Health

New Smoking Study Suggests Quitting with an Aide Is Just as Ineffective as Cold Turkey

The American people spend $1.5 billion dollars every year on smoking cessation devices. That’s a huge market for a product that’s supposed to work the first time. A forthcoming study suggests that, in the real world, the patch is no “magic bullet.” The 787-person study is set for online publication Monday in the online journal…

Health Andrew Tarantola

This Robot Air Purifier Seeks and Destroys Airborne Impurities

You thought your Roomba was the epitome of automated home maintenance? Its random wandering approach to cleaning the dirt off your floors is downright prehistoric compared to this killbot which actively hunts down and cleans the air in your room. Was someone just secretly smoking in your bathroom? Thanks to on-board sensors Moneual’s Rydis H800…

Health Andrew Liszewski

The Tinke Finds Your Heart Rate Instantly via iPhone

The Tinke sounds small, and it is. But it does something pretty major: plug it into the bottom of your iPhone, press your thumb up against and it, and poof—the beating of your mighty human heart. Who’s this good for? Well it’s too cumbersome to run with, but those of you with an anal attention…

Health Sam Biddle

Genius Scale Only Shows You How Much You’ve Gained Or Lost

When you’re battling the bulge, your bathroom scale can either be your best friend or your worst enemy. So instead of displaying your actual weight, which can be discouraging, this scale only tells you how much you’ve lost or gained. The first time you step on the $78 Quantum scale it registers your weight, but…

Health Andrew Liszewski

The Perfect Cutlery For Your Post-Holiday Guilt

You knew all that over-indulging during the holidays would cost you. But even if it helps you shed the pounds, is anyone really going to pay $140 for this set of weight lifting cutlery? The chromed knife and fork dumbbells each weigh around 2.2 pounds, and just the two of them will set you back…

Health Andrew Liszewski

Gentlemen, You Can Thank This Robotic Arm for Your New Head of Hair

Conventional hair transplant treatments can last eight hours or more. That causes fatigue in even veteran surgeons, and you don’t want a tired doctor plowing for follicles on the back of your head. Luckily, the new ARTAS system can do the heavy hair-pulling. Modern surgical hair transplant techniques used to treat male pattern baldness, as…

Health Andrew Tarantola

Squashing cancer cells makes them migrate

When left untreated, cancer cells begin migrating away from the tumor where they first developed, spreading throughout the body and becoming much deadlier. But what stimulates this migration? A new study suggests that physical cell compression – which occurs when a tumor grows in certain parts of the body, where there is limited room and…

io9 Sophie Bushwick

Zeo Mobile Is a Delight to Sleep With

I’m tired. I’m old and I’m groggy and mentally slow. I don’t get enough exercise, or family time, and I’m sick too often. I don’t perform my best at work, or anywhere else, and I’m grumpy when I don’t mean to be and it’s all largely because I’m so damn tired. Next year, I want…

Reviews Mat Honan

Malaria deaths are down over 25% in the last ten years — but don’t get complacent

In their World Malaria Report 2011, the World Health Organization reports that the number of malaria victims in 2010 numbered just over 650,000 — that’s down from around a million at the turn of the Millennium. According to the New York Times: The biggest gains were made in Africa, where a vast majority of the…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez

12 Santa-Endorsed Smoking Ads

What? Santa’s got a tough job—stuffing oneself down a chimney is no easy feat. And have you ever smelled a reindeer? Worse than a Tauntaun. So when his shift is over, Santa could use a smoke. Our friends at Oobject have assembled 12 of his favorite brands. After you burn through this list, check out…

Health Oobject.com

What Is the Mysterious Nodding Disease Spreading Across Uganda?

It seems like an amusing ailment: the major visible symptom is nodding a lot while you eat. Hell, I know plenty of healthy people that do that. But this new disease is spreading fast in Africa, and claiming lives as it goes. Large swathes of northern Uganda are experiencing an outbreak of a disease currently…

Health Jamie Condliffe

Americans Are So Fat, Washington State Ferries Have to Carry Less of Them

America’s gotten significantly heavier over the past twenty years and we should have seen this coming. First Kevin Smith gets booted off that flight, then that guy sues White Castle for not having plus-sized booths. Now, one of the nation’s largest ferry systems is obligated to carry fewer people on each trip. The rule change…

Health Andrew Tarantola

Hospitals Just Got Less Depressing Thanks to Philips’ Mood Lighting

Positive thinking is an important part of a patient’s recovery, but it’s hard to muster in a place with drab fluorescent lighting. So Philips is hoping to improve the mood of hospital rooms with their color changing HealWell lighting system. In recent years Philips has been really gung-ho on the idea of chromatherapy improving our…

Health Andrew Liszewski

Why is the U.S. government trying to control the contents of scientific journals?

One of the most important duties of a peer-reviewed research journal is to not only feature discoveries at the frontiers of science, but to provide other researchers with the information necessary to build upon said discoveries in a meaningful way. Now, the development of two highly virulent strains of H5N1 — the deadly bird flu…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez

The US Is Trying To Censor Scientific Journals

The US government has approached the scientific journals Nature and Science in order to censor data on a lab-made version of bird flu, because it could potentially be used as a weapon. That’s not cool. According to the Guardian, the US National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB) asked the journals to publish redacted versions…

Health Jamie Condliffe

The Man Who Wore a Maxi Pad and Changed the World

Fast Company weaves an amazing story about Indian inventor Arunachalam Muruganantham, who lost his wife, friends, and, well, almost everything in his quest to build a better sanitary napkin by wearing one himself—along with a goat blood-filled bladder. After learning his wife (along with the overwhelming majority of women in India) couldn’t afford a sanitary…

Health Mat Honan

The Risks (and Benefits) of Donating Your Eggs

Smart? Good genes? Need Money? You’ve probably seen the advertisements in campus magazines, and fliers nailed to trees, offering thousands of dollars to women who are willing to donate their eggs. But is it worth doing? For example, is egg donation painful? What are the long term effects? And just how much money can you…

io9 Keith Veronese

Should there be E. coli warnings on cookie dough packages?

Today I received the worst news a stay-at-home writer can get. There is a threat of Escherichia coli in our unbaked cookie dough. An investigation into a 2009 outbreak of E. coli turned up ready-to-bake cookie dough, eaten raw, as the culprit. And the CDC believes steps need to be taken to keep it from…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell

Shift work linked to type 2 diabetes

Rotating shift work is remarkably unpleasant. The frequent changes from day to night work have previously been linked to cancer and heart problems, and new research has shown that it also can cause an increased risk of type 2 diabetes in women. This discovery applies to those poor, unfortunate souls who have to switch between…

io9 Tim Barribeau

New “whole body cryotherapy” treatment exposes you to -166°F air

How cold of a temperature do you think you can survive exposure to? 0°F? -20°F? -50°F? How about -166°F, and you do it intentionally? A group of French scientists studied various ways that people recover after intensive workouts, including whole body cryotherapy, which sounds like something out of Futurama. Tested on a group of experienced…

io9 Tim Barribeau

New Smoking Study Suggests Quitting with an Aide Is Just as Ineffective as Cold Turkey

This Robot Air Purifier Seeks and Destroys Airborne Impurities

The Tinke Finds Your Heart Rate Instantly via iPhone

Genius Scale Only Shows You How Much You’ve Gained Or Lost

The Perfect Cutlery For Your Post-Holiday Guilt

Gentlemen, You Can Thank This Robotic Arm for Your New Head of Hair

Squashing cancer cells makes them migrate

Zeo Mobile Is a Delight to Sleep With

Malaria deaths are down over 25% in the last ten years — but don’t get complacent

12 Santa-Endorsed Smoking Ads

What Is the Mysterious Nodding Disease Spreading Across Uganda?

Americans Are So Fat, Washington State Ferries Have to Carry Less of Them

Hospitals Just Got Less Depressing Thanks to Philips’ Mood Lighting

Why is the U.S. government trying to control the contents of scientific journals?

The US Is Trying To Censor Scientific Journals

The Man Who Wore a Maxi Pad and Changed the World

The Risks (and Benefits) of Donating Your Eggs

Should there be E. coli warnings on cookie dough packages?

Shift work linked to type 2 diabetes

New “whole body cryotherapy” treatment exposes you to -166°F air

Do ‘Disclosure Day’ Prep With a Spielberg Sci-Fi Marathon

How to Watch the F1 Japanese GP 2026 on a Free Channel

Ranking 2016’s Superhero Debuts, 10 Years Later

Fourth Most Populous Country in the World Bans Most Social Media for Kids

How to watch UFC Fight Night Adesanya vs Pyfer live this Saturday

‘Steel Ball Run’ Will Return This Year…Eventually

‘The Mummy 4’ Is Getting the Family Back Together

JD Vance Says UFOs Are Actually Demons

Sonos Play Review: Call It a Comeback

Sonos Era 100 SL Review: The Cheapest Way Into Wired Sonos Sound

Asus ROG’s Massive Swift OLED Gaming Monitor Epitomizes Excess in the Best Way

The Ikea Varmblixt Smart Lamp Fills a Donut Hole in My Life

Nothing Headphone A vs. Headphone 1: Which Pair of ANC Wireless Headphones Wins?

Asus ROG’s Cetra Open Wireless Gaming Earbuds Might Be Better Than Wearing a Headset

Nintendo’s Talking Flower Is Annoying as Hell. I Love It

Level Lock Pro Review: As Good as a Secret Smart Lock Gets

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