05.26.2009
Once more women will be calculating whether the men in their lives are sponge-worthy because the Today contraceptive sponge has just returned to drugstore shelves.
The sponge, and sponge-worthiness, became famous due to this episode of "Seinfeld," where Elaine hoarded her dwindling supply, vetting prospective bedmates severely to decide if they merited using up one of her precious sponges.
The contraceptive sponge, once the most popular barrier method of birth control for women, is made of polyurethane covered with spermicide. No prescription needed. It has twice disappeared from the market, although not for safety reasons. Natasha Singer's New York Times article explains the complexities.
Posted by Tam
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05.14.2009
I think the news has finally gotten out that tanning (even if you use an SPF and don't burn) is really bad for the skin and can cause cancer. (Right?) That makes fake tan the only viable option for adding a bit of pre-beach color to your look. But oh man... that SMELL. Only old-style depilatory creams have a worse stink, but the fake tan one lasts longer, as it's the chemicals causing the smell which make the tan sink in.
Thankfully, the tan fans among us may not need to put up with that rancid odor much longer.
New Scientist reports that researchers in Bishop's Stortford, UK have found a way to capture the molecules causing the smell and neutralize them by making larger modules which appear less smelly.
Apparently, "professional sniffers reported a 70 per cent reduction in their perception of the unpleasant smell on users' skin". (Wouldn't you love to do that job?)
Look out for Aromaguard technology if you want a less stinky tanning experience in future: San Tropez is the first brand to incorporate it into their products.
Posted by Diane
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04.28.2009
Inevitably, Twitter is atwitter with swine flu tweets of varying reliability. CNET's Larry Magid describes the authoritative swine flu tweets from the US Centers for Disease Control, along with warnings about regarding other swine flu tweets with caution. CNN also regards Twitter as a mixed blessing for swine flu info.
As I'm writing this, it's clear the media have gone overboard with the swine flu tale. No doubt people are grateful for a distraction from the world's economic crisis, but swine flu 24-7 is, at this point, generating unnecessary alarm. In the immortal words of Douglas Adams, Don't Panic.
You may, however, want to keep handy the following list of pretty reliable sources on swine flu. They will tell you when panic is appropriate.
Updates from the US Centers for Disease Control:
http://www.cdc.gov/swineflu/
Updates from the World Health Organization, aimed largely at medical professionals:
http://www.who.int/csr/disease/swineflu/en/index.html
The Washington Post's swine flu central, with some videos:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/health/swineflu/index.html?sid=ST2009042703878
The New York Times has a swine flu central too, with interactive graphics and videos:
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/i/influenza/swine_influenza/index.html
Yahoo News roundup of stories:
http://news.search.yahoo.com/news/search?p=swine+flu
Swine flu FAQs on About.com's Patient Empowerment pages:
http://patients.about.com/od/patientempowermentissues/a/swindflu2009.htm
And, also inevitably, Wikipedia already has an entry on the current outbreak. In fact, mysteriously, it has two entries. Expect constant changes here, not all of them trustworthy, and heed the Wikipedia caveat--and plea: "This article may require cleanup (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Cleanup) to meet Wikipedia's quality standards (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style). Please improve this article (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Swine_influenza&action=edit) if you can. (April 2009)"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swine_influenza
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_H1N1_flu_outbreak
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04.17.2009
A few weeks ago I wrote about Harvard Medical School's advice on dealing with sinusitis, the medical name for a sinus infection. To my surprise, one item the august medical authorities were recommending for sinusitis was an ancient Indian technology, the neti pot.
Now we hear from yet another august authority: the New York Times. This time the topic is nasal allergies. The paper sorts through the evidence and arrives at the same conclusion: Washing out your nasal passages with salty water from a neti pot is medically helpful: it can help prevent spring pollen, hay fever, and other nasal allergies.
In my neck of the woods, tree pollen is in full flower, and grass pollen will be along before we know it. So this up-to-date advice praising a thousand year-old medical practice comes not a moment too soon.
Here's a video showing how to use a neti pot. It's not really as icky as you might imagine. Warning: the video ends with a pitch to order neti-related products. You don't really need them; ordinary non-iodized salt will do fine.
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04. 9.2009
Researchers at the University of Leeds in the UK are working on ways to make joint implants last longer. At the moment, a knee or hip replacement only lasts about 15 years at best but the team of British scientists led by Sotiris Korossis is hoping to engineer new implants that won't wear out so quickly by working out how to sculpt them to suit an individual's skeleton. If that individual is an athletic type who needs replacement surgery following a lot of sporting activity, it's important to consider ways to minimize that risk in future, too - so the team is also looking into how to specially tailor implants for different sports in order to make them last longer. If they succeed, it's a win-win situation: fewer invasive medical procedures for patients and less investment for hospitals. Go team.
Via New Scientist.
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04. 6.2009
Most of the cell phone applications we write about are fun, or somewhat useful: not many of them save lives. But AT&T has just launched new technology in partnership with Mednet which monitors heart patients' health and transmits the results to their cardiologists via Bluetooth. There is a monthly fee and it requires a tech-savvy doctor who is already signed up to the scheme but it could save on appointments (and save your co-pay) which is no bad thing.
Via Textually.
Posted by Diane
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03.27.2009
Male circumcision protects both men and women from several sexually transmitted infections, according to a new study in the New England Journal of Medicine. Despite its regional-sounding name, NEJM is possibly the world's best medical journal and certainly one of the top five. Which means this news is to be taken very seriously indeed.
The study showed that, when their male partners are circumcised, women are less likely to get both bacterial vaginosis and trichomoniasis, that crazy-making itching and burning of the vagina commonly known as trich. In addition, circumcision reduced the risk of 3 other sex-related diseases for men: HIV (the AIDS virus), herpes simplex virus Type 2, and human papilloma virus (HPV). That's also terrific news for women, because if a guy isn't infected, his woman partner won't get infected either - and HIV and HPV aren't just infuriating, they are killers.
Continue reading "Circumcised men are good for women"
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03.25.2009
The US Food and Drug Administration has added to its list of dozens of weight-loss products - available in stores and online - that contain undeclared pharmaceutical ingredients.
The new naughties contain drugs like fenproporex, an amphetamine derivative not approved in the US, and fluoxetine, better known as Prozac, the antidepressant. This extra stuff can produce unpleasant and even dangerous effects.
Here's the FAQ on the list of products plus the contaminants and their effects.
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03.23.2009
Using some science I really don't quite have a grasp on, chemists Paul Rothemund and Erik Winfree of the California Institute of Technology have created artificial DNA thanks to a technique called "DNA origami." This artificial DNA is capable of building itself into (slightly) larger structures, and could apparently be useful in nanocomputing (to create teeny tiny electrical circuits, for example).
But mainly, it's really quite cool and more than a little spooky (in my non-scientific opinion).
Posted by Diane
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