Ken Kamler: Medical miracle on Everest

About this talk

When the worst disaster in the history of Mount Everest climbs occurred, Ken Kamler was the only doctor on the mountain. At TEDMED, he shares the incredible story of the climbers' battle against extreme conditions and uses brain imaging technology to map the medical miracle of one man who survived roughly 36 hours buried in the snow.

Source:http://www.mountainmadness.com/images/7summits/everest_summit.jpg

Source: http://www.sweetspeeches.com/system/photos/896/small/155783_389x292.jpg?1297121511

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Summary:

This video’s title is ‘’Ken Kamler: Medical miracle on Everest’’. It‘s about an unbelievable case that can be used to prove the existence of ‘’will power’’ in humans. Ken Kamler talks about the accident which can be one of the worst disasters ever happened in the Everest. When this accident befalls the climbers, Ken was the only doctor on the mountain. There were 4 camps upon the way to the summit. When the teams of climbers arrived at the  fourth camp, they saw the wind blowing very strongly on the peak of the mountain so they decided to wait and consider current situations. Later that night, the wind slowed down and some climber determined to climb to the summit. Unfortunately, while they are climbing, the wind started to flow powerfully again. The disaster began and the team of climbers were stuck at the height of over 18000 feet. At that time, Ken and remaining climbers were still at the third camp and bad news was continuously reported from the radio. Doug Hansen, a exhausted climber, could not come down and other climber- Rob Hall decided to stay with Doug. Moreover, another climber- Beck Weathers had fallen and died. The others were also in panic and really bad health conditions. People from third camp came to rescue those calamity climbers but it was very hard for them to save Doug and Rob. Therefore, people asked Rob Hall to leave Doug and came down alone since it was hopeless to save Doug. However, Rob replied ‘’ We’re both listening’’ and wanted to stay. Hours later, Rob reported back that Doug had been dead and he was too weak to come down now. He asked to talk with his wife, who was seventh month pregnant in New Zealand. They talked for the last time and picked the name for the baby. Three days later, while Ken Kamler were treating the survival climbers, Beck Weathers suddenly came into the tent and asked to be treated. It was extremely surprising as Beck had been reported dead. After that, he told about what’d happened at the summit that he had laid motionlessly in the snow for almost 2 days and only the thinking about his family is the only thing had waken his will power up to stand up and climb down to camp three in critical state.

Words: 360

Response:

            The resilience and the desire to live of humans when they are in extreme situation are two things that I am really impressed in this story. The climbers referred in this video are wonderful image of people who want to face with difficulties and try their best to get over it. The environment in Everest is really really extreme. As we can see, the temperature is always sub - zero Celsius. In addition, very steep slopes and many deep hole carved into the body of the mountain always threat the lives of the climbers. Therefore, the desire of the climbers to conquer ‘’ the roof of our world’’ is precious. They knew that it would be dangerous and they would risk their lives; however, they still wanted to achieve it. In addition, the accidents that happened to the climbers were tragic and sad. Especially, the climber- Rob Hall- chose to stay with his fallen teammate even though it cost his life. And the thing that Beck still survived after laying in the snow for about 36 hours under the shattering freeze. It is a very vivid illustrations of how people can fight for their lives with their will power.

Words: 199

Nathan Wolfe's jungle search for viruses.

About this talk

Virus hunter Nathan Wolfe is outwitting the next pandemic by staying two steps ahead: discovering deadly new viruses where they first emerge -- passing from animals to humans among poor subsistence hunters in Africa -- before they claim millions of lives.

Summary:

                Today video’s title will be ‘’Nathan Wolfe's jungle search for viruses’’, which is a presentation made by Nathan Wolfe in TED Talks. The overall idea of this talk is about the process where dangerous viruses such as HIV or AIDS jumping from animals to humans and spread all over the world.  In this presentation, Nathan Wolfe mentions about AIDS and the viruses cause it, which were discovered in the 1980s. However, the fact is that those viruses had been affected to human many decades before 1980s. Those viruses jumping to humans were originally from chimpanzees hunted by people. After that, Nathan presents 2 questions: 1. Why did it take us so long to discover those viruses which might have originated to humans before? 2. What happened in the years when those viruses affected to humans? To answer for those questions, Nathan has worked on African countries more specifically in African rural villages. At these villages, villagers usually go hunting in forests and that is the case when viruses can jump to human from hunted animals. When people hunt wild animals like chimpanzees, they may get blood contact with the animals. Therefore, Nathan Wolfe and his team collected blood specimens from the villagers and from the animals they had hunted. Then, Nathan checked and compared the viruses found in the blood from the villagers and the animals. Thus, it will provide for Nathan and his team useful information about how those viruses spread to the populations and ways to identifying which viruses come from which animals. The most important things about Nathan’s work is to advise and help the people in those areas realized the potential risk of hunting wild and get infected with viruses.Until today, Nathan has spent over 10 years at sites on Africa and Asia countries to help the people there to narrow the chances of infecting by viruses from animals. He hope in the future, the sites will expand more so that there will be a wider net over the world.

(Words: 340)

Response:

Nathan Wolfe’s work is very confidential and practical. As you know, HIV or AIDS is one of the most dangerous diseases the world. There have been lots of people dying due to HIV and there are no medicine can get rid of it completely at the present. Moreover, HIV was not widely known until few decades ago when it rapidly spread in human’s population.  I had read an article before that: the carriers of HIV were sailors since when they traveled to faraway area, islands and returned to homeland with HIV germs. The people in Africa rural villages hunting viral infected animals , who are referred in the video is one possible source of the viruses. However, who can blame them for that? They do that because of their situation, they have to feed their families. Therefore, Nathan Wolfe and his team are doing a brilliant job there by informing to those people the risks they may possibly get. It will lower the chances the viruses spreading to other parts of the world. In conclusion, I really appreciate the devotion of Nathan Wolfe to this project for a long 10 years. It does not only help the people in those rural areas but also help other people in the world have healthier lives.

Words: 213

Ben Saunders skis to the North Pole

(Source: http://www.tmcentertainment.co.uk/images/speaker-index/SpeakOutBenSaunders.jpg)

 Source: http://www.time2.co.uk/assets/Uploads/2011/Feb_resampled/croppedimage620349-Bremont-Ambassador-Ben-Saunders-2.jpg

Source: http://exploringthegr.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/ben-saunders.jpeg?w=490&h=307

About this talk

Arctic explorer Ben Saunders recounts his harrowing solo ski trek to the North Pole, complete with engaging anecdotes, gorgeous photos and never-before-seen video.

Summary:

The video I want to introduce to you today is about the presentation given by Ben Saunders, who is the youngest person ever skis solo to the North Pole in 2004. According to Ben, the purpose of this expedition is to discover humans’ limit because it was a journey that he had to spent most the time skiing on the floating ice on the Arctic Ocean. However, the expedition to the North Pole that Ben made in 2004 was not the first time he tried to go to the pole. In fact, in 2003, he and a friend together went on a expedition to the North Pole. Nevertheless, they could not complete it because of the lack of equipment and time. The ice was melting due to upcoming summer so they had to give it up. Ben Saunders ended up returning with the failure. After that, he felt dispirited and spent many days just to watch TV on the sofa. Nonetheless, he did not give up his dream and 3 years later, he got agreement with a company to sponsor for his trip to North pole again. This time, he decided to ski alone to the North. His voyage began at Russia where he took a flight to Khatanga, a town in Siberia of Russia. At Khatanga, one of the most desolated area in the world, he stuck there for 10 days. Finally, on the 11^th day morning, the problem was solved when helicopters came to pick him up. After that, the helicopters dropped him and his equipment at a pack ice and his expedition officially began. The difficulties he had to deal during were extremely harsh when he had to pull over 2 sledges weighing 180 kilograms and containing his tent, equipment and food for 95 days. If the ice was flat he could pull both but if not, he had to pull one at a time and returned to pull the remaining. However, the problems with the ice were easier than the problems with the lack of ice. As a result, Ben used a specialized dry suit that enabled him to swim across the open water while dragging the sledges. He also blogged from his tent and uploaded information. Finally, on May 11^th, he put his step at the North Pole. In conclusion, Ben Saunders hoped that other people would get the inspiration from his job to try harder to reach their true potential.

Words: 390 

 Response:

            Ben Saunders’ representation is very interesting and inspiring. No one can deny his wonderful achievement. Skiing solo to the North Pole is not an easy task since it requires lots of effort and willpower. Moreover, that is more amazing to know that Ben did not give up after having had his first trip to the north ending up failing. During his expedition, he had had to face many extreme situations but he had overcame them. I cannot imagine how hard it was when he was skiing on the floating ice and dragging 180 kilograms equipment and the way he managed to go across the open water. I also would like to make an adventurous trip to test my ability but not sure if I could survive or have enough courage to do it. Ben Saunders said in the video that we usually used only 5-6% percent of our potential in life. Therefore, hopefully, his expedition can inspire other people to stand up and do something to find out their true potential. Finally, not only Ben Saunders but also other people who had climbed the Everest or swam across the ocean are truly appreciated as they had tried their best to test their own potential. No one can have the rights to decide what own true potential is. We are the one who can decide and bring it into play.

Words: 230

TED TALKS III

Source:  http://www.animebay.net/bulkupload/015/Movie/Star%20Wars/starwars-c3po_0006.jpg        

Cynthia Breazeal: The rise of personal robots

Summary:

            The video that I want to introduce to you today is called ‘’The rise of personal robots’’. In the video, there is a presentation of Cynthia Breazeal about her ambtion of developing robots that can be interacted like humans. First, Cynthia in her presentation said that she had been dreaming since she had been a little about the new generations of robots that could interact with humans in deeper ways. She the mentions about making social intelligience robots can be a great innovation in both our technology and society. Therefore, her team has made the first social robot named Kismect. It  was a robot that could interact with human by non-verbal emotions can not speak language. However, it had opened a new hopeful way of developing social interactive robots. Second, Cynthia Breazeal stated about the benefits that those robots can bring to us. The first benefit is in term of communication: the ‘’ robot +phones’’ (phones that have legs and hands like robots) so that we can talk with other people by eye contact or moving around and making gestures. The second benefit is that those interactive robots can improve our family’s relationship. Cynthia suggested one example that nowsadays, the relationships between grandparents and grandchildren are not good and close since the grandparents usually live far way from their grandchildren. Therefore, with interactive robots, grandparents now can play with their grandchildren from afar and the chidlren also like it a lot. The third benefit that those kinds of robots can provide to us is that they can assist us in maintanning our health. They will help us in organize our schedules, tracking our exercising progress and motivating also. The other benefit of interactive robots is in children’s media. Kids nowadays spending much time before the screen so if interactive robots are used with the video games so that chidren can experience real play and improve their imagination.

(Words: 318)

 Response:

I’ve been dreaming of having a personal robots since I was a child. Therefore, I really understand and support Cynthia Breazeal’s opinion. I think if we have interactive robots in every home, it wil be very fanstatic. Social robots can be be our friends like cats or dogs but more that that they can express their emotions in human-like way. Moreover, I also the idea Cynthia that we can use interactive robots to strengthen the relationship beetween family’s members.Nowadays, some family whose members do not have chance or conditions to be close toghether, so it will be a good way to solve that problems. Next, using interactive robots to create real media play experiences for children is also a good idea becasue the kids can interact with the robots in a lively way. However, in my opinion, the idea that having personal robots still has the downside. Using robots to help improving family’s relationship is necessary but nothing can replace the reltionshop buitt from direct meeting instead of communicating over robots. And it is the same to applying those robots for kids’ media, I think children can also learn a lot from the real outside world which is also beautiful and 100% lively.

Words: 204

                   Amy Smith Shares Simple, Life Saving Design.

Summary:

            In this post, I will introduce to the video about a presentation made by Amy Smith. The topic of this presentation is that Amy Smith shared simple lifesaving design with the audiences. First of all, Amy Smith is a MIT engineer who creates cheap, applied solutions for problems in developing countries. Second, in this presentation, she mentions about a project that she has followed for years, it refers to the number one cause of death in children under fire: the smoke from indoor cooking fires. For example, in Haiti, especially in the rural area where people cut down trees for cooking fuels. As a result, Haiti now has 98% deforested and usually suffers horrifying flooding that lead to thousands of death because there are no trees to hold up the soil. In addition, the negative effects on people’s health are also considerable.  People in Haiti have no choice but compelled to cut the trees because they do not have fossil fuels and solar energy can not satisfy their daily needs. Therefore, Amy’s goal is to find solution for this problem; so Amy and her students went to Haiti and tried to find fuels made from things that exist in local. Finally, they came up with the idea that they used the waste of sugarcane after extracting all the juice. And they also the cassava’s porridge to bind all the sugarcane's waste so that the waste can be burnt for longer. Similarly, in India, Amy also applied this kind of technique on India, but instead of sugarcane’s waste and cassava, she used straw and cow dungs. In conclusion, Amy pointed out that this kind of technology is very interesting and necessary to people in developing countries because it is easily transferrable to the poor people or farmers in poor and undeveloped countries. In addition, it is not only beneficial for environment and people’s health but also beneficial for economy since people can make charcoal from waste and sell it to the market for people who need it.


(Words:336)

Response:

            In my opinion, I think this presentetion of Amy Smith is interesting and educational. In this presentation, she shows us a very serious and emergency issue in the world: millions of deaths every year because of smoking indoor fires in developing countries. And I really agree and support Amy’s solution to that problem in Haiti and India. Using local things or waste is a considerably efficient way to have to have another altenative fuels for cooking. Moreover, I am so amazed by the benefits that this technique brings to the evironemnt, the people’s health. In addtion, the poor people in developing countries not only have better cooking fuels but also earn money from selling them to the markets. Above all, I truly admire and respect the work Amy Smith has done and devoted to the people in poor countries. The technique to make better cooking fuels for those people is very essential because it’s simple and practical so the people in poor countries can apply it to their lives easily. Finally, I extremely agree one point of Amy in the video that we should make educational campaigns for poor farmers but instead of helping them stop being farmers, we should help them to stop being ‘’poor’’ farmers.

(Words: 208)

BEAUTIFUL VOICE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

TED Talks

Marcel Dicke: Why not eat insects?

                          

WATCH HERE

  

 

(Source: http://www.odditieszone.com/eating-insects-for-food/ )

Summary:

                                      Why Not Eating Insects?

          In the video I watched, there is a presentation made by Marcel Dicke. In that video, he discussed one interesting issue: WHY NOT EATING INSECTS? First, he states that insects are the most dominant group in our world. There are 6 millions species of insects all over the world compare to about 300 species of mammals. Next, insects are also silent contributors of our economy. In 2006, insects add to the economy 57 billions US dollars directly or indirectly. Second, he mentions about the roles of insects in our lives such as removing dung, pollinating crops, controlling pests and being a source of food for other animals.Surprisingly, everyone in the world have eaten insects without knowing, for damaged vegetable or fruits by insects you eat, insects go with them to your stomach. In addition, there are some natural dye to dye food that is made from insects. Marcel Dicke also points out 4 reasons that we should enjoy insects. First, they are good for our health since insects do not have dangerous recombination viruses to humans. Second, when at the present, 80 % of agriculture land is already used for breeding cattle; therefore, breeding insects is a very efficient way to deal with future limited land problem.Third, breeding insects is good for environment, for the waste from insects is far lower than regular cattles. Finally, insects contain good food values that equals to our current food.

(Words: 240)

Response:

           In my opinion, I think that this video is really great. In fact, before watching it, I'm not really interested in this issue. There was a time when I watch a TV shows about eating insects- new food trends. However, at that times I think people may only eat it if they are fed up with pork, beef or chicken and want to try something new. Nevertheless, this video amazed me that insects can be a good source of food for our late generation because it has many good advantages :  not require large space to breed, good nutritive quality, friendly to environment and not contain dangerous viruses to human. And I think people do not like it because of our perception, we think insects are dirty, gross or creepy-looking so we don't eat it. I wonder if human in the past had eaten insects instead of crabs or shrimps, today we would have thought that crabs and shrimps are terrible to eat. Shrimps and insects in some ways look really alike; they all have six legs!! So Why Not Eating Insects?

(Words: 182)