Creative Thinking

If you have not already discovered it, check out www.TED.com for wonderful, short, lectures on all matters of Technology, Entertainment and Design. Each day a new talk is published. I've learned a lot about new inventions in medicine, computers, engineering, and more. As well as theories about education, problem solving, and creative thinking.

Here's a good starting point, http://www.ted.com/talks/bart_knols_cheese_dogs_and_pills_to_end_malaria.html

Bart Knols describes his creative ideas in battling the Malaria mosquito. For example
1. His team investigated what part of the body the malaria mosquito was attracted to, the answer was feet.  What do feet smell like?  Stinky cheese. They tested that and discovered that Limburger cheese was an excellent bait for mosquito traps.

2. The best time to stop mosquitoes is as larva before they hatch. But how do you find mosquito breeding pools?  With trained dogs to sniff them out.

3. Turning the tables: Bart demonstrates a pill that makes human blood poisonous to mosquitoes. If they bite, they die and will never lay eggs.

The Value of Free Goods

"We will always remember. We will always be proud. We will always be prepared, so we will always be free."
Ronald Reagan

Today I came across several instances of the value of "Free" at Techdirt.com,  a website offering "insight into news stories about changes in government policy, technology and legal issues that affect companies ability to innovate and grow."  The site itself is an example of what it preaches. The blog is free, with no registration required, and an interesting daily read. The owner of the site hopes that you'll recognize his analytic skills and hire his company for personalized news and advice.

Google is another example of free (but with a twist). Originally Google hoped you'd be impressed by their free search engine and hire them to provide searches on your company documents and email. Now I wonder if they don't make more money from the ads shown while you google. Also Google's algorithms watch what you search for and what you pick from the list and they use this to improve future searches. So in essence you're doing work for google for free.

Anyhow, the first Techdirt story was about the TED Conference. The annual meetings on Technology, Entertainment and Design used to be by invite only and very secretive with non-disclosures signed by attendees. Only the rich and famous and powerful knew about it. Now you can watch past presentations for free at Ted.com. Instead of weakening the product this has created a HUGE surge in attendance, higher prices for seats, and sister conferences around the world.

The second story is about a Swedish truck company that discovered knock-offs of their trucks being made in China. They knew a lawsuit would be pointless so instead they worked with the Chinese company to help it find a truck design of their own that would sell and not be a knock-off. This is a classic Covey Win-Win story where free advice helped everyone.

Bottom Line

Free samples at stores. A free test drive of a car. A free download of trial software. A small free giveaway can lead to read dollar purchases of something larger.

Why does Flu Look Like?

A severe influenza pandemic would constitute a major disaster unlike anything experienced in the modern world, where we are almost totally reliant on … ‘just in time’ delivery of food and goods … to function in our every day lives. A pandemic will disrupt every aspect of our lives, from access to health care to availability of food and water, and result in an increase in death and disease in our communities. Even our disaster assistance and recovery plans have been based on ‘mutual aid’ – a system where resources and ‘first responders’ from an unaffected area can leap into action to help people in the area of an earthquake, hurricane, or terror attack. But in a pandemic, no such unaffected areas are likely to exist. You now understand that it is up to each individual to care for him- or herself and loved ones. – from the InSTEDD Pandemic Influenza Citizen’s Guide

Yesterday I gave some of the background on the origin of InSTEDD and its Citizen’s Guide to Pandemic Influenza. Today I’d like to include other interesting facts from the guide.

What does the seasonal flu look like?

Normal influenza can encompass any or all of the following symptoms:
• Begins abruptly
• Symptoms include fever, chills, body aches, loss of appetite, headache, and fatigue
• Fever (>100.4ºF) – usually lasts 2-3 days
• Respiratory tract symptoms include cough without phlegm, sore throat, and congestion
• Temperature greater than 100.4 ºF
• Stomach and intestinal issues, such as diarrhea, nausea, and vomiting.

Pandemic flu may look very different from seasonal flu symptoms
• Sluggishness or alterations in mental state (seen most often in the elderly and infants)
• The 1918 Spanish strain was unusual for killing many young adults and otherwise
healthy people. People were sometimes struck suddenly with illness and within hours were too feeble to walk; many died the next day. Symptoms included a blue tint to the face (due to
insufficient oxygen from lungs filled with fluid) and coughing up blood.

Children and adults may develop sinus problems and ear infections from the flu. In rare cases complications from bacterial pneumonia, dehydration, and worsening of chronic medical conditions, such as congestive heart failure, asthma or diabetes may be fatal.

Bottom Line
According to the Center for Disease Control, CDC, “It is very difficult to distinguish the flu from other infections on the basis of symptoms alone. A doctor's exam may be needed to tell whether you have developed the flu.” Healthy adults may be able to infect others 1 day before getting symptoms and up to 5 days after getting sick. Therefore, it is possible to give someone the flu before you know you are sick as well as while you are sick.

The InSTEDD guide recommends seeing a doctor immediately if you experience any of the following symptoms:

Adults & Children
• Blue discoloration skin, lips or nail beds
• Coughing up blood or foul-smelling sputum
• Bleeding from nose that cannot be stopped easily through pressure
• Bloody diarrhea
• Chest pain
• Difficulty or pain in breathing
• Shortness of breath when at rest
• Persistent vomiting or severe diarrhea not managed by standard measures
• Symptoms of severe dehydration, e.g., a significant reduction in urine output
• High fever for 3 or more days without improvement
• Sudden high fever with recurrence of symptoms
• Extreme drowsiness and difficulty waking
• Disorientation or confusion
• Seizures
• Severe earache
• A severe change in the ability to function, especially if elderly
• Flu-like symptoms with a pre-existing chronic condition like heart failure, asthma or diabetes
• Flu-like symptoms while under immuno-suppressive therapy

Additional Symptoms to Watch for in Children
• Flu-like symptoms or fever in any child less than 3-months old
• Flu-like symptoms with child taking aspirin regularly (could be Reye's Syndrome)
• Excessive irritability or listlessness
• Has a full or sunken fontanel (soft area on the top of a young child’s head)
• Is limp or unable to move

Impact of a flu pandemic

"I wish that you would help build a global system to detect each new disease or disaster as quickly as it emerges or occurs." – Larry Brilliant’s TED Prize wish

One of my favorite web sites is TED.com, “Ideas worth spreading”. TED stands for “Technology, Entertainment, Design” and holds an annual conference where fifty of the most creative minds in the world are given a brief chance (18 minutes) to present their beliefs or works. Over 400 of these talks can be freely viewed at TED.com.

In addition, each year three “exceptional individuals” are awared a TED Prize of $100,000 plus "One Wish to Change the World." Each recipient presents their World Changing Wish at the conference and TED helps organize companies and participants to bring the wish to life. For example, the 2006 TED Prize winner, Larry Brilliant, wished to build a global system for early disease and disaster detection.

Larry was one of the team leaders from WHO that helped eradicate Smallpox from the world. In response to his wish, Google donated $14 million to Larry and five other organizations trying to prevent pandemics. With his TED Prize and Google money, Larry created, InSTEDD, to serve as a free data collection and information organization for the current status of and best response to global infectious diseases. Whereas WHO collects data only from official (i.e slow) government sources, InsTEDD searches the Internet for live outbreaks of disease. The first hint of an outbreak may reveal itself with a spike in Google searches in a region for headaches, nausea, bleeding, etc.

Bottom Line

Everything above was a long introduction to the ideas I really wanted to present. In 2007 InSTEDD published a booklet called, Pandemic Influenza, Preparation and Response: A Citizen’s Guide which I recommend reading. It was updated this month to include Swine flu.

Here is what the guide says about the impact of a flu pandemic.

Communities will be affected simultaneously
• At least 30% of the overall population may become infected in a severe pandemic
• Absenteeism could be upward of 50% in a severe pandemic
• A pandemic is likely to last for 12 to 18 months
• Communities could be affected by several waves lasting 6 to 8 weeks each
• Vaccines and antiviral drugs for pandemic influenza will be in short supply, may be of limited effectiveness, and will likely not be available to most communities
• Most of the ill may wish to seek medical care [BUT ] All healthcare systems will be overwhelmed
• Health facilities … may be inadvisable to enter owing to increased chances of exposure to the virus
• People and communities will likely be on their own without the help of mutual aid from other communities, hospitals, or other public services

Routine services may be disrupted
• Hospitals, schools, government offices, and the post office may be disrupted
• Telephone service, the Internet, commercial radio and TV broadcasts could also be interrupted if the electric power grid falters or fails
• Stores and businesses may be closed and/or will have limited supplies
• Local ATMs and banks may be shut down, and cash will be in short supply
• Public transportation services and communication may be disrupted
• Gasoline supplies may be limited or unavailable
• Travel could be restricted by fear, quarantine or curfew
• Public gatherings may be canceled

Note that there is nothing said here about dying. If you’ve had a bad case of flu you’ll recall that you were sick as a dog for days and unable to work or do much of anything. Even a non-lethal flu can bring a country to its knees if enough people are sick. A pandemic means widespread sickness, not necessarily widespread death. (Altough at times I wised I was dead the last time I had the flu. Ugh!)

UPDATE on Swine Flu:
A new study suggests that Swine flu has a basic reproductive rate between 2.2 and 3.1 others. This means that every sick person will on average infect 2 or 3 other people. Normal flu has a rate of 1.2 and the Spanish flu of 1918 had a rate of 2-3. (Interestingly measles has a rate of 12-18! Very infectious!)
The death rate for Swine flu is now estimated at 0.4%. The Spanish flu US death rate was 0.64% but as high as 2.0% worldwide.

For the US we are not talking about huge differences here. By my calculation, Swine flu is equally as contagious and two-thirds as deadly as the great 1918 pandemic in America. This does not make it “safe”. And yet nations are asking WHO to downgrade the alert, Scale for Flu Warnings Overly Simplistic, Countries Tell WHO.

UPDATE 2
Some Elderly Immune to Swine Flu? It seems that a close variant of this flu may have spread in the early half of the 20th century. Many seniors have antibodies to Swine Flu by surviving it decades ago.