elnathan Blog

As Thanksgiving nears, we tend to think of holiday foods. Thanksgiving is a bad day for turkeys for sure, but the typical holiday meal, with squash and other healthy ingredients, is a favorite time for many. One of the regular features of a Thanksgiving dinner is cranberry sauce, and that brings us to the healthy benefits of this remarkable berry. Native to North America, most cranberries are wet harvested. The berries, which ripen on low-growing perennial dwarf shrubs, are cultivated in bogs, where they are beaten off of the branches of the plant, and float until they are collected. Cranberries were introduced to colonial settlers by Native Americans, who used the berries which they called Sassamanash, in the concentrated food pemmican. A blend of fat, nuts, and dried fruits, pemmican provided a lot of energy, and travelled well. A colonial setter named Henry Hall is widely regarded as the first non-native to plant and grow cranberries. Cranberries, with their tart ...

Deadly epidemic: Are you at risk for diabetes? Published November 13, 2012 FoxNews.com Wednesday is World Diabetes Day, so it’s important to educate yourself on one of the fastest-growing health epidemics across the globe. But for millions of people, diabetes doesn’t have to be a fact of life – it’s avoidable – with some simple diet and lifestyle changes. Type 2 diabetes, the most common form of the disease, is linked to excess weight. Fat damages the body’s ability to use insulin – the hormone which controls blood sugar. "At some point, the system breaks, and you get diabetes,” said Dr. Ronald Tammler, endocrinologist at Mount Sinai Diabetes Center in New York, told Fox News. “It causes all kinds of damage in the blood vessels, leading to heart attack, stroke, kidney disease, blindness and amputation." It is estimated that 26 million people in America have diabetes. Of those, 95 percent have Type 2, and 7 million more are un...

Getting a flu shot this season may not only greatly lower your risk of influenza this year, it may also lower your risk of heart disease, a new review from Canada suggests. Results show that people who received the flu vaccine were 50 percent less likely to experience a heart attack or stroke, and 40 percent less likely to die from one, compared with people in the unvaccinated control group. The flu vaccine could be an important way to maintain heart health and  ward off strokes and heart attacks , the researchers said. They presented their findings at a cardiovascular disease research meeting Monday in Toronto. In the study, Dr. Jacob Udell, a cardiologist at Women's College Hospital and the University of Toronto, and colleagues looked at four previous studies involving a total of more than 3,000 people whose average age was 60 — some with previous heart disease, and some without such conditions. Participants in all the...

The new Microsoft Surface, the company's answer to the iPad? (Microsoft Corp.) A fold-out keyboard clevelry integrated into the Surface's case -- combined with a "kickstand" in the back of the tablet -- turns this tablet into a full laptop. (Microsoft Corp.) A "kickstand" built into the tablet props it at an ideal angle for typing or desktop work. (Microsoft Corp.) An Intel-powered version of the Surface will measure 13.5mm in thickness; a version powered by chips from rival maker ARM will be just 9.3mm thin. (Microsoft Corp.) The Surface will come in a range of colorful hues, Microsoft said. (Microsoft Corp.) Next Slide Previous Slide One of the most highly anticipate...

A touchscreen with keys that rise and disappear If you've ever followed up a garbled text with "Damn You, Autocorrect,"  some high-tech help might be on the way. A California company says it's created technology that could make keyboard keys rise out of the touchscreen on a smartphone, tablet or other device, then disappear when you were done with them. Tactus Technology this week demoed Tactile Layer, a product that uses haptics , or a touch-based interface, to make patterns or shapes rise and recede on a regular touchscreen. The company says its panel, which it displayed on a prototype Android tablet at this week's Society for Information Display showcase in Boston, is  "the world's first deformable tactile surface." "The origin of Tactus goes back to 2007," said CEO Craig Ciesla  in a video .  "Looking at the iPhone and all the elegance of that user interface, I also realized that I like my BlackBerr...