Health Tech

Are gamers really overweight and depressed?

The average gamer isn't that 9-year-old child fragging you online, according to a new study by researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Emory University, and Andrews University. The average gamer, they concluded, looks nothing like that kid.

According to "Health-Risk Correlates of Video-Game Playing Among Adults" (PDF), the result of a 2006 survey of 552 adults living in the Seattle area, the average gamer is 35 years old, overweight, and depressed.

The researchers chose the Seattle area because of its size, diversity, and reputation of having the highest Web usage in the United States.

James B. Weaver III of the CDC's National Center for Health Marketing said the study shows that there are real differences between gamers and nongamers.

"Health risk factors differentiated adult video game players from nonplayers," Weaver said in a statement. "Video game players also reported lower extroversion, consistent with research on adolescents that linked video game playing to a sedentary lifestyle and overweight status, and to mental-health concerns."

The study also found that a gamer's gender doesn't matter when it comes to those issues. Female gamers surveyed had "lower health status" than women who chose not to play video games. Male gamers had a higher body mass index, or BMI, than nongamers, according to study results.

The paper also says women who play video games may be self-medicating.… Read more

Gizmo gauges gals' fertility--20,000 times a day

A group of fertility and technology experts from the University of Cambridge say they have greatly improved on the current standard for monitoring a woman's fertility--measuring her basal body temperature--with a new device that takes her temperature not once but 20,000 times a day.

The DuoFertility Monitor is part sensor (placed on a 3-centimeter adhesive under the arm) and part receiver (the sensor transmits data wirelessly to a portable device), storing up to six days of data on the device that can also be uploaded to a computer for longer-term analysis.

According to the company, Cambridge Temperature Concepts, … Read more

Rogue pharmacies still a problem for search engines

With Bing, Microsoft is trying to reinvigorate its role in the search business. It has also inadvertently brought renewed attention to the problem of illicit pharmacies operating on the Internet.

The attention on Bing came earlier this month with the results of a study that examined Internet pharmacy ads (PDF) on Microsoft's revamped search engine. The study, conducted by LegitScript, an online pharmacy verification service, and KnujOn, an Internet compliance company, found that 90 percent of the reviewed Internet pharmacy advertisements were from fake or illegal Internet pharmacies. It also found that most of the Internet pharmacies reached through sponsored ads on Bing did not require a valid prescription.

Sponsored ads are links, paid for by companies hawking products and services, that turn up at the top of search results pages alongside noncommercial links.

"We were able to purchase potentially addictive drugs without a prescription or any age verification via Bing.com ads," LegitScript President John Horton told CNET News. "We also received counterfeit medication. Microsoft profits from these illegal ads, which put Internet users at risk."

But the problem isn't confined to Bing. For all the buzz generated by Bing--which debuted in June, replacing Microsoft's Live Search--it's still only the third most-used search tool, dwarfed by first-place Google and also well behind Yahoo. And those search engines themselves are no strangers to ads for illicit pharmacies.

The problem has also been around since consumers began flocking to the Internet more than a decade ago. In 2003, for instance, Yahoo's Overture unit bowed to pressure from pharmacy groups and stopped selling search-related advertising to unlicensed online pharmacies. That also spelled an end to the troublesome ads on Microsoft's MSN portal, at that time a significant partner of Overture.

Over the last decade, the situation has evolved to bring new challenges.

"In the early years of the Internet, it was a case of entrepreneurs not understanding the legal requirements for the dispensing of drugs. Later, it was the push by senior citizens and public officials to obtain drugs that were cheaper than medications available in the U.S.," said Carmen Catizone, executive director of the trade group National Association of Boards of Pharmacies.

"At the present time," said Catizone, who vouched for the research by LegitScript, "the Internet has become a haven for drug seekers and abusers, particularly (regarding) controlled substances. It is a much more serious and dangerous phase of the Internet."

Rogue online pharmacies sell a wide range of medications, from the sleep aid Ambien to the muscle relaxant Soma and the erectile dysfunction treatments Viagra and Cialis. The NABP lists only 18 certified and recommended online drugstores at its Web site, while more than 3,800 are non-compliant and not recommended

The response from Redmond Microsoft disputes LegitScript's claim that 90 percent of the sponsored Internet pharmacy ads on Bing are fake or illegal, adding that it is working to weed out the rogue advertisers that do slip through. The company uses an Internet pharmacy verification service called PharmacyChecker--a competitor of LegitScript--to ensure that its sponsored prescription drug advertisements are legitimate. … Read more

Electronic tongue is sensitive to matters of taste

At the American Chemical Society's 238th National Meeting in Washington Monday, researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign announced "the first practical 'electronic tongue' sensor" that identifies sources of sweetness and then changes colors depending on the type and quantity of sweeteners present.

Under the leadership of chemistry professor Kenneth S. Suslick--who may or may not return my phone call to explain, among other pressing matters, what is going on in his university Web site photograph--the Illinois team developed a sensor about the size of a business card that can simply be dipped into food samples. "We take things that smell or taste and convert their chemical properties into a visual image," Suslick said in a press release.

I can't help but cut to an image of a white-tablecloth restaurant with a little sign that asks patrons to please be discreet when pulling out their tongues.… Read more

The human heart: One step closer to 'unbreakable'

When the wizard announced in "The Wizard of Oz" that "hearts will never be practical until they can be made unbreakable," he was being technologically visionary. A few weeks after the first successful implant of the world's smallest and lightest ventricular assist device (VAD) at the Heidelberg University Hospital in Germany, cardiac surgeons announced that hearts may now be, in so many words, one step closer to "unbreakable."

The HeartAssist 5, which is the fifth generation VAD evolved from the original DeBakey, weighs in at one fifth of a pound (92 grams) and … Read more

How condoms for men could be a thing of the past

For years, researchers have been working on microbicides (intravaginal gels, rings, and films) that can prevent the transmission of viruses such as the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Only a handful ever made it to human clinical trial, and ran into issues such as women not using them, or the antiviral drugs in the microbicides not lasting long enough. Some microbicides even seemed to increase the risk of transmission.

Now, researchers at the University of Utah seem to have greatly improved on a microbicide they first wrote about in 2006, according to a study published this week in the journal Advanced Functional Materials.… Read more

Shedding new light on tumors

A new oxygen nanosensor that combines a biopolymer with a light-emitting dye could help identify the most aggressive regions of cancerous tumors, according to a press release by researchers at the University of Virginia.

The material uses polylactic acid as its base--good news for the environment and cost because it is both easy and inexpensive to fabricate in many forms.

Guoqing Zhang, a chemistry doctoral candidate, alongside Cassandra Fraser, a chemistry professor, combined a corn-based biopolymer with a dye that is both fluorescent (the immediate illumination of photon re-emission) and phosphorescent (a slower illumination that appears as an afterglow):

Zhang … Read more

Is using guinea pigs a thing of the past?

Wired weighs in on the ever-improving field of surgical simulators in its August issue. The obvious point of the story is that virtual reality is finally enabling us to take the guinea pig out of trial and error; any mistakes made by those in training will result in a failed grade, or a do-over, as opposed to the possibly nightmarish side effects that come with botched surgery.

Also--and this reminds me of the main difference between playing poker on my computer versus at a table--virtual surgery happens a lot faster. With a strong cup of coffee and enough RAM, a … Read more

Study: Facebook makes lovers jealous

It's easily done, that slide into the Facebook face-plant.

You casually slip onto your lover's Facebook page and see that his or her status has been changed from "in a relationship" to "single."

Perhaps you'd had a fight. Perhaps he or she was pressing you for a commitment, a press that you responded to with the wrong words or the wrong tone. Or perhaps you saw that your lover seemed to have a new special friend, one who delighted in commenting on every one of your lover's new photos.

Suddenly, there it … Read more