Feeling Sick? Google “Flu Trends” Tool Smarter Than The CDC

A new study in Clinical Infectious Diseases shows that Google Flu Trends can predict surges in hospital flu visits more than a week before the Center for Disease Control (CDC). For the study, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine researchers compared Baltimore-specific data from the Google Flu Trends website, which estimates influenza outbreaks based on online searches for flu information, to ED crowding and laboratory …

‎10 Questions Couples Should Ask Each Other Before Getting Married

Yesterday, The New York Times posted Questions To Ask Before You Marry, which I then re-shared  in Facebook, setting off an interesting debate. Several of my happily married friends laughed, saying it’s overly pedantic. Me, I like to be thorough about any type of investment or venture I pursue, especially when there’s a contract involved. What do …

‘Tis The Season For Pomegranates

If you live in Southern California, one fruit that’s no stranger to farmer’s markets and CSA-boxes is the pomegranate. I only recently discovered how much I enjoy this fruit, after years of watching it be bastardized and exploited by food companies. The fruit has long been celebrated for its health benefits (it’s a good source of vitamin …

Sex In The Cloud: An Interview with Sex Blogger & Professor, Stef Woods

With websites like exRATED (http://exrated.com) popping up, allowing people to review their exes and aiming to be the ultimate Yelp for those looking for insights on potential romantic partners, and Facebook algorithms that can determine your sexual orientation without you indicating what it is, and increasingly more of our personal and private information being posted …

Changing the Ratio (Wikipedia’s Battle for Diversity – Part III)

Commence beating the figurative dead horse. As I’ve written previously, (here, here and here) Wikipedia is suffering from a lack of female contributors (less than 1 in 10 editors are women, per the 2011 Wikimedia survey). This has the unfortunate consequence of compromising the overall quality and objectivity of its content, as illustrated in my post, How I Redefined …

A Lesson On Love, Family and Alzheimer’s

Pat Robertson, Christian television evangelist and ex-Baptist minister, created quite the controversy when he advised that a married man, dating another woman because his wife was suffering from Alzheimer’s, should “divorce and start all over.” I try not to involve myself with the musings of offensive radio hosts, nor do I think it’s wise to judge another person’s …

How I Redefined “Man” For The World (Wikipedia’s Battle for Diversity – Part II)

For more than two years, if you visited the Man page in Wikipedia, you would have found the following section outlining (7) characteristics of masculinity in general culture…

Is the Allure of the “Older Man” Fading?

A statement in a recent Financial Times article about data mined and analyzed from Match.com took me a little by surprise: “Women are less likely to e-mail with men who live far away, men who are older than they are, and men who are short.” Running counter to the “known fact” (as proclaimed by this Askmen.com author) …

Why You Should Watch the Women’s World Cup

In a world where sports is synonymous with ego, contracts, money, and scandal – the FIFA Women’s World Cup (now 20 years old) is a return to all that is good, right and beautiful in the world. No strikes, no steroids, no rapes, no murders. Just sport and play for the love of the game, …

Sensors, Feedback Loops & The Humanity of Surveillance

In Wired’s July 2011 issue, it talks about how feedback loops are providing an exciting opportunity for changing human behavior, presenting the case of dynamic feedback displays, or driver feedback signs, where a speed limit is posted along with a radar sensor that reads your approaching speed and displays it on a digital sign. The …