Hackable pacemaker

I can’t tell if this is actually a problem or just technology fearmongering. The first sentence doesn’t make me think it is all that worrisome.

The threat seems largely theoretical. But a team of computer security researchers plans to report Wednesday that it had been able to gain wireless access to a combination heart defibrillator and pacemaker.

They were able to reprogram it to shut down and to deliver jolts of electricity that would potentially be fatal—if the device had been in a person. In this case, the researcher were hacking into a device in a laboratory.

Other than pure malice, I don’t see why a hacker would be interested in doing this. However, apparently teens have been turning off San Francisco’s electric buses and throwing rocks at the disabled vehicles, which sounds pretty malicious. I guess as long as the pacemakers don’t have external on/off switches, people’s hearts will be fine.

Ass-mar

Apparently, doctors have a hard time treating Spanish-speaking patients with asthma because there is no word for “wheeze” in Spanish.

From The New York Times:

According to a survey conducted by asthma specialists at Columbia University Medical Center, which is situated in the heavily Dominican neighborhood of Washington Heights, there is no precise translation for the word “wheeze.”

In interviews with 39 Spanish speakers, “wheeze” was translated into 12 different Spanish expressions, including “tight chest,” “suffocation,” “asphyxiation,” “snoring” and “congested breathing.” (Nine of the respondents could not come up with any translation at all). While accredited translators came up with the term “ronquido” or “sibilancia,” only 6 of the 39 agreed with that “ronquido” and none agreed with “sibilancia” (even though that seems to be the choice of many readers here; see the comments below).

Wheezing, which according to the National Institutes of Health is a high-pitched whistling sound during breathing that often occurs when air flows through narrowed breathing tubes, is a word central to asthma research and diagnosis.