40 karma · joined March 14, 2018
I'm using Chrome, with only uBlock Origin Lite but disabling it ~shows no change~ appears to allow it to work.
Looking at the requests with uBOL disabled, app.68194690.js and 5.5caaec0f.js both returned 404, everything else returned 200/202.
and with uBOL enabled https://plausible.hey.si/js/script.hash.outbound-links.js shows as blocked. maybe that's the issue?
though I agree that it is odd to see, and not sure I see a reason why they wouldn't use 3.14159265358979323846
the images on the page are all just base64 encoded right into the html
EDIT: And my favorite part is the first step the Siemens machines they used for testing is to "dilute" the part of the sample it is going to use (addition of DI water, to get the blood to the desired concentration). That is hard-coded into the protocol, with a specific dilution amount, and it is done for all the official Siemens tests, as well, hah.
It's a lot faster to iterate if you have in-house machining and molding; you can get parts made or modified in <day vs weeks with an outside shop. You can also work closer with the machinists to iron out challenges.
1. Ok, so that can still be done with small samples, it's just a matter of collecting enough. The link I gave showed 15 tests in 30ul of sample. So, 60ul would be enough for your 30 tests. The amount used per test (for many many tests) is still very small compared to the amount drawn.
2. I imagine if a tube is dropped and some sample is lost they consider the whole sample lost. Since if sample got out that also means that stuff can get in, possibly contaminating it. The poor customer experience of having to go back in to be re-drawn is a poor business choice, but again, not a technical hurdle with being able to perform tests. Having enough sample for re-testing a week later is also just a matter of collecting sufficient sample. So, you would need 120+ul of sample (from previous example of 30 tests) to meet that requirement (plus some amount for loss in equipment, etc). But, it is still a far cry from the 2000+ul typically drawn.
3. You actually often have more than 2 drawn, since each tube has a different kind (if any) anticoagulant and if they get sent to different labs they may need duplicates of the same anti-coagulant. This also doesn't have anything to do with the size of the sample required for a test. So, you can collect a bunch of small samples instead of bigger samples. That's not a technical hurdle for being able to perform a test on a small volume of blood.
But, the wording of the parent comment was saying that it was supposedly clearly technically impossible because of the small sample size. The OP said "I just never, ever understood how the sampling rate could ever work" and "and this should've been screamingly obvious to everyone since the beginning." That seems very different from "this is a very hard problem due to X, Y, and Z", especially since commercial machines that everyone here gets blood results from are already only taking small samples from the collected vials so the biggest challenge just seems to be in the collection and transport.
I agree that everything is easier with a bigger collection size, however "hard" is different from impossible.
See Siemens Advia 1800 specs under "Microvolume Technology" https://www.healthcare.siemens.com/clinical-chemistry/system...
It only uses 30ul of sample to run up to 15 assays.
How is that any different from what Theranos was doing?
Only difference is that you collect a bigger vial when using the Siemens machine. And then don't use most of it. So why not collect a smaller vial?
Theranos was previously in 1601 California Ave (the old Facebook building), which was previously HP/Agilent.