By Deborah Franklin

To spot a cross-cultural difference in the way people read facial expressions, look no further than the standard emoticons that pepper email in the west versus East Asia.

"Happy" in the west is :-) but in the east is (^_^), points out University of Glasgow psychologist Rachael Jack. "Sad" in the west is :-(. In the east sad is (;_;) or (T_T). "Surprise" in the west is :-o but in the east is (o.o).

What's this man saying with his eyes? (iStockphoto.com)

The eyes are key to the Japanese icons, Jack and other researchers have noted, while the western emoticons are all about the mouth.

In a little study published in the new issue of Current Biology, Jack and some colleagues found that the same East/West "cultural accent" shapes the way people read real faces, too.

Continue reading "Disgust or Anger? Some Looks Don't Translate" >

by Deborah Franklin

You get coconut water -- not the milk --from immature fruit like these /istockphoto.com

Why yes, say the folks at Consumer Reports who went to the trouble of contrasting and comparing.

Turns out the "water" -- a clear juice you can get in bottles, or served with a straw straight from the "nut" in the tropics -- comes from young coconuts. It's tasty, low in calories, and has a few minerals. It's even been shown in very preliminary research to tug down bad cholesterol levels -- in rats.

Coconut milk, on the other hand, comes from the mashed up innards of mature coconuts. It has a whopping 552 calories per cup (compared to coconut water's 46), and 50 grams of its fat is saturated. Ouch.

Still, don't get overeager and sub in the "water" for the "milk" in recipes, say the CR chefs. It'll throw off the taste and texture of your dish. Better to go ahead and occasionally enjoy that tasty Thai soup for lunch, and then cut calories elsewhere, or pump up your exercise to burn the fat.

Got any other health questions of your own?

It's time. You all did wonderfully well on yesterday's science quiz, but surely you, too, have a few coconut-like queries you've been wondering about.

Let us know, and we'll start publishing answers (and, maybe, the further questions they raise) -- at least once a week -- in the blog. Consider it a sort of Science-Out-of-the-Box spin-off, or Science Question Friday.

You can ask your questions on any health- or science-related topic in comments below, or send them more quietly to us here.

Please do. The lines are very open.

by Deborah Franklin

A science quiz you'll like (no cramming required) /istockphoto.com

Never miss a chance to simultaneously impress and show up your smarty-pants brother-in-law or boss. With that in mind...

The Pew Research Center has come up with a 12-question online science quiz. (Relax. It's all True/False or Multiple Choice. No essays.)

For example:

-- How are stem cells different from other cells?

-- What did scientists recently discover on Mars?

-- Is all radioactivity man-made?

The quiz, which is part of a nationwide poll and report on Americans' knowledge of science, also lets you check your score against those surveyed. (Here's a freebie: Fifty-six percent of Americans incorrectly believe that antibiotics kill viruses as well as bacteria).

The Pew's report offers insights into how much Americans trust science and scientists. Only 49 percent of those surveyed said they believe the earth is getting warmer because of human activity. (Eighty-four percent of scientists said they agree).

Only 32 percent of Americans queried said "humans and other living things have evolved over time" and "evolution is the result of natural processes such as natural selection." Eighty-seven percent of scientists agreed. (What's up with the other 13 percent?)

The pollsters also asked Americans to say "yes" if they agree that the following professions "contribute a lot to society's well being."

(Read after the jump to see how your profession rates)

Continue reading "Quick -- Test Your Science IQ" >

by Deborah Franklin

Sure it smells sweet. Now, what's its name? /istockphoto.com

You think you're so smart -- and, frankly, so do we. Also clever, creative, and highly opinionated, which is why we very much need your help in coming up with a new name for the "NPR Health Blog."

In the two months since its inception, this blog has already morphed from FluShots, a running news wire of all things swine-fluish, to a more varied discussion of daily medical news and features. We're still tracking swine flu, of course, and the healthcare debate that's now roiling across the country and on Capitol Hill.

But take a look over the last few weeks and you'll also find news about cookie dough recalls, the origins of fingerprints, and a provocative debate about the power of beauty to heal. Plus limericks from listeners, and live color commentary by our own reporters on the day's events, large and small.

In other words: Help! We need a new name.

Here's a list of our current strong contenders:

Antidote
NPRx
ZAP
Naked Health
Beats Per Minute
Vitals
Inside Out

Come on -- we know you can do better. Please comment on these blog names or (even better!) send us more ideas NOW. We're on deadline and long overdue.

Thanks!

by Alison Richards

Hey! I feel a theory coming on. /istockphoto.com

Scientists, apparently, are just as sentimental as the rest of us.

Tufts University announced this week that cosmologist Alex Vilenkin hopes to plant an apple tree this Fall whose lineage goes back to the English farm where Sir Isaac Newton lived in the 1600s -- Woolsthorpe Manor.

This isn't Vilenkin's first tribute to the fabled event that inspired Newton's theory of gravitation. According to Tufts, the professor drops an apple onto the heads of his graduating PhD students every year.

Not that the Tufts tree will provide fruit for that ceremony any time soon. The cuttings -- which came from a tree planted at MIT -- have only just been grafted onto a rootstock in a local orchard .

I must admit, though I wrote a book about apples a few years ago, I'd never heard of this scientific soft spot for Newton's apple tree. It turns out there are august research institutes all over the world boasting trees thought to be descended from Isaac's own.

Continue reading "A Scientific Soft Spot for Newton's Apple" >

by April Fulton

Dr. Robert Wilson (left) and Dr. Arno Penzias (right), who discovered the microwave background radiation from the universe that confirmed the Big Bang theory, in front of the Horn Antenna, 1975. Bell Labs via National Park Service website

 

A diversion from health, for a moment. Summer's here, and traveling is on our minds. But where to go for a unique experience?

We've seen the tired guide books on where to find the best restaurants, the best hotels, and the most important cultural sites, but how about a guide to locations of significant science interest?

Enter The Geek Atlas: 128 Places Where Science & Technology Come Alive by John Graham-Cumming, due out June 3. Graham-Cumming has such geek cred that his first book was a self-published computer manual.

Continue reading "Sightseeing The Science Geek Way" >

by April Fulton

Forget about acquiring hot clothes, designer jewelry and piles of money to attract girls.

This woman's next booty call is reserved for a man flaunting comprehensive health care benefits.

What really turns her on? Optometry, shiatsu, acupuncture, podiatry and dentistry.

Some highlights of the lyrics:

"See these are troubled times. A bad economy. I got some health issues and medicine, well, it ain't free."

"Let's start a family. And you can be the boss. Just prove to me that you've got Aetna, Kaiser or Blue Cross."

"You don't gotta to kiss me. And I don't need no hugs. Just want a discount when I need to get prescription drugs."

"If you really want to be my man, let me get all up in your health care plan."

Thanks to the Kaiser Family Foundation for tipping us.

by April Fulton

Music may have the power to heal, but it definitely has the power to make people smile and it touches many lives.

This elderly couple, Marlow and Frances Cowan, was caught on film, playing the piano and hamming it up in the atrium at the Mayo Clinic to an enthusiastic and impromptu crowd.

The woman who took the video was visiting the clinic with her mother after her mother's jaw surgery. Her mother laughed, and later that day, took a bite out of a sandwich for the first time in 25 years.

The musical couple, now a You Tube sensation, tells the Des Moines Register that they don't even own a computer.

By Scott Hensley

Ale or lager? iStockphoto.com

It's Friday, the swine flu press conferences are over, and the local tavern is just a few turns of the hour hand away.

But what would we do if happy hour struck and we were stranded far from the bar on some boozeless ship at sea?

Well, if we were as smart as the grad students behind the blog Southern Fried Science, we would have turned Mr. Coffee into Mr. Brewery long ago.

Believe it or not, you can make passable beer with an electric drip coffee maker with a hot plate, a coffee filter, some sort of grain, a little malt -- Vegemite works -- and a few other common ingredients and tools.

Continue reading "How To Turn Your Coffee Maker Into A Brewery" >

by Scott Hensley

May we suggest that you play a video game to advance public health?

Routes/Wellcome Trust

Check out "Sneeze," a nifty little time-waster that's going viral on the Internet right now. In this time of worries about swine flu, the free game, made possible by the Wellcome Trust biomedical research foundation in the U.K., has found a fresh audience.

The game, released early this year, is a shoot-em-up of a special sort. The player's alter ego picks the best spot to sneeze in public places and infect the most people.

To advance levels, a player has to infect a specified percentage of the hapless folks milling around in each scene. The instructions are terse but provocative: "The likelihood of infection and speed of virus transmission varies depending on the ages of your targets -- and affects your score!" Kids, easy to infect, rack up just five points. Older folks count for 15 points.

Daniel Glaser, the philanthrophy's head of special projects, told the New York Times, "We did it to engage the older teen audience and teach them that where you sneeze matters."

The game strikes us as an appropriate companion to another European export: The Snot Gun.

By Mark Memmott

Fiona Fleck, one of the World Health Organization's spokeswoman, has suggested that perhaps the mini-controversy over what to call this strain of flu could be settled by the public.

According to The New York Times: "Maybe, she suggested, there could be a competition, and members of the public could come up with a better name."

So, Flu Shots readers, let's take her up on her offer.

-- Should it still be the "swine flu"?
-- Or the very technical H1-N1 now preferred by the scientists and many elected leaders?
-- Something else entirely?

The ever-irreverent Jon Stewart offers "Snoutbreak '09" as a possibility.

Update at 3:45 p.m. ET. Some of the best names so far.

Our thanks to those who've offered suggestions, either as comments on this post or over at Twitter (where you just need to add #NameThatFlu to a tweet for it to become part of the discussion) and Facebook. Here are some we especially like, starting with five from this post's comment thread:

-- Snaflu -- (suggested by anon ymous).
-- The Virus formerly known as Swine Flu -- (Memo Benumea).
-- Unnecessarily-overhyped-uberfluenza -- (Dylan Holycross).
-- Influenza nervosa -- (Susan Williams).
-- SPAMdemic -- (Bill Doyle).

-- Hamageddon -- (Paul, at Facebook).
-- FARS -- (Laura, at Facebook).
-- The Baconic Plague -- (Karl, at Facebook).
-- Madsow -- (Caged Heat, at Twitter).
-- Wiburculosis -- (ylifactory, at Twitter).

Update at 1:05 p.m. ET:

Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told NPR's Joanne Silberner about the switch to calling the disease the "2009 H1-N1 flu" earlier this week: