health

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Fast food facts

I've posted a couple times on obesity in America so I thought I'd continue by sharing some fast food facts I read in flipping through Paul Grobman's Vital Statistics: Odds that an American eats at a fast-food restaurant on any given day: 1 in 4 Odds that an American kid eats at a McDonald's in any given month: 9 in 10 Number of hamburgers the average American consumes each week: 3 First fast-food chain: White Castle (1921 - first one opened in Wichita, Kansas) Year McDonald's first allowed... READ ON

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Newsflash! Too much Foster's makes you clumsy, hungover

This just in: Scientists in Australia have discovered that, according to the headline, "DRINKING CAN BE DANGEROUS:" People who drink alcohol are up to four times more likely than non-drinkers to be hurt from physical injuries such as a fall or punch, new research shows. More obviousness: "Binge drinkers were more at risk of being injured than regular drinkers. And people who sustained serious injuries were more likely to have consumed beer and have been drinking in a licensed premises." Slightly less... READ ON

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This is your mouse on drugs

I'm not sure the folks at the University of Utah created "Mouse Party" as an anti-drug effort - it looks like it's aimed at neuroscience students, not smack-addled teenagers - but it's easily the best one I've seen since the fried-egg ads. Drag the little cartoon lab mice into a scanner, and you get to see what various controlled substances do to their brains. Best part: When they're not in the scanner, the little guys act like they're actually on their respective drugs, all to a cool club beat: Ecstasy... READ ON

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I'd rather not think of sleep as being dangerous

 ... READ ON
  1. FIND THESE T-SHIRTS AND MORE IN THE STORE!

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Tiny brain-computer used to help paralyzed patients

ScienceDaily has a fascinating article about research being done to help paralyzed patients. A multi-institutional team of researchers has found that people with long-standing, severe paralysis can generate signals in the area of the brain responsible for voluntary movement and these signals can be detected, recorded, routed out of the brain to a computer and converted into actions -- enabling a paralyzed patient to perform basic... READ ON

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Stem Cells Successfully Create Sperm

  Scientists have now turned mice stem cells into sperm and have successfully fertilized eggs and produced offspring with those sperm. This is a very exciting step toward one day allowing an infertile man to have his own biological children. A New Scientist article talks about the research that's being done by a team in the UK (are we shocked that it's not American research?). Stem cells were extracted from early mouse embryos, and coaxed into becoming sperm by manipulating the environment... READ ON

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Watch us get Fatter

                            The CDC and MSN worked together to create a fascinating animated bit about the rise of obesity in America. Check out this link to watch us all get fatter. It would be cool if they could make this show results in real time so that I could see the map change as I finish this piece of pizza.  ... READ ON

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Fat kids lifting weights

The media has definitely covered the obesity epidemic in America in recent years and the situation doesn't seem to be improving. Doctors are coming up with anything they can to try to get kids to exercise a little more. One idea is to trick them into lifting weights by putting weights in their toys. One study included five boys and five girls, who were an average of 7.5 years old, who were randomly assigned to carry either large, cardboard toy blocks that weighed less than a quarter of a pound (0.10... READ ON

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Retro Is In Again

Today I saw a guy running past my house and I literally did a double-take. One of those cartoony ones. Why? Well, the guy wasn't just running, he was running backwards! I zipped to my computer and did some research: sure enough, backpedaling isn't just for those occasions when you've stuck your foot in your mouth. People are doing it for fun and exercise! According to Backward Running Backward, the "Chinese [have used] retro movements (backward running and backward walking) for thousands of years. In... READ ON

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It all makes sense now

Research on birds has shown that female canaries are more devoted to their young when they hear Al Green -- er, a "sexy" male serenade prior to reproduction: Researchers discovered that certain phrases in a canary's song are "sexier" than other syllables. ... When the researchers played female canaries a recording of males singing sexy syllables, the females laid significantly larger eggs than birds that heard recordings of normal songs. "It may be that this is a difficult kind of vocal... READ ON

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