The Health Weblog
What Good Is Health Without Happiness?:
In this video, our old friend Dr. Mike Evans tackles one of the most important results & goals of good health.
What good is a robust physical health if your Mind isn’t along for the party, right?
Well, Dr. Mike goes on to sketch out several of the Sources, Variables, and Misconceptions in this video,
-And most important of-all: What you can Actually Do to improve it!…
Read More >
The Fountain Of Youth:
Since the time of the alchemists, the ancient Egyptians, and the epic of Gilgamesh, one of our main goals was to transcend the impermanence of existence.
And in that time, people have tried all kinds of nutty concoctions & medieval procedures to try. (leeches do kinda work, btw)
More recently, the advent of stem-cell science has been joined by another major discovery: the “rewritable” part of our DNA script.
Well, a Salk Institute team combined them with a Nobel-Prize-winning discovery to give Father Time a swift kick in the butt. -Or at least one that lasts a few decades…
Read More >
The Future Is Personal, Pervasive, & Transparent:
So every once in awhile, we get a new piece of gadget-technology like a new iPhone or AppleWatch that moves things forward.
But they’re still just boxy-widgets that you have to lug around with you.
You can’t even use an Apple Watch without a phone, and it can’t make or receive calls by itself.
So they’re not even that independent. -Until now…
Read More >
Can Food Save Planet Earth?:
In this video, Eater’s Kat Odell and Nick Solares introduce us to another salvo in the war to make a better burger with its inventor, Dr. Pat Brown.
This particular version has taken over 5 years to research and launch.
And thanks to some increasingly-fancy food chemistry, Impossible Foods might be getting us a step closer to a more earth-friendly, healthier future.
And while people should have the luxury to eat what they want, and a burger won’t save the planet, every little bit helps…
Read More >
Fast Progress In The Research World:
So just a few short years ago, civilians and celebrities all around the country rejoiced in good-natured bullying of their friends & colleagues.
And even though the premise was: either dump the bucket of ice water over your head or donate, many people went the torture-route anyway. -You know, for “fun”?
Despite this, that challenge raised $115 million dollars to fight the disease.
And then something amazing happened with a very small percentage of that money.
-The power of You did more than just fund something…
Read More >
What Could Possibly Go Wrong?:
We tend to think that people with a certain level of severe brain injuries or dysfunction are gone & officially Brain Dead.
And though miraculous stories like “Finding Emilie” point to some type of survival even in a “Locked-In” scenario,
Past a certain threshold of function was considered, perhaps for mercy’s sake, the end of the line.
Well, in what just might be some of the most ethically-sketchy experiments not done by world-war totalitarians, a few doctors decided to test that hypothesis.
And they just got approval…
Read More >
Hack Your Mental Wellbeing With A Phone:
In this video, The Scene & Wired’s App Pack try to soothe your frazzled nerves with a few lines of machine-code to give your human-code a digital hug.
Unfortunately, the list seems to only include Mindfulness meditation apps.
I’d love to be wrong about that, because there are benefits to Both types.
Mindfulness is usually better for happiness. The more Wandering, less-focused type is usually better for Creativity & Insight.
But however the little algorithms can simplify it, the better.
What was once obscure & difficult is now becoming no further than a questionnaire & a few taps away…
Personal Electronics Get Even More Personal:
At one time or another, many of us have had a health issue that needed more than just 1 fire-and-forget appointment to the doc.
And resolving it needed follow-up & active participation from you to succeed. -Especially since doctors are very busy, there are only so many hours in the day, and healthcare is already 4x more expensive here than anywhere else.
Well, aside from all the new phones, iPads & watch bands, one of the most interesting & compelling parts of Apple’s “Loop You In” event was something called CareKit…
Read More >
Cheap Tech = Future Cures:
Ok, so what do you get when you add entrepreneurial prospecting, big data, big analytics, high-speed robo-testing and gene-sequencing?
So earlier, we told you that for the Jet-Lag drug, UCSD used a robotic tester on 120,000 possible switches to find only 3 keys.
And before that, 23&Me had used its pattern-sniffers to come up with 15 indicators out of 14 Million to find night owls & early-birds.
Well, 23&Me will be at that game again soon to create the very future of medicine…
Read More >
Crowds To The Rescue!:
Health-tech darling & FDA sparring-partner 23&Me has just published a study that will make it unfortunately no easier to find excuses for your boss come Monday morning.
So, in the process of sequencing your DNA for things like potential diseases and national origins, etc. 23&Me also pulls down other data on you too.
And now, according to a self-reported survey of about 90,000 people, they’ve found another connection between genetics and behavior.
Because your genetic profile just might determine, in spite of you, if you are good at mornings or not.
Read More >
