Dr. Robert Kelley writes:
Dear TWIV hosts,
Thanks for reading my post on episode 267. I have been honored to have several of my posts read on earlier TWIV episodes. I am indeed retired and I am the Robert whose sweet wife suggested he find something to do with his time after he retired. I will be 70 at the end of this month and am a retired Ph.D. Biochemist/Immunologist. I should finish my B.S. in Applied Mathematics at the end of 2015. This year I have taken a break from math classes and I have been taking breadth courses in Molecular Biology. I am currently taking an introductory Bioinformatics class and I just did my first BLAST! I think that I am having more fun in science now than I did when I was working. As for skiing and surfing, I have been skiing since I was 8 and I am a fully certified ski instructor. I started to surf when I moved to California in 1958 and have been at it since then with time out when I was a graduate student at the College of Medicine, University of Arizona, in Tucson AZ. My wife doesn’t ski or surf, but she grew up sailing (her dad was a boat builder) and she is also an avid fly fisherwoman and an expert at tying flies.
Thanks again for reading my emails.
Jim writes:
Hi all,
There is a Ted Talk by Mark Kendall at :
http://www.ted.com/talks/mark_kendall_demo_a_needle_free_vaccine_patch_that_s_safer_and_way_cheaper.html
It talks about an advance in using nano technology to administer vaccines. With this method there are several advantages:
a. Breaks the cold train. Vaccine can be stored out of refrigerator for long periods
b. Reduces the dose to achieve a significant immune response
c. Gives an earlier response to the vaccine by putting the vaccine in the immune active part of the skin.
d. Eliminates the pain of using a needle.
I found this very interesting.
Thanks a ton for all of the great podcasts.
Kehau writes:
Aloha Twivsters,
Not sure if you have seen this, and I thought of you and that it could be a great pic of the week! Love the podcast .. I look forward to all the TWIX’s every week 🙂
Mahalo!
These 12 Viruses Look Beautiful Up Close But Would Kill You If They Could (PHOTOS)
http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/4545309
Lance writes:
I don’t think anyone has picked the book by Nate Silver “The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail, but Some Don’t”
The author does a fantastic job explaining the science behind prediction, big data, and why our predictions/models aren’t very good sometimes.
Specifically of interest is chapter 7 which discusses disease (mostly flu) modeling by groups at the University of Pittsburgh and the University of Chicago.
Keep on doing great work,
-Lance
