Wednesday, February 08, 2006
Bad Kids and Clean Bathrooms
An FSU/Vanderbilt study claims that having kids means that you'll be depressed for the rest of your life. There are so many things wrong with this press release that I can't even count them. Some of them even seem to be related to the actual study! One of the findings is apparently that 'empty-nest parents "are no less depressed than non-parents." Uhm. So? Were they more depressed than non-parents? Were they less depressed than parents with younger kids?
Et cetera. I'd love to hear what others have to say, by my take on this study is simply that they have confused "suffer depression" with "worry about their own kids well-being."
Tomorrow's parents, however, may have one less thing to worry about: cleaning the bathroom. Researchers at the University of New South Wales are working to develop a self-cleaning nanoparticle coating that could be used indoors. How current models work is really cool: a layer containing titanium dioxide is activated by UVA from sunlight, and becomes super-oxidative, breaking down germs and organic dirt. The surface is superhydrophilic, so water just washes it all off with no droplet formation. The trick now is to get it to activate under indoor light. (I wonder why you couldn't just have a button outside the bathroom that locks the door, blasts it with UVA, hoses it down and then blows dry automatically. Maybe I watched too much Jetsons as a kid.)
Et cetera. I'd love to hear what others have to say, by my take on this study is simply that they have confused "suffer depression" with "worry about their own kids well-being."
Tomorrow's parents, however, may have one less thing to worry about: cleaning the bathroom. Researchers at the University of New South Wales are working to develop a self-cleaning nanoparticle coating that could be used indoors. How current models work is really cool: a layer containing titanium dioxide is activated by UVA from sunlight, and becomes super-oxidative, breaking down germs and organic dirt. The surface is superhydrophilic, so water just washes it all off with no droplet formation. The trick now is to get it to activate under indoor light. (I wonder why you couldn't just have a button outside the bathroom that locks the door, blasts it with UVA, hoses it down and then blows dry automatically. Maybe I watched too much Jetsons as a kid.)
