by Andrew Maynard | Dec 22, 2015 | Emerging Technology, Risk
Walking across campus to my office each morning this semester, I’ve found it hard to ignore the growing number of students using hoverboards to get around. These two-wheel self-balancing boards (they don’t really hover, Back-to-the-Future-style) are one of the hottest gadgets this holiday season. As sedentary lifestyles continue to be a major underlying factor in chronic conditions like type 2 diabetes and heart disease, I wondered whether these trendy two-wheelers are simply another way to avoid the exercise we all need to stay healthy. As it turns out, it’s not only their health that hoverboard users need to worry about.
by Andrew Maynard | Dec 15, 2015 | Environment, Health, Public Health
Carnegie Mellon University had an eye-catching headline on its news feed this morning: Eat More Bacon. It was based on a new study that suggests fruit and veg have a higher environmental impact per calorie than meat. However, the analysis failst to take account of the nutritional needs in a healthy diet.
by Andrew Maynard | Nov 19, 2014 | Public Health, Risk
Vaping has come of age it seems – at least according to the Oxford Dictionaries. The word “vape”, which is synonymous with electronic cigarette use, has been selected as the Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year 2014. So what is vaping, and what are...
by Andrew Maynard | Nov 18, 2014 | Nanotechnology
First published in Nature Nanotechnology, 5 March 2014. Nature Nanotechnology 9, 159–160 (2014) doi:10.1038/nnano.2014.43 [Link] Ten years after the publication of an influential report on the uncertainties in nanoscale science and engineering, are we in danger of...
by Andrew Maynard | Sep 27, 2014 | Public Health, Risk
Visualizing risk, NHS style It maybe because I hang out too much in the US these days, but I’ve only just come across this rather excellent Atlas of Risk from the UK National Health Service: Visualizing causes of death The Atlas uses a highly intuitive...