Tuesday, October 18, 2005

Hitting my daily miniumum mileage, or On the road again

Dateline: Washington, DC. With a day of intense round-robin marketing meetings ahead, I made sure I got a full 8 hours' beauty-and-the-brain sleep last night. The good news: much better bed in this hotel than the last. Feather pillows! Down comforter! Softer, non-holey sheets. The bad news: I'm underground. No window. Still, it's a beautiful room, and I've yet to see the Phantom of the Latham or the Hunchback of Georgetown, so I'm OK. The bed's the main thing, as you well know.

Being on the road, however, is no excuse to go stupid. Over eggs and croissant at breakfast, I scanned the New York Times Science Section and found a coupla nuggets.

Looking for "depression" or "anxiety" to glow red on a brain scan? Alas, imaging technology has fallen short of original expectations to target mental problems, other than the physical presence of a tumor. Hope springs eternal, though. Read about it here.

And breath analysis is good for more than reining in drunk drivers. Modern chemistry has tapped into the ancient art of pinpointing or predicting internal medical problems by honing in on the chemical signature of breath. Rotten-apple breath signals diabetes, by the way. More here.

OK, but probably the biggest news for all you coffee drinkers out there - drinking coffee canNOT stunt a child's growth. "Damn!" I hear you saying. "Why I coulda been swilling this stuff for years had I known that!" And here's the proof.

That's your weekly science lesson. More from our nation's capital later . . .

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