A few sparks of good news
A tip of my hat to the few brave souls who rise above the din of deceit and disaster to put forth some great ideas to help humanity.
1. Dr. Paul Tinari is a B.C scientist who first experimented with 3 D printers while working at NASA during the 1980s. He has developed a large scale 3D, patented, printer that can produce a concrete shell for a 4 bedroom house in 24 hours at 10% of the normal cost. The concrete is laid down in layers using elastomers that stretch and then return to their original shape.
Added accelerants allow each layer to dry quickly. He said that future generations of his printer could produce anything, including dry wall or plumbing fixtures. Present barriers like cost and lack of housing will soon be a problem past.
2. The World Health organization has introduced a malaria vaccine for children in Malawi. While it only protects one third of the recipients, others should suffer less severe symptoms. A good start on a parasitic disease that kills 435,000 people each year!
3. Nova Scotia has become the first jurisdiction in North America to make “presumed consent” for organ donors mandatory. Now, those who wish to opt out will have the onus to do so. The sooner the rest of the provinces join this program, the better!
3. (a) Ottawa paramedics and police are now trained to identify potential donors.This, in addition to donors normally only being identified in a hospital environment.
Since tissue can be donated up to 12 hours after the donor’s death, this combined with presumed consent would be a major break through.
4. A new Canadian, U.S. real time tracking system, (ADS-B) can now locate aircraft anywhere in the world in real time. Once controllers around the world link into the system, safety and efficiency will improve dramatically. Since 70% of the world is not covered by ground radar planes equipped with the system can stream their exact location including altitude, twice per second to/from a network of 66 satellites.
Controllers can now reduce the space between planes to 25 kms.allowing more planes to share the same air space. As an example, 1,500 daily trans Atlantic flights could reduce flight times by several minutes and fuel consumption by about $400 each. Also notable; less pollution. As a bonus, aircraft in trouble can be tracked to within about 300 metres of their exact location!
5. Edmonton judge, Larry Anderson has initiated a “Mental Health Court” In just a few months, 2,340 accused have appeared on the docket. The court draws on the collaborative expertise of dedicated judges, duty counsel, Crown prosecutors, health care and social workers, sheriffs and community agencies.
The terribly backlogged judicial system is seeing a slight reduction and family members are becoming more involved. Future plans, could see law students include a practicum where they take on duties like social workers, officially called “justice navigators.”
Our provinces have shuttled mental health issues onto the police and courts, to save money for far too long.
This small but important program is at least a good start to castigate this repugnant wrong.