For those who watch medical shows, this is somewhat reminiscent of a case of several patients who contracted rabies through organ transplants - a story that was portrayed in Scrubs season 5 episode 20, "My Lunch".
Physician in internal medicine with a background in computer science, math, and genetics. Got hooked on HN in college after searching for a like-minded community sharing more relevant news to me than the vast majority of other websites.
Hi. I do research pertaining to this disease and can answer your very thoughtful question. It is in fact safe for pregnant women to have high levels of fetal hemoglobin. There is a condition known as Hereditary Persistence of Fetal Hemoglobin (HPFH) in rare individuals who express near 100% fetal hemoglobin into adulthood, and they are able to undergo pregnancy perfectly normally with no harm to mother or child. While it is true that HbF has a mildly higher affinity to oxygen, it has not been shown in population-based studies that having higher levels of HbF by itself causes any actual clinical adverse events.
I highly recommend watching the following Youtube channels. These chess masters often stream games in which they explain their thought process behind each and every move, and provide a high level overview of how they design their plans.
Of course, following these channels will not improve your chess reasoning by itself, but neither will playing too many fast games without spending time to analyze the games. I typically play one longer game (10+5) and one rapid game (5+5) once a day then spend the rest of my free time trying to find areas of improvement.
Excellent point. Asian Americans form an extraordinarily heterogeneous group, spanning all areas of socio-economic status and access to opportunity. Race is an imperfect proxy for what affirmative action attempts to do, which is to normalize circumstantial variables to better assess an individual's potential in the context of his or her environment. Several natural questions follow: 1) what other applicant characteristics better map onto what affirmative action tries to achieve? and 2) if we concede that self-reported race or perceived race is not the right characteristic to adjust for, then how do we create a truly race-blind application process?
Speaking as an Asian-American alumnus of Harvard, I will say that the conversations I've heard in the community are mixed, even among Asians. Most people are aware that discrimination against Asians is a real problem, though they do not believe affirmative action as a principle is at fault; rather, its implementation is imperfect and not nuanced enough. Adding to this debate is the complex piece of how legacy students are treated by admissions, what role money/wealth plays independently of affirmative action, and the overall autonomy and goals of private institutions. And in the end, to what extent should private and public institutions be held liable for how they achieve their diversity goals, and how do you balance this with fairness toward applicants?
Income level seems like a better proxy for overall circumstances than race. Yet discriminating against wealthier customers would inflict damage the university's bottom line.
I recommend "The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate" by Ted Chiang! An excellent sci-fi story set in the past that explores themes of guilt and repentance.
One notable finding was that the astronaut's telomeres grew significantly in length while in space, and after returning to earth shrank back down. As telomere shortening has implications in aging as well as in cancers, it will be interesting to follow up this finding and determine 1) the differences in terrestrial and extraterrestrial atmospheres that account for the increase in telomere length, and 2) the implications that this may hold in terms of cell senescence and tumor growth.
Medical student here. I conduct research in genomic medicine on the side, and programming is a large part of what I do. In my particular field I find a solid background in algorithms and statistics to be very helpful in interpreting large amounts of data. I encourage you to get started by taking introductory computer science and continuing with math, especially in probability and statistics. There is an incredible divide between medicine and tech at the moment, and CS is a highly sought-after skill in medicine. Feel free to follow up with any more specific questions, I'm happy to answer them!
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