A Swedish study says that flame retardant triphenyl phosphate
from warm computer and monitor plastics can cause allergic
reactions, including itching, nasal congestion, and headaches.
Ventilation can solve the problem.
. [Environmental Science
and Technology. Agence France Presse/Nando Times, 19Sep00.
NewsScan.]
If you have trouble typing, consider a new chord keyboard
from Peter McAlindon at UCentral Florida. His "Keybowl"
uses two palm-sized domes that slide in eight directions.
The Keybowl set also works as a mouseless pointer system.
McAlindon hopes to have a marketable product by the end
of the year, funded by a Phase II SBIR grant.
or
. [NSF CNS, 25oct00.]
iBio is a search engine for signs and symptoms of
more than 1,400 diseases. . [Alan S.
Harrell , netsites, 04Apr00. net-hap.]
Stanford U's first for-profit online endeavor is e-Skolar,
a medical search engine that accesses textbooks, medical journals,
drug databases, clinical guidelines, and the National Library
of Medicine. The service charges $140/year, and is operated by
an independent company (e-Skolar Inc.). [WSJ, 09May00. Edupage.]
To estimate your US life expectancy: Start with 84 years
for a man or 88 for a woman. Add 5.8 years if more than one
of your parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles had excellent
health through age 90, but subtract 2 years if both parents
required daily assistance or died natural deaths by age 75.
Add 1 year if you often drop by to visit extended family members;
subtract .8 years if you cannot or do not. Subtract 4 years
for tobacco use or heavy secondhand smoke. Subtract .8 if you
live with pollution warnings, or add .2 if your air is clean.
Subtract 2 years if you are 20 pounds overweight and 2 more
if you have had a stroke or heart attack. (Add .8 if you take
a baby aspirin every day, after you are old enough to read
Modern Maturity.) Subtract 1.2 if you are a couch potato,
or add 1.2 for three workouts per week. Subtract .8 if your
bowel movements come more than two days apart. Add 1.2
if you shed stress easily; subtract 1.2 if it stays with you.
Add .6 if you drink tea daily, but subtract .6 if you drink
more than 16 oz. of coffee. (Tea contains beneficial
antioxidants, whereas coffee is associated with stress, ulcers,
chronic inflammation, and heart disease.) Add .6 if you have
one or two alcoholic drinks per day, but subtract 2 years
for more than two. Add 1 year if you eat healthy and minimize
meat consumption; subtract .8 if you do not, and another .4
if you char the flesh. Subtract 1.4 if you eat fried foods,
pastries, and saturated fats; otherwise add .6. Add 1 if you
take 400-800IU of vitamin E and 100-200mcg of selenium daily;
otherwise subtract .6. Add .4 years if you floss daily;
otherwise subtract .8. Finally, add .6 if you avoid the sun;
subtract .8 if you like to tan. [Thomas Perls and Margery
Hutter Silver, "Living to 100." Fred Wafshofsky, Modern Maturity,
Nov/Dec99.]
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"We first make our habits, and then our habits make us."
-- John Dryden.
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