Health Tech

Random Cool Stuff: Your Saliva Can Reveal Your Age!

We know that our DNA holds the fingerprint to our entire physical makeup, but what about our age and the things that have happened to us through the years? Apparently we can even learn some of THAT through our DNA according to new research! According to a study from UCLA: During normal development, DNA in your body gets what’s called methylated. Small chemicals called methyl groups bind to the DNA, helping to determine which genes become active. But the patterns of methylation change as we grow older. Which was a clue that measuring methylation might give away age. The researchers…

Reviews

Review: emWave 2 Portable Stress Relief Device

A while back I tried the emWave Desktop software for stress relief. There were and are still many things that I did not like about the emWave Desktop, but my major discouraging issue with the product was that I had to be tethered to a computer during the session. Jim from HeartMath send me the new emWave 2 Portable Stress Relief Device, which alleviates my biggest pet peeve. Will it help me to be more diligent about using the device? Maybe. Did it enhance my prayer and meditation, and did it really work? Let’s find out. The emWave 2 is…

Gear Bits

Meet Winston Kemp, Lightning Strike Survivor and Lichtenberg Figure Owner

“What does your boyfriend do when you go out of town? Well, [mine] gets struck by lightning.” – Daphne Cheek We’ve all heard stories about people getting struck by lightning — usually as some sort of cautionary tale, but how many of us have ever seen the effects of lightning on a human? The Lichtenberg Figures it can leave? Winston Kemp, a 24-year-old electrician, has had first-hand experience, and now he also has a unique and possibly permanent bit of body art — a Lichtenberg Figure — to go along with it. As Winston tells it … I went outside…

Reviews

Grooming Tool Review: Klhip “The Ultimate Clipper”

Do you really need to spend $70 on a nail clipper? ($95 if you want the attractive leather case specially designed for it.) Of course not! But, as my lovely wife often reminds me, you get what you pay for. In the case of the Klhip nail clipper, while you can get something that does the same basic grooming function for under $10, you really aren’t comparing apples to apples. Here is take a look at what this high-end nail clipper is all about. From the Company: BUILDING A BETTER NAIL CLIPPER: Why re-design something so mundane? Average nail clippers…

How to Do It Yourself!

Using Technology to Train for My First Triathlon

I am currently in the final weeks training for my first triathlon here in DC on June 19th. The race lengths are an 800m swim, 20k bike ride, and 7.5k run, mostly along the National Mall. (Here are more detailed maps of the swim, bike, and run routes.) What makes this race particularly challenging for me is that when I began my training on March 19th, it was four weeks after I had hernia surgery, I couldn’t jog for more than 60 seconds without getting out of breath, had never swam freestyle in my life and couldn’t hold my form…

Editorials

Sweet16 Energy Drink: Why You Should Always Read the Label

A little bit of background: In the last year, I lost around 40lbs through watching what I ate and running. So I’ve gotten very used to paying close attention to my food, and to items that “claim” to be healthy. So when this press release popped up in the Gear Diary Inbox, I couldn’t resist taking it apart piece by piece, because it is truly the poster child for unhealthy “healthy” food. So let’s dive right in! My comments are in red, so you’ll know what came from the company and what didn’t. Bonavitas Introduces The First Truly Thermogenic Energy…

Editorials

GD QuickRant: Healthy Kids vs. Junk Food: This is America, so Obviously Junk Food Wins

Apparently the Revolution WON’T Be Televised … Last week I wrote about Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution, and while I took some issue with his cost models and plans for implementation, I agreed with his core point: our country is rapidly becoming ‘the land of the morbidly obese’, and rather than worrying about ‘long form birth certificates’ or who won celebrity whatever, we should get up off our butts and DO something about it! So what should we do about it? Apparently the answer is that school districts will learn to shut Oliver out, and his response to the lock-out will…

Gear Bits

An Ingenious Dieting Tool: The Diet Fork

I saw this on Etsy and thought it was cute. Want to look more svelte? Try eating less with a “Diet Fork.” You’ll be so frustrated by the time you are done trying to stab your spaghetti or rice that you’ll just naturally begin eating less, your stomach will shrink, and you’ll live happily ever after! Well, maybe losing weight isn’t quite that simple. Okay, so there are some fundamental flaws with that theory, but I still thought the Diet Fork Magnet was a whimsical item — perfect for gifting to your friends who are always starting the latest fad…

Editorials

The Revolution is Televised … But Will it be Subsidized?

Last year chef Jamie Oliver made a big splash by heading into a small school district in West Virginia and looking at what the kids were being fed … and then tracking back to homes and seeing the source of the issues. While our own kids are not overweight, several of their friends are (and there are some kids – girls in particular – with fed issues of different types) so it was a great discussion. It turns out that the food choices our kids have might be somewhat better than those in the West Virginia school system shown, but…

Editorials

Jenny McCarthy: Still Sticking with Debunked Autism Theory and Using ‘Mob Mind’ as Excuse

There are conspiracy theories everywhere that describe nearly every major political and social event throughout history, but until recently most common sense people simply dismissed them while allowing the theorists the ability to hold their nonfalsifiable opinions. Now there are those who think that conspiracy might be replacing democracy as the primary motivation in some people’s minds – in other words, they see every choice as motivated by some secret undercurrent hidden to most people. Most of these conspiracies are harmless differential theories that have an alternate explanation to an event. However, there have always been certain ‘lunatic fringe’ elements…

Gear Bits

GD Quickie: What in the World is this Crazy Old Man Doing??

What is this crazy old man in the nightgown doing? Is he- A. Playing the bongos on his head B. Pretending to be Carnac the Magnificent C. Taking his temperature without anything having to actually touch him? If you said C you are absolutely right. Elana took her dad to the hospital for a follow-up on some surgery he had a few weeks back and saw this new way of taking temperatures for the first time. The Exergen Coproration‘s mission is to “Change the way the world takes temperature”. Yup, without even having to touch Mark’s forehead the nurses were…

News & Features

Guns Don’t Save Lives; Skin Guns Save Lives

Now THIS is an amazing use of technology for good. Did you know that the current method of helping burn victims through skin grafts takes weeks or months to heal but that can be brought down to literally an hour? It’s true and a National Geographic program will focus on the innovation that makes it possible. The “Skin Gun” takes stem cells from a burn victim’s healthy skin (not the controversial kind) and mixes them with a solution that then allows doctors to literally spray new skin on. Apparently it is LITERALLY like spray painting but with a far more…

News & Features

Toe Salad, a Social and Review Site for Minimal Running!

It’s no secret that some of us at Gear Diary are big fans of shoes like Vibram Five Fingers. But VFFs are far from the only minimalist shoes available! These days it seems like every major running company has a minimal shoe in their lineup, and there are dozens of small shoemakers all trying to carve out a place in this new niche. Unfortunately, unless you’re lucky enough to live near a major city or a very progressive running store, you need to turn to the internet to figure out what shoe might work for your minimal running adventures. It…

Events, News & Features

Nike Introduces the Nike+ SportWatch

Garmin has been the undisputed leader of GPS running watches for several years. Timex and Polar have similar devices, but neither has captured running hearts quite like the Garmin Forerunner line. Nike has the “poor man’s Garmin” with their Nike+ system, and at CES they stepped it up with a new GPS-based Nike watch. According to Nike: Starting April 1st, get the extra push you need with the Nike+ SportWatch GPS powered by TomTom. Not only does it track what you do, it tracks how you do it, then makes you want to do it again and again. Here’s how:…

Reviews

Review: emWave Desktop

Christmas time can be an incredibly stressful time of year. Some of the reasons for this stree may be seeing family you haven’t seen in a year. Or perhaps facing a long drive with a car full of kids. Or even the stress of finding the perfect gift for that hard to buy for loved one. We all need a way to de-stress. Emwave sent me their desktop software to test. Will it help? HeartMath’s emWave Desktop is a desktop version of the portable heart math tool. Heart Math or heart coherence is a technique that many have proclaimed helps reduce stress…

Editorials

Beware the Ice Pack, a Post-Run Safety PSA

Yesterday Carly shared one of what I consider to be the more important posts in recent memory (a close second to Michael’s post the other day). Carly related the story of a woman running with headphones on who “turned left abruptly, and went directly into the path of an oncoming bicycle.” The post highlights the potential danger of running or biking with headphones on. Increasingly we are (finally) talking about the issue of distracted driving. The fact is, distracted exercise is also an issue, and it is one that Larry has warned me about numerous times. Well, along similar lines…

News & Features

8 Month Old Deaf Baby’s Reaction To Cochlear Implant Being Activated

A cochlear implant (CI) is a surgically implanted electronic device that provides a sense of sound to a person who is profoundly deaf or severely hard of hearing. The cochlear implant is often referred to as a bionic ear. According to Wikipedia, as of April 2009, approximately 188,000 people worldwide had received cochlear implants; in the United States, about 30,000 adults and over 30,000 children are recipients. There has been an ongoing debate in the deaf community over the use of this procedure. For some deaf individuals cochlear implants are an affront to their culture, which as they view it, is a minority…

News & Features

Work Gear Review- The Ergotron WorkFit Sit-Stand Desk

I have a bad back, and when it goes out I have a very difficult time sitting for extended period. This can be more than a slight problem in light of the fact that, between my work as a rabbi and my work on the site, I do so much writing. At times I’ve ended up placing my keyboard on a box and typing … and that way works, but it’s not the best solution. That is the reason I was thrilled when Ergotron reached out to me and asked if I might be interested in reviewing one of their…

Reviews

Android App Review: Instant Heart Rate

You can use your smartphone in many ways to track your health; to keep an eye on what you eat, how far you run, how often you work out, etc. And now, you can also use your phone camera to track your heart rate! I don’t know much about medicine, but according to the app, it works “similar way [sic] as a medical pulse oximeter but without a dedicated light source.” Now, to paraphrase Dr. McCoy, Dammit I’m a geek, not a doctor…so I consulted my good buddy Wikipedia: A blood-oxygen monitor displays the percentage of arterial hemoglobin in the…

News & Features

State of the ‘Obese-itude’: CalorieLab Releases the 2009 State-by-State Obesity Map

While the numbers displayed are staggering, that map only tells part of the story: – It is only about adults. – It displays obesity, not % overweight. CalorieLab has been tracking obesity in states for several years, and has been tweaking their methods over time, now depending on a three-year rolling average to smooth out spikes and look at long-term issues. Somewhat disturbing is that they have had to change their scales (pun intended) because the obesity trends just keep getting worse: because of the overall increase in obesity, CalorieLab this year again shifted the color coding used in its…

Health and Fitness

C25K: Larry Is too Cool for School

Week of 6 of the C25K program is in the books. Only three more weeks to go. Here’s how this week’s workouts looked: Larry: If you follow me on Twitter you may have noticed the lack of Tweets related to the C25K program this week. No it wasn’t a Twitter failure. Judie: And if you follow me on Twitter, you may have noticed the same lack of Tweets; that was not a Twitter failure, either. Larry: I was all set to follow this week’s plan until I ran until my old marathon training buddy at my neighborhood’s swimming pool over…

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