What's a File Cabinet?

And other end-of-week nuggets

Photo by AbsolutVision on Unsplash

WHAT’S A FOLDER?

Wrap your head around the notion that most of today’s young learners have never actually seen a file cabinet (like the one in the corner behind me).

So they are perplexed (mostly since 2017 according to this article from the Verge) with the notion of “files” inside topical “folders”. They have other ways of sussing out a particular bit of information without this throwback to “real offices.” So keep this in mind when talking tech with the grands over TG.

RHEUMATOID ARTHRITIS: A GUT THING?

My grandmother had crippling rheumatoid arthritis that turned her hands into useless bird-claws. Her husband (the grandfather I never met who died in a hunting accident when mom was 11) was also disabled by RA. And so, with this double genetic legacy, I always felt certain old ARTHR would come visit me. But no. And not to my mother. But why?

So how will the suspect bacterium (we’ll call it SubdoDido, in future, be removed from the human gut? But might it be doing something essential there?

Newly discovered species of bacteria in the microbiome may be culprit behind rheumatoid arthritis From Gut News

DISH BRAINS PLAY COMPUTER GAMES

If you haven’t run across this topic before, you likely will, since these “brain organoids” may, in next few years, become far more sophisticated and the basis for a new kind of bio-chip. They may also become a replacement for some models of consciousness research instead of the usual fully-alive laboratory animals.

But if-when these pulsing, functioning webs of neurons become complex enough to qualify as “alive and conscious” there will be some who will want do the right thing, ethically. But most corporate labs may just want to get patents before the competition and keep the stockholders happy.

My work is done here. Do leave comments and point me in the direction of any really interesting factoids you’ve come across this week. — Fred