Wash your hands!
If everyone were to wash their hands the risk of colds, flu and even bird flu would be much less, say UK experts. Professor John Oxford, of London’s Queen Mary’s School of Medicine, warns many people are failing to do so and are complacent about personal hygiene.
No kidding. And flicking your fingers under the water for a second does NOT count as washing.
COMMON HOME SURFACES THAT CAN HARBOUR VIRUSES (in descending order of risk)
Phone receiver
Light switches
Door knobs
Toilet flush handle
How much of a geek are you?
You got 10 right!
Excellent, you have the makings of a proper propeller head.
A live, adult giant squid has been caught on camera in the wild for the very first time.
…
“It was exciting to get a live Architeuthis tentacle. It was still functioning when we got it on the boat,” Dr Kubodera told BBC News.
An Australian man built up so much static electricity in his clothes as he walked that he burned carpets, melted plastic and sparked a mass evacuation.
I’ve said time and again that synthetic fabrics are bad!
Computer programmer Luca Mori found the remains of an ancient Roman villa when he browsed Google Earth maps showing satellite images of his local area.
Apparently Google Earth is even cooler than we thought.
ADDENDUM the First:
In retrospect, I should have titled this “The Google Satellites”
So last winter Michael and I both did WVU’s health screening, and in addition to cholesterol (we both have excellent cholesterol levels) I paid extra and got the extra blood work done. When I got the results back, my blood counts were irregular, so I made an appointment with my doctor. After a lot of blood draws, the conclusion was that I was slightly anemic, which we should be able to correct with an iron supplement. So I started taking two iron pills a day, one in the morning, and one in the evening, which seemed to correct the problem.
(more…)
I told you so:
Drivers using cellphones have four times the risk of being involved in car accidents that result in hospital visits, according to a new study in the British Medical Journal. And those hands-free devices? They won’t lower your risk of a crash.
Of course there’s nothing that can be done to stop people using hands free devices, or else we’d have to stop every person singing along with the radio or talking to a small child in the back seat to make sure they weren’t using a hands free device.
And of course I can’t understand why anyone would WANT to talk on the phone while driving. I don’t even want to talk on the phone at home, at least when I’m driving I have an good excuse not to talk to the caller. Oh, wait. That’s right. No one ever calls me because I hate to talk on the phone.
But still, what on earth could possibly be so important that you want to divide your attention from the ton (or more) of metal hurtling down the road at upwards of 25mph? Basic physics here folks. Force equals mass times acceleration, means if you lose your control, nothing good can come of it.
I would think that anyone who has ever been in a car accident–for any reason–would have reason to be careful. Watching the scenery go past as you do a 180, wondering whether you’ll stay on the road or go hurtling into a ravine was enough to make me pay attention to my driving. Why would I want to do something that would make me more likely to go through such an experience again? (And then there were the deer. Despite paying attention and being on the lookout for them, I’ve managed to hit two deer. Distraction would have made it even worse.)
If you talk and drive, you’re putting yourself at risk. That’s the bottom line.
Though perhaps I should look at this as a good thing. At the rate people talk on their phones while driving, maybe we’ll get more stupid people out of the gene pool.
I think that part of the reason I didn’t like Revenge of the Sith that much, is because they failed to suspend my disbelief right from the first scenes.
Good to know I was justified in my irritation.
Bad Astronomy and Star Wars
The article on geek rescue squads is interesting, but I found this paragraph horrifying:
David K. Schoenkin, executive director and asset management consultant at Oppenheimer & Co., recently lost his computer, Palm Pilot and cell phone when he dropped his shoulder bag in a Manhattan street and an 18-wheeler ran over it.
I read it aloud to Gina and she had the same jaw dropping reaction I did.
I can’t decided if it’s the loss of all that data, the amount of money that much equipment represents, or the idea of having start fresh will all those machines at once that is most horrifying.
Happy TV Turnoff Week!
I’d have mentioned it earlier, except that since we don’t watch TV, I hadn’t been paying attention. I do have to admit, however, that this year we have been watching Star Trek on DVD. So I’m not TV free, although we are free of having to turn on the TV at a specific time for a specific show. And it’s not that hard to go for quite awhile without opening up the TV cabinet. (We’ve been watching DVDs because it’s easier to watch 45 minutes of a DVD for relaxation than to try and put down a good book at the end of 45 minutes. Good books can cause me to stay up past my bed time.)
I can, however, tell you that as someone who doesn’t have cable, it’s not that hard of a thing to do–not watching TV and getting rid of cable. My friends and co-workers only mock me a little bit, and we discover that there are, in fact, other things to talk about than what was on TV last night.
So go ahead and try it. After all, better late than never.
“What is officially deemed overweight these days is actually the optimal weight.”
Okay, it’s just a single study, but still it’s nice to see some focus on weight and health that doesn’t stop at “overweight is bad.”
(B)eing very thin, even though the thinness was longstanding and unlikely to stem from disease, caused a slight increase in the risk of death
The take home point–as always–is that weight shouldn’t be the only thing we consider as far as health. Fitness is a far more important issue, yet it is the thing that most people try to ignore.
It is far easier to buy carb-smart ice cream, or lowfat cookies than to get yourself to the gym every morning, but it is the exercise that is going to improve your health, not artificial sweeteners and the artificial fats.
So I think that if taken the right way, this is a good message. That those who exercise and are careful about what they eat, but can’t seem to lose weight, are not necessarily damned to a life of ill health. And that being thin is not the sign of health it has been taken for in recent years.
Eating well and exercising are far more important than the number on the scale.
A company in South Africa has found a way to harness youthful energy in solving the perennial problem of water supply in rural villages.
It uses a playground roundabout to power a borehole pump.
What a fantastic idea–take a children’s toy and apply it to provide for the community.
The website, Roundabout Outdoor has a small video you can watch.
