Walking boosts creativity

silhouette-man-walkingA recent study has found that walking boost creativity by about 60% compared to sitting.  Surprisingly, it didn’t matter whether study participants were walking on an indoor treadmill, or walking outdoors, both were beneficial.  The mental boost continued for around eight minutes after sitting down.  So, get out there and walk!

You can read more about the study at The Entrepreneur.

10 health tests guys should be getting

I came across a neat article at Care2 called “10 Health Tests Every Father Should Get.” (most of those tests would apply to women, too!).  It’s a nice little reminder that I need to start going to a doctor more regularly for checkups!  I’ve become more focused on monitoring my health with an activity tracker and wifi scale…these will be further data points to keep track of.

The 10 tests they recommend are (read the link above for details):

  1. Blood Pressure
  2. Diabetes
  3. Cholesterol
  4. Colorectal Cancer
  5. Prostate Cancer
  6. Vaccines
  7. Audiogram
  8. Eye Exam
  9. Lipid Profile
  10. Electrocardiogram

Which has me wondering about Apple’s forthcoming Health App.  In iOS8 (due this fall), they’ll be offering a way to track all sorts of health metrics, and share that information with your doctor.  It has the potential to be a great place to keep track of results from the tests mentioned above…I can’t wait to try it!

DEKA arm receives FDA approval

deka_armDean Kamen’s DEKA R&D Corporation has been working on an advanced prosthetic arm for many years, and has just received FDA approval.  Next step is to find a manufacturing partner, then they can bring this device to market and provide a level of functionality not before available to amputees.  This arm is controlled by electrodes placed on the remaining portion of a wearer’s arm, and translates those signals into actions in the arm, and is the first of its kind to be able to perform multiple simultaneous robotic actions.  It may sound mundane..but this arm has enough control to allow users to pick up even fragile objects like grapes and eggs without breaking them, giving their users enormous gains in ability.

Check out the video below from 60 minutes to get a better sense of what this arm is all about:

BGF – a possible safe alternative to BPA?

The alternatives to BPA in plastics (like BPS) are quite likely no better than BPA itself…but there’s a new substitute being developed which has the potential to truly offer a safe alternative.  Bisguaiacol-F, or BGF, is made from a byproduct of the paper making industry called lignin.  These lignin fragments are converted into a compound that has a similar shape as BPA (and thus predicted to have similar mechanical/thermal properties), but a different molecular structure to help ensure it doesn’t produce hormone-like responses in the body.  More work remains, so the soonest we’d see BGF on the market is in five years or so.  In the meantime, minimize the use of plastics in food and beverage storage and serving.

Read more about BGF at phys.org.

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