PLANET health

A ruling is expected that could have profound implications for UK asbestos-related cancer victims and their families.

The UK government's plan to fine hospitals for not hitting Clostridium difficile targets is unfair, experts say.

By Mitchell Katz Today is the Great American Smokeout, and while San Franciscans are doing their part to help people battle nicotine addiction, I became aware recently that not all the health insurance plans for our county workers in San...

Water aerobics may help reduce the pain of childbirth. A new study shows that women who take classes during pregnancy are significantly less likely to ask for pain medication during delivery.

A new report was released today from The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation that suggests teenagers today use and value technologies online that adults don’t always value or understand.

I would suggest that this report describes a predictable generation gap that occurs with every few generations. Just as my parents couldn’t understand why I wanted to spend hours every evening on the phone to friends I had just seen in school all day, today’s parents don’t understand teens’ need to always be connected — via text messaging, IM, or some other technology — to their friends. A few generations prior, the technology wasn’t the telephone, but rather the automobile that upset how families and friends kept in touch. Mail that used to take weeks to deliver now took only days.

I think the first two take-aways from the report are key:

The current U.S. shortage of childhood Hib vaccine, cut off in December 2007, will continue at least until mid-2009, the CDC warns.

TMI warning: A picture of Prince William’s willy is making the rounds on the internet, crashing sites and reminding us all why Prince Harry is considered the hot royal. The paps snapped the photo while William blessed nature with his royal urine at a polo match.

If you're in a bad mood, all you see is the task at hand. But in a good mood, you can see how the task fits into the grand scheme of things in your life.

A sneaky convicted drug dealer made a daring escape from a prison in Germany recently when he crammed into a box set for recycling and rode off with the rest of the cans, bottles and cardboard boxes. The 37-year-old Turkish national cut himself out of the box and the truck’s tarpaulin after safely passing the prison walls and essentially disappeared. Authorities have thus far had no luck nabbing the fugitive, but if he can squish into a cardboard box, imagine the other crevices he could hide away in without anyone noticing. Beware Germans if your recycling feels a bit on the heavy side or if it seems your empty beer bottles start gibbering in Turkish.

Shaquille O’Neal has a fondness for boastful quips and invented out-of-the-blue phrases, so when a feller hopped on Twitter claiming Shaq’s identity and posting tweets capturing the basketball star’s unique language stylings, fans took notice and started following the supposed Shaq. While the fake Shaq had some of followers fooled with tweets like “My tweets are Shaqalicious,” the real Shaq decided to confront the impostor head-on with a Twitter account of his own. Taking to Twitter this week as The_Real_Shaq, O’Neal began tweeting at an impressive pace, talking about everything from Oprah to yoga to fettuccine. And that fake Shaq? No, he didn’t end up stomped and pulverized by the size 23 sneakers of the real b-baller, instead O’Neal called the impersonator’s schtick amusing, but says it’s now time to “let the professional take over.”

Stress in the workplace is devastating. Regardless of the factors causing stress at work is very important to develop ways to manage stress to be creative and productive for us. It is unrealistic to believe that we can live without stress. The aim of stress management is not to stop worrying and care about everything (so that we can avoid stress) but to learn to keep our self relaxed and under control.

In recent decades the word stress has entered our vocabulary for good, describing the fatigue, discomfort and pressure we are experiencing in our daily lives. The difficult working conditions, the financial difficulties, and the small or big personal problems of each of us became our personal load that we are forced to carry every day.

If a doctor over-shares, what happens to the doctor-patient bond?

While hanging out on Twitter one night, I saw a blurb about being able to do push-ups.  My curiosity took over and I asked why she was so focused on the amount of push-ups she could do and how many weeks she had to do it in.  @Kelownagurl responded to me with a website with [...]

It’s no “D**k in a Box,” but it’s almost as entertaining. Police became suspicious of a man illegally parked by an Australian beach when unseen hand movements led them to believe he had a weapon. Instead, they found him with his marts pleasurably ensconced in a pasta sauce jar and were led on a slow car chase before apprehending the offender, who continued his activities while wrestling with police. What remains to be seen is what animal activists will say about his using a Jack Russell Terrier as his wing man.
(Photo Credit: Connie T. Ballash/iStockphoto)

YouTube cofounder Chad Hurley will tap his inner metrosexual as the host of a Men’s Winter Style Event at the Saks in San Francisco tonight. The fashion fiesta will go down November 20 (tonight) from 6 to 8 p.m. and lucky attendees who spend $500 can scoop up a gift bag featuring Chad’s favorite items, so you too can get your own Silicon Valley tech hipster style maven look.

Topiary is the art of creating sculptures in the medium of clipped trees and shrubs. However, in modern topiary, shaped wire cages are often covered by small-leaved ivy to give the look of topiary in a shorter amount of time. This same premise is now being used in medicine. You may recall a concept study we told you about just days ago where cardiologists harvested stem cells from umbilical cord blood collected at birth and seeded them onto eight biodegradable scaffolds.

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If recent stories about the Somali pirates have you chuckling “Argh” at the television or radio, the revelation that these high-tech bandits are joining forces with Islamic extremist groups may open the eye hiding under the patch. With a growing public relations movement and thriving business model, piracy has quickly become perhaps the only booming business in Somalia, but possible connections to Al-Qaeda or Hezbollah are taking a bad situation into some terrifying territory. Following a weapons freighter heist, a radio interview exposed how romanticized notions of piracy in the West are actively being exploited by the “industry” as perpetrators claim to be bringing order to the chaos that is Somalia. Maybe Disney could start tossing some cash the Navy’s way.

President-elect Obama nabbed GQ’s annual “Man of the Year” award, but Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg managed to grab a title all his own as the men’s magazine’s “Boy Genius of the Year.” Described by Napster co-founder Sean Parker as “not necessarily the strongest communicator,” the 24-year-old self-made billionaire’s oratory skills don’t matter much with a booming business worth as much as $15 billion. So, congrats Zucks, but who decided on the moth-going-towards-the-light glamour shot?