Quick note: Recent announcement that adds hope to the understanding and future treatment of autism and dyslexia: MIT’s McGovern Institute researchers awarded $8.5m to study brain basis of autism and dyslexia. Quote:

- “Two researchers at MIT’s McGovern Institute for Brain Research will head an ambitious new project to study the origins of autism and dyslexia, supported by a $8.5m grant from the Ellison Medical Foundation. The project leaders, Nancy Kanwisher and John Gabrieli, are prominent experts in neuroimaging and human brain development.”

Link: McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT

TED Conference, a great annual conference on anything and everything new and meaningful, announces the public launch of their revamped website with great content and social networking tools, all under the banner “Ideas worth spreading”.

You can exercise your mind by learning about most science and technology subjects through wonderful TEDTalks video clips. Some examples:

• a few presentations on the theme How the Mind Works
• Bill Clinton
• E.O. Wilson
• Barry Schwartz on the paradox of choice

and many many more.

We read a good article on medical salaries recently, and are happy to see an increased emphasis prevention and wellness rather than on sickness.

Along these lines, we were fortunate to attend Healthetc yesterday, a day-long health event in San Francisco co-organized by KCBS and CPMC that had Bill Clinton as keynote speaker. You can read an article on his great intervention here.

Some of the speech highlights:

1) Clinton’s great overview of key data:

• 16 vs 10-11: % GDP spent on health care in the US vs. other industrialized countries. This percentage difference equals around $800 billion annually
• 84 vs 100: % population with some form of health insurance in the US vs. other countries
• 34 and 37: ranking of the US system as measured by health outcomes and life expectancy, respectively
• 34 vs 19: % health care costs spent on administration in the US vs. other countries

2) He outlined the 3 main problems with US Healthcare as follows-and empathized that any serious, long-term solution needs to Read the rest of this entry »