yay science. yay protocol.

Request for application: whether parachutes are effective in preventing major trauma related to gravitational challenge

As with many interventions intended to prevent ill health, the effectiveness of parachutes has not been subjected to rigorous evaluation by using randomized controlled trials. Advocates of evidence-based medicine have criticized the adoption of interventions evaluated by using only observational data. We think that everyone might benefit if the most radical protagonists of evidence-based medicine organized and participated in a double blind, randomized, placebo-controlled, crossover trial of the parachute.


And while we're having fun, some useful definitions:

Clinical experience: making the same mistake with increasing confidence for an impressive number of years

Evidence-based medicine: perpetuating other people's mistakes instead of your own

Compliance: (1) change in volume per unit change in pressure; (2) a tendency to give in to others; (3) obedience to a dictate given by an authority; (4) doing what the doctor wants

Delivery system: something that connects "providers" with "consumers." Examples include vending machines, Federal Express, and managed-care companies. "Health care delivery" is to be distinguished from the practice of medicine by physicians.

Management: the process of directing a patient through an institutional protocol mandated for his condition without furthering one's understanding of his illness.

Specialty: a practice that is restricted in some way

The brightest star in the sky is Sirius. It has a magnitude of minus 1.4

twinkle twinkle little cell
i don't think you're doing well
can i cut you from my brain?
will you cause me any pain?
you light up my MRI
and within a year i'll die