medicine | Platypus

The Dawn of Digital Therapeutics

 Meg Martin  April 16, 2019

A techno-optimistic attitude tells us we’re living at an inflexion point where care practices are being transformed by technology. Monitoring and attending to health and well-being are no longer activities bound within physical spaces like hospitals and clinics; these activities have extended to the basic functions of smart phones. A new labor force has emerged for this digitized health transformation utilizing open source engineering platforms, structuring work into two-week Agile design sprints, and leveraging professionals from traditional healthcare settings. In many ways, the practices of these workers appear synonymous to those of other start-up companies across industry spaces. Throughout ethnographic fieldwork over the last year, I have explored the evolution of this phenomenon within an emergent area of the digital health sphere: Digital therapeutics. (read more...)

Tweaking Narratives of War

 Lina Pinto García  December 4, 2018

Este contenido está disponible en español aquí.

Stories of war and violence have permeated the daily life of Colombians for more than half a century. However, in the last decade, the voices and narratives about the armed conflict have diversified and expanded significantly. This is mainly due to the institutionalization of remembrance processes, civil society initiatives, and the opportunities opened up by the peace negotiations between the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Although these actions still fall short of the effort needed for a fuller reconciliation, they have introduced, little by little, profound changes in the ways in which society and the state remember the war, understand the armed conflict, recognize their victims, and seek to transform the past and present of violence. (read more...)

Weekly Round-up | January 27th, 2017

 Ian Lowrie  January 27, 2017

Stories on data archaeology, global medical infrastructures, mushrooms, and open-access futures weekly round out this week’s weekly round-up of cool stuff from around the web. Remember, if you stumble across or create any blog posts, open access publications, or objets d’internet art that you think might fit here, just shoot a link to editor@castac.org. Help break us out of our habitual media itineraries and parochial corners of the internet! (read more...)

The 2014 Ebola Outbreak: How Many Deaths Will it Take?

 Nicola Bulled  October 20, 2014

When I began writing this brief statement in mid-September, 2,630 deaths had been attributed to probable, suspected, or confirmed cases of Ebola. The World Health Organization projected as many as 20,000 cases in the West African region before the outbreak could be brought under control. The epidemic had received little news coverage and felt, to many in the U.S., as yet another disaster taking place in countries reputed for their many dangers. By mid-October, 4,033 Ebola deaths had been reported by the World Health Organization and projections on number of cases had risen to 10,000 per week in West Africa. Concerns are heightening that the epidemic may be a greater threat than originally perceived. The number of news reports providing coverage on the epidemic has increased exponentially, reaching over 30 million by the beginning of October. This dramatic increase appears to be spurred by the death of Thomas Eric Ducan, the first reported death occurring outside the epidemic hotspot of West Africa, which made headline news around the world and sparked fears that the epidemic could spread out-of-control around the globe. (read more...)

Rene Almeling, Winner of the 2012 Forsythe Prize, on Sex Cells: The Medical Market for Eggs and Sperm

 Rene Almeling  November 28, 2012

I am deeply honored to be the recipient of the 2012 Diana Forsythe Prize for Sex Cells: The Medical Market for Eggs and Sperm (University of California Press, 2011). It is a thrill to be considered to be working in the tradition of Forsythe herself, as well as the list of distinguished scholars who have received this prize since 1999, which includes many of my academic heroes! In what follows, I provide a short synopsis of the book, and for those who are interested in reading more, there is a link to the Introduction on my website: http://www.yale.edu/sociology/faculty/pages/almeling/ Unimaginable until the twentieth century, the clinical practice of transferring eggs and sperm from body to body is now the basis of a bustling market. In Sex Cells, I provide an inside look at how egg agencies and sperm banks do business. Although both men and women are usually drawn to donation (read more...)