health

I just had a harrowing incident on a flight from New Orleans to Seattle. Due to a small electrical fire, my plane had to be diverted to Memphis; it then took another day and a half to get home.

But what got me more than the thought that my flight could crash was that in Memphis I had to deal with the indignity of going through one of the controversial new backscatter body-scanning machines. A person I didn't know got paid to scrutinize my scrotum. Lucky lady.

But I didn't like it. I felt like I was being virtually strip searched. That's why I'm in favor of these new briefs designed by engineer Jeff Buske. They're regular boxer briefs, with the exception of a fig leaf-shaped radiation blocker located right over your junk. TSA agents looking at your scan will see a shape of a leaf instead of your private parts. Smart, but we're still waiting to learn whether the TSA will let these underpants fly. … Read more

When social scientists at the University of Southampton began to map out global maternal health trends from United Nations and World Health Organization data, they were able to visualize several trends more clearly.

Working with the White Ribbon Alliance for Safe Motherhood and the University of Aberdeen, the researchers are producing online maps, a book, a short film, and more. They call it The Atlas of Birth project.

The Web site currently features 18 maps on topics ranging from literacy to genital mutilation to abortion; five case studies on women in Ethiopia, Tanzania, Senegal, and Yemen; and statistics on a … Read more

A friend of mine has a pre-teen daughter who recently asked if her mom had to wait for high school to get her first iPhone. Apparently the girl has no memories pre-2007.

Add to the "that is soo last year" list the ritual of going to a clinic to get tested for sexually transmitted diseases. Testing may soon require little more than a computer chip and a place to pee on one.

In an attempt to cut the UK's rising rates of herpes, chlamydia, and gonorrhea, British health officials say that sexually-transmitted infections will soon be able to be diagnosed … Read more

Facebook's frequent home page design changes are known to get momentary griping from users who say it's ugly, difficult to use, or hides their favorite features, but this is a new one: scores of ticked-off members go so far as to claim it's detrimental to their health.

That's what happened after Facebook on Wednesday made an unannounced tweak to its home page design, shrinking the font size that appears on users' "news feeds" of their friends' activity across the site. Facebook, in a statement, said it's "constantly testing new ways to make … Read more

AT&T is making a new foray into the health care market with a business geared toward improving patient care and trimming medical costs.

Announced today, the new AT&T ForHealth unit will deliver a range of wireless, networked, and cloud-based products to doctors, hospitals, insurers, and pharmaceutical companies. The goal is to push the adoption of new technologies to the industry as the country tries to switch over to electronic and digital health care management.

AT&T said it's looking to expand upon some of its current health care projects, which include medicine bottles that … Read more

Now that people touch screens far more often than they touch each other, iPhones, iPads, and all the Droids and Nokias seem to have become the repositories of a huge number of nasties.

No, I am not referring to farting apps or movies with clothesless people. I am referring to those naked germs and viruses surely on so many people's minds as flu season starts.

The Sacramento Bee today offered vivid details that might make you look at the screen of your favorite gadget and wonder where it's been, as well as where you might choose to take … Read more

Are you in possession of both a heart and an Android phone? Prove it with a system that lets you view your electrocardiogram on your Android device and then share it with a medical professional--or anyone else who might doubt you have a pulse.

European researchers are working on a low-power prototype interface that transmits wireless electrocardiogram, or EKG, sensor signals from a wearable "body area network" called the "Human ++ BAN" to an app compatible with Android devices. The system is the work of Interuniversity Microelectronics Centre (IMEC), a nanoelectronics research firm based in the Netherlands; … Read more

Yesterday I celebrated my birthday with way too much pizza and cake. Much as I enjoyed myself, the bulging belly I'm staring at today is a reminder that it's time to drop a few pounds.

I know from past experience that apps can make this a whole lot easier. After all, weight loss is nothing more than math: you just need to burn more calories than you consume. And apps take the guesswork out of it by tracking your caloric intake, deducting calories burned during exercise, and so on.

I've rounded up four winners. Take a look:… Read more

As kids in the '80s, my twin brother and I were allowed to watch about an hour of TV a week, which we typically used up on Saturday morning cartoons and which resulted in near total pop culture illiteracy. The dedicated hour brought on such intense euphoria that one time, when our father fell through the kitchen floor and broke a few ribs (it was an old house), we looked at him, saw he was still alive, and went back to watching Bugs Bunny.

For years this anecdote served as our central argument for more screen time (which soon included … Read more