Alternative Online Nursing Programs

The health industry has witnessed a transformation from traditional medicine to the more “new age” health reform that has slowly crept into the mainstream culture.  As health care continues to skyrocket, different forms of medicine have become more integrated in the United States health industry, opening up new forums for students to consider.  Alternative medicine is any healing practice that does not fall within the realm of conventional medicine, and typically encompasses therapies with a historical or cultural, rather than a scientific basis.

Known as CAM, the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine offers students the opportunity to participate in online courses about many different types of alternative medicine programs.  Registration is free for these courses and offers health care professionals to receive continuing education about the health field, particularly stressing the importance to doctors and nurses.   To receive the credit for this type of online nursing program, students must pass with a 70 percent accuracy rate.  Nurses can additional earn twelve hours throughout the program, thereby earning a certification of completion. 

Energy medicine is one of the domains of complementary and alternative medicine as identified by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine in the U.S.  Therapists in this field focus on theorized forms of “energy”, the imbalance of which is said to result in illness.  Donna Eden has become a major force within the energy medicine community, and her Eden Energy Medicine Certification Program offers two years of training to become a practitioner through online classes.  Three different programs are available for health care professionals, offering basic, intermediate, and advanced training in energy medicine, and teaching students how to heal patients in an unconventional way.

While many of these alternative medicine forums are not recognized by many in the health industry, the business has become quite lucrative as more and more patients flock to these centers.  The United States has additionally always been a melting pot of different cultures, and has thus welcomed this type of alternative healing from different backgrounds.  As an alternative to many traditional online nursing programs, many alternative online nursing programs cater exclusively to herbalism, homeopathy, and acupuncture, as well as other spiritual approaches to the health industry.  While these programs are not for every nursing student, they offer a glimpse into a different type of health community which also prides itself on helping its patients.  Since most of these programs are online, students are offered the flexibility to learn at their leisure while still retaining the ability to continue other online nursing programs.

100 Healthy Hacks for Tech and Gadget Geeks

There’s a dirty little stereotype flying around that techies and geeks aren’t the healthiest people around. With busy, unpredictable schedules that chain you to your computer or project all day (and sometimes all night), it’s hard to eat right, maintain good posture, and remember to go to the doctor for your annual check-up. Here are 100 healthy hacks for tech and gadget geeks who want to get in shape and turn the stereotype around.

Ergonomics

Give your back, wrists and eyes a break when you practice these ergonomics exercises and techniques.

1. Get an ergonomic keyboard: Get an ergonomic keyboard to prevent carpal tunnel, which seriously hurts and can really impede your movement and your productivity.
2. Adjust your monitor: The top of your screen should be at or slightly below eye level.
3. Rest your eyes: Every 20 minutes or so, focus on an object that is at least 20 feet away.
4. Avoid repetition: Move your hands, arms, wrists, and neck around to avoid stiffness and too many repetitive tasks, which can lead to carpal tunnel.
5. Get a keyboard pullout tray: Your keyboard should actually be below you, on a stable surface (not your lap).
6. Keep your computer directly in front of you: Don’t stress your neck or head by twisting them to see your screen.
7. Keep your mouse close by: You shouldn’t be reaching across your desk for your mouse.
8. Type with your wrists above the keyboard: Only use your wrist rest when taking breaks.
9. Adjust contrast: Make sure screen contrast and brightness are at comfortable levels.
10. Listen to your body: If you’re experiencing pain or discomfort, it may be time to cut back or work on your posture.
11. Carpal tunnel exercises: Do 10 reps of these exercises to combat carpal tunnel.

Diet

Don’t succumb to greasy pizza and takeout every day. These healthy foods and eating hacks will help you lose weight, keep up your energy, and feel better.

12. Keep healthy snacks at your desk: Stock your mini-fridge or desk drawers with healthier snacks like fruits, veggies and whole-grain cereal bars.
13. Spinach and leafy greens: Eating a spinach salad or other leafy greens may protect your eyes from computer glare.
14. Drink lots of water: Staying hydrated is important and can keep your energy and focus in top shape.
15. Monitor your eating schedule: If you’re lost in a serious project, you might forget to eat, or start snacking mindlessly on anything you can get your hands on. Remember to eat something light every 4 hours if you don’t have time for sit-down meals.
16. Dress your pizza the right way: You don’t have to give up pizza altogether: just eat it in moderation and pile on healthy toppings like artichoke hearts, bell peppers, tomatoes, mushroom, spinach, onion or broccoli.
17. Watch out for "crash" foods: Junk foods that contain lots of sugar and no complex carbs or protein (like pizza or chips) will make you crash an hour or so later. Eat nuts, whole wheat crackers and cheese instead.
18. Pistachios: Pistachios are a healthy nut that can lower blood pressure.
19. Whole grains: Those who sit all day may find that belly fat is a problem. You can zap the fat by eating whole grains like brown rice and oatmeal.
20. Blueberries: Keep a bowl of blueberries close by for healthy snacking and to improve your focus and maintain cognition.
21. Drink black coffee: You’re probably addicted to coffee, but try to drink it black or with skim milk and not lots of creamer and sugar.
22. Drink tea: Drink green or black tea instead of coffee every once in a while.
23. Pumpkin seeds: Pumpkin seeds are a good alternative to chips and contain magnesium, which is also a muscle relaxant.
24. Cold-water fish: Salmon, mackerel and herring are full of omega-3 fatty acids, which is also good for your brain and your heart.
25. Eggs or egg whites: Start your day with protein by making eggs.
26. Black beans: Make a meal out of black beans or put them on your salad for an excellent serving of fiber, protein, iron, B vitamins and antioxidants.
27. Low-fat, low-sugar yogurt: Get calcium and add probiotics, or "good bacteria" to your diet with low-fat, low-sugar yogurt.
28. Tomatoes: Tomatoes are another easy food to add to all types of meals and snacks, and they’re one of the biggest sources of carotenoids, which contain antioxidants.
29. Quinoa: Quinoa will keep you full longer because it has the most protein of any other grain. It also contains fiber, riboflavin, magnesium and iron.
30. Salads: Even if you’re short on time, you can make easy salads that will pack in lots of protein, fiber, veggies and fruits.
31. Don’t eat too late at night: You might have a weird schedule, but you should still avoid eating, especially heavy foods, late at night. Eating right before bed or when your metabolism is slowest makes it easy for your body to gain weight.

Exercise

Make time to exercise, even if it’s just for spontaneous jumping jacks or during your break time.

32. Sit on an exercise ball: Strengthen your abs and work on your posture by sitting on a stabilizing exercise ball instead of your regular desk chair.
33. Start your own fitness routine: Squeeze in any kind of exercise any way you can, and stick to the same schedule to make it a habit.
34. Take a walk after you eat: After heavier meals, take a walk to burn extra calories, improve your digestion and prevent sluggishness.
35. Don’t skip a workout: Skipping a workout will make you feel depressed and unmotivated, and more likely to keep skipping in the future.
36. Set goals: You’ll be more likely to stick to your exercise plan if you stick personal, reasonable goals.
37. Do spontaneous jumping jacks: Spontaneous spurts of exercise: like 5-10 minutes of jumping jacks can blast calories.
38. Do something every day: Even light to moderate activity like walking helps.
39. Sex: Sex isn’t just a workout: it helps increase blood flow and boosts your mood.
40. Work out with a friend: Combine social time with exercise by finding a friend to motivate you.
41. Walk or bike when you can: Walk or bike to run errands to get to work.

Taking Breaks

Here are healthy ways to hack break time and give your body and mind a rest.

42. Get up once an hour: Give your eyes, back and wrists a break by getting up once an hour, even if it’s just to walk around the room or take out the trash.
43. Take the stairs: If you’re running downstairs on your break or for lunch, take the stairs to get your legs and heart pumping.
44. Stretch: Between your "getting up" breaks, take a minute to stretch your neck, arms, back and legs.
45. Don’t watch TV: The whole point of taking a break is to give your eyes a rest.
46. Get off the computer: You shouldn’t play on the Internet during break time either. Get up and walk around.
47. Quit smoking: You don’t need to be a smoker to be entitled to a short break. Quit smoking and use your breaks more productively, to take a walk or eat a healthy snack.
48. Take a cat nap: Spin your chair around or find a couch to take a 20-minute cat nap during your break time.

Check-ups

Remember to head to the doctor for regular check-ups and screenings.

49. Get your eyes checked: Get your eyes checked to prevent eye strain or eye diseases.
50. Check your blood pressure: High blood pressure can be an indicator of other health problems, including stress, and can put you at a greater risk for heart attack.
51. Go for regular check-ups and screenings: Remember to go for regular check-ups, screenings and teeth cleanings to make sure you’re in good health overall.

Web Tools

While you’re on the computer anyway, use these health tools to monitor your symptoms, weight, exercise routine and more.

52. BMI Calculator: Assess your overall health and decide if you need to lose weight by calculating your BMI.
53. Symptom Checker: This interactive tool will help you diagnose a problem.
54. The Daily Plate: Count calories and plan meals with this healthy living site.
55. Games for Fit Brains: You’re probably working (or overworking) your brain at work, but these fun games can keep you on your toes by introducing you to new challenges.
56. SparkPeople: This social network and healthy living community will introduce you to diet and fitness plans just for you.
57. Physical Activity in Your Daily Life: Here you’ll be able to figure out which daily chores can cut calories. It’s a good tool to give you ideas for stretching and fitting in "work outs" during your breaks, too.
58. Diet and Fitness Assessments: These quizzes and assessments will test stress, motivation, saturated fat intake and more.
59. Dietary Guidelines for Americans: The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ guide on nutrition can help you pick foods from each food group.
60. Healthy Living Calculators: Calculate target heart rate, calories burned, ideal body weight, depression risk, and more.

iPhone Apps

If you’re of the iPhone persuasion, you’ll like having these healthy living apps handy to remind you to eat right, work out and track your well being.

62. WebMD Mobile: This free app connects you to the guides and tools on WebMD.
63. Your Ideal Weight: Use this app to set weight-loss goals and figure out your BMI.
64. Restaurant Nutrition: Find out the nutrition facts of meals from Arby’s, Burger King, Chick-Fil-A, Chili’s, Dairy Queen and other popular eateries.
65. DailyBurn: Track workouts, calories and weight goals with this free app.
66. FoodScanner: Get the nutrition facts by scanning UPC barcodes with your iPhone.
67. iTreadmill: Turn your iPhone into a pedometer with this app.
68. Two Hundred Situps: Get weekly health and fitness tips as this app helps you work up to 200 situps.
69. GymGoal: It’s easy to track your favorite workouts and find workouts for different parts of the body with this app.
70. Muscle Head and Neck System: Learn about the muscles in your head and neck, and how to relax them.
71. HeartWise Blood Pressure Monitor: If you’re worried about your blood pressure, you can track it with this app.

Stress

Don’t let the stress of annoying clients and ridiculous workloads get to you. Manage stress with these healthy hacks.

72. It’s okay to rant: Through exercise or a rant fest with friends, letting off steam can help you relax.
73. Make time for yourself: It’s easy to get lost in your projects, but schedule time each day for something fun.
74. Find out what’s expected of you: Prevent unnecessary stress and job burnout by communicating with bosses and clients regularly.
75. Learn how to control your reaction: You can’t always control what’s stressing you out, but you can work on ways to deal with issues more constructively.
76. Avoid gossip and office conflict: Keep your mind on your work and your own problems.

Sleep Hacks

Make the most of naps and regular sleep to refuel yourself.

77. Wind down before bed: Free Geekery reminds you to read, try acupuncture and avoid over-stimulating activities (like TV) before bed.
78. Caffeine Naps: This might sound weird, but apparently it works: Drink a cup of coffee and then take a 15-minute nap as a chaser. You’ll feel alert when you wake up.
79. Practice getting up when your alarm goes off: During the day when you’re already awake practice responding to your alarm. This strategy makes it easier to wake up in the morning.
80. Address anxiety: When you can’t fall asleep because of anxiety, spend the hour before bedtime writing down everything that’s stressing you out.
81. Sleep on schedule: Try to go to bed and wake up around the same time even on weekends.

Boost your immunity

Keep your immune system in good shape to avoid getting sick and have more energy.

82. Deal with stress: Stress is one of the greatest threats to a healthy immune system, so learn to deal with it appropriately.
83. Eat lots of veggies: Eat less red meat and more veggies and chicken soup to boost immunity.
84. Get enough sleep: Sleep deprivation can also weaken your immune system.
85. Indulge every once in a while: Keeping yourself happy with a piece of chocolate can boost mood and immunity.
86. Nuts: Get your healthy fats and oils by eating nuts, which also contain Vitamins C and E.
87. Mushrooms: Mushrooms contain cytokines and Vitamin D which are supposed to be good for your immune system.
88. Exercise: Reduce stress, sleep better and increase blood flow with moderate exercise.

Daily Habits

From flossing to getting sunlight, these daily habits will keep you healthy.

89. Get enough natural light: Open the blinds or take your breaks outside to keep your body on a regular schedule and boost your mood.
90. Be social: Social interaction can extend your health and improve your mood. Even if you work alone, take some time to chat online with friends or go out for lunch.
91. Keep a journal: It sounds sappy, daily or weekly journaling can help you manage stress, track goals, vent, and force you to spend time away from the computer.
92. Multitask less: Multitasking can add to stress, mess with your ergonomics strategy and make you lose your focus.
93. Clean your house and office: Make sure you dust, vacuum and clear away dirty dishes to avoid getting sick and to keep pests at bay.
94. Get out of your pajamas: You’ll be more productive and energetic and will also feel more confident and connected if you shower and get dressed like a "normal" person, even if you work from home.
95. Floss: Your oral health is a good indicator for your overall health. Floss to rid your mouth of bacteria and help promote fresh breath.
96. Check the A/C: Server rooms are often over-cooled, so ask if it’s okay to adjust the temperature. If you can’t, bring a jacket or sweater to keep yourself comfortable.
97. Wash your hands: If you work on other people’s keyboards all day, you’ll want to make sure you wash your hands frequently to avoid getting their germs.
98. Get a dog: You’ll find a new purpose, become more responsible and less lonely if you have a dog to take care of.
99. Eat breakfast: Eat something for breakfast — even if it’s just a piece of fruit — to jump start your metabolism and give your brain and body an instant dose of energy and nutrition.
100. Take a multi-vitamin: Consult with your doctor if you’re not sure which vitamins your body needs most. A multi-vitamin is especially important if you work on an irregular schedule and can’t find time to eat healthy meals all the time.

How do Online Nursing Programs Work?

There have always been critics and skeptics of online education who have maintained that students cannot learn out of a classroom setting, but none more so than the critics of health care programs.  These programs, especially online nursing programs, appear to be created in such a way that they cannot be taught anyplace but a classroom or clinic.  However, online nursing programs have emerged around the country through many online schools and offer students the chance to become a registered nurse in an unconventional, but accepted, manner. 

Online nursing programs are typically not completely distance learning programs and usually work with clinics in different cities for students’ residency requirements.  Nursing classes can be taught online, but when students reach the point of residency requirements, the online classes must shift to field work and students must earn a set number of hours in order to attain a nursing degree.  Ordinary classroom nursing programs work in the same way: students must complete a set number of classroom instruction hours before they have to complete another set of clinic hours.  The only difference with online education is that students can earn their classroom hours from home, although some online schools require students to attend classroom meetings from time to time.

Online nursing programs and other health care programs are composed in such a way that students must earn some of their hours away from the comfort of their computer.  Students cannot gain this type of clinic experience through online classes and therefore must become involved with clinics after a year of online nursing classes.  However, online classes help many students who do not have the time to enroll in traditional classroom courses because of their busy schedules.  While their schedules must change by their second year in nursing school, the initial year of online classes means that they can hold onto their job or family life while still earning a new degree.

The only real difference with online nursing programs is the early stages of nursing school; adjusting your school schedule to match with your work schedule during this first year is demonstrative of the flexibility online education allows its students.  However, nursing students need to do further research into their online nursing programs to ensure that they can complete all their early classes from home before they are required to begin attending clinics and other residency requirements. 

50 Best Blog Posts on Health Care Reform

With the House just having passed a health care reform bill, the Senate considering one, and President Obama’s urging to get a plan in place by the end of the year, there are some sweeping changes occurring with the health care system in America. Check out these 50 blog posts to see what people are saying about what we need, how we should make changes, and what changes have already been put in place.

What is Health Care Reform and Why Do We Need It?

Explore the issues at hand that are prompting all the discourse over health care reform with these blog posts.

1. Defining ‘Health Care Reform’. This post examines what health care reform means to the American people seeking health care and from the perspective of an economist.
2. How Health Care Reform Would Impact You. This blog post is a few months old, so it may be slightly off on the specifics of the health care reform bill, but it does offer an excellent view of why health care reform is necessary.
3. Healthcare Reform Explained – A Guide For the Perplexed. Dr. Rich (Richard N. Fogoros, MD) offers a detailed account of what he sees as the history and problems of health care in America and what the reforms may or may not bring.
4. Let’s Compare US Health Care Costs With Other Countries. These graphs clearly show how costly American health care is in comparison to other countries around the world.
5. Medical Bankruptcy and Health Care Reform. Take a look at some debate over the connection between bankruptcy due to medical debt and health care reform here.
6. Why We Need Health Care Reform. This post includes the transcript of a speech given by Obama as he explains why health care reform is vital to American "stability and security."
7. When Will Emergency Rooms Go Back to Being Emergency Rooms?. Emergency rooms have become substitutes for routine care for those without insurance, leaving people with emergencies to wait for hours.
8. Do we need healthcare reform?. Dr. Geoff breaks down the reasons for health care reform in an easy-to-understand fashion.
9. Why Do We Need Health Care Reform? Don’t Ask George Will. This post takes issue with George Will’s stance on leaving health care alone and explains why health care reform is essential.
10. What Do the U.S. and Turkmenistan Have in Common?. In a comparison that provides a new perspective on the broken American health care system, this post illustrates the need for reform.

Suggestions on What Should Be Done

Instead of just complaining about the problem, these people are offering solutions.

11. Health Care Reform – Full Article. CEO of Whole Foods, John Mackey offers his suggestions for how to create an effective health care reform package.
12. How important are individual mandates in achieving health reform?. Debra Lipson discusses the inclusion of individual mandates as a part of health care reform.
13. Health Care Reform Needs Public Option–Not Band-Aid. Mike Hall from the AFL-CIO NOW Blog discusses why a public option is necessary for health care reform.
14. A billion dollars worth of care……. Bill Crounse, MD Senior Director of Microsoft’s Worldwide Health offers his ideas on what should be included in health care reform in order to make the most of the money involved and to serve the people the best.
15. Intermountain Healthcare–Proof That U.S. Hospitals Can Improve. Take a look at the results of a healthcare system in Utah and Idaho that demonstrates how Medicare pilot programs may point the way to quality health care reform.
16. What Congress Can Do To Boost Health Care Quality. Margaret E. O’Kane, president of the National Committee for Quality Assurance, provides three suggestions for what Congress can do to ensure effective and quality health care.

Hear from the Doctors

In the trenches, the doctors have a unique perspective on many issues surrounding health care reform. Hear what they have to say here.

17. The House Bill Is "Worse Than Nothing"? Really?. Jonathan Cohen looks at what Marcia Angell, M.D., one of the most respected experts on health care, says about the health care reform as it stands and whether or not it was worth the effort.
18. The Federated Health System of America. This physician with a PhD in Health Policy provides his perspective on why there has been such a difficulty reaching consensus and why the result may not succeed.
19. Health Care Reform 2009: No Bill is Better Than a Bad Bill. Dr. John Geyman looks at the negatives of the health care reform bill, which he sees as outweighing the positives.
20. Dissident Docs Fail to Dislodge AMA’s Backing of House Health Bill. The AMA officially supported the bill as passed by the House, but many doctors are vehemently opposed to this support. Read this post to find out why.
21. House Bill Effects on Physician Income. Dr. Christopher M. Hughes explains how physicians are actually in a position to receive more income when more people are covered–even when the amount paid by each patient is less.
22. Saving Health Care–Saving America. Written collaboratively, this post calls Congress to think and act on the part of the American people, not special interest groups.
23. Uninsured veterans. Dr. Don McCanne shines light on the fact that many veterans are left uninsured after serving their country and asks for something to be done for all Americans.
24. Doctor’s Rx for health reform: primary care for all. Dr. Michael Fine advocates for a health care system for America, not expensive health insurance.
25. How should doctors discuss healthcare reform with patients?. Discover how some physicians are talking about health care reform to patients and why some are not.
26. Responsible Governing is Hard. This ER doc discusses the fiscal responsibility (or lack thereof) in relation to the House health care reform bill.

The Economic and Political View

The health care issues are integrally tied to economics and politics. Find out about the controversy and opinion being blogged with these posts.

27. Word from the White House: Controlling Costs for Families, Small Businesses, and the Government. This is the official White House response to both the House and Senate version of the health care reform bill.
28. Obama’s Statement on House Health Bill. This post provides Obama’s official statement in response to the passage of the health care reform bill in the House.
29. Op-Ed: Why "free market competition" fails in health care. Joe Flower provides a look at why the competition that works in other industries won’t work with respect to health care.
30. Help the buyer be aware. Dr. Sreedhar Potarazu takes the opposing view from Mr. Flowers and recommends giving employers the responsibility of regulating the insurance companies.
31. Liberal’s Approach to Health Care Reform Made Abortion Controversy Inevitable. Despite the title of this post, the issue at hand isn’t really about liberalism or abortion, but the idea that for a government-controlled healthcare system will always run into issues hindering progress because it is a part of a political system–and politics will matter.
32. Lieberman will filibuster health-care reform ‘as a matter of conscience’. Learn why Lieberman is opposed to a public option and what Ezra Klein wonders about Lieberman’s opposition in this post.
33. The Affordability Factor. Marilyn Werber Serafini asked questions about affordability of health care for the individuals. Read on to see what kind of responses she got from the National Journal’s panel of insiders.
34. Insurance Coverage Under the Health Care Reform Proposal Approved by the Senate Finance Committee. Learn how the Congressional Budget Office answers two common questions about its estimate that that roughly 94 percent of the legal nonelderly population would have health insurance in 2019, compared with about 83 percent today.
35. Menu Labeling–From a New York City Experiment to Part of the Health Care Reform Bill. Deepak Gupta explores the legality and quick progression of menu labeling as it has become a part of the health care reform package.
36. Paying for Reform. This post examines several options for footing the bill on health care reform.
37. Financing Health Care Reform: 2009 vs. 2003. Uwe E. Reinhardt, an economics professor at Princeton, looks at ways the health care reform may be funded and how reform funding now differs from the Medicare Modernization Act in 2003.

Specifics on the House Health Care Reform Bill

The legislation that was passed in the House has prompted quite a bit of conversation. Read these posts to find out what is being said.

38. Health Care Reform Bill – What Women Stand to Gain (and Lose). Linda Lowen takes a look at what the recent health care reform bill has done to women’s right to choice when it comes to abortion.
39. Start with a smaller burger. Not only should individuals take more personal responsibility for their health, says Robert F. Graboyes, there is also a problem with the current proposed health care reform–it’s going to take too hard a financial toll on small businesses and employees.
40. Six Smart Progressive Complaints About House Health Bill. John Nichols looks at why six progressives are not happy with the current health care reform.
41. Health Reform’s Chevy Tax. Learn why the Senate health care legislation may be more of a Chevy tax than a Cadillac tax.
42. Should Older People Pay More for Health Insurance?. According to the House bill that passed, older people could be charged twice that of younger people for health insurance–with estimates showing those over 60 could be paying up to $9,420 a year.
43. Documents: Read the full contents of the proposed health care bill. If you have the time to read all 1,990 pages of the health care reform bill, use the link here, or just read Anderson Cooper’s summary to get the gist of it all.
44. Affordable Health Care for America Act. Read this post to learn about the key components of the Affordable Health Care for America Act that passed the House on November 7.
45. Anh Joseph Cao Explains His Vote. This blog post includes a video clop of Cao explaining his vote on the House bill. Cao was the only Republican to vote in favor of the bill.
46. A Merged Senate Bill by Monday?. Take a look at the timeline between the passed House bill and what may happen as the bill moves to the Senate. This post offers an in-depth look at the political workings of government.
47. HR 3962: The Affordable Health Care for Americans Act. Timothy Jost, a health law professor, provides a detailed look at the specifics of HR 3962. This is the first of a four-part series examining the health care bill.
48. The Public Option And Insurance Exchange In The House Bill. Jost explores the strengths and weaknesses of the public option portion of the bill as well as the health insurance exchange proposal.
49. The House Health Reform Bill: Delivery System Reforms And Other Provisions. In this third post, Jost spends some time with several of the lesser-known elements of the bill.
50. The House Health Reform Bill: An Abortion Funding Ban And Other Late Changes. Finally, Jost examines the changes made in the bill before it was passed in the House.

100 Useful Continuing Ed Links for Nurses

A career in nursing is busy enough without having to worry about where you will find continuing education resources. Check out these useful links to help you find exactly the courses you want or need. Browse through the lists of sites offering multiple courses on a variety of topics, links to courses based on specific topics, or links by the type of nursing you perform. Many of these courses are free and others cost a bit, but all of them are sure to help you achieve your continuing education goals. Be sure to verify with your licensing agency that courses will count toward your continuing education requirements.

Sites Offering Multiple Free Courses

These sites offer plenty of free classes across a wide range of topics and specialties.

1. Sigma Theta Tau International FreeCE. Find a course on coaching in nursing as well as several geriatric nursing courses here.
2. MedicalEd.com. Find several free courses on topics such as migraines, pain, and stroke management as well as opportunities for paid courses on this site.
3. Medscape CME Nurses. Register for free to have access to an amazing number of continuing education opportunities for nurses from Medscape.
4. MMWR Continuing Education. These courses are available from the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report and will require that you register for free.
5. Power-Pak C.E.. Find courses here across a broad range of topics from supporting organizations such as Roche Laboratories and Home Diagnostics Inc.
6. EES Independent Study Activities. This site from the Department of Veteran Affairs offers free classes for CE credits.
7. Psoriasis HQ CME/CE Online. Get free classes on psoriatic conditions at this site.
8. Cleveland Clinic Nursing CME. Find courses on a range of topics from Hepatitis C to temperature monitoring to perioperative shivering.
9. TotalMedEd.com. These free courses come in a variety of delivery formats and are for all types of medical professionals.
10. Advanced Knowledge in Healthcare On-line Courses Nursing. Many of these courses are free, but some listed are available for a fee.
11. Primary Care Network Online CME. Choose from courses teaching topics such as pain management, osteoporosis, eating disorders, and insomnia.
12. National Jewish Health’s Online Portal. Find a good selection of courses here that are both free and fee-based.
13. PRIME Nurse CME. This site offers a range of classes, many of which are free. Any cost associated is easily identifiable on the short course description.
14. cmecorner.com. Find a good selection of free courses available online, through audioconference, podcast, and more.
15. Millennium-CME. With topics in cardiology, critical care, dermatology, pediatrics, and more, you are sure to find courses to reach your continuing education goals.

Fee-Based Sites Offering Multiple Courses

These sites provide classes for a fee, some of which are very reasonably priced.

16. Nursing Continuing Education at Nurse.com. Find over 550 continuing education courses here from Nursing Spectrum and NurseWeek.
17. Western School Continuing Education Courses. Healthcare providers can find courses from this nationally accredited provider.
18. ABQAURP Online Continuing Education. Accredited in Florida, this source offers online courses that range from prevention of medical errors to H1N1 overview.
19. Culture Advantage. There are numerous courses listed here, and the prices are reasonable–starting around $2.50/hour.
20. Ask AFIP Education. Find courses offered online and in person for medical professionals in the field of pathology here.
21. Pain.com CME Center. There is a certificate award processing fee for the pain management courses offered on this site.
22. UniNursety. The courses here range from 1.5 to 30 hour courses for prices between $15-30 and cover a variety of topics.
23. RN.com Nursing Education. Pay a flat rate of $31.95 for full access for one year or pay for each individual course at this site that holds a huge library of courses.
24. Dynamic Nursing Education Online Courses. This site offers accredited contact hours and even some difficult-to-find topics for low prices.
25. NursingCEU.com. Find a huge number of courses here ranging from topics associated with elder care, abuse and neglect, neonatal, home health, and much more.
26. RN.org Course Catalog. Besides the many courses available for a fee, this site also offers a few free courses.
27. RnCeus.com. Select from a variety of topics here for continuing education just for nurses.
28. Nursing Center CEConnection. One of the largest resources for online CE courses, this site allows you to browse by specialty, topic, and more.
29. Nursing CEUS Courses. These courses are all nationally approved and range from one to ten CE hours.
30. CEU Solutions. Get access to 14 courses for one price of $35 on this site.
31. NursesCE.com. These classes range from understanding specific disorders such as bipolar disorder, Asperger’s, and childhood anxiety to IV therapy to latex allergies.
32. e-LearRN Continuing Education Courses. Choose courses from a variety of specialties, including pediatrics, psychiatric health, clinical courses, and research.
33. ANCC Continuing Nursing Education. Participate in these workshops and study groups to earn contact hours.
34. CEU4U. Find a huge listing of courses here, including some state mandatory courses.
35. AAACEUs.com. With a huge amount of online offering ranging from just a few hours to more substantial courses, you are sure to find something for you continuing education here.
36. Florida Medical Educational Services. Get several low-cost courses here that are provided by an organization approved by the Florida Board of Nursing.
37. NCSBN Learning Extension Course Listing. Find classes from the following categories: Standards of Practice, Compassionate Care, Managing Patient Outcomes, Relationships with Co-Workers, and Nursing Instruction.

Free Courses by Specific Topics

Take these free courses that range from topics like healthy aging, organ and tissue donation, and menstrual migraines.

38. Caring for Patients with Traumatic Brain Injuries: Are you up to the challenges?. This course is free and offers 1.9 contact hours until December 31, 2012.
39. Managing Chest Drainage Continuing Education Program. Get 1.6 credit hours when you read this material and successfully complete the online test.
40. Think, Care, Act: The Role of the Nurse in Organ and Tissue Donation. Learn all about the needs, challenges, and benefits of organ donation in this free course that awards 3.4 contact hours.
41. Pain and Addiction 101. Select from six different courses on pain and addiction available at no charge.
42. An Update on Good News for the Baby Boomer Generation. This course will teach you about healthy aging for the Boomer generation.
43. Bladder Management after Spinal Cord Injury: A Practical Approach. Learn about the normal urinary system as well as changes and problems that can occur after SCI.
44. Family Planning CEU Credits. Learn about options for permanent birth control and get two contact hours of credit.
45. The Art and Science of Understanding Menstrual Migraine. Learn to recognize, understand, and manage menstrual migraines here.
46. The Soy Connection Continuing Professional Education. Select from ten different newsletters to read about connections with soy and health, then take the tests to earn accredited CE units.
47. Taking Women’s Health to Heart. Find out about women and cardiovascular disease while earning 1.25 CE credits with this course.
48. Move It! Update From the Activity Side of the Energy Balance Equation. Explore the link between fitness and healthful aging here.
49. American Diabetes Association Professional Education and Continuing Education Opportunities. Choose from three different courses to help you learn more about managing diabetes.
50. GREAT Healthcare. This site offers online training to learn about Celiac disease and gluten-free awareness.
51. An Investigation Into Constipation: IBS and Abuse in Women. Explore the link between physical abuse and IBS in women with this course.
52. An Investigation Into Constipation: Nonpharmacologic Versus Pharmacologic Treatment Options in Chronic Constipation and IBS-C. Find out what the latest research says about treating constipation and IBS with constipation through diet and lifestyle changes, over-the-counter, and prescription medications.
53. Fibromyalgia CME Course Information. Get a handful of courses to learn about fibromyalgia and its management.
54. Management of Constipation: Considerations for Clinical Practice. Nurses and learn to recognize and evaluate the signs of chronic constipation after taking this course.

Fee-Based Courses by Specific Topics

Take these courses for a fee and learn about topics such as the psychological aspects of terrorism, management of diabetes, and telephone triage.

55. Adult Ventilation Management. Earn 7.9 contact hours for $44 with this class offered by Corexcel.
56. Nursing Ethics Continuing Education. Get eight patient advocacy courses from this site.
57. Psychological Aspects of Terrorism. Learn to define and identify responses to terrorism as well as coping strategies for patients in this low-cost course.
58. Public/Community Health Nursing Orientation. Broaden your perspective on public and community health nursing with this course that awards 9.6 contact hours for only $8.
59. Smallpox: We’re Still Vulnerable. Find out about the use of small pox as a weapon of terror, then explore small pox itself and discover what you can do in case of an outbreak.
60. Advanced Diabetic Management Web Course. Learn about assessment, treatment options, non-pharmacological interventions, and more.
61. Nursing Case Management Web Course. Discover all there is to know about case management in this comprehensive course.
62. Challenging Geriatric Behaviors. This link offers a complete self-study package, including the CE post-test.
63. Safety on the Ward: Violence Prevention Training. Learn violence-prevention techniques, especially with adolescent and young adult patients.
64. Spanish for Healthcare. Learn Spanish to help communicate with patients while also earning CE credits with this class.
65. Telephone Triage Protocols. Choose from five different classes to help you learn better telephone triage skills.

Free Courses Related to Specialties

These free courses are available for nurses working in fields such as oncology, pediatrics, women’s health, and cardiology.

66. AACN Online CE Center. Members of the American Association of Critical Care Nurses can access all these continuing education classes for free.
67. The Meniscus Educational Institute CE Offerings. Oncology nurses will find several classes here.
68. Managing Myeloma CNE Programs. These free courses offer opportunities for continuing education in the treatment of multiple myeloma.
69. Oncology Practice Update. This course focuses on breast cancer and the risks and benefits of several treatment options.
70. PsoriasisTx Continuing Education (CE) Programs. These free programs will strengthen dermatology nurses’ knowledge of psoriasis.
71. Gestational Diabetes. Take this free class on gestational diabetes.
72. SIDS, Sleep & Suffocation: The Facts. Nurses working with newborns and babies can benefit from the information in this course.
73. National Kidney Foundation CME/CE Activities. Choose from one of the many courses listed here to stay on top of the latest information in nephrology.
74. Osteoporosis: Risk, Diagnosis, and Fracture Prevention. Take this course to earn 1 credit hour of accredited continuing education.
75. Improve Clinical Management of Acute Coronary Syndrome. Learn to identify managed-care challenges and the results of new clinical trials in the management of Acute Coronary Syndrome.

Fee-Based Courses Related to Specialties

Find courses available for a fee for nurses working in psychiatry, gerontology, surgery, and more.

76. Psychiatric Clinical Nurse Specialist Web Course. Take up to three months to complete this popular course.
77. Clinical Nurse Specialist Web Course. Find out about assessment and diagnosis, standards of care, research, management, and more in this course.
78. Gerontological Nurse Web Course. Explore the aging population, health problems, and professional, medical, and legal issues surrounding care for the older population.
79. CoHealth. Find continuing education courses for gerontological nursing here.
80. Nursing Informatics Web Course. This course explores the human and technological sides of informatics.
81. Medical Surgical Web Course. Study such topics as coping and adaptation, legal and ethical issues, common patient care needs and problems when you take this course.
82. Cardiac Vascular Web Course. Find out about assessment, disease manifestation, risk and risk reduction, pharmacology, and more here.
83. AWHONN Continuing Nursing Education. Get a great selection of courses related to women’s health, childbearing, and neonatology from this ANCC Premier Program provider.
84. APNA Continuing Education. Psychiatric nurses will find a wide variety of delivery options and courses to choose from here.
85. ACNM Education Calendar: CEU Opportunities. Find many continuing education opportunities for nurse midwives at this site.
86. ENA Continuing Education Information. Emergency nurses can browse through these selections to earn continuing education credits.
87. CE for Pediatric Nurses. Check out these offerings for pediatric nurses from the Pediatric Nursing Certification Board.

For Nurse Practitioners

While many of the above-mentioned courses are appropriate for nurse practitioners, the following courses are specifically for nurse practitioners. Some of these classes are free of charge and some require payment.

88. The American Academy of Hearing Loss Support Specialists. Nurse practitioners can earn 55 CEU credits with this online class on hearing loss.
89. Family Nurse Practitioner Web Course. Learn about health promotion and disease prevention as well as delving into specific disorders when you take this class.
90. Adult Nurse Practitioner Web Course. Offering content similar to the Family NP version, this course focuses specifically on adult care.
91. Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner Web Course. This version combines both the Adult and Family NP content into one course focusing on the psychiatric patient.
92. New Directions in Angioedema: A Focus on Pathogenesis and Classification. Nurse practitioners can take this free course to learn about angioedema and its causes.
93. GAFP Online Educational Activities. Family NPs can earn credits with these free courses on asthma, preconception care, and more.
94. Stemming the Tide of Type 2 Diabetes: Preventing or Delaying the Development and Progression of Type 2 Diabetes. This course will help you become better able to screen and treat type 2 diabetes using evidence-based strategies.
95. AANP CE Center. Members of AANP can access all of these courses for free.
96. PediatricRespiratory.org On-Demand CME/CE. Find a good selection of free courses available that deal with respiratory illnesses in children.
97. Fitzgerald Health Education Associates. This provider is an AANP-approved source for continuing education that provides education in a variety of sources, including online, books, and live seminars.
98. CE-Today for Nurse Practitioners. Get a selection of courses here that cover topics such as managing COPD, psoriasis, and sleep apnea.
99. Incretin-Based Therapies: New Options for Glycemic Control in Type 2 Diabetes. Study incretin-based therapies in the treatment of type 2 diabetes here.
100. NAPNAP Continuing Education Center. Pediatric NPs will find plenty of courses among the listings on this site.

50 Incredible Open Lectures on Global Health

Many believe that technology has made the world feel smaller, with a greater sense of community. While this is likely true, there are areas in which the global community is struggling to find solutions for problems. Health care in countries around the world is one such issue. Poverty, lack of education, environmental issues, natural disasters, and terrorism are just a few of the reasons why there are many global health concerns that need addressing. These lectures promise to open your eyes, impart wisdom, and perhaps even inspire you to become involved in creating solutions to global health concerns.

Infectious Diseases

Infectious diseases create a huge impact on the health of people around the world. Find out what is and can be done to help prevent these diseases.

1. Culture, Politics, and Community: Living Public Health in Nigeria. Professor Bill Brieger lectures on tropical diseases in Nigeria and the social implications of treatment in this class that provides both a video lecture and a PDF file of lecture information. [Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health]
2. Malariology. These lectures cover malaria as a public health problem, the biology of malarial parasites, issues surrounding the spread of malaria, and measures to prevent it. [Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health]
3. Don Francis’s Mission – Kids and Kids’ Health. Francis tells about his background, how he got started working to develop a vaccine for AIDS, and why he started his own company. [Stanford]
4. Tropical Environmental Health. Explore water and sanitation issues as they impact public health in developing countries with the information available in these four lectures. [Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health]
5. Hepatitis C From A to Z. Learn all about this blood-borne illness with this physician’s lecture. [UC Davis]
6. Epidemiology of Infectious Diseases. Lectures for the entire semester of this class, which covers epidemiology and case studies of major infectious diseases, are available. [Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health]
7. Impact of Pandemic Influenza on Public Health. This six-part slide show presentation covers the make-up of influenza, the differences between seasonal and pandemic influenzas, history and outbreaks, and prevention measures. [Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health]
8. Laurie Garrett on lessons from the 1918 flu. This lecture from 2007 looks at the avian flu, past pandemics, and what might happen if a flu pandemic occurs. [TED]
9. Problem Solving for Immunization Programs. Explore the current state of global immunizations, potential problems with the system, and innovative ideas for the future with these lectures. [Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health]
10. Sexual Health, HIV/STI, and Human Rights. This video lecture takes a look at sexual rights, human rights, and issues surrounding finding a balance in the realm of sexual health. [Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health]
11. Web 2.0: Risks for STD/HIV – Opportunities for Prevention. Dr. Kees Rietmeijer lectures on the risks and prevention of sexual diseases in light of the current trend of online dating. [Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health]

Health Emergencies and Environmental Health Issues

From earthquakes to tobacco to water and sanitation to the beneficial properties of mushrooms, these lectures cover everything from health emergencies and environmental issues that impact health.

12. Radiation Terror 101. Learn the basic principles of radiation, safety and protection measures, and information about radiation terror with these three lecture PDF files. [Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health]
13. Global Tobacco Control. This series of lectures examines tobacco use and its health and economic implications as well as prevention, control, and surveillance measures for global monitoring of tobacco. [Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health]
14. Public Health Preparedness and Emergency Response. Get video and audio lectures from this class that features specific public emergencies and how to become prepared to manage emergencies. [UC Berkeley]
15. Water and Sanitation Needs in Complex Humanitarian Emergencies. This series of audio lectures explores the water and sanitation facilities currently available as well as how these facilities are suited to the needs of people during times of disaster or humanitarian emergencies. [Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health]
16. Preparing to work in a crisis. Volunteers or others preparing to go to a region experiencing a health crisis should watch this slide show lecture to understand how best to prepare. [University of Pittsburgh]
17. Earthquakes 2000 to 2005 From Indonesia to Pakistan. Get statistics and see photos that convey the damage done from earthquakes in Asia.
18. Biological Agents of Water and Foodborne Bioterrorism. These slide show lectures examine biological agents terrorists could use to poison the water or food supplies. [Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health]
19. Paul Stamets on 6 ways mushrooms can save the world. The mycelium fungus can produce antibiotics, treat illnesses, clean polluted soil, and promote the health of forests. Stamets talks about these highly functional and beneficial mushrooms. [TED]
20. Lead, Health, Environment: Old Problem and New Challenges. Learn about health and environmental problems associated with lead that is introduced into the land and water in this lecture from Mark Pokras from Tufts Veterinary School. [New England Aquarium]

Nutrition

Health and nutrition are integrally connected. These lectures will help you learn how so.

21. International Nutrition. These lectures cover malnutrition, its causes, and how to combat it while exploring ways these measures can be implemented from the household level through to the international level. [Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health]
22. The Battle of the Diets: Is Anyone Winning (At Losing?). Assistant Professor of Medicine, Christopher Gardener discusses four diets, whether they are effective for weight loss, and what his research has shown. [Stanford]
23. Dean Ornish on the world’s killer diet. Learn about the globalization of the American diet and how it is creating a health hazard that is 95% preventable through diet and lifestyle changes–cardiovascular disease. [TED]
24. Nutrition and Global Health. Find out about nutrition, malnutrition, and solutions to help people around the world. [University of Pittsburgh]
25. An Edible History of Humanity: Tom Standage. Standage talks about his book that details the history of food as it has shaped humanity from early agriculture in China to the current role of food in society today. [FORA.tv]
26. Cary Fowler: One seed at a time, protecting the future of food. Discover a massive seed bank buried deep in a frozen mountain in Norway that serves as a protective storage site guarding against agriculture extinction. [TED]
27. Greg Page on Global Food and Agriculture Markets. Greg Page, President and CEO of Cargill, discusses global food, agriculture markets, and the interrelatedness of both with society. [Chautauqua Institution]
28. Louise Fresco on feeding the whole world. Fresco’s lecture details how mass-produced bread can help feed the world while still leaving room for breads baked by traditional methods. [TED]

Health Education

These lectures focus on educating the public or educating those who work with the public on health issues around the world.

29. Population Change and Public Health. These slides and accompanying audio files explore population studies, the impact of population change on societies, reproductive health, and four programs and policies that address population change issues. [Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health]
30. Bill Gates on mosquitos, malaria and education. This entertaining lecture from Bill Gates touches on how philanthropy and education can make changes on global health. He focuses on eradicating malaria, an area in which Gates has invested much time and money. [TED]
31. Entertainment Education for Public Health. Five written lectures are available here that discuss ways education on health issues can be incorporated into entertainment to create positive behavioral changes in both developing countries and local environments. [Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health]
32. Training Methods and Continuing Education for Health Workers. This series of lecture notes covers ways to determine what training and continuing education is necessary as well as how to implement this education for both professionals and village volunteers. [Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health]
33. Hans Rosling shows the best stats you’ve ever seen. In this entertaining lecture, Rosling talks about statistics of the developing world, including family size and life expectancy, and works to dispel common misconceptions about the people who live in these countries. [TED]
34. Refugee Health Care. Learn about the specific issues that surround refugees, including both mental and physical health problems, in this series of lectures. [Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health]
35. Health Care Delivery. Concepts and Issues. This slide presentation lecture provides a great overview of what a health care delivery system is and issues facing countries struggling with health care delivery. [University of Pittsburgh]
36. Using the Media to Develop Public communication Campaigns. The media can be an effective way of communicating public health messages, but it is important to enter into this endeavor with thoughtful foresight. This lecture discusses what you should consider. [University of Pittsburgh]
37. Global Health Crises and Child Survival. This panel of experts discusses growing health crises and the effects on children’s survival rates around the world. [National Press Foundation]

Addressing Global Health Issues and Policy

From the role of entrepreneurs in shaping global health policies to understanding the current state and future potential for global health care, these lectures discuss policy issues that are relevant to ensuring good health for all.

38. Wheel Chair Design in Developing Countries. These videos demonstrate how workshops in Africa manufacture wheelchairs that are specifically designed for the social and environmental needs of their countries. [MIT]
39. Ernest Madu on world-class health care. Dr. Madu lectures on how to offer top-notch health care in developing countries based on his experience at the Heart Institute of the Caribbean in Kingston, Jamaica. [TED]
40. Audio Podcast: The Role of Entrepreneurship in Solving World Problems. With a special focus on developing nations, several industry leaders discuss the role the must play in health and environmental issues. [Stanford]
41. Social Entrepreneurship in Medical Care. Tarun Khanna discusses the power entrepreneurs have to implement social changes in the medical field. He uses an example of a cardiac hospital in India to illustrate his point. [Stanford]
42. Josh Silver demos adjustable liquid-filled eyeglasses. Learn about a low-cost solution for providing vision correction and how Josh Silver plans to distribute these eyeglasses to billions by 2020. [TED]
43. A New Breed of Entrepreneur. Google’s Executive Director Larry Brilliant discusses the role of this new breed of entrepreneur as a leader in helping solve world health problems through the use of science and philanthropy. [Stanford]
44. Emily Oster flips our thinking on AIDS in Africa. This eye-opening lecture looks at the AIDS epidemic in Africa using the tools of an economist and explores ways policy can be shaped based on this new way of looking at the problem. [TED]
45. The Future of Global Health. This slide show lecture explores several aspects of global health and projects what may become of the future of global health. [University of Pittsburgh]
46. Human Rights and Globalization. Mary Robinson, the former United Nations high commissioner of human rights and president of Ireland, speaks on the basic human rights–including food, safe water, and health–and the effects of globalization on these rights. [University of Oregon]
47. Global Health Equity and the Future of Public Health. Paul Farmer lectures about the future of public health as he sees it from his experience raising the standard of health care around the world. [Wellesley College]
48. State of the World’s Children. Despite the global community’s commitment to ensuring the health and safety of children, there are still numerous instances of children left in dangerous situations. Find out what can and is being done. [Public Broadcasting Atlanta]
49. Bill Clinton on rebuilding Rwanda. Clinton talks about bringing health care to Rwanda and other countries around the world. [TED]
50. Marc Koska: 1.3m reasons to re-invent the syringe. Discussing the growing global problem of unsafe syringe reusage, Marc Koska also describes his work in creating a syringe that can only be used one time. [TED]

50 Best Free Weight Loss Tools on the Web

Everyone who has tried to lose weight knows it isn’t always easy. Between finding the right caloric intake, cooking instead of eating out, remembering to take the stairs instead of the elevator, and going to the gym after work, a healthy and fit lifestyle is quite difficult to get used to. That’s why these awesome fitness and weight loss tools were created–to help the world get into shape! You’ll find a community, calculator, weight loss diary or blog that’s right for you, and with it, you’ll find all the motivation and inspiration you need to devote your body and your mind to the new, healthy you.

Blogs

These bloggers have been where you are at this very moment–wondering "Is it worth it?" Their answer is yes, so follow their stories and learn their weight loss tips and tricks.

1. Pasta Queen: This blogger lost half her body weight in two years–find out how.
2. Token Fat Girl: This small town gal shares her weight loss journey with the world.
3. Weight Ladder: Get exercise tips and healthy eating advice here.
4. Former Fat Guy: Learn from this blooger, who isn’t ashamed of his past–just proud of his current physique and bright future.
5. Skinny Habits: Great recipes and ideas for weight loss and maintenance. References the Weight Watcher’s system.
6. Living a Whole Life: Two sisters provide practical suggestions for a healthy, disease-free lifestyle.
7. Heart & Style: From heart health to green living, this blog covers all aspects of wellness to help readers live a healthy life.
8. Veggie Venture: Whether you’re looking for a vegetarian community or just need a recipe for a delicious side dish, this site has it all.
9. Running Around Nowhere: A food blogger with a passion for health and nutrition shares her daily routine with her readers.
10. The Weigh I Am: Another food blogger finds peace with herself but still strives for wellness through healthy eating.
11. Itzy’s Kitchen: Recipes so good, you can taste them as soon as you read them.
12. Our Bodies Our Blog: Health and medical news just for women.

Calculators

Your weight is a number, so it makes sense that reaching your weight loss goal will involve some number crunching. You’ll need to know where you’re starting, how many calories to keep and burn each day, how much exercise to do every week, and how to sustain your healthy weight once you get there. Use these fabulous free tools to find all this out, and more.

13. Calories per Hour: Find out how many calories you burn for a variety of different exercises and activities.
14. Weight Loss Calculator: Three different calculators all track your goals and progress.
15. BMI Calculator: Calculate your starting point BMI and watch it drop as you pick up a healthier lifestyle.
16. Calories in Alcohol: Like it or not, calories consumed in alcohol are a dieter’s worst nightmare. So use this tool to choose wisely before you booze, and make sure you’re not drinking your diet off track.
17. Caloric Burn Rate: How many calories do you burn each day just by living? Find out here.
18. Target Heart Rate: Burn fat like wildfire by reaching your target heart rate, then slowing down, then reaching it again. This type of exercise is called interval training and is a sure way to reach your weight goals quickly.
19. Weight Loss Timetable: Want to lose weight by a certain date? Find out how many calories you have to burn each day to reach your goal.
20. Caloric Needs: Thought it seems counter-intuitive, starving yourself or skipping meals is one of the worst dieting habits one can form; it often leads to eventual over-eating, which can destroy your diet all together. Make sure you’re getting adequate nutrition with this calculator.
21. Calories Burned: See if your exercise is up to par with your goals.
22. How Long Does It Take?: If you’re wondering how long it will take to reach your goal if you cut X-amount of calories each day, this calculator has your answer. 

Nutrition Info

Make sure you have all the data you need about your meals before you put another spoonful into your mouth.

23. NutritionData – Has comprehensive information on most foods.
24. DietFacts: As well as the standard foods, has manually-entered data from many restaurants.
25. CalorieKing: Has comprehensive nutritional info, but their Portion Watch tool is unique – it has photos of different portion sizes of many popular foods.
26. CompuFoodAnalysis: Your source for nutrition label data.
27. FDA Nutrition Label Know-How: Understand nutrition labels and what they mean for your diet.
28. The Nutrition Data Blog: Get little-known nutrition advice from this expert blog.
29. The Daily Plate: Track your goals, and this site will hold you accountable for them.
30. Nutritioin Data Lab: If knowledge is power, you’ll be king (or queen) of your diet. This database compares foods so you know what you’re eating and what it does to or for your body.
31. NY Health Department Food Stats: Find out everything you need to know about the food you eat with this awesome database.
32. CalorieCounter: Compare sandwiches, burgers, and sides from 12 different fast-food chains.

Weight Loss Diaries

Keep track of your strengths, weaknesses, and progress with these made-for-you tools.

33. My Weight Loss Diary: Learn how to track your daily routine for stray calories and missed exercise opportunities.
34. 23 Pounds: This weight loss tool will show you how to keep a daily food diary.
35. Weight Loss Diary: Use Shape’s free online weight loss diary and share with others who are in your shoes. Great motivational tool.
36. My Calorie Tracker: Don’t let one bite go unnoticed. Keep everything together here.
37. Weight Loss Tracker: Here’s some free software to keep you ahead of the game in your weight loss journey.
38. 21 Days: Watch Jasmyne reach her fitness goals, and learn from her dieting strengths and weaknesses.
39. My Weight Loss Diary: If you’re wondering whether you should spend time keeping a food diary, read this article that shows food journals are linked to increased weight loss.
40. Your Food Diary: This popular lifestyle tool tracks your eating and exercise habits.
41. Wynonna Judd’s Weight Loss: Learn the psychological truth behind overeating and food addictions. Wynonna Judd shares her battle with weight and anxiety, and empowers readers to follow in her footsteps.
42. FitDay: Have the healthiest day of your life–starting today.
43. Slim Tracker: Stay in charge of your diet and exercise routine with this awesome tool.

Miscellaneous Tools

These either don’t fit into our other categories, or they fit into all of them. In any case, they’re sure to help you reach your goals.

44. GlobalRPH: A popular on-line diet tracker.
45. NutriDiary: Tracks food, calories, and weight.
46. ExRx: Animations of hundreds of exercises by muscle group.
47. SparkPeople: Free diet and exercise program.
48. PeerTrainer: Group dieting and exercise program.
49. Weight Loss Calculators: BMR, BMI, RMR, and more.
50. Weight Loss Calculators: Macro-nutrient ratios, daily caloric needs, body fat percentage, and more.

10 Unbelievable Robots Transforming Medicine

Forty years ago, the first message was sent via ARPANET, the network that would soon become known as the Internet. The message that should have read "login" was transmitted just as "lo." Look at how far we’ve come; technology today has not only advanced to allow instantaneous communication, relational networking, and educational resources at our fingertips, but it also saves lives. Ideas that once marked conspiracies of alien invasion are now everyday practice. Machines that once rested only in the minds of the world’s most brilliant scientists now make their ways into hospitals for affordable treatment of life-threatening illnesses like cancer. While always looking forward to the future, sometimes we must pause to look at technology today, take a deep breath, and give thanks for these modern medical marvels.

1. Da Vinci Surgical System: This system consists of a surgeon’s console that is typically in the same room as the patient and a patient-side cart with four interactive robotic arms controlled from the console. Three of the arms are for tools that hold objects, act as a scalpel, scissors, bovie, or unipolar or dipolar electrocautery instruments. The fourth arm is for an endoscopic camera with two lenses that gives the surgeon full stereoscopic vision from the console. The surgeon sits at the console and looks through two eye holes at a 3-D image of the procedure, meanwhile maneuvering the arms with two foot pedals and two hand controllers. The da Vinci System scales, filters and translates the surgeon’s hand movements into more precise micro-movements of the instruments, which operate through small incisions in the body.
2. Stereotaxis Magnetic Navigation System: This is an emerging technology in interventional cardiology. Catheters with magnetic tips can be steered within the patient, without the need for an electrophysiologist to maneuver the catheter or guidewire placement manually. Unlike other robotic navigation techniques, the catheter is controlled by steering the distal tip with a magnetic field, making perforations virtually impossible.
3. Hansen Medical Sensei Robotic Catheter System: The Sensei Robotic Catheter System uses a system of pulleys to navigate a steerable sheath for catheter guidance and provides the physician with more stability and more force in catheter placement with the Artisan sheath compared to manual techniques, allowing for more precise manipulation with less radiation exposure to the doctor, commensurate with higher procedural complications to the patient, including cardiac perforations, tamponade and femoral artery injuries.
4. NeuroArm: NeuroArm is an MRI-compatible image-guided computer-assisted device specifically designed for neurosurgery. It performs both microsurgery and biopsy-stereotaxy applications. The system includes a workstation, a system control cabinet, and two remote manipulators mounted on a mobile base. For biopsy-stereotaxy, either the left or right arm is transferred to an extension board that attaches to the OR table and the procedure is able to be performed inside the MRI bore.
5. CyberKnife Robotic Radiosurgery System: The CyberKnife is a non-invasive alternative to surgery for the treatment of both cancerous and noncancerous tumors anywhere in the body, including the prostate, lung, brain, spine, liver, pancreas and kidney. The treatment delivers beams of high dose radiation to tumors with extreme accuracy.
6. Twendy-One (the Nursebot): This bedside nurse-bot, has soft fingertips nimble enough to delicately grip a drinking straw and arms with the strength to lift an adult out of bed. The machine is designed to help Japan’s growing population of frail and elderly continue to live in their own homes. Researchers at Waseda University in Tokyo say Twendy-One can clean floors, carry patients, and even bring them breakfast in bed. The next task is refining the software and mechanics to allow it to safely respond to commands to do things like fetch medication or refreshments.
7. CAVEman 3-D Virtual Patient: Doctors and diagnosticians can do a virtual ‘walk-through’ of the body, looking for clues to the processes underlying medical concerns. As the technology becomes widely available, body scans will be more affordable and less invasive than the techniques currently used.
8. Laser-Beam Psychiatry: To demonstrate this technology, the scientists genetically engineered Parkinson’s-afflicted mice with light-sensitive cells and inserted an optical fiber inside their brains. When blue laser light struck cells connected to the motor cortex, a brain region responsible for movement, the mice stopped shaking.
9. Turbo Power Physical Therapy: This robot is designed to train healthy regions of the brain to slowly pick up the slack for damaged areas and quickly restore control over muscles. A user straps into the powered arms and repeats exercises meant to stimulate new connections between brain cells.
10. Fluorescence-Assisted Resection and Exploration: In the operating room, the physician injects a patient’s tumor with dyes that tag lymph fluid and glow when exposed to near-infrared light. The FLARE device has three infrared cameras, each calibrated to pick up different frequencies of light. On a video screen, the nerves to be avoided appear fuchsia, while a bright green shines from the tumor and outlines its drainage path to the sentinel lymph nodes, those most likely to collect cancer cells.

Top 50 Food Science Blogs

While some people feel that great cooking is an art, there is no doubt that there is a scientific element to it as well when it comes to mixing flavors, getting your bread to rise and making sure that food is safe and delicious to eat. These blogs discuss these more technical food issues from the culinary elite to the kitchen basics, giving you something to think about the next time you’re in your own kitchen laboratory.

Food Science Basics

These blogs cover a wide range of food science issues to keep you in the know.

1. Science to Life: From genetically engineered crops to the effects of bacon on the body, this blog addresses a wide range of food science issues.
2. Ladies with Bottle: For many, pairing the right wines with a dish is a science in and of itself, and these bloggers will help you do it with flair.
3. Cooking for Engineers: Check out this blog to get an analytical approach to food, with great recipes and clever kitchen gadgets to try.
4. Food Science and Technology: This blog will teach you the basics behind each part of the foods you’re eating.
5. Serious Eats: Learn how to work kitchen magic and make delicious recipes from this site.
6. Food Snob: Companies spend millions on marketing campaigns to get you to buy their products, but this blog cuts through the jargon and lets you know what’s worth buying.
7. Food Science: Check out this blog to understand just what carbohydrates and proteins are, among other educational posts.
8. Parsnip Parsimony: Read through the posts in this blog to learn how to turn any recipe into a vegan one with a few scientifically tested substitutions.
9. Gastronomer’s Guide: Learn to mix foods, find the best and most creative restaurants, and learn how to buy the best food-related technology from this blog.
10. Food Processing Blog: Check out this new blog to understand more about processed food and what it means to feed them to your family.

Food News and Views

Read through these blogs to keep up with what is going on in the world of food, from safety issues to the latest tech.

11. Junkfood Science: This site critically examines news reports on food, diets and weight so you can get the real deal instead of the hype.
12. The Science of Food: Here you’ll find a forum for news and views on the latest in food chemistry, microbiology, engineering and nutrition.
13. Hungry for Science: The Food Standards Agency puts out this blog with articles on how food is marketed, sold, consumed and the effects it has on nutrition.
14. Food Politics: A lot more goes into the food that goes onto your plate than just what tastes good and this blog examines those political issues that influence packaging, food safety and more.
15. Olliesplace: The news and commentary on this blog is focused on local and organically grown food–and the reasons why it’s better for you.
16. Toops’ Scoops: This blog deals with food packaging, FDA rulings and other important food news to the food and beverage industry.

Serious Science

These blogs focus on the scientific aspects of food, from in-depth chemistry to explaining the science behind preparation methods.

17. Bringing food chemistry to life: If you really want to get down to the nitty gritty of the chemistry behind food, this blog is a great place to start learning.
18. Curious Cooks: In this blog you’ll be able to find information and insight into some of the latest work being done in chemistry, microbiology, agriculture and manufacturing.
19. On Networks Food Science: This site is full of videos that will explain some of the more complex scientific issues behind cooking.
20. Fooducation: Here you can learn how the kitchen can serve as the perfect place to teach kids, or anyone else, about science.
21. Food Science Central: This site is home to articles from the Food Science and Technology Abstracts publication.

Molecular Gastronomy

Molecular gastronomy is a scientific discipline involving the study of physical and chemical processes that occur in cooking, and these blogs focus on the myriad of tastes and effects chefs using this information have created.

22. Khymos: This blog is highly scientific and can explain the processes behind everything from making sourdough bread to creating amazing flavor combinations.
23. Flavor Alchemy: Learn what it means to take cooking to the molecular level from posts in this blog.
24. Playing with Fire and Water: Read along as this blogger reduces cooking to it’s elemental nature–fire and water.
25. Food 102: Here you’ll find posts that can inspire your own culinary creations or warn you of the dangers of using fancy cooking methods like liquid nitrogen.
26. Moveable Feast: Written by a chef, this blog offers a look into the world of culinary masterpieces in this blog.
27. Ideas in Food: Get inspired by this blog focusing on all the best ways to make the most of the composition of food.
28. Sous Vide Cooking: This blog offers readers a chance to learn all about how low temperature cooking works and what it can do for food.

Nutrition

Take a look at these blogs that analyze what you should eat and why, from a scientific standpoint.

29. Calorie Lab: Learn more about how to eat healthy and lose weight the right way from this blog.
30. Nutrition Data Blog: Get updates on the latest news in the world of nutrition from this site.
31. The Nutrition and Food Web Archive: On this site you’ll find a great collection of nutrition and food related news articles.
32. Integrative Nutrition Blog: Check out this site to find posts on everything from the future of nutrition to why you should eat your greens.
33. American Society for Nutrition Blog: This site offers insight into the health of everything from fairground food to soy beans.
34. Healthy Eating & Nutrition News: Here you’ll find information on the latest healthy eating and nutrition news.
35. dietriffic: Learn how what you eat may be doing more than adding pounds to your body from this blog.
36. Food Science Mom: This blogger has a PhD in Food Science and Nutrition and offers great advice on what is ok to feed your kids.
37. Mark’s Daily Apple: Check out this blog to learn more about getting back to the basics of nutrition and living primally.
38. Little Stomaks: This blog offers science-driven information on how to best feed and nourish your little ones.

Food Safety

From bacteria to unsafe processing, these blogs address some important food safety issues.

39. Food Safety News: Here you can stay up-to-date on the latest developments in the food safety world, ensuring you and your family stay safe.
40. US Food Safety Blog: Check out this blog for posts on food health issues that could affect consumers.
41. Circle of Food: This healthy food blog offers information on food recalls.
42. Allergy Kids: Whether you or your kids have food allergies, you can find helpful advice and information here.
43. Not In My Food: This blog aims to keep the food you eat fresh, healthy and free from harmful substances.
44. Barf Blog: Sometimes the lack of food safety out there can make you a little queasy, something this blog addresses head on.
45. Institute of Food Research: This UK-based site offers readers the chance to learn about using food to improve their health, food-related diseases and many more food safety issues.

Food Technology and Engineering

Give these blogs a try to learn more about foodie gadgets, food development and the latest news in food innovation.

46. Food Technology: Dr. V.H . Potty explains some of the latest developments in food technology in this blog.
47. Year 10 Food Technology: While this blog is for students at St. Patrick’s Marist College, there are a wide range of interesting food posts for all readers.
48. Food Techie: Learn about some of the latest food technology, gadgets and just plain cool stuff in the world of gastronomy from this blog.
49. Food Geekery: From reviews of gadgets to lessons in proper food preparation, this site offers a range of helpful food information.
50. Cooking Issues: Learn about the latest food tech from two French chefs on this blog.

100 Amazing Things You Never Knew About Your Body

You think you’re learning everything you can in your biology and anthropology classes, but textbook editors simply don’t have all the space they need to give you the full story of your body. Some of the facts below are trivial, some are ancient history, and some of them may very well save your life one day. So read up, and enjoy this wild and whacky anatomical analysis.

Unusual Facts

You’ll probably wonder why you never heard these cool facts in biology class before. From hangover cures to exploding head syndrome, these tidbits are must-knows.

1. Every person has a unique tongue print:…just like our fingers!
2. Eating fruits and vegetables may help the human body make its own aspirin: People who intake benzoic acid, a natural substance in fruits and vegetables, make their own salicylic acid, the key component that gives aspirin its anti-inflammatory and pain-relieving properties.
3. Baking soda can whiten teeth, garlic can help treat athlete’s foot, and honey can soothe a hangover.
4. Facebook may be good for your health: Studies show that staying in touch with family and friends can ward off memory loss and help you live longer.
5. Exploding head syndrome is real (but rare): The American Sleep Association explains that a person with exploding head syndrome experiences a loud, indecipherable noise that seems to originate from inside the head.
6. Regular exercise can lower a woman’s cancer risk, but only if she’s getting enough sleep: Check out the link to see what the National Cancer Institute has to say about this important fact.
7. Body position affects memory: Memories are highly embodied in our senses. A scent or sound may evoke a distant episode from one’s childhood. The connections can be obvious (a bicycle bell makes you remember your old paper route) or inscrutable.
8. Your bones can self-destruct: In addition to supporting the bag of organs and muscles that is our body, bones help regulate our calcium levels. If the element is in short supply, certain hormones will cause bones to break down, upping calcium levels in the body until the appropriate extracellular concentration is reached.
9. Your brain has a huge appetite: Though it makes up only 2 percent of our total body weight, the brain demands 20 percent of the body’s oxygen and calories.
10. Puberty reshapes the brain: Why is adolescence so emotionally unpleasant? Hormones like testosterone actually influence the development of neurons in the brain, and the changes made to brain structure have many behavioral consequences. Expect emotional awkwardness, apathy and poor decision-making skills as regions in the frontal cortex mature.

All About…Weight

Here are some great facts you should definitely know about how your body metabolizes and stores fat.

11. Weight really is genetic: But, a genetic predisposition isn’t necessarily a life sentence, experts say. Exercising regularly can offset the risk of obesity.
12. Some people just have more fat cells: While you can’t reduce your total number of fat cells, there are things you can do to keep them small. (See next point.)
13. You can change your metabolism: Gaining as little as 11 pounds can slow metabolism and send you spiraling into a vicious cycle: As you gain more fat, it becomes harder to lose it. But, scientists say physical activity can raise your metabolism back up to fat-blasting levels.
14. Stress fattens you up: The most direct route is the food-in-mouth syndrome: Stressful circumstances (your bank account, your boss) spark cravings for carbohydrate-rich snack foods, which in turn calm stress hormones.
15. Your mom’s pregnancy sealed your fate: Science says sugary and fatty foods, consumed even before you’re born, can wreak havoc on your future relationship  with fat.
16. Sleep more, lose more: University of Chicago researchers reported that sleep deprivation upsets our hormone balance, triggering both a decrease in leptin (which helps you feel full) and an increase of ghrelin (which triggers hunger).
17. Your spouse’s weight matters: Research shows that weight gain and loss can be, well, contagious. A study in the New England Journal of Medicine suggests that if one spouse is obese, the other is 37 percent more likely to become obese too. The researchers concluded that obesity seems to spread through social networks.
18. A virus can cause obesity: Adenoviruses are responsible for a host of ills, from upper respiratory tract problems to gastrointestinal troubles. It also seems to increase the number of fat cells in the body as well as the fat content of these cells.
19. Cookies really are addictive: When subjects at Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia were shown the names of foods they liked, the parts of the brain that got excited were the same parts activated in drug addicts.
20. Pick a diet, any diet: What really matters is your ability to moderate your intake of food. Feel free to use your favorite full-fat salad dressing, but your lettuce shouldn’t be swimming in it. You can cut carbs, fats, or just calories in general.

All About…Your Heart

It’s a sad fact that heart disease is the number one killer in the United States; what most people don’t realize is how preventable it is. Learn these facts, then do your part to protect your heart.

21. Laughter is therapeutic: Watching a funny movie for even 15 minutes can increase your blood flow. Remember to laugh every day—it can keep your heart happy and healthy.
22. Chest pain isn’t the only sign of a heart attack: Symptoms for most heart attacks include mild chest pain, some shoulder discomfort, or shortness of breath. Other signs can be nausea, lightheadedness, or breaking out in a cold sweat
23. If you’re over 20, you should know your cholesterol level: If it’s high, there are treatments (including medication and exercises) that can help. You should also get your blood pressure and your blood sugar levels checked regularly.
24. Obesity often leads to type 2 diabetes: Research has shown that eating more fruits, vegetables, and fiber can actually change the blood’s sensitivity to insulin within as little as two weeks.
25. Walking can save your life: A recent study found that a sedentary 40-year-old woman who begins walking briskly half an hour a day, four days a week, can enjoy almost the same low risk of heart attack as a woman who has exercised regularly her entire life.
26. Children can suffer from hypertension, too: About five out of every 100 children have higher than normal blood pressure.

You Have Super Powers!

Believe it or not, we’ve all got a little Clark Kent in us somewhere!

26. Super strength: Your fight-or-flight capacities point toward fighting, you can do the things you’ve heard of in the news, like lift cars off of your loved ones or push 600-pound boulders out of your way.
27. Supersonic hearing: Echolocation–it’s the way people with visual impairment continue to do amazing things. A prime example of this hidden sensory super power is Daniel Kish, a mountain biker who has been completely blind his whole life. He bikes better and faster than most people with vision, all by using sound to mentally paint a picture of the world around him. He does it so fast he can avoid trees, boulders and bears while speeding down the side of a mountain.
28. Super memory: Your brain technically has the ability to store every single thing you’ve ever seen or heard or experienced.
29. Super pain threshold: In moments of shock and trauma, your brain flips off pain like a switch. Ask somebody like Amy Racina, who fell off a cliff, landing six stories below, shattering her knee and breaking her hip. Not feeling more than minor pain, even with broken bone jutting out from her skin, she dragged herself until she found help. It was only at the point when she was being loaded safely into a helicopter that the pain returned.
30. Time manipulation: How fast time moves for you is literally all in your head. Experts say it’s because your brain has two modes of experiencing the world, rational and experiential. Read more about these modes and how they could save your life.

All About…Skin

These fantastic (but not-so-appetizing) facts will have you thinking twice every time you look in the mirror.

31. Weight game: An average adult’s skin spans 21 square feet, weighs nine pounds, and contains more than 11 miles of blood vessels.
32. Sweating like a…human: The skin releases as much as three gallons of sweat a day in hot weather. The areas that don’t sweat are the nail bed, the margins of the lips, the tip of the penis, and the eardrums.
33. Take a bath: Body odor comes from a second kind of sweat— a fatty secretion produced by the apocrine sweat glands. The odor is caused by bacteria on the skin eating and digesting those fatty compounds.
34. The perfect crime: Some people never develop fingerprints at all. Two rare genetic defects, known as Naegeli syndrome and dermatopathia pigmentosa reticularis, can leave carriers without any identifying ridges on their skin.
35. Hold your breath: Globally, dead skin accounts for about a billion tons of dust in the atmosphere. Your skin sheds 50,000 cells every minute.
36. It can see: In blind people, the brain’s visual cortex is rewired to respond to stimuli received through touch and hearing, so they literally "see" the world by touch and sound.
37. Master race, my melanin!: White skin appeared just 20,000 to 50,000 years ago, as dark-skinned humans migrated to colder climes and lost much of their melanin pigment.
38. You see very, very white people: Albinos are often cast as movie villains, as seen in The Da Vinci Code, Die Another Day, The Matrix Reloaded, and—inexplicably—the 2001 flick Josie and the Pussycats. Robert Lima of Penn State suggests that people associate pale-skinned albinos with vampires and other mythical creatures of the night.
39. Who needs keys?: More than 2,000 people have radio frequency identification chips, or RFID tags, inserted under their skin. The tags can provide access to medical information, log on to computers, or unlock car doors.
40. You’re reading what?!: The Cleveland Public Library, Harvard Law School, and Brown University all have books clad in skin stripped from executed criminals or from the poor.

All About…Hygiene

Throughout history, humans have evolved to become cleaner, healthier, and fresher-smelling beings, but we’re certainly not sterile. These somewhat-disturbing (but very interesting) hygenic truths might have you showering more often than ever before.

41. We’re really dirty: The human body is home to some 1,000 species of bacteria. There are more germs on your body than people in the United States.
42. Be careful what you wash with: Antibacterial soap is no more effective at preventing infection than regular soap, and triclosan (the active ingredient) can mess with your sex hormones.
43. Pee like an Egyptian: Ancient Egyptians and Aztecs rubbed urine on their skin to treat cuts and burns. Urea, a key chemical in urine, is known to kill fungi and bacteria.
44. You might want to skip the fountain drink: There are more bacteria in ice machines at fast-food restaurants than in toilet bowl water.
45. Floor food isn’t good: There’s no “five-second rule” when it comes to dropping food on the ground. Bacteria need no time at all to contaminate food.
46. TV can kill: TV remotes spread antibiotic-resistant Staphylococcus, which contributes to the 90,000 annual deaths from infection acquired in hospitals.
47. Make sure your doctor washes his hands: It is now believed President James Garfield died not from the bullet fired by Charles Guiteau but because the medical team treated the president with manure-stained hands, causing a severe infection that killed him three months later.
48. Mount Soapo: Soap gets its name from the mythological Mount Sapo. Fat and wood ash from animal sacrifices there washed into the Tiber River, creating a rudimentary cleaning agent that aided women doing their washing.
49. Sorry, Mom: Up to a quarter of all women giving birth in European and American hospitals in the 17th through 19th centuries died of puerperal fever, an infection spread by unhygienic nurses and doctors.
50. Don’t forget to floss: The first true toothbrush, consisting of Siberian pig hair bristles wired into carved cattle-bone handles, was invented in China in 1498. But tooth brushing didn’t become routine in the United States until it was enforced on soldiers during World War II.

All About…Sex and Gender

Click on these links, and you’ll get a whole new take on gender, sexuality, and the complexity of human relationships.

51. What were they waiting for?: Life emerged on earth about 3.8 billion years ago, but sex did not evolve until more than 2 billion years later.
52. Why does it take two?: Scientists are not sure, since asexual reproduction is a better evolutionary strategy in some important ways.
53. Better for your liver than tylenol: Sex cures headaches. Endorphins released into our bloodstream when we have sex not only give us pleasure but also act as painkillers.
54. Coo-coo for cocoa: 70% of women would rather eat choclate than have sex.
55. Staying alive: Sex wards off heart attacks. Frequent sexual intercourse (twice or more per week) lowers your chance of a fatal heart attack.
56. It’s actually a cure-all: It also decreases pain from menstrual cramps and arthritis. It increases levels of endorphins and corticosteroids, raising pain thresholds.
57. Calm yourself: Sex reduces stress, so try to make time for it at least a few times a week.
58. What’s love got to do with it?: Sexual arousal and romantic love activate quite distinct areas of the brain—and love is clearly the more powerful. The latter turns on dopamine-rich regions linked with motivation, and falling in love is not unlike the rush of taking cocaine, hence the addictiveness of a new crush, and the withdrawal-like symptoms of love lost.
59. Curious?: Recent research suggests women may be “intrinsically bisexual,” and the higher their libido, the more they desire both sexes.
60. Asexuality 101: One percent of adults have zero interest in sex and have never felt sexually attracted to anyone at all.

All About…Mental Health

Mental health and sickness is a big part of being human. Though it’s been looked at and discussed with ridicule in previous generations, today’s world should know these important facts about human psychology and psychiatry.

61. Mental illness is more common than you think: The National Institute of Mental Health reports that One in four adults-approximately 57.7 million Americans-experience a mental health disorder in a given year.
62. Adults aren’t the only ones who suffer: The U.S. Surgeon General reports that 10 percent of children and adolescents in the United States suffer from serious emotional and mental disorders that cause significant functional impairment in their day-to-day lives at home, in school and with peers.
63. Mental illness strikes young: Mental illness usually strike individuals in the prime of their lives, often during adolescence and young adulthood. All ages are susceptible, but the young and the old are especially vulnerable.
64. It’s expensive: The economic cost of untreated mental illness is more than 100 billion dollars each year in the United States.
65. It’s treatable: Most people who live with serious mental illnesses can significantly reduce the impact of their illness and find a satisfying measure of achievement and independence.
66. Act fast: Early identification is of vital importance to treatment.
67. Don’t be bullied: Stigma erodes confidence that mental disorders are real, treatable health conditions.
68. Bipolar disorder is blind to gender: Over 10 million people in America have bipolar disorder, and the illness affects men and women equally.
69. Suicide is serious: Each year in the U.S., approximately 2 million U.S. adolescents attempt suicide, and almost 700,000 receive medical attention for their attempt.
70. Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) might be genetic: Many people with SAD report at least one close relative with a psychiatric condition, most frequently a severe depressive disorder (55 percent) or alcohol abuse (34 percent).

All About…Working Out

You already know how essential physical fitness is, and how important it is to take care of your body. But we’re willing to bet you didn’t know all of these bits of information about how to work out in a way that benefits you best.

71. Incline builds muscle: Get off the flats and into the hills. Walking uphill makes you stronger.
72. Treat your feet: Each step puts up to 1.5 times your body weight on your feet, which are shock absorbers that bear 60 tons of pressure every mile you travel.
73. Lub-dub: The more fit you are, the harder it is to reach your target heart rate.
74. Work it, girl: A 145-pound woman walking briskly (4 mph) burns 82 calories every 15 minutes.
75. Getting back in: If you’ve taken off more than one month from exercising, give yourself at least four weeks to regain endurance and strength. Start slow, and increase your time, distance and intensity gradually, even if you were previously well-trained.
76. Caffeine won’t kill: Despite popular thinking, caffeine doesn’t cause dehydration during exercise. In fact, the caffeine in a cup of tea or coffee improves speed and endurance.
77. Change it up: Running on a circular track puts stress on the outside of your foot. Alternate the direction you run every other day or every five laps.
78. Tums, anyone?: Strenuous exercise can cause acid reflux in healthy, conditioned athletes.
79. Go shopping: Keep the spring in your step. Replace your running shoes every 300 to 400 miles.
80. You’re not a camel: If you’re dehydrated even 5%, your metabolism can fall 20% to 30%. You’ll fire more easily and be irritable.

All about…Preventing Cancer

Cancer is the number two killer of people in the United States, but it doesn’t have to put you in the ground, too. Follow these healthy tips to treat your body to a longer, healthier life.

81. Serve sauerkraut at your next picnic: The fermentation process involved in making sauerkraut produces several other cancer-fighting compounds, including ITCs, indoles, and sulforaphane. To reduce the sodium content, rinse canned or jarred sauerkraut before eating.
82. Eat your fill of broccoli, but steam it rather than microwaving it: Broccoli is a cancer-preventing superfood, one you should eat frequently. But microwaving broccoli destroys 97 percent of the vegetable’s cancer-protective flavonoids.
83. Toast some Brazil nuts and sprinkle over your salad: They’re a rich form of selenium, a trace mineral that convinces cancer cells to commit suicide and helps cells repair their DNA.
84. Add garlic to everything you eat: Garlic contains sulfur compounds that may stimulate the immune system’s natural defenses against cancer, and may have the potential to reduce tumor growth. Studies suggest that garlic can reduce the incidence of stomach cancer by as much as a factor of 12!
85. Eat cantaloupe: Cantaloupe is a great source of carotenoids, plant chemicals shown to significantly reduce the risk of lung cancer.
86. Drink water: The amount of water women drink correlates to their risk of colon cancer, with heavy water drinkers reducing their risk up to 45 percent.
87. Get about 15 minutes of sunlight each day: Getting too little vitamin D may increase your risk of multiple cancers, including breast, colon, prostate, ovarian, and stomach, as well as osteoporosis, diabetes, multiple sclerosis, and high blood pressure.
88. Sprinkle scallions over your salad: A diet high in onions may reduce the risk of prostate cancer 50 percent. But the effects are strongest when they’re eaten raw or lightly cooked.
89. Make a batch of fresh lemonade or limeade: A daily dose of citrus fruits may cut the risk of mouth, throat, and stomach cancers by half, Australian researchers found.
90. Take advantage of your friends and family (they won’t mind): Men with high levels of stress and those with less satisfying contacts with friends and family members had higher levels of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) in their blood, a marker for the development of prostate cancer.

Weird Parts We Don’t Need

Evolution has gotten us pretty far, from our apelike ancestors to the upright walking, talking, complex thinking creatures we are today. But along the way, it left behind some traces of our previous forms, like extrinsic ear muscles and tail bones.

91. Vomeronasal organ: A tiny pit on each side of the septum is lined with nonfunctioning chemoreceptors. They may be all that remains of a once extensive pheromone-detecting ability.
92. Wisdom teeth: Early humans had to chew a lot of plants to get enough calories to survive, making another row of molars helpful. Only about 5 percent of the population has a healthy set of these third molars.
93. Third eyelid: A common ancestor of birds and mammals may have had a membrane for protecting the eye and sweeping out debris. Humans retain only a tiny fold in the inner corner of the eye.
94. Male Nipples: Lactiferous ducts form well before testosterone causes sex differentiation in a fetus. Men have mammary tissue that can be stimulated to produce milk.
95. Body hair: Brows help keep sweat from the eyes, and male facial hair may play a role in sexual selection, but apparently most of the hair left on the human body serves no function.
96. Female vas deferens: What might become sperm ducts in males become the epoophoron in females, a cluster of useless dead-end tubules near the ovaries.
97. Fifth toe: Lesser apes use all their toes for grasping or clinging to branches. Humans need mainly the big toe for balance while walking upright.
98. Coccyx: These fused vertebrae are all that’s left of the tail that most mammals still use for balance and communication. Our hominid ancestors lost the need for a tail before they began walking upright.
99. Thirteenth Rib: Our closest cousins, chimpanzees and gorillas, have an extra set of ribs. Most of us have 12, but 8 percent of adults have the extras.
100. Extrinsic ear muscles: This trio of muscles most likely made it possible for prehominids to move their ears independently of their heads, as rabbits and dogs do. We still have them, which is why most people can learn to wiggle their ears.