Health and Wellbeing

Since the dawn of the Sony Walkman back in the 80s, audiologists have noted an increase in hearing loss among young people. With the current popularity of iPods and MP3 players, that trend shows no signs of abating. Although concerned parents can tell their children to keep the volume down on their personal music devices, such a rule can be difficult to enforce – particularly when childrens’ and parents’ ideas of “too loud” could differ significantly. Etymotic’s ETY Kids Safe-Listening Earphones, however, limit the volume to safe levels, even when cranked all the way up. Read More

In news that offers hope to millions of chrome-domes everywhere – yours truly included – Yale researchers have made a discovery that could lead to new treatments for baldness. While men with male pattern baldness still have stem cells in follicle roots, they need signals from within the skin to grow hair. Until now, the source of those signals that trigger hair growth has been unclear, but the Yale researchers claim to have now discovered it. Read More

For many people, a key part of their personal health management routine involves monitoring their blood pressure and weight. Frequently going to get one’s blood pressure measured at a pharmacy or clinic, however, can be a hassle. Well, to paraphrase an advertising slogan, “there’s an app for that” – along with a device. The iHealth Blood Pressure Monitoring System for iPhone, iPod touch and iPad consists of a blood pressure arm cuff wired to a portable dock, along with the free iHealth app, which users run on their chosen iDevice to keep track of their systolic and diastolic blood pressure and heart rate. They will also soon be able to throw their weight data into the mix, with the iHealth Scale. Read More

Early disease detection can be a matter of life and death, especially if that disease is cancer. In a novel approach to this problem, researchers from MIT have engineeringed a series of ultra-microscopic particles, each designed to bind to a disease-specific type of microRNA - a genetic material which affects gene expression in the nucleus. In cancer cells, the microRNA has somehow malfunctioned, leading to rapid, unregulated cell growth that can ultimately form tumors. Read More

Some cancers, such as pancreatic and cervical cancers, are notoriously hypoxic, which means they contain low oxygen levels. Because radiation therapy needs oxygen to be effective, hypoxic areas of a tumor can be difficult to kill. To combat this, researchers at Purdue University have developed and tested a miniature electronic device that is designed to be implanted into solid tumors to generate oxygen and boost the effectiveness of radiation and chemotherapy treatments. Read More

If you work someplace where sudden loud noises frequently but intermittently occur, it can get kind of frustrating – you pretty much have to choose between protecting your hearing with ear plugs, or being able to hear what people are saying when it isn’t noisy. Your basic earplugs, unfortunately, don’t let you hear when things are quiet, but then activate when loud noises occur. Non-basic earplugs, however, do that very thing. Etymotic Research’s HD-15 High-Definition electronic earplugs contain tiny microphones, that instantaneously cause the plugs to block incoming sound waves when they detect noises over a given threshold. When the noise has ceased, the earplugs let the user hear normally again. Read More

Recent research from the University of Washington (UW) has revealed that freshly-scented laundry comes with an unexpected price. In the first study to examine dryer vent exhaust, fragrance components in some of the best-selling liquid clothing detergents, fabric softeners and dryer sheets were found to infuse the vented air with a veritable rogue's gallery of hazardous pollutants, including two known carcinogens. Read More

Although motorcycle helmets save countless lives, they can pose a challenge to emergency response personnel at accident scenes – the helmet needs to be removed, yet the patient’s head should be moved as little as possible, in case there are any spinal cord injuries. While this sometimes results in the helmet having to be cut off, the prototype Voztec full-face helmet offers a simpler solution - with the release of one pin and two clips, the back of the helmet detaches and the front can be slid off. Read More

There's no denying that pacemakers are life-saving devices, but they do have their limitations. These include the facts that their metal leads can break, they need to be surgically accessed if their batteries run out, and they can be disrupted by strong magnetic fields. Some or all of these problems may one day become things of the past, however, due to research currently being conducted at New York's Stony Brook University - scientists there are working towards the development of pacemakers that control the heart through pulses of light. Read More