You and your blood.

Did you know that based on the type blood you, have you could be at a greater risk for stroke and heart attack.  You may also have a larger chance of bleeding to death.  Watch this great video and please post any question you have so we can find the answers for you.

Average number of significant injuries a person sustaines.

Over the course of our lives and even over the course of a few months many of us sustain several injuries.  I am currently collecting data to find out how many times most of us have been hurt.  Please enter your data here Spreadsheet and dont forget to add yourself as a participant at the top, as you add to your number of broken bones and other injuries.

Google Maps & Google Earth

Today I want to address Google Maps and Google Earth. I recently read a pretty amazing book that give a large amount of detail on the two, and since they are mostly the same thing just accessed through different portals I’m going to just refer to them as Google from here forth.  This book was unlike any other I have ever read.  In many ways it was more like interactive media experience than a book on line.  It was filled with audio and video clips on almost every page and they weren’t afraid to question controversial items like privacy.  The name of the book is “Using Google maps and Google Earth” by Michael Miller.  It is fairly new and was just published in January of 2011.

I won’t spend much time on the first few chapters since they are mostly a history lesson.  Instead I would like to talk about what Google is.  You probably know it as an email provider or maybe it’s been your favorite search engine for the last decade.  However this description doesn’t even begin to scratch the vast majority of what Google is.  In 2004 the then search provider purchased a newly created mapping technology from a couple of guys who thought that there could be a lot easy way to find things and get directions then what they got from MapQuest.  Google took their technology and invested in it.  They quickly began covering the world, but they didn’t just do what the other map companies did and make a digital version of an already mapped atlas.  Instead they put people on the road verifying routes and finding some roads that did not exist yet in other atlases and this was just the beginning.

They quickly expanded the power of their technology so that they could combine map views with overlaid roads and with satellite views.  They acquired the technology to sew it all together and give people a realistic 3D view of the whole world.  This however was not enough.  They also began a project to send vehicles down every possible road and route with cameras on top of them that take a picture of everything around them once every second.  Using technology to almost seamlessly join everything, they have literally mapped the entire world. 

This is where we really begin to see a different type of company.  They did something that killed almost every other map company in the country.  They made all this information free to anyone.  They wrote software so everyone can have Google Earth on their home computers for free.  They wrote applications for every type of smart device, cell phone, palm that was on the market.  Then they took things one step further by making there map soft were open to any developer who wanted to use their vast amount of information in their own programs.  They also made it so every time a person created a search there was a URL made for it that could be linked and emailed to anyone else.  They also did all this without making users join a sight and have to enter a password and username anytime they needed something.

They have now began to create the future with Google places, more advanced mapping and geographical features, the ability to search for landmarks with key phrases, in-depth real estate services and numerous other tools that will likely affect all of our lives and the way we do everything from traveling to deciding where we would like to eat or shop each day.

My favorite item that I discovered and would encourage everyone to try is the flight simulator available in Google Earth.  This is not meant to be a difficult to handle airplane like most video games, instead it is there to be used as a tool to find out what the world looks like.  With the Google flight simulator you can seamlessly travel through any part of the entire world and see what it looks like.  I have often dreamed of seeing very exotic locations, however between raising and supporting a family and dealing with both school and work the chance of me have the time and resources to get to the most remote parts of the world is very unlikely.  However tonight I tour New Zealand and tomorrow the Sahara desert.  And after I have seen all I desire I will go to the moon, and then Mars and the rest of the galaxy, since Google already has those mapped out for us too.  THANK YOU GOOGLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

How to stop bleeding in an emergency.

There are many dangers and unexpected accidents in today's world.  If you saw some one hurt would you know how to help them?  If they were bleeding heavily would you know what to do?  Here is a quick lesson on how to create an improvised tourniquet, which can stop bleeding on any limb, no matter how heavy the person is bleeding.  Please click here "Tourniquet application slide show" for some basic step by step pictures.  One important item to remember is that a tourniquet can be used to apply pressure and stop bleeding anywhere above a wound.  Two to three inches is ideal, but upstream is all that matters.

There use to be a lot of fears about tourniquets causing damage, however they pose no risk unless left in place for greater than six hours.  After that the casualty may begin to suffer tissue damage from the lack of profusion to the cells.  Also never place a tourniquet on a persons head, neck, or torso.  For these areas just use your hands to push and apply pressure as needed to stop the bleeding. 

Please remember that even with excellent first aide and care a seriously hurt person should always be turned over to a hospital or higher echelon of care for a proper diagnoses and care regiment.

Does living near a fast food stop make you fat?

In a recent Wall Street Journal article they released the results from a new Harved study that will be published in the next American Journal of Epidemiology, that talks about this issue.  Reaserchers have found that there is no notable difference in BMI (Body Mass Index) of those who live near a fast food stop and those who do not.  The results showed that females that lived near a fast food stop showed slight increase in BMI but the Harvard researchers determined that the increase was not enough to determine if the effect was from the fast food restruant.

This 30 year study also noted that though the participants all came from a wide variety of social and economic back grounds and there was little racial diversity between them.  Though this research produced little evidence to help researchers better understand the changes in human BMI they will soon begin to carry out more research to find out if having fast food near where you work  or that you pass on your way to and from work daily have effects.

My best guess is that having to drive by so many of them has been terribly derogatory on my weight struggle.  Every time I get burnt out on one I just go to another.  I wish at the end of a long day I could just drive through and get a bag of healthier groceries. 

Your immunes system and the dangers of being to clean

There seems to be a lot going on today with children and I have read many scientific journals over the last year that all point to the same problem.  Cleanliness, they use to say it was next to godlyness, hover today many scientists say we have taken it to far.  In an anti germ world many find ourselves constantly using antibacterial soaps, hand rinses, cleaning towels and laundry detergents and various other solutions.  Have you ever wondered how we survived before these became so popular?  Let me tell you, we were healthy, stronger, and had far better immune systems protecting our bodies.

Studies know show that all the antibacterial products have a negative effect on our lives.  It works like this, our bodies are covered in more than 4,800 different types of bacteria.  Very little of it is harmful and much of it defends our bodies.  Bacteria produces enzymes that cut the DNA of viruses and kill them.  Every time we wash with an anti bacterial soap we actually weaken our own defense.  It goes far worse than that with children, did you know that today many children's immune systems are not properly developing because there environments are to clean.

There are such things as dangerous bacteria, most are not.  When you kill all bacteria your bodies immune system never learns to defend its self, then suddenly a harmful bacteria shows up and your helpless to its affects and suffer for a longer period of time while your immune system learns how to identify and fight it off.  By constantly being exposed to non harmful or weak bacteria your bodies becomes very good at defending its self, then when the day comes and the big bad disease shows up you are prepared and it has little affect on you.

To me the most frightening statistic is that 80 percent of the children who do not attend daycare develop asthma.  This is a true and frightening statement.  Children with very little exposure to the world now find them selves at a big disadvantage, being a strong proponent of home school I strongly reccomend that parents find ways for there children to interact with as many other virus-monkey children as possible to build there immune systems while they are still young.  A story I often hear from parents goes like this, my child never got sick, they were always healthy.   Then I had to put them in daycare and they immediately got sick and stayed sick for the first several months.  This is the point that most parrents try to pull there kids out.  Those that leave them in then follow with the rest of the story that reads, after several months of my children getting very single cold and virus that went around they suddenly stopped, and never really got sick again.  That is usually about the time the light comes on for most parents and they realize what happend and how exposure to so many things helped their children develop a strong immune system.

Unless working with someone who has a known serious condition most scientists no longer recommend the use of antibacterial products on a frequent basis.

Flu shots and great info at Fluwiki.info and also fluwiki.com

With the beginning of the fall season here I have wanted to talk about the flu shot for many weeks.  I may have a different point of view than many people as I receive eight hours of long and painful formal training every year from the CDC and administer thousands of them to soldiers in my area.
First do I believe in the flu shot?
Yes, completely. 

Does the flu shot make some people sick?
Yes, but very rarely and only when there are other underlying conditions.  I also think that even in these cases it is worth feeling under the weather for a day or to eliminate risk and spread.
Do people still die from the flu even with modern medicine?
Yes, just last year my wife's healthy 42 year old aunt died for the swine flu right here in the middle of Las Vegas.  More than 140 people healthy people died from the flu last year here in Las Vegas and hundreds of thousands across the country that were young, old and week.
The flu shot usually comes in two forms and it is important to know which one works best for you.  First is the nasal form, which is given by spraying a small mist of live virus into each nostril.  This is generally approved for all people under the age of 50 and who are not pregnant, allergic to eggs, or who care for an infant.  It is also not recommended for children under 6. This virus has been altered to a weaken state and does not have the ability to reproduce.
The second common way is a traditional shot, usually given in the arm, but sometimes given in the thigh for small babies and tiny children that don't have enough muscle development in the arms yet.  This vaccination is approved for just about everyone including the elderly, pregnant women and babies.  It relies on your body making antibodies of a dead virus.
Do I need to get the shot every year?
Yes, though this year for the first time in almost 20 years the strains of virus collected from throughout the world have not changed it still drastically increases your body’s ability to fight it off.  Most years the vaccination is a completely new form and is vital to making sure you don’t become another casualty to the virus.
Don’t be a carrier monkey.  When you make the decision not to get vaccinated you aid the virus in two ways.  First you give it a home to mutate which is why we have a constant battle with what at any time can become more powerful that any bioweapon ever created.  Second and the biggest reason is because you put all those you come in contact with at risk of losing their lives, especially grandma and babies.  Because you didn’t get sick does not mean you are not a carrier.  Lots of people every year don’t get symptoms until weeks after they have been infected and mean while spread the flu to everyone and everything they come in contact with.
I intend to go more heavily into detail on how our immune system works in my next post but it may help people to think of things like this.  Your immune system is the body’s police.  If your police had no idea what a criminal looked like or what they did it would not be very good at fighting them off and would spend most of its time on the defense when you have already been hurt by the criminals.  If your police are well trained and experienced they will spend most of their time on the offense and when something harmful say the flu virus enters your body they will not wait for it to start causing a problem.  Instead they will execute on site and you will have never known you were at risk.
I highly recommend taking a look at the above listed wikis, they are very well put together and can give you information on more factors such as sleep, diet and exercise and there effect on fighting off the flu.
Please dont hesitate to post if you have any questions or comments.