Kiro Bechay

Radiology resident at UCLA / Coptic ☦️🇪🇬 / Work Hard and Be Kind

[Francis Deng, MD @francisdeng]

The only thing worse than reading inpatient progress notes is reading long op notes for what I want to know as a radiologist. Now I can query a chatbot to generate the answer within the chart and it is amazing.
(@HeyEpic Ask Art)

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

Our second product is called Blindsight and it will, as the name suggests, enable even those who are completely blind or have never seen to see.

It is ready from an engineering standpoint. Just waiting on regulatory approval.

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

Neuralink’s first product is called Telepathy.

It enables high-speed communication with computers or humans simply by thinking. Output bandwidth will vastly exceed the fastest human speech or typing in a few years. Read that sentence again.

[Dr. Jon Slotkin @slotkinjr]

As a neurosurgeon I care a lot about road safety.

By now you’ve probably seen @Waymo’s stunning safety results (like 91% fewer serious crashes). But they didn’t just publish data headlines. They released the raw CSV files and data dictionaries.
I did a much deeper analysis. A fascinating story emerges when you analyze how they’re achieving this.

This isn’t incremental improvement - it’s categorical. We’re looking at the potential elimination of traffic deaths as a leading cause of mortality.

The intersection breakthrough: Waymo has essentially solved intersection crashes, with 95% fewer injury incidents than human drivers in the same locations. That’s transforming the deadliest driving scenario.

The national math: If every US vehicle performed like Waymo, we’d prevent 33,000-39,000 deaths annually and save $0.9-1.25 trillion in societal costs. Even partial adoption at 27% would save ~10,000 lives per year. In terms of magnitude, this would be the equivalent of eliminating every pedestrian death nationally in a year.

The physics signature: Here’s what fascinates me: 47% of Waymo’s contacts involve less than 1 mph delta-V. They’re not just avoiding crashes; they’re converting unavoidable incidents into gentle bumps. It’s like having physics itself on your side.

We’re not talking about marginal safety gains. The data represents a fundamental shift from harm reduction to harm prevention.

The methodology matters: I used their dynamic geographic benchmarks (comparing like-for-like road conditions) and verified the findings hold across San Francisco, Phoenix, LA, and Austin. The safety advantage actually increases in more complex urban environments.

Link to raw data below….

Notes on my approach:

Analysis based on 96 million miles of Waymo Rider-Only (RO) data through June 2025, utilizing Waymo's dynamic geographic benchmarks to compare Waymo Driver performance against human drivers under similar road conditions and operational design domains.

The projections for national impact (deaths prevented, societal costs) involve several assumptions. Given Waymo's zero reported fatalities, the direct serious injury reductions were mapped to national fatality statistics using established NHTSA-derived ratios that correlate serious injury crash rates with fatality rates. This extrapolation assumes that Waymo's observed serious injury prevention capability would translate proportionally to fatality prevention. Societal cost savings are estimated by applying average per-fatality and per-injury economic costs (e.g., medical, lost productivity, quality of life) as published by NHTSA, scaling these national averages to the projected number of avoided fatalities and injuries based on Waymo's safety performance. These figures represent the potential annual impact if the Waymo Driver's safety profile were widely integrated into the national fleet.

@ethanteicher

[Kiro Bechay @kirobechay]

@elonmusk The cybertruck or the giant death robots?

[Lea Alhilali, MD @teachplaygrub]

Time to go with the flow!

Knowing vascular anatomy is the first step to reading any angiogram

These are the key vessels you need to know!

Then I always remember to check for pathology using the mnemonic ANGIO to remind me what to look for:

A = aneurysms, arteriovenous malformations
N = Narrowing (atherosclerotic narrowing)
G = Globules (globular or beaded appearance in vasculitis or RCVS)
I = Irregularity/dissction
O = Occlusion (large vessel occlusion for endovascular)

So now you know the anatomy & pathology to look for angiographic studies!

Remember, there are MANY numbering systems for the carotid. This is just one—so always say the name of the segment and not the number. You never know what numbering system the person reading it uses!!!

Hopefully, now you will never have to circle back on a study of the circle of Willis!!

[U.S. Department of Labor @USDOL]

Check this out…👀

Carmelo Castle became the first high schooler in TEXAS HISTORY to complete the state plumbing examination.

At just 18, he’s now working as a tradesman for Local 68 Plumbing 🔥🔥

[Kiro Bechay @kirobechay]

@realEstateTrent Look up its sensitivity for each cancer it’s testing for- that’s what you want for a good screening test. False positives (specificity) actually matters less for a screening tool

[Kiro Bechay @kirobechay]

@tedfrank @realEstateTrent If the test is highly sensitive then it is a good screener. Meaning if it’s negative and you can really rule out cancer, it’s still very useful.

False positives have to do with specificity, and not as important for a screening test

[Lucina Uddin @LucinaUddin]

NSF and NIH suspend grants to UCLA | Science | AAAS https://t.co/9ip9ERJtKG

[Kiro Bechay @kirobechay]

@Rad_Partners This is exciting- I hope your rollout goes well

[The Innovation | Medicine @Innov_Medicine]

This is the clearest MRI of a pregnancy ever recorded

[Kiro Bechay @kirobechay]

@tomoxl A Thousand Brains is a terrific read! Very elegant

[Thomas Oxley @tomoxl]

We can’t say we don’t know how the brain works anymore after Jeff Hawkins’ latest book. He’s basically delivered a unified theory that seem so obvious. We are just prediction machines building incremental models across domains of experience. That’s it. Simple and beautiful

[The New York Times @nytimes]

A Black professor who studies housing discrimination had his house appraised: $472,000. He then did a “whitewashing experiment,” removing indications of Blackness, and had a white colleague — another professor — stand in. The appraisal? $750,000. https://t.co/KV4Fe1hHHT

[Michael 英泉 Eisen @mbeisen]

great 24 hours for @berkeleyMCB

Kathy Collins received an NIH Pioneer award https://t.co/rqLl23893G

Polina Lishko was named a MacArthur Fellow
https://t.co/WvuZpATOHH

Jennifer Doudna won some strange Swedish prize
https://t.co/ANDeMF1QS3

[Kiro Bechay @kirobechay]

@jmitry Lmao 🙈🙈🙈

[Kiro Bechay @kirobechay]

@jmitry

[Kiro Bechay @kirobechay]

@pulte $tinasaad6

[Neuroskeptic 🇺🇦 @Neuro_Skeptic]

According to free energy theory, the brain exists to predict stimuli and thus minimize surprise. In other words, brains try to make life as boring as possible.