News From Around The Blogosphere 3.11.11

"That's no moon."

1. Look up in the sky! It’s a bird! No, it’s a plane! No, it’s Supermoon! – If you’re Bill O’Reilly, I know what you’re thinking. Supermoon comes in,earthquake comes out. Never a miscommunication. You can’t explain that. But no, Bill, the coming Supermoon is not in any way responsible for the Japanese earthquake. Nor was Godzilla…probably.

2. Oregon House ends ‘Faith Healing’ exemption – Oregon had a law on the books that gave religious parents carte blanche in the event that they killed their sick children by choosing to treat them with prayer in lieu of getting them proper medical care. But now House Bill 2721, “eliminates reliance on spiritual treatment as defense to certain crimes in which victim is under 18 years of age.”

3. Pro-Choice student suspended by public Catholic School –

Some students at St. Patrick High School in Ontario, Canada recently participated in the Pro-Life Day of Silent Solidarity. They wore red tape with the word “LIFE” written on it and “didn’t talk for the day to display their belief in the injustice of abortion.”

…

Sophomore Alexandria Szeglet wasn’t a fan of that message, though, so she decided to do something about it.

She got some green tape and wrote the word “CHOICE” on it.

And then she passed along the green tape to several other students so they could join her in silent protest.

So the school told her to take off her green tape or go home. So she did…go home, that is. But she was not alone. The media was contacted and told up to 35 students were given 2-day suspensions, not to mention a 100 more who were sent home for the day. I’m tellin’ ya, these kids today and they’re principles…and their self-respect…and their rap music…

4. Smartphones that detect cancer in under an hour – We’re finally arrived at a point where our phones are smarter than our doctors. Very soon we’ll be able to integrate a microNMR device that accurately detects cancer cells to a smartphone:

Though just a prototype, this device enables a clinician to extract small amounts of cells from a mass inside of a patient, analyze the sample on the spot, acquire the results in an hour, and pass the results to other clinicians and into medical records rapidly. How much does the device cost to make? $200.

This is much more efficient than modern biopsy analysis, which only has an 84 percent accuracy rate, can take three to four days to produce results, and runs the risk of the tissue degrading during transport to an external testing site.

5. And in honor of Pi Day coming up, the sound of Pi: