pacho source code

Just came home after a visit to the dentist office. I supposedly had two small cavities, which they took care of this morning. While getting local anesthesia applied, I felt a weird connection to the laboratory animals that scientists work with. The main difference here was that I knew why I was getting the procedure, kind of like informed consent. Until the day we can directly communicate with them, the laboratory animals don't know what's going on. I imagine that they must be scared every time they get drugged and poked with needles. You can always tell a newbie from an "experienced" animal. The newbie doesn't squirm when he is put into the anesthesia chamber. However on later return visits, the animal will try to break free the moment he catches a whiff of the gas. ... Okay, I digress. My point is that the physicist's role in medical research should be to help make the lab animals' sacrifice as productive as possible. This includes providing as much comfort to it during the experiment as possible and the data gathered as valuable as possible. This includes development of new instrumentation and methodolgies that make new or improved measurments. This of course is to be extended to the people level, where patients and their doctors are given as much information as possible. One of the most excruciating times for a cancer patient is during the early stages of diagnosis where no one knows the extent of the disease. A primary lump is felt, but has it spread? As cheesy as this sounds, knowledge really is power.