healthy4u

The search is on for the Google Search Appliance

The <a href="http://www.google.com/enterprise/gsa/">Google Search Appliance</a> (aka the GSA) provides universal search for businesses of all sizes. This handy yellow box pulls together documents, images, and other files from web servers, intranets, business applications, and more, making all of this accessible from one search box. Now we're holding a contest to see how "<a href="http://www.google.com/enterprise/findability">findable</a>" the GSA is in offices from coast to coast in the U.S. If the GSA has helped your business, we want to hear your story and see your pics with the shiny yellow box. (Don't worry, your photo doesn't have to be <a href="http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2006/07/dont-hassle-hoff_115389646940700263.html">star-studded</a> to win.) Two grand-prize winners will receive an all-expense paid trip to the <a href="http://code.google.com/events/io/">Google IO conference</a>. The contest deadline is March 31, 2009 and the winners will be announced on April 17. For more information and to find out how to enter, check out the <a href="http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2009/02/show-us-and-win-wheres-your-gsa.html">Enterprise Blog</a>. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjA0jhHc-ix85R6FXk1FjJssOsHVM7QFZgPkZWOiysymD2vNNLwbqTA2_HQtk-5eBAGRkOmNn0iG3gMfU1ujuNw9u54Y6GTcnQOzURZoudnMBnWzrT0ztps1uxV2HNAeKM5KGdJvdBxAlS2/s1600-h/appliance.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5306455611386054914" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjA0jhHc-ix85R6FXk1FjJssOsHVM7QFZgPkZWOiysymD2vNNLwbqTA2_HQtk-5eBAGRkOmNn0iG3gMfU1ujuNw9u54Y6GTcnQOzURZoudnMBnWzrT0ztps1uxV2HNAeKM5KGdJvdBxAlS2/s400/appliance.jpg" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 162px;" /></a> Posted by David Kim, Associate Product Marketing Manager, and avid appliance photographer

The search is on for the Google Search Appliance

The Google Search Appliance (aka the GSA) provides universal search for businesses of all sizes. This handy yellow box pulls together docum...

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Are Health IT Designers, Testers and PurchasersTrying to Harm Patients? Part 3 of a Series

(Note: Part 1 of this series is <a href="http://hcrenewal.blogspot.com/2009/02/are-health-it-designers-idiots-part-1.html">here</a>, part 2 is <a href="http://hcrenewal.blogspot.com/2009/02/are-health-it-designers-testers-and.html">here</a>, part 3 is <a href="http://hcrenewal.blogspot.com/2009/02/are-health-it-designers-testers-and_24.html">here</a>, part 4 is <a href="http://hcrenewal.blogspot.com/2009/02/are-health-it-designers-testers-and_26.html">here</a>, part 5 is <a href="http://hcrenewal.blogspot.com/2009/02/are-health-it-designers-testers-and_27.html">here</a>, part 6 is <a href="http://hcrenewal.blogspot.com/2009/02/it-makes-healthcare-easier-is-this.html">here</a>, part 7 is <a href="http://hcrenewal.blogspot.com/2009/03/information-technology-makes-healthcare.html">here</a>, and part 8 is <a href="http://hcrenewal.blogspot.com/2009/03/malpractices-of-multitudes-mission.html">here</a>. 2011 addendums: a post that can be considered part 9 is <a href="http://hcrenewal.blogspot.com/2011/04/special-k-red-berries-mission-hostile.html">here</a>, part 10 is <a href="http://hcrenewal.blogspot.com/2011/12/ehr-mission-hostile-user-experience.html">here</a>.) At the (deliberately) provocatively-titled piece "<a href="http://hcrenewal.blogspot.com/2009/02/are-health-it-designers-idiots-part-1.html">Are Health IT Designers, Testers and Purchasers Trying to Harm Patients? Part 1</a>" and <a href="http://hcrenewal.blogspot.com/2009/02/are-health-it-designers-testers-and.html">Part 2</a>, I wrote that I would be presenting mockups showing the EHR deficiencies I am hearing about. These deficiencies in basic human computer interaction, biomedical information science, and presentation of information create a terrible user experience for clinicians. The title of these posts are deliberately provocative because the stakes of the issues addressed are so high. These hellish user experiences are causing clinician cognitive overload, distracting and tiring them, and due to violations of fundamental good practices in information display, actually promoting error. These violations are primarily due to lack of clinician input at design, sluggish vendor correction of reported critical deficits, programmer convenience, contractual gagging of a healthcare organization's ability to share these defects with other users and the public at large, and vendor immunity from liability on the basis of "learned intermediaries" (clinicians) between the defective IT and the patient. As a medical informaticist who actually studied biomedical information science, user interface design for clinicians and other topics, I am beginning to feel like <a href="http://www.oxforddnb.com/index/101005716/">William Clowes</a>, the famous surgeon of the Tudor period, who inveighed against the skills of many of the practitioners of his own time, characterizing them as: <blockquote style="font-family: arial;"> ".. no better than than runagates or vagabonds ... shameless in countenance, lewd in disposition, brutish in judgment and understanding ... tinkers, tooth-drawers, peddlers, ostlers, carters, porters, horse-gelders, horse-leeches, idiots, applesquires, broom-men, bawds, witches, conjurers, soothsayers, sow-gelders, rogues, and rat-catchers!"</blockquote> That seems to capture the essence of many of the <a href="http://www.ischool.drexel.edu/faculty/ssilverstein/cases/?loc=cases&sloc=ecosystem">HIT ecosystem players</a> of today. There's nothing new under the sun... Here is another common EHR defect: the problem list presentation page. <div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyfxXPkjHFPTdsjBBAM02eciyNmgpxwLRjxhr_3QSXWiErmsyIWd0EW-XL_M_3L-12cc2qwgo_SEil8BWfi0Sor9yuumSfFJfnZQng6kfnh2O2xeIInxNVKYqNVcV1Xjwi0JLuEHSOISoO/s1600-h/prob_list.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5306412523401565074" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyfxXPkjHFPTdsjBBAM02eciyNmgpxwLRjxhr_3QSXWiErmsyIWd0EW-XL_M_3L-12cc2qwgo_SEil8BWfi0Sor9yuumSfFJfnZQng6kfnh2O2xeIInxNVKYqNVcV1Xjwi0JLuEHSOISoO/s320/prob_list.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 430px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 405px;" /></a>(click to enlarge) <div style="text-align: left;"> Note that the actual screen is much more dense with other information and smaller fonts than my sketch above, so clinicians have an even harder time than the screen presented here illustrates. This display gives real meaning to my statement that HIT is designed by MIS (business computing) personnel not as a clinical tool but as an inventory system. What is wrong with this display? Let me count the ways. First and foremost, the list is alphabetical. This is very convenient for the programmer, but very inconvenient for the clinician. While just a little bit of clinical and informatics savvy would tend to mandate a problem list ranked or ordered in a priority fashion (e.g., more serious problems first), it's clear that savvy is lacking in an industry that provides a presentation of information clearly unsuited to the purpose of facilitating the practice of medicine! Clinicians are forced to scan the list and use their own cognitive engine to zero in on the most important problems. Any human being, unfortunately, has a limited supply of "cognitive fuel" during any waking cycle, and when it runs out from overuse, fatigue sets in. Why do EHR designers use up that fuel rather than provide interfaces that are more fuel-efficient? Second, this list was auto-populated. Problems and diagnoses were not entered manually by the clinician, but through a (perverse) "artificial intelligence" function created by personnel who probably never cared for patients. These items were "extracted" from other parts of the chart. For instance, when an order was placed for Mrs. Jones' glipizide sugar pill and a reason entered, the "diabetes" problem was auto-populated. That seems nice, except for a wee problem. Others in other parts of the record who enter notes and orders might also indicate diabetes specified by a slightly different term variant, producing the repetitive clutter you see in the screen above. It serves the clinician poorly to see "diabetes" repetitively, and in correct and incorrect variants (type I was an accident). This auto-population "feature" results in screen clutter and fosters loss of cognitive focus as a clinician reviews multiple patient charts with this same issue. How can this appear in a production EHR system? Mappings exist in any controlled terminology that permit elimination of such redundancies, which further tax the "cognitive fuel tank" of clinicians. Of course, one has to understand how to utilize these mappings and understand the need to utilize these mappings. The motto of this industry seems to be "let the physicians eat the programmer's dust." (Also note the presence of useless information: "medication use, long term." What is the purpose of this item in the problem list, if not to simply waste a clinician's time skipping over it?) Third: note the diagnosis of "atrial fibrillation," an irregularity of the heart rhythm that if not treated properly can result in strokes and death. This is an important piece of information for the clinician to know. Except, however, when the patient does not have atrial fibrillation. This entry was auto-populated when a nurse ordered a blood clotting test and erroneously entered the reason for the test as "atrial fibrillation" (a common reason, just not the case here) to expedite the order's completion. Voila! Now Mrs. Jones carries this diagnosis, and the next clinician to come along might order her anticoagulated with heparin or coumadin for a history of A. fib, introducing yet more chance of an iatrogenic injury. And I am told it takes going back to the vendor to have this erroneous entry permanently removed. Sheer idiocy! For instance, if the patient moves to a different unit, is discharged and returns to this hospital, or to an outpatient clinic or another hospital branch with this on the record, the chances of a screwup are not insignificant. Fourth, and this is the most incredible, physicians are not supposed to manually populate diagnoses (in a future installment I will show the madness that occurs when they try), nor are they in this particular EHR given an opportunity to verify or abort the auto-population selections. From a medical informatics (and common sense) perspective, that is simply madness. This is cross-occupational piracy. It is computer personnel and hospital executives "stealing" (overriding) physicians' judgment in identifying their patient's problems the way physicians see fit based on their hard-earned expertise. Do the designers, "certifiers" (this system passed CCHIT certification) and corporate purchasers of such systems have any clue about what they are doing? Microsoft seems to "<a href="http://www.mscui.net/DesignGuide/Pdfs/Design%20Guidance%20--%20Displaying%20Graphs%20and%20Tables.pdf">get it</a>!" (PDF) How long will it take the rest of the world? More in Part 4. It gets worse. How about massive screen clutter in some screens (wait until I post the meds list!), and data sparsity and disconnectedness of medically related values in other screens? How about screens that force physicians to use the "finger on screen method" of correlating lab value to test type? -- SS addendum: I am told that some of the vendors with products like this sell products to payers that help the payers deny payments on the basis of detecting diagnoses and problems that don't "match" the documentation in ways they deem appropriate. If that is true, they and their corporate customers are truly using physicians as dupes and patsies, forcing them to use ill-designed IT that both impairs their abilities to practice and facilitates payers in denying (or "floating") payments. <div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVIbmBPGK4yrpVqdAThzvd1krrvfd-kUSHK0jy-C6oajvjfcWxGfRIAUD1uEsKgWhb5LX_s0YZo4YPGE4f3V-DanJXv_0bOGODBjjxShJzrv4yex3MgkL04ErCAoPu8XBzNie6KH5PqLcV/s1600-h/EMROPOLY3.png" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5306525587741129330" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVIbmBPGK4yrpVqdAThzvd1krrvfd-kUSHK0jy-C6oajvjfcWxGfRIAUD1uEsKgWhb5LX_s0YZo4YPGE4f3V-DanJXv_0bOGODBjjxShJzrv4yex3MgkL04ErCAoPu8XBzNie6KH5PqLcV/s320/EMROPOLY3.png" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 320px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 316px;" /></a>EMR-opoly by <a href="http://www.msofficeemrproject.com/Page3.htm" style="font-weight: bold;">Al Borges MD</a>. Click to enlarge. Perhaps says it all about the "EMR game." </div></div></div>

Are Health IT Designers, Testers and PurchasersTrying to Harm Patients? Part 3 of a Series

( Note: Part 1 of this series is here , part 2 is here , part 3 is here , part 4 is here , part 5 is here , part 6 is here , part 7 ...

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Update on Gmail

The Gmail outage that affected many consumers and Google Apps users worldwide is now over. Users should find that they’re able to access their email now without any further problems. Before you can access your Gmail, you may be asked to fill in what’s called a ‘CAPTCHA’ which asks you to type in a word or some letters before you can proceed. This is perfectly normal when you repeatedly request access to your email account, so please do go through the extra step – it’s just to verify you are who you say you are. The outage itself lasted approximately two and a half hours from 9.30am GMT. We know that for many of you this disrupted your working day. We’re really sorry about this, and we did do everything to restore access as soon as we could. Our priority was to get you back up and running. Our engineers are still investigating the root cause of the problem. Obviously we’re never happy when outages occur, but we would like to stress that this is an unusual occurrence. We know how important Gmail is to you, and how much people rely on the service. Thanks again for bearing with us. Posted by Acacio Cruz, Gmail Site Reliability Manager

Update on Gmail

The Gmail outage that affected many consumers and Google Apps users worldwide is now over. Users should find that they’re able to access the...

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Current Gmail outage

Current Gmail outage

If you’ve tried to access your Gmail account today, you are probably aware by now that we’re having some problems. Shortly after 10 9:30am...

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The next chapter for Google.org

(Cross-posted from the <a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://blog.google.org/2009/02/next-chapter-for-googleorg.html">Google.org Blog</a>) When Larry and Sergey <a href="http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1288776/000119312504142742/ds1a.htm">laid out their vision for Google.org</a>, they hoped that this "experiment in active philanthropy" would one day have an even greater impact on the world than Google itself. They committed resources from Google's profits, equity and substantial employee time to this philanthropic effort, and they created the mission: "to use the power of information and technology to address the global challenges of our age." They structured <a href="http://www.google.org/">Google.org</a> so that in addition to traditional grant making, it can also invest in for-profit companies, advocate for policies and, most important, tap into Google's strengths: its employees, products and technologies. At first I was skeptical about "going corporate," but I came on board convinced that Google could make real progress on these issues. I think we have made an excellent beginning, but it is just a very few steps on a long path. Now, three years after Google.org was founded, we've been reviewing our progress, and how best to take things forward. It's clear that I am most effective in helping to identify "big ideas" and potential partners, as well as raising awareness about society's biggest challenges. I am therefore very excited to become Google's Chief Philanthropy Evangelist. I think this is the highest contribution that I can make both to Google.org and to fighting the urgent threats of our day: from climate change to emerging infectious diseases, to issues of poverty and health care. By focusing my energy outwards I hope to be able to spend more time motivating policy makers, encouraging public and private partnerships, and generally advocating for the changes that we must make as a global society to solve these problems. Long-time Googler Megan Smith will take over day-to-day management of Google.org, joining as General Manager to lead us through this transition, in addition to her existing role as Vice President of New Business Development. One of the first things that Megan will focus on is how Google.org can best achieve its mission. During our review it became clear that while we have been able to support some remarkable non-profit organizations over the past three years, our greatest impact has come when we've attacked problems in ways that make the most of Google's strengths in technology and information; examples of this approach include <a href="http://www.google.org/flutrends/">Flu Trends</a>, <a href="http://www.google.org/recharge/">RechargeIT</a>, <a href="http://knol.google.com/k/-/-/15x31uzlqeo5n/1#">Clean Energy 2030</a>, and <a href="http://www.google.org/powermeter/">PowerMeter</a>. By aligning Google.org more closely with Google as a whole, Megan will ensure that we're better able to build innovative, scalable technology and information solutions. As a first step, Google has decided to put even more engineers and technical talent to work on these issues and problems, resources which I have found to be extraordinary. In this global economic crisis, the work Google.org is doing, together with our many colleagues around the world, to help develop cheap clean energy, find and fight disease outbreaks before they sweep the globe, and build information platforms for underserved people globally, is more important than ever. We stand behind the commitment made in 2004 to devote 1% of Google's equity and profits to philanthropy, and we will continue to iterate on our philanthropic model to make sure our resources have the greatest possible impact for good. Posted by Dr. Larry Brilliant, Chief Philanthropy Evangelist, Google.org

The next chapter for Google.org

(Cross-posted from the Google.org Blog ) When Larry and Sergey laid out their vision for Google.org , they hoped that this "experiment...

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Atlantis? No, it Atlant-isn't.

(Cross-posted from the <a href="http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2009/02/atlantis-no-it-atlant-isnt.html">Lat Long Blog</a>) [Note: Last week we saw some interesting speculation that Atlantis had been found in Google Earth. As much as we'd love for that to be the case, there is a scientific explanation for the odd markings found on the seafloor. We've invited two of the scientists who gathered the data that appears in Google Earth to answer some questions that came up. - Ed.] Since the launch of <a href="http://earth.google.com/ocean/">Ocean in Google Earth</a>, millions of people have started to explore the ocean, and many have been surprised by their discoveries. Near Hawaii you can see a new volcanic island in the making called the Loihi Seamount. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlMOhqyS7EiTq4dDEX8pC6o01pV2L36-Re7azkVXOQ2u7Q9v9mww17V-KM-LmnuWeliUZhxSGNYkYCdJU8U0yuQtqu4tQ9_z10GpOwDOFrHLqx4rNDqx8y7nsTL0-oE4MQemB1mGFSFku6/s1600-h/Picture+1.png"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5306123966091568338" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlMOhqyS7EiTq4dDEX8pC6o01pV2L36-Re7azkVXOQ2u7Q9v9mww17V-KM-LmnuWeliUZhxSGNYkYCdJU8U0yuQtqu4tQ9_z10GpOwDOFrHLqx4rNDqx8y7nsTL0-oE4MQemB1mGFSFku6/s400/Picture+1.png" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 292px;" /></a> You can also clearly see the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, an underwater mountain range in the Atlantic Ocean where two tectonic plates are moving away from one another. If you look closely, you can see this ridge connects with others around the globe, forming a nearly continuous mountain range that is over 60,000 kilometers long. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkKesMmSIu8WkJWKyEs3_GAvw8y83BVGL04zMHmH84BrKAFJaJh2VUPQFAsWznnKcKsH6jIBGrjmqO_bm3rtOIke4xeCBnYWt48ip9Ik6pYfZn27d6kjSuZnDJ4T-GREk96Syvzwwr-411/s1600-h/Picture+2.png"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5306124166739954770" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkKesMmSIu8WkJWKyEs3_GAvw8y83BVGL04zMHmH84BrKAFJaJh2VUPQFAsWznnKcKsH6jIBGrjmqO_bm3rtOIke4xeCBnYWt48ip9Ik6pYfZn27d6kjSuZnDJ4T-GREk96Syvzwwr-411/s400/Picture+2.png" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 295px;" /></a> But so far nothing has sparked quite as much interest as this funny looking pattern off the west coast of Africa: <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzDwm-BMbYVWXVH0eQjKVv9DB_t0y1dn-w46Io46MlX61amiBn5uDwmegol58SNAbSf763mjFHe2VV0PMB5dtDrRoYZ2ypGYpvjTGRRO4HowtT7UD0fKBUqQfPVe5k0igcjqxVq0raieRL/s1600-h/Picture+4.png"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5306124443591250626" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzDwm-BMbYVWXVH0eQjKVv9DB_t0y1dn-w46Io46MlX61amiBn5uDwmegol58SNAbSf763mjFHe2VV0PMB5dtDrRoYZ2ypGYpvjTGRRO4HowtT7UD0fKBUqQfPVe5k0igcjqxVq0raieRL/s400/Picture+4.png" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 294px;" /></a> Patterns like this can actually be seen over much of the ocean floor in Google Earth. What is it? Is it real? Why does it look like this? Some have speculated that these are the plow marks of seafloor farming by aliens. If there really are little green men hiding somewhere, the ocean's not a bad place to do it. Mars, Venus, the moon, and even some asteroids are mapped at far higher resolution than our own oceans (the global map of Mars is about 250 times as accurate as the global map of our own ocean). One theory that's gained more traction is that these marks might be the ruins of the lost city of Atlantis. If that were the case, some of the city blocks would have to be over eight miles long - that's about fifty times the size of a city block in New York City (if you zoom in and use the measurement tool in Google Earth, you can do this comparison yourself). So what is it? The scientific explanation is a bit less exotic, but we think it's still pretty interesting: these marks are what we call "ship tracks." You see, it's actually quite hard to measure the depth of the ocean. Sunlight, lasers, and other electromagnetic radiation can travel less than 100 feet below the surface, yet the typical depth in the ocean is more than two and a half miles. Sound waves are more effective. By measuring the time it takes for sound to travel from a ship to the sea floor and back, you can get an idea of how far away the sea floor is. Since this process — known as echosounding — only maps a strip of the sea floor under the ship, the maps it produces often show the path the ship took, hence the "ship tracks." In this case, the soundings produced by a ship are also about 1% deeper than the data we have in surrounding areas — likely an error — making the tracks stand out more. You can see all of the soundings that produced this particular pattern <a href="ftp://topex.ucsd.edu/pub/srtm30_plus/Atlantis_Ship_Tracks.kmz" id="ud.y" title="here">with this KMZ file</a>. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0INHi6qilSxxuNekhVwX0ojvUdo-nj7mVjS8XxBzugzL7_dWIbaF4oVtpAEuBgi0qgmw_tCYVnsuQ0Ysbmvj4dQj0Gk4E2oDX4MimUNL3CtKhIo7vd51wS5EgkCBCDWDLfOW8SrU58DDg/s1600-h/Picture+5.png"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5306124644992813826" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0INHi6qilSxxuNekhVwX0ojvUdo-nj7mVjS8XxBzugzL7_dWIbaF4oVtpAEuBgi0qgmw_tCYVnsuQ0Ysbmvj4dQj0Gk4E2oDX4MimUNL3CtKhIo7vd51wS5EgkCBCDWDLfOW8SrU58DDg/s400/Picture+5.png" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 294px;" /></a> Echosounding with sonar is currently the best method for collecting this kind of data, but it's not perfect. One challenge is that it's quite slow. It has to be done from ships or underwater vehicles, and they can't go very fast or they'll spoil the measurement. As a result, not much of the ocean has been mapped this way, and huge gaps remain all over the ocean. In fact, the typical hole between tracks is about 20,000 square kilometers, or about the size of the state of New Jersey. Now you're probably wondering where the rest of the depth data comes from if there are such big gaps from echosounding. We do our best to predict what the sea floor looks like based on what we can measure much more easily: the water surface. Above large underwater mountains (seamounts), the surface of the ocean is actually higher than in surrounding areas. These seamounts actually increase gravity in the area, which attracts more water and causes sea level to be slightly higher. The changes in water height are measurable using radar on satellites. This allows us to make a best guess as to what the rest of the sea floor looks like, but still at relatively low resolutions (the model predicts the ocean depth about once every 4000 meters). What you see in Google Earth is a combination of both this satellite-based model and real ship tracks from many research cruises (we first <a href="http://topex.ucsd.edu/sandwell/publications/74.pdf" id="hc-s" title="published">published</a> this technique back in 1997). If you zoom in and take a look around the ocean for yourself, you can see higher resolution patches where ships have studied the sea floor and all the places we've still yet to explore. Here's a good example just north of Hawaii: <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi48JZpPX9ywuQudEJdOktXfqqQZvwbKA5iMjtkxWzN3crYTQ9_-4vLaayC5qKc3guiMPJPhBVBxCv-TOyM96Wbe72At6Bto-KNy3PonjZIX_dUC1RuXVfOESfmjRU50W-ouP3QMgbLwkjd/s1600-h/Picture+6.png"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5306124847332192082" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi48JZpPX9ywuQudEJdOktXfqqQZvwbKA5iMjtkxWzN3crYTQ9_-4vLaayC5qKc3guiMPJPhBVBxCv-TOyM96Wbe72At6Bto-KNy3PonjZIX_dUC1RuXVfOESfmjRU50W-ouP3QMgbLwkjd/s400/Picture+6.png" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 292px;" /></a> So, what if we really wanted to find Atlantis? We probably couldn't do it with satellites — man-made structures simply aren't big enough to be measured that way. But we could map the whole ocean using ships. A <a href="http://mp-www.nrl.navy.mil/marine_physics_branch/introduction.htm" id="f:ts" title="a published U.S. Navy study">published U.S. Navy study</a> found that it would take about 200 ship-years, meaning we'd need one ship for 200 years, or 10 ships for 20 years, or 100 ships for two years. It costs about $25,000 per day to operate a ship with the right mapping capability, so 200 ship-years would cost nearly two billion dollars. That may seem like a lot of money, but it's not that far off from the price tag of, say, a new sports stadium. For now, keep exploring the ocean in Google Earth, and continue to share what you discover. It's great to have so many sets of eyes looking at the data currently in Google Earth and asking questions about what it represents. We and our fellow oceanographers are constantly improving the resolution of our seafloor maps, so we promise to work with Google to keep the virtual explorers out there busy. Posted by Walter Smith, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and David Sandwell, Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego

Atlantis? No, it Atlant-isn't.

(Cross-posted from the Lat Long Blog ) [Note: Last week we saw some interesting speculation that Atlantis had been found in Google Earth. As...

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It's Girls Day at Google

Today we're celebrating Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day, or Girls Day, as part of <a href="http://www.eweek.org/Home.aspx">National Engineers Week</a> (E-Week) in the U.S. For the second year in a row, we've partnered with the National Girl Scouts to bring girls to six Google offices around the country, where they'll participate in fun activities designed to educate them about engineering, specifically computer science. Googlers, many of them Google Women Engineers, are hosting the guests of honor and leading workshops covering all kinds of topics, including solar powered energy, image processing and a demo of Google Earth. At the end of the day, all of the participants will receive a limited edition "Introduce a Girl to E-Week" patch that they can add to their Scout sashes. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeUSr4qdIB1Nk9PnYBGnMNoz8017zmYezagDoxcrFX-pt-qoGazsX49btocp78b3cM20J09193ts2pP2O21D0NoKWiaqz2XQt6HYy6oPN7bEro_rf3OTkTLrJ4-Leo9660Q40dg8BZgx_M/s1600-h/IMG_0402.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5304580189807456210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeUSr4qdIB1Nk9PnYBGnMNoz8017zmYezagDoxcrFX-pt-qoGazsX49btocp78b3cM20J09193ts2pP2O21D0NoKWiaqz2XQt6HYy6oPN7bEro_rf3OTkTLrJ4-Leo9660Q40dg8BZgx_M/s400/IMG_0402.jpg" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" /></a><div style="text-align: center;">Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day participants in 2008.</div> Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day is just one important part of E-Week, which was founded by the <a href="http://www.google.com/url?sa=D&q=http://www.nspe.org/PartnersStates/eweek.html">National Society of Professional Engineers</a> (NSPE) and is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. By the end of the week, Google offices will have hosted more than 600 students at events designed to expose them to science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). The students who participate in our E-Week events are from partner organizations that also focus on STEM education for girls, underrepresented minorities, and the economically disadvantaged. Here's hoping each of these students will walk away feeling inspired to pursue studies in these fields. Posted by Demian Caponi, Global Diversity and Talent Inclusion team

It's Girls Day at Google

Today we're celebrating Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day, or Girls Day, as part of National Engineers Week (E-Week) in the U.S. For ...

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