Doctors Urged to Admit Fatigue Before Performing Surgery Since I have a number of friends who are starting their houseman (what a term…!) years, I often ask them if they are capable of making sound decisions during their notorious 36-hour rotations. Most human beings start displaying deficiencies in performing cognitive tasks when they are sleep-deprived, so I have to wonder if this practice of keeping doctors awake is a sensible one. We’re talking about life-saving or life-threatening decisions, for Chrissakes! Your cognitive processes better be working at optimum levels while you are slicing my spleen open with a scalpel.
Table 1 Summary of Broad Cognitive Performance Effects of Sleep Deprivation
- Involuntary microsleeps occur
- Attention-intensive performance is unstable with increased errors of omission and commission
- Cognitive slowing occurs in subject-paced tasks, while time pressure increases cognitive errors
- Response time slows
- Both short-term recall and working memory performances decline
- Reduced learning (acquisition) of cognitive tasks
- Performance requiring divergent thinking deteriorates
- Response suppression errors increase in tasks primarily subserved by prefrontal cortex
- Response perseveration on ineffective solutions is more likely
- Increased compensatory effort is required to remain behaviorally effective
- Tasks may be begun well, but performance deteriorates as task duration increases
- There is growing neglect of activities judged to be nonessential (loss of situational awareness)
Years of high school chem
Did not prep us for this change.
I want a refund.
Scientists are updating the periodic table to show the range of weights of elements (rather than the fixed atomic weight like in our old table that is so 2010) . What does this mean? It means that high schoolers will have extra numbers to commit to memory.
The elements affected? Hydrogen, lithium, boron, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, silicon, sulfur, chlorine, and thallium. Life will never be the same again.
I decided that I want to starting off the new year on a progressive, positive, purposeful note. Hence, The One A Day Project. Here are some snippets from the project’s FAQ:
What is the One A Day Project?
The One A Day Project is a community of creative types aiming to post things on their sites as regularly as possible.
Do you have to be a blogger to participate?
No! If you’re not a writey-creative type and would rather do a daily sketch, photograph, animation, video or miscellaneous doohickey, we’d love to have you on board.
Do participants have to post every day?
No. Despite the name, all participants have to do is make a commitment to posting regularly. Whether this is daily, twice weekly, weekly or some other interval is up to them.
Why are you doing this?
Two reasons. Firstly, to allow people to practice the discipline of regular, non-stop creativity. And secondly, to benefit two good causes: Cancer Research UK and To Write Love On Her Arms.
I decided that I want to post a haiku every day. I can’t promise that they will all be quality. I can, however, promise 17 syllables. And yes, they might have a geeky-theme to them occasionally. Here’s the first:
One A Day Project.
Committed bloggers promote
good change in the world.
One of the best things about having a decently large room is that I can jump around and dance naked. Don’t pretend that you don’t, so stop judging me already. Anyway, here are the top 5 songs that have gotten my booty shaking this year (only when no one is looking).
#1: The Limousines – “Internet Killed the Video Star”
In case anyone was wondering, I was away last week on a short trip with my roommate from Taylor’s College, Kitky (who goes by “Kit” now, but I will never break the habit of calling her Kitky so she’ll just have to live with it!) and her baobei, Ang. I hadn’t seen her since 2007 – but you know how it is with good friends… The moment I got into her car, our mouths were going a mile a minute. Catching up on everything we’ve missed in each other’s lives over the last couple years.
Besides than the endless conversations, the whole trip was a blur of food, friends, desserts, movie trailers, more food, freebies, dancing pirates, snacks, and even more food. I haven’t quite gotten over the feeling of being stuffed. Maybe I’ll recover sometime next month. Maybe.
I’ve linked this about a hundred times to everyone I know. I guess it’s about time I posted it here, too. And yes, this was the first song I attempted to learn on the ukulele. I’m just that predictable.
