Restraint technique could be fatal: Forcing a detainee to bend over while seated can lead to death

Researchers found that the hold, forcing a detainee to bend over while seated, can massively cut lung capacity.

They placed 40 volunteers in chairs and then leaned them forward, bringing their face close to the lap. They used arm holds and applied a small amount of force to prevent the volunteer from attempting to return to a normal sitting position. In the worst cases, the lungs' capacity was almost halved.

"Imagine that from the perspective of the security staff. They feel you struggle and they will feel that you are getting angry. They will apply more force to manage your resistance. It becomes a vicious circle."

References:

Restraint technique could be fatal, research suggests. BBC.

Why Dog Owners Live Longer - "dogs could be called wonder drugs"

Dogs are the most diverse mammal species on the planet (http://buff.ly/1pxxt0k). They can vary in weight from 6 lb (3kg) to 200 lb (90kg) when fully grown and have widely differing body shapes and hair types.

BBC: Have you ever wondered why it's so relaxing to hang out with a dog?



Dogs could be called wonder drugs

People who have dogs as pets are much less likely to have a heart attack. If they do have a heart attack, they are 2-3 times more likely to survive it.

Over more than 100,000 years dogs have evolved to recognize human emotions. It has been a collaborative process all along. Humans are able to recognize 6 types of dog barks expressing emotions and "intentions" such as fear, excitement, aggression and so on. Dogs are the only animals that specifically look at the right side of the human face where emotions are expressed.

Dogs follow directions while chimpanzees, the apes evolutionary closest to humans, do not. The smartest dog can learn 300 different words which is the vocabulary size of a 2-year-old child.

The "400 mnemonic":

400 million dogs worldwide
400 breeds of dogs have been developed by humans

According to a Cleveland Clinic psychologist, "dogs could be called wonder drugs":



Related:

Doctor's Dog Will See You Now - Therapists Use 'Canine Assistants' to Comfort and Cheer Patients http://buff.ly/1cTwfDW
Dogs Decoded transcript and more. NOVA.

Twitter addiction: Could you get by without Twitter?

From BBC:

A popstar gave up on social networking after a dinner party at which she realised she spent more time updating Twitter than interacting with her companions.

Online communities like Twitter, where people follow each other without being acquainted in real life, can be brutal: "If you're going to broadcast as a tweeter then you need to be thick skinned," says Dr Yeung, "If you're the kind of person who takes things personally, opening yourself up to criticism from strangers is not a good idea."

A Twitter user: "I could not fully concentrate on anything for longer than 20 minutes," says Carolyn. I simply had to check and update the feed. What if someone had asked a question of me? What if there was an interesting piece of information related to our experiment that I could read? It was highly distracting and I felt genuinely anxious."

"Everybody craves information," says applied psychologist Dr Lucy Atcheson, "It's what makes the world interesting. But you have to ask whether you need it all. Twitter has an element of making people feel important."

"You can get addicted to thinking that somebody is interested in your every move. You have this idea that there is a virtual audience. But when are you tweeting information, and when is it just vanity?"

References:
Could you get by without Twitter? BBC.

The Barefoot Professor says barefoot running could minimize injuries (2014 Update: Not really)

2014 Update: 'Barefoot' Running Heads Into the Sunset - WSJ http://buff.ly/1nuz0E0



NatureVideoChannel — January 27, 2010 — Harvard professor Daniel Lieberman has ditched his trainers and started running barefoot. His research shows that barefoot runners, who tend to land on their fore-foot, generate less impact shock than runners in sports shoes who land heel first. This makes barefoot running comfortable and could minimize running-related injuries. Find the original research here: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature08723

Humans have engaged in endurance running for millions of years1, but the modern running shoe was not invented until the 1970s. For most of human evolutionary history, runners were either barefoot or wore minimal footwear such as sandals or moccasins with smaller heels and little cushioning relative to modern running shoes.

Related reading:

The Barefoot Running Revolution - INFOGRAPHIC  http://goo.gl/7SUGs

Antibiotic use for respiratory infections could be reduced by 40% by procalcitonin (PCT) test

Procalcitonin (PCT) is a precursor of the hormone calcitonin, which is involved with calcium homeostasis, and is produced by the C-cells of the thyroid gland.

In healthy people, procalcitonin (PCT) concentrations are low, but in those with bacterial infection it occurs at high concentrations in the blood as early as 3 hours after infection. In people with viral infections, procalcitonin (PCT) levels rise only marginally, if at all.

A PCT-guided strategy applied in primary care in unselected patients presenting with symptoms of acute respiratory infection reduces antibiotic use by 41.6 percent without compromising patient outcome.


The FDA Approved an Automated Procalcitonin (PCT) Test in 2008.

References:
Simple test could cut excessive antibiotic use. Reuters, 2010.

Headache? It could be that blade in skull (CNN video)

CNN: "I've got these stabbing pains" - Man complains about migraine, finds he has had a knife in his brain for 4 years.

Related reading:

Daily Mail