Health

Moov Might Be the Most Advanced Fitness Wearable Yet

As you may have noticed, there are a million activity trackers out there right now. Most of them are glorified pedometers. The upper tier add altimeters, heart rate monitors, and sleep-tracking to the equation. But what if you don’t just want to be reminded to work out—you want to work out better, safer, and more…

A nutritional label that shows the serving sizes we’re really eating

The labels on the back of your food are about to get an update. The big change? Making serving sizes that reflect how people actually eat. The new label proposed today by the FDA has a couple new features on it: the print for the calorie counts and serving sizes is larger, nutrient totals are…

The FDA’s New Nutrition Labels Might Actually Help You Eat Right

The FDA has proposed a new design for the Nutrition Facts labels that come on all the food we eat—and they’re way, way better than before. It’s the first time in 20 years that the labels have received a refresh, and they’re designed to align better with the way Americans eat today. The result is…

The Truth About Aspartame and Your Health

A quick online search of Aspartame will provide you with numerous opinions about this artificial sweetener. Some claim it causes things like cancer, seizures, multiple sclerosis, lupus, memory problems and brain tumors. Just about every governmental organization in the world, regulating food products, have deemed it safe for human consumption. (But, you know, just about…

Selfies Have Led to a Head Lice Epidemic

Selfies are so fun. You’ve got your cool background—ideally, a sun-soaked beach or a compelling urban environment—and you’ve got your cool friends. Ideally lots of them. Just flip that phone around, put your heads together, smile, and watch those Instagram likes roll in for hours. But it’s too good to be true, folks. Selfies are…

Whole milk may actually be best for you

Two recent studies (here, here) support the paradoxical idea that consumption of full-fat dairy products is correlated with a lower risk of developing central obesity. Photo Credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images | A customer shops for milk at a Safeway in Livermore, California | Via NPR Over at New Scientist, Jon White spoke with Walter Willett…

Scientists Turn Off Pain Using Nothing But Light

Pain is a hard problem. Sure, we can throw a little morphine at pain in the short term, but researchers continue to struggle with solutions for chronic pain. New research from Stanford’s futuristic Bio-X lab looks like a light at the end of the tunnel—literally! Put simply, a team of scientists has developed a way…

An Amazing Village Designed Just For People With Dementia

Centuries after Shakespeare wrote about King Lear’s symptoms, there’s still no perfect way to care for sufferers of dementia and Alzheimer’s. In the Netherlands, however, a radical idea is being tested: Self-contained “villages” where people with dementia shop, cook, and live together—safely. We, as a population, are aging rapidly. According to the Alzheimer’s Association, one…

An overwhelming majority of doctors and nurses think they don’t know enough about old people’s sex habits. In a recent survey, just 3% of U.S. nurses and primary care physicians felt they had adequate knowledge of older adult sexuality. (In case you had any doubts: yes, they’re having sex. And not always safely.) H/t Zhana…

California might start putting warning labels on soda

Should your soda come with a warning label? In California, it could soon — just like on the back of a pack of cigarettes. The bill was proposed by state senator Bill Monning, and would add the tag “STATE OF CALIFORNIA SAFETY WARNING: Drinking beverages with added sugar(s) contributes to obesity, diabetes, and tooth decay”…

This Miniature Fishing Rod Catches and Kills Brain Cancer

You won’t be able to catch your supper with this fishing rod—because at just 6 millimetres long, it’s designed to catch and kill cancers before they aggressively attack the brain. Created from a length of polymer lined with 10 micrometer-thick film that mimics the shape of nerves and blood vessels, the rods trick glioblastoma cancer…

Report: Apple Is Working on Medical Devices, Mulling Cars

A report from the San Francisco Chronicle suggests that Apple is working to develop new product lines—including medical devices and cars The newspaper is light on detail, but does describe how , according to their sources, Cook & Co. are working with with audio engineer Tomlinson Holman—who invented THX and 10.2 surround sound—to develop a…

Here are five health supplements that actually have a scientific basis

We’ve heard a lot about how vitamins and health supplements are basically the modern-day equivalent of snake oil. But there are a very small number of them that medical studies suggest can actually help your health. Over at Smithsonian, Joseph Stromberg has an article about the few supplements you can buy from that helpfully-alphabetized display…

Clever New Clothes To Protect You From Germs On The Subway

The news that measles might be spreading through San Francisco’s BART network not only triggered a warning from the transit authority itself, it is also a particularly alarming reminder that public transportation can be, well, disgusting. Winter’s runny noses, summer’s sweat, spring’s sneezing allergies—it doesn’t really matter the season. When you ride the bus or…

Why Do We Get Headaches?

From dull tension headaches to crippling migraines, sometimes your cranium can feel crippled. But what causes all those headaches? You might not know that the brain itself can’t actually feel pain. Instead, headaches are usually the result of muscle tension or blood flow in the head—and this video explains how and why those both happen.…

Need a Fecal Transplant? There’s a Poop Bank For That

By now, you’ve probably heard of the miracle that is the fecal transplant. When antibiotics become useless against infections by the nasty bacterium Clostrium difficile, a slurry of human feces—full of “good” bacteria—piped into the gut can fix things up quick and cheap. The problem has always been a reliable source of poop. Enter OpenBiome,…

Does Stretching Before Exercise Actually Help?

Everyone tells us to stretch before exercise, but does it actually help improve performance and recovery? Turns out that it depends on the type of sport—and the person. Some sports, like figure skating or snowboarding, benefit from a good limbering up; those that use explosive muscle power, like the bobsleigh, are hindered. Either way, there’s…

Why Do We Cry?

Whether you’re happy to admit it or not, from time to time we all cry. But how? Why? And are all tears the same? In fact, no! You might be surprised to find out that there are in fact three different kinds of tears: basal, emotional and onion… no, just kidding, the final one is…

How Does the Human Body Create Electricity?

The human body is just a bunch of humble biological compounds, strung together to form cells and, ultimately, you. So how the hell does it create electricity? Good question! Thing is, while it’s easy to think of electricity as batteries and power outlets, on the small scale the only thing you need to create electricity…

Lead a Better Life by Obsessively Tracking Every Aspect of It

Blame the RPG’s. After a generation of character building and class development in video games, quantifying our own personal stats has become as second nature as Second Life. And with these handy apps and gadgets at your disposal, you’ll be power leveling through your days in no time. Fitness Trackers Keeping tabs on your relative…