UPIreports that a cat in Iowa contracted the H1N1 virus that has been spreading aroundt the globe. The cat has recovered from the virus.
The 13-year-old cat tested positive for the H1N1 virus at the Lloyd Veterinary Medical Center at Iowa State University's College of Veterinary Medicine, the state health department said. The cat, which has recovered, is believed to have contracted it from people in the house where it lives.
"Two of the three members of the family that owns the pet had suffered from influenza-like illness before the cat became ill," Dr. Ann Garvey, the state's public health veterinarian, said. "This is not completely unexpected, as other strains of influenza have been found in cats in the past."
Fox News says veterinarians say it is far more likely for a pet to get H1N1 from a human than for a person to get it from their pet. That's good to know but pet owners now have to worry about their pet's health in addition to their own. There is no vaccine available for pets right now. There is an H1N1 vaccine for humans but it is currently hard to find. Take a look:
A company named SafeSmart has developed a line of antimicrobial silk ties. The ties are made of 100 percent nano-treated silk. The company says its ties have a built-in barrier that keeps dirt, liquids and bacteria out. The graphic above shows that water droplets bead up on the ties instead of soaking in. The company says independent studies by BCS Laboratories of Gainesville, Florida, laboratory testing indicated that SafetyTies are 99.95 percent resistant to H1N1 influenza A. The ties are currently being sold for about $24.95 to $29.95. They can be purchased here.
Reports spread recently that Gitmo detainees will be getting the H1N1 vaccine ahead of many American citizens. Reuters reports that White House spokesman Robert Gibbs made a statement that there is no H1N1 vaccine in Guantanamo and no vaccine on the way to Guantanamo. However, Gibbs did not promise that detainees in Guantanamo won't get the vaccine ahead of U.S. citizens.
"There is no vaccine in Guantanamo and there's no vaccine on the way to Guantanamo," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said at his daily briefing, although a Pentagon spokesman said detainees at the base could receive it late this month.
After Gibbs' comment, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said detainees at Guantanamo would receive the vaccine only after active duty troops, deployed U.S. contractors and civilians and civilians working for the Department of Defense.
Americans have been lining up for the vaccine to protect against the H1N1 swine flu virus, which has killed at least 1,000 Americans and infected an estimated 5 million.
After Gibbs comments, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman gave more specifics. He said, "Gitmo doesn't have any vaccine and is not expected to receive any vaccine for some time, probably late November at the earliest."
It sounds like the only reason Gitmo detainees don't have the H1N1 vaccine is because the government hasn't been any better about producing the vaccine for them then it has for the U.S. population. Late November would still mean Gitmo detainees receive the vaccine ahead of many American citizens that want it. Let's just make it easy and say no vaccine for Gitmo detainees until every American that wants it has had it.
A new door handle called the Sani-handle installed at a restaurant in Texas improves sanitation because people don't touch the handle. With the handle the door can easily be opened with your forearm. One problem with the door is it may be difficult to prevent people from grabbing the handle with their hands to open the door. Take a look:
Many people listen to music as they exercise. Experts say
that listening to music not only makes exercise seem easier, it really does make it easier. The rhythmic beat helps synchronize movements which promotes more efficient oxygen use. That makes you more efficient, so you can run longer. The music also helps drown out the voice in your head that's saying "let's stop now and have ice cream." Sports psychologist Costas Karageorghis of Britain's Brunel University has been researching the issue for twenty years.
According to Kargeorghis, there are four factors that contribute to a song's motivational qualities: rhythm response, musicality, cultural impact and association.
The first two are known as "internal" factors as they relate to the music's structure while the second two are "external" factors that reflect how we interpret the music. Rhythm response is tied to the beats per minute (bpm) of the song and how well it matches either the cadence or the heartbeat of the runner. A song's structure such as its melody and harmony contribute to its musicality. The external factors consider our musical background and the preferences we have for a certain genre of music and what we have learned to associate with certain songs and artists.
Picking the right music can have several benefits.
Syncing beats per minute with an exercise pace increases your efficiency. In a recent study, subjects who cycled in time to music found that they required 7 percent less oxygen to do the same work when compared to music playing in the background. Music can also help block out the little voice in your brain telling you its time to quit. Research shows that this dissociation effect results in a 10 percent reduction in perceived effort during treadmill running at a moderate intensity.
In one study, those that listened to music while exercising had a 15 percent improvement in endurance. For professional athletes that is a huge difference which could be the difference in winning a marathon. For exercisers, it means that you can go much longer thereby burning more calories.
The BBC reports on a British study that linked processed foods to depression. The study in the British Journal of Psychiatry compared the diets of 3,500 middle-aged civil servants and found that those eating the most whole foods had a 26% lower risk of future depression and those who ate a diet high in processed food had a 58% higher risk of depression.
They split the participants into two types of diet - those who ate a diet largely based on whole foods, which includes lots of fruit, vegetables and fish, and those who ate a mainly processed food diet, such as sweetened desserts, fried food, processed meat, refined grains and high-fat dairy products.
After accounting for factors such as gender, age, education, physical activity, smoking habits and chronic diseases, they found a significant difference in future depression risk with the different diets.
Those who ate the most whole foods had a 26% lower risk of future depression than those who at the least whole foods.
By contrast people with a diet high in processed food had a 58% higher risk of depression than those who ate very few processed foods.
If there is any truth to the study then it is bad news for a lot of people because a lot of people eat processed foods. It is hard to blame them because processsed food tends to be the cheapest, easiest to find and the fastest to prepare. Lifestyle changes are not easy but changing your diet might make you feel better if you reduce processed foods and add in more fruits, vegetables and fish.
Elton John has had to cancel concenrts because he is suffering from both the flu and e.coli. The H1N1 strain of flu is basically the only flu going around right now so that means Elton John has swine flu and E.coli. Wow! A double whammy of two very unwanted illnesses. He must feel awful. We hope he recovers soon.
Bloombergreports that Clorox reported a 23% increase in its 1st quarter profit thanks in part to an increase in sales of its disinfecting wipes because of the swine flu threat.
Net income climbed to $157 million, or $1.11 a share, from $128 million, or 90 cents, a year earlier, the Oakland, California-based company said today in a statement. Sales fell less than 1 percent to $1.37 billion.
U.S. and international sales of disinfecting wipes rose in response to demand for protection from the H1N1 influenza pandemic, Clorox said. Higher prices outside the U.S. also contributed to a wider gross margin, a measure of profitability. The company boosted its full-year earnings forecast to $4.05 to $4.20 a share from a previous projection of $4 to $4.15.
If some of the designer brands find about this we may end up with products like Ed Hardy Disinfecting Wipes just like we did Ed Hardy Sanitizer.
Gitmo detainees will be getting the swine flu vaccine before many Americans. Politico reports that House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) thinks the plan to give the scarce vaccine to Gitmo inmates is a mistake.
"I don't think it's a good idea. The administration probably didn't think it would be very popular either, that's why they announced it on Friday night," Boehner said Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union."
Boehner also objected to plans to give the scarce H1N1 shots to criminals, while ordinary Americans are having trouble finding the shots, which have taken longer to produce than the government predicted.
"We have prisoners in my own home county who are going to get H1N1 shots while there are vulnerable populations who want the shots who can't get them. I just think that's wrong," Boehner said.
The government has been slowly reducing the number of H1N1 vaccine it says will be available because of manufacturing shortages and delays. Originally the U.S. government was expecting 120 million doses by mid-October but now we will be lucky to get that many doses by the end of the year. Why in the world does the Obama administration think it is fair to American citizens to give the vaccine to Gitmo detainees while most Americans still have no opportunity to get vaccinated?
Prisoners in several states, including Texas, have been getting the vaccine before non-prisoners, including children and pregnant women. Many residents in these states are very angry at their local state government.
There are reports that actress Teri Hatcher has the swine flu and that Wisteria Lane is now on H1N1 alert. The Village Voicesays Teri Hatcher told Desperate Housewives coworkers she was diagnosed with the H1N1. Of course, there are denials as the latest publicity strategy seems to be say it is flu but not swine flu. Radar reports that a Desperate Housewives insider denies the reports telling them it is just the "regular flu." A source closed to the show told Radar, "She has the flu, but it's not swine. It's not disrupting shooting on the show."
Since we are well ahead of the regular swine flu season the H1N1 swine flu strain is primarily the only flu that's going around. If she has flu it is highly likely to be swine flu. Studios issuing swine flu denials is just ridiculous.
The New York Timesreports that the CDC is releasing the last of its Tamiflu stockpile. There have been 114 confirmed cases of child-related influenza deaths in the U.S. so far this year. However, the number may be closer to 300 because not all deaths are lab confirmed.
Even though the winter flu season has yet to begin, flu has now killed 114 children and teenagers in the United States since April, said Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Since the C.D.C. began tracking children’s flu deaths five years ago, the highest toll was 88, in the winter of 2007-8; many more children died in the pandemics of 1918, 1957 and 1968, but there are no accurate counts.
Dr. Frieden’s figures were for deaths confirmed by laboratories. On Thursday, the C.D.C. estimated that in the swine flu’s spring wave there were 2.7 deaths for each confirmed one, so the actual number of children’s deaths may be closer to 300.
The Times says the CDC released its remaining 234,000 doses on Friday. More has been ordered but it is not coming until January. This combined with a H1N1 vaccine that is very slow in arriving could prove disastrous as swine flu continues to spread around the country. The CDC is considering importing a generic version of Tamiflu if it can get FDA approval. That sounds like it would be a wise move.
Sales of hand sanitizer are booming thanks to the H1N1 swine flu strain that's going around this year. Companies like Ed Hardy have even jumped on the sanitizer trend with designer bottles. The CBS Early Show looks at a few of these brand hand sanitizers. They have also posted a list here. The Ed Hardy sanitizers can cost as much as $8 for an 8 oz bottole. Dr. Jennifer Ashton says you don't need the fancy designer bottle and scent. She says the hand saniziter just needs to have at least 60% alcohol in it to fight germs. Take a look:
Bad driving may be in your genes. Almost 30% of American drivers have a gene which appears to cause them to be a terrible drivers. They just aren't made for the open road: they have trouble navigating twists and turns. And they don't get better at it over time. Researchers Steven Cramer published his results in the journal Cerebral Cortex.
The study by Cramer, a neurology professor at the University of California Irvine, might also help explain why there are so many bad drivers on U.S. highways: About 30 percent of Americans have the variant.
Ordinarily, when a person performs a task, a protein called brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) is secreted to the area of the brain that is associated with that activity.
The protein helps facilitate communication among brain cells and helps retain memory.
However in people who have the gene variation that Cramer studied, BDNF secretion is limited.
"These people make more errors from the get-go, and they forget more of what they learned after time away," Cramer said in a statement.
Cramer and his team of researchers set out to find how the variant affected driving.
They recruited 29 people to drive 15 laps on a simulated course with difficult curves and turns. Twenty-two of the participants did not have the gene variant; seven did.
The researchers wanted to see how effectively the participants learned to navigate the twists and turns in each subsequent lap.
Four days later, they repeated the test. The participants with the variant did worse both times. They also retained less the second go-round.
There is no commercially available test for the variant -- yet. The scientists are very curious to see if their results correlate with higher accidents in the real world. It's a very interesting study that could explain why some people are just terrible drivers, no matter how much experience they have driving.
The New York Times has a very interesting -- some might prefer the term disturbing -- feature on Paul Rudnick, an adult male who has essentially lived on candy his entire life. He nibbles a bit on plain bagels and Cheerios, but generally he only eats candy. This has gone on since he was a child. He is thin and in good health. Rudnick is a humorist and playwright, but he says he's not joking about his odd diet.
....It is possible, it seems, to live on candy.
Mr. Rudnick is the living proof. At 51, 5-foot-10 and an enviably lean 150 pounds, Mr. Rudnick does not square with the inevitable mental image of a man who has barely touched a vegetable other than candy corn in nearly a half-century. Apparently, one can not only live on a dessert island, but can also do it happily and long.
"People always assume I'm lying," said Mr. Rudnick earlier this month in his West Village apartment packed from ceiling to floor with Gothic ornamentation. "They always say: 'That can't be true. You'd be dead. Or huge.'"
But as Mr. Rudnick insisted (as he does in I Shudder, a collection of short pieces ranging from recollections to screeds), he is not dissembling or diseased. "There was never a time when I was not refined-sugar-centric," he said flatly. "I was always appalled by almost all other foods; I could not understand why anyone wanted them. I did not like the taste, the smell, the concept."
At the age of 6 he was even sent to a psychiatrist, who told his parents their son was otherwise well-adjusted, and to let him eat what he wanted and just see what happened.
"His advice was, basically, 'Just let it go, otherwise, you will have to tie him down, force feed him, and shield your face from the projectile vomit,'" he recalled. "I was so dead certain about it, so completely unwilling to entertain any options that they basically had no choice."
*****
"People imagine that I eat an entire chocolate cake for dinner," he said. "They think of Willy Wonka-style gluttony, but that's their fantasy."
We've heard of picky eaters, but we've never heard of one who never grew out of it by adulthood to the point where they could at least eat some protein and vegetables without gagging.
Paul eats nuts regularly, so he's getting some protein that way, we suppose. But what about vitamin deficiencies? Wouldn't he have scurvy if he really never ate any citrus or vitamin C? Of course all the cereals are fortified, so perhaps he gets his vitamins that way -- and he does get some iron and Vitamin C from the Raisinets.
Paul doesn't even eat gourmet candy. He just scarfs down elephant peanuts, Yodels, Peeps, Hostess Snowballs and Hostess Cupcakes. It's all junk food -- some might argue that those items aren't real food at all. He'll probably live to be 120 just to spite all the doctors and nutritionists.
You can read a list of Paul's favorite candies here.
The AlterG Anti-Gravity Treadmill M310 is an amazing $24,500 treadmill that is based on technology developed by NASA for astronauts to use to exercise atrophied muscles after returning to Earth. This same technology can be also useful for athletes and people with injuries that need to undergo rehab. The AlterG allows people to run or walk at a fraction of their body weight. The user wears a special pair of shorts and zips the waist into a pressurized airtight enclosure, which is suspended over the treadmill surface. By controlling the pressure in the enclosure, the clinician can reduce the
weight of the individual by as much as 80%.
You can see a video of the treadmill in action here. You can have to put on special AlterG elastic shorts, seal yourself into the circular cockpit and fill the bag with air before you can start exercising. The website also says the AlterG can be purchased for $499 a month on a five year lease-to-own plane.