, with a couple of easier ones on the end. So its fine to practice the later postures even if the previous ones are to difficult, but that way misses out some of the benefits of the Ashtanga system. Another point that ties in with the paragraph above is that if you start missing out moves, or doing whatever you want, you will naturally avoid the harder moves and not improve in the ways that you might need to (in other words, spend more time in the positions you find the most uncomfortable/difficult).
I think it is quite normal for the human mind to seek out sequences and patterns. Any yoga class, or exercise class for that matter, will use some kind of sequence for the various exercises (maybe this is the difference between "exercise" and "sport"). Some people respect the purity of a system, and will not tolerate any change or innovation. The history of evolution tells us though that those that don't adapt almost invariably will die. Unless you're a crocodile or something.
Tuesday, 14 June 2011
Extreme weather
Its June, the start of Summer, supposedly. And surprisingly, its sunny today (Tuesday). On Sunday I had three layers on when I went out for a walk, through the woods near to my house which had quite an autumnal feel (i.e. much rain and wind). Later my girlfriend and I were wrapped in blankets while watching a film. This is after an exceptionally hot and dry April, the time of year you'd usually expect to get soaked, when I was sitting out in the garden in shorts and t-shirt. And to look around the world, you can see how messed up the weather is globally. Yes, Gaia is very angry with us. The question is, is all this weather weirdness caused by man-made climate change?
I have tried to come up with a logic for dealing with the following dilemma: The weather conditions we see are either caused by man-made events (greenhouse gases) or are part of a natural cycle. But seeing as we can't actually prove either way, how do you persuade you average climate sceptic that we should reduce our emissions? Well, if what we are seeing is due to natural change, then whether we reduce our emissions or not won't make any difference, and the weather conditions may get worse, stay the same or get better accordingly. On the other hand, if what we are seeing is due to man-made events, then reducing emissions should stop the climate change, and eventually reverse it, while not reducing the emissions will make things worse. So it seems that even if we are not sure about the causes of climate change (and surely people cannot argue that the climate is changing at present - check out the link above, or look up changes in global temperature and CO2 levels since the start of the industrial revolution), then it seems better to do something about it, because if we are wrong we will certainly face extinction as a race, while the worst case scenario, we are wrong, reduce emissions but the weather gets worse anyway, was always unavoidable. Basically, by being pro-active we are cutting down on risk.
Of course, there is another possibility, that there are both natural and man-made components to climate change. Even so, changing our ways will surely help to improve matters. Not to mention that reducing consumption of resources can only surely be a good thing in the long run. Our economies our mostly fucked as it is - we might as well adapt now while there's still enough food and water to go round.
I have tried to come up with a logic for dealing with the following dilemma: The weather conditions we see are either caused by man-made events (greenhouse gases) or are part of a natural cycle. But seeing as we can't actually prove either way, how do you persuade you average climate sceptic that we should reduce our emissions? Well, if what we are seeing is due to natural change, then whether we reduce our emissions or not won't make any difference, and the weather conditions may get worse, stay the same or get better accordingly. On the other hand, if what we are seeing is due to man-made events, then reducing emissions should stop the climate change, and eventually reverse it, while not reducing the emissions will make things worse. So it seems that even if we are not sure about the causes of climate change (and surely people cannot argue that the climate is changing at present - check out the link above, or look up changes in global temperature and CO2 levels since the start of the industrial revolution), then it seems better to do something about it, because if we are wrong we will certainly face extinction as a race, while the worst case scenario, we are wrong, reduce emissions but the weather gets worse anyway, was always unavoidable. Basically, by being pro-active we are cutting down on risk.
Of course, there is another possibility, that there are both natural and man-made components to climate change. Even so, changing our ways will surely help to improve matters. Not to mention that reducing consumption of resources can only surely be a good thing in the long run. Our economies our mostly fucked as it is - we might as well adapt now while there's still enough food and water to go round.
Monday, 9 May 2011
The hamster wheel called science
An interview was recently published in Lab Times with Peter Lawrence, who discusses what is wrong with science research - a subject that I've been talking about a fair bit at work, where the majority of other writers have done the PhD/postdoc thing then had nowhere else to go. Its quite an amusing article if you've been in the science game, with observations such as that papers in Nature, the most esteemed journal which everyone wants to get into, are so dense as to be actually unreadable. And that scientists have become little more than paper-spewing machines, where the publication becomes the end in itself rather than any idea of a pursuit of knowledge.
The basic challenge is this - get at least one first author paper out in the 2 (3 if you're lucky) years of your postdoc or thats it, you're out of science. And if you do get it, you get another 2 years (well, more like 18 months if you're going to start work on the next grant). And so on. The ultimate aim is to get your own lab group to manage, at which point you will never see the lab again and instead become buried under paperwork, meetings and bureacracy.
No wonder I, and the majority of people I did my PhD and postdoc with, have come out of science.
The other side of the problem as far as I can see it, is that there are far too many people now in science, in particular biology (especially molecular biology - my ex-field). More PhD's than there are interesting things to study, or at least when they have graduated.
Of course, I was a bit foolish in concentrating almost solely on my studies, and later my research, without really thinking where I was going, what the job scene was likely to be, and whether I was picking up enough competitive skills. Fortunately I wrote a couple of reviews during my postdoc, which must have at least helped my current job as a medical writer; my ability to do PCR and subcloning blindfolded and plate out thousands of yeast transformations couldn't even get me a maternity-leave technician job in a hospital genetics department, never mind another research post.
I don't blame anyone though, I was too focused on small things without seeing a bigger picture. Actually, I would criticise the sciences for that - I might have had much more interesting ideas for my PhD if I'd had more contact with the physics/technology/mathematics department for instance and we'd come up with a design for an artifical pancreas. It would be nice to have a bit more confidence to go an make contacts like that, but unfortunately most researchers are so absorbed into their own fields that such cross-discipline collaboration (or even awareness, at all, at what is going on - the splintering of science into ever-more ridiculously obscure fields - compare to the polymaths of old who knew a bit about everything).
The basic challenge is this - get at least one first author paper out in the 2 (3 if you're lucky) years of your postdoc or thats it, you're out of science. And if you do get it, you get another 2 years (well, more like 18 months if you're going to start work on the next grant). And so on. The ultimate aim is to get your own lab group to manage, at which point you will never see the lab again and instead become buried under paperwork, meetings and bureacracy.
No wonder I, and the majority of people I did my PhD and postdoc with, have come out of science.
The other side of the problem as far as I can see it, is that there are far too many people now in science, in particular biology (especially molecular biology - my ex-field). More PhD's than there are interesting things to study, or at least when they have graduated.
Of course, I was a bit foolish in concentrating almost solely on my studies, and later my research, without really thinking where I was going, what the job scene was likely to be, and whether I was picking up enough competitive skills. Fortunately I wrote a couple of reviews during my postdoc, which must have at least helped my current job as a medical writer; my ability to do PCR and subcloning blindfolded and plate out thousands of yeast transformations couldn't even get me a maternity-leave technician job in a hospital genetics department, never mind another research post.
I don't blame anyone though, I was too focused on small things without seeing a bigger picture. Actually, I would criticise the sciences for that - I might have had much more interesting ideas for my PhD if I'd had more contact with the physics/technology/mathematics department for instance and we'd come up with a design for an artifical pancreas. It would be nice to have a bit more confidence to go an make contacts like that, but unfortunately most researchers are so absorbed into their own fields that such cross-discipline collaboration (or even awareness, at all, at what is going on - the splintering of science into ever-more ridiculously obscure fields - compare to the polymaths of old who knew a bit about everything).
Monday, 2 May 2011
First month as a medical writer
It's been a ridiculously long time since I wrote anything here. My new job is going ok so far. I seem to be fitting in well with the other people, which I suppose is the most important thing. There are quite a few fairly new people, mostly from backgrounds such as my own: did a science degree, PhD, postdoc then decided to go into medical writing.
For the first couple of weeks I was mostly doing admin stuff, like updating databases with information on conferences and journals, as organising events is one of the jobs that the company I work for does. Hopefully I'll get to go to some conferences soon, it's always nice, and something I never got to do during my postdoc at Manchester (well, apart from the Yeast conference, which was in Manchester).
I've now been given my first couple of writing jobs, working on producing a from a clinical for a new Type 2 diabetes drug. Firstly I sat in a teleconference meeting with a couple of members of the editorial team, and listened to our clients (a representative from the drug company and some of the doctors who had worked on the trial as they discussed what the overall aims and direction of the paper should be, what kind of stuff to put in the figures and so on. Then I was sent off to produce an outline which has turned out to be quite detailed. A lot of the time was spent organising the data from the trial into something presentable, and finding references for the introduction. They had some quite good results, so it will be interesting to see how far this new drug goes.
Not much else to say on the job really. Apart from that, I've been getting in some yoga every morning, only doing an hour or so now as I have to leave for the train at about 7.30. The weather has been so nice lately that getting up about 5.30-5.45 hasn't been a problem. I'm not sticking so much to the traditional ashtanga series now, which can take up to 2 hours to complete, I've been mixing the positions around a bit to try and get some practice with the full range of stretches etc. I think you can skip quite a few of the similar moves e.g. the forward bends in the primary series and spend more time on the harder ones.
I went to a barbeque the weekend before last and played some guitar music with some other people there, it was great fun and something I hadn't done for ages. There was four people on guitars at one point, mostly playing blues and Elvis tunes as they make a straightforward common ground. I could do with learning some more tunes though as my girlfriend has been complaining that I've been playing the same things all the time! So any suggestions would be appreciated.
For the first couple of weeks I was mostly doing admin stuff, like updating databases with information on conferences and journals, as organising events is one of the jobs that the company I work for does. Hopefully I'll get to go to some conferences soon, it's always nice, and something I never got to do during my postdoc at Manchester (well, apart from the Yeast conference, which was in Manchester).
I've now been given my first couple of writing jobs, working on producing a from a clinical for a new Type 2 diabetes drug. Firstly I sat in a teleconference meeting with a couple of members of the editorial team, and listened to our clients (a representative from the drug company and some of the doctors who had worked on the trial as they discussed what the overall aims and direction of the paper should be, what kind of stuff to put in the figures and so on. Then I was sent off to produce an outline which has turned out to be quite detailed. A lot of the time was spent organising the data from the trial into something presentable, and finding references for the introduction. They had some quite good results, so it will be interesting to see how far this new drug goes.
Not much else to say on the job really. Apart from that, I've been getting in some yoga every morning, only doing an hour or so now as I have to leave for the train at about 7.30. The weather has been so nice lately that getting up about 5.30-5.45 hasn't been a problem. I'm not sticking so much to the traditional ashtanga series now, which can take up to 2 hours to complete, I've been mixing the positions around a bit to try and get some practice with the full range of stretches etc. I think you can skip quite a few of the similar moves e.g. the forward bends in the primary series and spend more time on the harder ones.
I went to a barbeque the weekend before last and played some guitar music with some other people there, it was great fun and something I hadn't done for ages. There was four people on guitars at one point, mostly playing blues and Elvis tunes as they make a straightforward common ground. I could do with learning some more tunes though as my girlfriend has been complaining that I've been playing the same things all the time! So any suggestions would be appreciated.
Tuesday, 29 March 2011
Demolition man
Over the last few weeks I've done a fair amount of gardening work. After taking the tree down which I wrote about last time, I cleared a load of brambles and other spikey things from the back, went down to one mates allotment and helped her weed out the vegetable patches and wheelbarrow a load of compost, and on saturday last I went down to another mates allotment, very near to Old Trafford (hawk, spit!) to help him destroy the dodgy looking ramshackle glasshouse there. It was a cool bit of demolition work, we had a crowbar each and managed to take down the double-glazed windows that had been used for a roof on the glasshouse. I only banged my head once, and my friend, lets call him Dr Leverenti, escaped with just a nail gash on the top of his head.
But mostly I'm afraid I've been lost in the world of Assassin's Guild Brotherhood on the Xbox. At first I thought it was just a Tomb Raider clone with the fancy dressing of being set in Medieval Rome, but I've found it highly compulsive. Its very violent, and graphically so. When I was a fair bit younger I played an awful lot of computer games, in many ways they are a waste of time but I do find playing them quite relaxing. Even when you're running and jumping over the tops of buildings and assassinating people by sneeking up behind them and breaking their necks.
And I can do it guilt-free because I've finally got a job sorted out. I start next week so this is my last week of freedom. I'll be working for a medical communications company in Knutsford, mostly writing up clinical trials reports for drugs companies. It seems to be a thing that a lot of ex-science researchers get into. When you realise that you're not going to be a PI (Principle Investigator i.e., the head of a lab), the only way is out of academia really. With the new job I'll still be able to use a lot of my science knowledge and be able to focus just on writing. I was never the most practical person in the lab anyway.
So I'm looking forward to being out of the house, earning some money and basically being useful again. I don't know how I'm going to fit the yoga into it all, as I'll have to leave the house about 6.30 in the morning to get down to Stockport to catch the train, and probably won't get in until about 7 at night. So unless I get up at 4am or something I'm just going to have to go to a class.
The next couple of blogs should be awesome tales of office life, I bet you can't wait!
But mostly I'm afraid I've been lost in the world of Assassin's Guild Brotherhood on the Xbox. At first I thought it was just a Tomb Raider clone with the fancy dressing of being set in Medieval Rome, but I've found it highly compulsive. Its very violent, and graphically so. When I was a fair bit younger I played an awful lot of computer games, in many ways they are a waste of time but I do find playing them quite relaxing. Even when you're running and jumping over the tops of buildings and assassinating people by sneeking up behind them and breaking their necks.
And I can do it guilt-free because I've finally got a job sorted out. I start next week so this is my last week of freedom. I'll be working for a medical communications company in Knutsford, mostly writing up clinical trials reports for drugs companies. It seems to be a thing that a lot of ex-science researchers get into. When you realise that you're not going to be a PI (Principle Investigator i.e., the head of a lab), the only way is out of academia really. With the new job I'll still be able to use a lot of my science knowledge and be able to focus just on writing. I was never the most practical person in the lab anyway.
So I'm looking forward to being out of the house, earning some money and basically being useful again. I don't know how I'm going to fit the yoga into it all, as I'll have to leave the house about 6.30 in the morning to get down to Stockport to catch the train, and probably won't get in until about 7 at night. So unless I get up at 4am or something I'm just going to have to go to a class.
The next couple of blogs should be awesome tales of office life, I bet you can't wait!
Tuesday, 8 March 2011
I'm a lumberjack
Today I made a new personal achievement to add to my cv - tree felling! At the bottom of our garden were two spindly coniferous trees (sorry I'm not an expert so I can't be more specific), one of which was already blocking out most of the sunlight and threatened to further loom in immensity if left unchecked. It turned out that most of the branches were half rotten and could just be pulled off. The tallest tree was about 12 ft and I took it down with the classic technique of cutting a wedge in the same side as I wanted it to fall, cut a slit in the other side then basically pulled it down. The root took ages to get out, but it was very satisfying. I'm revelling in my arm-scratches right now. I worked as a gardner when I first left school, it can be quite nice work but it is very tiring, I fell asleep after my efforts today.
My sleep was aided by watching the "Wonders of the Universe" on BBC i-player, a documentary with Brian Cox warbling on about the arrow of time, while mooching about various moody locations. There were some turtles in it, I'm not sure if it had a major revlatory point to make as I fell asleep about half way through it (the Star Trek effect). There have been quite a few interesting documentaries on BBC lately, Horizon last week had a look at whether humans are still evolving, although it mostly showed the presenter in various moody locations. It touched upon variations in human populations over the world - Sherpas in Nepal having a greater network of blood vessels to aid survival at higher altitudes (although I'm not nc that this was just a physiological rather than genetic adaptation) and the prevalence of the lactase gene for digesting milk, very common in north european populations and very rare in south east asia. Explains why I didn't see many milkman doing the rounds in Cambodia.
My sleep was aided by watching the "Wonders of the Universe" on BBC i-player, a documentary with Brian Cox warbling on about the arrow of time, while mooching about various moody locations. There were some turtles in it, I'm not sure if it had a major revlatory point to make as I fell asleep about half way through it (the Star Trek effect). There have been quite a few interesting documentaries on BBC lately, Horizon last week had a look at whether humans are still evolving, although it mostly showed the presenter in various moody locations. It touched upon variations in human populations over the world - Sherpas in Nepal having a greater network of blood vessels to aid survival at higher altitudes (although I'm not nc that this was just a physiological rather than genetic adaptation) and the prevalence of the lactase gene for digesting milk, very common in north european populations and very rare in south east asia. Explains why I didn't see many milkman doing the rounds in Cambodia.
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