DO NOT SAY, "IT IS MORNING,"AND DISMISS IT WITH A
NAME OF YESTERDAY.
SEE IT FOR THE FIRST TIME
AS A NEWBORN CHILD
THAT HAS NO NAME.
~Rabindranith Tagore
Of Note: Creative innovation expands the mind and with the right motive often helps humanity. So it was with two Rice University undergraduates, who used their brains to create a machine to diagnose anemia without power while at the same time being inexpensive and portable. The duo explained that they modified a basic salad spinner into an easy to use and transportable centrifuge that successfully separated blood with no electricity to aid diagnosis of anemia. Sally Centrifuge, the name given the novel device, costs about $30 and can process 30 individual blood samples at a time while separating the blood with 20 minutes of spinning. The two inventors are testing the centrifuge this summer in Ecuador, Malawi and Swaziland. The professor for the class Introduction to Bioengineering and World Health said of the two women: "The students really did an amazing job of taking very simple, low-cost materials and creating a device their research shows correlates nicely with hematocrit levels in the blood. Many of the patients seen in developing world clinics are anemic, and its a severe health problem. Being able to diagnose it with no power, with a device that's extremely lightweight, is very valuable."
Today's Weather Report: At around 90 degrees Fahrenheit and humidity close to 100%, it is almost unbearable. Not to be whine-y, but we have no air conditioning so multiple fans have to do. OK so some would consider that whining. With people dying all over the world from every imaginable condition, I shouldn't even bring it up. The dogs have decided that sitting in one of the garden's ponds is the best recourse. They probably have the bet idea yet. My lawn tractor tire went flat yesterday, and it will be a week before Sears will be out to fix it. That means no mowing for a full week. Amen to that. It might look like a hay field by then but a week's reprieve from mowing will be welcomed. More rain last night and the grass is saying alleluia.
Today's Weather Report: At around 90 degrees Fahrenheit and humidity close to 100%, it is almost unbearable. Not to be whine-y, but we have no air conditioning so multiple fans have to do. OK so some would consider that whining. With people dying all over the world from every imaginable condition, I shouldn't even bring it up. The dogs have decided that sitting in one of the garden's ponds is the best recourse. They probably have the bet idea yet. My lawn tractor tire went flat yesterday, and it will be a week before Sears will be out to fix it. That means no mowing for a full week. Amen to that. It might look like a hay field by then but a week's reprieve from mowing will be welcomed. More rain last night and the grass is saying alleluia.
