Bone thinning after the age of about 30 is a natural process and cannot be completely stopped. Whether a person develops osteoporosis depends on the thickness of her bones early in her life and the practice of healthy habits later in her life. The thicker a person’s bones, the less likely the bones are to become thin enough to break. Read the rest of this entry »
The ecommerce partners, meanwhile — both advertisers anxious to drop scents into banner ads, and online stores ready to scent-code product offerings, and even online sex shops eager to start scent-tracking online porn — wait anxiously in the wings. Take Procter & Gamble; the mammoth consumer brand manufacturer has been busy with the expected December launch of reflect.com, one of its first pure-play ventures into consumer ecommerce. Read the rest of this entry »
A few days after DigiScents’ announcement in October, Smith, Bellenson, and Williams are getting emails suggesting that the technology is bogus — and that Canter, an outspoken zealot in the multimedia community, has pulled some sort of prank. The jabs reveal the basic problem DigiScents faces between now and whenever the first paying consumer inhales on a working iSmell box — getting enough of these working, reliable, affordable boxes on the market, and soon, to prove that it is not vaporware.
Giving emotional support to elderly friends and relatives with heart failure may do more than make them feel better: It might help them stay out of the hospital. In a recent study, researchers interviewed nearly 300 elderly people hospitalized for heart failure about the kinds of support available to them — emotional (having someone they could talk to about their problems) and functional (having someone to help them with daily tasks such as grocery shopping). Read the rest of this entry »
Compared with kids who celebrate their birthdays in other seasons, children born in the autumn months of October through December may be more likely to have a common skin condition called atopic dermatitis, Japanese researchers report. Read the rest of this entry »
As if a woman’s decision about taking hormone replacement therapy (HRT) weren’t complicated enough, a new study has found that raloxifene (Evista), a “designer estrogen” that can prevent osteoporosis, also has potential heart benefits. Moreover, two other studies suggest that, unlike HRT, raloxifene may not increase a woman’s cancer risk and might even lower it. But despite these promising findings, most women taking HRT to protect their heart shouldn’t switch to raloxifene. Read the rest of this entry »