Medical Librarianship: Selected blogs, news, journals and more August 10, 2010
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in Health 2.0, Medicine, Medicine 2.0, PeRSSonalized Medicine, Web 2.0, Webicina.2 comments
Medical librarians can help medical professionals and patients by easing their search for reliable health information. And as they are really active online, there are hundreds of quality blogs, news sites, medical journals, Twitter users or Youtube channels created, managed by them. Webicina just selected some of the best in PeRSSonalized Medical Librarianship, the simplest medical information aggregator. If we missed something, please let us know.
You can also add custom Pubmed search boxes to your personalized journal.
Some reasons why PeRSSonalized Medicine is unique:
- You can search in the database. It means you will find medical information only from a quality selected portion of the world wide web.
- You can personalize any of the sections.
- You can also receive the newest Pubmed articles focusing on your search term. Just insert your field of interest, a therapy, a condition, etc. and click Search. Then you can add the newly created box to your personalized medical “journal”.
- It is a community-based project. Please let us know which quality resources should be added to the database.
Digital Pharma Guide August 10, 2010
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in Pharma, Web 2.0.1 comment so far
I just came across the Digital Pharma Guide on InPharm.com which will help you get a global picture of what digital pharma means through case presentations, articles and reviews.
Digital media is transforming the way the world communicates, including how patients learn about health matters, and how doctors communicate with their peers and the biopharmaceutical industry.
This digital revolution is in turn changing the rules of engagement in healthcare – patient power is growing fast, and pharma, clinicans and healthcare providers must now be more transparent and open to scrutiny than ever before.
The Digital Pharma Guide investigates this rapidly evolving world, giving industry readers an overview of some of the most important developments, and an introduction to communications agencies working in the field.
WikiProject Medicine + Google August 10, 2010
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in Collaboration, Google, Health 2.0, Medicine, Medicine 2.0, Web 2.0, Wikipedia.2 comments
I just joined an initiative on Wikipedia which features Google and the medical editors on Wikipedia. WikiProject Medicine editors and Google reviewers work together on articles within Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine.
Initiated at Google.org and then announced at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine#Announcement to WikiProject Medicine community prior to trial editorial review, this collaboration is intended as an exploration of active cooperation between professional medical editors and wikipedians to further improve the quality of articles. Work began with the identification of a short list of articles for review, selected as a cross-section of medicine-related topics. Each article on the list now has an assessed “Class” and “Importance”, harvested from its talk-page banner, reflecting Wikipedians’ initial assessment of their state.
While I’m not really sure I understand why it’s beneficial for Google, this is a great project which I’m gladly participating in.
Foldit: 75,000 profile pictures on the cover August 10, 2010
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in Collaboration, science, Video, Web 2.0.add a comment
If you remember the SETI project, you won’t be surprised that the Foldit project is a huge success. Foldit is an experimental video game about protein folding which helps solve problems that computers cannot solve that efficiently.
As described above, knowing the structure of a protein is key to understanding how it works and to targeting it with drugs. A small proteins can consist of 100 amino acids, while some human proteins can be huge (1000 amino acids). The number of different ways even a small protein can fold is astronomical because there are so many degrees of freedom. Figuring out which of the many, many possible structures is the best one is regarded as one of the hardest problems in biology today and current methods take a lot of money and time, even for computers. Foldit attempts to predict the structure of a protein by taking advantage of humans’ puzzle-solving intuitions and having people play competitively to fold the best proteins.
And they plan to publish the results with a cover which includes 75,000 provile images:
The 2010 Social Networking Map: Travel tips? August 10, 2010
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in Visualization, Web 2.0.2 comments
I use the old social media map in my course in order to show students what the whole web looks like, but I was eagerly waiting for the update. Now here it is.
Regarding travel tips, you should visit the Drunk Pictures Mountain Range in Facebook country, the Bay of Tags, the LOLcat island but never visit the Island of Trolls.
#hcsmeu: First Birthday August 9, 2010
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in Health, Health 2.0, Medicine, Medicine 2.0, twitter, Video, Web 2.0.add a comment
As far as I remember, the Twitter hashtag #hcsm was launched when the FDA SM movement was introduced. Later #hcsmeu became a brainchild initiated by Andrew Spong and Silja Chouquet. #hcsmeu is one year old now:
If we compare #hcsm and #hcsmeu, there is a slight difference, but I believe it’s because 1) #hcsmeu was originally a Twitter -driven event every Friday at 1pm CET, and 2) when someone uses the #hcsmeu hashtag, they tend to include #hcsm as well. So now it seems the #hcsmeu is more active than the original #hcsm.
Here is the daily newspaper form of the hashtag, the wiki and the Twitter search. If you have something to say about healthcare and social media that includes the European perspective, please add #hcsmeu.
Implantable blood sugar sensor August 9, 2010
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in Invention, Medicine, Technology, Video.4 comments
Engadget just reported a fantastic technology which enables diabetes patients to measure blood sugar levels without finger pricks.
A crew of researchers from The University of Tokyo and BEANS Research Institute are in the process of developing a newfangled blood sugar sensor that “reacts to glucose and lights up inside the body.” ‘Course, injecting dyes into humans in order to receive interpretable signals ain’t exactly new, but hydrogel is what makes this approach unique. As the story goes, this jelly-esque material can be implanted within the body, enabling blood sugar levels to be monitored and measured externally with no pain or irritation whatsoever. In theory, a monitoring system could trigger an alert as soon as the internal levels dipped or rose beyond a predetermined extreme, giving those with diabetes a maximum amount of time to get things back in balance.
Do you collect data about yourself? August 6, 2010
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in Data, Health, Health 2.0, Medicine, Medicine 2.0, twitter, Visualization, Web 2.0.5 comments
I’ve written about the Quantified Self project plenty of times (group of empowered patients trying to live a healthy life via data collection and analysis), and now over at FlowingData blog, there is a great discussion about collecting data about ourselves. Author, Nathan Yau shared how data collection can become fun and a vital part of our lives.
On your.flowingdata.com, you can collect your life data through a few simple steps on Twitter. One data point per tweet!
- Step 1. Follow @yfd on Twitter
- Step 2. Sign in to your.flowingdata with Twitter
- Step 3. Start recording data (via direct messages) following a few simple guidelines
Without using data analytics softwares and sites, it’s still easy to collect your blood sugar or blood pressure levels. FlowingData lets you visualize and analyze data as well.
Let’s find out if Google is watching you! August 6, 2010
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in Data, e-patient, Google, Health 2.0, Medicine 2.0, Video, Web 2.0.add a comment
When you’re browsing the web and personal information is being sent to Google servers, it means some kind of a risk for you. How can you find out when it’s happening? Google Alarm that works with Firefox and Chrome, will let you know now.
So how does the plugin work? “[It] inspects each page you visit for Google-related URLs: googleanalytics.com/ga.js for Google Analytics, doubleclick.net/googlesyndication.com URLs for AdSense, youtube.com/v/ for YouTube embeds, and many more,” Wilkinson says. “Each service triggers an individual visual and audible alert to help you become more aware of when you’re transmitting data to Google.” If you’re into the idea, the source code is currently open, and Wilkinsen welcomes suggestions. Check out the video below for more info:
You can install it here, but be prepared for a very annoying vuvuzela alert sound.
