Grant Jacobs • Mar 02, 2010 •
On occasion I write about disability-related issues. I’d like to briefly step aside from science and share my reaction to a recent announcement that deaf people in New Zealand will soon be able to text emergency calls, reported in an article from The Dominion Post by Claire McEntee. My initial reaction was surprise that it hasn’t … Read More
Grant Jacobs • Feb 10, 2010 •
The MMR vaccine is targeted at measles, mumps and rubella. The latter, rubella, is a cause of abortions and developmental defects in children of mothers who are infected with the virus during the first twenty weeks of pregnancy. [caption id="attachment_1341" align="alignright" width="300"] Cataracts in a CRS infant (Source: wikipedia.)[/caption] It is sometimes useful to look at … Read More
Grant Jacobs • Dec 05, 2009 •
Every now and then I see a post on the representation of minorities in science or in university staff. In the USA, they're mainly talking about blacks and hispanics. In New Zealand, were we to talk about it, it'd be Maori and in Australia, it'd be Australian Aborigines. These posts rarely talk about disabilities as being … Read More
Grant Jacobs • Nov 21, 2009 •
Great news for deaf and hard-of-hearing people, or those wanting to follow videos in other languages: you can now ask YouTubeâ„¢ to caption their videos automatically using a voice translation service. There’s an introductory article with instructions on the google blog and a demo: (Demo of automatic captioning.) Currently this service … Read More
Grant Jacobs • Nov 11, 2009 •
Y'know those days when nothing started actually pans out? I put a lot of effort into this blog and try write something every day. Today was just one of those days: nothing worked all day, work or play. "Inspired" by that I decided to write about the things I didn't do today. Seems apt. I … Read More
Grant Jacobs • Oct 19, 2009 •
My mother used to call out to me in the house as a kid. I'd ask where she was and she'd reply "here". It drove me nuts. You see, when you can only hear in one ear it's hard to tell the direction a sound comes from and it's frustrating to … Read More