In a column published yesterday on the Bottom Line’s Daily Health News, Dr. Steven Marcus, executive director of the New Jersey Poison Information & Education System, apparently accuses the tobacco companies of producing and marketing electronic cigarettes as a ploy to hook kids and deceive smokers into thinking that these devices are a safe alternative [...]

In a column published Sunday in the Chicago Tribune, Steve Chapman calls out the anti-smoking groups, federal spokespersons and politicians who have told the public that the flavored cigarette ban in the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act will break the cycle of addiction among youths and protect them from becoming prey to the [...]

For the first time in medical history we may be seeing an influenza pandemic unfold in real time, but that doesn’t mean we know what we are seeing. There remains some uncertainty about virulence, both in terms of how often it kills and how it kills when it does kill. You’d think both would be [...]

Bank of America jacks up her rate to 31%.  She makes a YouTube video about it and wins a reprieve.  So what does she have next on her agenda?  That’s right.  She’s taking on Uncle Sam.  I wonder if her plan of not paying her credit card would go over as well under Obama’s tax [...]

Dorsal dermal sinus, a congenital abnormality associated with spinal dysraphism, can serve as a path for spread of infection inside the spinal thecal sac with its sequelae. Intramedullary abscess formation is an uncommon complication and very few have been reported in the English literature. Case by Dr Sangeeta Aneja, MD Associate Professor & Head [...]

“TechNavio, the market intelligence platform of Infiniti Research published its a new research report on the teleradiology market. The report says that the global market for teleradiology was around $6 billion in 2008, and is expected to grow at double digit rates in the next five years. The report says that “Technological advances and requirement [...]

Oh, boy. As many of you already know, the big AAI conference is taking place in LA at the end of this week — I’ll be there! — and they are giving Bill Maher an award. This is a problem. Maher made a provocative movie about religion this year, Religulous, and that’s the kind of [...]

via Carpe Diem.
South Dakota is the winner with a distance of 107 miles to get to the nearest McDonald’s.

Below, Fernando Esponda answers the second of our three questions.

Economics is ripe for a surgical intervention. Current economic theory is in need of an overhaul and the time is right for suggestions to be taken seriously.
There are several cross-disciplinary efforts that have been maturing in the background in complex adaptive systems labs across the world. [...]

How about “Catastrophic Noncompliance”