Fresh back from vacation, I’m glad to bring you a round up of the most interesting (per me) recent articles from a favorite site of ours (mine), MedGadget.
Panty-Hose as a Caffeine Delivery System
Acupressure/Acupuncture Enabled Clothing for Athletes and Dieters
The Zero Tension Ergonomic Mouse for RSI Sufferers
Portable Device to Treat Migraines, Schizophrenia and Depression?
Add comment June 26th, 2006
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before… (as the old joke goes). We’re a little behind this week (see previous post What to do if You Are In a Car Crash), but Wired reports (along with everyone else at this point - hat tip to BoingBoing- that some folks are getting magnets surgically embedded in their fingertips and developing a sixth, electro-magnetic sense.
The new sense apparently allows the implantees to sense proximity to electrical fields and magnetic sources.
From the article:
“Body-mod artists Jesse Jarrell and Steve Haworth’s original idea was to implant a magnet to carry metal gadgets. It turns out that doesn’t work: If you try to carry something magnetic on your implant regularly, the pinched skin between the magnets dies and your body rejects the implant. But they came up with a new application when a mutual friend suffered an accident that left a shard of iron in his finger. He worked with audio equipment, and found that he could tell which speakers were magnetized from the sensation that passed through his finger at close range.”
Read more:
A Sixth Sense for a Wired World [Wired]
Add comment June 15th, 2006
We’ve had a lot of messages from readers and other friends. Just to let you all know, yes Eve and I were in a car crash, but we are both OK(ish). I am recovering from a minor concussion and eve has some neck pain and nausea, but we are both coming along nicely. The car… not so much!
To stay on topic, here is some advice if you are fully insured and suffer a major car accident. The police will offer you an ambulance. Take that offer, even if you are not feeling injured. The pain can show up a few hours (or days!) later, after the adrenaline/shock subside, but if you drive yourself to the ER (even at a good hospital) you can expect to wait many, many hours.
Also: if you do seek medical help under your own steam, cut to the chase. Do not go to “prompt care” or “Urgent care”… go straight to the ER. We went to prompt care and waited to be seen, were seen, waited some more and then were told to go to the ER for a CAT scan.
And then… well, see paragraph two to get the idea.
1 comment June 14th, 2006
Jeremy Zawodny of Yahoo (and Linux Magazine) has developed a weight loss technique that is centered around statistics gathering and documenting via a spreadsheet. He documents this at length on his blog, where you can download a copy of his spreadsheet. If you like, you could create your own at Google Spreadsheets.
Congratulations to Jeremy for his success so far, and for creating a great resource!
EDIT: Oops! Sorry about the broken link to Google Spreadsheets!
Add comment June 9th, 2006
Self-experimental dieting does not begin and end with Seth Roberts, it seems. MetaFilter points us toward the blog of AngryMan, who is video blogging his experiment with a diet comprised entirely of a pelletized, “nutritionally complete” primate food product. That’s for primates, not made of them. The food? Monkey Chow.
I happen to be familiar with this stuff because I worked with animals many years ago. We used to feed Purina Monkey Chow soaked in water to ailing birds and as a supplemental treat for rats. Monkey chow pellets are about the size of a small charcoal briquette, beige in color, surprisingly light and even more porous than a pumice stone. The brand AngryMan is using is ZuPreem, but I’d bet it is similar.
AngryMan is taking a somewhat tongue-in-cheek attitude about this, but apparently the main things he’s noticed are a pronounced craving for meat and a worsening of the aroma of his, um, movements.
Read/View more:
Add comment June 8th, 2006
Reader Jacob sent us a link to an article he has posted at mind-energy.net. In the post he details what is basically a series of accupressure techniques which are useful for alleviating congested or running nasal passages.
Interestingly, in an email he states that the techniques were passed down to him from his grandmother through his father, so at least three generations of his family have used these techniques, perhaps more.
Read more for steps and illustrations:
Get rid of stuffed or running nose without drugs [mind-energy.net]
2 comments June 7th, 2006
I’m going to try something a bit tricky this week. Tricky because it involves posting YouTube videos, which WordPress has been only selectively working with of late…
In perusing YouTube for health-related content, I stumbled upon a wealth of kids who have made video presentations of their school health class projects. Most are not High Art, but some are quite good (if a bit goofy) encapsulations of interesting health topics.
Today we have Phobias, by a young lady known as BlackberrySage, hailing from Sleepy Eye, Minnesota. Since she lists her current age as 20, I’m assuming the film is a few years old. The film is broken into three parts: a brief lecture on the topic (the meatiest part), a goofy section where certain phobias are acted out, and finally an uber goofy segment featuring bloopers. Obviously Blackie and her friends had a great time making this film!
Enjoy:
EDIT: Can’t get embedded video formating properly today, so here’s the link instead:
Phobias by Blackie and friends
Add comment June 5th, 2006
While perhaps not as “fantastic” as the Trill of Star Trek, or the Goa’uld of Stargate SG-1, it seems that real live human beings may need to be reclassified as symbiotic bilogical organisms.
Bacteriologist have recently found that the biomass of beneficial bacteria and bacteria-like organisms (known as Archaea) are a significantly larger part of our metabolic system than was previously believed. Collectively this microbial mass in referred to as the “colon microbiome”
From the article (linked below):
“We are somehow like an amalgam, a mix of bacteria and human cells. There are some estimates that say 90 percent of the cells on our body are actually bacteria,”
and:
“We’re entirely dependent on this microbial population for our well-being. A shift within this population, often leading to the absence or presence of beneficial microbes, can trigger defects in metabolism and development of diseases such as inflammatory bowel disease.”
Read More: We are not entirely human, germ gene experts argue
Add comment June 2nd, 2006
Add comment June 1st, 2006
© Copyright 2008 Health-Hack Dot Com and Disc of Light Publishing Group.
All original content covered under a Creative Commons license.
Contact Kevin 'Mister Tut' Kennedy-Spaien at webmeister at health-hack dot com
Blix Theme by Sebastian Schmieg. Icons by Kevin Potts . Powered by WordPress . Log in . Admin .
Sitemap