thank you

I have only a few days of vacation left before returning to medical school July 6th, at which time I'll be once again taking part in patient care, likely in the hospital or clinic 12+ hours a day. Until then, I have a couple very exciting events on the horizon, the first being a wedding in Massachusetts this weekend.

My thesis has long been submitted to the appropriate places, although it still hasn't posted online. While I doubt many people will ever have the desire to read it, needless to say there are a number of people whom helped make its inception possible. For those who don't want to read the whole thing, there is one particular paragraph of the acknowledgments I want to emphasize:

... I would like to thank my family for their support throughout the length of this journey, especially my mother, Luann, and my father, Keith, as well as my extended family – friends back home and especially new friends here in Columbus, who were crucial to my success at Ohio State and remind me daily what is most important in life. Thank you.

Obviously, I didn't have the space to mention everyone by name, but for those who were a part of my life over the past six years, hopefully you'll appreciate the small token of appreciation.

And just for fun, the quote I chose to set the stage for my dissertation:

From the smallest necessity to the highest religious abstraction, from the wheel to the skyscraper, everything we are and everything we have comes from one attribute of man – the function of his reasoning mind. – Ayn Rand

not as bad as advertised

Sometimes it's refreshing to read about the strengths of our health care system. As this editorial from the Denver Post points out, we boast some of the strongest cancer survival statistics among nations, and the oft-cited 37th place ranking by the World Health Organization is fundamentally flawed.

Carroll: U.S. health care is not inferior

playing with wolfram alpha

Wolfram Alpha is a new generation of search engine developed by Stephen Wolfram. It claims to be the first computational knowledge engine; in other words, unlike other search engines like Google or Yahoo!, it can take input data and actually calculate an answer. For instance, searching "how old is Chris Brown" in Google gets a dated answer of 18 following someone who answered the question on WikiAnswers. Wolfram Alpha has the ability to actually do the calculation for you (the answer is 20, for the record).

I started playing around on Wolfram Alpha this morning after reading a story about the world GDP declining by almost 3% in 2009. Yet, government spending will have increased by more than 30% in FY 2009 (assuming projected expenditures through the rest of the year). The United States' GDP is a little more than $15 trillion. In 2008, government expenditures made up about 20% of the GDP, or a little less than $3 trillion. This seemed high to me, so I decided to use Wolfram Alpha to compare the United States' fraction of government expenditures to GDP with other countries.

The search was relatively easy. I simply used the search terms "GDP versus budget," and Wolfram Alpha gave me the total world GDP and government expenditures, as well as a nice graph plotting various countries' GDPs and budgets:



As you can probably guess, the dot with the largest government expenditures is the United States. But while we spend the most, we also have the highest GDP. What you can most readily appreciate from this graph is that there are very few outliers. In fact, it seems like most countries spend about 20% of their GDP on government expenditures. There are some exceptions: Tokelau, a small territory of New Zealand, spends more than its GDP, according to the most recent information. Zimbabwe's GDP barely exceeds its government's expenditures, $2.1 versus $1.9 billion. On the other end of the spectrum, the islands of Wallis and Futuna amazingly spend $31,000 annually while having a GDP of $60 million.

Besides these few exceptions, most countries fall in a narrow range of having a budget 20-30% of their GDP. While the data didn't match my hypothesis, it was fun playing around on Wolfram Alpha. I think it will prove to be a very useful search engine, especially for performing new calculations when the data might not be readily available in a friendly format. However, it will likely not be very practical for "Googling" oneself (I tried, and Wolfram Alpha had nothing for me).

what a diva

Senator, and I do mean, Senator Boxer really thinks she deserves her title. So much so she corrected Brigadier General Michael Walsh when he addressed her as "ma'am."

I worked pretty hard for my doctorate, but I don't think I would ever correct someone for calling me "mister." Especially to someone with an even more impressive title like Brigadier General.

Maybe the voters will see this as a sign Senator Boxer has enjoyed enough time in the U.S. Senate.

in the garden, part ii

I know it's been a while since I blogged about my recession garden, so I thought I would give everyone a quick update.

As you can see, things are really growing quickly! The tomatoes and mint has especially grown a lot since I started the garden three weeks ago. In the foreground, I have two varieties of peppers, jalapeno and my personal favorite, habanero. Behind the peppers are several herbs, the mint and basil on the left are by far the fastest growing. In the background I have two "container" tomato plants. The one of the left is a roma, and the one on the right is an heirloom variety, brandywine.

The tomatoes take a lot of water every day. I was out of town the last couple days for a conference in Chicago, and when I came back the tomatoes were already showing signs of wilting. A couple of gallons water later and the plants perked up immediately. All of the plants are starting to show roots at the base of the pots, which has me concerned about container size. I may have to repot the plants, especially the vegetables, later in the season.

You may be able to tell from this picture that both tomato plants are starting to flower. This has me very optimistic that I'll have my first harvest within the next several weeks, hopefully by July! There is one variety of tomato, appropriately called the "fourth of July," that matures very quickly. Most tomatoes require 70 to 80 days to start producing fruit. I'm excited to see mine are off to such a great start!

That's it for now. If my garden has you interested, it's not too late to start your own!

obama to address the ama

For the first time since 1983, the President of the United States will address the American Medical Association's House of Delegates.

Unfortunately, while I will be attending the AMA's Annual Meeting starting tomorrow, I'll be returning to Columbus early in order to graduate Sunday. President Obama will be addressing the AMA on Monday.

recession garden

This year, I decided to plant a "recession garden" on my roof. This was in no way a direct response to Michelle's recession garden at the White House, but rather something I had wanted to do for a long time. However, I did borrow the name.

You can see here several varieties of herbs, including mint and basil, as well as several vegetables. I also added some flowers for color.

As I've learned with rooftop gardens, consistent and thorough watering is key. I check the soil every morning to make sure the plants are fully hydrated. I've found even when it rains the day before, the soil is typically dry the next morning. Vegetables, especially when mature, drink a large amount of water every day. Growing the plants on the roof, exposed to high heat and direct sunlight, in addition to growing them in containers, means they need lots of additional water.

It's not too late to plant your own recession garden. You can still pick up plants at your local nursery, and even if you pick slowly maturing plants like tomatoes or peppers, they'll be ready for harvest by August.

Happy gardening!

first of the season

The Atlantic hurricane season doesn't officially start until June 1st, but the first tropical storm of year could be named as early as tomorrow.

Tropical Depression #1 has formed off the New England coast with maximum sustained winds 35 MPH. It will likely strengthen to a tropical storm over the next 24 hours, becoming Tropical Storm Ana, though it is unlikely to threaten any land masses. You can get a complete list of this year's names here.

Forecasters have predicted a normal hurricane season this year, with nine to 14 tropical storms, and of those, up to seven could become hurricanes.

i told you so

In Pennsylvania, a 16-year-old boy was injured when a keg that had been thrown onto a campfire exploded, sending out hundreds of pieces of shrapnel. Of course, had the boy only watched an episode of Mythbusters, he would have already known that kegs can explode, especially if they contain just enough empty space to reach catastrophic pressures. They also tested aerosol containers, which also explode when thrown onto a fire.



It turns out, throwing your keg on the campfire will not only lose you your deposit, but maybe a limb or two.

a very distant relative

Charles Darwin proposed in 1859 that species were derived from common ancestors in which at some point evolutionary forces caused a divergence in the population. Scientists have previously hypothesized our emergence from apes and monkeys, but it was still unclear at what point in time our own ancestors branched away from other primitive species of the primate family.

This month, scientists are announcing a discovery 200 years in the making. They have discovered a 95% complete fossil of a creature that appears as an ancestor to both the modern lemur and our own species. The fossil, studied for over two years, has distinctly human features: nails rather than claws, opposable big thumbs, and a bone in the foot that matches our own, making it possible to walk on two feet. However, the fossil is also classically lemur, possessing a tail and having several characteristics that make it likely it lived in among the tops of trees. The combination of features make this fossil unique from all known modern species, a strong argument against creationism.

The importance of this fossil is that it demonstrates common ancestors do exist. The history of life, rather than progressing linearly over the course of time, instead has an infinite number of branches, each producing unique species. Some survive, others are lost, but this fossil suggests at one time lemurs separated themselves from their primate cousins - the former remaining in the trees, and the latter living a life on the ground.