Fitness Tracker Helps Measure Cali Earthquake Strength.

Most people wear fitness trackers to do just that, track their fitness. However people also wear them to track other things, such as their sleep patterns, and it was these people who were of great interest to scientists monitoring earthquake activity in California. Earlier this week there was an earthquake in California that registered as a 6 on the Richter scale. While this normally wouldn’t be all that big of a deal, one maker of the trackers decided to use the information they gathered from people who were wearing them while sleeping to measure the earthquakes intensity by logging who was woken up and where they were from the epicenter.

I don’t think anyone would’ve ever thought of using fitness trackers in that manner and yet the experiment proved to be a success. The sliver of time that Jawbone (the tracker company) showed with startling accuracy both where the epicenter of the quake was and how powerful it was. They did this by tracking the sleeping patterns of those who were woken up and how long they stayed up. Using those numbers, they were able to calculate location and figure out where the epicenter of the quake was. This is just another interesting use for technology like fitness trackers and others who track activity and sleep. They offer an alternative to the usual way of recording earthquake strength and they might continue to be useful in other ventures in the future.

If you’d like to read more, the link is here.

How Fitness Can Help You Find A Job

When people are thinking about how to improve their chances of finding work, one of the things they rarely think about is fitness and exercise. While it may never be on the front of peoples minds, fitness can actually improve your chances of finding work in ways beyond simply creating a healthier and more confident you. Along with boosting confidence and self-worth (which definitely show during things such as interviews), working out also helps in ways that are more esoteric and mental. Just because the benefits aren’t visible doesn’t mean that they aren’t real.

The most obvious benefit to working out is getting healthier, which leads to improved confidence. While confidence is obviously important, especially when interviewing, it isn’t the only thing that is needed in a job hunt. Along with boosting confidence, working out also increases focus and builds stamina; both are incredibly important in the working world. The high energy levels that come from working out are another boon to look forward too. Exercise such as yoga also has benefits such as improving creativity, improving decision making, and deepening connections with and empathy for others. Having a routine also means that you can commit to things that are difficult and, potentially, uncomfortable. All of these things are important in the work environment and exercise and being healthy can help with them.

If you’d like to read more, the link is here.

The Dangers of Celebrity Endorsements

There is denying the fact that this country of ours treats its celebrities with an unhealthy degree of respect and adoration. While this usually isn’t an issue when it comes to things such as fashion and lifestyle, it takes a significantly darker turn when celebrities are trusted for their health advice. While many celebrity doctors are legitimate doctors with degrees, people need to remember that they are still celebrities and are looking to make money and play to the masses. Doctor Mehmet Oz is one of those celebrity doctors who has taken a once legitimate medical career and has started pandering to the masses for money. Recently his actions and endorsements have brought scrutiny upon him, his show, and his practice by the federal government.

Led by senator Claire McCaskill, lawmakers in DC brought Doctor Oz before them and chastised him for using his pulpit to promote shoddy fad diets and potentially unhealthy weight-loss tips and supplements. The lawmakers made the point to not only chastise the good doctors for his shady advice, but also to ask him to please actually work towards helping fight the obesity epidemic that is sweeping the country. It is incredibly sad that someone who has so much reach over such a wide variety of people and who is also a trained and licensed medical professional chose to line his own pockets over help those who look to him for advice. It’s even sadder that it took a governmental hearing for him to realize that he was in the wrong and that maybe, he should actually try to help. I don’t know if Doctor Oz learned his lesson from this but I can only hope that he will actually try to promote legitimate practices now.

 

If you’d like to read more, the link is here.