DailyDirt: Caffeine In Everything

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

No one likes feeling drowsy when they want to be awake and alert. For centuries, folks have been self-medicating by drinking various beverages with caffeine (and Coca-cola originally had a more potent drug in it). We've come a long way from just boiling tea leaves in water, and here are just a few more ways caffeine is spreading into our lives.

• Inhalable caffeine isn't really meant to be absorbed by the lungs, despite its name. Caffeine doesn't really seem like a dietary supplement, either. [url]
• The Caffeine Zone app is supposed to help optimize when a person should ingest caffeine for maximal effects. But this simple app doesn't take into account personal metabolisms -- it just predicts how much caffeine will be left in your bloodstream after you enter in how much you drank, when and how fast. [url]
• The CDC and FDA have several warnings against caffeinated alcoholic beverages. But where are the warnings for a rum and Coke? [url]
• To discover more food-related links, check out what's floating around in StumbleUpon. [url]  

By the way, StumbleUpon can also recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

Filed Under: caffeine, cdc, fda, metabolism, rum and coke
Companies: coca-cola

Well Done: CDC Warns Of The Zombie Apocalypse

from the brains dept

It's probably not all that exciting to blog for the Center for Disease Control (CDC) blog. It's probably not always easy to get attention from your everyday reader. So, kudos to the CDC for having a bit of a sense of humor in figuring out a good way to get its message on emergency preparedness out to folks who might never otherwise be compelled to look at the blog. It had Assistant Surgeon General Ali Khan explain to people how to prepare for (and hopefully survive) the Zombie Apocalypse:

There are all kinds of emergencies out there that we can prepare for. Take a zombie apocalypse for example. That’s right, I said z-o-m-b-i-e a-p-o-c-a-l-y-p-s-e. You may laugh now, but when it happens you’ll be happy you read this, and hey, maybe you’ll even learn a thing or two about how to prepare for a real emergency.

And, from there it goes into general disaster preparedness, at times relating it back to the impending zombie invasion. We do plenty of complaining about bad government actions around here, but I say kudos for not releasing just a totally bland (it does get a bit dry in the middle) disaster preparedness blog post, but instead, for coming up with a good way to get the info out there that might actually spread (in a good way...).

Filed Under: brains, cdc, disaster preparedness, zombies

Why Does The CDC Have Better Data On Mobile Penetration Than The FCC?

from the that's-what-we-call-regulatory-capture dept

It's well known that the FCC has long had incredibly bogus data when it comes to broadband and mobile penetration in the US. In many cases, this is due to efforts from legacy providers who don't want accurate penetration info to get out there, because that might lead the government to realize how little actual competition there is in the market. Kevin Werbach points us to the fact that it appears that when people are interested in mobile phone penetration in the US, it's not the FCC who has the data, but the Center for Disease Control (CDC), who went out and collected their own damn data because it needed to know that data to make sure its phone surveys remained accurate. It's quite telling of the state of the FCC when it's the CDC that has better data about the industry the FCC regulates.

Filed Under: cdc, fcc, wireless penetration