Health

Taking Google Out of Glass Makes It Perfect for Hospitals

Google Glass might get you suspicious looks in a restaurant, but it could save your life on the operating table. Google has a lot of work to do to make Glass something we want to wear. It’s pricy. It’s dorky as shit. The privacy implications freak people out, with good reason. But there’s one place…

One Doctor Is Betting a Scientific Formula Can Fix How Medicine Works

Here’s a startling fact: Doctors sometimes prescribe treatment just to cover their own asses. Or due to tradition or outdated training or even a simple little hunch. But it doesn’t have to be that way, and David Newman is the doctor trying to bring us a better future. Wired published a profile on the New…

Pick Up Your Dog’s Poo. It’s Important for Public Health!

You’re supposed to pick up after your dog. You know this. Everybody does. But it’s late and you’re tired and Fido just left a particularly nasty looking pile. Nobody’s looking. Just leave it there. What’s the worst that can happen? Infection with a zoonotic disease, that’s what. At least, that’s according to US Environmental Protection…

Medicine, As You Know It, Is Younger Than You Probably Realize

This week, the bloggers at science-salon The Last Word on Nothing are dishing out stories based on scary issues in medicine. “We won’t resort to fear mongering, because we don’t have to,” the site reads. “Medicine is scary enough as it is.” Above: Danse macabre by Michael Wolgemut / Public Domain Case in point: The…

This Stress-Sensing Fitness Tracker Won the Nation’s Top Design Award

The National Design Awards were last night in New York, where 20 products were vying to be named the country’s best. The winner, chosen by public voting, was a fitness tracker called Spire, which claims to keep tabs on your overall well-being by measuring heart rate and breathing patterns to monitor stress. Spire was designed…

Did Scientists Just Develop A Viable Cure For Type 1 Diabetes?

In what’s being called one of the most important advances to date in the field, researchers at Harvard have used stem cells to create insulin-producing beta cells in large quantities. Human transplantation trials could only be a few years away. Above: human-stem-cell derived beta cells. (Douglas Melton) By using human embryonic stem cells, a research…

Should You Really Be Blowing Your Nose Like That?

Your options are to blow or to snort ‘n swallow. Unless you prefer to let the snot just sort of dribble out and pool in your philtrum, giving your upper lip a damp, sickly glisten. Which, no – what are you, seven? It’s time you learned to get rid of mucus like a well-informed adult.…

Life expectancy in the U.S. has never been higher. Americans born in 2012 can expect to live for 78.8 years (up 0.1 from 2011). But the gender gap hasn’t changed; life expectancy for men is 76.4 years and 81.2 for women. From 2011-12, death rates declined for 8 of 10 leading causes, but suicides increased…

What You Need To Know About Ear Wax

What it is, why it’s there, and why q-tips are a bad idea. Photo Credit: Travis Isaacs | CC BY 2.0. Ear wax, or cerumen, is a naturally occurring substance produced in the ears of many mammals, including humans. Despite popular beliefs about its uncleanliness, it helps keep our ears clean by filtering dust, debris,…

Sexting May Be A ‘Normal’ Part Of Adolescent Sexual Development

The first study to examine the link between sexting and sexual activity over time has found no relationship between sexting and an increased likelihood of risky sexual behavior in adolescents. The researchers behind the study offer that sexting may constitute a “normal” part of sexual development. In the past, the link between sexting and risky…

What Are Artificial Sweeteners Really Doing to Our Bodies?

They’re what stimulate your sweet tooth without adding girth to your waistline; they give diet colas and sugar-free snacks a saccharine kick without the consequences. At least that’s the idea. But these sweeteners have been the subject of hoaxes and misinformation for years, slowly discrediting their wondrous health claims. Can you really, as Dr. Susan…

Read Carl Sagan’s Compelling Pitch For An American TV Show About Drugs

The release of previously unpublished correspondence reveals that, in 1990, Carl Sagan sent a letter to the president of the Drug Policy Foundation with an idea for what, even today, sounds like an amazing television program about drug issues in America. It is now widely recognizedthat Sagan, while he was alive, not only smoked marijuana,…

These Thermometers Make an Unreliable Birth Control Method Less Sketchy

Women have been manually tracking their cycles for centuries. You’ve likely heard the terms “rhythm method” or “natural family planning” from older generations; today, it’s the more scientifically informed “fertility awareness.” But as far as birth control options go, monitoring certain health cues to help women avoid getting pregnant still gets a bad rap—mostly because…

From AIDS to Ebola, Why Is Global Health Security Failing?

Amid news that the number of Ebola cases had reached more than 6,000 in West Africa, public health and international security experts from around the world gathered in Washington, DC last week for a candid discussion of how the global community failed to contain the disease—and what lessons still needed to be learned. Science writer…

A Medical First: Woman Successfully Gives Birth With A Donated Womb

For the first time in history, a woman has given birth to a baby after receiving a womb transplant. The mother and child, both of whom are said to be doing well, offer hope to women the world over with missing or non-functional uteruses who desire to carry their own children to term. Above: The…

Researchers Have Identified The Origin Of The AIDS Pandemic

An international team of researchers has traced the “epidemic ignition” of HIV/AIDS to 1920s Kinshasa, what is now the capital city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Research findings published in the latest issue ofScience trace the origins of the outbreak to Kinshasa in the 1920s, where epidemiologists believe it emerged from a “perfect…

How Do Your Drinking Habits Compare To The Rest Of The Country’s?

If you have two drinks a day, you’re only in the top 20% of of American adults in terms of per-capita alcohol consumption. This chart from Wonkblog’s Christopher Ingraham pretty much speaks for itself, but this figure still made me do a double take: …in order to break into the top 10 percent of American…

In 2003, half the mercury in U.S. wastewater came from your dentist

Despite how often mercury is commercially employed throughout the U.S., the primary source of mercury pollution in our water supply comes not from heavy industry but rather from a far more dreaded source: your dentist. And the EPA is finally about to do something about it. According to a scathing report published on September 25,…

Reuters: Facebook Is Working on Its Own Healthcare Services

Facebook already knows the most intricate of details about your life—but now, according to Reuters, it has plans to monitor your health, too. The newswire reports that Facebook, not far behind Google andApple, has started working on its own take on digital healthcare. Three people “familiar with the matter” claims that Zuckerberg & Co. are…

Would You Swallow a Pill Covered in Needles Instead of Getting a Shot?

After the first shudder, it sounds even more terrifying: a pill coated with tiny needles that injects you from the inside of your intestine. But the scientists at MIT and Massachusetts General Hospital who developed the capsule say that these swallowable microneedles could be a new (and painless!) way to deliver drugs. No more shots!…