When all of the Nutella is gone, I give the empty jar to Sparky.1 He has an impressively long tongue, but he can’t get to the bottom half of the jar. He puts a ball from the snack pit in there, and when it rolls out, it has some Nutella on it.
Category: Health (Page 4 of 8)
NIH closes experimentation labs accused of brutally killing thousands of beagles for 40+ years
Sparky has too much ninja blood to be an official beagle, but these reports are heartbreaking. All of the lab beagles shown in the photos have Sparky’s stoic good nature, so you know that they are all good dogs.
Drug to Extend Dogs’ Lives May Be Approved by FDA
The drug aims to extend the lifespan of senior dogs and maintain their quality of life as they age, building on the company’s previous RXE acceptance for a longevity drug specifically targeting the short lifespan of large breed dogs.
I don’t get how this works. I assume that dogs and people have similar physiologies, and two years living with Sparky hasn’t changed my mind. I have a developed prefrontal cortex and Sparky can poop whenever he wants, otherwise, our bodies work pretty much the same way.
New Therapy Offers Promising Solution to Childhood Peanut Allergies
Prior to our field trip to Cedar Point for Physics Day, one of my students who had a severe peanut allergy, came by to discuss medical precautions necessary for our day of fun.
He told me that food cooked in peanut oil, could send him to the hospital. Trace amounts of peanuts could kill him.
Ultra-processed foods and cardio-metabolic health
We are doing terribly. Ultra-processed foods make up 58% of the average American’s diet.
These are my students on our field trip to Cedar Point for Physics Day in 2011. They are all weird in their own way. I picked the year at random, because it doesn’t matter.
Bill Gates makes a good point about students being over diagnosed, labeled and medicated.
My new approach to breaking up chest congestion is an old idea. Steam from a wet sauna, humidifier or pot of water is a traditional way to help with bronchitis.
I build a steam hookah, or stookah to generate steam. A CPAP hose slips right on. Boiling water generates air too hot to inhale and melts the hose. Instead, the water is heated to a comfortably warm temperature.
If I take a break, the lid has to be removed from the pot to keep the hose from melting.
The stookah works quite well. It breaks up the chest congestion while I screw around online or watch TV. A more robust hose would be good, but this works fine if I’m cautious.
My head cold is down to bronchitis. I’ve been considering innovative treatments to tip the balance of power.
I have a nebulizer, and thought that might be useful. A nebulizer is an aquarium pump that blows air through a small chamber holding medication. The medication evaporates and is inhaled as vapor.
The air isn’t heated, so water doesn’t evaporate. I tried vodka. The alcohol would evaporate, and hopefully make life less comfortable for the virus.
There was only about a quarter-ounce of alcohol in the chamber, so I wasn’t too concerned about intoxication. It worked, but did little to alleviate symptoms.
Sparky wants me to feel better, so thinks I should lick his paw a bunch of times. He says that usually helps him.