This is Your Brain on Google

A brain study conducted by Dr. Gary Small, a UCLA expert on aging, found that people who search the Internet use more of their brain while engaging in Internet searching.

This suggests that just searching on the Internet may train the brain -- that it may keep it active and healthy," said Small, whose research appears in the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry.

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By Bob DeMarco
Alzheimer's Reading Room
Editor

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Bob DeMarco is the editor of the Alzheimer's Reading Room and an Alzheimer's caregiver. The Alzheimer's Reading Room is the number one website on the Internet for news, advice, and insight into Alzheimer's disease. Bob has written more than 800 articles with more than 18,000 links on the Internet. Bob resides in Delray Beach, FL.

Original content Bob DeMarco, Alzheimer's Reading Room

Kleiner Perkins, Google, Amazon, Netscape back Electric Car

clipped from online.wsj.com The race to develop an electric car is heating up and drawing increasing interest from the same venture-capital investors who helped build Silicon Valley. The latest entrant is expected to be announced today at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit when Fisker Automotive Inc. unveils an $80,000 battery-powered luxury car it aims to begin delivering in late 2009. The Fisker Karma, a so-called plug-in hybrid, can go 50 miles on electricity before a small gasoline engine kicks in to generate electricity The company has backing from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, perhaps Silicon Valley's best-known venture-capital firm and a backer of household tech names such as Netscape Communications, Amazon.com Inc. and Google Inc. Mr. Fisker's vision is to sell 15,000 electric cars a year. Mr. Fisker believes his company is a couple of years ahead of bigger rivals because the design of the car has been finalized. The Karma, Mr. Fisker said, will use lithium-ion batteries

How Scott Used Google to Save His Puppy

The is a true story about how Scott saved his puppy's life using the internet.

I just couldn't do it, so I searched the Internet for everything I could find. The vet called me and said he was thinking Bacterial Mennigitis and wanted to do massive antibiotics during the night. I just said to him "Give her Prednisone". He was stunned. He said "You are not a Vet!"

We purchased a very young Beagle puppy. She was the joy of our lives. Then she turned very sick. She stopped eating and drinking and she had a very high fever. Two vets didn't know what was wrong with her. Nothing showed up in blood or urine tests. She has been on an IV for two days with antibiotics, but no improvement. We were just running up a thousand dollar bill for a $25 puppy. My kids were crying themselves to sleep. The vet told me my choices were to take the puppy over the Michigan State Vet Clinic, or put her down. My wife took the puppy to the clinic. Another $1000 bill was run up in no time. The vet there said they had no clue, and that to figure out what was wrong with our dog we needed to do about $3000 of additional tests. Our puppy had severe neck pain, fever, and shivering. We took her back to the first vet. My wife decided to put her down. I just couldn't do it, so I searched the Internet for everything I could find. The vet called me and said he was thinking Bacterial Mennigitis and wanted to do massive antibiotics during the night. I just said to him "Give her Prednisone". He was stunned. He said "You are not a Vet!" Then he said "If she has Mennigitis you will kill her by putting her on Prednisone." Well since we were going to put her down, I took my chances and cried myself to sleep. At 6:00 am the next morning the Vet called and said "Come in here and pick up your puppy!" I was in tears and said "What??". He said "She is running around, eating, and has no fever!" He said "The Prednisone saved her life!" "How did you come up with that?" I said I used Google, and then took a chance!. Neither Vet had ever seen this illness before. Here is what I read on the Internet about a Beagle named Dallas.

"Antibiotics were used unsuccessfully in several studies of beagle pain syndrome,
even in animals that showed signs of bacteria in feces or urine (no bacteria were found in cerebrospinal fluid). Dogs treated with Prednisone, a corticosteroid, (1.1mg/kg of body weight, by mouth every 12 hours) showed dramatic improvement within the first 12 hours of treatment. All clinical signs and laboratory abnormalities disappeared. Dogs maintained on a low-dose, alternate-day administration of prednisone (.25 to .50mg/kg every other day) for several months remained
free of clinical signs. Symptoms returned within two weeks of stopping the
corticosteroid treatments (Jour. Amer. Vet. Med. Assoc., Nov. 15, 1992). It was shown in some studies that the corticosteroids treatments could be gradually reduced over a
one to two month period and then eliminated without the return of symptoms. It is important to monitor the dog for symptoms in the future and restart corticosteroid treatment if symptoms return. Side effects of steroid treatments include increased appetite and increased thirst. “Because of the high dosages of steroids, Spencer drinks water by the bucketful and wants to eat everything in sight. The medication also tends to make him quite sluggish, so he lies around a lot. Basically he acts like a 10-year-old dog except when food and water are involved,” explains
Patricia Robidoux.

Dallas was treated initially with I.V. Manitol and Dexamethasone to quickly bring down his brain inflammation. Within the first 24 hours he dramatically improved, although he remained blind and was still weak. He began eating normally and his tail was once again wagging. He even barked when he heard us come into the clinic to take him home. After the initial I.V. treatment he was put on a course of Dexamethasone pills, .50 mg every eight hours, to keep the inflammation from returning. Every two weeks we reduced his dose by one pill per day. Finally, almost 4 months later we eliminated the Dexamethasone. Dallas has remained symptom free for the past five months, and although he is now farsighted, his vision is fairly normal."

Mary Meeker’s Fuzzy Math

clipped from blogs.wsj.com When Google announced last week that its video Web site YouTube would begin incorporating video ads, analysts calculated how much revenue the venture might bring in. And one analyst inadvertently revealed the fluid nature of assumptions underlying this kind of math. Morgan Stanley analyst Mary Meeker initially projected that the YouTube ads would bring in $720 million next year. But there was one big problem with her calculation: She took the price of the ads, which was reported in several news articles as “$20 CPM,” to mean the price per ad impression, not per thousand ad impressions, which is what CPM means. After Henry Blodget — the former stock analyst who, like Ms. Meeker, was a cheerleader for Internet stocks during the dot-com boom — called out the math mistake on Silicon Alley Insider, Ms. Meeker acknowledged the error.