Trick or Tweet?
A couple of updates heading into the weekend.
Wolframalpha posted another nutrition (and Halloween) related blog entry about using the engine to compare and/or total brand name candy nutritional information. The data they use is from the latest USDA National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference. A neat trick to quickly make comparisons without manually finding the data.
Twitter released its own official Lists feature to all users this week, enabling anyone to create a list of recommended members to share or keep private. It is also useful to separate those you follow into groups to track by topic. It should make it much easier to find people and tweets of interest to follow. There are a number already created for food and health.
Happy Halloween!
Recommended Read: “Should You Be Tweeting?”
A good article by Laura Bonetta titled “Should You Be Tweeting?” on Cell recently highlights a few scientists who have found success in using Twitter to communicate with the public and connect with other scientists and journalists to keep up with research in their field, as well as why some are hesitant to join. Have a read and let me know what you think.
The first iphone UPC barcode scanning application by Dailyburn
Recently Dailyburn released the first iPhone application that is able to collect your daily food nutritional information (total calories and macronutrient splits with a free account) by scanning barcodes (using the camera) on food products. Check out the video below:
The application is available for $2.99 at the app store.
AcaWiki.org : Wikipedia for academic research
AcaWiki is a very promising project that utilizes semantic wiki software (modified mediawiki software, the same that wikipedia uses) to allow “scholars, students, and bloggers to easily post summaries, and discuss academic papers online. All content posted to the site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license.”
Launched a couple weeks ago, it seems to have gotten quite a bit of press already, and some have started adding article summaries to the site.
I plan on periodically contributing to the Health subjects, here is an example I posted about a recent paper on Arachidonic Acid and cognitive function in elderly men. It is very easy to do and if enough people regularly contribute, a great open source health database could be built. Professionals who may not have time to critically read a paper could instead check the wiki for a summary or for collaborative literature reviews in which the publishing process currently in place has limitations (time it takes for retractions, modifications, comment replies, etc to be published). And certainly there are knowledgeable people outside of academia who can contribute as well.
Why do we need this?
The number of research papers that are published continues to grow and it is now nearly impossible to read them all in your own area of expertise let alone maintain an accurate interdisciplinary perspective (which in health fields is necessary to maintain an expertise). Although less than ideal (summaries of course cannot substitute thoroughly dissecting methodologies), an objective, peer reviewed area like AcaWiki for summarizing individual papers or for literature reviews is important. Instead of each person attempting to absorb decades worth of research in many fields, the power of crowdsourcing can catch us up to speed on interesting research.
I see this as a resource between the full published papers themselves and the often unreliable media reporting of new research. If the right people contribute, projects like this could do very well for disseminating information further than it may go otherwise, more accurately than ever before.
Google Wave invites (take 2)
Note: I posted this earlier this morning but received requests from many who likely don’t regularly read the blog. See updated post below.
I have written a bit about Google Wave, which is now open to a limited number of people.
I have a few invites that I can give out, if you would like one and are a reader of the blog send me an email with your full name and some sort of proof (website with your name or other) that you work in a health related field and I will add you to the list. The reason I am asking for this is because I want to encourage exploration of health related uses for Wave.
If you are already on Wave, add me to your contacts at ace0cc@googlewave.com and send me a message.
In the coming weeks I will post more about the potential of Wave for social collaboration on nutrition and health related projects.
Cell phone texts and weight loss
An interesting study published recently found that people receiving tips via text message throughout the day lost an average of about 10 pounds in 4 months compared to no change in the control group.
This is a very small lifestyle change using a common technology that resulted in a pretty substantial weight loss, which usually takes more extreme interventional methods.
Some nutritionists use Twitter to send out nutritional or motivational tips throughout the day to their followers, it would be interesting to see if this method had the same effect.
Read a summary of the study here: http://www.obesitypanacea.com/2009/10/cell-phone-text-messages-panacea-for.html
Looking for a writer to cover technology and nutrition/fitness
Hello readers,
I want to expand the blog a bit to include coverage on how new technologies are changing health and nutritional practices, outside of only social media.
Recent examples include such things as the DailyBurn Foodscanner iphone application, or fitness games such as Jillian Michaels Fitness Ultimatum 2009 for Nintendo Wii. I want to bring fresh perspectives on how these technologies are changing how we distribute and practice health principles.
If you are anyone you know are interested and follow these things closely, my contact information is here.
Invest in a new food system (Slow Money) – an online movement
What is Slow Money?
Essentially, the goal seems to be to take principles of the Slow (local) Food movement and apply them an investment model to energize the development of local systems.
Their Missions:
To steer significant new sources of capital to small food enterprises, appropriate-scale organic farming and local food systems; and,
To catalyze the emergence of the nurture capital industry— entrepreneurial finance supporting soil fertility, carrying capacity, sense of place, cultural and ecological diversity, and nonviolence.
From October 6th to October 12th they are encouraging donations of $5 or more.
Check out the website: http://www.friendsofslowmoney.com
The issues: http://friendsofslowmoney.com/content/learn-how-slow-money-philosophy-can-seed-new-economy
Check out articles in the Wall Street Journal and Time.
The idea is interesting to say the least, we will continue coverage on how it progresses and how the social aspect of online media is contributing.
Follow along on Twitter http://twitter.com/slowmoneyfriend and Facebook http://apps.facebook.com/causes/358430
Thanks to Ashley for the heads up.
Human filtering versus search engines
Sometimes you are looking for information or photos and Google just doesn’t cut it. Most search engines still lack a semantic quality (machine understanding of language and context to improve search results), but social media gives us a network to help us find what we need. Here is a great example of this: http://ideasandthoughts.org/2009/10/05/when-search-isnt-good-enough/
Our networks are in essence an extension of our own minds; they can help us zero in on what we need in a huge amount of information, give us ideas that we haven’t thought of ourselves, and save us time and frustration in the process.
Why do people blog?
Here is a good summary of a recent study exploring factors influencing knowledge sharing practices on the web: http://www.shockmd.com/2009/10/06/why-blog/
Many people who enjoy helping others simply may not have been introduced to blogging software or online communities to join, or don’t yet see the potential in using these methods to pass on information.
-
-
-
Join the Nutrition 2.0 FriendFeed room to further discuss these topics: http://friendfeed.com/nutrition20 -
-
-
Join the Nutrition 2.0 FriendFeed room to further discuss these topics: http://friendfeed.com/nutrition20 -