health

There's a printable "Face Mask Exempt Card" out in the wild that the official United States Department of Justice just called out. The card looks semi-legitimate, especially if the person showing the card has a laminating machine - but it's absolutely unofficial an unenforceable in any legal capacity. As noted by the Department of Justice, the card may include a message suggesting that exemption from face mask rules is allowed because of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) - but it's all a sham.

Continue Reading

Staying indoors often means a lack of physical activity for people whose definition of "physical activity" is pretty much going to the office or school. While some people with more active lifestyles have found ways to exercise even at home, most probably have a hard time finding the motivation to even move around the house. Applying age-old principles of gamification, Nintendo is launching a free game that aims to get the blood running by making you jump up and down with an imaginary rope.

Continue Reading

Samsung has spun-off new projects from its C-Lab incubator, including a smart highlighter for digitizing handwritten text, and an artificial window for boosting your vitamin D levels. Running since 2012, Samsung C-Lab offers the company's employees the opportunity to work on a side-project, with the support to spin it out into a standalone startup if the idea has merit.

Continue Reading

As the major sports of summer are effectively cancelled and the world sits at home, quarantined from their fellow citizens, one wonders... will televised sports ever return? According to Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), it's entirely possible - with a key disclaimer. Speaking with Peter Hamby, host of Good Luck America, Dr. Fauci suggested that team sports, televised sports, and the like, could return without fans.

Continue Reading

As more and more businesses and events are shutting down because of the COVID-19 outbreak, one major question mark has been the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo. A lot of planning and money goes into hosting the Olympics - whether its the summer or winter Olympics - so we expected the International Olympic Committee to take its time in making a decision. It seems that such a decision is right around the corner, if one IOC member has it right.

Continue Reading

COVID-19 in the USA was the reason for President Donald Trump's invoking of the Defense Production Act (DPA). This act was originally put in place by President Truman during the Korean War, and has been changed significantly since then. As laid out in the last major change of provisions in the act, in a CRS (Congressional Research Service) Report for Congress by Daniel H. Else, Specialist in National Defense, on May 14, 2009, "DPA authorities are not permanent."

Continue Reading

There's a global pandemic going on right now thanks an infectious disease called COVID-19, aka "the coronavirus".* COVID-19 is caused by SARS-CoV-2, aka severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2. If you're reading this article while you're out about town, go home now. Now is the time when you should be isolating yourself by yourself or with your immediate family to avoid further spread.

Continue Reading

As early as February, the threat of the novel coronavirus, which would be officially named COVID-19 eventually, put many large events and organizations to uncertainty. MWC 2020 in late February was canceled out of those concerns and things started downhill from there. Some organizers and individuals are still unsure whether to push through with plans or incur the costs of postponing or even canceling mass events. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or CDC not only recommends that you do but also that you hold off until after 8 weeks.

Continue Reading

Following the US Surgeon General's recommendation that the general public stop buying face masks with the goal of preventing the spread of coronavirus, eBay has announced that it will halt sales of masks and a couple of other items that are associated with the outbreak. The move seems to be an effort to prevent price gouging from sellers who are trying to take advantage of the fear surrounding COVID-19.

Continue Reading

Games have a rather mixed public image, depending on who you ask. While many see it as useless pastimes or even bad influences, some consider these interactive activities as a form of art or medium for education. Few, however, probably expect games to save lives, let alone find the cure that will save lives. Yet that is exactly what the University of Washington's game is trying to do, calling upon the creative brain cells of gamers to discover the protein structure that will stop the spread of the COVID-19 novel coronavirus.

Continue Reading

While they may have more variety, smartwatches powered by Wear OS, formerly known as Android Wear, severely lag behind the Apple Watch in both sales and attention. Despite not having changed significantly in its design, Apple's smartwatch has the lion's share of the market and news coverage primarily thanks to its health features, especially those that end up saving lives. Google may finally be taking notice, at least based on a survey it sent out. Hopefully, it won't be too little too late for the tech giant that now owns Fitbit.

Continue Reading

Although it is a condition common to all humans (and even animals), stress is harder to objectively describe than you might think. It is partly subjective, which is why questionnaires rarely work, and the tests used to determine stress levels are not only slow but also stress-inducing themselves. A convenient and noninvasive way to detect and measure stress levels could go a long way in preventing it or giving immediate treatment and that's exactly what a new paper-thin sensor promises to deliver.

Continue Reading