By using the same technology that helps astronauts regain balance after zero-gravity flights, scientists have discovered an insole that could prevent elderly people from falling, according to an article on CNN.com. The ''iShoe,'' developed by Erez Lieberman, a graduate student who was an intern at NASA, is an insole that contains balance sensors ...

Bill Gates and New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg have pledged $500 million for a global anti-smoking campaign.The campaign, nicknamed Mpower, will urge governments in poor- and middle-income countries to raise tobacco taxes, outlaw smoking in public places, outlaw advertising to children, ban free giveaways of cigarettes, implement ...

In response to a disastrous mix-up wherein 400 breast cancer patients in Newfoundland were given inaccurate test results between 1997-2005, the Canadian Association of Pathologists has announced new guidelines for the country's laboratory services. CTV.ca reports the new plan calls for: mandatory certification for every prognostic and ...

An alarming 62 percent of medications purchased through online pharmacies are fake or substandard, according to a comprehensive report  from the European Alliance for Access to Safe Medicines. The report - ''The Counterfeiting Superhighway'' - provides an in-depth analysis of more than 100 online pharmacies. It looked at common ...

Florida state officials and law enforcement are calling for extra policing of the sleeping pills after a school official fell asleep behind the wheel of his car in a Taco Bell drive-through, reports The Ledger. Jose Farinas, the Polk County School District's director of employee relations said he took a zolpidem tartrate sleep pill just before ...

In my previous entry, I let you know that the Veterans Administration is publishing four new planning tools for imaging capital projects, their Imaging Series Design Guides. What I didn't tell you last time is that the Design Guides are only one half of the planning resources that the VA makes publicly available. If you're looking at a capital ...

''Bring out your dead.'' That was the call heard through the streets during the 1918 flu pandemic, when the deaths surpassed modern resources and casket shortages forced families to surrender their loved ones to a wagon piled with bodies. Not a pretty image. Now, we're faced with the likely possibility that another flu pandemic will arrive on the ...

The pilot with sleep apnea who sideswiped the Bay Bridge with his container ship, dumping nearly 54,000 gallons of oil into the San Francisco Bay has decided to retire rather than face a hearing before the state commission, news outlets reported last week. Investigators had already probed John Cota's reported sleep disorder, his medication ...

Minnesota lawmakers have passed a law aimed at reducing drowsy driving teenagers' crashes. We reported in May that two separate bills were winding their way through the state House and Senate but the governor was threatening a veto unless the final text included a parental opt-out. The new legislation, scheduled to take effect Aug. 1, will ...

Fall-induced traumatic brain injuries caused almost 8,000 deaths and 56,000 hospitalizations in 2005 among Americans 65 and older, reports the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the June issue of the Journal of Safety Research. In 2005, TBIs were responsible for 50 percent of unintentional fall deaths and 8 percent of nonfatal ...