Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Microbes ‘R’ Us - Olivia Judson Blog - NYTimes.com
Microbes ‘R’ Us - Olivia Judson Blog - NYTimes.com: "The typical human is home to a vast array of microbes. If you were to count them, you’d find that microbial cells outnumber your own by a factor of 10."
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Knee analysis for personal identification
It seems the knees may be different enough between individuals be used for personal identification. However, this shouldn't be at all surprising. I'm sure that every macroscopic structure in a given person's body - be it an organ, joint, whatever - is unique in its detailed appearance. It's just that the knee has internal features that are a little easier to record than most structures.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Rare disease turns 3-year-old’s muscles to bone
Parents try to give him a normal childhood, though every bruise is a danger
getCSS("3088867")
Video
Boy fights disease that turns muscle into bone Oct. 15: TODAY’s chief medical editor, Dr. Nancy Snyderman, reports on a young boy who is fighting a rare and disabling genetic disease that turns muscle and tissue into bone. The boy, Joshua, and his parents, Stacy and David Scoble, talk with TODAY’s Ann Curry.
Today show
getCSS("3314183")
Breast cancer awareness
Pose nude? No way. After breast cancer? OK!
Standing up to cancer
Ohio couple both fighting breast cancer
Questions to ask after breast cancer diagnosis
Dr. Nancy answers breast cancer questions
getCSS("3314183")
Most popular video
TODAY
Boy fights disease that turns muscle into bone Oct. 15: TODAY’s chief medical editor, Dr. Nancy Snyderman, reports on a young boy who is fighting a rare and disabling genetic disease that turns muscle and tissue into bone. The boy, Joshua, and his parents, Stacy and David Scoble, talk with TODAY’s Ann Curry.
Moore and Ratigan face off on big bonuses
Boy wonder! One-legged child is sports phenom
Boys charged for setting teen on fire
‘Violence has to stop,’ mom of burned boy says
var tcdacmd="dt";
By Mike Celizic
TODAYShow.com contributor
updated 7:12 a.m. PT, Thurs., Oct . 15, 2009
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if(pdt != '' && n && window.DateTime) {
var dt = new DateTime();
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He’s a 3-year-old boy who enjoys the things every kid his age loves — riding his bike and scooter, playing football in the front yard with his dad, wrapping his arms around his parents to share a hug.
And Josh Scoble’s parents let him do all those things — even though they know that any bump or bruise he suffers can bring him closer to the inevitable day when he is imprisoned by his own body, his flesh literally turned to bone, his arms and legs and head and even his jaw locked in immobility.
“Eventually it will take over his entire body and he won’t be able to move,” Josh’s mom, Stacy Scoble, said in a heartrending report that aired on TODAY Thursday.
Parents try to give him a normal childhood, though every bruise is a danger
getCSS("3088867")
Video
Boy fights disease that turns muscle into bone Oct. 15: TODAY’s chief medical editor, Dr. Nancy Snyderman, reports on a young boy who is fighting a rare and disabling genetic disease that turns muscle and tissue into bone. The boy, Joshua, and his parents, Stacy and David Scoble, talk with TODAY’s Ann Curry.
Today show
getCSS("3314183")
Breast cancer awareness
Pose nude? No way. After breast cancer? OK!
Standing up to cancer
Ohio couple both fighting breast cancer
Questions to ask after breast cancer diagnosis
Dr. Nancy answers breast cancer questions
getCSS("3314183")
Most popular video
TODAY
Boy fights disease that turns muscle into bone Oct. 15: TODAY’s chief medical editor, Dr. Nancy Snyderman, reports on a young boy who is fighting a rare and disabling genetic disease that turns muscle and tissue into bone. The boy, Joshua, and his parents, Stacy and David Scoble, talk with TODAY’s Ann Curry.
Moore and Ratigan face off on big bonuses
Boy wonder! One-legged child is sports phenom
Boys charged for setting teen on fire
‘Violence has to stop,’ mom of burned boy says
var tcdacmd="dt";
By Mike Celizic
TODAYShow.com contributor
updated 7:12 a.m. PT, Thurs., Oct . 15, 2009
function UpdateTimeStamp(pdt) {
var n = document.getElementById("udtD");
if(pdt != '' && n && window.DateTime) {
var dt = new DateTime();
pdt = dt.T2D(pdt);
if(dt.GetTZ(pdt)) {n.innerHTML = dt.D2S(pdt,((''.toLowerCase()=='false')?false:true));}
}
}
UpdateTimeStamp('633912127327700000');
He’s a 3-year-old boy who enjoys the things every kid his age loves — riding his bike and scooter, playing football in the front yard with his dad, wrapping his arms around his parents to share a hug.
And Josh Scoble’s parents let him do all those things — even though they know that any bump or bruise he suffers can bring him closer to the inevitable day when he is imprisoned by his own body, his flesh literally turned to bone, his arms and legs and head and even his jaw locked in immobility.
“Eventually it will take over his entire body and he won’t be able to move,” Josh’s mom, Stacy Scoble, said in a heartrending report that aired on TODAY Thursday.
Saturday, October 10, 2009
"Ma'am, step away from the treadmill!" - 4 Indications you're doing too much cardio
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by Brett Blumenthal - Sheer Balance, on Thu Sep 24, 2009 8:25am PDT
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Sometimes when I go to the gym, I have this urge to tell some of the most religious treadmill riders "Ma'am, Step away from the treadmill!" No matter how many articles and reports are written on the benefits of exercise other than cardio, it never ceases to amaze me how many women (and men too...) relegate themselves to the endless monotony of the treadmill - or for that matter, any other piece of cardio equipment. Moreover, these individuals will do cardio for over an hour...sometimes hopping from one piece of cardio equipment to another...never even considering time in the weight room, in classes or outdoors.
Although there are definite benefits to doing aerobic exercise; strength, core and flexibility training all provide numerous health benefits that cardio can't: They increase muscular and bone strength, increase lean body mass, safeguard against injury and boost metabolism while decreasing fat.
Is it possible you are overdoing the cardio? Here's how to know:
Time: Unless you are training for a race, marathon or triathlon, there is no need to do more than 30 minutes of cardio (with your heart rate between 65% - 85% of your maximum heart rate) when you workout. Fitness Revamp: If you want to exercise for over 30 minutes, you are better off doing a 20 - 30 minute cardio session and another 20 - 30 minutes dedicated to strength training, stretching and/or core training.
You aren't seeing results: If you are trying to lose weight, yet you aren't seeing results, it may be because of too much cardio. Believe it or not the idea of 'burning off fat' does not stem from cardio...it stems from strength training. Fitness Revamp: Build in 20 - 30 minute strength training sessions 2 - 3 times a week.
Injuries: Too much wear and tear on your muscles and joints can end up in an injury...or even worse, multiple injuries. Incorporating flexibility and strength training helps to strengthen the joints which will prevent pain and damage to joints. Fitness Revamp: Take the time to stretch before and after your cardio sessions.
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by Brett Blumenthal - Sheer Balance, on Thu Sep 24, 2009 8:25am PDT
103 Comments
Post a Comment
Read More from This Author »
Report Abuse
Sometimes when I go to the gym, I have this urge to tell some of the most religious treadmill riders "Ma'am, Step away from the treadmill!" No matter how many articles and reports are written on the benefits of exercise other than cardio, it never ceases to amaze me how many women (and men too...) relegate themselves to the endless monotony of the treadmill - or for that matter, any other piece of cardio equipment. Moreover, these individuals will do cardio for over an hour...sometimes hopping from one piece of cardio equipment to another...never even considering time in the weight room, in classes or outdoors.
Although there are definite benefits to doing aerobic exercise; strength, core and flexibility training all provide numerous health benefits that cardio can't: They increase muscular and bone strength, increase lean body mass, safeguard against injury and boost metabolism while decreasing fat.
Is it possible you are overdoing the cardio? Here's how to know:
Time: Unless you are training for a race, marathon or triathlon, there is no need to do more than 30 minutes of cardio (with your heart rate between 65% - 85% of your maximum heart rate) when you workout. Fitness Revamp: If you want to exercise for over 30 minutes, you are better off doing a 20 - 30 minute cardio session and another 20 - 30 minutes dedicated to strength training, stretching and/or core training.
You aren't seeing results: If you are trying to lose weight, yet you aren't seeing results, it may be because of too much cardio. Believe it or not the idea of 'burning off fat' does not stem from cardio...it stems from strength training. Fitness Revamp: Build in 20 - 30 minute strength training sessions 2 - 3 times a week.
Injuries: Too much wear and tear on your muscles and joints can end up in an injury...or even worse, multiple injuries. Incorporating flexibility and strength training helps to strengthen the joints which will prevent pain and damage to joints. Fitness Revamp: Take the time to stretch before and after your cardio sessions.
Friday, October 9, 2009
Coeliac bone loss link uncovered
A fascinating article from the BBC that looks at the link between celiac disease (the British spelling is "coeliac") and osteoporosis. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8295438.stm
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
3 Reasons Why Students Should Be Using Dropbox
3 Reasons Why Students Should Be Using Dropbox
I just stumbled across this free program called "Dropbox" that some of you may already know about but if you don't you might want to check it out, especially and if you work from mulitple computers, including public computers at libraries (and it doesn't matter if one is a Mac and the other is a PC). It also works with iPhones.
You use the program to put a folder (and sub-folders) in the cyberspace "cloud". Then you can access the files you've stored in those folders from any of your computers or iPhone. The folders appear in your computer directory just like any of the other folders you have on a hard drive, thumb drive, etc. The files are also stored at dropbox.com so you can access them from any computer if you log in to your account.
The free Dropbox account comes with 2GB of space.
I just stumbled across this free program called "Dropbox" that some of you may already know about but if you don't you might want to check it out, especially and if you work from mulitple computers, including public computers at libraries (and it doesn't matter if one is a Mac and the other is a PC). It also works with iPhones.
You use the program to put a folder (and sub-folders) in the cyberspace "cloud". Then you can access the files you've stored in those folders from any of your computers or iPhone. The folders appear in your computer directory just like any of the other folders you have on a hard drive, thumb drive, etc. The files are also stored at dropbox.com so you can access them from any computer if you log in to your account.
The free Dropbox account comes with 2GB of space.
Exercise, not calcium, for bone density:
A new report suggests that bone mineral density is determined more by the exercise a teenager engages in than by calcium intake.
Researchers found no relationship between calcium intake during ages 12 to 16 years with either total body bone mineral gain or hip (bone mineral density) at age 18. They also found that it's not the intensity of the exercise that counts, it's any exercise that is done on a daily or nearly daily basis.
The results surprised researchers, who had expected to see positive effects of higher calcium intake. "We (had) hypothesized that increased calcium intake would result in better adolescent bone gain. Needless to say, we were surprised to find our hypothesis refuted," one of the researchers noted.
Previous research has shown the connection between exercise and bone density, so this study is just more confirmation of this.
PEDIATRICS Vol. 106 No. 1 July 2000, pp. 40-44 http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/106/1/40
Sunday, October 4, 2009
What Causes Brain Freeze?
Matt Soniak
What Causes Brain Freeze?
by Matt Soniak - September 30, 2009 - 1:49 PM
Reader Susann writes in to ask, “What exactly is the cause of a brain freeze?”
ice-cream-helmetYou may know brain freeze by one of its other names: an ice cream headache, a cold-stimulus headache or sphenopalatine ganglioneuralgia (“nerve pain of the sphenopalatine ganglion”), but no matter what you call it, it hurts like hell.
Brain freeze is brought on by the speedy consumption of cold beverages or food. According to Dr. Joseph Hulihan, a former assistant professor in the Department of Neurology at the Temple University Health Sciences Center, ice cream is a very common cause of head pain, with about one third of a randomly selected population succumbing to ice cream headaches.
So what causes that pain?
As far back as the late 1960s, researchers pinned the blame on the same vascular mechanisms—rapid constriction and dilation of blood vessels—that were responsible for the aura and pulsatile pain phases of migraine headaches. When something cold like ice cream touches the roof of your mouth, there is a rapid cooling of the blood vessels there, causing them to constrict. When the blood vessels warm up again, they experience rebound dilation. The dilation is sensed by pain receptors and pain signals are sent to the brain via the trigeminal nerve. This nerve (also called the fifth cranial nerve, the fifth nerve, or just V) is responsible for sensation in the face, so when the pain signals are received, the brain often interprets them as coming from the forehead and we perceive a headache.
With brain freeze, we’re perceiving pain in an area of the body that’s at a distance from the site of the actual injury or reception of painful stimulus. This is a quirk of the body called “referred pain,” and it’s the reason people often feel pain in their neck, shoulders and/or back instead of their chest during a heart attack.
To prevent brain freeze, try the following:
• Slow down. Eating or drinking cold food slowly allows one’s mouth to get used to the temperature.
• Hold cold food or drink in the front part of your mouth and allow it to warm up before swallowing.
• Head north. Brain freeze requires a warm ambient temperature to occur, so its almost impossible for it to happen if you’re already cold.
What Causes Brain Freeze?
by Matt Soniak - September 30, 2009 - 1:49 PM
Reader Susann writes in to ask, “What exactly is the cause of a brain freeze?”
ice-cream-helmetYou may know brain freeze by one of its other names: an ice cream headache, a cold-stimulus headache or sphenopalatine ganglioneuralgia (“nerve pain of the sphenopalatine ganglion”), but no matter what you call it, it hurts like hell.
Brain freeze is brought on by the speedy consumption of cold beverages or food. According to Dr. Joseph Hulihan, a former assistant professor in the Department of Neurology at the Temple University Health Sciences Center, ice cream is a very common cause of head pain, with about one third of a randomly selected population succumbing to ice cream headaches.
So what causes that pain?
As far back as the late 1960s, researchers pinned the blame on the same vascular mechanisms—rapid constriction and dilation of blood vessels—that were responsible for the aura and pulsatile pain phases of migraine headaches. When something cold like ice cream touches the roof of your mouth, there is a rapid cooling of the blood vessels there, causing them to constrict. When the blood vessels warm up again, they experience rebound dilation. The dilation is sensed by pain receptors and pain signals are sent to the brain via the trigeminal nerve. This nerve (also called the fifth cranial nerve, the fifth nerve, or just V) is responsible for sensation in the face, so when the pain signals are received, the brain often interprets them as coming from the forehead and we perceive a headache.
With brain freeze, we’re perceiving pain in an area of the body that’s at a distance from the site of the actual injury or reception of painful stimulus. This is a quirk of the body called “referred pain,” and it’s the reason people often feel pain in their neck, shoulders and/or back instead of their chest during a heart attack.
To prevent brain freeze, try the following:
• Slow down. Eating or drinking cold food slowly allows one’s mouth to get used to the temperature.
• Hold cold food or drink in the front part of your mouth and allow it to warm up before swallowing.
• Head north. Brain freeze requires a warm ambient temperature to occur, so its almost impossible for it to happen if you’re already cold.
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