Amos Dudley, a broke undergrad, casted a mold of his teeth using "cheap alginate powder, Permastone, and a 3d printed impression tray," then 3D printed and vacuformed a series of alingment trays for a fraction of what it would have cost to get name-brand invisaligns. Read the rest
Today we travel to a future where your microbiome becomes a key part of your identity. From health to your child’s kindergarten, here are all the ways knowing about your microbiome might impact your life.
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In this episode we talk about the possibilities and limitations of the microbiome — the trillions of bacterial cells that live in and on your body. There’s a lot of money going towards microbiome research right now, and a whole lot of claims about what the microbiome can do. We break down what we actually know, and where we’re probably going.
An anonymous ER doctor treated a woman who claimed she had a tracking chip embedded in her body. At first he disbelieved her -- lots of people suffer from delusions that they have implanted microchips -- but then she showed him the suture.
For six months, 5-year-old Khloe Russell was battling what seemed to be a nasty sinus infection. Unfortunately, no antibiotics seemed to help. Last weekend, Khloe's uncle said, "Your nose, it's disgusting. Blow your nose, blow your nose.'" She did, and a blackened, disintegrating safety pin emerged. Khloe feels much better now. From UPI:
Read the rest"She found a safety pin and being a kid wanted to stick it up there to see how far it would go and thought she dropped it not realizing it had lodged itself in her nose. We went to the same doctor and to urgent cares contracted through our doctors when there wasn't an available appointment. All the doctors looked up her nose but didn't see anything. My daughter didn't mention anything because she didn't realize it had gone into her nose," Powell wrote in the comments to this UPI story.
Powell also told UPI that she's getting "some of the most horrendous hate mail in regards to my parenting skills. I hope people can understand that this can happen to their children and that it doesn't make their children stupid for doing it or not saying anything after."
Sugar Film from Paul Tuffery. The Video Guys on Vimeo.
That Sugar Film is a 2014 documentary about sugar in food, and the effects of a high sugar diet. You can watch the entire movie on Vimeo.
Read the restThat Sugar Film is one man's journey to discover the bitter truth about sugar. Damon Gameau embarks on a unique experiment to document the effects of a high sugar diet on a healthy body, consuming only foods that are commonly perceived as 'healthy'. Through this entertaining and informative journey, Damon highlights some of the issues that plague the sugar industry, and where sugar lurks on supermarket shelves. That Sugar Film will forever change the way you think about 'healthy' food.
Junior doctors in the UK National Health Service have been attempting to negotiate a decent wage and decent working conditions in their new contract with Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt, who is a terrible person, and who has been publicly libelling the hardworking doctors on the front lines of the UK health system. Read the rest
In this episode of the Flash Forward podcast we travel to a future where humans have decided to eradicate the most dangerous animal on the planet: mosquitos. How would we do it? Is it even possible? And what are the consequences?
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We talk to experts on mosquito ecology, public health, and a guy who’s trying to genetically engineer mosquitoes to eliminate themselves. We talk about everything from how hard it would be to exterminate mosquitoes, to which species we should target, to what the potential side effects might be. Listen for all that and more!
Check out all the great podcasts that Boing Boing has to offer! Read the rest
Five years ago, the city of Calgary gave in to a scientifically illiterate campaign against fluoride in its water supply; five years later, Calgary's grade two children each have an average of 3.8 extra cavities. Read the rest
Throughout latinamerica, many countries ban abortion under any circumstance, an historic artifact of the states' close relationship with the Catholic Church. This ban on abortion has always put women's lives at risk, but with the threat of Zika virus, the dire situation has turned urgent, and widespread. Read the rest
An independent review board has ordered an unspecified health insurer in the northeastern USA to reimburse a patient for a $69,500 exoskelton from Rewalk, whose products enable people with spinal cord injuries to walk. Read the rest
Last week, hackers bricked Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center, encrypting all the data on its devices and demanding 9,000 Bitcoin (~$3.6m) to give the hospital's IT staff the keys needed to reboot it. Read the rest
Rachel "Datapunk" Kalmar is a brilliant data scientist with a background in neuroscience, connected devices, sensors, and wearables. Read the rest
A hospital is a computer we put sick people into, so when ransomware creeps infected the hospital's IT systems and encrypted all their data, they asked for a whopping $3.6m to turn the data loose again. Read the rest
Years before the complaints from Flint's citizenry about their water provoked action from the state, Governor Rick Snyder spent $440,000 to supply better water to the GM factory, where the new water supply was corroding the car parts on the assembly line. Read the rest
Ad agency Boone Oakley created a provocative campaign in posters and stickers for hospitals to promote breastfeeding to first-time moms.
Michael Graziano, a psychologist, lost 50 lbs in 8 months by experimenting on himself to see how different dietary choices affected his feelings of hunger, reasoning that the major predictor of weight control isn't calories consumed versus calories burned -- but the extent to which your unconscious mind exerts pressure on you to eat more and exercise less. Read the rest
Michael Moore, perhaps Flint, MI's most famous son, has written an open letter to people who are heartsick at the thought of a whole generation of mostly poor, mostly black children being given permanent brain damage through lead poisoning, thanks to the deliberate indifference of the state's Republican administration and the greedy people who elected them. Read the rest
