Doctors were less likely to convey “empathy, legitimation, concern, reassurance, partnership, and self-disclosure” during the course of the patient visit.
Doctors “operate at an emotional distance” from overweight and obese patients indicated by audio recordings make in exam rooms.
Continue reading… “Doctors are less likely to empathize with overweight and obese patients: Study”
Futurist Thomas Frey: Hearing aids are for old people. At least that’s what I thought when I was young and invincible attending rock concerts far louder than they should have been.
Continue reading… “How Google Glass will Disrupt the Hearing Aid Industry?”
Single people have as high as twice the mortality rate of married people.
A trend that has held true in studies across the world and time periods is that single, widowed, and divorced people have as high as twice the mortality rate of married people. The tendencies for unmarried people to die seems to tell us about the relative strength of social bonds, which is supported by similar trends seen among ants, bees, and even cells, described in a fascinating paper in Cornell’s quantitative biology archive.
Continue reading… “How isolated people and animals die sooner”
Four year old Wu Xiaotian has breathing problems that are linked to air pollution.
A boy in China has a chronic cough and stuffy nose that began last year at the age of 3. When smog across northern China surged to record levels this winter his symptoms worsened. Now he needs his sinuses cleared every night with saltwater piped through a machine’s tubes.
Continue reading… “Air pollution is radically changing childhood in China”
Freescale’s KL02 microcontroller.
With the coming of the Internet of Things chips need to be more efficient, powerful—and even smaller than they are now. In all categories, Freescale Semiconductor is making waves. And their most recent contribution, the Kinetis KL02, is one of the smallest microcontrollers in the world.
Continue reading… “Freescale creates world’s smallest swallowable ARM chip”
Ray Kurzweil believes that Moore’s Law applies to advances in the biological sciences. Will advances like artificial hips, cardiac pacemakers and spinal stimulators for pain be only the beginning of the realization of how humanity will be “re-engineered”” to take fuller and richer advantage of what science offers us?
Continue reading… “Medical technology and The Frankenstein Syndrome”
Laboratory grown rat kidney.
Scientists in the the U.S. say the have “grown” a kidney in the laboratory and it has been transplanted into animals where it started to produce urine. Similar techniques to make simple body parts have already been used in patients, but the kidney is one of the most complicated organs made so far.
Continue reading… “Scientists grow kidney in the laboratory”
Giving up reading the news will make you happier.
Some of us have learned to recognize the hazards of living with an overabundance of food and have started to change our diets. But, did you know that news is to the mind what sugar is to the body? The media feeds us small bites of trivial matter, tidbits that don’t really concern our lives and don’t require thinking. That’s why we experience almost no saturation. Unlike things that require thinking like reading books and long magazine articles, we can swallow limitless quantities of news flashes, which are bright-colored candies for the mind. Today, we have reached the same point in relation to information that we faced 20 years ago in regard to food. We are beginning to recognize how toxic news can be.
Continue reading… “News is bad for your health”
By rejecting patent applications, developing countries have kept down the costs of much-needed medications.
Gleevec, a leukemia drug, costs $70,000 per year in the United States, but only costs $2,500 in India. Why does that drug cost so much more in the U.S.?
Continue reading… “Why does chemotherapy cost $70k in the U.S., but only costs $2.5k in India?”
We totally get why women are living long, happy lives in Hawaii.
It should not be a surprise to anyone that you’re less likely to be depressed there than anywhere else in America when you live in a tropical island paradise like Hawaii.
Continue reading… “Where in America women live the longest”
The smartphone-enabled checkup will actually improve doctor-patient relationships.
Can you imagine a comprehensive, clinically relevant well-patient checkup using only smartphone-based devices? The data obtained during the checkup is immediately readable and fully uploadable to an electronic health record. The patient understands – and even participates – in the interaction far beyond faking a cough and gulping a deep breath.
Continue reading… “The smartphone physical: Medical checkups of the future”
Our breathprint could be used to detect signature metabolites associated with disease.
Our fingerprints are unique to us, but so may be our breath. Compounds in exhaled air produce a unique and stable molecular autograph or “breathprint” – one that could be used to monitor disease or track response to medication.
Continue reading… “Breathprint could one day be used to help diagnose disease”
By delving into the futuring techniques of Futurist Thomas Frey, you’ll embark on an enlightening journey.
Learn More about this exciting program.