Science, Technology & Health: March 2009 Archives
A new game called Time Engineers teaches kids about engineering (and time travel).
The first product to emerge from the TechInsights-Software Kids partnership is a game called Time Engineers. It's intended to promote kids' interest in engineering and has received numerous educator awards and lots of positive reviews. In fact, it beat out Lucas Arts and Walt Disney at a recent competition. You can view the game at www.software-kids.com/ html/time_engineers.html. The College of Engineering at Valparaiso University also had a hand in the game's creation.Playing Time Engineers, students travel in a time machine to three different time periods and encounter typical engineering problems that must be solved in order to build pyramids, irrigate farm land, command a WWII submarine, raise and lower medieval drawbridges, and more. The game provides students with opportunities to learn about how engineering principles have helped people through the ages.
Unlike many educational games, Time Engineers was designed to be rich in graphics and content to hold the middle and high school students' interest while simultaneously applying some of the fundamental principles of engineering. Tools like this are now needed more than ever.
(HT: DS.)
Physician Paul Hsieh explains how the health insurance industry is eager to exit the free market. Maybe the executives are hoping to keep their jobs rather than be forced out of business by government crowding?
Sensing the changing political winds favoring “universal health care,” the largest trade group for health insurers (American Health Insurance Plans) recently agreed to accept regulations requiring them to sell individual policies to all patients regardless of preexisting illnesses. In the past, they had opposed such requirements as too costly. However, they’ve now agreed to accept such regulations in exchange for a law requiring all Americans to purchase health insurance.At first glance, this might look like a good deal for the insurance companies. They would receive a seemingly guaranteed market for their products (as if Congress had bailed out General Motors by requiring all Americans to purchase a new GM car every few years.) But this guaranteed market would come at a steep price. A “Federal Health Board” would impose onerous political controls on insurers, specifying which patients they must accept and which benefits they must offer. Insurers would be required to sell policies at prices the government deemed “affordable.” Private insurers would also have to compete with taxpayer-subsidized government insurance plans. As health costs continued to rise, such an arrangement would become unsustainable. No business can survive long when the government forces it to sell $2,000 worth of services, but only allows it to charge $1,000.
When South Dakota and Kentucky passed similar laws, many insurers left these states rather than operate at a loss. Similar laws at the national level would likely drive many insurers out of business altogether.
The inevitable collapse of the private insurance market would then leave millions of Americans without insurance coverage. Although this collapse would be caused by government regulations, pundits would undoubtedly portray this as a “failure of the free market.” Politicians would demand that the government “rescue” health care from “greedy capitalists.” The end result would be a “single payer” socialized medical system like Canada or Great Britain’s.
If the insurance industry and the doctors won't stand up against this, I'm pessimistic of our chances.
Lasers are perhaps the only force of nature powerful enough to stop mosquitoes.
In a lab in this Seattle suburb, researchers in long white coats recently stood watching a small glass box of bugs. Every few seconds, a contraption 100 feet away shot a beam that hit the buzzing mosquitoes, one by one, with a spot of red light.The insects survived this particular test, which used a non-lethal laser. But if these researchers have their way, the Cold War missile-defense strategy will be reborn as a WMD: Weapon of Mosquito Destruction. ...
The scientists envision their technology might one day be used to draw a laser barrier around a house or village that could kill or blind the bugs. Or, laser-equipped drone aircraft could track bugs by radar, sweeping the sky with death-dealing photons.
They now face one big challenge: deciding how strong to make the weapon. The laser has to be weak enough to not harm humans and smart enough to avoid hitting useful bugs. "You could kill billions of mosquitoes a night, and you could do so without harming butterflies," says Mr. Myhrvold.
Well, mosquitoes are a good start; we can worry about how to kill the butterflies later.
(HT: NW.)
