Lifeline
iPhone app tracks flu, diseases
A new iPhone application called “Outbreaks Near Me” shows users the spread in their area of H1N1 swine flu and other infectious diseases including syphilis, tuberculosis and hepatitis, according to a Children’s Hospital Boston news release.
Users who download the app enter a location to see the latest infectious disease reports in real time, the hospital said. HealthMap, an online database that collects and reports information on infectious diseases, powers the app, which also lets users set alerts for new outbreaks.
The app was developed by researchers at the hospital and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Media Lab.
Babies take in the big picture
Babies think differently from adults, and that’s a good thing, according to one researcher who studies how children observe the world. They notice everything, particularly what’s new and surprising. Adults ignore all that exciting stuff to stay focused on what’s useful, whether it’s finishing the report at work or buying the groceries, U. S. News contributor Nancy Shute reports.
Neuroscientists increasingly believe that many of the big differences between baby and grown-up thinking arise from differences in brain structure and function. Babies’ brains have many more neural connections than adults’. As children mature, brain connections become more specialized, particularly in the teenage years, when unused brain connections are pruned to create an adult brain that’s a fast, efficient thinking machine, Shute writes.
Since small children don’t learn the way adults or even older children do, it doesn’t make sense to subject them to flashcards, vocabulary drills or other “learning” aids that marketers push on well-meaning parents. Instead, they should be left to explore, play with toys that mimic real-world tools like phones and kitchen equipment, and imitate their parents.
Compiled from News wire service sources
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