The Human Tech

Chronic medicine Smoke of frankincense (myrrh) floats in the air of the crowded winding streets of Muskrat Soak Bazaar in Muscat.  The savory scent of this smokey musk has been so mixed in the cities of Oman and the culture here that you can go anywhere, you cannot get away from this smell.  The scent emanating from the frankincense in the silver censer hanging outside the shops hypnotizes.  Spices, frankincense and dates are stacked in some small shops under the open sky.  Women wearing full length black abaya and silk colored scarves and shawls, and men wearing white dishdasha and embroidered beautiful Kuma hats at the ankle look at pebble-shaped frankincense.  They are light yellow, light brown and cream colored.  These magical and captivating pictures of Muscat are also mentioned in the Bible. Three gifts of jesus  Muttarah Sok is one of the few places in the world where I can buy gold, mur (myrrh) and frankincense together.  According to Chri...

Humans and Humanityg Looking at the news about the Paris attacks this November all around, one might be put in a dilemma as to whether humanity really translates into kindness. It was a normal Friday evening for the people of Paris; some of them spectators at an international friendly football match between France and Germany, some lost in music at the Bataclan theatre where the American band Eagles of Death Metal was playing and others relishing delicious dishes and drinks at cafes and restaurants in the famous streets of The City of Lights. But it was Friday the 13th of the November month, and misfortune did befall on 130 innocent souls who lost their lives while about 85 were seriously injured. People lost their friends, lovers, even family members at places where they had come to spend a beautiful evening. More importantly, ‘humans’ were lost at the hands of ‘humans’. Terrorism is designed to provoke an overreaction—either complete disengagement, or a ...

Doctors Significantly Better Than Google, According To New Research (Reuters Health) - Doctors are much better than symptom-checker programs at reaching a correct diagnosis, though the humans are not perfect and might benefit from using algorithms to supplement their skills, a small study suggests. In a head-to-head comparison, human doctors with access to the same information about medical history and symptoms as was put into a symptom checker got the diagnosis right 72 percent of the time, compared to 34 percent for the apps. The 23 online symptom checkers, some accessed via websites and others available as apps, included those offered by Web MD and the Mayo Clinic in the U.S. and the Isabel Symptom Checker in the U.K. “The current symptom checkers, I was not surprised do not outperform doctors,” said senior author Dr. Ateev Mehrotra of Harvard Medical School in Boston. But in reality computers and human doctors may both be involved in a diagnosis, ra...