treatment

What if you could "street view" the human body, navigating its interactive components all the way down to a metabolic level? An international group of scientists is working on that right now with a map of the human metabolism, which they call Recon 2.

Metabolism plays a key role in many diseases, and while scientists have already managed to reconstruct several models of it, each "represents only a subset of our knowledge" with "only partially overlapping content," the team writes in the journal Nature Biology.

"It's like having the coordinates of all the cars in town, but no street map," Bernhard Palsson, a professor of bioengineering at the University of California San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering and one of the authors of the paper, said in a statement. "Without this tool, we don't know why people are moving the way they are."… Read more

A well-calibrated Panasonic TC-PVT50 TV will look exactly the same in almost any room with the lights turned down. Video performance is reliable and predictable, but audio is the exact opposite. Speakers will sound very different in different rooms, sometimes to a frightening degree. AV receivers' speaker calibration systems might help a little bit, but they can never eliminate the problems created by sound reflecting off a room's walls, floor and ceiling. The size and shape of the room, furniture, floor covering, mirrors, windows, and drapes all play their parts in the sound environment.

When I was a hi-fi … Read more

Animal rights group PETA has unveiled its own iPhone app as a way to counteract what it sees as the animal cruelty expressed in an Android app that pits dogs against each other.

Originally dubbed "Dog Wars," the app, made by Kage Games and found on the Android Market, touted itself as a way to train virtual pit bulls to fight other dogs and pick up "street cred" along the way. But the game quickly upset members of People for the Ethnical Treatment of Animals and other animal rights groups who called for it to be removed from the app store.

After temporarily being taken down from the Android Market, the $2.99 app quickly resurfaced with the new name of KG Dogfighting but the same theme, proclaiming that "the controversial dogfighting Android "DogWars - Beta" app by Kage Games LLC has been renamed and uploaded here to the market as a paid app!"

Also boasting that the "app will never appear in the iPhone app store"--a reference to Apple's more stringent guidelines--Kage says that the goal is to feed, water, train, and fight your virtual dog against other players.… Read more

Facebook followers of the Coach leather goods company were treated to some unpleasant imagery on Thursday when dozens of anti-fur activists flooded the Coach Facebook wall with graphic photographs of caged and skinned animals.

They were likely followers of an ongoing campaign on behalf of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), which is well-known for heavy shock value in an attempt to get its message across (as well as its sometime affinity for robot groundhogs), to convince Coach to dump fur products.

Coach has more than 1 million Facebook fans--as far as luxury brands go, it's been … Read more

Virtual meat hooks, flame throwers, and propane bombs are OK, but attack dogs are not: social-gaming behemoth Zynga has removed pit bulls from its roster of virtual weaponry in the Mafia Wars game after a complaint last month on behalf of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

PETA's reasoning is that promoting a domestic animal as a weapon will only encourage misunderstanding and abuse of pit bulls, which have been routinely used in illegal dog-fighting activities and are often subject to horrific conditions as their owners attempt to toughen them up. The breed of dog has gotten bad … Read more

EMDR Aid allows users to continue Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing therapy outside their therapist's office. The program's simple interface and functions make it an attractive treatment option.

EMDR should be performed only with the guidance of a qualified therapist, and EMDR Aid makes it clear that this program is not for self-diagnosis or treatment. In fact, users looking to treat themselves without professional guidance will likely be disappointed in this program; there's not much to it. For therapists and their clients who have established an EMDR treatment plan, however, this program may be useful. The interface … Read more

It's late in the afternoon on a gloomy fall day. What do you need for a pick-me-up? A touch of USB aromatherapy, of course.

The crackpot R&D department at Japan's Thanko--maker of heated USB gloves, muscle-toning mice and other bizarre items--has expanded its semi-useless repertoire to include a USB humidifier. Everything USB notes that a drop or two of scented oil can provide a quick aromatherapy treatment right at your desk.

Perhaps the most bizarre thing of all is that this product actually has some direct competition.

Judging by a lot of home entertainment products on the market today, you'd think we all listened to music every waking moment (and sleeping ones too). After all, we've already built our music directly into creature comforts ranging from easy chairs to lounging mats.

But one company has figured out another activity for music multitasking that makes perfect sense: massage. It may not be a full-on Swedish rubdown, but the "iCush" chair pad does promise to vibrate along with your music or game soundtracks while you damage your eardrums with its built-in speakers placed right at … Read more