Tom Kelley, the General Manager of IDEO, recently gave a talk in London about one of the themes from his new book, "The Ten Faces of Innovation." He discussed one of the faces, the cross-pollinator, who "can create something new and better through an unexpected juxtaposition of seemingly unrelated ideas or concepts" and often innovates "by discovering a clever solution in one context or industry, then translating it successfully to another."The example he gave was that of a group of emergency room doctors who took lessons from the planning and precision tactics of the Ferrari Formula One race team. Now an Italian newspaper, Il Giomale reports that a surgical team from a British Hospital actually reached out to the Italians. As reported in LunchoverIP:"The post-operation phase is probably the most sensitive, and until a couple of years ago it was chaotic: there was a lot of noise, everyone moved around with no coordination with the others: we've totally redesigned our way of working", he says. The Ferrari people filmed the doctors at work, then dissected the images with them. "For years we've been convinced that we were doing things pretty well, but seeing the tape it was shocking ...

David Coulter, a Harvard economist, has examined mortality and healthcare statistics to determine that there have been significant extensions to life-expectancy over the past forty years, but that the healthcare costs to support longer life spans are growing even faster.In his paper due to be published tomorrow in the New England Journal of Medicine, Coulter reports that someone who reaches the age of 65 can expect to spend an average of $158,549 on healthcare over their lifetime. But this investment has increased a whopping 13.8 times (when adjusted for inflation) since 1960 when the costs would have amounted to $11,495. What does it buy the hopeful 65 year-old? Less than four more years. Today's new retiree can now expect to live another 18 year instead of 14.4 years on average.And while it might seem callus to discuss diminishing returns when thinking about life extension, there will clearly come a point when the additional spending for extreme measures will not significantly improve a patient's quality of life or material extend life expectancy despite the investment. Tough decisions abound.The study also points out that part of the driver for these cost increases might be that hospitals ...

Just when I'd pretty much given up on the scientific close-mindedness of the current republican administration, I stumbled across this article in Forbes that reminded me of the power of the US economic engine, and how business leaders with foresight can still help stave off national disaster, even without government support.Those of you who have read my earlier rants on the Stem Cell issue know that I am distraught over the fact that our government has not only abandoned one of the most promising avenues of medical research to emerge in the last century, but has gone so far as to actively stifle those activities with a presidential veto of the recent bi-partisan bill to support expanded Stem Cell research.Well thank goodness previous administrations didn't stifle the most promising lines of development a couple of decades ago so that Microsoft, KB Home, Bloomberg, Dolby, Oracle, EBay, and Intel could all get large enough that their founders, many of them republicans, could personally bankroll enough research to keep US Stem Cell investigations going despite the government attack.Hopefully the rich guys with a little foresight can keep the efforts going till we have a more technologically oriented administration in office.

If any of you have ever tried to tear your child away from their favorite cartoon, this next report won't be any surprise.A recent study performed on 69 Italian kids aged seven through twelve showed that children having blood drawn by a syringe experienced "50% less pain" when watching television than they did when being comforted by their mothers, and "70% less pain" than if they were left alone without other stimulus or comfort.Carlo Bellieni, the article's author, said, "The power of television is strong and it can be harmful for children if it is stronger than the force made by the mother to distract children. I believe that this power must be controlled and reduced."And he hasn't even tested video games yet.

"Developmental biology: The hole picture"What's the best way to make a tube? Roll up a sheet? Hollow out a solid rod? Some innovative movies show how the problem is tackled during the development of blood vessels in embryos. Check out this incredibly cool movie from the journal Nature's web site that actually shows the formation of blood vessel structures from the merging of bubbles.Keith Mostov and Fernando Martin-Belmonte are the authors of the article from the July 27th 2006 Issue of Nature on page 363.

Whenever assaulted by that annoying high-pitch whine of a mosquito fly-by, I've recently taken to gesturing vaguely towards my wife and whispering to the orbiting insect, "..pst...hey buddy, she's tastier." I meant it as a joke, but as it happens, my wife might really be tastier to a mosquito. According to this article on WebMD, one in 10 people are "highly attractive to mosquitoes." The chemical attractants include high concentrations of either steroids or cholesterol or uric or lactic acid on the skin. (and that is after being drawn from over 50 meters away by carbon dioxide and motion.I think I'll make sure to take my wife along on my next backpacking or canoeing trip!