On to the next topic….
Via Althouse I saw the following.
Forbes has an article. I will note that the headline of the story gets it wrong: This would not revolutionize cancer treatment so much as it would revolutionize cancer diagnosis. (I’ll also note there can be downsides to having very sensitive tests, but that’s a topic for another time.)
Two things struck me about the video. I’m interested if anyone else here will be struck by the same two things. Actually, I’m sure everyone will be struck by one of them, it’s actually the second thing I’m curious about.
So, reactions?
(And no fair looking at the comment section over at Althouse first.)
UPDATE: Okay, so no one else picked up on the second thing I noticed. Jack Andraka has very few verbal ticks. Note especially the end of the clip, during the interview portion. I counted one brief “um” and that was it. He did throw in an “and stuff” near the end, but he was completely lacking in “uh”s, “er”s, “like”s, “you know”s, long pauses, grunts, drawn out words (e.g., “aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaannnnnddddd”) and similar tricks to gain time to express a thought. A very sharp and very focused mind behind that voice.
Ambiance 
mockturtle said,
June 21, 2012 at 1:04 am
The two things that struck me about the video are: One, it was heavily edited and, two, he did not sound like a scientist. I suppose that’s because he’s only fifteen but I’ve know a lot of scientists [and am married to one] and they are a lot less effusive and a lot more focused. He lacks modesty, as well but perhaps that’s a generational trait.
I’m sure I’ve missed the salient points, Ice. ;-)
Icepick said,
June 21, 2012 at 1:18 am
I’m sure I’ve missed the salient points, Ice. ;-)
I’m don’t have any salient points! Just a couple of things I noticed. You picked up on some other things, though.
As for the lack of modesty, I don’t care. There’s no particular reason for him to BE modest on this point. When he starts telling me I don’t have a right to an opinion on, say, who was/is the greatest golfer ever, then it will be a problem. (I have had this problem this very night, elsewhere.)
The editting didn’t stand out to me. They were trying to get several things into a short video. At least it wasn’t going to reduce me to epileptic seizures!
mockturtle said,
June 21, 2012 at 1:33 am
OK, who do you consider the greatest golfer ever?
mockturtle said,
June 21, 2012 at 1:35 am
I think it’s Tiger Woods because, even though his performance in the last two rounds of the US Open was lackluster, he has excelled in the face of much stiffer competition than have any of his ‘great’ predecessors. JMHO, of course….
Donna B. said,
June 21, 2012 at 1:47 am
How much more expensive? Did I hear that right? 126 times more? Oh well…
mockturtle said,
June 21, 2012 at 1:55 am
I thought he said ’26 thousand times as expensive’. But I assumed he meant less expensive, doncha think?
Donna B. said,
June 21, 2012 at 1:56 am
The second thing I noticed was his emphasis on “I thought this up by myself”.
Even the dude that thought up controlling fire didn’t do it all by himself. He was kicked into action by a dudette complaining she was cold and simply noticing how warm fire was.
Yeah… sexist, I know. Alternative explanation, dude noticed that dudette was using fire to warm herself and thought that might be useful.
Also sexist… but, I think the list of things that cannot be described in sexist terms is very short.
Donna B. said,
June 21, 2012 at 1:57 am
mockturtle, you may be right — I’d have to listen to it again, but “more expensive” was my first impression.
Donna B. said,
June 21, 2012 at 2:09 am
Now I’m headed to Althouse to read that thread to see if what struck me also struck others.
And, I like to see discussion here on the early diagnosis of cancer and its downside. And the reason for that is… and I hope no one is offended… is that there is a more prevalent strain of fatalism, or suffering is good for the soul, or something somehow related to those things, among commenters here than elsewhere.
I am both attracted to and offended by such thoughts… and I wonder why on both points.
Icepick said,
June 21, 2012 at 8:33 am
He said less expensive but the audio isn’t great at that point.
Icepick said,
June 21, 2012 at 8:41 am
MT, I think it’s Tiger as well. The counter-argument on strength of competition is that Nicklaus had to contest with Palmer, Player, Watson, etc. Tiger appears to face deeper fields, though.
I’m more interested in scoring, scoring consistency, margins of victory. Others are more interested in second and third place in majors.
The big thing, and the thing for Tiger, is number of Majors won. I think that’s a great measure in some sense, but it is also a measure of longevity. Compare the first 12 years or so of their careers and Woods has the edge in everything but second and third place finished in Majors. His overall win total and winning percentage over that time was unreal, and that without even playing a full schedule. He failed to win the Vardon Cup (lowest adjusted scoring average) one year because he didn’t play in enough events. Nicklaus, surprisingly, never won that award.
wj said,
June 21, 2012 at 9:18 am
The first thing that struck me was how emotional he was. Probably because that kind of reaction is more what I associate with athletes when they win something, rather than scientists. But then, the kid clearly has had the same kind of dream that athletes do as children. So, understandable, but definitely unusual.
The second thing that struck me (too) was how he kept saying that he thought it all up on his own. Perhaps he did. But my experience with scientists is that they generally make a point of crediting the others who have gone before — whether for specifics or in general: “If I have seen further than other men, it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants.”
The third thing, which he slips in, is that he has patented the whole process. Not just the use in cancer detection, but the detection whole methodology. Which means that, a) if he never does another thing in his life, he will get very rich due to others using it for new technologies, and b) other medical uses will be slowed as people try to find unpatented ways to do similar things, and then the whole thing gets tied up in court. It’s not that I object to someone reaping the rewards for what he has done. But I also see the downside.
mockturtle said,
June 21, 2012 at 9:26 am
One thing he [Tiger] shares with Nicklaus is fierce determination and he could mount a come-from-behind charge like no other. I well remember watching Jack win the Masters at age 46. But Tiger’s the man, yep, yep.
[Another thread hijack but, hey, you had to mention golf! ;-)]
amba12 said,
June 21, 2012 at 9:33 am
Donna — I’ve met Karen and Icepick. When can I meet you?? (And that goes for the other usual suspects, while I’m at it. I can’t wait to turn Internet friends into “real” friends, with not only voices (I’ve talked on the phone with two of you) but faces and bodies. (MT, it’s the same way with the e-mail list — it was SO great meeting Irene.)
I recommend reading the Forbes article and its comments before Althouse and its comments, just because the Forbes comments are shorter and get to the point faster: namely, this work did not come out of nowhere. There were a few papers testing a very similar mechanism. There are links to them. I haven’t had time to follow the links, but some of the commenters slammed the kid for letting people think he dreamed up this idea all by himself and not giving credit to his predecessors. I think this is premature in that 1) it’s when the kid writes a scientific paper, which he’s doing, that he should and likely will reference his predecessors, 2) his predecessors, living comfortably in the glacial-paced world of basic research and FDA approval, did not turn the idea into a practical, affordable (yes, he meant 28,000 times LESS), possibly lifesaving technology.
Donna, on the question of early diagnosis — simply on a practical matter, pancreatic cancer normally has no telltale symptoms until it is already advanced beyond hope, and then it has something like a 6-month average survival (don’t quote me on that) and 5.5% 5-year survival. Horrific! It’s an agonizing death sentence that cuts lives short — friends lost a 50-year-old daughter. Yet if it can be detected before it breaks out of the pancreas, I believe it can be cured surgically. Much the same is true of ovarian cancer. That’s a far cry from those early prostate cancer diagnoses that lead to unnecessarily invasive procedures like prostatectomy when many prostate cancers are sluggish and require nothing more than watchful waiting, a.k.a. benign neglect. (The trick with prostate cancer is being able to tell which is which — sluggish or aggressive.)
As for your other provocative point, there’s a fine line between fatalism and accepting the unavoidable. I’d say avoid what suffering is avoidable and bear the rest. Science aims to make more and more suffering avoidable, but creates new kinds of suffering in the process. Putting a feeding tube in someone terminally ill who has decided (physically or psychically) to stop eating is to me a case in point. You could argue over saving a severely damaged premature infant at the cost of millions of dollars. Knowing when to cut your losses is not a science but a fine art we haven’t mastered collectively, though most of us know people who have mastered it with grace, individually.
amba12 said,
June 21, 2012 at 9:38 am
N.b. You’d think that Danny Miller’s son, born very prematurely with a twin brother who died right away, suffering brain bleeds and intestinal tears and undergoing multiple surgeries and shunts, might have been “severely damaged,” but Charlie is now running around laughing and singing. You have to guess when NOT to cut your losses, too. So people who err on the side of life can be forgiven for hoping for a miracle, divine or scientific.
wj said,
June 21, 2012 at 9:58 am
Annie, if you are getting out to (Northern) California, let me know and we can work something out.
Icepick said,
June 21, 2012 at 10:04 am
wj, where in NoCal are you? I took a trip up to Eureka a couple of years back. There’s some beautiful country up there, and we didn’t even really go into the Sierra Nevadas. (I think that’s the range up there.)
mockturtle said,
June 21, 2012 at 11:45 am
Years ago I saw a SIDS baby kept ‘alive’ on life support even though the only brain activity was a daily series of seizures. The baby would ‘code’ 10-20 times per day and the code team would rush in to resuscitate. The baby was ballooned up to unnatural proportion and looked like an overstuffed rag doll. Very sad. The parents had wanted to pull the plug but the state took over custody. I was only on a rotation in that hospital for a few weeks so didn’t find out what ultimately happened.
Typically, I’m all for erring on the side of life. But there are cases [a baby born with no brain other than a brain stem, for instance] where common sense needs to take precedence over medical possibility.
Medical ethics [or the lack of] will loom very large in the near future. Somewhere between the views of the Nazis [destroy or allow to die all who are imperfect or undesirable] and keeping virtually everyone on life support ad infinitum or with perpetual organ transplants is an ethical paradigm we should pursue. And, just like ‘zero-tolerance’ policies are zero-common sense, cases need to be approached on an individual basis. Intelligence and medical science are no substitute for wisdom.
wj said,
June 21, 2012 at 12:34 pm
Ice, I’m about 20 miles east of Oakland. In the foothills, where we think “golden California” refers to the color of the dry grass all summer.
I’m that rarest of Californians — I’m living in the town I grew up in. Of course, then it was a little ~2,000 person farm town, just thinking of becoming a suburb; today the population is upwards of 35,000. (But the town just south of us was a not-very-wide-spot in the road then: 3 buildings. Now it’s huge as well, and world HQ for Chevron, etc.) So it’s the same geographic location, but not exactly the same place
karen said,
June 21, 2012 at 12:34 pm
I’ll leave well enough alone on the suffering issue:0). You know us Catholics… excluding Nancy Pelosi…
What did i notice about the kid?
He was effusive- like- effeminately so?
But, still liked and respected by his peers.
To take someone else s(heh- that’s what word correct gave me when i tried to use an apostrophe) idea and run w/it is a good thing, esp if this will save lives for less(10to1 the gov’t of med profession finds a way to increase it to be comparable to what we already have!).
To not give credit to any other scientists already working on this specific subject and to further diminish ones peers- to say you thought of it all by yourself- makes you a liar. At a young age. W/a medal to prove it.
Icepick said,
June 21, 2012 at 1:25 pm
wj, I completely understand about the geographic location not being the same place. I’m now living in the house I grew up in, and the changes have been vast. Not just the people but the roads and the buildinigs have been changed. There are school buildings on the same lots as the schools I attended, and they even have the same names (though not always the same mascots). And they are absolutely NOT the places I went to school. Most of my past has been plowed under and rebuilt from scratch.
Should I win the lottery I plan on making that process complete by plowing under my current house. I may rebuild and sell it, or I might just go with salting the Earth! LOL
Icepick said,
June 21, 2012 at 1:34 pm
To not give credit to any other scientists already working on this specific subject and to further diminish ones peers- to say you thought of it all by yourself- makes you a liar. At a young age. W/a medal to prove it.
I think the part he means when he says he thought of it on his own is the application of applying nanotubes to testing for cancer AND putting it (the test, I mean) on paper. It looks like two novel ideas applied in a new manner.
Anyway, if he’s applying for patents and writing papers, someone will figure it out if it has been done before. (I wouldn’t be shocked if some patent troll company has already beaten him to the punch.)
I’ll admit that the first thing that caught my attention was his effiminate manner. I wouldn’t have remarked on it (impolite) other than that it became a topic of heated discussion over at Althouse.
The second thing I noticed hasn’t been remarked upon yet. I’ll let that go for a little while and see if anyone else notices. (I wouldn’t bother going back and watching again. First, it isn’t that important, and second I think it is something one will notice the first time out or not at all.)
joared said,
June 22, 2012 at 3:21 am
He’s just a kid for cryin’ out loud! As much as he knows, he still doesn’t even know what he doesn’t know. Give him a break. What does it matter if he appears to have effeminate traits.
I heard this news report before viewing the video here. I was struck by his age and youthful exuberance, that he had been allowed to work in a special lab and wondered how many talented young people were given that opportunity. It was a given that his work was based on that of others before him and I’d hardly expect a young kid like him to be falling over himself to think to credit them. Young people his age are egocentric in their thinking and expression — at least the teenagers I’ve known. Also, he’d obviously been made aware of the importance and significance of a patent and wanted to stress that — but, as others noted, that process will follow its own track.
I thought with his scientific announcement that here was another example of simplicity being the answer to complexity. Of course, breaking down the complex to the simple in order to get to this point was probably necessary. Also, I was struck by the fact the cost for the test was so inexpensive. Let’s hope if it proves to be the definitive early diagnostic test as it’s been presented-to-be that the cost will remain low. Wouldn’t be the first time highly lauded scientific findings have eventually proven to be not quite as initially presented — not always the fault of the scientist — sometimes the consequence of media reports. I’ve often thought that had aspirin been discovered in today’s pharmaceutical world it would never have been allowed to become so readily available in the marketplace for a price everyone could easily afford.
I’ve lost family to Ovarian cancer and another is at risk. I’ve known friends taken within months by pancreatic cancer. I can only hope this most recent reported discovery proves to be a real practical discovery that can soon be implemented for regular use.
“Putting a feeding tube in someone terminally ill who has decided (physically or psychically) to stop eating is to me a case in point. You could argue over saving a severely damaged premature infant at the cost of millions of dollars. Knowing when to cut your losses is not a science but a fine art we haven’t mastered collectively, though most of us know people who have mastered it with grace, individually.”
A very pertinent topic that needs a lot of open discussion. I frequently encounter adults.considering and making these end-of-life decisions for themselves and/or a family member. Sometimes I’ve been drawn into some intimate discussions on those very issues. Choices made are influenced by a widely varying system of beliefs and intriguing personal family dynamics. Tube feeding in the situation you describe is problematic. I’m not involved with infants but have thought some examination of choices there is warranted.
Icepick said,
June 22, 2012 at 8:15 am
joared, his mannerisms are VERY pronounced. I don’t particularly care, but it is impossible to not notice.
Also, I don’t know that this is a matter of the simple replacing the complex. The final application appears simple, but is based on hundreds of years of acquired knowledge in chemisty, biology and manufacturing. It’s the difference between operating a speedboat and a sailboat. The speedboat appears to be easier to handle, until you’ve got to start taking apart the engine….
Icepick said,
June 22, 2012 at 8:17 am
joared, I’m not sure why your comments keep needing to be approved. I’ll take a quick look and see if I can fix that, but WordPress is still new to me.
A little later – Sorry, I can’t see what the problem is. One of us will approve comments when we see them waiting in que. Sorry for the inconvenience.
Icepick said,
June 22, 2012 at 9:02 am
I added an update to the post, but here it is for those that don’t want to scroll all over the place:
Okay, so no one else picked up on the second thing I noticed. Jack Andraka has very few verbal ticks. Note especially the end of the clip, during the interview portion. I counted one brief “um” and that was it. He did throw in an “and stuff” near the end, but he was completely lacking in “uh”s, “er”s, “like”s, “you know”s, long pauses, grunts, drawn out words (e.g., “aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaannnnnddddd”) and similar tricks to gain time to express a thought. A very sharp and very focused mind behind that voice.
karen said,
June 22, 2012 at 10:24 am
He is definitely way worlds ahead of me- in a different field, you might say;0).
I think, ice- that he loves what he does– he’s wanted this moment to happen ~since he was a kid~(didn’t he say that?) Maybe that’s why he’s so steady on his speech. Nary a stumble. Passion does that, and knowledge of subject. I speak only from my own experiences, but i could go on and on about cow related/farm related things w/out even consulting my brain… it all comes straight from my heart:0).
I’m just glad he’s comfortable in his own skin– he should be. Hell, we all should be. And, i didn’t feel it polite to mention it, either, ice- & probably shouldn’t have, but- you asked & i had noticed.
My bad for thinking/calling him a liar- he is a kid– Joared is right.
amba12 said,
June 22, 2012 at 11:35 am
there are cases [a baby born with no brain other than a brain stem, for instance] where common sense needs to take precedence over medical possibility.
I know someone who had a second-trimester abortion because that’s what ultrasounds revealed, checked and double-checked. Needless to say, she is adamantly pro-choice.
amba12 said,
June 22, 2012 at 11:41 am
As for him seeming effeminate, if so, that’s a normal variation for 5-10% of the population. We might as well get used to it.
amba12 said,
June 22, 2012 at 11:45 am
What struck me most about the video was the extreme contrast between his emotional display (more like an American Idol winner) and the conventional stoicism of the two previous winners, who stood there grinning proudly but like wooden Indians, perhaps thus subtly expressing embarrassment by or disapproval of his expressiveness (which I found very touching).
I want to emphasize again that a) the place for the kid to acknowledge his predecessors is in his scientific paper, which he is writing, and b) none of his predecessors made the leap to putting the technology into usable, affordable form, and for that he deserves all credit, AFAIK.
karen said,
June 22, 2012 at 2:20 pm
I noticed that, amba and erased it in my comment as i wasn’t sure how to contrast the two expressions. They were embarrassed, but i felt they were embarrassed for him, not so much for themselves. That’s why i figured the one guy put his arm around the winner– to sorta say: Chill, dude- & close your mouth– this is a public(youtube)moment.
And, it didn’t matter to the winner, anyway. Which is cool.
We all express our emotions differently, anyway– and of course, the other two fellas– kinda lost to him, so they weren’t jumping over the moon.
mockturtle said,
June 22, 2012 at 2:25 pm
I would have been a bit embarrassed for him, too.
Icepick said,
June 22, 2012 at 8:36 pm
I’m not so sure that the other two prize-winners are embarrassed for Andraka as the they are disappointed that they didn’t win first prize. They got THAT CLOSE to winning, but didn’t. That’s gonna sting for lots of people.
A quick check shows that the other two, Nicholas Schiefer, 17, of Pickering, Ontario, Canada and Ari Dyckovsky, 18, of Leesburg, Va., each received the Intel Foundation Young Scientist Award of $50,000. Andraka got the Gordon E. Moore Award and $75,000. So besides not getting the Big Award, they also missed out on $25,000 in extra cash.
More on the other two, from the press release:
I would expect all of three of them to do okay in life!
karen said,
June 23, 2012 at 5:19 pm
O/T for Donna B:0)-
Anchoress has a post up that is so specific to the topic of suffering/logic as to almost be in direct response of… the touched upon subject.
I totally understand the content– it is beautiful and- it is grace ~lived~.
She’s http://www.theancchoressonline.com- i don’t do stinkys:0(. If you just use Anchoress, you get some weird rock band or something, just like you can get horny shit when simply using Ambience!
Donna B. said,
June 23, 2012 at 9:00 pm
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/theanchoress/ — she’s moved.
Now that I’ve got my computer problem solved (or at least this month’s problem) I am trying to recapture exactly what I was thinking I wanted to discuss.
You’re talking about the “wonderful love that grew more and more” article? Yes, I understand that too — on a visceral level that defies logic. Though I’m now not a practicing Catholic, it is the sort of love and acceptance described there (often described the Anchoress) that led me to convert in the first place.
And you are perhaps closer to what I wanted to discuss — it’s the more subtle “recommendation” that suffering is somehow “good” in itself, that we should not try to alleviate it, that we are somehow meant to suffer, etc., that I see lurking in the background of some statements. It is unacknowledged, often expressed in a cliche, often about pain (both psychic and physical).
Perhaps one of the reasons I perceive it behind some of the comments here is that my father has sensitized me to such sentiments. He’s overt about them and well aware of what he’s recommending and for him, it’s a prideful thing and he’s hypocritical about it.
But where did it come from? That it’s in (or close to) cliche form leads me to believe it’s certainly not something new. I suspect that it is somehow based on religious beliefs or practices, but not necessarily “official” ones.
It’s perhaps more related to what happens after cancer is diagnosed than strictly whether it’s diagnosed early or late. I am well aware of the poor prognosis for pancreatic and ovarian cancers by the time symptoms are noticeable. They are not the only ones for which this is true.
Donna B. said,
June 23, 2012 at 9:31 pm
Icepick — have you listened to Bobby Jindal when he’s not making a prepared speech? It’s been a while since I have, but unless he’s changed a lot, he is most impressive in his lack of verbal tics. He also speaks very fast and his thoughts are very well organized…. even if you’re disagreeing with him.
Amba — perhaps someday you’ll drive to Florida when I’m in S Carolina and we can meet then. I simply cannot see myself ever going to NYC. Unless my daughter’s mother-in-law decides to drive there while I’m in SC and she invites me along…. it could happen.
Or, if you’re in Florida when I’m in SC, we could meet with Icepick’s too.
Or maybe we can meet with wj about 20 miles west of Oakland. It sounds like he might live in the same town another daughter recently moved to. At least she describes its location the same way.
I have another daughter in Alabama now — anybody living near there? Oh, and many relatives in Colorado.
It’s been so long since I’ve taken a trip just for fun, just for me, without it being justified by visiting family that it’s hard for me think of it. I should try that again. Especially since the last trip of that nature was almost 20 years ago when I went to Las Vegas to meet up with a group of online friends.
realpc920 said,
June 24, 2012 at 8:08 am
I watched the video, and that’s all I know about this. I think he sounds very smart and not immodest. He thought of something no one else thought of, at a very young age and he is proud of it, which is perfectly understandable. And he is not afraid to show how proud and excited he really is, which shows honesty and genuineness.
However, although better early diagnosis techniques might save lives, there are serious problems with early diagnosis and its ability to save lives is extremely over-rated.
Even some mainstream cancer doctors have been recognizing that early diagnosis often results in over-diagnosis. They don’t necessarily understand why, but from a holistic perspective it is obvious.
Cancer is, very often, a sign that the whole system is out of balance. Metabolic syndrome and chronic inflammation are often the underlying disorder. So destroying cancer cells will not be a cure, in the long run, in many cases.
But the main thing to consider is the fact (known mostly in holistic medicine, often ignored in mainstream medicine) that cancer cells occur in everyone, and are normally destroyed or controlled by a healthy immune system.
So when an early diagnosis technique is extremely sensitive, it will diagnose many healthy people as having cancer. If that is the case, it really is not useful at all.
Icepick said,
June 24, 2012 at 3:42 pm
And the reason for that is… and I hope no one is offended… is that there is a more prevalent strain of fatalism, or suffering is good for the soul, or something somehow related to those things, among commenters here than elsewhere.
For the record, I had none of that in mind. I was thinking along the line of RealPC’s comment. In particular this:
I’m not particulalry interested in suffering for suffering’s sake. Adversity can be useful for improving oneself but that can come in forms that don’t necessarily entail suffering.
OTOH, some suffering just has to be endured in life, because there aren’t reasonable alternatives. Most of us will lose someone very close to us in life, unless we ourselves die young. Most of us get our hearts broken at some point. Et cetera. That doesn’t make suffering a good thing though, just a thing.
PS But I am a fatalist!
karen said,
June 24, 2012 at 9:15 pm
I think that- in terms of suffering- it’s hard to ~do the right thing~ when there are so many alternatives to make our way easier, but not quite so straight.
I know folks that did the same thing amba’s friend did– had an abortion when they found out their baby had no brain(name for that- water baby?) Then, they went through w/a funeral for her.
What was gained or lost in a decision that super cedes(word?)the course of Nature(9 month pregnancy, birth and then a burial)- or the hand of God? Was it done to speed things up? Isn’t there a natural path for grieving? Wouldn’t the body gain by doing things naturally? The right way- a way that would have not been questioned had an abortion not been available? That’s a suffering question, isn’t it?
Some people make things hard for themselves, intentionally. It’s like wearing a hair shirt- so the scratchiness of the hair reminds you of the the sacrifice of Christ. Or the whipping of cords- other religions do this. They lash their backs- in reparation for their sins.
Thank you for the O/T link to Anchoress, Donna:0).