Articulatory Loop

A study released today in the British Medical Journal indicates that for women, being stressed out on a daily basis reduces the risk of breast cancer. Due largely to my own stress levels, I don't have time (or energy) to really pick apart the study right now, but on the surface it seems pretty good. The proposed mechanism - that stress reduces estrogen which increases breast cancer rates - seems sound, but you gotta wonder if the reduction in breast cancer risk is worth all the bad side effects of stress.

For a whole different kind of stress, try going into a coma. It's loads of fun, I swear*. The Mayo Clinic has developed a replacement for the 30-something-year-old Glasgow Coma Scale, which has a number of serious limitations, particularly in severe trauma cases. The new system, called FOUR (Full Outline of UnResponsiveness), takes into account new data that were uncollectable when Glasgow was developed. Progress is good.

But again, stress can be a useful thing, even in avoiding stress. How much does it suck to be out for a nice hike, only to have your cell phone ringrun out power? A new backpack uses the up-and-down movement of walking to generate up to 7 watts of power - plenty to power your wifi-enabled-cellphone-PDA-MP3-player-crackberry-thing. Which I would find just stressful to have anyways.

*This may be how I deal with daily crappy-job stress: "I've had worse."