Word: alarmism
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...developed world, except for one notable absence: there are no clipboards. Instead, doctors and nurses carry wireless handheld computers to call up the medical records of each patient, including their prescription history and drug allergies. If a doctor prescribes a medication that may cause complications, the computer's alarm goes off. In the hospital's department of acute medicine - where patients often arrive unconscious or disorientated - department head Klaus Phanareth's PDA prevents him from prescribing dangerous medications "on a weekly basis," he says. "There's no doubt that it saves lives...
...cybersecurity - and get the billions of dollars of federal money that comes with it. Last month, Rod Beckstrom quit as director of the National Cybersecurity Center, citing turf battles between the Department of Homeland Security (which oversees the center) and the National Security Agency. His take on the sudden alarm bells over the power grid's cybersecurity? It's a power grab: a competition between two government agencies to become the main player in cybersecurity...
...locus coeruleus, a small knot of neurons located in the brain stem. Not a lot of high-order processing goes on so deep in the brain's basement, but the locus coeruleus does govern the release of the neurotransmitter noradrenaline, which is critical in triggering arousal or alarm, as in the famed fight-or-flight response. Arousal also plays a role in our ability to pay attention - you can't deal with the lion trying to eat you, after all, if you don't focus on it first. And attention, in turn, plays a critical role in such complex functions...
...tremors in the area, that a much bigger jolt was on its way. The researcher had said that a "disastrous" earthquake would strike on March 29, but when it didn't, Guido Bertolaso, head of Italy's Civil Protection Agency, officially denounced Giuliani in court last week for "false alarm." "These imbeciles enjoy spreading false news," Bertolaso was quoted as saying. "Everyone knows that you can't predict earthquakes...
...variety of legal sources and studies. Those figures indicate charges of brutality are rarely substantiated or punished. It says that of 639 inquiries of police mistreatment in 2006, a mere eight cases resulted in the accused being dismissed from the force. In 2005 - when Amnesty first sounded the alarm about the problem - 16 out of 663 investigations led to the ouster of accused cops. By contrast, there's been an explosion in cases and convictions of "outrage," an offense based on anything from a bystander protesting unjustified arrest or violent treatment of someone by police to a suspect slandering peace...