Views 2013
December 15, 2013: From Cyber Zombiness to Ambient Awareness Dr. Phlox, the Enterprise surgeon, responded to the comment about movies (aka stories unfold on the screen) by answering: "Well, we had something similar a few hundred years ago, but they lost their appeal when people discovered their real lives were more interesting." At this stage of our evolution, virtual characters and screens are taking over our lives. ...
November 4, 2013: Keeping Pollutants Out with Exercise Food, drugs, air and everyday products like soap, cloth and grocery receipts are polluting our bodies with hundreds of toxic chemicals. New chemicals are constantly being introduced into our environment and the effects of most of them on human health are not known. About 30% of human diseases are due to environmental exposures as genetics is not the whole story ...
October 29, 2013: IBS: pity, compassion and discrimination The effects of IBS on quality of life may be more substantial than those of many other chronic diseases. It affects school, work and life, putting the sufferers at risk for social isolation. ...
October 20, 2013: Are You What You Read or Do You Read What You Are? The environment plays a significant role in our health. We are exposed to multiple physical, chemical and biological challenges, including information - like news and gossip stories related to health and wellness. How exactly is it affecting us?...
September 11, 2013: Asthma in September Asthma sufferers know that when it rains it spores - as fungi and mold get moving through the air. But many don't realize that the most dangerous month for children's asthma symptoms is dry September. A study of hospital data found the spike in admissions in two to three weeks after the return to school. It happens in the United States, the United Kingdom, Mexico, Israel, Finland, Trinidad, and Canada...
September 7, 2013: Body odor and skin bacteria Our bodies are rainforests of microbes feeding off the leftovers from our meals and contributing to a variety of body odors. Human skin is inhabited and re-populated depending on health conditions, age, genetics, diet, the weather and climate zones, occupations, cosmetics, soaps, hygienic products and moisturizers. All these factors contribute to the variation in the types of microbes...
August 18, 2013: Building 23rd century tricorder in the 21st The $10 million Qualcomm Tricorder X Prize and $2.25 million Nokia Sensing Challenges are trying to identify the best portable technologies for diagnosing disease - as easily as Dr. McCoy's tricorder of the 23rd Century could. What scientific knowledge could help us to develop it in this age? Detecting metabolites, sensing DNA, imaging the nanoworld of the human body or interaction between matter and energy?,,,
July 4, 2013: The hazards of working nights: from breasts and beyond The jury is still out whether Angelina's choice is brave or fearful, but the fact remains: having or not having the "bad" genes is not enough to develop or avoid developing breast cancer,.,
June 28, 2013: I Know What You Ate This Summer Despite active foodstagramming and foodteresting, and eagerness to show pictures of meals and diet reports to friends on social media, we don't really want others to know everything we eat. But they might know anyway...
June 13, 2013: Putting the social back.. and forth In 2009, it looked like both Search and Social bubbles were bursting. But Social Digital era has only just begun...
June 9, 2013: Is Your Work Giving you IBS? All jobs come with health risks. Some risks are obvious in the short-term, others seem very minor but with plenty of negative long-term consequences. Such as weight gain or irritable bowel syndrome...
June 6, 2013: When it Smells Like Team Spirit Why do we connect and collaborate, deciding to "walk in the light of creative altruism" instead of the "darkness of destructive selfishness"? Is it because of subtle behavioral clues that make us "click" and consider the other person a part of the group? Or is it because it smells like team spirit? It very well might be. We (literally) smell love, victory, fear, along with chemicals that motivate us to cooperate. As was recently shown in double-blind placebo-controlled studies that quantitatively measured generosity and cooperation...
May 14, 2013: Coffee: Bugs and Debugging Coffee can bug or de-bug you - in many different ways. It can actually energize your gut bugs. Nestle researchers showed that for sixteen healthy adult volunteers consuming a daily dose of 3 cups of coffee during 3 weeks. This led to an increase of the metabolic activity and/or numbers of Bifidobacterium species, important probiotics in the food industry...
May 1, 2013: Inhale and feel it with your heart All you need is love. Or failing that chocolate. And not only because dark chocolate could lower the risk of heart disease, blood pressure and sugar levels. As Dr. Schieberle's team recently discovered that heart could sense and enjoy the sweet smell of chocolate too. When they put small odor-emitting molecules from chocolate on one side of a dish, cells actually moved towards the aroma...
March 18, 2013: Blood and Taxes Nothing is certain, but blood pressure does increase in the end of winter and beginning of spring. According to Aurametrix users and google statistics. As a matter of fact, it highly correlates with tax fever - as found by Google Correlate algorithm comparing millions of web queries...
February 9, 2013: Will you get the flu this season? Worst of flu season may be over. But you can still catch a chill. If you shake hands with lots of sick people, for example. Or don't keep sufficiently warm. Yes, your mother has told you, and you thought it was just an old wives' tale, but it wasn't.
February 7, 2013: Big Data of Sounds Hearing begins with the ears, but it's more than the sum of sounds. We are able to recognize piano notes and experience music, understand speech in noisy surroundings and localize voice in 3D.
January 31, 2013: Odors and Infections Many illnesses are associated with distinct odors. Especially those caused by infectious or opportunistic microbes inside the body or on its surfaces. Body odor of someone infected with C. difficile, for example, can appear "swampy", Rotavirus gives sharply sweet putrid smell that some people associate with wet dogs, H. pylori can create a range of foul odors, and pseudomonas infections can smell like grapes and bitter almonds.