April 27th, 2009 by Walt
I want to pass some more reliable links on for clearing the air on the severity of the swine flu outbreak and updates on progress clearing it up.
WHO Disease Outbreak News page is a good place to start. They track many health issues as well. Google News is another place to get information.
Avoid social networking places like Twitter, MySpace, etc, as you will read of everything from space aliens and terrorists creating the end of the world on through to news outlets making it up due to lack of other things to report on.
Readiness? Simple: You should already have some food and water stocked for “whatever” just in case there is a rush fearing the stores will close. I try to keep several days of food and water stocked in case of severe weather or any other emergency at all times.
Prevention? Again simple: Practice what your mother taught you about washing your hands and not standing in front of a messy sneeze! ~Duh!!! Oh, and make your mom happier and make sure you eat properly…
What to do? Go about your daily life… Keep informed, and don’t fall for off-the-wall “word of mouth” news. If you hear something off the wall, check the local media, CNN, BBC, wherever you normally get your news from (but not your next door gossip).
One final note: Beware of scams related to swine flu. There will certainly be all sorts of scams surfacing trying to separate you from your money. Do not fall for masks that collect 100% of germs forever, watch out for snake oil type cures. You know…simply don’t fall for people walking up to you on the street with goods that will keep you perfectly safe.
Last note: Beware of malware sent in emails targeted to get your attention about swine flu “news”. Now is the perfect time for malware writers to send infected videos of “the President” talking about the possible pandemic or other well known people talking about it. “Secret tips” on preventing becoming infected will be making the rounds most likely. If you do receive such an email, dump it. If it comes from a friend, ask them if they actually did send it to you, and even then be cautious as they may not realize that they have a worm installed on their computer from that email yet – and of course, it may sound plausable so nobody suspects anything.
Bottom line: COMMON SENSE should prevail! Get your facts from the media and not the neighborhood gossip or the know-it-all in line behind you at the store.
Tags: medicine, public awareness, readiness, safety, scams
Posted in A-All posts, Current Events, Health, The Internet | No Comments »
October 21st, 2007 by Walt
I know, the title probably sounds like a chore related with doing laundry… It ain’t!!! It’s actually medical research.
Folding is what proteins do when they do what they do do. When they fold wrong, bad things like Alzheimer’s, and other problems occur. This can explain it better than I can.
Thousands of hours of thousands of computers working on the same thing yield microseconds of real time simulation. Folding @ Home is their way to reduce the time it takes to simulate this process. People volunteering the unused processor time on their computers is what makes this possible. Each computer is given a project to run and then report the results back, and then receive another assignment
This is much faster than trying to simply use “supercomputers” to do the work. Being a fan of technology, I ran across DL.TV some time ago. They support Folding @ Home, and have formed a group (number: 757391) to promote a bit of community and even a bit of friendly competition to other groups participating in the Folding project. Their site is www.dl.tv. If you don’t see a group that interests you, DL.TV would love to have you as a new group member! Check out their episode 200, where Robert Heron intervies Vijay S. Pande, a professor and the creator of the Folding @ Home project.
As I said, the competitive spirit is friendly, with everybody knowing that medical science and mankind being the real winner. EXTREME Overclocking graciously operates a wonderful site dedicated to Folding news and stats.
The Stanford site has software to download for just about everything out there including the newer video game consoles!
For those worried about errors, each assignment is repeated several times by different computers. This helps prevent unintentional and malicious errors from being introduced. The same repetition would occur if they didn’t use anything but their own computers.
Tags: community, DL.TV, EXTREME Overclocking, Folding @ Home, game consoles, Hardware, Internet, medicine, people, research, Software, Stanford
Posted in A-All posts, Computing, Health | No Comments »
May 26th, 2007 by Walt
Latest studies show that men who drink four or five cups of coffee per day show a 40% less likely chance of developing gout. Six or more cups seemed to point to almost 60% less likelihood of gout.
The coffee has to be the loaded type, decaf does not make any difference. Before you go out looking for caffeine, researchers do not believe it is the reason. Decaffeinating coffee causes many changes to the chemistry of coffee. They are now trying to see just what chemical or combination of chemicals does the trick.
This study involved only men, so it is not known if women would have the same benefits.
Coffee use has been linked to several health problems such as osteoporosis, gastrointestinal problems, as well as the common anxiety, irritability, etc., effects.
More:
SooToday The Globe and Mail Senior Journal.com
I guess the discussion will turn to whether the benefits or risks outweigh each other, and would other foods or drinks offer the same results, but without any possible negative side effects of coffee.
I love coffee, and drink probably more than I should for any reason.
Posted in A-All posts, Health | No Comments »
May 22nd, 2007 by Walt
Here’s what will most likely start another round of debate on drinking, an Italian Longitudinal study on aging has found that light alcohol consumption seems to delay the onset of dementia in those with light cognitive impairment. The exact way this may happen is not known.
The study found people with mild cognitive impairment who had up to one drink of alcohol a day, mostly wine, developed dementia at an 85 percent slower rate than people with mild cognitive impairment who never drank alcohol. Food Consumer.org
The study involved people aged from 65 to 84 years old, and studied them for about three and a half years, and involved 1,445 people and the incidence of mild cognitive disorders, and another 121 with mild cognitive disorder and their progression to dementia.
Any more than one drink per day did not provide any improved results. The light drinking rate was recorded to be 85% slower in developing dementia. It did not seem to matter what alcohol was consumed, wine or harder liquors did not make any difference.
Again, I must say that this does not excuse excessive drinking, which has already proven to be much more harmful than good.
 More:
ABC News
Washington Post
Sunday Times, Perth Australia
Telegraph, UK
There are many more sources that carried this story. It seems to promise to be a popular subject for a while.
Posted in A-All posts, Health, Lifestyle/Society | No Comments »
May 19th, 2007 by Walt
According to findings reported by the China Daily and Health Care Republic, and other online sources excessive use of multivitamins by men drastically raises incidents of prostate cancer.
The National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland studied 295,343 men over the last five years. Men who had taken multivitamins more than once per day showed a 32% increase in risk for advanced prostate cancer. Of course, family history played an important role.
However the use of multivitamins and localized or early prostate cancer did not show any relationships.
The BBC reports researchers are working on finding out why some supposedly health-inducing agents seem to shorten life in some cases.
With on average, one man dying from prostate cancer every hour in the UK alone (as reported by the BBC in the link above), you can rest assured that this will be a high priority as it is a world wide problem.
The studies have found that taking the recommended dosages of multivitamins does not increase the risk of prostate cancer, only taking excessive amounts.
Posted in A-All posts, Health | No Comments »
